Part 6

O.M. That is about the state of it—intellectuality. There are pronounced limitations on both sides. We can’t learn to understand much of their language, but the dog, the elephant, etc., learn to understand a very great deal of ours. To that extent they are our superiors. On the other hand, they can’t learn reading, writing, etc., nor any of our fine and high things, and there we have a large advantage over them.

Y.M. Very well, let them have what they’ve got, and welcome; there is still a wall, and a lofty one. They haven’t got the Moral Sense; we have it, and it lifts us immeasurably above them.

O.M. What makes you think that?

Y.M. Now look here—let’s call a halt. I have stood the other infamies and insanities and that is enough; I am not going to have man and the other animals put on the same level morally.

O.M. I wasn’t going to hoist man up to that.

Y.M. This is too much! I think it is not right to jest about such things.

O.M. I am not jesting, I am merely reflecting a plain and simple truth—and without uncharitableness. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his _intellectual _superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can _do _wrong proves his _moral _inferiority to any creature that _cannot_. It is my belief that this position is not assailable.

_Free Will_

Y.M. What is your opinion regarding Free Will?

O.M. That there is no such thing. Did the man possess it who gave the old woman his last shilling and trudged home in the storm?

Y.M. He had the choice between succoring the old woman and leaving her to suffer. Isn’t it so?

O.M. Yes, there was a choice to be made, between bodily comfort on the one hand and the comfort of the spirit on the other. The body made a strong appeal, of course—the body would be quite sure to do that; the spirit made a counter appeal. A choice had to be made between the two appeals, and was made. Who or what determined that choice?

Y.M. Any one but you would say that the man determined it, and that in doing it he exercised Free Will.

O.M. We are constantly assured that every man is endowed with Free Will, and that he can and must exercise it where he is offered a choice between good conduct and less-good conduct. Yet we clearly saw that in that man’s case he really had no Free Will: his temperament, his training, and the daily influences which had molded him and made him what he was, _compelled _him to rescue the old woman and thus save _himself _—save himself from spiritual pain, from unendurable wretchedness. He did not make the choice, it was made _for _him by forces which he could not control. Free Will has always existed in _words_, but it stops there, I think—stops short of _fact_. I would not use those words—Free Will—but others.

Y.M. What others?

O.M. Free Choice.

Y.M. What is the difference?

O.M. The one implies untrammeled power to _act _as you please, the other implies nothing beyond a mere _mental process: _the critical ability to determine which of two things is nearest right and just.

Y.M. Make the difference clear, please.

O.M. The mind can freely _select, choose, point out _the right and just one—its function stops there. It can go no further in the matter. It has no authority to say that the right one shall be acted upon and the wrong one discarded. That authority is in other hands.

Y.M. The man’s?

O.M. In the machine which stands for him. In his born disposition and the character which has been built around it by training and environment.

Y.M. It will act upon the right one of the two?

O.M. It will do as it pleases in the matter. George Washington’s machine would act upon the right one; Pizarro would act upon the wrong one.

Y.M. Then as I understand it a bad man’s mental machinery calmly and judicially points out which of two things is right and just—

O.M. Yes, and his _moral _machinery will freely act upon the one or the other, according to its make, and be quite indifferent to the _mind’s _feeling concerning the matter—that is, _would _be, if the mind had any feelings; which it hasn’t. It is merely a thermometer: it registers the heat and the cold, and cares not a farthing about either.

Y.M. Then we must not claim that if a man _knows _which of two things is right he is absolutely _bound _to do that thing?

O.M. His temperament and training will decide what he shall do, and he will do it; he cannot help himself, he has no authority over the matter. Wasn’t it right for David to go out and slay Goliath?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. Then it would have been equally _right _for any one else to do it?

Y.M. Certainly.

O.M. Then it would have been _right _for a born coward to attempt it?

Y.M. It would—yes.

O.M. You know that no born coward ever would have attempted it, don’t you?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. You know that a born coward’s make and temperament would be an absolute and insurmountable bar to his ever essaying such a thing, don’t you?

Y.M. Yes, I know it.

O.M. He clearly perceives that it would be _right _to try it?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. His mind has Free Choice in determining that it would be _right _to try it?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. Then if by reason of his inborn cowardice he simply can _not _essay it, what becomes of his Free Will? Where is his Free Will? Why claim that he has Free Will when the plain facts show that he hasn’t? Why contend that because he and David _see _the right alike, both must _act _alike? Why impose the same laws upon goat and lion?

Y.M. There is really no such thing as Free Will?

O.M. It is what I think. There is _will_. But it has nothing to do with _intellectual perceptions of right and wrong, _and is not under their command. David’s temperament and training had Will, and it was a compulsory force; David had to obey its decrees, he had no choice. The coward’s temperament and training possess Will, and _it _is compulsory; it commands him to avoid danger, and he obeys, he has no choice. But neither the Davids nor the cowards possess Free Will—will that may do the right or do the wrong, as their _mental _verdict shall decide.

_Not Two Values, But Only One_

Y.M. There is one thing which bothers me: I can’t tell where you draw the line between _material _covetousness and _spiritual _covetousness.

O.M. I don’t draw any.

Y.M. How do you mean?

O.M. There is no such thing as _material _covetousness. All covetousness is spiritual.

Y.M. _All _longings, desires, ambitions _spiritual, _never material?

O.M. Yes. The Master in you requires that in _all _cases you shall content his _spirit _—that alone. He never requires anything else, he never interests himself in any other matter.

Y.M. Ah, come! When he covets somebody’s money—isn’t that rather distinctly material and gross?

O.M. No. The money is merely a symbol—it represents in visible and concrete form a _spiritual desire. _Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for _itself_, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

Y.M. Please particularize.

O.M. Very well. Maybe the thing longed for is a new hat. You get it and your vanity is pleased, your spirit contented. Suppose your friends deride the hat, make fun of it: at once it loses its value; you are ashamed of it, you put it out of your sight, you never want to see it again.

Y.M. I think I see. Go on.

O.M. It is the same hat, isn’t it? It is in no way altered. But it wasn’t the _hat _you wanted, but only what it stood for—a something to please and content your _spirit_. When it failed of that, the whole of its value was gone. There are no _material _values; there are only spiritual ones. You will hunt in vain for a material value that is _actual, real—_there is no such thing. The only value it possesses, for even a moment, is the spiritual value back of it: remove that end and it is at once worthless—like the hat.

Y.M. Can you extend that to money?

O.M. Yes. It is merely a symbol, it has no _material _value; you think you desire it for its own sake, but it is not so. You desire it for the spiritual content it will bring; if it fail of that, you discover that its value is gone. There is that pathetic tale of the man who labored like a slave, unresting, unsatisfied, until he had accumulated a fortune, and was happy over it, jubilant about it; then in a single week a pestilence swept away all whom he held dear and left him desolate. His money’s value was gone. He realized that his joy in it came not from the money itself, but from the spiritual contentment he got out of his family’s enjoyment of the pleasures and delights it lavished upon them. Money has no _material _value; if you remove its spiritual value nothing is left but dross. It is so with all things, little or big, majestic or trivial—there are no exceptions. Crowns, scepters, pennies, paste jewels, village notoriety, world-wide fame—they are all the same, they have no _material _value: while they content the _spirit _they are precious, when this fails they are worthless.

_A Difficult Question_

Y.M. You keep me confused and perplexed all the time by your elusive terminology. Sometimes you divide a man up into two or three separate personalities, each with authorities, jurisdictions, and responsibilities of its own, and when he is in that condition I can’t grasp it. Now when _I_ speak of a man, he is _the whole thing in one, _and easy to hold and contemplate.

O.M. That is pleasant and convenient, if true. When you speak of “my body” who is the “my”?

Y.M. It is the “me.”

O.M. The body is a property then, and the Me owns it. Who is the Me?

Y.M. The Me is _the whole thing; _it is a common property; an undivided ownership, vested in the whole entity.

O.M. If the Me admires a rainbow, is it the whole Me that admires it, including the hair, hands, heels, and all?

Y.M. Certainly not. It is my _mind _that admires it.

O.M. So _you _divide the Me yourself. Everybody does; everybody must. What, then, definitely, is the Me?

Y.M. I think it must consist of just those two parts—the body and the mind.

O.M. You think so? If you say “I believe the world is round,” who is the “I” that is speaking?

Y.M. The mind.

O.M. If you say “I grieve for the loss of my father,” who is the “I”?

Y.M. The mind.

O.M. Is the mind exercising an intellectual function when it examines and accepts the evidence that the world is round?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. Is it exercising an intellectual function when it grieves for the loss of your father?

Y.M. That is not cerebration, brain-work, it is a matter of _feeling_.

O.M. Then its source is not in your mind, but in your _moral _territory?

Y.M. I have to grant it.

O.M. Is your mind a part of your _physical _equipment?

Y.M. No. It is independent of it; it is spiritual.

O.M. Being spiritual, it cannot be affected by physical influences?

Y.M. No.

O.M. Does the mind remain sober with the body is drunk?

Y.M. Well—no.

O.M. There _is _a physical effect present, then?

Y.M. It looks like it.

O.M. A cracked skull has resulted in a crazy mind. Why should it happen if the mind is spiritual, and _independent _of physical influences?

Y.M. Well—I don’t know.

O.M. When you have a pain in your foot, how do you know it?

Y.M. I feel it.

O.M. But you do not feel it until a nerve reports the hurt to the brain. Yet the brain is the seat of the mind, is it not?

Y.M. I think so.

O.M. But isn’t spiritual enough to learn what is happening in the outskirts without the help of the _physical _messenger? You perceive that the question of who or what the Me is, is not a simple one at all. You say “I admire the rainbow,” and “I believe the world is round,” and in these cases we find that the Me is not speaking, but only the _mental _part. You say, “I grieve,” and again the Me is not all speaking, but only the _moral _part. You say the mind is wholly spiritual; then you say “I have a pain” and find that this time the Me is mental _and _spiritual combined. We all use the “I” in this indeterminate fashion, there is no help for it. We imagine a Master and King over what you call The Whole Thing, and we speak of him as “I,” but when we try to define him we find we cannot do it. The intellect and the feelings can act quite _independently _of each other; we recognize that, and we look around for a Ruler who is master over both, and can serve as a _definite and indisputable “I,” _and enable us to know what we mean and who or what we are talking about when we use that pronoun, but we have to give it up and confess that we cannot find him. To me, Man is a machine, made up of many mechanisms, the moral and mental ones acting automatically in accordance with the impulses of an interior Master who is built out of born-temperament and an accumulation of multitudinous outside influences and trainings; a machine whose _one _function is to secure the spiritual contentment of the Master, be his desires good or be they evil; a machine whose Will is absolute and must be obeyed, and always _is _obeyed.

Y.M. Maybe the Me is the Soul?

O.M. Maybe it is. What is the Soul?

Y.M. I don’t know.

O.M. Neither does any one else.

_The Master Passion_

Y.M. What is the Master?—or, in common speech, the Conscience? Explain it.

O.M. It is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which compels the man to content its desires. It may be called the Master Passion—the hunger for Self-Approval.

Y.M. Where is its seat?

O.M. In man’s moral constitution.

Y.M. Are its commands for the man’s good?

O.M. It is indifferent to the man’s good; it never concerns itself about anything but the satisfying of its own desires. It can be _trained _to prefer things which will be for the man’s good, but it will prefer them only because they will content _it _better than other things would.

Y.M. Then even when it is trained to high ideals it is still looking out for its own contentment, and not for the man’s good.

O.M. True. Trained or untrained, it cares nothing for the man’s good, and never concerns itself about it.

Y.M. It seems to be an _immoral _force seated in the man’s moral constitution.

O.M. It is a _colorless _force seated in the man’s moral constitution. Let us call it an instinct—a blind, unreasoning instinct, which cannot and does not distinguish between good morals and bad ones, and cares nothing for results to the man provided its own contentment be secured; and it will _always _secure that.

Y.M. It seeks money, and it probably considers that that is an advantage for the man?

O.M. It is not always seeking money, it is not always seeking power, nor office, nor any other _material _advantage. In _all _cases it seeks a _spiritual _contentment, let the _means _be what they may. Its desires are determined by the man’s temperament—and it is lord over that. Temperament, Conscience, Susceptibility, Spiritual Appetite, are, in fact, the same thing. Have you ever heard of a person who cared nothing for money?

Y.M. Yes. A scholar who would not leave his garret and his books to take a place in a business house at a large salary.

O.M. He had to satisfy his master—that is to say, his temperament, his Spiritual Appetite—and it preferred books to money. Are there other cases?

Y.M. Yes, the hermit.

O.M. It is a good instance. The hermit endures solitude, hunger, cold, and manifold perils, to content his autocrat, who prefers these things, and prayer and contemplation, to money or to any show or luxury that money can buy. Are there others?

Y.M. Yes. The artist, the poet, the scientist.

O.M. Their autocrat prefers the deep pleasures of these occupations, either well paid or ill paid, to any others in the market, at any price. You _realize _that the Master Passion—the contentment of the spirit—concerns itself with many things besides so-called material advantage, material prosperity, cash, and all that?

Y.M. I think I must concede it.

O.M. I believe you must. There are perhaps as many Temperaments that would refuse the burdens and vexations and distinctions of public office as there are that hunger after them. The one set of Temperaments seek the contentment of the spirit, and that alone; and this is exactly the case with the other set. Neither set seeks anything _but _the contentment of the spirit. If the one is sordid, both are sordid; and equally so, since the end in view is precisely the same in both cases. And in both cases Temperament decides the preference—and Temperament is _born_, not made.

_Conclusion_

O.M. You have been taking a holiday?

Y.M. Yes; a mountain tramp covering a week. Are you ready to talk?

O.M. Quite ready. What shall we begin with?

Y.M. Well, lying abed resting up, two days and nights, I have thought over all these talks, and passed them carefully in review. With this result: that... that... are you intending to publish your notions about Man some day?

O.M. Now and then, in these past twenty years, the Master inside of me has half-intended to order me to set them to paper and publish them. Do I have to tell you why the order has remained unissued, or can you explain so simple a thing without my help?

Y.M. By your doctrine, it is simplicity itself: outside influences moved your interior Master to give the order; stronger outside influences deterred him. Without the outside influences, neither of these impulses could ever have been born, since a person’s brain is incapable or originating an idea within itself.

O.M. Correct. Go on.

Y.M. The matter of publishing or withholding is still in your Master’s hands. If some day an outside influence shall determine him to publish, he will give the order, and it will be obeyed.

O.M. That is correct. Well?

Y.M. Upon reflection I have arrived at the conviction that the publication of your doctrines would be harmful. Do you pardon me?

O.M. Pardon _you_? You have done nothing. You are an instrument—a speaking-trumpet. Speaking-trumpets are not responsible for what is said through them. Outside influences—in the form of lifelong teachings, trainings, notions, prejudices, and other second-hand importations—have persuaded the Master within you that the publication of these doctrines would be harmful. Very well, this is quite natural, and was to be expected; in fact, was inevitable. Go on; for the sake of ease and convenience, stick to habit: speak in the first person, and tell me what your Master thinks about it.

Y.M. Well, to begin: it is a desolating doctrine; it is not inspiring, enthusing, uplifting. It takes the glory out of man, it takes the pride out of him, it takes the heroism out of him, it denies him all personal credit, all applause; it not only degrades him to a machine, but allows him no control over the machine; makes a mere coffee-mill of him, and neither permits him to supply the coffee nor turn the crank, his sole and piteously humble function being to grind coarse or fine, according to his make, outside impulses doing the rest.

O.M. It is correctly stated. Tell me—what do men admire most in each other?

Y.M. Intellect, courage, majesty of build, beauty of countenance, charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness, heroism, and—and—

O.M. I would not go any further. These are _elementals_. Virtue, fortitude, holiness, truthfulness, loyalty, high ideals—these, and all the related qualities that are named in the dictionary, are _made of the elementals, _by blendings, combinations, and shadings of the elementals, just as one makes green by blending blue and yellow, and makes several shades and tints of red by modifying the elemental red. There are several elemental colors; they are all in the rainbow; out of them we manufacture and name fifty shades of them. You have named the elementals of the human rainbow, and also one _blend _—heroism, which is made out of courage and magnanimity. Very well, then; which of these elements does the possessor of it manufacture for himself? Is it intellect?

Y.M. No.

O.M. Why?

Y.M. He is born with it.

O.M. Is it courage?

Y.M. No. He is born with it.

O.M. Is it majesty of build, beauty of countenance?

Y.M. No. They are birthrights.

O.M. Take those others—the elemental moral qualities—charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness; fruitful seeds, out of which spring, through cultivation by outside influences, all the manifold blends and combinations of virtues named in the dictionaries: does man manufacture any of those seeds, or are they all born in him?

Y.M. Born in him.

O.M. Who manufactures them, then?

Y.M. God.

O.M. Where does the credit of it belong?

Y.M. To God.

O.M. And the glory of which you spoke, and the applause?

Y.M. To God.

O.M. Then it is _you _who degrade man. You make him claim glory, praise, flattery, for every valuable thing he possesses—_borrowed _finery, the whole of it; no rag of it earned by himself, not a detail of it produced by his own labor. _You _make man a humbug; have I done worse by him?

Y.M. You have made a machine of him.

O.M. Who devised that cunning and beautiful mechanism, a man’s hand?

Y.M. God.

O.M. Who devised the law by which it automatically hammers out of a piano an elaborate piece of music, without error, while the man is thinking about something else, or talking to a friend?

Y.M. God.

O.M. Who devised the blood? Who devised the wonderful machinery which automatically drives its renewing and refreshing streams through the body, day and night, without assistance or advice from the man? Who devised the man’s mind, whose machinery works automatically, interests itself in what it pleases, regardless of its will or desire, labors all night when it likes, deaf to his appeals for mercy? God devised all these things. _I_ have not made man a machine, God made him a machine. I am merely calling attention to the fact, nothing more. Is it wrong to call attention to the fact? Is it a crime?

Y.M. I think it is wrong to _expose _a fact when harm can come of it.

O.M. Go on.

Y.M. Look at the matter as it stands now. Man has been taught that he is the supreme marvel of the Creation; he believes it; in all the ages he has never doubted it, whether he was a naked savage, or clothed in purple and fine linen, and civilized. This has made his heart buoyant, his life cheery. His pride in himself, his sincere admiration of himself, his joy in what he supposed were his own and unassisted achievements, and his exultation over the praise and applause which they evoked—these have exalted him, enthused him, ambitioned him to higher and higher flights; in a word, made his life worth the living. But by your scheme, all this is abolished; he is degraded to a machine, he is a nobody, his noble prides wither to mere vanities; let him strive as he may, he can never be any better than his humblest and stupidest neighbor; he would never be cheerful again, his life would not be worth the living.

O.M. You really think that?

Y.M. I certainly do.

O.M. Have you ever seen me uncheerful, unhappy.

Y.M. No.

O.M. Well, _I_ believe these things. Why have they not made me unhappy?

Y.M. Oh, well—temperament, of course! You never let _that _escape from your scheme.

O.M. That is correct. If a man is born with an unhappy temperament, nothing can make him happy; if he is born with a happy temperament, nothing can make him unhappy.

Y.M. What—not even a degrading and heart-chilling system of beliefs?

O.M. Beliefs? Mere beliefs? Mere convictions? They are powerless. They strive in vain against inborn temperament.

Y.M. I can’t believe that, and I don’t.

O.M. Now you are speaking hastily. It shows that you have not studiously examined the facts. Of all your intimates, which one is the happiest? Isn’t it Burgess?

Y.M. Easily.

O.M. And which one is the unhappiest? Henry Adams?

Y.M. Without a question!