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METHODS FOR SPIRITUAL SELF

CULTURE

THE theme will sound remote and mystical as if it pertained only to the "elect few," in the style of the day, which is trying to invent or rediscover a religion such as only the "exclusive" nature can appreciate. Yet this is not what I have in mind at all. The old distinction in its way is simple and fundamental, between body, mind, and soul. We are all conscious of it, even if we cannot define it, and there is no reason to assume that it will ever be thrown aside or obliterated.

We all believe in soul-not the metaphysical "entity" which goes by that name, but the something in us which is not mind and which is not body, and which separates us from all other animate or inanimate existence that we have any knowledge of. It is not by our intellectual endowment that we claim superiority. We can think of the tiger as possessing mind, and yet still continuing to be a tiger. He could know how to submit, but not to obey. The law of the jungle might be something of which he could be well aware and to which he could surrender some of his impulses. But no tiger would be capable of saying, "Not my will, but thine, be done." We

cannot conceive that he would ever knowingly and deliberately give up his life for the sake of a fellowtiger.

We are more and more obliged to recognize that mind, in its incipient forms, is manifested low down in the animal world. Animals seem to have some knowledge of cause and effect, and are therefore able to judge and discriminate. Yet this does not alter our conviction that human beings have an endowment which marks them off from the whole animal kingdom. "Body" and "mind" do not express all that goes to make up a conscious self. There is another element besides, the "self of one's many selves," if I may use such a peculiar expression. For want of a better name, we call it the soul or the spirit. Whatever this element is, however it may be defined or described, irrespective of its relationship to the rest of our being, apart from the whole question as to its origin or dependence on "matter," we never doubt that it is there.

It is of this something which we all feel, and which no one ever really denies, that I wish to speak. There is an objective and a subjective side to everything, an outer and an inner life, even to one's own consciousness. The sphere of the "world" and the sphere of the "spirit" have always been set over against each other. Furthermore, there is an almost universal consensus of opinion that the life of the soul is the higher life. Not only that, but if there is a Divine, we are all satisfied that this soul of ours is what puts us in contact with the Divine.

All the rituals and sacred music, the temples and cathedrals, religious services or ceremonies, may be

considered as having their main purpose in aiding to cultivate the soul.

In the life of the spirit what a man yearns for, is to be himself and yet to get away from himself. Unfortunately, however, much even of religious worship is nothing more than ecstatic delight in a person's own feelings and therefore does not serve such a purpose. The trouble, too, with much of the self-culture of every kind nowadays, is that it drives one still deeper in on one's self, — and thus, in another way, into the "life of the world."

It has sometimes struck me with trepidation that we might miss the one great chance given us by the new opportunities for culture in this century. A greater advance in acquiring mastery over nature has taken place in the last hundred years, than in all the previous hundreds of thousands in which we reckon up the story of the human race. Yet this advance may be transient and pass over and be forgotten, and we may lose the point of it all, unless we avail ourselves of it for the sake of higher forms of culture. We are putting it to "outside" uses, adding to the "objective" life, getting more of the "world," than ever before. In spite of all this extraordinary advance we are forced to think that men may have actually less soul now than they did in the days of Socrates.

You can cultivate both mind and body, and not at the same time cultivate the soul. You may have missed the self of the selves, neglected it and let it die away, while you are alive still in the mind and the body. The enthusiasm of the day is for the welldeveloped physique or the well-trained mind. Intel

lectual culture is at its highest. Religious belief, too, is not wanting; in fact, it seems stronger than ever. Stupendous sums are being expended for the spread of these beliefs, greater in amount than perhaps at any time in the past. This is true also of educational institutions. The intellectual and the spiritual side is theoretically believed in. But when it comes to the practical lives and ambitions of the people, the materialistic side is in the ascendancy as probably only once or twice before in human history. This is the anomaly.

An impression exists that "evolution" will take care of this; that "progress" is inevitable in every sphere; that "Nature" will bring it out right. But is that true?

I must remind you of one very solemn fact. What has been millions on millions of years developing, is far more liable to be preserved or looked after through the mere laws of nature, than what is of recent appearance. The laws of your physical organism began eons ago, untold ages before the human race ever existed on the face of the earth. They had their start with the first protoplasm which marked the dawn of life. The same law which has evolved all animate or sentient existence will tend of itself

to develop body and mind. Though you or I may neglect this phase, it will not be neglected by nature itself. The physical nature to which we belong will tend to take care of this form of culture; because the preservation of life or the struggle for existence requires it. One or two generations may ignore it and pay the penalty. But those races will survive which do not ignore it. You cannot undo in one

century the laws or tendencies which have required hundreds or thousands of centuries in which to become fixed or established.

But this something we call the soul or spirit, the thing which appears to separate our order from all other orders of existence, by which one man is even superior to another man, and by which instinctively we judge true superiority, — this is of late appearance. We cannot look back over hundreds of millions of years during which it was becoming fixed in its existence. It would seem to have been like a chance offshoot, one of those "spontaneous variations" talked about in biological science.

It is not true that this higher something in ourselves is essential in the struggle for existence. In fact, it is debatable whether the soul or spirit, as we now interpret it, really helps in the mere preservation of life. At times, as Huxley has intimated, this other peculiar something with which we are endowed, would seem to set us in opposition to the very laws of evolution. It encourages us to care for the weak and struggling, for those who may have great souls but are endowed with frail, unsubstantial bodies. Nature raises a voice of warning and says: "Stop right there; this individual is not wanted, he will defeat my purposes; he is unsuited to physical life." And yet we deny that very demand of Nature and set ourselves against it. Why? Because this chance offshoot, this peculiar variation we call the soul or spirit, seems to us higher than body or mind, and because in such instances it may be so unusually developed that we think ourselves authorized to defy even the laws of nature in order to preserve it.