The italics are mine. Why will men rely more upon written words than upon the flashes of illuminated truth that come to their own souls? God and His truth are as much for me as for any man. There is as much truth, wisdom, knowledge in the universe for me as for all the wise and learned of all the ages. It is outside of me, waiting to come in, anxious to come in if I will allow it to do so, and yet I allow a Board of Bishops, a College of Medicine, a Bench of Judges to dictate to me as to what of God and His truth I shall receive. While it is my duty and privilege to study reverently all which these people would present to me as the truth, I want to radiate with all the power of my nature my belief that every soul must find truth for itself. There is no patent truth extractor that suits every human need. Conventional thought which professes to express "the truth" is merely man's sign-board to point out to you the way some one else has found truth. Too often, alas, it is used as a restricting bond to tell you beyond which bounds you must not go. Let no man bind you. God is over all and in all. His truth is everywhere. Seek in spirit and in truth and you will find,—for yourself. But be careful, when you have found for yourself, that you do not make the common mistake of most human beings, and endeavor to force your truth, appropriate and suitable for you, down the mental and spiritual throats of every one else as the appropriate and suitable truth for them. Leave to every other soul the right, the privilege, the joy, the necessity of finding truth for himself, herself. Tell what you have found, if you like, but tell it reverently, as a gift to you, not as a divine light for every one else.
This, therefore, is the individuality I would radiate. I would have the Hindoo, the Hottentot, the Hopi, the Roman Catholic, the Mormon, the Chinaman, the Methodist all feel that I revere and respect their individuality even as I revere and respect my own. But, further—and here is the important thing—I would so radiate that they will respect and revere mine as I respect theirs. When the Methodist says either in words or acts, "I am a Methodist and therefore you should be one," he violates the law of individuality as of moral freedom. So with the Hopi, the Catholic, the Hindoo.
I would have it clear, therefore, that individualism is not "toleration." What is there in my exercise of a God-given right and duty to be myself that should call for the assumption of my fellow being that HE will "tolerate" these rights? Therefore, I do not want to be "tolerant" to my fellows. I would radiate the individualism which goes ahead and thinks and acts according to the dictates of personal conscience. It is all very well to say that we should learn from the combined wisdom of the ages. I am not so sure of much of it, after all! I accept the astronomy of to-day, but by no means believe our astronomers have said the last word, any more than I believe that the great and humble Newton said the last word when he declared that man had gained the summit in the art of telescope making. Just four years after he made that foolish assertion John Dolland invented the achromatic telescope which has revolutionized the astronomical science of the world by adding infinitely to the astronomer's seeing power.
Nothing in human life is yet complete. There is no absolute truth carried out to its ultimate. When numbers were first discovered our forefathers thought they had gone as far as it was possible, in discovering that two and two make four. Then geometry was discovered and Euclid changed the arithmetic of the world, and the teachers said we had gone as far as it was possible. Then algebra was discovered and the world found out the teachers were wrong in limiting the science of arithmetic. Yet foolish people would not learn from the folly of the past. They wisely and sagely declared that now, at last, the ultimate had been reached. But Newton comes along and with his "Calculus" opens up new worlds in arithmetical science. NOW we have got it all, declares the teacher of fixed truth. Yet in the year of Our Lord, one thousand nineteen hundred and six, there comes a Japanese, and in his Handbook of Chess demonstrates as great an advance in arithmetical science as Newton did in his Calculus. We are yet children. We shall ever be learning so long as we are human. The knowledge we have so far gained is vast, apparently, when compared with the knowledge held in the Dark Ages, but, as compared with what there is yet stored away for us to know, I verily believe it is so insignificant, so slight, so small, so puny, so infinitesimal, as to excite the pity and the contempt of any superior beings who look down upon us and see us strutting in our doctor's mortar-boards and gowns in our assumed wisdom.
God forbid that any arrogant pretension of mine should ever prevent one truth from entering a human soul. I want to radiate my acceptance of all there is, but my expectance for the large more that is yet to come.
CHAPTER VI
CONFLICTING RADIANCIES