Part 13 (1/2)
It seems to me that nothing in the whole problem of life is more important than a thorough realization of this undoubted truth--that the big fundamental feelings of man's better nature are absolutely independent and apart from the working of his intellect, or any calculation of self-interest, conscious or implied, just as they are independent of his material appet.i.tes and instincts. A clear understanding of this truth will answer many of the questions which are so apt to confuse the reason and trouble the peace of mind of the average much instructed person.
If a scientific doubter asks us how we can be sure of this, we can answer without hesitation that the evidence of our own inner feelings is unmistakable proof of it. The only proof of a feeling is the feeling itself. We have it--we are conscious of it--it is, as far as we are concerned, and it is futile for any outsider to deny it.
If any one is so const.i.tuted that he cannot get the force of this, we may make the understanding of it easier by turning his attention to the feelings of man's esthetic nature, which operate in a somewhat similar way. We have already had occasion to refer to them, but we may be permitted to do so again, with added emphasis. They are an ill.u.s.tration and a confirmation of the vitally important principle which we have just been stating.
If a setting sun, or a harmony, or musical notes, appeal to my sense of beauty and give rise to a vague but delicious emotion of my inner nature, all the arguments of all the intellects on earth are powerless to alter the essence and meaning of that feeling, so far as my nature is concerned. To me that feeling of beauty is a fact, and it would remain just as much a fact, even if no other person in the world shared it with me; and every other person in the world undertook to deny its existence.
The only proof I have of it, the only proof I need for it, is that I feel it.
Now when the intellect takes upon itself to meddle with such things, a learned professor may explain that a certain musical note is composed of vibrations--so many thousand per second--which are communicated to particles of matter in suspension in the air and carried by them to the tympanum of the ear, which acts thus-and-so upon the various components of the hearing apparatus, and finally arrives through a system of ganglia to a certain nerve centre, located somewhere in a brain cell, or the spinal column. He may use a great many other big words and display various kinds of scientific devices for measuring sound waves and calculating vibrations, but when he has finished, all his science will not enable him to compose a touching melody, or feel the beauty and inspiration of it. A little child, or a negro mammy, with a soul for music, will feel and give out something, whose very essence has nothing to do with the intellect and which the most formidable intellect is powerless to grasp.
The same thing is true of painting and poetry and sculpture. The feelings which inspire them and the feelings which they arouse in receptive souls are totally independent of the intellect.
The reason may argue that as one leg of the Venus de Milo is found by measurement to be considerably shorter than the other, it is absurd to call that a beautiful figure of a woman--or that it should excite as much admiration as a scientifically constructed statue in which all the proportions would be in accord with carefully tabulated statistics.
As a photograph of a young and healthy girl is more accurate and more pleasing in subject than a painting of an old woman, what reason is there for it to arouse less esthetic feeling than an immortal portrait by Rembrandt?
If a description of a small water course, drawn up by a surveyor and a lawyer, is exact and comprehensive, why should it not appeal to the imagination and sense of beauty more satisfactorily than a poem by Tennyson, ent.i.tled ”The Brook?”
The obvious answer is that in all such questions the intellect is out of its element, trying to lay hands on something which has no tangible substance.
If this point-of-view is not enough to give your intellect food for thought and suggest its very decided limitations in the life of man, you may turn its light upon the simplest and most material sensations and feelings which belong to the animal nature and are common to all mankind.
What reason is there for my brother to dote on fried onions, while I cannot endure them? Why does my uncle like pig's feet and eels and snails, while my wife is made almost ill at the sight of them? Your intellect may tell you that you ought to like the taste of castor oil, because it is good for you; but all the intellect in the world cannot make you like the taste of castor oil.
The taste, the savor, the feel of things--whether it be in the material world, or the esthetic world, or the spiritual world--is a part of life in which the intellect is forever condemned to remain an outsider. It may be very much interested in what is going on, it may reason with the causes and effects and characteristics of what it sees; it may make suggestions to the will-power and argue against the impulses which are prompted by the feelings; but it cannot prevent the feelings, or the impulses, from being there and having their say.
The life and say of the feelings mean much to the welfare of each individual. Let us suppose that the circ.u.mstances of my life were such that I could truthfully express myself as follows:
”I _feel_ well and strong; I _feel_ that I love my wife devotedly and my wife returns that love; I _feel_ immense affection for my children; I _feel_ I would make any and every sacrifice to protect them and my wife from harm; I _feel_ very hopeful about the future, both for my family and myself; I _feel_ I have done my best, in accordance with my ability; I have a feeling of loyalty to my friends and a feeling of honor in my dealings with my fellow men; I _feel_ content with my lot, in particular, and the way of the world, in general; and whether my life was evolved from a monkey and a protoplasm, or came into being as a divine and perfect conception, I _feel_ an abiding faith in an all-wise but mysterious purpose for everything.”
There are no material considerations, or calculations of self-interest, or reasoning processes, in this kind of summary. It is made up exclusively of fundamental and spontaneous feelings which are in existence, to a greater or less extent, among all sorts and manners of individuals, in any known stage of civilization. A peasant living in a hut, in a vineyard in Sicily, is just as capable of having them, as a millionaire living in a city palace, or a scientist presiding over an academy of learning. A native Patagonian, or a Swede, or a Chinaman, may be just as susceptible to them as a French artist, or an American steel king. As they come from the inner nature, and as all men have an inner nature, it is possible for them to be experienced by all men.
There are, of course, countless other beautiful and inspired feelings that may come to life in the inner nature of an individual, but the few simple ones which we have suggested are sufficient for an ill.u.s.tration.
Now let us imagine, for a moment, another ill.u.s.tration. Let us imagine that a modern intellect, scientifically trained and enlightened, undertook to investigate, a.n.a.lyze, dissect, in a methodical and accurate way, the facts which gave rise to my feelings, or are implied by them, in an effort to determine the reason and reasonableness of such interesting phenomena.
I _feel_ well and strong. ”But,” says he, ”that does not necessarily prove that you are well or strong. It may be merely an a.s.sumption founded on ignorance of scientific facts.” The proper way to determine how well and strong I am is to have my health and strength tested and rated in an expert way. According to the report of such an expert, my state of health is only 63 per cent normal and my strength is less than 50 per cent of standard for my weight and age.
Strictly speaking, I am neither well _nor_ strong, and my feeling in that respect may be dismissed as unwarranted by the facts and consequently unreasonable.
”I _feel_ that I love my wife devotedly and that my wife returns that love.”
”But,” says the intellect, ”those are only words. As a matter of fact, how severe and accurate a test have either of those devotions been submitted to? Have you ever been thrown into contact, alone and undisturbed, with a woman who is more beautiful and more appealing than your wife--who yearns for you and invites you with abandoned intensity?
Has your wife's devotion been subjected to a corresponding test? Until that has been done, it is only reasonable to a.s.sume that there may be a good deal of exaggeration and self-delusion in the conclusions which you have arrived at. As there are certain prejudices and difficulties in the way of having these tests made, and as neither you nor your wife appear willing for the other to try them, any satisfactory estimate of your reciprocal devotions must remain in abeyance. Our statistics show, however, that in 87 per cent. of the cases where a mutual and unalterable devotion is supposed to exist, the determining factor on one side or the other, is the accidental absence of a sufficiently appealing opportunity. The evidence of the divorce courts offers a valuable source of information on this phase of the subject. Purely as a matter of averages, the conjecture may be hazarded that your a.s.sumption in this regard, as in the other, may be founded on a misconception.”
In the same way, the intellect may introduce reasons and deductions in criticism of my hopes for my children, and the fallacies which may have crept into my theories of loyalty and honor and aspiration.
Finally, he might say: ”Permit me to observe that you made a curious and somewhat amazing statement, just now, in reference to faith and an all-wise purpose. Is it possible that you are still under the influence of an out-grown mediaeval superst.i.tion? The only reasonable a.s.sumption with regard to man's place in the universe has been quite clearly and scientifically established by the modern theory of evolution. It appears from that, that you and I are descended from an ape, which in turn is a second-cousin-once-removed, so to speak, of the bat, the spider, and the shark. We are all animals together, slowly pa.s.sing through different phases of evolution, and man owes his existence entirely to the accidental results of natural selection and survival of the fittest.
Man's tribe happens to be more numerous than that of the elephant, or the whale, which are larger animals; but less numerous than that of the ant, which is almost his equal in intelligence and decidedly more industrious, though it is so much smaller than man. Millions of ants come into existence and go out of existence, every day, without making any appreciable difference in the gradual processes of evolution. The same thing may be said of man--or bats and whales. Surely it is high time that a well-educated person of the twentieth century should consider such things from a reasonable, scientific point-of-view.”