What Is Man? and Other Essays
personalities, each with authorities, jurisdictions, and
responsibilities of its own, and when he is in that condition I can’t
grasp it. Now when _I_ speak of a man, he is _the whole thing in one,
_and easy to hold and contemplate.
O.M. That is pleasant and convenient, if true. When you speak of “my
body” who is the “my”?
Y.M. It is the “me.”
O.M. The body is a property then, and the Me owns it. Who is the Me?
Y.M. The Me is _the whole thing; _it is a common property; an undivided
ownership, vested in the whole entity.
O.M. If the Me admires a rainbow, is it the whole Me that admires it,
including the hair, hands, heels, and all?
Y.M. Certainly not. It is my _mind _that admires it.
O.M. So _you _divide the Me yourself. Everybody does; everybody must.
What, then, definitely, is the Me?
Y.M. I think it must consist of just those two parts—the body and the
mind.
O.M. You think so? If you say “I believe the world is round,” who is
the “I” that is speaking?
Y.M. The mind.
O.M. If you say “I grieve for the loss of my father,” who is the “I”?
Y.M. The mind.
O.M. Is the mind exercising an intellectual function when it examines
and accepts the evidence that the world is round?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. Is it exercising an intellectual function when it grieves for the
loss of your father?
Y.M. That is not cerebration, brain-work, it is a matter of _feeling_.
O.M. Then its source is not in your mind, but in your _moral
_territory?
Y.M. I have to grant it.
O.M. Is your mind a part of your _physical _equipment?
Y.M. No. It is independent of it; it is spiritual.
O.M. Being spiritual, it cannot be affected by physical influences?
Y.M. No.
O.M. Does the mind remain sober with the body is drunk?
Y.M. Well—no.
O.M. There _is _a physical effect present, then?
Y.M. It looks like it.
O.M. A cracked skull has resulted in a crazy mind. Why should it happen
if the mind is spiritual, and _independent _of physical influences?
Y.M. Well—I don’t know.
O.M. When you have a pain in your foot, how do you know it?
Y.M. I feel it.
O.M. But you do not feel it until a nerve reports the hurt to the
brain. Yet the brain is the seat of the mind, is it not?
Y.M. I think so.
O.M. But isn’t spiritual enough to learn what is happening in the
outskirts without the help of the _physical _messenger? You perceive
that the question of who or what the Me is, is not a simple one at all.
You say “I admire the rainbow,” and “I believe the world is round,” and
in these cases we find that the Me is not speaking, but only the
_mental _part. You say, “I grieve,” and again the Me is not all
speaking, but only the _moral _part. You say the mind is wholly
spiritual; then you say “I have a pain” and find that this time the Me
is mental _and _spiritual combined. We all use the “I” in this
indeterminate fashion, there is no help for it. We imagine a Master and
King over what you call The Whole Thing, and we speak of him as “I,”
but when we try to define him we find we cannot do it. The intellect
and the feelings can act quite _independently _of each other; we
recognize that, and we look around for a Ruler who is master over both,
and can serve as a _definite and indisputable “I,” _and enable us to
know what we mean and who or what we are talking about when we use that
pronoun, but we have to give it up and confess that we cannot find him.
To me, Man is a machine, made up of many mechanisms, the moral and
mental ones acting automatically in accordance with the impulses of an
interior Master who is built out of born-temperament and an
accumulation of multitudinous outside influences and trainings; a
machine whose _one _function is to secure the spiritual contentment of
the Master, be his desires good or be they evil; a machine whose Will
is absolute and must be obeyed, and always _is _obeyed.
Y.M. Maybe the Me is the Soul?
O.M. Maybe it is. What is the Soul?
Y.M. I don’t know.
O.M. Neither does any one else.
_The Master Passion_
Y.M. What is the Master?—or, in common speech, the Conscience? Explain
it.
O.M. It is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which compels the
man to content its desires. It may be called the Master Passion—the
hunger for Self-Approval.
Y.M. Where is its seat?
O.M. In man’s moral constitution.
Y.M. Are its commands for the man’s good?
O.M. It is indifferent to the man’s good; it never concerns itself
about anything but the satisfying of its own desires. It can be
_trained _to prefer things which will be for the man’s good, but it
will prefer them only because they will content _it _better than other
things would.
Y.M. Then even when it is trained to high ideals it is still looking
out for its own contentment, and not for the man’s good.
O.M. True. Trained or untrained, it cares nothing for the man’s good,
and never concerns itself about it.
Y.M. It seems to be an _immoral _force seated in the man’s moral
constitution.
O.M. It is a _colorless _force seated in the man’s moral constitution.
Let us call it an instinct—a blind, unreasoning instinct, which cannot
and does not distinguish between good morals and bad ones, and cares
nothing for results to the man provided its own contentment be secured;
and it will _always _secure that.
Y.M. It seeks money, and it probably considers that that is an
advantage for the man?
O.M. It is not always seeking money, it is not always seeking power,
nor office, nor any other _material _advantage. In _all _cases it seeks
a _spiritual _contentment, let the _means _be what they may. Its
desires are determined by the man’s temperament—and it is lord over
that. Temperament, Conscience, Susceptibility, Spiritual Appetite, are,
in fact, the same thing. Have you ever heard of a person who cared
nothing for money?
Y.M. Yes. A scholar who would not leave his garret and his books to
take a place in a business house at a large salary.
O.M. He had to satisfy his master—that is to say, his temperament, his
Spiritual Appetite—and it preferred books to money. Are there other
cases?
Y.M. Yes, the hermit.
O.M. It is a good instance. The hermit endures solitude, hunger, cold,
and manifold perils, to content his autocrat, who prefers these things,
and prayer and contemplation, to money or to any show or luxury that
money can buy. Are there others?
Y.M. Yes. The artist, the poet, the scientist.
O.M. Their autocrat prefers the deep pleasures of these occupations,
either well paid or ill paid, to any others in the market, at any
price. You _realize _that the Master Passion—the contentment of the
spirit—concerns itself with many things besides so-called material
advantage, material prosperity, cash, and all that?
Y.M. I think I must concede it.
O.M. I believe you must. There are perhaps as many Temperaments that
would refuse the burdens and vexations and distinctions of public
office as there are that hunger after them. The one set of Temperaments
seek the contentment of the spirit, and that alone; and this is exactly
the case with the other set. Neither set seeks anything _but _the
contentment of the spirit. If the one is sordid, both are sordid; and
equally so, since the end in view is precisely the same in both cases.
And in both cases Temperament decides the preference—and Temperament is
_born_, not made.
_Conclusion_
O.M. You have been taking a holiday?
Y.M. Yes; a mountain tramp covering a week. Are you ready to talk?
O.M. Quite ready. What shall we begin with?
Y.M. Well, lying abed resting up, two days and nights, I have thought
over all these talks, and passed them carefully in review. With this
result: that... that... are you intending to publish your notions about
Man some day?
O.M. Now and then, in these past twenty years, the Master inside of me
has half-intended to order me to set them to paper and publish them. Do
I have to tell you why the order has remained unissued, or can you
explain so simple a thing without my help?
Y.M. By your doctrine, it is simplicity itself: outside influences
moved your interior Master to give the order; stronger outside
influences deterred him. Without the outside influences, neither of
these impulses could ever have been born, since a person’s brain is
incapable or originating an idea within itself.
O.M. Correct. Go on.
Y.M. The matter of publishing or withholding is still in your Master’s
hands. If some day an outside influence shall determine him to publish,
he will give the order, and it will be obeyed.
O.M. That is correct. Well?
Y.M. Upon reflection I have arrived at the conviction that the
publication of your doctrines would be harmful. Do you pardon me?
O.M. Pardon _you_? You have done nothing. You are an instrument—a
speaking-trumpet. Speaking-trumpets are not responsible for what is
said through them. Outside influences—in the form of lifelong
teachings, trainings, notions, prejudices, and other second-hand
importations—have persuaded the Master within you that the publication
of these doctrines would be harmful. Very well, this is quite natural,
and was to be expected; in fact, was inevitable. Go on; for the sake of
ease and convenience, stick to habit: speak in the first person, and
tell me what your Master thinks about it.
Y.M. Well, to begin: it is a desolating doctrine; it is not inspiring,
enthusing, uplifting. It takes the glory out of man, it takes the pride
out of him, it takes the heroism out of him, it denies him all personal
credit, all applause; it not only degrades him to a machine, but allows
him no control over the machine; makes a mere coffee-mill of him, and
neither permits him to supply the coffee nor turn the crank, his sole
and piteously humble function being to grind coarse or fine, according
to his make, outside impulses doing the rest.
O.M. It is correctly stated. Tell me—what do men admire most in each
other?
Y.M. Intellect, courage, majesty of build, beauty of countenance,
charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness, heroism, and—and—
O.M. I would not go any further. These are _elementals_. Virtue,
fortitude, holiness, truthfulness, loyalty, high ideals—these, and all
the related qualities that are named in the dictionary, are _made of
the elementals, _by blendings, combinations, and shadings of the
elementals, just as one makes green by blending blue and yellow, and
makes several shades and tints of red by modifying the elemental red.
There are several elemental colors; they are all in the rainbow; out of
them we manufacture and name fifty shades of them. You have named the
elementals of the human rainbow, and also one _blend _—heroism, which
is made out of courage and magnanimity. Very well, then; which of these
elements does the possessor of it manufacture for himself? Is it
intellect?
Y.M. No.
O.M. Why?
Y.M. He is born with it.
O.M. Is it courage?
Y.M. No. He is born with it.
O.M. Is it majesty of build, beauty of countenance?
Y.M. No. They are birthrights.
O.M. Take those others—the elemental moral qualities—charity,
benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness; fruitful seeds, out of which
spring, through cultivation by outside influences, all the manifold
blends and combinations of virtues named in the dictionaries: does man
manufacture any of those seeds, or are they all born in him?
Y.M. Born in him.
O.M. Who manufactures them, then?
Y.M. God.
O.M. Where does the credit of it belong?
Y.M. To God.
O.M. And the glory of which you spoke, and the applause?
Y.M. To God.
O.M. Then it is _you _who degrade man. You make him claim glory,
praise, flattery, for every valuable thing he possesses—_borrowed
_finery, the whole of it; no rag of it earned by himself, not a detail
of it produced by his own labor. _You _make man a humbug; have I done