The Nature of Goodness

by George Herbert Palmer

THE THREE STAGES OF GOODNESS

I

Such is the mighty argument conducted through several centuries in behalf of nature against spirit as a director of conduct. I have stated it at length both because of its own importance and because it is in seeming conflict with the results of my early chapters. But those results stand fast. They were reached with care. To reject them would be to obliterate all distinction between persons and things. Self-consciousness is the indisputable prerogative of persons. Only so far as we possess it and apply it in action do we rise above the impersonal world around. And even if we admit the contention in behalf of nature as substantially sound, we are not obliged to accept it as complete. It may be that neither nature nor spirit can be dispensed with in the supply of human needs. Each may have its characteristic office; for though in the last chapter I have been setting forth the superiorities of natural guidance, in spiritual guidance there are advantages too, advantages of an even more fundamental kind. Let us see what they are.

They may be summarily stated in a single sentence: consciousness alone gives fresh initiative. Disturbing as the influence of consciousness confessedly is, on its employment depends every possibility of progress. Natural action is regular, constant, conformed to a pattern. In the natural world event follows event in a fixed order, Under the same conditions the same result appears an indefinite number of times. The most objectionable form of this rigidity is found in mechanism. I sometimes hear ladies talking about "real lace" and am on such occasions inclined to speak of my real boots. They mean, I find, not lace that is the reverse of ghostly, but simply that which bears the impress of personality. It is lace which is made by hand and shows the marks of hand work. Little irregularities are in it, contrasting it with the machine sort, where every piece is identical with every other piece. It might be more accurately called personal lace. The machine kind is no less real—unfortunately—but mechanism is hopelessly dull, says the same thing day after day, and never can say anything else.

Now though this coarse form of monotonous process nowhere appears in what we call the world of nature, a restriction substantially similar does; for natural objects vary slowly and within the narrowest limits. Outside such orderly variations, they are subjected to external and distorting agencies effecting changes in them regardless of their gains. Branches of trees have their wayward and subtle curvatures, and are anything but mechanical in outline. But none the less are they helpless, unprogressive, and incapable of learning. The forces which play upon them, being various, leave a truly varied record. But each of these forces was an invariable one, and their several influences cannot be sorted, judged, and selected by the tree with reference to its future growth. Criticism and choice have no place here, and accordingly anything like improvement from year to year is impossible.

The case of us human beings would be the same if we were altogether managed by the sure, swift, and easy forces of nature. Progress would cease. We should move on our humdrum round as fixedly constituted, as submissive to external influence, and with as little exertion of intelligence as the dumb objects we behold. Every power within us would be actual, displayed in its full extent, and involving no variety of future possibility. We should live altogether in the present, and no changes would be imagined or sought. From this dull routine we are saved by the admixture of consciousness. For a gain so great we may well be ready to encounter those difficulties of conscious guidance which my last chapter detailed. Let the process of advance be inaccurate, slow, and severe, so only there be advance. For progress no cost is too great. I am sometimes inclined to congratulate those who are acute sufferers through self-consciousness, because to them the door of the future is open. The instinctive, uncritical person, who takes life about as it comes, and with ready acceptance responds promptly to every suggestion that calls, may be as popular as the sunshine, but he is as incapable of further advance. Except in attractiveness, such a one is usually in later life about what he was in youth; for progress is a product of forecasting intelligence. When any new creation is to be introduced, only consciousness can prepare its path.

Evidently, then, there are strong advantages in guidance through the spirit. But natural guidance has advantages no less genuine. Human life is a complex and demanding affair, requiring for its ever- enlarging good whatever strength can be summoned from every side. Probably we must abandon that magnificent conception of our ancestors, that spirit is all in all and nature unimportant. But must we, in deference to the temper of our time, eliminate conscious guidance altogether? May not the disparagement of recent ages have arisen in reaction against attempts to push conscious guidance into regions where it is unsuitable? Conceivably the two agencies may be supplementary. Possibly we may call on our fellow of the natural world for aid in spiritual work. The complete ideal, at any rate, of good conduct unites the swiftness, certainty, and ease of natural action with the selective progressiveness of spiritual. Till such a combination is found, either conduct will be insignificant or great distress of self-consciousness will be incurred. Both of these evils will be avoided if nature can be persuaded to do the work which we clearly intend. That is what goodness calls on us to effect. To showing the steps through which it may be reached the remainder of this chapter will be given.

II

Let us, then, take a case of action where we are trying to create a new power, to develop ourselves in some direction in which we have not hitherto gone. For such an undertaking consciousness is needed, but let us see how far we are able to hand over its work to unconsciousness. Suppose, when entirely ignorant of music, I decide to learn to play the piano. Evidently it will require the minutest watchfulness. Approaching the strange instrument with some uneasiness, I try to secure exactly that position on the stool which will allow my arms their proper range along the keyboard. There is difficulty in getting my sheet of music to stand as it should. When it is adjusted, I examine it anxiously. What is that little mark? Probably the note C. Among these curious keys there must also be a C. I look up and down. There it is! But can I bring my finger down upon it at just the right angle? That is accomplished, and gradually note after note is captured, until I have conquered the entire score. If now during my laborious performance a friend enters the room, he might well say, "I do not like spiritual music. Give me the natural kind which is not consciously directed." But let him return three years later. He will find me sitting at the piano quite at my ease, tossing off notes by the unregarded handful. He approaches and enters into conversation with me. I do not cease my playing; but as I talk, I still keep my mind free enough to observe the swaying boughs outside the window and to enjoy the fragrance of the flowers which my friend has brought. The musical phrases which drop from my fingers appear to regulate themselves and to call for little conscious regard.

Yet if my friend should try to show me how mistaken I had been in the past, attempting to manage consciously what should have been left to nature, if he should eulogize my natural action now and contrast it with my former awkwardness, he would plainly be in error. My present naturalness is the result of long spiritual endeavor, and cannot be had on cheaper terms; and the unconsciousness which is now noticeable in me is not the same thing as that which was with me when I began to play. It is true the incidental hardships connected with my first attack on the piano have ceased. I find myself in possession of a new and seemingly unconscious power. An automatic train of movements has been constructed which I now direct as a whole, its parts no longer requiring special volitional prompting. But I still direct it, only that a larger unit has been constituted for consciousness to act upon. The naturalness which thus becomes possible is accordingly of an altogether new sort; and since the result is a completer expression of conscious intention, it may as truly be called spiritual as natural.