The Angel in the Cloud

by Edwin W. Fuller

Your dive into the heart yields folly’s fruit;
The selfish theory, carried to its end,
Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world.
And strong it is in seeming; for the self,
In human conduct, plays important part.
But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims
The quality of every action’s worth.
’Tis true that Man exists in self alone,
And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True,
An instinct teaches to avoid the one,
And seek the other; true, that every act,
How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain.
Yet thousand deeds are done without regard
To one or other, or effect on Self.
Howe’er an action may affect the Self,
If he that acts has not a thought of it,
The action is not selfish. You appeal
To Man, and so will I appeal to you.
You find a helpless brute, with broken limb,
Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain.
Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give,
And to neglect will cause remorseful pain,
Is there a single thought of this, when you,
With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise,
And hold the grateful water to its mouth?
Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain?
Is not the Self first found, when on your way
You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done?
And while you think with pleasure on the deed,
Would you not feel despised in your own eyes,
If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self?
But should you say that Self was thus concealed,
And still evoked the deed, the argument
The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed
Had other source.
In all, you thus mistake
The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source.
God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good
Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain.
But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said,
And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield.
Here, then, your system contradicts itself;
All actions emanate from love of Self,
To find the highest pleasure for that Self;
And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search;
What good soe’er apparently is sought,
The consciousness of selfish aims destroys.
And here is wisdom manifest. When Self
Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self,
The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks
The good alone, true pleasure is conferred.
I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh;
For pleasure to the sense, to be attained
Is sought; these two are mingled intricate
(And hard to separate), in thousand ways.
But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good,
It must forget the Self. In every case
You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought,
For pleasure will not come at call of Self.
Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends;
Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought,
Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought.
His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,
Can not proceed from any love of Self,
For Self would suffer, when it knew their source;
But as he acts from love of good as good,
The Self is happy. When he ascertains
That some have died in sin through his neglect,
The Self is grieved, not that it was uncared,
For care of Self would not allay the pain,
But that a duty had not been performed;
That good had been neglected, as a good.
The gambler’s object may be highest good
For Self, according to his estimate;
The preacher seeks a good, but not for Self;
When Self appears, the good to evil turns.
Nor is the mystic selfish in his cave,
Save that he buries talents in himself,
That might avail for good to other men;
But all his mind is bent on pleasing God,
His only thought of Self is for its pain;
And this he deems acceptable to Heaven.
You can not judge by your analysis,
But by what passes in the actor’s mind.
One surely then could not be selfish termed,
Who only lived to mortify the Self,
Howe’er mistaken may his conduct be.
Nor is the man, who gives his wealth away,
If from right principles he gives. ’Tis true,
He finds a pleasure in the deed when done,
But if to gain that pleasure he has given,
It turns to gall and wormwood in his grasp.
If two men matches light, and know full well,
If one is dropped, a house will be consumed,
He is the most guilty that allows its fall.
The miser, then, who knows he does a wrong,
Is by that knowledge rendered criminal.
“The quality of actions must be judged”
From their intents, that often differ wide;
The man who shoots his friend by accident
Has no intent, and therefore does no wrong;
But he who murders does a score of wrongs,—
A score of basest motives prompt the deed,
All centred in the Self. The Christian’s work
Must, from its very nature, have no Self,
Or it becomes unchristian. Man can judge,
Not from effect, but motives ascertained
By inference, and experience. The law
Is formed hereon, and modified by years.
Time teaches men that punishment will stop,
And only punishment, the spread of crime.
Instinct and Nature’s order teaches you
That pain must follow wrong. A man commits
A crime; if left unpunished, he repeats;
And others, seeing his security,
Will do as he has done. So all mankind
Would hasten on to lawlessness and ruin.
But law, for real wrong inflicts a wrong,
Which would be just did it no farther go;
But it is proved expedient, inasmuch
As it prevents continued crime. Then death
By law can not be murder termed, since good
In aim and end, without malicious thought.
Thus good to many flows from wrong to one
(If that may wrong be termed that takes the rights
By conduct forfeited), who should receive,
Though none reaped benefit. For many’s good,
The law is made, yet never does a wrong
To individuals, unless deserved.

Throughout your reas’ning, like all Earthly minds,
When dataless, essaying hidden truths,
You wander blindly in conjecture’s field,
And if you find the truth, it is a chance.
You fain would raise a stone of skepticism,
By granting souls immortal unto beasts;
You prove your pointer must possess a soul,
And by your argument, the trees have souls;
For when an oak has fallen, every twig
May still be there, and something, life, be gone.
A chair, a table, anything you see,
Possesses something, not of any parts,
But that to which the parts are said, belong,
Then, one by one, take all the parts away,
The something called the table must exist,
For ’twas not in a part, nor is removed.

The mind of beasts exists but through their flesh,
And is developed subject to its laws,
And flesh is the condition of their life.
When flesh dissolves, the mind disintegrates,
And ceases to exist. Man feels within,
The consciousness of soul, that would survive
Though flesh were torn to shreds upon the wheel.
The parts of soul that live alone through flesh,
Must perish with it in the hour of death.

But having postulated Self, as source
Of human conduct, you compel the acts
To fit your theory. You change effect
For cause. Where’er a moral pleasure’s found,
You judge that for its gain the deed was done;
As if the pleasure could be gained by search!
That Self does enter largely into inner life
Is very plain, for everything affects,
In some way, Self; but does the mind regard
Effect, or is its object something else?
The appetites, affections, and desires,
You make of selfish origin, yet know
That is not selfish, which alone affects;
But acting with a reference to effect.
The appetites are instincts; as you breathe,
You hunger, thirst, in helplessness. Not Self,
But food or drink, the object of your thought.
And even while the taste is in your mouth,
The mind dwells on the taste, not on the Self.
Desires are partly selfish in their mode;
Desire of knowledge, seeking honor’s meed,
Is selfish; led by curiosity,
’Tis not more selfish than an appetite.
Desire of power, esteem, and wide-spread fame,
Is selfish, when the thought of their effect
On Self shapes out the conduct; when desired
For their own sake, unselfish.
On the list
Affections terminate, you falsely rail
The mother, and the lover; both sincere,
And both without a thought of selfish aim.
’Tis no reproach to say the mother’s love,
In fervid instinct, and development,
Is like the cow’s, that God in wisdom gives.
No love so pure as that which moves the cow
To hover round her young, to bear the blows
Impatient hunger deals the udder drained,
To smooth with loving tongue the tender coat,
Or meet the playful forehead with her own;
With threatening horn, to guard approach of harm;
And watch, with ceaseless care, the charge in sleep.
Her careful love continues, till the calf
Has grown beyond her need, and ceases then.
A mother loves because it is her child:
This is the surest reason you could give.
Th’ affection is spontaneous in her breast,
But fed and strengthened by his life, if good.
The opposites to love you named, affect
Her love, by not an injury done to Self,
But by their evil, which her soul abhors.
Her son’s antagonism’s not to her,
But to the good she loves. Her heart withdraws
Its twining tendrils from unworthiness.
As usual, you select supposed effects,
And then assume their causes. Could you see
The mother’s heart, you’d find the loss of love
Caused not by wrong to her, but wrong abstract
Developed in the concrete deeds of crime.
Her love is governed by a moral sense,
Or idea of the good; the people’s thought
About herself comes in as after-part.
Bad treatment to herself, although it pain,
Deals not a fatal blow to love, except
As showing lack of principle in him.
And so your lover is not hurt in Self,
But moral sense. The loved one’s perfidy,
And not her ridicule, beheads your love;
Her stunning words were playful pleasantry,
Did they not show the baseness of the heart.
Indeed, to turn your reasoning on yourself,
Her manner even towards you has not changed,
And were you present, she would still seem yours;
Her eaves-dropped words do not affect the Self,
Save as they show her falsity of heart.
And tossing on your pillow, through the night,
The crushing thought of wrecked integrity
Gives deeper pain than all her ridicule.
And Self, though pained at thought of being duped,
Enjoys relief in thought of its escape.
To show that Love is built on higher grounds
Than paltry good for Self; that it must have,
As corner-stone, a percept of the good,
Existing in the object loved, suppose
You’re on the topmost height of wildest love,
Your arm around her, and your lingering kiss
Upon her lips; and Self is king of love.
She, nestling on your shoulder, finds ’tis wrong,
That love, however true, may grow too warm;
That every kiss, however pure, abstracts
Some little part from maiden modesty,
And steals a pebble from her honor’s wall
And rising with the firm resolve, says, “Cease,
Unwind your arm, restrain your fervid lips;
It may be wrong, and right is surely safe!”
Now though the Self is bitterly denied,
The rapturous clasp and tender kiss forbid,
Is not your love increased a thousand-fold?
Do not you feel intensely gratified
At this assurance of her moral worth?
And would you, for the world, breath aught to cause
Her pain, or least regret for her resolve?
How firm your trust, how sweet your confidence!
You know ’twas not capricious prudery,
For your caresses had been oft received;
Nor was it sly hypocrisy to win
Your heart, for that was long since hers. No thought,
But spotless purity, inspired the act;
And you are happy, though the Self’s denied.

The little things of life, that men account
Without a moral value, may be done
With reference to Self; but oftenest,
The mind regards the act, not its effect
Upon the Self. The code of Etiquette,
The small amenities of social life,
The converse, and the articles of dress,
May all belong to Self; but moral acts,
Those known as right or wrong, have higher source
Than Self in any mode.
Within Man’s breast
There’s something, apprehending good and bad,
Called conscience, or the moral sense; it views,
Impartially, each act of his, decides
Its quality by rule of right and wrong;
All trust its judgments most implicitly.—
The good is found, yields greatest happiness;
Yet seek it for the sake of happiness,
And good is evil, with its misery!
The good must be pursued, because a good,
The evil shunned, because an evil. Thus,
The moral sense discerns these qualities
In others, and directs our love.
A blow
The deadliest to our love, would be a blow
Aimed at the principle of good. A love,
Existing through the injuries done to Self,
May meet the public’s praise, and feel its own;
But love would merit self-contempt, that loved
Whate’er opposed the good. The son may treat
The mother with unkindness, yet her love
Be undiminished; if he lie, or steal,
Her love is less; she cannot love his deed,
And cannot love the heart from which they flow
So with the youth who gives his chair to Age,
He does not so resent that Self’s denied
Its meed of thanks, as that ingratitude
Should thus be manifest, in little things.
A comrade, served the same, would anger cause.

But him who would give up the highest Self,
The soul, for others’ good, you deem a fool;
And ask why sacrifice ne’er claimed a soul?
Because the soul cannot be sacrificed;
No harm to that can others benefit.
But if it could, how truly grand the man
Who’d take eternal woe for fellow-men!
But God, who makes the soul the care of life,
Makes every soul stand for itself alone,
And in His wisdom hath ordained this law:
The greater good man gets for his own soul,
The greater good on others’ he confers,
While evil to himself, an evil gives.

Then comes the question of this abstract good,
That moral sense declares the end of life.
What is its nature? whence does it arise?
And whence does man derive the half-formed thought?
You have compared the systems that define,
Each in its way, the hidden theory.
None satisfy, though each some element
Sets forth in clear distinctness. Take them all,
Select the true of each, as Cousin does,
And will eclecticism satisfy?
And does the soul not cry for something more?
For something that it feels ’twill never reach,
The good, as known to minds unclogged with flesh?
Man takes the dim outlines of abstract thought,
And seeking to evolve their perfect form,
The very outlines grow more indistinct;
As gazing at a star will make it fade.
Man’s only forms of good are blent with flesh,
And when he seeks to take the flesh away,
And leave the abstract, he is thus confused,
As if he should withdraw the wick and oil,
And seek to find the flame still in the lamp.

To learn the source of ideas of the Good,
Trace Man collective, to his babyhood;
For ’mid the prejudice of full-grown thought,
The truth would be effectually concealed.
Through every people scattered o’er the globe,
There does prevail some idea of a God;
Though rude and barbarous this idea be,
It still, in some form, does exist. The good,
With all, bears reference to this thought;
And what this Deity approves is good,
And what He disapproves is bad. Men learn
What He approves, and what He disapproves,
By revelation, inference, and instinct.
God’s sanction then is origin of Good,
Though afterwards men learn the sweet effects,
And practise it for its own sake; and call
Their little effort, grandest abstract truth.
Developing in intellectual strength,
They plaster up this good in various forms,
Until, refined beyond all subtilty,
It seems to them a self-existent good.

The good is then a certain quality,
In actions, or existence, that assures
Divine approval. This vast idea, God,
Creation sows in every human heart;
All Nature’s grand designs demand a God,
A God intelligent. The same instinct
That tells His being, teaches what He loves;
And what He loves with every people’s good.
But different nations entertain ideas
Diverse in reference to a Deity,
And different notions of what pleases Him.
One deems the care of God’s child-gift her good;
Another tears the heart-strings from her babe,
And feeds, for good, the sacred crocodile.

The good lies in the thought of pleasing God:
The consciousness that God is pleased with us,
A pleasure yields, and good might there be sought
For pleasure’s sake, and prove a selfish aim;
But moral selfishness a pain imparts,
And good, for pleasure sought, defeats the search.