Man, we say, is a gregarious animal, and it is certainly only the man of warped mind who seeks to cut himself off from his fellows: we are all of us spirits, and spirit seeks unity and approach. Love is the one uniting and binding force in the universe, just as its opposite—hatred—is the disintegrating element. Love operates in attraction, as we see it in motherhood, childhood, and the love of man and maid. But it also works on the grand scale in the guise of the law of Gravity which attracts and binds universes together, and regulates and controls the swing of inconceivable immensities. Look again and we may see love working as chemical affinity to attract molecule to molecule, or as cohesion to keep the very particles knit together in kinship.
It is this spirit of love that unites the myriad cells of our own body into the little commonwealth of self: when this life-force withdraws, the love ceases to bind, and immediately the "dead" body becomes infinitely alive, but the unity is at an end and decomposition has set in. So love is the fulfilling of the law: not merely "a" law, but the very fundamental law on which our continued existence hangs. Eliminate gravity, and the universe as we know it must come to an end in a catastrophe which it is beyond the power of our imagination to conceive. If cohesion ceased to be, then everything would fall to powder and would disintegrate. Destroy all love between man and man, and civilisation itself would fall to pieces. This is no question of dogma, gospel, or man-made law, it is simply a plain statement of the fundamental condition of our very existence. The importance of love is paramount, and if we are wise we shall seek to discover these overriding laws of our being, and adjust our lives in conformity with their requirements.
Spirit is love, and love manifests itself in service: the love that seeks its own ends, or strives to get instead of to serve, is no love at all. Therefore if Music is to express this spirit it must do so by contributing its meed of assistance to make this workaday world more bright by gladdening the heart of man. Quite obviously much of the music that is written has been composed with no such intent, therefore and to that extent it stultifies itself. It must be classed as the "sounding brass and tinkling cymbal" of the prophet. St. Paul's analysis of the reason of the ineffectiveness of such, too, is searchingly accurate: that, lacking charity, it signified nothing. Charity is only another synonym for that love which is the manifestation of spirit. The true musician has this spirit of love within him and it demands expression, and so we find Mozart exclaiming "I write because I cannot help it." So Granville Bantock, too—"The impulse to create Music is on me, and I write to gratify my impulse. When I have written the work I have done with it. What I do desire is to begin to enjoy myself by writing something else."[6] The musician sings because he must: he writes so that the spirit may find its outlet in that direction: or he plays, when only through his fingers and the instrument can he find that expression which his soul demands.
When Music is thus outpoured it speaks of spirit, and adds to the spiritual store of the world. It reinforces the unseen hosts that fight for spirit in the age-long struggle with the powers of materialism and darkness. No breath of spirit is ever lost, and nothing devoid of it is ever permanent, either in music or in anything else. Sounds without sense or meaning are futile, notes without a heartfelt message are "returned empty" as they were sent forth, and practice without purpose other than mere self-gratification, agility, or display, is a magnificent and glorious waste of time. But Music, when its true underlying purport is discovered, is at once an inspiration and a most real means of achieving that fundamental object, for which our very existence here at this present moment is devised, namely spiritual growth and development.
[Chapter IV]
SPIRIT A LIVING FACT
"Is Music the inarticulate
Speech of the Angels on earth?
Or a voice of the Undiscovered
Bringing great truths to the birth?"
F. W. Faber
Life is a diversity in unity, and the expression in countless different forms and shapes of the one fundamental reality, spirit. We ourselves are comprehended in this definition, being part of this fundamental spirit, and claiming thereby our divinity. Music also, as a part of life, is subject to the same explanation: and thus the spirit of Music is a real thing. The Muses of a Classical day typified this same idea of the spirit behind the form. Indeed man, spiritual as at base he is, can never rest finally satisfied with the outer semblance and form: just as the body craves sustenance, so does the spiritual part of him. No amount of physical satisfaction will ever allay the heart-hunger, and no flood of Rationalist thinking will ever put an end to the instinctive search after the Unknown God.
In spiritual law, as in natural law, nothing is ever lost. We study the physical, and by analogy we may learn much of the spiritual: we have not been left without guidance in the maze of life. But the first essential is that we should study those things which are open to us, and through them learn something of the wisdom that otherwise lies hidden. Nothing is lost: we see, as the hymn puts it, "change and decay," but the decay is only change of form, and death, in the form of extinction, simply does not exist. Even thoughts, transient and gossamer as they may appear, do their work in our brains and leave their permanent impress with us. Occultists further assure us that they are recorded in the eternal archives. It is said that there are the Akashic Records, in some subtle way which we cannot pretend to understand, imprinted in the ether. "This primary substance is of exquisite fineness and is so sensitive that the slightest vibration... registers an indelible impression upon it."[7] If this be so, then here is the story of all that has ever been, and all that is. In our own subconscious minds we know full well that there is such a perfect and complete record as to constitute an individual Judgment Book within of unimpeachable accuracy, and there seems to be nothing intrinsically unreasonable in the idea that there should be something of the kind on a world scale. Monumental histories of the traditional lost continent of Atlantis have been compiled, professedly from this source, and we find an interesting inkling of the same idea in the way in which objects will sometimes impress sensitive folk with their own history. Things sometimes have a "feel" about them, pleasant or the reverse, just as buildings acquire an aura and an atmosphere, sacred or convivial, or even unholy.