"Frank," said I, "you beat anything I've seen yet. You stand absolutely to my mind as an illustration of 'Before Taking' and 'After Taking.' Now in the name of reason tell me what it was you Took!"
"I took a new grip on Life—that's the whole answer. But you want to know the steps, and I'll tell you. The new stage of ethical perception we are in now—or, as you would probably say, this new religion—presents itself to me in this way:
"The business of the universe about us consists in the Transmission of Energy. Some of it is temporarily and partially arrested in material compositions; some is more actively expressed in vegetable and animal form; this stage of expression we call Life. We ourselves, the human animals, were specially adapted for high efficiency in storing and transmitting this energy; and so were able to enter into a combination still more efficient; that is, into social relations. Humanity, man in social relation, is the best expression of the Energy that we know. This Energy is what the human mind has been conscious of ever since it was conscious at all; and calls God. The relation between this God and this Humanity is in reality a very simple one. In common with all other life forms, the human being must express itself in normal functioning. Because of its special faculty of consciousness, this human engine can feel, see, think, about the power within it; and can use it more fully and wisely. All it has to learn is the right expression of its degree of life-force, of Social Energy." He beamed at me. "I think it's about all there, John."
"You may be a very good Professor of Ethics for these new-made minds, but you don't reach the old kind—not a little bit. To my mind you haven't said anything—yet."
He seemed a little disappointed, but took it mildly. "Perhaps I am a little out of touch. Wait a moment—let me go back and try to take up the old attitude."
He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. I saw an expression of pain slowly grow and deepen on his face; and suddenly realized what he was doing.
"Oh, never mind, Frank; don't do it; don't try. I'll catch on somehow."
He seemed not to hear me; but dropped his face in his hands. When he raised it was clear again. "Now I can make things clearer perhaps," he said. "We had in our minds thirty years ago a strange hodge-podge of old and new ideas. What was called God was still largely patterned after the old tribal deity of the Hebrews. Our ideas of 'Sin' were still mostly of the nature of disobedience—wrong only because we were told not to do it. Sin as a personal offense against Somebody, and Somebody very much offended; that was it. We were beginning to see something of Social values, too, but not clearly. Our progress was in what we called 'The natural sciences'; and we did not think with the part of our minds wherein we stored religion. Yet there was very great activity and progress in religious thought; the whole field was in motion; the new churches widening and growing in every direction; the older ones holding on like grim death, trying not to change, and changing in spite of themselves; and Ethics being taught indeed, but with no satisfying basis. That's the kind of atmosphere you and I grew up in, John. Now here was I, an ill-assorted team of impulses and characteristics, prejudiced against religion, ignorant of real ethics, and generally going to the devil—as we used to call it! You know how far down I went—or something of it."
"Don't speak of it, Frank!" I said. "That was long ago; forget it, old man!" But he turned toward me a smile of triumph.
"Forget it! I wouldn't forget one step of it if I could! Why, John, it's because of my intimate knowledge of these down-going steps that I can help other people up them!"