§ 3
He paused. Dr. Barrack cleared his throat.
“I don’t want to seem obdurate,” said Dr. Barrack. “I want to respect deep feeling. One must respect deep feeling.... But for the life of me I can’t put much meaning into this phrase, the spirit of God in the hearts of men. It’s rather against my habits to worry a patient, but this is so interesting—this is an exceptional occasion. I would like to ask you, Mr. Huss—frankly—is there anything very much more to it, than a phrase?”
There was no answer.
“Words,” said Mr. Dad; “joost words. If Mr. Huss had ever spent three months of war time running a big engineering factory—”
“My mind is a sceptical mind,” Dr. Barrack went on, after staring a moment to see if Mr. Dad meant to finish his sentence. “I want things I can feel and handle. I am an Agnostic by nature and habit and profession. A Doubting Thomas, born and bred. Well, I take it that about the universe Mr. Huss is very much of an Agnostic too. More so. He doubts more than I do. He doubts whether there is any trace of plan or purpose in it. What I call a Process, he calls a windy desolation. He sees Chaos still waiting for a creator. But then he sets up against that this undying fire of his, this spirit of God, which is lit in him and only waiting to be lighted in us, a sort of insurgent apprentice creator. Well—”
The doctor frowned and meditated on his words.
“I want more of the practical outcome of this fire. I admit a certain poetry in the idea, but I am a plain and practical man. Give me something to know this fire by and to recognize it again when I see it. I won’t ask why ‘undying.’ I won’t quibble about that. But what does this undying fire mean in actual things and our daily life? In some way it is mixed up with teaching history in schools.” A faint note of derision made him glance at the face to his right. “That doesn’t strike me as being so queer as it seems to strike Mr. Farr. It interests me. There is a cause for it. But I think there are several links Mr. Huss hasn’t shown and several vital points he still has to explain. This undying fire is something that is burning in Mr. Huss, and I gather from his pretty broad hints it ought, he thinks, to be burning in me—and you, gentlemen. It is something that makes us forget our little personal differences, makes us forget ourselves, and brings us all into line against—what. That’s my first point;—against what? I don’t see the force and value of this line-up. I think we struggle against one another by nature and necessity; that we polish one another in the struggle and sharpen our edges. I think that out of this struggle for existence comes better things and better. They may not be better things by our standards now, but by the standards of the Process, they are. Sometimes the mills of the Process may seem overpoweringly grim and high and pitiless; that is a question of scale. But Mr. Huss does not believe in the struggle. He wants to take men’s minds and teach them so that they will not struggle against each other but live and work all together. For what? That is my second point;—for what? There is a rationality in my idea of an everlasting struggle making incessantly for betterment, such an idea does at any rate give a direction and take us somewhere; but there is no rationality in declaring we are still fighting and fighting more than ever, while in effect we are arranging to stop that struggle which carries life on—if we can—if we can. That is the paradox of Mr. Huss. When there is neither competition at home nor war abroad, when the cat and the bird have come to a satisfactory understanding, when the spirit of his human God rules even in the jungle and the sea, then where shall we be heading? Time will be still unfolding. But man will have halted. If he has ceased to compete individually he will have halted. Mr. Huss looks at me as if he thought I wronged him in saying that. Well, then he must answer my questions; what will the Human God be leading us against, and what shall we be living for?”