This ‘immediate’ psychology is descending from the mountain tops, and laying siege to the humblest of valleys; and even in the most mediocre of writings is its presence to be felt. And indeed, than this, nothing could prove more clearly that the pressure of the soul has increased among mankind, and that its mysterious influence is diffusing itself among the people. But we are now drawing near to things that are well-nigh unspeakable, and such examples as one can give are necessarily ordinary and incomplete. The following are elementary and readily appreciable. In former days, if there was question, for a moment, of a presentiment, of the strange impression produced by a chance meeting or a look, of a decision that the unknown side of human reason had governed, of an intervention, or a force, inexplicable and yet understood, of the secret laws of sympathy and antipathy, of elective and instinctive affinities, of the overwhelming influence of the thing that had not been spoken—in former days, these problems would have been carelessly passed by, and, besides, it was but seldom that they intruded themselves upon the serenity of the thinker. They seemed to come about by the merest chance. That they are ever pressing upon life, unceasingly and with prodigious force—this was unsuspected of all—and the philosopher hastened back to familiar studies of passion, and of incident that floated on the surface.
These spiritual phenomena, to which, in bygone days, even the greatest and wisest of our brothers scarcely gave a thought, are to-day being earnestly studied by the very smallest; and herein are we shown once again that the human soul is a plant of matchless unity, whose branches, when the hour is come, all burst into blossom together. The peasant, to whom the power of expressing that which lies in his soul should suddenly be given, would at this moment pour forth ideas that were not yet in the soul of Racine. And thus it is that men of a genius much inferior to that of Shakespeare or Racine have yet had revealed to them glimpses of a secretly luminous life, whose outer crust, alone, had come within the ken of those masters. For, however great the soul, it avails not that it should wander in isolation through space or time. Unaided, it can do but little. It is the flower of the multitude. When the spiritual sea is storm-tossed, and its whole surface restless and troubled, then is the moment ripe for the mighty soul to appear; but if it come at time of slumber, its utterance will be but of the dreams of sleep. Hamlet—to take the most illustrious of all examples—Hamlet, at Elsinore—at every moment does he advance to the very brink of awakening; and yet, though his haggard face be damp with icy sweat, there are words that he cannot utter, words that to-day would doubtless flow readily from his lips, because the soul of the passer-by, be he tramp or thief, would be there to help him. For, in truth, it would seem that already there are fewer veils that enwrap the soul; and were Hamlet now to look into the eyes of his mother, or of Claudius, there would be revealed to him the things that, then, he did not know. Is it thoroughly clear to you—this is one of the strangest, most disquieting of truths—is it thoroughly clear to you that, if there be evil in your heart, your mere presence will probably proclaim it to-day a hundred times more clearly than would have been the case two or three centuries ago? Is it fully borne home to you that if you have perchance this morning done anything that shall have brought sadness to a single human being, the peasant, with whom you are about to talk of the rain or the storm, will know of it—his soul will have been warned even before his hand has thrown open the door? Though you assume the face of a saint, a hero or a martyr, the eye of the passing child will not greet you with the same unapproachable smile if there lurk within you an evil thought, an injustice, or a brother’s tears. A hundred years ago the soul of that child would perhaps have passed, unheeding, by the side of yours....
Truly it is becoming difficult to cherish hatred, envy, or treachery in one’s heart, secure from observation; for the souls even of the most indifferent are incessantly keeping vigil around us. Our ancestors have not spoken of these things, and we realise that the life in which we bestir ourselves is quite other than that which they have depicted. Have they deceived us, or did they not know? Signs and words no longer count for anything, and in mystic circles it is the mere presence that decides almost all.
Even the ancient ‘will-power’—the logical will-power that men have professed to understand so well—even this is being transformed in its turn, and moulded beneath the pressure of mighty, deep searching, inexplicable laws. The last refuges are disappearing, and men are drawing closer to each other. Far above words and acts do they judge their fellows—nay, far above thought—for that which they see, though they understand it not, lies well beyond the domain of thought. And this is one of the great signs by which the spiritual periods I spoke of before shall be known. It is felt on all sides that the conditions of work-a-day life are changing, and the youngest of us already differ entirely in speech and action from the men of the preceding generation. A mass of useless conventions, habits, pretences, and intermediaries are being swept into the gulf; and it is by the invisible alone that, though we know it not, nearly all of us judge each other. If I enter your room for the first time you will not pronounce the secret sentence that, according to the laws of practical psychology, each man pronounces in the presence of his fellow. In vain shall you try to tell me whither you have been to learn who I am, but you shall come back to me, bearing the weight of unspeakable certitudes. Your father, perhaps, would have judged me otherwise, and would have been mistaken. We can but believe that man will soon touch man, and that the atmosphere will change. ‘Have we,’ asks Claude de Saint-Martin, the great ‘unknown philosopher,’ ‘have we advanced one step further on the radiant path of enlightenment, that leads to the simplicity of men?’ Let us wait in silence: perhaps ere long we shall be conscious of ‘the murmur of the gods.’
THE PRE-DESTINED