Nature Mysticism Part 6

In considering the substance of these strong statements, characteristic of very different types of mind, we note in the first place that two different problems are to some extent fused-- that of the ugly, and that of the morally evil. Of course, it is frequently impossible to separate them; still, for purposes of a.n.a.lysis, the attempt should be made; especially as our present quest is aesthetic rather than ethical.

In the second place it must be remembered that the nature-mystic is by no means a nature-worshipper. His claim of kinship with nature surely implies the contrary! He knows that evil and ugliness (however interpreted) are in man, and he expects therefore to find them permeating the whole.

Confining our attention as far as may be to the aesthetic aspect of the objections raised, let us at once define and face the real issue now before us, namely, the significance for the nature-mystic of what is called "ugliness."

There are certain judgments known as aesthetic--so called because they determine the aesthetic qualities of objects. And it is agreed, with practical unanimity, that they rest much more upon feeling and intuition than upon discursive reason. To this extent they rank as genuine "mystical" modes of experience, and from this point of view have bulked largely in the systems of mystics like Plato and Plotinus. But while claiming them as mystical, it is necessary to note that they possess a characteristic which const.i.tutes them a special cla.s.s. They imply reference to a standard, or an ideal. The reference need not be made, indeed seldom is made, with any conscious apprehension of the standard; but the reference is none the less there, and a judgment results. The place of reflective reasoning process which characterises the logical judgment is filled by a peculiar thrill which accompanies a feeling of congruence or incongruence, according as the ideal is satisfied or otherwise.

It is in accord with this view of the aesthetic judgment that while, for reason, the outward form and semblance of the object is of subsidiary import, save from the point of view of abstract form and physical quality, for the aesthetic feeling or intuition it is paramount. For example, a botanist, _qua_ botanist, will reck little of beauty of colour, or curve, or scent--indeed at times his interest in a plant may be in inverse ratio to its beauty. But the lover of flowers, or the poet, or the artist, will fix upon such aesthetic qualities as determining his mood and judgment. Not that the reflective and the aesthetic judgments are antagonistic-- they are supplementary, and, when rightly appreciated, they are interdependent; nevertheless, they must not be confused.

The doctrine of Plotinus, the prince of mystics, is very helpful when the problem of the ugly is in debate, and fits in admirably with the considerations just advanced. His theory was that material objects are beautiful in proportion as they share in reason and form. The converse of this proposition is, that objects are ugly in proportion as they lack the capacity for sharing in reason and form. Pa.s.sing over certain other phases of his doctrine, let us see how far this theory will carry us in answering the question--Is there in nature such a thing as ugliness, in any absolute sense of the term?

Matter, as known to the modern scientist, is universally possessed of form of some kind, and is, moreover, found to share in reason, when tested by its responsiveness, so to speak, to the processes of human ratiocination--or, in other words, by its obedience to natural law. It would seem to follow that there is no object in nature which is absolutely ugly. And the conclusion surely commends itself to common sense. If, in spite of this, certain objects are called "ugly," what is intended?

Following up the lead of Plotinus, we seem to be driven to the conception of "degrees of beauty"--of "higher" and "lower"

forms of beauty. And the moment the existence of such "degrees" is accepted, the aesthetic horizon is indefinitely extended. The whole problem a.s.sumes larger and more generous proportions, especially when viewed in the light of the evolution hypothesis. For where there are degrees, or stages, it is an easy step to conceive of transition from stage to stage. An ugly object is only relatively ugly; and by entering into new relations with its environment may be raised to even higher rank in the aesthetic scale of values. In brief, true progress becomes possible for the whole universe. Herbert Spencer stopped short at progress from the h.o.m.ogeneous to the heterogeneous. It is more interesting, not to say, inspiring, to postulate increase of capacity for sharing in reason and form. The vast process of evolution may then be viewed as an upward sweep into fuller beauty and into correspondingly fuller life.

Of the fact that there is such an upward process, there is abundant and acc.u.mulating evidence. The struggle upwards of organic life, culminating so far, in man as we know him--the increasingly complex beauty of natural forms--the haste of nature to conceal her scars--all alike speak of a striving upward.

Nay, we are being told that the atoms themselves, so long regarded as ultimates, have been subjected to the evolutionary stress and strain, and have advanced from the simplest forms to higher and more complex symmetries. And in another field, the arts, more particularly painting and the drama, almost demand the recognition of some such principle of progress; for they are constantly and necessarily using elements which in themselves are accounted ugly, for the production of their supremest beauties.

The use of discords in music is singularly suggestive in this regard. There are combinations of musical sounds which, when produced as isolated combinations, are harsh, and even painful.

But let them be heralded by other chords, and let them be parted from by suitable resolutions, and they can charm, or thrill, or kindle deep emotion. What does this fact imply? That discords in music, when used with knowledge and mastery, do not take their places as aliens in musical progressions--as insertions of ugliness in a texture of surrounding beauty--_but as themselves beautiful_. Their aesthetic value is gained by their being linked up in a network of relations which makes them part and parcel of that which is an ordered and rational whole. In short, discords are potential beauties; they have capacity for form and reason.

The ugly, then, is not to be opposed to the beautiful as its contrary, but as standing in the relation to it of the less to the more perfect. There will thus be grades of beauty as there are grades of reality. And mystic intuition will have corresponding grades of dignity and insight. The grand process of evolution is thus revealed as a many-sided whole--the amount of real existence increases in proportion to the increase of capacity for sharing in form and reason; and along with this goes a growth in power to appreciate the ever higher forms of beauty which emerge in the upward-striving universe.

A further thought calls for emphasis. For beings like ourselves, living under conditions which involve so many limitations, a _purely_ aesthetic judgment is practically out of our reach. And on this score also we may venture to tone down the strong expressions used by Jefferies in his estimate of the anti- or ultra-human character of the strange creatures in the sea. Individual likings and dislikings are the resultants of an enormously complex system of impulses, instincts, prejudices, motives, habits, a.s.sociations, and the rest. Few of these factors appear above the threshold of consciousness, though they are continually and influentially operative. Hence it by no means follows that because a particular object is displeasing or disgusting to one individual, or group of individuals, it will be so to all. So undoubted is the resulting relativity of our aesthetic judgments that Hegel was inclined to hold that below the level of man and art there is no real ugliness at all. "Creatures" (he says) "seem ugly to us whose forms are typical of qualities opposed to vitality in general, or to what we have learnt to regard as their own special or typical form of animate existence.

Thus the sloth as wanting in vitality, and the platypus as seeming to combine irreconcilable types, and crocodiles and many kinds of insects, simply, it would appear, because we are not accustomed to consider their forms as adequate expressions of life, are all ugly."

Just as, in music, discords become beautiful by being brought into fitting relations with other parts of an ordered whole, so is it with objects which are usually considered ugly, but which are capable of aesthetic beauty when treated in pictures by masters of their craft. To set them in new and fitting relations of light and shade, of colour and composition, is to transform them.

Schopenhauer lays great stress on the transforming power of art.

He instances many typical paintings of the Dutch school, simple interiors, homely scenes, fruit, vegetables, the commonest tools and utensils, even dead flesh--all are taken up into material for pictures, and, in their special setting, compel our admiration.

We have in these facts concerning pictorial art, a strong corroboration of the inference from the use of discords in music--the relativity of ugliness, and the possibility of its progressive transformation. But there is a further point to be emphasised, one which music, by reason of its abstractness, could not well enforce, and one which is of profound significance for the nature-mystic. Pictorial art is concerned with the representation of external objects. How explain its transforming power? Schopenhauer has an excellent answer to the question. He says that the artist is endowed with an exceptional measure of intuitive insight. He enjoys a genuine vision of the Idea immanent in the object he reproduces in his particular medium--he fixes attention upon this Idea, isolates it, and reveals much that would otherwise escape notice. The result is that his skill enables others to slip into his mood and share his insight.

It is on some such lines as those tentatively traced in the last few paragraphs that the most hopeful solution of the problem of the ugly must be sought. The heart of the matter is that there is no object in external nature which is absolutely ugly--no object which cannot, even as things are, be transformed to some degree by being set in fitting relation to others--no object which is not capable of progress in its capacity for sharing and manifesting the form and reason towards which the universe is striving. Should there be thinkers who, like Kingsley, cannot quite rid themselves of the feeling that ugliness is an absolute reality--a positive mode of existence over against beauty--they can only take refuge in the wider problem of evil. But care must be exercised, as before observed, to distinguish between moral evil and physical ugliness. To what extent the one may be reflected in the other is a question on which it would not be safe to dogmatise. The main theory, however, stands out clearly, and involves a belief that the material phenomena of the universe, as a grand whole, enjoy a wholesome freedom from positive ugliness. Tennyson's "Ancient Sage" expresses the nature-mystic's hopes concerning the fundamental beauty of the world he loves.

"My son, the world is dark with griefs and graves, So dark, that men cry out against the Heavens, Who knows but that the darkness is in man?

The doors of Night may be the gates of Light; For wert thou born or blind or deaf, and then Suddenly healed, how wouldst thou glory in all The splendours and the voices of the world!

And we, the poor earth's dying race, and yet No phantoms, watching from a phantom sh.o.r.e, Await the last and largest sense to make The phantom walls of this illusion fade, And show us that the world is wholly fair."

CHAPTER XV

NATURE MYSTICISM AND THE RACE

The fundamental postulates and principles of a consistent Nature Mysticism have now been expounded with a fullness sufficient to allow of a soberly enthusiastic study of the detail of our subject. Let it be noted, however, that though a detailed application of general conclusions is henceforth to be the main business, there will be no forsaking of the broadly human standpoint. For it has been shown, more especially in the chapter on poetry, that the nature-mystic does not arrogate to himself any unique place among his fellows, nor seek to enjoy, in esoteric isolation, modes of experience denied to the ma.s.s of humanity. Wordsworth, for instance, though a prince among modern mystics, appealed with confidence to his countrymen at large: his "we" was in constant evidence--and an ever-growing mult.i.tude of nature-lovers responds to his appeal. That is to say, the faculty of intuition he demands is to be found, in varying degrees, latent at least, if not evolved, in the normal human being. The gifted seer seizes and interprets what his less gifted brother obscurely feels. Can we trace this mystic power of nature on the scale of history at large? If the power is real, it should be possible to recognise its grander workings. Moreover, a wide outlook will help us to avoid exaggerations, preciosities, and fanaticisms.

Here, then, is our starting-point for detailed study. If it be true that all normal members of the race share in varying degrees the faculty of mystic intuition, then nature must have had a moulding effect not only on certain gifted individuals, but on the character and destiny of whole communities, peoples, and empires. As behind the language of the Greeks there were age-long promptings of subconscious metaphysics, so behind the aesthetic and spiritual development of this remarkable people there must have been age-long promptings of subconscious mystical intuitions stimulated by the influences of natural phenomena. The moulding force of the immanent ideas, and of the inner life of things, is, for the race at large, and for certain peoples in particular, continuous, c.u.mulative, ma.s.sive. True, it takes effect chiefly in the sphere of the subconscious. But he will be a poor student of history who fails to reckon with those subtler forces which, though obscure in their action, often extend so widely and go so deep.

An eloquent evidence of nature's power to mould is to be found in the contrasted characteristics of the great religions. The hardy peoples of northwestern Europe were nurtured under stormy skies, were girt in by stern, avalanche-swept mountains, and struggled strenuously against the hardships of rigorous and lengthy winters. What wonder that they filled their heaven with _Sturm und Drang_--with t.i.tanic conflicts of the G.o.ds--and heard it echoing with the whirl of hunting, the riot of feasting, and the clang of battle? Their religion was strenuous as their lives--free and fierce--yet tinged with a melancholy that promised rich developments.

The favoured Greeks of cla.s.sical times, "ever delicately walking on most pellucid air," or rocked on the isle-strown waters of the sapphire AEgaean, expanded their soul-life in an environment teeming with light and colour, with harmony and form. For them, therefore, Apollo bent his burnished bow and launched his myriad shafts of gold; Aphrodite embodied visions of foam-born beauty; Athene stood forth in panoply of reason and restraint. Nature herself lured them to evolve ideals of law and order, of disciplined thought and perfectly proportioned art.

What wonder that, prompted by mystic impulses and visions, they purged their inherited religion of its grosser features, and made it a vehicle for philosophic thought and spiritual aspiration.

Pa.s.s to the wandering children of the desert, cradled amid the great silences of s.p.a.ce and time, swallowed up of vastness.

Above them by day the burning vault of blue, by night the wheeling galaxies--around them the trackless levels of a thirsty land. Such influences sank deep into their souls, and imparted depth and intensity to their views of the source and meaning of that vastness. Nor can we wonder that in such an environment, the premonitions of the spiritual unity of existence, that were stirring in many hearts, found special sustenance.

Let it be clearly understood that in the striking and unmistakable ill.u.s.trations just adduced, there is no mere question of the influences of physical environment on social organisation or economic development--though these also react in a thousand ways upon ideas and ideals--but a question of moulding spiritual concepts by the direct influence of the ideas and impulses manifested in external nature. Man's soul was in constant, if generally subconscious, communion with his material environment, and his thinking was thereby largely coloured and fashioned. And if the kind and quality of the influence vary from age to age, and from people to people, it is not the less continuously potent. The complexities of modern life, the interminglings of civilisations, tend to obscure its manifestations; science, wrongly pursued, seems hostile to continued vigour. But underneath the play of the cross-currents on the surface, is the resistless swing of the tide.

An ill.u.s.tration of another cla.s.s is found in Max Muller's brilliant lectures on "Physical Religion," the chief theme of which is the development of Agni, the Vedic G.o.d of fire. The starting-point was the sensuous perception of the physical qualities of fire. The Idea and the will immanent in these qualities gradually raised men's thoughts from the material to the spiritual, until the Eastern world attained to what Max Muller calls "a precious line from the Veda"--"He who above the G.o.ds was the One G.o.d"--composed at least one thousand years before the Christian era. It was not the result of a supernatural revelation, but a natural outcome of man's thoughts guided and moulded by impressions of outward phenomena.

That is to say, as Max Muller observes, there was nothing in it artificial--simply that which man could not help saying, being what he was and seeing what he saw.

In the instances just advanced, the broad principle is most a.s.suredly established that nature has a definite and continuous effect upon the development of man's conduct and thought. And as a consequence of this, we may affirm that Wordsworth's experience is true, in its measure, of all normal members of the race who are in touch with nature:

"Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold Of this green earth; both what they half create And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense, The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being."

Why, even old Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary days would write to his friend Langton, in Lincolnshire: "I shall delight to hear the ocean roar, or see the stars twinkle, in the company of men to whom Nature does not spread her volumes or utter her voice in vain." And let us observe, that the naturalness of his feeling keeps him to the simplest, almost monosyllabic, English!

CHAPTER XVI

THALES

In an earlier chapter mention was made of that truly remarkable group of thinkers who, in the sixth century before the Christian era, made the momentous transition from mythology and tradition to philosophy and science. It was also pointed out that these pioneers, bold as they were, could not shake themselves free from the social and intellectual conditions of their day. And it is precisely this fact of what may be termed contemporary limitations that makes a review of their speculations so valuable to a student of Nature Mysticism. For they lived in times when the old spontaneous nature beliefs were yielding to reflective criticism. Their philosophising took its spring from the fittest products of the mytho-poeic faculty, and thus remained in living contact with the primitive past, while reaching forward, in the spirit of the future, to an ordered knowledge of an ordered whole. The chief object of their search was the _Welt-stoff_-- the substance of the universe--and they were guided in their search by the dominating concepts which had emerged in the long course of the animistic and mythological stages. Certain forms of external existence have impressed themselves upon the general mind, notably those of water, air, and fire; and to these the reflecting mind naturally turned in its earliest efforts to discover the Ground of things. The interest taken by the nature-mystic in this group of thinkers is twofold. Firstly, he finds that in their speculations there is a large element of primitive intuition, embodied in concepts fashioned by the spontaneous play of reflective thought and free imagination.

Closeness to nature is thus secured. And secondly, he rejoices in the fact that these speculations, crude and premature as they inevitably were, contained germs of thought and flashes of insight which antic.i.p.ate the most advanced speculative science and philosophy of the present day. He maintains that here is corroboration of his view of intuition. Nature was the teacher-- and it was to intuition that she chiefly addressed herself; and the intellect--keen and fresh, but untrained--was able to seize upon the material presented, and to fix it in concepts and theories which share in nature's universal and unending life.

Water, air, and fire--what an enormous number and variety of natural phenomena range themselves under these heads! If we try to understand why they were singled out in turn, in the search for the _Welt-stoff_, we shall have penetrated far into the Nature Mysticism of these famous "elements."

Starting, then, with Thales, we ask why he fixed upon water in his attempt (the earliest recorded) to determine the const.i.tution of the universe? What were the properties, qualities, and functions of that "element" which arrested his attention, and governed his crude, but acute and original, speculations? As already remarked, existing cosmological conceptions played an important role, more especially that of the great primeval ocean on which the world was supposed to float. This cosmographical ocean and its accompanying myths will be considered in a subsequent chapter. But restricting our view at present to the physical aspects of water, it is not wholly impossible to recover, and sympathise with, his train of reasoning.

Water is wonderfully mobile, incessantly changing, impelled apparently by some inherent principle of movement. Its volatility, also, is very marked; it pa.s.ses from solid to liquid, and liquid to vapour, and easily reverses the series. More especially would the old-world thinker be struck by the phenomena of the circulation of water. He would see the vapour drawn up by the sun from lake and ocean, seeming to feed the heavenly fires, and returning to earth in the form of rain. He concluded that this must represent the flow of the cosmic process as a whole. Again, in the falling of dew, in the gatherings of mists, and in the welling-up of fountains, the solid materials of the world are apparently pa.s.sing into a liquid state.

Thales was not the first to note these things. They had been subtly modifying the thoughts of men for untold generations.

But he was the first whom we know to have gathered together into a definite theory the vague intuitions which had been so long unconsciously operative. He singled out this mobile element and saw in it the substance of the flux of the world as a whole.

His theory of movement took a wide range. He did not separate the thing moved from the moving force; nor did he draw any distinction between the organic and inorganic--the mechanical and the vital. He regarded all modes of motion as essentially spontaneous and self-determined. Moreover (as Aristotle tells us) he identified this inherent principle of change with what is divine in nature and in the soul. That is to say, the Real, for Thales, is living impulse and continuous process. It is experienced in man's conscious activities, and const.i.tutes the principle of unity in every mode and form of existence.

It is on the organic side of this speculation that Aristotle, probably biased by his biological studies, chiefly dwells. Is it possible to trace the grounds of which Thales based his wider induction? Aristotle helps us. He supposes his predecessor to have noted that water and life seem to be inseparable, and that moisture is necessary to the germination and development of all known organisms. It was natural to conclude that the principle of life is in the water--the conclusion of the reason also harmonising with the intuition stimulated by movement. Nor was the inference altogether unwarranted. Put into historical perspective, it still retains its force and value. The latest biological authorities tell us that all branches of the zoological family tree were formed on the moist sh.o.r.es of large water basins, and that there is no form of life, not only terrestrial, but even of the deep seas which has not pa.s.sed through a littoral phase. In other words, it is still allowable to hold that the "moist," as Thales generally called his primal element, contains one of the secrets of life. So close is the earliest to the latest p.r.o.nouncement on the origin of life on the globe!

Reviewing this brief exposition of the leading doctrine of an ancient speculation, what bearing has it on the principles of Nature Mysticism as laid down in preceding chapters? Certain fairly obvious ones. Thales was guided by impressions received from the qualities, behaviour, and functions of water; and they led him to attribute a plastic life to matter. It would be modernising him too severely to style him a hylozoist. But his ascription of a soul to the magnet and to amber carries him far on the way to that metaphysical world-view. Deeply suggestive also is the saying which, if not rightly attributed to him, is at least characteristic of his school--"All things are full of the G.o.ds." We may therefore infer that the physical properties of water are such as to suggest the ideas which have culminated in modern animism. That is to say, water is capable of producing intellectual and spiritual, as well as what are termed physical effects. The deeper view of intuition is justified. And Thales, by virtue of the whole trend and outcome of his speculations, may claim an honoured place in the ranks of the nature-mystics.

CHAPTER XVII

THE WATERS UNDER THE EARTH

We have found that the constant movement and change manifested in the circulation of the waters of the globe impressed the mind of Thales and largely determined the course of his speculation. When his great successor, Heracleitus, pa.s.sed from water to fire, in his search for the _Welt-stoff_, he by no means became insensible to the mystic appeal of running water. "All things are flowing." Such was the ancient expression of the universal flux; and it is plainly based on the a.n.a.logy of a stream. If Heracleitus was not its author, at any rate it became his favourite simile. "We cannot step" (he said) "into the same river twice, for fresh and ever fresh waters are constantly pouring into it." And yet, in a sense, though the waters change, the river remains. Hence the statement a.s.sumed a form more paradoxical and mystical--"We step into the same river, and we do not step into it; we are, and we are not."