‘It is a great grace of God,’ says St. Teresa, ‘to practise self-examination; but too much is as bad as too little, as they say; believe me, by God’s help, we shall advance more by contemplating the Divinity than by keeping our eyes fixed on ourselves.’ Modern theologians, such as Otto, have blamed Eckhart for not being sufficiently conscious of his sinfulness, and have contrasted him unfavourably in this respect with Luther,[27] who spent his early manhood in the terrified conviction that he was ‘gallow-ripe.’ It is legitimate to enquire how far this conviction of his own ripeness for the gallows was the cause of that later conviction, expressed so forcibly a few years later, that the German peasants were ripe for the gallows and deserved extermination and enslavement at the hands of the ruling classes.
There is a logical and a psychological connection between obsession with one’s own sins and obsession with those of others, between haunting terror of an angry personal God and an active desire to persecute in the name of that God. At the risk of wearying my reader, I must repeat, for the thousandth time, that the tree is known by its fruits. The fruits of such doctrines as are taught by Eckhart, the author of The Cloud and the oriental mystics whom they so closely resemble, are peace, toleration and charity. The fruits of such doctrines as are taught by Luther and St. Augustine are war and the organized malice of religious persecution and the organized falsehood of dogmatism and censorship. On this point, it seems to me, the historical evidence is clear and explicit. Those who consider that the metaphysical theories of Luther and Augustine correspond more closely to the nature of ultimate reality than do the theories of Eckhart, Sankhara, or the Buddha must be ready to affirm the proposition that evil is the result of acting upon true beliefs about the universe and that good is the result of acting upon false beliefs.
All the evidence, however, supports the opposite conclusion—that false beliefs result in evil and that true beliefs have fruits that are good. What we think determines what we are and do, and conversely, what we are and do determines what we think. False ideas result in wrong action; and the man who makes a habit of wrong action thereby limits his field of consciousness and makes it impossible for himself to think certain thoughts. In life, ethics and metaphysics are interdependent. But ethics include politics and economics; and whether ethical principles shall be applied well or badly or not at all depends on education and on religion in so far as it is a system of self-education.
We see then, that, through ethics, all the activities of individuals and societies are related to their fundamental beliefs about the nature of the world. In an age in which the fundamental beliefs of all or most members of a given society are the same, it is possible to discuss the problems of politics, or economics, or education, without making any explicit reference to these beliefs. It is possible, because it is assumed by the author that the cosmology of all his readers will be the same as his own. But at the present time there are no axioms, no universally accepted postulates. In these circumstances a discussion of political, economic or educational problems, containing no reference to fundamental beliefs, is incomplete and even misleading. Such a discussion is like Hamlet, if not without the Prince of Denmark, at least without the Ghost or any reference to the murder of the Prince’s father.
In the present volume I have tried to relate the problems of domestic and international politics, of war and economics, of education, religion and ethics, to a theory of the ultimate nature of reality. The subject is vast and complex; this volume is short and the knowledge and abilities of the author narrowly limited. It goes without saying that the task has been inadequately performed. Nevertheless, I make no apologies for attempting it. Even the fragmentary outline of a synthesis is better than no synthesis at all.
NOTES
[1] See Du Cheminement de la Pensée and De l’Explication dans les Sciences, by Emile Meyerson.
[2] See in the last chapter the discussion of the relations existing between enforced sexual continence and social energy.
[3] See Pour Vaincre sans Violence (English Translation published by Routledge) and La Paix Créatrice, by B. de Ligt.
[4] In the report of the Commission appointed by President Roosevelt to consider probable future trends, ‘dirtless farming’ was listed among the thirteen inventions likely to cause important social changes in the near future. The report was issued in July 1937.
[5] Planned Society, by Thirty-five Authors (New York, 1937), contains authoritative summaries of almost all aspects of planning, together with full bibliographies.
[6] In some cases these corporations have had to take responsibility for over-capitalized concerns. In others the minimum interest rate has been fixed too high. These mistakes do not invalidate the principle involved.
[7] For the relation existing between energy and sexual continence, see Chapter XV.
[8] Certain passages in this chapter are reprinted with little alteration from articles contributed to An Encyclopaedia of Pacifism (London, 1937).
[9] In Sex and Culture (Oxford, 1934).
[10] See the relevant works of Seldes and Noel Baker, and the pamphlets published by the Union of Democratic Control.
[11] Like all other instruments, the modern police force can be used either well or ill. Police trained in non-violence could use modern methods to forestall any outbreak of violence, to prevent potential hostilities from developing, to foster co-operation. A non-violent police force could be made a complete substitute for an army.
[12] Dubreuil’s findings are confirmed by Mr. Peter Scott, who has had wide experience in organizing co-operative groups among the unemployed in South Wales. Such groups, he found, always tended to elect the best men as leaders.
[13] Note in this context the use of ‘occupational therapy’ in mental disease. There are certain forms of mental disease for which handwork is the best cure.
[14] See A Yankee Saint (the latest and best biography of Noyes), by Robert Allerton Parker (New York, 1935).
[15] In the Middle Ages the Church made a serious effort to moralize economic activity. The attempt, as Tawney has shown in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, was abandoned after the Reformation.
[16] Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Creative Conscious Control, and The Use of the Self.
[17] One of the charges levelled by the Inquisition against Eckhart was that he had spoken openly to the people of holy mysteries.
[18] See also Dr. K. Behanan’s Yoga (New York, 1937).
[19] See The Incredible Messiah, by Robert Allerton Parker (New York, 1937).
[20] For further information on the subject consult A. Tillyard, Religious Exercises; Bede Frost, The Art of Mental Prayer; and the anonymous Concentration and Meditation, published by the Buddhist Lodge, London. All these contain bibliographies.
[21] In Japan the ruling classes have used the technique of meditation to train the will in the service of militarism. Naval cadets were, perhaps still are, put through a course of Zen mind-training. Like all other instruments, this method can be misused by those who wish to do so.
[22] See Chapter II.
[23] For the physical basis of resistance, see The Nature of Disease, by J. E. R. McDonagh, F.R.C.S.
[24] Elliot Smith has shown that the parts of the human brain correlated with the higher intellectual functions have developed at the expense of the olfactory centre.
[25] Summarized in Miss Tillyard’s Spiritual Exercises, p. 202.
[26] The Council of Trent anathematized ‘si quis dixerit sacramenta novae legis non continere gratiam.’
[27] See Mysticism East and West, by Rudolf Otto (New York, 1932), p. 129.
INDEX
Abyssinia, Conquest of, 144, 201
Acting, 205
Acton, Lord, 238
Advertising, 216 ff.
Aggressiveness, historically associated with progressiveness, 21, 316
Albigensians, 246;
massacre of, 284
Alexander, F. M., 223, 326
Allerton, Robert, 237
Ambition, 321
American Brown Boveri Corporation, 118
American Dental Congress, 259
Amritsar massacre, 18, 189
Analysis (self), need of, 326
Anarchists, 61, 70
Ancon, Treaty of, 115
Anselm, 278
Antioch College, 169, 203;
system of education at, 203, 204
Aquinas, 278
Arica, Tacna and, provinces of, 115, 116
Arnold, Dr., of Rugby, 187
Aryan race, 67
Asceticism, 232
Ashburton, Lord, 116, 117
Associations of devoted individuals, 128 ff.
Ataturk, Kemal, 249, 250
Augustine, 240
Austrian government, 147;
and Italy, 155
Avalon, Arthur, 234
Awareness, 221
Aztecs, 241, 242
Babbitt, Prof. Irving, quoted, 247, 248, 286, 293, 299
Bacon, Francis, quoted, 88
Baker, Noel, 104 n.
Baudelaire, 308, 309
B.B.C., the, 49, 86
Bedlam, 142
Behanan’s Yoga, 234 n.
Behaviourism, 2, 19, 257
Belgium, 65
Beliefs, 252-302
Benedictinism, 132-135;
and revival of agricultural life, 136
Bernadotte, 149
Bernard, St., 290
Bethlehem Hospital, state of, 142
Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, 118
Bhakti-Marga, 234 ff.
Bismarck, non-violent resistance against, 147
Black Mountain College, 80
Blake, William, Prophetic Books of, 167
Body and Mind, relation between, 258
Boer War, 140
Bolsheviks, iron dictatorship of the, 28
Bona, Cardinal, 292
Boulding, Kenneth, quoted, 153
British Medical Association, 96
British Navy League, 119
Broad, Prof. C. D., 259, 260
Brunschvicg, quoted, 278, 279
Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, quoted, 57
Buddha, teachings of, 5, 21, 32, 57, 92, 93, 135, 208, 226, 227, 235, 243, 245-247, 249, 282, 291, 294, 297, 325, 329
Buddhist Lodge, 246 n.
Burtt, 268.
Calvin, 240,241
Campbell-Bannerman, 140
Catharists, 284
Centralization, Chapter VII
Centralization and Decentralization, 70-88
Chapman, Dom John, 243, 292, 293
Charity, progress in, 6
Chase, Stuart, quoted, 200
Chastity, 315
Chile and Peru, dispute between, 115, 116
Chinese, the, 91;
pacifistic ideals of, 91, 92
Cistercian Reform, 135, 136;
agricultural revival by Cistercians, 136
Cloud of Unknowing, The, 221, 291, 304, 305
Cluny, 135
Cobbett, 79
Colonies, use of, 107
Communism, 6, 20;
Russian, 35;
and authoritarian state, 61;
violence of Communists, 67, 72, 124, 130;
military organization, 133, 145, 283
Community sense, decline of the, 77
Competition, evil effects of intra-specific, 262
Comte, 228, 229
Confucianism, 91, 92
Continence (sexual) and social energy, 311 ff.
Co-operatives, 85
Council of Action, 152
Crébillon, 273
Criminals, non-violent treatment of, 142-143
Crowd emotion, 72
Cruelty, 17
Darwinism,
