Yes, more than that; no thing—at least, no living thing—had ever been seen twice in exactly the same aspect by the same person. Not only did the object change from second to second, under the outward impulse of sun and wind and rain and the inner impulse of expanding cell, but the beholder himself was absolutely identical at no two moments. He might change his physical position, or be subject to any of the thousand mutations that sweep over the human spirit like waves of shadow over the wheat. Everything was in the state of flux. Becoming, not Being, was the order of all things. And more, each reacted not only upon its fellow, but upon everything else. The shifting of an atom affected every other atom in the universe. Withdraw a drop of water from the ocean, and there was immediate readjustment of all the waters that covered the earth. Withdraw a member from human society, or change him by ever so little—in health, so that he ate more; in stature, so that he wore more; in morals, so that he acted differently—and the whole fabric suffered modification. Nothing could be lost, nothing changed, without impairing in some sort the universal order. Nothing could be duplicated.
And so in the world of ideas. There was no item of truth not connected with and dependent upon all other truth. Let an individual idea in the ocean of a man's ideas suffer modification, and there was instant readjustment of all his other ideas, and of his emotions, and of his actions; and, under their impulse, of the actions, emotions, and ideas of all other individuals. Truth was one great, unified whole, never yet beheld, save in partial vision, by the human mind. To know one item in all its connections was to possess all knowledge. For the botanist who knew completely the flower, the mystery of the universe was solved.
What folly, then, to look for perfect pigeon-holing, when no two atoms could be found alike, to say nothing of the motions of the human spirit,
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream.
And what injustice and cruelty might it be guilty of, did its devotees become too rapt in their enthusiasm!
What injustice had they not been guilty of, in the past! What violence done to nature and to man! What forcings together and what tearings asunder! What attenuations and amputations on Procrustean beds! What heart-burnings they had caused, what hatred and what strife! What wars on sea and land, what slaughter, what laying waste, what famine, disease, and hardship, what bereavement, what languishings in prison, what falling of men from high estates, what oppression, what rackings and twistings and manglings of limbs, what persecutions and executions and excommunications and banishments, what sunderings of nations and communities, what separations of persons really congenial who would have been friends if left to themselves, what disorders—all sprung from men's desire to force their fellows into their own social and religious pigeon-holes! And ideas—what struggling and bleeding and screaming of them at being forced by brutal hands into narrow and stifling cells with other ideas in mutual hot resentment. History was filled with the heartless compulsion of men and things and ideas into groups where they rebelled against going.
Nor were persecutions and strife confined to the past. The injustices of pigeon-holing were rampant in the Essayist's own enlightened time. The old-time sets of pigeon-holes might no longer be used to such deadly purpose, but there were others that bade fair to take their place. The pigeon-holes of religion were less insisted on, but the pigeon-holes of science gave promise of another tyranny hardly less unendurable. The two prime factors in tyranny—arrogant authority and superstitious multitude—were already clearly to be seen. The tyranny of aristocratic pigeon-holing seemed past, but its place was being taken by the hardly less outrageous tyranny of democracy's pigeon-holes. In a world that boasted of producing the greatest equality known to human kind, there were more classifiers and more class feeling than men had ever known before. The pigeon-holes were different, but they were there, and their partitions as impenetrable as ever.
The very consciousness that they were in different compartments kept men from attempting to understand each other, let alone their real differences; more, it made them hostile, and even aggressive. What philosopher, from Thales to the latest enemy of Pragmatism, what dogmatist, from the Stoic to the latest ridiculer of Christian Science, what political critic, from Aristophanes to the anarchist of yesterday, ever tried or was willing to understand his opponent, and did not wilfully misrepresent in order to confute him? Longfellow was right when he said that the South should come to see the North, the North go to see the South, and then the war would be over. Let men forsake their pigeon-holes and meet face to face, and many a problem of religion, philosophy, sociology, industry, and pedagogy would cease to be a problem—and many an official and professorial chair would be vacant.
But for the most part, either from their own impulse or from compulsion, men remained in their pigeon-holes. Many a man who had voluntarily emerged found his fellows unwilling to stir to meet him, or even take note of his having come forth. Many a man could not get out, if he would, and spent his life beating against the partitions, clamoring loudly and unheeded for redistribution on the ground of a thousand facts.
In vain! The malefactor and the magdalen could be rescued from their pigeon-holes only by a miracle, were they ever so repentant and filled with good works. The world had disposed of them, ceased to consider them, forgotten them—even though it was a loser as well as a tyrant. What service had been lost to the State by the pigeon-holing of party—talent and patriotism denied a sphere of usefulness because of being among the minority! What willing hearts lost to religion because of the pigeon-holes of creed and denomination! And there were men who were misjudged and abused all their lives long, living sacrifices to some accident of pigeon-holing, and to the neglect which was its usual consequence. Give a dog a bad name, and hang him.