Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
Such an autocosm is the shirt of Nessus. Hercules must tear it off or perish. And we are all the time changing our autocosms. That is the meaning of experience. Only the fool dies in the same cosmos in which he was born, and a great teacher or a great statesman changes the autocosm of his generation.
Here be the true weavings with which Time’s Shuttle is busy, these endless patternings and re-patternings of mental worlds, adjusted to ever-changing creatures, and ever-shifting circumstances. The birth and death of planets is stability compared with this mercurial flux, which in the human world is known as movements of thought and religion, growths and decays of language, periods of art and politics. History is the clash of autocosms, and every war is a war of the worlds.
As I walk into Milan Cathedral, the modern autocosm fades out with the buzz and tingle of the electric cars that engirdle the great old building, and the massive walls of the mediæval autocosm shut me into a glowing gloom of unearthly radiance, whose religious hush is accentuated by the sound of soft bells. Only the dominating figure on the cross seems out of tone; this blood is too violent for peace. What a paradox that the Christians are such dominant races—perhaps they needed this brake. But even without the blood, the cruciform dusk of the interior is in discord with the lace-work of the exterior, recalls the sombreness below the glittering Renaissance. All this multitudinous microscopic work is waste, all this wealth of fretwork and final, for it is only at a distance, when the details have faded into the mass, that this mass appears noble. And this, too, is like the Catholic autocosm, with its rococo detail and its massive magnificence.
And round the Cathedral, as I said, rages the modern order—is not Milan the metropolis of Italian science and do not all tram-roads lead to the Piazza del Duomo?—and a ballet I saw in La Scala danced the carmagnole of the new world. “Excelsior” was its jubilant motto, the ascent being from Cathedrals to Railway Bridges and Balloons. A Shining Spirit of Light (Luce) inspired Civiltà and baffled the priestly powers of darkness (Tenebre), while ineffably glittering coryphées proclaimed with their toes “Eureka!”
But ah! my dear Corybants of Reason, an autocosm may be habitable and even comfortable in despite of Science. Its working value is independent of its containing false materials, or true materials in false proportions. And yet, my dear devotees of Pragmatism—that parvenu among Philosophies—its utility does not establish its truth. A false coin will do all the work of a true coin so long as it is not found out. Nevertheless there exists a test of coins independent of their power of gulling the public. And there exists a name for those who continue to circulate a coin after they know it to be false. The Pragmatist may apply his philosophy to justify past forms of belief and action, now outmoded, but he will do infinite mischief if he tries to juggle himself or the world into such forms of belief or action because they lead to spiritual and practical satisfactions.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave
When first we practise to believe!
Nay, it is doubtful whether satisfaction can come as the sequel of any but a genuine and involuntary belief. There is much significance in the story of the old Welsh lady who desired the removal of the mountain in front of her window and complained to her pastor that all her prayers had been unable to move it a single inch. “Because you have not real faith,” was the glib clerical reply. Whereupon, resolved to have “real faith,” the old lady spent a night of prayer on her knees opposite the mountain. When morning came, and she rolled up the blind, lo! the mountain stood as before. “There!” she exclaimed. “Just as I expected!”