Elementary Theosophy Part 6

CHAPTER X.

REBIRTH: ITS JUSTICE

No matter how much we may differ in our view of the relationship between G.o.d and man there is general agreement about the attributes of the Supreme Being. All ascribe to him unlimited power, wisdom, love and, of course, the perfection of all those desirable qualities we see in human beings. The theosophical view is that all we know in man of power, wisdom, love, justice, beauty, harmony, et cetera, are faint but actual manifestations of the attributes of the deity. All who are not materialists, denying the existence of a Supreme Being, will agree that the wisdom and justice of G.o.d must be perfect. It would be illogical and inconsistent to limit or qualify His attributes. Either He is all-wise and absolutely just, or else the materialist is right. We cannot have a deity at all unless He represents perfect justice.

Another point on which all but the materialists must agree is that creation is so ordered that the common welfare of humanity is best served by just the conditions of life that surround us. Nothing is different from what it should be unless it is because of man's failure to do what he should do for his own welfare. If it were otherwise what would become of the argument that an omniscient G.o.d has ordered it as it is? If, then, things are as they should be in the truest interests of man, and we find things in life that, according to our views of creation, are not right and just, it necessarily follows that the views we hold are erroneous.

The popular belief is that human beings const.i.tute a special creation; that whenever a baby is born G.o.d creates a soul or consciousness for that body and that after a life of many years, or a few days, or a few minutes, as the case may be, the body dies and the consciousness goes to dwell in remote regions for ever and ever. If the person lived a good life and also believed in the current religion he will be "saved" and will be eternally happy. If he did not live a good life but finally "believed" before death he will be saved anyway and be just as happy as though he had lived right from the start. If he did live a good life, but was not born with the ability to believe easily, he will be lost and will be eternally miserable. According to this theory of special creation G.o.d makes people of all sorts. None of them can help being what they are created. Some are wise and some are foolish. Those who are smart enough to find the way of salvation will finally have heaven added to their original gift of wisdom. Those who are not smart enough to find it will finally have h.e.l.l added to their original lack of sense. This is what some people are pleased to call divine justice!

It will hardly do to argue that the possibility that all may at last be happy in an endless heaven, makes it unimportant that there are inequalities now. The majority of the theologians do not admit that such a state awaits the whole of the human race, and the comparatively few who do believe it will hardly venture to a.s.sert that present justice can be determined by future happiness. Even if we positively knew that eternal bliss awaited everybody after the close of this physical life how could that make it just that one person shall be born a congenital criminal and another shall be born a poet and philosopher? How could it make it right that one is born to life-long illness, suffering and poverty, while another inherits both wealth and a sound physical body?

Not even the certainty of future happiness would be compensation for present inequalities. But why should there be any such inequalities if G.o.d represents unlimited power and perfect justice? Why should there be any poverty when, if He really created the soul itself instantaneously, He can as certainly create any necessary condition for the soul? Why poverty and disease and suffering at all? There must be a better answer to such questions than that "it pleased G.o.d to have it so." It is surely little better than blasphemy to suggest that any kind of hard conditions for man are pleasing to the deity.

To hold that any future condition of happiness can make present justice out of the truly terrible inequalities of life, would be much like a millionaire who has two sons giving one of them all the advantages of wealth, travel, skilled instructors and special care, while the other was permitted to wear rags and go hungry. If the neglected son asked why he was thus treated while his brother was most carefully provided for, the father might reply with some indignation, "You are to have plenty in the future! My will is so drawn that when I die my great wealth will be equally divided between you and your brother. You will then be a millionaire with more money than you can possibly spend. So don't be foolish about your hardships now. Learn to starve like a gentleman!" The father's position in such a case would be just as reasonable as that of those who think a heaven hereafter can justify an earthly h.e.l.l now.

Now let us take some of the particular facts of life that puzzle us and test them with the hypothesis of special creation, and also with the hypothesis of reincarnation, and see which can really explain them in a satisfactory manner. We will take some facts of real life. In a Ma.s.sachusetts prison there is an old man whose name became familiar to many of us in our youth. He was then known as Jesse Pomeroy, the boy murderer. The present generation scarcely knows him. But forty years or more ago he was talked about by all the newspapers. For the crime of murdering his playmates the boy was sent to prison for life. Why did Pomeroy become a noted criminal in childhood? If the theory of special creation is sound he was created and put in the world to fit himself for a future heaven. But he was created in such fashion that he was deficient in moral perception and he began life with an act that led to his expulsion from society. If G.o.d created this soul as we first knew him why was he not created with the moral balance of a law-abiding citizen so that he could have lived long and peacefully in civilized society and have been prepared for heaven at death? What could have been the purpose of giving him a brain that could not think soundly and a conscience that welcomed murder? That leads us inevitably to the question, Why are criminals created at all? Why are idiots created? The deeper we look into the facts of life the more unsatisfactory does the theory of special creation become because we find a thousand things that contradict it and show its inconsistency. If the purpose of G.o.d was to create a heaven to be enjoyed by those who reach it we cannot see why He should create a humanity the majority of which is incapable of ever attaining it. If He creates them as they come into the world at birth why are not all of them created wise and kind? Why must most of them blunder through life, making all sorts of mistakes, bringing suffering to others by their unkindness or cruelty and only, in the end, to pa.s.s from a life of failure to eternal punishment for that failure? There is no reason, no justice, no sanity in such a theory.

Now let us turn to the explanation of reincarnation. According to that, Pomeroy has had many past incarnations and will have many more. Like all the rest of us he came up from primitive man. We have all learned the lessons of civilized life slowly by experience like children acquiring lessons from their books. The majority have come along well and developed a fair share of intellect in dealing with life's problems, and some degree of sympathy for others. Some have evolved rapidly like hard working pupils and they are called geniuses. Some have lagged behind and have learned very little. They are like the truants at school who have broken the rules and run away from their lessons. These laggards of the human race are the dullards and the criminals, who have moved so slowly incarnation after incarnation, or are so much younger in evolution, that they are now bringing savage traits into our present civilized life.

Reincarnation not only explains who and what the criminal is but it also explains away the h.e.l.l with which special creation threatens him. No h.e.l.l awaits him except that which he has created himself by what he has done. By the law of cause and effect all the cruelty and suffering he has inflicted will react upon him to his sorrow, but will also serve for his enlightenment. In his next incarnation the kind of body he will have and the environment in which he will live will be determined exactly by the thoughts and emotions and acts of this and past incarnations. He will therefore neither go to a heaven for which he is not fitted nor to a h.e.l.l which he does not justly deserve. He will simply come back in another physical body and have a chance to try it again, but he will have to make the trial under the conditions which his conduct has merited.

And what of the idiot? According to special creation we cannot possibly explain him. It would be blasphemous to believe that G.o.d creates a mindless man. If one soul is given a mind and another is not, and for no reason whatever, it is the most monstrous injustice that ever forced itself upon the understanding of man! Think for a moment of the difference between the idiot and the normal person. The man of sound mind has before him the opportunity of progress, of mental and moral development. The avenues of business and professional life are open before him. He is free to try his powers and win his way. Wealth, power and fame are all possible for him. All the joys of social life may be his. Think of him surrounded by his family and friends, successful, satisfied, happy, and then think of the life of the idiot. Language cannot express the horror of the contrast! If there were no other explanation of life than that of special creation it would change the world into the hopeless h.e.l.l of a mad-house. Again reincarnation saves us from either blasphemy or madness. The idiot, like the congenital cripple, differs from the normal man only in the body, which is the instrument of the soul. Deformity of the body is a limitation of the ego who functions through it. A withered arm, a club foot, a deformed back, in this incarnation are results of unfortunate causes which that soul has generated in past lives. In idiocy the malformation is in the brain.

Of course this is not an accident. There is no element of chance which places the limitation in one body where it causes but little trouble and in another where it prevents mental activity and thus produces idiocy.

In each case it is the exact working out of the law. The body of the idiot is the physical plane representation of a soul that has made a serious blunder in the past, possible by limiting another with cruel restraint, and the gross misuse of his intellect and power in that way has operated to prevent his using it at all in the present life. But such limitations belong to the outer planes. It is the form that limits and when the form perishes the limitation disappears. As with the criminal no h.e.l.l is needed to punish the idiot. He has made his own h.e.l.l by his mistake in the past and in this incarnation he must live in it and expiate his blunder. Perhaps it may seem to some that since the idiot is incapable of realizing the life of the normal person the situation represents no real misfortune for him. But idiocy on the physical plane does not mean idiocy in the soul. Even from the astral plane the ego may keenly feel the horror of functioning for a lifetime through such a physical body, as one here would feel the anguish of incarceration in a dungeon.

The criminal and the idiot are striking ill.u.s.trations of the failure of the theory of special creation to satisfactorily explain the facts of life. But if we turn to the other extreme and consider the most fortunate people in the world we shall find there, too, precisely the same failure to explain. By the hypothesis of special creation we find a gross injustice done to the soul born an ignoramus. Yet we find others possessing enough intelligence for several people. In the case of Macaulay we have the evidence in his own handwriting in a letter the date of which proves his age, that he was reading Greek and Latin and studying mathematics deeply when seven years old. There are many other cases of the remarkable display of talents in childhood, but a single instance will serve for all. It is all the better as an ill.u.s.tration because it is a contemporaneous case and the facts are known to scores of living people. It is recorded of William James Sidis, of Brookline, Ma.s.sachusetts, that at six years of age he entered a grammar school and in six months had completed the work of seven grades. At the age of seven he had gone so far with his mathematical studies that his father, Professor Boris Sidis, could be of little a.s.sistance to him. He worked out the most abstruse and difficult problems with the greatest ease and invented new systems of computation which attracted much attention. When eight years old he entered the Brookline High School and in six weeks had completed the mathematical course and began writing a book on astronomy. He then took up the study of French, German, Latin and Russian. On leaving school he took up mathematics as a specialty and invented a system of logarithms based on the number 12 instead of 10.

This was inspected by several well known mathematicians who p.r.o.nounced it perfect in every detail. He applied for admission to Harvard University but the authorities refused his pet.i.tion on account of his youth, only, since he could have pa.s.sed the examination with ease. He tried again the next year and was again refused on the same ground. But at eleven years of age, having pa.s.sed the entrance examination for the Ma.s.sachusetts Inst.i.tute of Technology, he was judged to know enough of chemistry and kindred subjects to make him eligible for admission to the Harvard medical school. He then entered upon a special course at Harvard because the ordinary course in college was far below the abilities of this boy of eleven years. Professor James, of Harvard, the famous psychologist, has p.r.o.nounced him the greatest mental marvel he ever knew. It is said the young prodigy could recite pages of Shakespeare from memory at an age when the ordinary boy is learning his alphabet.

In the same city where young Sidis was born we find the idiot. Did G.o.d create them both as they were born or did they come up to their present difference of mental equipment through a process of evolution that accounts for it all satisfactorily? If the theory of special creation is sound why did not the idiot get at least a little of the intellect that Sidis could so easily have spared? If they are the work of special creation it is impossible to find reason or justice in such terrible inequalities. But if reincarnation is G.o.d's method of creation the explanation of the difference between them becomes simple. Sidis is not only an old soul but evidently one who has worked hard in past lives, throwing off the la.s.situde of the dense bodies and evolving the power of will that enabled him to triumph over obstacles, conquering all the enemies of intellectual progress and thus earning the fine physical body and brain he now possesses. His present abilities are but the sum total of the energies he has put forth in the past.

The theory of special creation does not explain the facts of life. It lacks justice, it lacks harmony and it lacks consistency. It is not in accord with natural law. Nature knows no such thing as special creation.

To believe in special creation is to ignore all scientific facts and principles. On the other hand reincarnation is in harmony with science and with natural law. Reincarnation is evolution and every kingdom of nature develops through evolution. The difference between the shriveled wild grain that struggles with the rock and soil for life enough to barely reproduce itself, and the plump wheat of the cultivated fields that feeds the world, is the work of evolution. The wild stalk produced the seed and from that seed came a better stalk. The better stalk produced a still better kernel and from that better kernel sprang a superior stalk to yield a higher grade of wheat than any of its predecessors. The stalk sprouts from the ground, matures, stores all its gain of growth within the seed and perishes. But from the seed springs its reincarnated form, to repeat the process that changes poor to good, good to better and better into best. And thus it is with the reincarnating soul. As the almost worthless grain through many seasons is slowly changed to perfect worth, the soul is by that same law of evolution slowly changed through many incarnations from the chaos of savage instincts to the law and order of the moral world. Each incarnation yields some improvement. As the seed sprouts within the darkness of the soil and, perishing there, attains its full results in the higher realm of sun and air, drawing from the soil that which, stored within the grain, gives power to reproduce its better self, so the soul strikes anchorage in the lower planes and draws from its varied experiences that which, trans.m.u.ted after the body's death, gives the power to return with greater life.

Attempts have been made to find some explanation of the mental and moral inequalities that exist at birth. In the earlier days of the study of evolution it was usually a.s.serted that the human being inherits his mentality and morality from his parents. But even if that were true the injustice of one being born a genius and another a fool would remain. It is the fact of inequality that const.i.tutes the injustice, and it is of no importance whether it comes about through heredity or otherwise. But as a matter of fact heredity is confined to the physical side of existence. As more and more is learned by observation the old theory of mental and moral heredity has lost ground until it can be said that it now has no recognition in the scientific world. n.o.body is better qualified to speak upon the subject than those with practical experience. Dr. A. Ritter, of the Stanford University Children's Clinic, that has large numbers of defective children in charge, treating no less than sixteen hundred in a single year, says:

"As to the definite causes of the prevalence of defective types, I cannot speak with finality or a.s.surance. I do not agree with social or educational doctrinaires who a.s.sign the causes definitely to liquor, poverty, infectious diseases, or other social or moral shortcomings. The greatest minds of the world are hesitant in theorizing about this. There are a complex of causes which explain many of these cases, but no generalization fits absolutely.

We may find a case which is not traceable to any of these conditions--_a case in which the antecedents would promise a perfectly normal child, and yet we are confronted with a defective child_. On the other hand, bright, normal children, even children of superior intelligence sometimes spring from such conditions."[L]

A little reasoning about the facts concerning both genius and idiocy will make it clear that neither is inherited. If it were true that genius is inherited society would present a different appearance. There would be famous families of geniuses living in the world, in music, in poetry, in warfare, in invention, in art, if genius were inherited. The fact is that it is difficult to find even two geniuses in any family.

The Caesars, Napoleons, Edisons, Lincolns, Wagners, Shakespeares, stand alone with neither great ancestors nor great descendants. We search in vain for great ancestors for such men; but if the theory of mental heredity were sound we should know their ancestors for precisely the same reason that we know them.

Heredity, then, does not explain whence genius comes; and if anybody had really traced genius from father, or grandfather, to son or grandson, we should still have no explanation of what genius is. We could then only regard it as the result of some strange chance; yet the scientist knows that laws of nature contain no such element. But the only reason why genius appears so incomprehensible is because we have not looked at it in the light of nature's truth. We have erroneously a.s.sumed that this is the only life we live on the physical plane, and therefore the time is too short for the evolution of genius. A man can become an expert in one lifetime but not a genius. But if we give him many incarnations to develop along certain lines he can become a genius of a given type. The soul that works strenuously at building up a certain faculty through many incarnations naturally develops qualities in the causal body that shine out brilliantly upon its return to a physical body and we have the genius. We evolve our mentality and morality, and there could be no justice in life if it were otherwise.

There is no element of chance in getting a new physical body in the next incarnation. The body is the material expression of the self. It is as much the product of the self as the rose is of the bush, the apple of the tree, or the tulip of the bulb. The musician can no more get a body suitable to the blacksmith than the rose bush can produce an apple. We do not get bodies by lottery, like dest.i.tute people drawing clothing by numbers which might result in grotesque misfits. We do not get bodies at all, we evolve them, and in each incarnation the new body expresses all the soul has come to be up to that point in its evolution. Such a view of life has a basis of absolute justice. Every soul gets exactly what it has earned.

The common belief in Occidental civilization is that we live here for only sixty or seventy years and that then, when we die, we pa.s.s on to live eternally somewhere else, and that the whole of eternity, whether it is filled with pleasure or is horrible with pain, is made to depend on how we spent those few years of the physical life! Such a fate would be unfair and unjust. If a schoolboy is incorrigible for a term it would not be fair to condemn him to lose all opportunity of getting an education. We would give him another chance at the following term.

A little incident of disobedience from home life will ill.u.s.trate the point involved. A quinine capsule was lying on the table. A three-year-old boy reached for it. His mother called across the room, "Don't eat that, dearie, it isn't candy." But in a spirit of reckless mischief he hurried it into his mouth and quickly chewed it up! It was a very disagreeable but salutary lesson for the little fellow. It is an example of nature's methods. She is always consistent, and has a balanced relationship between cause and effect. But suppose in this case we throw her consistency aside as those who believe that eternal results will follow temporal effects are obliged to do. An ordinary lifetime compared to eternity is somewhat like that instant of disobedience compared to eighty years, but the ill.u.s.tration is not adequate because eternity never ends. As nearly as the principle can be applied it would be by saying to the child, "Because you were disobedient for a second of time you shall taste quinine for eighty years!" If that punishment is injustice what must we call the infliction of an eternity of pain as the result of the errors committed in a lifetime?

Any hypothesis of existence that does not take into consideration the welfare of humanity is a false hypothesis. What plan can better serve the common welfare than a chance to redeem a failure? When a prisoner is condemned for a crime we do not deprive him of opportunities. We give him every possible chance to improve his character. G.o.d cannot be less just or merciful than man. Rebirth is a new chance. Every incarnation is another opportunity.

If the popular idea of an eternal heaven and h.e.l.l is sound, and there be few who find the "narrow way," the time will come when the majority of the race will have used their one opportunity of a brief lifetime, and have failed. If that were really true, it is easy to imagine what they would do with another opportunity if they had it! How long should opportunity be given? Just as long as it will be used, and to deprive anybody of it when he is eager to redeem past errors is to ignore the principles of human welfare. Therefore such a plan cannot be the true one. John J. Ingalls personified opportunity and wrote:

Master of human destinies am I!

Fame, Love and Fortune on my footsteps wait; Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate Deserts and seas remote, and pa.s.sing by Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late I knock unbidden once at every gate.

If sleeping, awake; if feasting, rise before I turn away. It is the hour of fate, And they who follow me reach every state Mortals desire, and conquer every foe Save Death; but those who doubt or hesitate, Condemned to failure, penury and woe, Seek me in vain and uselessly implore; I answer not and I return no more.

That is true enough from one viewpoint and profitably emphasizes the importance of promptly acting when the time for action arrives. But there is another truth to be expressed on the subject and it is well done by Walter Malone, who says:

They do me wrong who say I come no more, When once I knock and fail to find you in; For every day I stand outside your door, And bid you awake and rise to fight and win.

Wail not for precious chances pa.s.sed away; Weep not for golden ages on the wane; Each night I burn the records of the day, At sunrise every soul is born again.

Laugh like a boy at splendors that are sped; To vanished joys be blind and deaf and dumb; My judgments seal the dead past with its dead, But never bind a moment yet to come.

Though deep in mire, wring not your hands and weep, I lend my arm to all who say, "I can."

What a magnificent view of human evolution! No ultimate failure possible because there is always another chance. The failure of one incarnation made good by the sincere efforts of the next. All the faults and frailties--the shadow blots of the past--vanishing in the light of a higher wisdom that has been won. No endless h.e.l.l, no eternal torment; not even the ghosts of vanished chances to haunt the mind; but only the insistent voice of immortal Opportunity, urging us to wake and rise to strive and win!

FOOTNOTES:

[L] Interview in San Francisco Examiner, March 5, 1916.

CHAPTER XI.

REBIRTH: ITS NECESSITY

There are apparently but three ways in which anybody has attempted to explain the origin of the race. If two of these are shown to be impossible we have no course open to us but to accept the one which remains. One of the three theories is that of the materialist. Another is the common belief that G.o.d created an original human pair and continues to create souls for babies. The third hypothesis is that of the evolution of the soul.

The materialist's position seems to be, briefly, that the forces of nature, with no directive intelligence, are sufficient to account for man as we see him; that a continuing consciousness in the human being is a delusion; that immortality is a vain dream and that humanity has neither a past nor a future. Yet the very facts of science to which the materialist appeals contradict such conclusions.

This materialistic belief regards the human body as a self-sufficient machine whose brain generates thought. But the savage has a completely evolved physical body with eyes, ears and other organs like our own. His brain under the microscope shows no trace of difference in its material const.i.tution from the brain of civilized man. Indeed, his physical body is not only as complete a machine as ours but is likely to be materially sounder. Why, then, if the brain produces thought, does not this savage produce the thoughts of a philosopher? If there is no directing soul back of the brain, why the marvelous difference in the product of the two brains?

Materialists go too far in the a.s.sumption that they can explain the phenomena of life. They can talk learnedly about it but they must stop short of the source of life. Everything about anatomy and physiology they know, but the life that flows through the human machine remains unexplained. They can trace the circulation of the blood from the heart through the arteries, from the arteries across to the veins, from the veins back to the heart, but the greatest mind the race has produced cannot say what makes the heart beat. Life has not been explained and cannot be explained from the materialist's viewpoint. Every human being is a miracle. A fingernail is a mystery of evolution. It is formed from the same food that makes the flesh and it will continue to be formed regardless of the variety or quality of the food. Why do certain particles become flesh or nails? Who can draw the division line between them? With marvelous instruments and wondrous skill science has explored and mapped and charted the "tabernacle of clay," but it cannot throw a single ray of light upon the intelligence that animates it.

Materialism fails sadly enough in that direction, but still worse as a satisfactory interpretation of the panorama of the life about us. It is a philosophy of the gloomiest fatalism. It holds that we simply chance to be that which we are; that we are what we are merely because of fortuitous chemical and mechanical combinations. Had the combinations chanced to be something different we should not be in existence. Chance is the king of the materialist's world.

According to this theory all abilities are the gifts of nature and all lack of them is the blind award of chance. No credit whatever is due to anybody for what he is, nor can anybody be logically blamed for his deficiencies. All are like men who, with closed eyes, draw something from a bag under compulsion. It is not to the credit of one that he got a prize nor to the discredit of another that he drew a blank. This hypothesis holds that recently we were not and that presently we shall cease to be; that we appear by chance, live our brief period, suffer or enjoy as it may happen and then pa.s.s to the oblivion of eternal silence; that all the thought, all the toil and the striving, all the effort and endurance were for nothing, and accomplished nothing. Such a philosophy will not long survive the progress of our age. It lacks the balance of nature's principle of conservation. It lacks the completeness of universal law. It lacks the element of justice that is enthroned in every human consciousness and without which life would be a meaningless mockery and the world a chaos of despair.

But the materialist's philosophy has no monopoly of bad points or undesirable beliefs. The old popular idea of a mechanical creation is equally at war with both fact and reason. That belief is that G.o.d created the world as men build houses, and added the human beings as men furnish their houses when built. It is the belief that He is still making souls as fast as bodies are being born in the world, that these souls begin their existence at birth, live here but one life and then pa.s.s on into either endless bliss or eternal pain.

This idea differs from materialism in the matter of a governing intelligence and on immortality but it is remarkably like it in other ways. Like materialism it is fatalistic because it makes man the helpless subject of resistless power. It merely puts an intelligent force as first cause where the materialist postulates blind force.

The materialist says that all human characteristics are the gift of nature while according to the popular belief they are the gifts of G.o.d.

In either case one cla.s.s of human beings gets abilities that they have not earned and others get defects that they do not deserve. The intellectual man is favored without reason and the fool is handicapped without mercy. Some come into the world with salvation a.s.sured by being well born while others are foredoomed to failure. Predestination goes logically with such ideas.