Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864




And such, as I read, is the judgment of Plato; though, ever disposed to
explore the remote possibilities of education, he discusses the subject
in a tentative spirit, as if vaguely hoping that more might, through
some discovery in method, be accomplished by means of doctrine. But in
the "Republic" his permanent persuasion is shown. He there bases his
whole scheme of polity, as Goethe in the second part of "Wilhelm
Meister" bases his scheme of education, upon a primary inspection of
natures, in which it is assumed that culture must begin by humbly
accepting the work of Nature, forswearing all attempt to add one jot or
tittle to the native virtue of any human spirit.

It is always, however, less important for us to know what another thinks
upon any high matter than to know what is our own deepest and inevitable
thought concerning it; for, as the man himself thinketh, not as another
thinketh for him, so is he: his own thoughts are forces and engines in
his nature; those of any other are at best but candidates for these
profound effects. I propose, therefore, that we throw open the whole
question of man's benefit to man by means of words. Let us inquire--if
possible, with somewhat of courage and vigor--what are the limits and
what the laws of instructive communication.

And our first discovery will be that such communication has adamantine
limitations. The off-hand impression of most persons would probably be
that we are able to make literal conveyance of our thought. But, in
truth, one could as soon convey the life out of his veins into the veins
of another as transfer from his own mind to that of another any belief,
thought, or perception whatsoever.

Words are simply the signs, they are not the vehicles, of thought. Like
all signs, they convey nothing, but only suggest. Like all signs, they
are intelligible to none but the initiated. One man, having a certain
mental experience, hoists, as it were, a signal, like ships at sea,
whereby he would make suggestion of it to another; and if in the mental
experience of that other be somewhat akin to this, which, by virtue of
that kindred, can interpret its symbol, then only, and to the extent of
such interpretation, does communication occur. But the mental experience
itself, the thought itself, does not pass; it only makes the sign.

If, for example, I utter the word _God_, it conveys nothing out of my
mind into the mind of you, the reader; it simply appeals to your
conception of divinity. If I attempt to explain, then every word of the
explanation must be subject to the same conditions; not one syllable of
it can do more than merely appeal to somewhat already in your mind. For
instance, suppose I say, _God is love_; what then is done? The appeal is
shifted to another sign; that is all. What my own soul, fed from the
vital resources and incited by the vital relationships of my life, has
learned of love, that my thought may connect with the word; but of all
this nothing passes when it is uttered; and the sound, arriving at your
ear, can do no more than invite you to summon and bring before the eye
of your consciousness that which your own soul, out of its divine depths
and through the instruction of vital relationship, has learned and has
privily whispered to you of this sacred mystery, love. Just so much as
each one, in the inviolable solitudes of his own consciousness, has
learned to connect with this, or with any great word, just that, and
never a grain more, it can summon. And if endeavor be made to explain
any such by others, the explanation can come no nearer; it can only send
words to your ear, each of which performs its utmost office by inviting
you to call up and bring before your cognizance this or that portion of
your mental experience. But always what answers the call is your mental
experience, no less yours, no less wedded to your life, than the blood
in your arteries; it cannot be that of any other.

And the same is true, or nearly the same, respecting the most obvious
outside matters. Suppose one to make merely this statement, _I see a
house_. Now, if the person addressed has ever had experience of the act
of vision, if he has ever seen anything, he will know what _see_ means;
otherwise not. If, again, he has ever seen a house, he will know what
_house_ denotes; not otherwise. Or suppose, that, not knowing, he ask
what a house is, and that the first speaker attempt to explain by
telling him that it is such and such a structure, built of brick, wood,
or stone; then it is assumed that he has seen stone, wood, or brick,
that he has seen the act of building, or at least its result;--and in
fine, the explanation, every syllable of it, can do no more than appeal
to perceptions of which the questioner is assumed to have had
experience.

We do, indeed, gain an approximate knowledge of things we have never
seen. For example, I have an imperfect notion of a banian-tree, though I
have never seen one; but it is only by having seen other trees, and by
having also had the perceptions to which appeal is made in describing
the peculiarities of the banian. So he who is born blind may learn so
much concerning outward objects as the senses of touch, hearing, smell,
and taste can impart to him; and he may profit by verbal information to
such extent as these perceptions enable him. But the perception itself,
and so thought, faith, and in fine all mental experience whatsoever,
whether of high order or low, whether relating to objects within us or
to objects without, take place only in the privacy of our own minds, and
are in their substance not to be transferred.

Observe with precision what is here said. The mental experience of each
man, if it be of any spiritual depth, has transacted itself in his
nature in virtue, to a most important degree, of spiritual relationship
with other human beings. There never was an act of development in any
man's soul that did not imply a humanity, and involve the virtue of
social affinity. I should be dumb, but for the ears of others; I should
be deaf, that is, my human ear would be closed, but for human voices;
and there is no particle of human energy, and no tint of human coloring,
for which we are not, in part, indebted to vital human fellowship.
Nevertheless, of this experience, though in the absence of social
connection it could not have occurred, not one jot nor tittle can be
made over to another by means of words. It can hoist its verbal signal,
and the like experience in other souls may interpret the sign; it can do
no more.

Men may, indeed, _commune_; that is, they may by verbal conference enter
mutually into a sense of an already existing unity of inward experience;
and there are other and eminent uses of words, of which more anon; but
here let it be noted with sufficient emphasis that of minds there can be
no mixture, and that speech can make no substantive conveyance of any
mental product from one mind to another. Each soul must draw from its
native fountains; though we must never forget that without conversation
and social relationship its divine thirst would not have been excited.

Therefore, in the midst of all warmest and quickest verity of social
nearness, there is a kind of sacred and inviolable solitude of the soul.
We speak across to each other, as out of different planets in heaven;
and the closest intimacy of souls is like that of double stars which
revolve about each other, not like that of two lumps of clay which are
squeezed and confounded together.

So much, then, concerning the limits of verbal communication. Words, we
say, are not vehicles. No perception, no mental possession, passes from
mind to mind. You can impart to another no piece of knowledge whose main
elements were not already in his mind, no thought which was not
substantially existent in his consciousness before your voice began to
seek his ear. Instructors may, indeed, put a pupil in the way to obtain
fresh perceptions, and more rarely a wise man may put an apt disciple in
the way to obtain deeper insights; but, after all, the learner must
_learn_; the learner must for himself behold the fact, with the eyes of
body or of soul; and he must behold it as it is in itself, not merely as
it is in words.

Hence the new scheme of school-education. Agassiz says, in
substance,--"If you would teach a boy geography, take him out on the
hills, and make the earth herself his instructor. If you would teach him
respecting tigers or turtles, _show_ him tiger or turtle. Take him to a
Museum of Natural History; let him always, so far as possible, learn
about facts from the facts themselves." Judicious and important advice.
And the basis of it we find in what has been set forth above, namely,
that words convey no perception, whether of physical or of spiritual
truth.

It follows, therefore, that only he whose soul is eloquent within him
will gain much from any eloquence of his fellow. Only he whose heart is
a prophet will hear the prophet. A divine preparation of the nature,
divine activities of the soul, precede all high uses of communication.
Though Demosthenes or Phillips speak, it is the hearer's own spirit that
convinces him. Conviction cannot be forced upon one from without. Hence
the well-known futility of belligerent controversy. No possible logic
will lead a man ahead of his own intelligence; neither will any take
from him the persuasions which correspond to his mental condition. A
good logical _pose_ may sometimes serve to lower the crest of an
obstreperous sophist, as boughs of one species of ash are said to quell
the rattlesnake; but with both these sinuous animals the effect is
temporary, and the quality of the creature remains unchanged.

Even though one be sincerely desirous of advancing his intelligence, it
is seldom, as Mr. Emerson has somewhere said, of much use for him to
carry his questions to another. He of whom insight is thus asked may be
sage, eloquent, apt to teach; but it will commonly be found,
nevertheless, that his words, for some reason, do not seem to suit the
case in hand: admirable words they are, perhaps, for some cases closely
analogous to this, it may be for all such cases, and it is a thousand
pities that the present one does not come within their scope; but this,
as ill luck will have it, is that other case which they do _not_ fit.

And yet, despite these iron limits, communication is not only one of the
especial delights, but also one of the chief uses, of human life. As
every spiritual activity implies fellowship, so does almost every
thought, almost every result of spiritual activity, imply some speech of
our fellows. Voices and books,--who would be himself without them? I do
not believe myself to have now in my mind one valuable thought which
owes nothing to the written or spoken thought of other men, living or
dead.

How, then, is it that the speech of our fellows renders us aid? What are
to us the uses of the words of others?

And here be it first of all frankly acknowledged, that there is much
speech of no remarkable import, in itself considered, which yet serves
good ends. There is much speech whose office is simply to refresh the
sense of fellowship. It will not make a good leading article; but the
leading article which subserves equal uses is not to be contemned. So
much are men empowered by each other, that any careless, kindly chat
which gives them the sense of cordial nearness gives also warmth and
invigoration. Better than most ambitious conversation is the light,
happy, bubbling talk which means at bottom simply this:--"We are at home
together; we believe in each other." Words are good, if they only
festoon love and trust. Words are good, if they merely show us that
worthy natures do not suspect us, do not lock their closets when we are
in the house, do not put their souls in dress-costume to meet us, but
leave their thoughts and hearts naked in our presence, and are not
ashamed. Be it mine sometimes to sit with my friend when our mere
nearness and unity of spirit are felt by us both to be so utterly
eloquent, that, without silence, we forbear to set up any rivalry to
them by grave and meditated speech,--observing, it may be, a falling
leaf toyed with by the wind, and speaking words that drop from the lips
like falling leaves, and float down a zephyr that knows not which way to
blow. Some of the sweetest and most fruitful hours of life are these in
which we speak half-articulate nothings, merely airing the sense of
fellowship, and so replete with this wealth of vital intimacy that we
have room for nothing more.

But our aim is to regard communication as an instruction, and to
consider the more explicit and definite uses of words.

And of these the first, and one of the chief, is based upon the very
limitations which have been set forth,--upon the very fact that words
are _not_ vehicles. I have said that there is a certain divine solitude
of the soul; and of this solitude the uses are infinitely great. The
absolute soul of humanity, we hold, seeks to insphere itself in each
person, though in each giving itself a peculiar or individual
representation; and only as this insphering takes place are the ends of
creation attained, only so is man made indeed a _human_ life. Therefore
must we draw out of that, out of that alone; therefore truth is
permitted to come to us only out of these infinite depths, albeit
incitement, invitation, and the ability to draw from these native
fountains may be due to social connection. Because our life is really
enriched only as the absolute soul gives itself to us, therefore will it
suffer us no otherwise than by its gift to supply our want. And as it
cannot give itself to us save in response to a felt want, a seeking, an
inward demand, it belongs to the chief economies of our life to bring us
to this attitude of inward request, to this call and claim upon the
resources of our intelligence.

Now words come to us as empty vessels, which we are to fill from within;
and in making for this purpose a requisition upon the perpetual contents
of reason, conscience, and imagination, we open a valve through which
new spiritual powers enter, and add themselves to our being. If the word
_God_ be sometimes spoken simply and spontaneously, a youth who hears it
will be sure upon some day, when the sense of the infinite and divine
stirs vaguely within him, to ask himself what this word means, to
require his soul to tell him what is the verity corresponding thereto;
and precisely this requisition is what the soul desires, for only when
sought may its riches be found. The utilities of words in this kind are
deserving of very grave estimation. Words teach us much, but they teach
less by what is in them than by what is not in them,--less by what they
give to us than by what they demand from us.

It is, therefore, one of the grand services of communication to bring us
to the limits of communication, making us feel, that, ere it can go
farther, there must occur in us new stretches of thought, new energies
of hope, faith, and all noble imagining. It were well, therefore, that,
among other things, we should sometimes thank God for our ignorance and
weakness,--thank Him for what we do _not_ understand and are not equal
to; for with every fresh recognition of these, with every fresh approach
to the borders of our intelligence, we are prepared for new requisitions
upon the soul. As in a pump the air is exhausted in order that the water
may rise, so a void in our intelligence _caused by its own energy_
precedes every enrichment. Hence he who will not admit to his heart the
sense of ignorance will always be a fool; he who is perpetually filled
with self-sufficiency will never be filled with much else. And from this
point of view one may discern the significance of that doctrine of
humility which belongs equally to Socratic thinking and Christian
believing.

It follows, too, that we need not laboriously push and foist upon the
young our faith and experience. Aside from direct vital influence, which
is a powerful propagandist, our simple, natural, inevitable speech will
cause them to do much better than learn from us, it will cause them to
learn from their own souls. And however uncertain may be a harvest from
questions asked of others, a great question rightly put to one's self
not only must be fruitful, but carries in it a capacity for infinite
fruitfulness; while the longer and more patiently and persistently one
can wait for an answer, the richer his future is to be. I am sure of him
who can put to his heart the great questions of life, and wait serenely
and vigilantly for a response, one, two, ten years, a lifetime, wellnigh
an eternity, if need be, not falling into despondencies and despairing
skepticisms because the universe forbears to babble and tattle its
secret ere yet he half or a thousandth part guesses how deep and holy
that secret is, but quietly, heroically asking and waiting. And toward
this posture of asking the profound and vital words assist us by being
heard,--which is their first eminent use to us.

Secondly, they serve us greatly, when they simply cause a preexisting
community of thought to be mutually recognized. It is much to bring like
to like, brand to brand, believing soul to believing soul. As several
pieces of anthracite coal will together make a powerful heat, but
separately will not burn at all, so in the conjunction of similar faiths
and beliefs there is a wholly new effect; it is not at all the mere sum
of the forces previously in operation, but a pure product of union. "My
confidence in my own belief," said Novalis, "is increased _infinitely_
the moment another shares it with me. The reason is obvious. You and I
have grown up apart, and have never conferred together; our
temperaments, culture, circumstances are different; we have come to have
certain thoughts which seem to us true and deep, but each of us doubts
whether these thoughts may not be due to his peculiarities of mind,
position, and influence. But to-day we come together, and discover,
that, despite these outward diversities in which we are so widely
unlike, our fundamental faiths are one and the same; the same thoughts,
the same beliefs have sprung into life in our separate souls. Instantly
is suggested a unity underlying our divided being, a law of thought
abiding in mind itself,--not merely in your mind or mine, but in the
mind and soul of man. What we arrive at, therefore, is not merely the
sum of you and me, the aggregate of two men's opinions, but the
universal, the absolute, and spiritually necessary. Such is always the
suggestion which spontaneous unity of faith carries with it; hence it
awakens religion, and gives total peace and rest."

But the faiths which are to be capable of these divine embraces must
indeed be spontaneous and native. Hence those who create factitious
unity of creed render these fructifications impossible. If we agree, not
because the absolute soul has uttered in both of us the same word, but
because we have both been fed with dust out of the same catechism, our
unity will disgust and weary us rather than invigorate. Dr. Johnson said
he would compel men to believe as he and the Church of England did,
"because," he reasoned, "if another differs from me, he weakens my
confidence in my own scheme of faith, and so injures me." Now this
speech is good just so far as it asserts social dependence in belief; it
is bad, it is idiotic or insane, so far as it advocates the substitution
of a factitious and artificial unity for one of spiritual depth and
reality. The fruits of the tree of life are not to be successfully
thieved. In dishonest hands they become ashes and bitterness. He who has
more faith in an Act of Parliament than in God and the universe may be a
good conventional believer; but, in truth, the choice he makes is the
essence of all denial and even of all atheism and blasphemy.

Let each, then, bring up out of his own soul its purest, broadest,
simplest faith; and when any ten or ten thousand find that the same
faith has come to birth in their several souls, each one of them all
will be exalted to a divine confidence, and will make new requisitions
upon the soul which he has so been taught to trust. Thus, though we tell
each nothing new, though we merely demonstrate our unity of
consciousness, yet is the force of each many times multiplied,--dimless
certitude and dauntless courage being bred in hearts where before,
perhaps, were timorous hesitation and wavering.

The third service of words may be compared to the help which the smith
renders to the fire on his forge. True it is that no blowing can
enkindle dead coals, and make a flame where was no spark. True it is
that both spark and bellows will be vain, if the fuel is stone or clay.
And so no blowing will enkindle a nature which does not bring in itself
the fire to be fanned and the substance that may support it. But in our
being, as at the forge, the flame that languishes may be taught to leap,
and the spark that was hidden may be wrought into blaze.

Simple attraction and encouragement,--there is somewhat of the
marvellous in their effects. Physiologists tell us, that, if two liquids
in the body are separated by a moist membrane, and if one of these
fluids be in motion and the other at rest, that which rests will of its
own accord force its way through the membrane and join the one which
flows. So it is in history. Any man who represents a spiritual streaming
will command and draw into the current of his soul those whose condition
is one of stagnancy or arrest. Now courage and belief are streamings
forward; skepticism and timidity are stagnancies; panic, fear, and
destructive denial are streamings backward. True, now, it is, that any
swift flowing, forward or backward, attracts; but progressive or
affirmative currents have this vast advantage, that they are health, and
therefore the healthy humanity in every man's being believes in them and
belongs to them; and they accordingly are like rivers, which, however
choked up temporarily and made refluent, are sure in the end to force
their way; while negative and backward currents are like pestilences and
conflagrations, which of necessity limit themselves by exhaustion, if
not mastered by happier means.

We may, indeed, note it as a nicety, that the membrane must be moist
through which this transudation is to take place; and I admit that there
are men whose enveloping sheath of individualism and egotism is so hard
and dry, so little interpenetrated by candor and the love of truth, as
to be nearly impervious to noble persuasion; and were whole Missouris of
tidings from the highest intelligence rushing past them, they would
still yawn, and say, "Do you get any news?" as innocently as ever.

Nevertheless, history throbs with the mystery of this influence. A
little girl slumping by her mother's side awoke in a severe
thunder-storm, and, nestling in terror near to the mother, and shrinking
into the smallest possible space, said, trembling, "Mother, are you
afraid?" "No, my dear," answered the lady, calmly. "Oh, well," said the
child, assuming her full proportions, and again disposing herself for
sleep, "if you're not afraid, I'm not afraid," and was soon slumbering
quietly. What volumes of gravest human history in that little incident!
So infinitely easy are daring and magnanimity, so easy is transcendent
height of thought and will, when exalted spiritually, when imperial
valor and purpose breathe and blow upon our souls from the lips of a
living fellow! Not, it may be, that anything new is said. That is not
required. What another now thrills, inspires, transfigures us by saying,
we probably knew before, only dared not let ourselves think that we knew
it. The universe, perhaps, had not a nook so hidden that therein we
could have been solitary enough to whisper that divine suggestion to our
own hearts. But now some childlike man stands up and speaks it to the
common air, in serenest unconsciousness of doing anything singular. He
has said it,--and lo, he lives! By the help of God, then, we too, by
word and deed, will utter our souls.

Get one hero, and you may have a thousand. Create a grand impulse in
history, and no fear but it will be reinforced. Obtain your champion in
the cause of Right, and you shall have indomitable armies that charge
for social justice.

More of the highest life is suppressed in every one of us than ever gets
vent; and it is this inward suppression, after making due account of all
outward oppressions and injuries, which constitutes the chief tragedy of
history. Daily men cast to the ground the proffered beakers of heaven,
from mere fear to drink. Daily they rebuke the divine, inarticulate
murmur that arises from the deeps of their being,--inarticulate only
because denied and reproved. And he is greatest who can meet with a
certain pure intrepidity those suggestions which haunt forever the
hearts of men.

No greater blunder, accordingly, was ever made than that of attempting
to render men brave and believing by addressing them as cowards and
infidels. Garibaldi stands up before his soldiers in Northern Italy, and
says to them, (though I forget the exact words,) "I do not call you to
fortune and prosperity; I call you to hardship, to suffering, to death;
I ask you to give your toil without reward, to spill your blood and lie
in unknown graves, to sacrifice all for your country and kind, and hear
no thanks but the _Well done_ of God in heaven." Did they cower and go
back? Ere the words had spent their echoes, every man's will was as the
living adamant of God's purpose, and every man's hand was as the hand of
Destiny, and from the shock of their onset the Austrians fled as from
the opening jaws of an earthquake. Demosthenes told Athens only what
Athens knew. He merely blew upon the people's hearts with their own best
thoughts; and what a blaze! True, the divine fuel was nearly gone,
Athens wellnigh burnt out, and the flame lasted not long; but that he
could produce such effects, when half he fanned was merest ashes, serves
all the more to show how great such effects may be.

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