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Page 10
THE FIRST STEPS
No mortal object did these eyes behold
When first they met the placid light of thine,
And my soul felt her destiny divine,
And hope of endless peace in me grew bold:
Heaven-born, the soul a heav'nward course must hold;
Beyond the visible world she soars to seek
(For what delights the sense is false and weak)
Ideal form, the universal mould.
The wise man, I affirm, can find no rest
In that which perishes: nor will he lend
His heart to aught which doth on time depend.
'Tis sense, unbridled will, and not true love,
Which kills the soul: Love betters what is best,
Even here below, but more in heaven above.
--_Sonnet from Michael Angelo._ Wordsworth
III
_THE FIRST STEPS_
The first movements of the awakened soul are difficult to trace.
Observation, painstaking and long-continued, alone can furnish the
desired information. In the attempt to recall our own experiences there
is always a possibility of inaccuracy. Bias counts for more in
self-examination than in an examination of others. There is also danger
of confusing religious preconceptions with what actually transpires.
What we have been led to imagine should be experienced we are very
likely to insist has taken place. The truth concerning the Ascent of the
Soul will be found in the conclusions of many observers in widely
different conditions.
The soul awakens to a consciousness of its responsibilities and to a
knowledge that it is in a moral order from which escape is forever
impossible. This is our point of departure in this chapter.
The new-born child has to become adjusted to its physical environment,
to learn to use its powers, to breathe, to eat, to allow the various
senses to do their work. In like manner the newly awakened soul has to
become adjusted to the moral order. The moral order is the rule of right
in the sphere of thought, emotion, and choice. It is the government of
the soul as the physical order is the government of the body. It may be
best explained by analogy. There is a physical order ruled by physical
laws. If those laws are obeyed, strength, health, sanity result; but if
they are disobeyed, the consequences, which are inevitable and
self-perpetuating, are weakness, disease, insanity. If one violates
gravitation he is dashed in pieces; if he trifles with microbes their
infinitesimal grasp will be like a shackle of steel. No one can get
outside the physical universe and the sweep of its laws.
There is also a right and a wrong way to use thought, emotion, will. The
mind which has hospitality only for holy thoughts will become clearer,
and its vision more distinct; but the mind which harbors impure
thoughts, gradually, but surely, confuses evil with good, obscures its
vision, and becomes a fountain of moral miasm. If we choose to recall
and to retain feelings that are animal, and are the relics of animalism,
the natural tendency toward bestiality will gather momentum; but if
emotion is turned toward higher objects, and we are thrilled from above
rather than lulled from below, the sensibilities become sources of
enduring joy. The moral order is like the physical order in its
universality and in the remorselessness of the consequences which follow
choices.
How does the soul become adjusted to the moral order? This question is
difficult to answer. At the first there is sight enough to see that one
course is right and another wrong, but the vision is indistinct.
Gradually the ability to make accurate discriminations increases, and,
with time and other growth, the faculty of vision is enlarged and
clarified.
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