Theosophy - The next step in evolution - a sequel to ”The evolution of Man”, being a brief survey of the psychological evolution of the Aryan Race, with some notes on present day world problems by J.Emile Marcault and Iwan A.Hawlinczek
THE
NEXT STEP IN EVOLUTION
A Sequel to “The Evolution of Man,” being a brief
survey of the psychological evolution of the Aryan
Race, with some notes on present-day world problems
by
J.
Emile Marcault and Iwan A Hawlinczek
Published by the Theosophical Society in London
1932
INTRODUCTION
[Page
7] This booklet forms the sequel to The
Evolution of Man, [Published by
the Theosophical Society in England ] and
takes up the story of our racial history, as seen from
the psychological standpoint, at the place where the
former work left off. It is the purpose of this present
work to show that the Aryan Race is the natural successor
of those which have preceded it, and that in its development
it follows the same succession of psychological phases
as the earlier Races have done. This will bring us
to the point where we can say, without any shadow of
doubt, that a New Age is now dawning in the world;
that it is accompanied by, or rather, caused by the
emergence of a new level of consciousness; and that
this will be pre-eminently manifested in the new subdivision
of the Race which is now arising, chiefly in Western
America. We can even go a step further and indicate,
from among the uncertainty and turmoil of modern conditions,
those factors, movements, tendencies and lines of thought [Page
8] which are significant of the future
and to which our attention can profitably be turned.
This
is not the place to repeat our description of the psychological
phases of human evolution. For this has already been set
out at some length in the previous booklet, to which the
student is referred for particulars. Here it must suffice
to say that in all the evolutionary cycles which we have
examined, the same succession of phases has been observed.
In every case consciousness has been found to work through
functions which follow each other in definite sequence,
which is expressed diagrammatically in Table I, below.
SEQUENCE
OF PHASES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
|
T
A
B
L
E
-
1
|
Phase |
consciousness
centred in |
Ist |
Perception. |
2nd |
Action |
3rd |
Emotion |
4th |
Analytical
Mind |
5th |
Synthetic
Mind |
6th |
Intuition |
7th |
Will |
Each great racial type evolves with its centre of consciousness
in one of these phases — in that which corresponds
numerically to the order of appearance of the race upon the
stage of history. But within that fundamental phase, which
may be regarded as the key-note of its consciousness, each
race passes through all the seven stages in turn, as sub-divisions
of the principal one.
In
our present work we are concerned exclusively with the Indo-European or
Aryan Race. This is the fifth of the great Root Races, and therefore during
the whole period of its existence, past, present and to come, its centre
of
consciousness will always be found at the level of the synthetic or social
mind. In each Sub-race, however, this social mind focuses itself chiefly in that function
which corresponds to the number of the Sub-race. Reference to Table II will
make this clearer.
ARYAN
RACE (Social Mind Consciousness)
|
T
A
B
L
E
-
2
|
Sub-race |
|
|
1st |
Indian |
Social
Mind focussed in Perception |
2nd |
Egyptian |
Social
Mind focussed in Action |
3rd |
Chaldean |
Social
Mind focussed in Emotion. |
4th |
Mediterranean |
Social
Mind focussed in Analytical Mind |
5th |
Nordic |
Social
Mind focussed in Emotion |
6th |
now
appearing |
Intuition
descends into Social Mind |
7th |
Future |
Will
descends into Social Mind |
Something
of this will be illustrated in the subsequent chapters.
But we shall also go a step further and indicate, though
only very briefly, that each Sub-race, at its own appropriate
sub-level, passes [Page
10] through the same succession of phases
in a series of sub-sub-levels. In this manner, by an exhaustive
study of the whole
civilization of any nation, it would be possible to determine
its psychological age with even greater exactitude than
can be done in the case of an individual by means of intelligence
tests.
To
one who has not previously thought in these terms, this
scheme of psychological unfoldment must appear exceedingly
complex and difficult. Complex it certainly is in its detailed
ramifications, although the fundamental plan is of extreme
simplicity. But perhaps it can be rendered clearer with
the help of the following simile. Imagine a tower consisting
of seven rooms, one above the other. Commencing with the
lowest room, let each be named in succession after one
of the psychological phases. There is a water supply to
the tower, with a tap in each room, beneath which stands
a large glass cylinder, capable of holding seven gallons,
and graduated in gallons after the manner of the domestic
milk measure. Water is supplied to the taps from a tank
which, in the case of the Aryan Race which we are considering,
is placed in the fifth room (Social Mind). The tank and
plumbing represent the mechanism of the functions, while
the water is the flow of life which pours through them.
The tank being in the fifth room, the whole supply of water
for the entire race proceeds from the level of the social
mind. If, now, the tap in the lowest room be opened, this
water of life, descending from the social mind, will pour
out through the faculty of perception. If the tap in the
room above this be [Page
11] opened, the water, still descending from
the same source, will emerge through the faculty of action.
And so on, with the different taps, each of which represents
the conscious sub-level of a Sub-race.
Moreover,
as the water pours out of any tap into the cylinder beneath,
the level will gradually rise, passing each gallon mark
in turn until the cylinder is full. As the gallons in every
one of the cylinders will be named in exactly the same
manner as the rooms in the tower, it will be seen how each
Sub-race also passes through seven phases or variations
of its own characteristic level of consciousness.
One
other point emerges from this simile of the tower. The
tank which contains the life-content of our Aryan Race
is situated in the fifth room. It cannot therefore supply
water to the two rooms above it. Similarly, the consciousness
of the Race, save in exceptional individuals, cannot rise
above the level of the social mind. But what does occur,
when the time for the Sixth and Seventh Sub-races arrives,
is a downflow of water from the sixth and the seventh rooms
into the tank in the fifth — water which comes from
the reservoir on the hills, a more ultimate source of supply
than the tank provides. In similar manner one can observe,
in the social consciousness of our Race, the effects of
a downflow of life from the intuitive level. For that is
the secret of the New Age which is just now dawning in
the world, as we shall attempt to show in the subsequent
pages of this book.
This
analysis of levels of consciousness could be pursued further,
until the individual human being [Page
12] was reached, for he also, in each of
his incarnations, repeats this sequence up to the level
which represents his present point in evolution, after
which he slowly adds something fresh to his stock of conscious
realisation. But for our present purpose it will suffice
to confine our attention to the main subdivisions of our
Race, and to just one of the minor cycles, represented
by the Christian era in Western Europe.
By
way of explanation it should be added that the chapters
dealing with the Second and Third Sub-races have been left
very short, not through any lack of material for study,
but because the limitations of space make it preferable
to concentrate on those divisions of the Race which have
a more immediate influence upon the present world situation.
CHAPTER I
THE FIRST SUB-RACE (HINDU)
THE
Hindu peoples of India represent not only the First Sub-race,
but also the Root Stock of the whole Aryan Family. They
constitute the stem of the racial tree from which the other
Sub-races spring forth as branches, so that, in dealing
with the psychology of these people, it must be remembered
that they not only express the specific aspects of consciousness
which belong to a First Sub-race, but that they also reflect
(or originate?) every change in the consciousness of the
remaining six Sub-races, even though these changes may
occur long after the latter have separated from the parent
stock.
Thus,
for example, the advent of the Lord Buddha in India seems
to mark an important period in the life of the other Aryan
Sub-races. Among the Third (Iranian) Sub-race it coincides
with the period of Jewish captivity in Babylon, during
which the Jewish religion and Bible were refashioned on
less Semitic and more Aryan lines. Similarly, it is the
time of Pythagoras for Greece and Rome, the Fourth Sub-race.
Numerous similar instances could be cited to show that
the reaching of a new level of consciousness in India coincides
with the beginning of a parallel achievement of civilisation
in the corresponding Sub-race.[Page
14]
The unique contribution of the Hindus, in then-specific capacity
of First Sub-race, is probably best illustrated by the Laws
of Manu. Be it remembered that the first psychological phase,
the sure foundation for all future development, is characterised
by stability. Moreover, this being a Fifth Root Race, the
basis of that stability lies at the level of the synthetic
or social mind. Hence one expects, and finds, in India the
basis of a perfectly ordered and stable social system. The
Laws of Manu, when they were properly applied, provided the
most complete and perfect system of civilisation of which
the Aryan Race is capable. They are based upon the higher
mind conception of brotherhood on a hierarchical plan, and
they define with penetrative understanding the principles
of conduct for every type of citizen, assigning to each the
appropriate place, function, rights, duties, etc., to which
his degree of evolution entitles him. The first broad division
is into the four castes of Brahmana (priest), Kshattriya (defender), Vaishya (merchant)
and Shudra (labourer). In their original form these
castes were definitions of social function based on spiritual
attainment and not, as in many cases they have since become,
barriers to human intercourse. The confusion of this system
today is the result of excessive sub-division within the
castes, and the consequent development of exclusiveness where
brotherhood and mutual service should have been the ideal.
A
brief outline of this system may usefully be given here,
for details the student is referred to The Science of
Social Organisation by Bhagavan Das.[Page
15]
The highest
caste is that of the Brahmana, It is composed of those
who should be the most spiritually enlightened people in
the land, those who, by virtue of this fact, are the ones
most worthy of reverence and respect. Such people, and such
alone, are considered fit to be the teachers of the nation,
both in the religious and in the scholastic sense. The true
greatness of a nation can be assured only when its leaders
are drawn from the very highest among the people, from those
whose vision is widest and most profound.
To
the second caste, the Kshattriya, belong the defenders
of the nation. This includes not only the military forces,
but also the civic authorities of government and justice,
from the kings, princes and judges to the humblest lawyer
and policeman. Upon them devolves the duty of assuring
to every citizen the rights and privileges which are due
to him.
The
third caste, the Vaishya, comprises the merchants
and traders, on whom the material prosperity of the nation
as a whole depends. The two highest castes are unproductive
in the financial sense (as they are in our own western
civilisation also). By the revenues derived from the trading
of the merchants, therefore, provision is made for the
religious, the educational and the civic services of the
realm, in addition to the profit which is the just due
of the individual trader.
Finally,
in the Shudras one finds the numerically largest
group, which includes the labourers and artisans, upon
whose faithful service the prosperity of the land ultimately
depends. The fruit of their [Page
16] labours brings to them a sufficiency
of the necessaries of life for themselves and their families,
and a larger share of “rights” than is accorded to any
other section of the community. As one ascends the scale
of the castes, the number of personal rights diminishes,
while the measure of one's duties and obligations to others
grows larger.
Not
only do the Laws of Manu, as indicated above, afford a
complete and stable organisation of the nation as a whole,
but they further offer appropriate guidance for each individual
during the course of his life. For the first twenty years
the boy or girl belongs to the “student” group, and society
is expected to provide for his well-being and to give him
education, not merely intellectual, but spiritual, moral
and physical. Between 20 and, say, 42, the duties of “householder”
devolve upon him, with all that the care and maintenance
of family and social life requires. After 42 his now grown-up
sons are expected to give him food and shelter, while his
own services are required for the helping of the community.
At 60, if he so desires, he can become the sannyasi,
and retire into seclusion to meditate upon life, its meaning
and its lessons, during which time he is supported by the
free-will offerings of food from the people in general.
The
ancient Hindu faith came to the support of this social organisation by emphasising
the essential brotherhood of all mankind (and more particularly of all Aryans)
and the duty ( dharma) which each owed to the other in fulfillment of his religious obligation. It is worthy of note that this oldest of Aryan [Page
17]
civilisations has persisted with practically none but superficial
changes from the earliest times — and one may, perhaps, venture to
predict that it will survive in all its essentials until the end of Aryan
history, for it is the foundation stone of the social mind consciousness,
and when the foundation fails the entire structure
falls in ruin.
Like
every Root Race, Sub-race, nation or individual, the Hindu
people pass through the cycle of seven psychological phases
as facets of their main psychological type. Thus one can
see clear indications of the perceptive, the active, the
emotional periods, etc., as their history unfolds. The
Laws of Manu represent the first phase, as has already
been indicated. The second (active) phase follows. It is
the period when the great epics of the Ramayana and
the Mahabharata arose. Socially, this is the feudal
period of Hindu history. The development of Hinduism (from
its earlier Brahminical form) with the Vedas as
its scriptures, and the great mystical experiences of the
first Upanishad literature, represent the emotional
(third) phase. Its influence on the religious life of Iran
(Third Sub-race) is a recognised historical truth. The
lower mind (fourth) period is that of the Lord Buddha,
and is marked by the rebellion of the analytical mind against
what was then considered as the “blind” faith of the preceding
age. A similar event took place at the Renaissance against
the unreasoning belief of our own mediaeval times, with
a corresponding assertion of reason in place of faith.
The
birth of the higher mind (fifth) period, [Page
18] approximately at the beginning of the
Christian era, has not been marked by any great change
in the civilisation of India, but one rather striking psychological
fact emerges, which is the establishment of active communication
between India and the Mediterranean peoples, proofs of
which are gradually coming to light through archaeological
researches in Turkestan and elsewhere.
As
early as 300 B.C. Megasthenes, a Grecian ambassador to
Bengal, wrote of the splendid moral and social attainments
which he found in India.
The
intuitional (sixth) period is beginning in India today,
as it is also in other parts of the Aryan Race. Some of
the signs which serve to indicate this will be mentioned
later. At the moment we will draw attention only to the
significant movement towards national unity which is becoming
increasingly evident, and is a mark of the unifying influence
of the intuitional world.
CHAPTER II
INDIA: THE STEM OF THE ARYAN TREE
LET
us now turn our attention to the Hindu Sub-race as containing
the seed of all the other Sub-races of the Aryan family.
This can be amply demonstrated from Indian art, from language,
religion, indeed, from all the departments of civilisation.
Space forbids of more than a single illustration, for which
Hindu philosophy has been chosen. There are six great systems
of philosophical thought in India, and analysis shows that
four of them correspond each with one of the four Sub-races
(second to fifth) existing in the world today; further,
that one of these systems is emerging into popular vogue
in modern times, and is connected with the consciousness
and with the infant Sub-race of the new (sixth) age; and,
finally, that the last of these systems has in it the elements
which one will expect to see developed by the Seventh Sub-race
and the seventh phase of consciousness, when the time comes
for these to make their appearance.
It
is not suggested that these systems arose in the order
in which they are given below. We are only concerned here
with the fact of their existence and the nature of the
principles on which they are based. In so brief a statement
as alone can be given, we shall inevitably be accused of
misrepresenting the [Page
20] magnificent philosophical truths which
these systems enshrine like fire in the heart of a beautiful
jewel. The student who wishes to know more is therefore
referred to some of the excellent textbooks on the subject,
and especially to that by the late Professor Max Müller
entitled, The Six Systems of Indian Philosophy.
First,
we would mention the system known as the Purva Mimamsa.
This is one of the two (of which the Vedanta is
the other member) that is based mainly upon the Vedas.
The Vedas themselves comprise two main divisions,
described as the “work” part and the “knowledge” part.
The system of philosophy under consideration concerns itself
with the former division of the Vedas. It begins
by regarding everything as being alive, personifying the
powers of nature in much the same fashion as one observes
in Greek mythology.
“The
Vedic poets spoke not only of rain (Indu), but of a rainer
(Indra), not only of fire and light as a fact, but of a
lighter and burner, an agent of fire and light, a Dyaus (Zeus)
and an Agni (ignis)”. [Six Systems
of Indian Philosophy, page 35]
The Purva Mimamsa then
proceeds to give, with a wealth of detail, the exact nature
of the sacrificial, mantric, and other observances which
are to be accorded to each of the gods (of which there
are thirty-three million!). So much is this the case, indeed,
that some authorities regard it more as a guide to practical
religion than as a philosophical system. But this is precisely
the kind of teaching which suits the second or active phase
of consciousness, [Page
21] and one can easily see how the Purva Mimamsa is
that seed in the philosophy of the Hindu Race which, developed
and expanded, becomes the religious mysticism of the Second
(Arabian) Sub-race. It is essentially a philosophy of action
( karma) and emphasises the law of Duty (dharma)
by which is understood the performance of right action,
without personal desire, as the method of attaining to
the supreme bliss. The resemblance of this to the religion
of the Arabian Sub-race, as practised in ancient Egypt,
will be evident when we come to deal with that branch of
the Aryan family.
The
second system of philosophy to be considered is the Samkhya,
attributed to Kapila. Like all these philosophies, it also
offers happiness as the ultimate goal of humanity, but
teaches its followers to gain this through wisdom rather
than by action. The world is seen to consist of Prakriti and Purusha.
The former, sometimes translated as Nature, may be described
as the root substance containing within itself the possibilities
of all things. It is akin to the German - Urstoff.
It moves, evolves, only when it comes under the influence
of a Purusha, a spiritual Self, an individual
perceiver. This spiritual self is indestructible; its goal
of bliss is to be sought through withdrawal from matter,
whereby the operations of Prakriti will automatically
cease, and with them the sorrows attendant upon experience
in a phenomenal world. The spirit thus regains its oneness,
its freedom. The process is a sublimation of desire for
the many (manifestation) and a regaining of that sense
of wholeness which is always characteristic [Page
22] of unfettered life. Making due allowance
for the fact that the Samkhya is a philosophy, and
therefore regards things from a mental standpoint, the
essence of its practice is the purification of desire,
wherein it closely resembles that teaching of purity which
is the heart of the Parsee faith (Iranian, Third Sub-race).
We
come now to two closely related philosophical systems which
are based almost entirely upon logic. These are the Nyaya and
the Vaiseshika, the former being better known as
southern or Indian Buddhism. Both of them appear cold and
unimaginative in comparison with the other systems, and
are akin to western philosophical conceptions of the last
century.
Through
the mass of recent literature on this subject the views
of Buddhism are readily accessible to western readers.
It is essentially a religious philosophy of the mind, whose
methods are strongly reminiscent of the more familiar Greek
(Fourth Sub-race) eclecticism. It is easy to perceive in
the Nyaya teachings the Hindu correspondence to
the lower mind consciousness of the Mediterranean Sub-race.
The Vaiseshika philosophy,
attributed to Kanada, is not essentially different from
the Nyaya. But it introduces the idea that there
are certain universal categories, through a true understanding
of which it is possible to reach the summum bonum.
Of these categories there are seven, viz. : Substance (Dravya);
Quality (Guna); Action (Karma); Genus, or
community (Samayana); Species, or particularity
(Visesha); Inhesion, or inseparability (Samavaya);
and Privation, or negation (Abhava), Time and [Page
23] space are classed as Substances, being
regarded as eternal and limitless. There is in these ideas
a considerable resemblance to the notions of Aristotle
and also of Kant, who is the greatest philosopher of the
higher mind in the Nordic (Fifth) Sub-race. So once again
India bears the seed of later racial developments.
The next system to examine is the Vedanta, the one
which, with its various sub-divisions, is most widely followed
in India today. It is the companion system to the Purva Mimamsa in
that they both are based upon the Vedas, but it
deals with the “knowledge” part of this scripture and not
the “work” part. As a philosophical system it is completely
monistic. There is but one reality, and that is the universal
Spirit ( Brahman). There never can be anything save
the One, for the existence of a second would immediately
imply a limitation, an incompleteness in the One; and the
Limitless cannot be limited. It follows that all phenomena,
in which there is ever the appearance of separateness,
are illusion and unreal. Salvation is thus to be gained
through a knowledge of Brahman, through the surrender
of all sense of separateness and through the recognition
of the self and the Universal as one.
It
will be noted how, in many ways, the Vedanta resembles
the teachings of Krishnamurti, whose insistence on the
unreality of the phenomenal and the need for union with
Iife, the illimitable, is already well known. And as he
is here expressing the consciousness which will become
characteristic of the Sixth Sub-race when that develops,
once again [Page
24] we find in India the seed which will
flower in the far West. As the nature of this consciousness
forms the subject of a later chapter, we will not enlarge
upon it here.
For
the sake of completeness, it would be well to include a
few notes on the last of the six systems, although, if
our contention be true, this forms the seed for a type
of consciousness which is not due to be developed until
the Seventh and last of the Aryan Sub-races appears. The
system in question is that of Yoga, a companion
to the Samkhya, but differing from the latter in
that it finds room for an Individual Creator as well as
for the Infinite. The supreme Ishvara is the Iogos
of a solar system; He is one among many Purushas.
While, therefore, He is not the Infinite in the philosophical
sense, He is, nevertheless, the infinite of consciousness
so far as our solar system is concerned. Devotion to Him
is thus included as part of the discipline whereby liberation
can be gained. For the system of Yoga is essentially
an ascetic discipline, and although its goal is union with
the Infinite (the word yoga is usually translated
as union), nevertheless the process is one of discrimination,
of separation of the Self from all that is the Not-Self.
There is the constant distinction between the actor and
the action, i.e. between the will and its resultant
effects. Hence yoga is also described as “skill
(success) in all actions”. It contains the elements of
that realisation of the supreme Will as the one power behind
all action (manifestation), and of one's Self as being
that Will, which is the type of consciousness due to be [Page
25] expressed in the seventh phase. Traces
of the same teaching and discipline abound in freemasonry.
In
bringing this chapter to a close, let it be repeated that
Indian philosophy is only a single illustration of our
theme that in the First Sub-race of the Aryan family is
to be found not merely a civilisation characteristic in
itself, but also one which is indicative of the entire
potentialities of the Root Race which it founds. We are
only too conscious of the grave deficiencies in our description
of these philosophical systems as such, but we hope that
enough may have been said for the purpose before us. Perhaps
other students may be forthcoming who will collect the
evidence along similar lines from the fields of art, of
literature, of language, etc., so that a more comprehensive
picture of this psychological view of evolution may be
made available to the public.
CHAPTER III
SECOND SUB-RACE (EGYPTIAN-ARABIAN)
THE
second branch of the Aryan tree is the Arabian, whose civilisation
reached its height in the land of Ancient Egypt at the
time of its regal splendour. In the psychology of this
Sub-race can be seen the social mind looking out upon the
world through the window of Activity — a correspondence
to which is observable today in children between the ages
of six and ten years. It is a time when the whole of life
is magical, when every visible phenomenon has behind it
a hidden spring of mystery. Indeed, one should perhaps
reverse this expression, for the inner mystery is looked
upon as the reality, the outer form being not so much an
appearance in itself as a veil drawn lightly over a moving
power which it scarcely serves to hide.
In
the case of the child this stage of consciousness has been
most wonderfully portrayed by R. L Stevenson in The
Land of Story Books, and other poems of a similar kind.
Applying
this same description to the life of a people, one has
the key to much that took place in the ancient land of
Khem.
In
religion there were the many gods, the forces behind all
the modes of manifestation (Activity). There were the stately
rituals, unrivalled for their [Page
27] splendour, by which the gods were approached,
and through which the powers emanating from them became
efficacious in the outer world. But behind and above all
these was Amen-Ra, the One Supreme God. He represented,
psychologically, the one power of the synthetic mind which
could be felt by all as a subjective pressure, though not
yet in this early Sub-race as an objective reality.
Hence
the existence of the Egyptian Mysteries, in which the hidden
knowledge was taught to the initiated. Knowledge as an
objective reality belongs properly to the fourth and fifth
phases of development. The Aryans being a Fifth Race naturally
crave for and appreciate this knowledge. But in its Second
Sub-race the mind is not yet developed into an objective
and exoteric instrument save by those who have undergone
special training in the mystery schools. To the masses,
knowledge is still largely esoteric, and therefore taught
by means of symbolism.
For
the same reason, when the mind comes to express itself
in action, it cannot yet manifest as “applied science”
in the manner that is common today, but only as “magic”.
Chemistry, which formed one of the subjects of the mystery
teachings, was not regarded as a “natura” science after
the fashion in which the modern world understands that
term, but as a manifestation of the living powers of the
gods. The twentieth century, with its discoveries of ions,
electronic rings, etc., has made it clear that Chemistry
is a science of the etheric levels of the physical plane.
This would naturally make a strong [Page
28] appeal to the Second Sub-race man, whose
consciousness functions through the vital activity.
Their
system of government likewise embodies the absolute of action. The supreme
figure in the state is Pharaoh, who unites in his person the functions
of
both king and high priest. He is the earthly symbol of Amen-Ra, the ultimate
power; his decree is absolute and may neither be changed nor disobeyed. The
royal acclamation: “Life,
Blood, Strength, Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Pharaoh”, expresses
this view, and indicates the three powers of the Trinity as being attributed
to the executive head of the State. Moreover, each royal dynasty built its
own capital city as the embodiment of its power and the symbol of its active
strength. Indeed the whole civilisation is characterised by the massive strength
of its architecture and the prodigious size of its buildings.
The
art of Egypt is likewise essentially that of action, sculpture being the
most popular mode of its expression. In the earlier times it merely portrays
movement,
with but little attention to the form. Later, however, the forms become marvellously
accurate, the action itself being symbolised as attributes. The style of
sculpture in statuary is hieratic, i.e. it fixes the meaning in a
symbolic, rigid attitude. Their symbolic writing (hieroglyphics) and their
decorative sculpture, either engraved or in low relief, show the same method.
Functions of state or social life, trades,
professions, occupations, etc., are portrayed in one representative movement,
a synthetic act arrested in a typical attitude and supplemented by
appropriate attributes. [Page
29]
The connection between the psychological level of the Egyptians and the
Purva-Mimamsa philosophy of India has already been indicated. It is also to be
observed that the Sub-race came into prominence contemporaneously with the
great epic period of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in Indian history.
It
might be well to add a few words concerning the Arabs,
who are the modern descendants of this Second Sub-race.
The reader will scarcely need to be reminded of the restless
nomadic habits of these people, of their love of strength,
of skilful horsemanship, of what is often termed the “manly”
exercises. All of these are natural manifestations of that
dominant active expression which is characteristic of the
second phase in any cycle of evolution.
The
Islamic Faith, too, of which they are ardent followers,
is one which inspires them to action, often with considerable
violence, in support of its tenets. It also teaches them
unquestioning submission to kismet, the decree of
fate. To ourselves, of the Fifth Sub-race, who have some
objective realisation of the power of Mind over Matter,
fate is not an unalterable decree but a circumstance which
it is possible for us to avert, or at least to modify,
by our own knowledge and efforts. So that when, for example,
we are stricken with an illness, we do not submit to it
as a manifestation of divine displeasure, but we call in
the physician and attempt to effect a cure. The Second
Sub-race, however, not having objectivised the mind to
this extent, still looks upon these external occurrences
as the direct result of divine interference, and accepts
them as such.[Page
30]
So once again, by means of these few illustrations drawn
at random from a great wealth of possible material, we can
prove the truth of this psychological scheme of evolution,
and see how the Egyptian-Arabian Sub-race does indeed express
the power of the synthetic mind working through the active
function.
CHAPTER IV
THE THIRD SUB-RACE (IRANIAN)
WE
must pass on now to a consideration of that branch of the
Aryan tree, the third, which peopled the lands of Persia
and Chaldaea, from which we shall endeavour to show that
in them the social mind is expressing itself through the
emotions.
The
seed of this consciousness in the Hindu Race has already
been noted in the mysticism of the Upanishads and
in the Samkhya philosophy. The latter, having objectivised
matter, the world of action, as the “not-self”, lays its
emphasis upon life, the reflection of buddhi at
the emotional level.
Zoroastrianism,
the religion of Iran, takes up this idea and develops it.
Fire is the symbol of deity, and purification, the work
of fire, is the central ideal of life. Only where there
is purity of emotion, purity of life, can there be right
living and happiness. Hence such sayings as these:
“Purity
is for man, next to life, the greatest good, that purity,
0 Zarathustra, that is in the Religion of Mazda for
him who cleanses his own self with good thoughts, words,
and deeds.
“Make
thy own self pure, O righteous man. Any one in the
world here below can win purity for his own self, namely,
when he cleanses his own self with good deeds”. [ Zend Avesta,
Part I, page 141, translator J. Darmesteter]
“Content is the happiest condition of man, and
the most pleasing to his creator.
“Every
thought, word and deed whose result is joy, happiness,
and commendable recompense ... is well thought, well
said, and well done”. [Dadistan-i-Dinik, XXXVIII,2] [Page
32]
The Iranian civilisation has many elements in common with our
own Middle Ages (the emotional period of the Fifth Sub-race).
In it there is a clear distinction between temporal and spiritual
government, the power of the Church being supreme. Moreover,
a people whose consciousness functioned strongly through the
emotions were naturally very sensitive to influences of all
kinds. They could not fail to observe that there are times
of joy and times of sadness, times of successful work and times
of frustration, effects which were not entirely due to their
personal moods. An investigation of the cause of these influences
which the activity of their minds led them to make, gave rise
to the sacred science of astrology. Science for this Sub-race
was still “sacred”, for the same reason as in Egypt (see page
27) and the knowledge and practice of astrology was consequently
reserved to the initiated priests or Magi.
This
science was, of course, of much deeper import than the
mere casting of horoscopes and the prediction of petty
happenings to the individual or the community. It was a
most profound research into cosmogony and celestial correspondence,
uniting the evolution of man with that of the universe
of which he is a part, and penetrating the veil of many
facts in nature which are still mysteries for the modern
world.Yet it is true that much of it became desecrated
to suit the desires of a race whose unevolved members considered
enjoyment and success as the main factors in life. The
deeper side of astrology has remained cloaked in esotericism
since that time.
The
government of the land passed through a number of changes
not unlike those witnessed in English history, the alterations
occurring as the Sub-race passed into the successive sub-levels
of consciousness which comprise its evolutionary cycle.
In the early days there were a number of tribal kings,
striving among themselves for wider domination with varying
degrees of success. Later they became subject to an emperor,
somewhat after the manner of the German Confederation in
the seventeenth century. Finally a united nation arose
with a limited monarchy in which the king consulted with
his nobles on matters of State policy.
But
it is, perhaps, through their Art that this Third Sub-race
has become most justly famous, as those who visited the
recent Persian Art Exhibition in London will readily concur.
Most of the exhibits were, of course, relatively modern,
but they are nevertheless still typical of the nation in
which they originated. The richness and perfection of ornamentation
will have been remarked:
“In the archaic pottery of this first Susa type
. . . one sees the gradual unfolding of a distinctive capacity
for lucid and abstract ornament, for a mastery of living
line, for decorative energy, that guides Persian art through
its long life.
“It has moments of lyrical intensity when the poetic instinct,
so universal in Persian life, finds full scope in the
most delicate and exhilarating inventions”. [A.
Upham Pope, in The Illustrated London News, January
10th, 1931] [Page
34]
Their art was expressed in pottery, in decorative architecture,
and notably in bronze and rich fabrics. Much of it was dedicated
to religious symbolism and royal power.
As
a race the peoples of Iran certainly had “a poetic instinct”,
to which they gave expression in every department of their
lives. Their days were full of song as they went about
their duties, and each discovery of the archaeologist serves
to confirm the fact that their life was centred in the
emotions, as is natural in the third phase of any evolutionary
cycle.
The
modern Persians, with their art so full of emotional expression,
still remain as a splendid illustration of this law. In
their illuminated manuscripts a curiously constant type
of Venusian feminine beauty holds a very large place. A
love of symbolism in their mysticism and their predilection
for wild animals and plants, is also characteristic of
that level of consciousness, as was seen in our study of
the Third Root Race. [See The Evolution
of Man, 54, 56, 57]
Through
Byzantine channels, the artistic perceptions of the Persians
exercised a considerable influence on the emotional period
of Western Europe during the Middle Ages.
CHAPTER
V
FOURTH
SUB-RACE (MEDITERRANEAN OR KELTIC)
THE
peoples belonging to this Sub-race are the analytical mind
division of the higher mind Race. Including, as it does,
all the Greco-Latin peoples, it presents for study such
a variety of national subdivisions, each showing forth
a characteristic sub-level of consciousness, that it becomes
well nigh impossible in so short a compass to give a comprehensive
picture of the Sub-race as a whole without committing many
and serious sins of omission with respect to its component
nations. A frank confession at the outset, however, may
win for the writers some measure of absolution from the
reader.
An
attempt will first be made to give an outline of the general
psychology of the whole Sub-race, and afterwards two special
sub-divisions (the Greeks and the Romans) will be singled
out for somewhat fuller treatment. Other national sub-divisions
include the Pre-Greeks (Pelasgians), the Italians, French,
Spanish and Irish peoples.
A
prominent feature which characterises all the members of
this Sub-race is their love of beauty. The particular form
of beauty which appeals most strongly varies, as one would
expect, with the different nations, but the appreciation
of beauty itself is [Page
36] common to them all. It will be observed
that the Aryan conception of beauty differs from the Atlantean.
In Japan, for instance, only one beautiful object at a
time is permissible, this being entirely satisfying to
the formal analysis of the lower mind (Fourth Root Race).
But in the fourth sub-division of the Fifth Root Race the
universal synthesis of the higher mind is added to the
analysis of the lower mind, so that for our race beauty
consists in the harmonious blending of several different
elements into one synthetic whole. For sheer ravishing
beauty we prefer a garden with its riot of colour to a
single blossom; the richness of a sunset to the blaze of
the noonday.
In
art itself there is for this Sub-race an idealisation of
form, which is worshipped for its own sake, and not necessarily
in association with any religious beliefs. Human forms
are usually preferred to natural ones, and sculpture predominates,
especially among the earlier Mediterranean nations, over
the other modes of artistic expression.
In
religion there is offered a lower mind explanation of forms.
Each individual form has its own special deity attached
(Greece and Rome), with specific functions and appropriate
mode of approach. As the Sub-race reaches the later phases
of its psychological development this polytheistic view
is replaced by a universal Creator. This occurs only when,
in Christian times, the Sub-race enters its fifth sub-cycle,
and the synthetic power of the higher mind begins to appear
more objectively. But the higher mind conception of evolution
(see below, under [Page
37] geometry) is even now resisted in its
spiritual application by the Roman Church, which is specially
strong in Latin countries.
Their
philosophy is likewise that of the lower mind, dealing
with analytical concepts which culminate in the Platonic
“Archetypes” and the “Innate Ideas” of Descartes. The Divine
is conceived of as Mind (higher), and is to them universal
and unanalysable. The method of their philosophy is logic,
the modus operandi of the lower mind. Attention
has already been drawn to the influence of Buddhism and
of the Nyaya philosophy on this Sub-race.
Geometry
is the special mode of science that arises, for it deals
with space relationships, which are the peculiar field
of lower mind activity. Time relationships, such as an
understanding of cause and effect, belong to the higher
mind, and therefore do not appear directly in this Fourth
Sub-race. Hence evolution, which is the science of causation
in time, finds no place in their scheme of things.
In
government there is developed a theory of rulership, based
upon logic, which finds its highest expression in Plato's Republic and
the Politics of Aristotle. Machiavelli's The
Prince also arises from the same psychological conceptions.
It is the age of absolute monarchy, sometimes in the most
literal sense, and sometimes in the sense that the political
dominates the religious authority. Indeed, wherever there
was a great hero in Greece, a powerful emperor in Rome,
the attributes of divinity were applied to him.
Language
was developed with a special view to give [Page
38] perfect and clear expression to analytical
concepts. Of this fact Greek, Latin and French are typical
examples, the clarity of their expressions being notorious.
There is a saying in France : “If it is not clear, it is
not French”.
Before
passing on to a more detailed consideration of the Greeks
and Romans, we will indicate the place of the different
nations comprising this Sub-race, so that the student who
so desires may make a deeper study of their psychology.
SOME
NATIONS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN SUB-RACE
|
Phase |
|
Nation |
1
Sensation |
|
|
2
Activity |
|
Pre-
Greeks |
3
Emotion |
|
Greeks |
4
Lower Mind |
|
Romans |
5
Higher Mind |
(a)
emotional) |
Italians |
|
(b)
lower mental |
French |
|
(c)
higher mental |
Spanish |
|
(d)
intuitional |
Irish |
The
main influence throughout, however, is that of the higher mind focussed
through the lower.[Page
39]
CHAPTER VI
ANCIENT GREECE
From
first to last of her life as a race, Greece was specifically
emotional : enamoured of life, ardently conscious of the
beauty of heaven and earth, of woman and of man, of ideas
and virtues. But the object of that emotion was the activity
of the analytical mind, the consciousness which the Sub-race
as a whole was developing. Hence the unquenchable curiosity
of the Greek, his attention turned outwards to nature and
to man with happy, inexhaustible interest, his vivid appreciation
of knowledge, his delight in the exercise of the body,
his love of analysis, dialectics, logic, disputation, the
clash of ideas and words.
Yet,
because the activity of the mind results in the discovery
of principles and laws, the emotionalism of the Greek's
bred a love of order, a joyful poise, a radiant sense of
measure, which no other race known to us has possessed
in the same degree.
It
also produced a natural love of form; the lines that define
the shape and the light that makes them clear, the sharp
reliefs and deep shadows of sculpture being preferred to
the shades of graded colour in painting; likewise the grace
of moving forms in dancing and the solid elegance of the
free column in architecture.[Page
40]
Significant of that emotional race is the personifying,
myth-creating faculty of the Greeks. Every object which arouses
interest becomes a personified deity, a form of loveliness
as well as an object of worship — an emotional absolute.
Sky, earth, mountain, ocean, a brook, a tree, all become
gods and goddesses, maenads, dryads, nymphs. That warm, potent,
fearful life which stirs in the underworld and moves all
things to growth is Pan — a god perhaps of some former
race, but now revived because the consciousness that has
singled him out arises in the Greek. To account for the interaction
of natural forces in the building up of the world, these
deities are made to enact the drama of cosmogony; we have
the great myths related by Hesiod.
At
no time does the Greek lose that myth-creating faculty.
Plotinus, at the end of the cycle, while giving the highest
expression to Greek science and philosophy, makes nature
speak and act as a person, not in the poetic sense used
by classical imitators in the seventeenth century, but
as sincerely as Plato saw the world filled with life and
regarded the sun and the moon as gods.
But
it is not only natural objects that are divinised. Mental
and moral abstractions, such as Harmony, Glory, Victory,
Peace, etc., each have their temples and statues and are
worshipped as deities. Even at the time when ideas, having
become objective, cease to be divinised, they continue
to be seen through the emotions and, as with Plato, are
universalised, being worshipped for their beauty rather
than accepted for their truth.[Page
41]
Greek drama is occupied with the working of the law of destiny,
seen as moulding the lives of men from without, a law to
which the gods also have to bow. In the plays of our own
classical period it is the psychological law, inherent in
man's nature and moulding life from within, which forms the
basis of the drama. In both, the idea of law predominates,
but in Greece there is more insistence on the pathos,
the emotional, truly tragic element, which the “chorus”,
as representative of society, intensifies in its lyrics.
In modern Europe the emphasis is on the moral or the social
element.
The
development of the “State” also shows the same characteristics,
though at different levels of consciousness, in both periods;
it is the practical logic of government which will make
the city or nation a harmonious whole, inspiring Machiavelli’s The
Prince as well as Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Politics.
The
foregoing general observations will be sufficient to show
that the Ancient Greeks were, fundamentally, the emotional
nation of an analytical mind Sub-race. Let us now follow
their development chronologically, so that, in the course
of their history, we may be able to trace the sequence
of psychological epochs through which these people passed.
The first and the last of these epochs are difficult to
define in so brief a survey as this; we shall therefore
limit ourselves to the central period, which covers the
second to the sixth. These correspond approximately to
the dates given in the following table :[Page
42]
EVOLUTIONARY
CYCLE OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS
|
Cycle
|
Period
|
|
2nd |
Activity |
900-700 B.C. |
3rd |
Emotional |
700-550 B.C. |
4th |
Analytical Mind |
550-100 B.C. |
5th |
Social Mind |
100 B.C.-A.D. 150 |
6th |
Cosmic
Sense (Intuitional)
|
A.D.
150-350 |
Let
us consider each of these in turn, beginning with the
ACTIVITY
PERIOD (900-700 B.C.)
During
this period we find the glorification of the man of action,
especially the warrior type, whose strength and skill in
battle are divinised. He becomes the hero, half-god, half-mortal,
his weapons being forged by a god or goddess, and on whose
behalf the gods intervene in battle. Since natural objects
are regarded as gods, these also have their relationships
with the heroes, as, for instance, when the river Skamandros
fights with Achilles and calls his brother Simois to his
aid. During this epoch, too, divine genealogies are an
essential part of history. Politics are of the feudal type,
with a number of small independent kingdoms in frequent
rivalry and warfare. Literature consists chiefly of epic
poems, exalting the hero and his fighting exploits (Homer's Iliad and Odyssey),
or else describing the practical life of the fields (Hesiod's Works and Days — a
poem interspersed with precepts for success in dealing
with men rather than moral rules of conduct).
The
corresponding period in the Fifth Sub-race [Page
43] cycle is the feudalism of the Middle
Ages (q.v.) with the difference, however, that the social
sense is already active and the knight is therefore a moral
and social, as well as a military, hero.
EMOTIONAL
PERIOD (700-550 B.C.)
Most
of what has been said about the Greek Peoples in general
applies with particular force to this epoch. Lyrical poetry
now comes into prominence; all the emotions are expressed,
a special metre being invented for each type. The iambic expresses
anger, invective, satire (Archilochus, Simonides, etc.);
the lyric proper is used for love and passion (Alkaeus,
Sappho, etc.); the elegiac is used for sadness and
mourning (Kallinus, Mimnermus, Tyrtaeus, etc.); while for
the expression of ethical sensibility, in which
the Greek delighted, all these forms are used (Solon, Theognis,
Phokylides). So successful, indeed, is this form of expression
that Solon declares it to be superseding public speaking
in the Agora. We find Xenophanes writing iambic
and elegiac verses in denunciation of the immorality of
the gods. Another symptom of this epoch is the organisation
of religion into individual cults.
ANALYTICAL
MIND PERIOD (550-100 B.C.)
This
is the Golden Age of Greece, when the inspirational and
creative power of its emotion is brought to bear upon the
analytical mind consciousness that characterises the Mediterranean
Sub-race as a whole. It brings about an efflorescence in
all directions.
Philosophy
still includes science in its purview, [Page
44] for
the categories of the synthetic mind remain subjective. The effort in
philosophy is towards a search
for unity, the reduction of the multiplicity of things under the principle
of non-contradiction. This is the absolute of relationship. Relationship
itself (i.e. classification) is a function of the analytical mind; Unity
is its absolute. In the first
instance this is applied to substance, and much speculation is expended in
discovering the undifferentiated primordial substance of which all the world
is the outcome. The school of Miletus (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes),
with which
Pythagoras is connected, decides on one or other of the elements first. For
Thales the earth is a circular disc floating on the ocean. Anaximander conceives
primordial stuff as intermediate between air and water, being one and infinite.
Anaximenes regards it as air, for “air is nearest to immaterial existence,
it is infinite and never exhausted”. For the Ephesus School (Heraleitus)
the one absolute which is the source and end of all relationships is motion
(“ everything
flows”). For the School of the Eleatics (Zeno, Democritus, etc.) space is
the ultimate reality, the atoms that fill it being the ultimate state of
substance.
It
remains for Pythagoras (572-500 B.C.) to find the purest
expression of the consciousness of his age, by conceiving
of relationship as Number, and of its absolute as The One.
Mathematics is therefore an equivalent of philosophy, being
divided into logistica or the art of calculation
(our mathematics) and arithmetica, the science of
living numbers (our metaphysics). In the words of his disciple
Philolaus : [Page
45] “Number is sovereign, self-generated,
and autogenous energy, which maintains the eternal permanence
of cosmic things”. To all these great thinkers philosophy
is a logic, not of pure ideas or moral laws as it becomes
in the Roman and Christian cycles, but of living cosmic
essences. Pythagoras refers each angle of a triangle to
a god.
The
other great symbol of natural order is Music, a symbol
already expressed by Orpheus in the prehistoric origins
of Greece, and revived in the Orphic Mysteries, in which
music and dancing were used to convey metaphysical teaching.
Harmony, the “music of the spheres”, is the emotional mode
of expressing the analytical mind absolute of relationship.
So
far as consciousness permits, natural science is rapidly
developed throughout this period. It is mainly directed
to the analysis of space, in the departments of astronomy,
mechanics and geometry. The analytical mind cannot, however,
build the synthetic mathematics which the later (fifth)
cycle devised. Medicine becomes a true science with Hippocrates,
who affirms disease to be a natural, not a supernatural,
process, and founds his therapeutics on the healing power
of nature.
In
literature, Pindar mentalises the Pantheon, turning its
glorious associations to the exaltation of personal glory,
such as triumph in games, etc. The stories and symbols
of the old personal religion become objectivised in literary
ornament. The chief form of poetry in that lower mind age
is drama, as also it was in the corresponding epoch of
our own fifth cycle.[Page
46]
In sculpture, Phidias and Praxiteles bring the worship of
the human form to its perfect expression, temples, houses
and public places being filled with statues. Architecture
likewise attains the height of its glory in such buildings
as the Parthenon.
Plato
crowns this period with his magnificent system, wherein
philosophy, mysticism, ethics and poetry are welded into
a harmonious whole, giving the clearest formula to the
Absolute of this emotional nation. This is the One, the
Good; His universe is One, logically disposed. Ideas (lower
mind absolutes) form the intelligible world, below which
come the sensible and the physical worlds. Man participates
in all these worlds. Evolution, through metempsychosis
or rebirth, guides all men to the supreme Good. Plato's
system expresses most magnificently the marriage of emotion
and mind. The broadest flights of intellectual speculation,
the subtlest delicacy of reasoning, are blended with the
most inspired imagination and a constant glow of aesthetic
emotion. To him indeed Beauty is Truth, Truth is Beauty,
and both are life.
The
ideas in the intelligible world are neither the moral abstractions
of the Roman ethical philosophy nor the universals of our
higher mind cycle. They are refined, living essences, the
highest in the universe, resplendent with glowing beauty.
SOCIAL
SENSE PERIOD (100 B.C.- A.D. 150)
Although
united in language, religion and culture, the social sense
period of the Greeks is not marked by political unity.
After internecine warfare they [Page
47] are subjugated by Macedonia, arid Alexander
spreads their culture throughout the then known world,
even as far as India. Later this empire falls to the Romans,
Greece lending its culture to Rome, and both continuing
their evolution together.
Alexandria
is the crucible of this syncretic magic. Philo represents
there the union of Hellenism and Judaism, and describes
the many communities in which the various lines of tradition
are fused into a common doctrine of soul healing (Therapeuts).
The Gospel story of the flight into Egypt confirms the
link between Christianity and the religious, philosophical
and political syncretism which had its centre at Alexandria.
The seed of consciousness of the synthetic mind Sub-race
(Nordic) is sown in this soil by Christ, and begins to
germinate, using the mystery symbols for this social sense
consciousness (the Eucharist).
COSMIC
SENSE PERIOD (A.D. 150-350)
This
includes the splendid efflorescence of Greek culture known
as Neo-Platonism, in which contemplation of the One no
longer, as with Plato, leads to illumination only, but
to mystical union. Plotinus is the outstanding figure of
this period, his school at Rome concerning itself as much
with practical mysticism as with philosophy. The same quality
of emotional perception of the mental absolutes is to be
found in him as in his predecessors. But the mystery teaching,
with its splendid myths of the soul's journey through the
worlds of light, and its life with the gods, ceases to
be mere teaching and [Page
48] becomes experience. The contemplation
and the ecstasy of Plotinus transcend both the rationality
of Plato and the causality of Aristotle, as his speculation
reconciles them with the “universal soul” of the Stoics.
He merges his conscious self with the Life and Truth of
the world, a “self-realisation” and “liberation” which
is characteristic of the cosmic or intuitional sense.
CHAPTER VII
ANCIENT
ROME
WITH
Ancient Rome the lower mind Sub-race reaches its analytical
mind period. The real history of Rome begins with the mind
phase of consciousness, contemporarily with the settling
of Pythagoras in Sicily. The earlier phases of its history
are legendary; Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome,
belong to the activity period; Numa Pompilius, who established
its religion, is related to the emotional period.
It
has already been observed that the lower mind period of
a nation's history is accompanied by the unitary organisation
of the people, when the logic of government develops into
a science of politics. Among the Greeks (emotional nation)
this phase was marked by the City State, while the classical
and renaissance periods of the Nordic (fifth) Sub-race
manifested it in the form of absolute monarchy. Rome portrays
the complete expression of this aspect, the One City with
its powerful unitary organisation and its scientifically
clear legal formulae which have since become a model for
all nations.
From
500 B.C. onwards Greece and Rome evolve side by side, Greece
being the teacher and educator of Rome in all branches
of culture except politics and warfare, in which the Romans
develop their own [Page
50] superior achievements. Philosophy, art
and science are all borrowed from the Greeks.
In
100 B.C. the two peoples enter their social mind period,
the better organised Roman empire conquering that of Alexander.
The intuitional (sixth) period is also common to both,
the Greek Plotinus settling in Rome and opening there his
school of intellectual mysticism.
The
psychological nature of Roman consciousness can be indicated
more clearly by a consideration of some special lines of
evolution.
The
Roman religion is a typical example of lower mind consciousness.
It is abstract and analytical in the highest degree (“abstractions”
being the ultimates of analytical concepts, and not to
be confused with the synthetic categories of the higher
mind. Redness, hardness, goodness are instances of the
former, cause, mode, etc., being examples of the latter).
The nature of these religious abstractions is partly active,
partly moral, and partly concerned with local groupings.
Belonging to the first category we find a multitude of
gods concerned with government. This section of the Pantheon
is an almost inexhaustible analysis of the idea of Providence,
For each particular act of Providence there is a special
god or goddess. For example, the protection of a man's
life from birth to death includes the following: Vaticanus to
help the infant to utter its first cry; Fabulinus for
the first word; Educa (from edo, I eat) for
eating; Potina for drinking; Cuba for keeping
the child quiet in its cot; Abeona to guard it when
it goes out and Adeona to protect it on its return; [Page
51] Domiduca to lead it home; Levana to
educate it. And so it continues, the list being almost
interminable.
These
gods have no legends, no history, no name save that of
a function. They are numina (divine manifestations)
rather than persons; one might almost say they were “abstractions”
had they not been so real and living to the Roman lower
mind consciousness.
As
in Greece, but to a far greater degree, the higher moral
abstractions are divinised. They have their temples, their
priests, their devout worshippers. To our synthetic mind
consciousness these abstractions seem cold, but they were
living entities to the lower mind consciousness of the
Romans. Among them are to be found Fides (faith), Concorda, Victoria,
Pax (peace), etc., each with her shrine and appropriate
worship. Other curious deities are Salus Populi Romani (the
Health and Prosperity of the Roman People), Saecuritas
Saeculi (the Security of the Age) and Indulgentia
domini nostri (indulgence of our master), a touching
deification of a very real aspect of Providence for the
slave.
The
local (i.e. space) abstractions are marked by the protective
deities assigned to every field, wood and river. The boundaries
of each meadow and the stones that designate them, the
garden, the quarters and streets of a city, have each their
protective gods — not patron saints, but actually
their space divinised. These gods are known as genii.
Groups
of men also have their gods. An Association, a club, an
army, a legion, a cohort, has its [Page
52] special genius, in proof of which
many a votive inscription has been found addressed by soldiers
to the genius of their regiment. Even individuals
possess a genius, who is their divinised individuality
(c.f. Greek daimon), hence the phrase indulgere
genio, to follow one's bent, or to obey one's nature.
Such
a form of religion naturally proceeds in its analysis to
an infinite degree. Petronius sarcastically makes a peasant
woman say: “Our country is so peopled by divinities that
it is easier to find a god than a man”. It is therefore
not surprising to find the Roman Pantheon perpetually open
to admit some forgotten god. Even the gods of conquered
peoples were included. As the peoples became part of the
empire, so their gods entered the Pantheon.
Towards
l00 B.C. Varro wrote forty-one books of Antiquitates,
in which he dealt with religion in a typically lower mind
fashion. The nature of the gods was decided according to
their attributes, religion being reduced to a classification
of functions, a true analysis of the idea of God, whose
unity was ever present behind the multiplicity of gods.
The
religion of the Romans was closely allied with politics.
It had no dogma, but consisted of an elaborate cult, and
nothing was undertaken in State or family without first
consulting the gods. Any political officer could become
a priest; the same motives and the same civic merits made
one a praetor or an augur, a consul or a pontiff. Cicero
extols the wisdom of the earlier Romans for appointing
the same persons to be both priests and magistrates.
This
blending of religion and politics reaches its [Page
53] climax in the social sense (fifth) phase
of Roman history, when the emperor is raised to divine
rank, an exaltation which cannot be conceived of as mere
adulation. It was the natural evolutionary outcome of that
particular aspect of mind which the Fourth Sub-race embodies.
No race has dignified the “person” as the Romans have done.
Contrasting the Roman stolidity with the versatile nature
of the Greeks, Cicero rightly affirms the superiority of
the former in the conduct of everyday life, in the affairs
of home and State, in law, in military discipline and the
art of war; also in the “sense of duty” which he analyses
into dignity of manners, firmness, magnanimity, uprightness
and good faith. All these are characteristic of personal
or lower mind consciousness.
Turning
now to philosophy, it is not strange that, among all the
philosophies of Greece, Stoicism, with its insistence on
the personal dignity and restraint of the individual, appealed
more than any other to the Romans. It spread throughout
the empire, even among the slaves, and became the religion
of the élite. Without entirely losing the
structural complexity it had in Greece, its Roman form
insists more on the unity than on the multiplicity of the
divine. “God is the soul of the world”, says Varro, i.e. the
animate principle which pervades the earth and rules it
by motion and reason. Heralding the social sense period
of this Sub-race, Cicero asserts that “all men are composed
of the same elements, created by the same God, for the
same end; they are all similar”. In this he formulated
moral doctrines which afterwards furnished Christianity
with its first philosophy.[Page
54]
Under the pressure of that faith the old walls of tradition
were broken. Freedmen were admitted into high places, mercenaries
into the army. The ideal was no longer to live more maiorum,
according to the custom of the forefathers, but to live like
a man. Virtue ceased to be a contemplation of universals
as it was in Greece; it became a concrete law of life in
the form of personal ethics. Seneca, the great apostle of
the Stoic faith, still more fully expressed the social sense
by calling God “Our Father, who loves us with potent affection,
all-seeing, under whose eye we must live purely”. “Receive
the sinner with a tender and fatherly heart, and instead
of driving him away, try to bring him back to good”.
Yet,
in spite of its almost Christian sentiment, this is a lower
mind form of religion, and hence its opposition to Christianity.
It is intensely personal, its aim being to make the perfect
individual; it does not tend to make the world happier.
The person of the sage is, it is true, adorned with love,
and he even compares favourably with God. “Like God, the
sage fears nothing; but that assurance is in God an effect
of his nature, whereas the sage reaches it by an effort
of his own will”. At death he says to God: “I give Thee
back my soul better than Thou hadst given it to me”.
The
social emotion with which the synthetic mind period penetrates
Roman Stoicism does not change its nature. It remains the
religious philosophy of an analytical mind race. It does,
however, provide the main thought structure for the new
higher mind religion of Christianity. The idea of the City
or [Page
55] State becomes that of the Church and
the Pope-Emperor (c.f. St. Augustine's City of God.).
By reducing the complex system of Greek cosmology and psychology
to the two simple duads, God and the world, soul and body,
it gives to Christianity the moral basis for the latter's
social ethics.
A
close study of other departments of civilisation is not
possible here, and must be left to the interested reader,
but enough has been said to indicate that the Romans showed
forth pre-eminently the lower mind consciousness of the
Aryan Race. Indeed, being the fourth nation of the Fourth
Sub-race, they may, from this point of view, be regarded
as the typical example of the Keltic or Mediterranean peoples.
In no other Aryan nation can one find so clear an illustration
of the analytical mind level of consciousness.[Page
56]
CHAPTER
VIII
THE
FIFTH SUB-RACE (NORDIC OR TEUTONIC)
NOT
until the appearance of the Fifth Sub-race is the pure
higher mind consciousness expressed, and not even then
until its fifth sub-division reaches its fifth phase. Nevertheless,
the Sub-race as a whole, including the peoples of Germany,
Holland, Britain and Scandinavia, all show a marked development
of synthetic mental processes. The available data cover
so wide a field, and are so full of detail, that it is
difficult even to begin to make suitable selection, and
we must content ourselves, as before, with a mere indication
of general principles.
The special
religion of this Sub-race is Christianity, with its strong
emphasis on social service, as instanced by the second of
the “two greatest commandments” and the parable of the Good
Samaritan. As a religion of the higher mind synthesis Christianity
has no equal, save, possibly, in the all-inclusive Hinduism,
in which the Vaiseshika philosophy embodies the seed
of this fifth cycle.
It
may serve to make matters clearer if, before proceeding,
we indicate the psychological position of the different
Nordic nations, in order that students may distinguish
between the main consciousness of the social mind which
animates them all and the [Page
57] subsidiary phases which give to each
nation its special characteristics. This is set out in
the following table :
SOME
NATIONS OF THE NORDIC SUB-RACE
|
Phase |
Nation |
1.
Sensation |
Slavonic,
Croats, Slovaks. |
2.
Activity |
Prussians,
Letts, Lithuanians. |
3.
Emotion |
Germans,
Austrians. |
4.
Lower Mind |
Dutch,
Frisians. |
5.
Higher Mind |
Anglo-Saxons
|
Social
mind periods have a peculiarity, which does not seem to
apply to earlier psychological phases, in that their various
sub-levels are contemporaneous rather than successive.
This was observable already in the case of the Mediterranean
Sub-race, for, whereas the earlier stages represented by
the Pre-Greeks, the Greeks and the Romans arose in succession,
in its fifth cycle a number of Latin nations (Italians,
French, Spanish) appeared simultaneously. The same is true
of the Nordic Sub-race, in which the Slav, Prussian, German,
Dutch and Anglo-Saxon elements are all co-existent, developing
side by side.
In
the organisation of the State, after passing through a
number of experimental forms in accordance with their cyclic
psychological history, these nations arrive at the characteristic
type of government belonging to the social mind. This is
scientific democracy, wherein representative government
is embodied in a parliament which is the expression of
the social will. “Civil Service” also [Page
58] is
developed as an institution, and is directly responsible
to the people through parliament.
As
regards the social system, it is interesting to observe
the different ways in which the various nations approach
their problems — each characteristic of the sub-level
of consciousness which it represents. Among the Slavs,
for example, the masses of the people are of extreme simplicity
and, up till the time of the revolution, more or less content
to remain as they had been for centuries. Government, of
a most autocratic description, was in the hands of the
few. Here was a system showing the static character of
the first psychological phase. The recent revolution involving
the overthrow of this system is one among the many signs
that a New Age has indeed begun.
It
has already been observed (see Chapter II) that there is
a close connection between the first and seventh phases,
for in India we find the root and also the ultimate flower
of the Aryan Race as a whole. This same idea, applied to
a Sub-race, may throw some light on the recent developments
in Russian political life. In our Fifth Sub-race Russia
is reaching a democratic form of government at the same
time as it is being attained in India, and much interest
should attach to their social experiments.
In
Germany, under the Prussian dominance, everything was arranged
by imperial command. There was, of course, a parliament,
but for the most part people lived in accordance with the
instructions issued through the army, the police and officialdom
in general — a domination by virile force which prolongs
the feudal system in our modern day, [Page
59] and is characteristic of the second psychological
phase.
The
third (emotional) nation comprises the South Germans and
the Austrians. The high development of their music is proverbial.
Their love of metaphysics is no less remarkable, although
this is not so universally recognised as an expression
of the emotional phase of consciousness. What St. Thomas
Aquinas represented to the Mediterranean Sub-race, Kant
fulfils for the Nordic peoples. Another characteristic
feature is the development of the Reformation Churches,
which suppress autocracy in the field of religion and substitute
for it a type of democracy which, later, is extended to
civil government. Their poetry and, folk songs are full
of sentimentality concerning the love emotion.
Among
the Dutch (fourth or analytical mind nation) one recognises
that love of detail (arising from the lower mind) coupled
with skilful organisation (arising from the synthetic mind)
which makes their social system a model of efficiency and
“tidiness”.
In
Britain (fifth or social mind nation) there is probably
more individual freedom than in any other nation, because,
however incompletely as yet, each citizen recognises his
own responsibility for social order and therefore requires
less external guidance and constraint. The English police
are almost unique in that they can carry out their duties
unarmed.
A
new view of Empire has also arisen with the Nordic Sub-race.
In former ages (and in the earlier phases of the fifth)
the basic conception of empire [Page
60] was the annexation of territory by conquest,
and the subsequent levying of tribute from the conquered
peoples. In the days of lower mind dominance this was both
natural and justifiable. But now that the synthetic mind
is the centre of our life, the type of empire which corresponds
to this is the only one which may hope to survive and fulfil
the purposes of spiritual evolution. And this is the voluntary
union of a number of equal members on the basis of some
common ideal and understanding. The general type can be
seen in the United States of America, in the British Empire
(with, at present, the exception of India), and in the
projected United States of Europe.
Among
the Arts, one sees the development of symphonic (i.e. synthetic)
music in place of the melodic (i.e. analytical) modes of
the earlier sub-races. The orchestra becomes a synthetic
group which can act as a concerted whole. It would be profoundly
interesting to comment on the variations of treatment which
characterise the music of the different nations, but lack
of space forbids. Painting, too, becomes less individualistic.
While portraits still abound, there is also added the depiction
of national events, such as battles, civic ceremonies,
etc. In Literature also the social element is introduced.
Language
is a function which belongs especially to the social mind,
since it is the great medium of relationship between human
beings. The most wonderful of all Aryan languages is undoubtedly
Sanscrit, being unsurpassed as a means for the expression
of synthetic concepts. The word karma, [Page
61] which is so familiar to theosophists,
serves as a useful illustration of this fact. Literally,
it signifies “action”, and is usually translated as “cause
and effect”. But karma implies very much more than
is generally understood in either of its translations.
It begins with the present moment of time in which a particular
event is occurring. It then takes into its embrace the
whole of the past, gathering up all the influences from
all previous lives which have in any way contributed their
quota of influence to bring about that event, and focuses
them upon the instant of time called “now”. Our own word
“cause” is not usually taken so comprehensively. The word
“heredity”, when applied to the individual and eternal
human spirit, might serve as an alternative and possibly
clearer translation of karma.
The
companion word, dharma, which envisages the future,
could then be rendered as “variation” in place of the more
usual “duty”. It represents the next step which the individual
is to take, the next action which he will perform, and
which will modify his future karma.
This
is but one of thousands of possible instances which serve
to reveal Sanscrit as a language of unparalleled splendour
and richness for the expression of synthetic concepts and
human relationships. Next in order of usefulness from this
point of view comes the English language, arising among
the fifth nation of the Fifth Sub-race. Contrasting Mediterranean
French with Nordic English, one sees at once how in the
former the emphasis lies on the analytical concept,
wherefore there can be only one [Page
62] way of correct expression in any given
case, whereas in the latter it is the idea or synthetic
concept which is important, and a considerable latitude — and
even ambiguity — in expression is permissible, so
long as the desired idea is conveyed.
We
must note, too, how the consciousness of the three aspects
of time (past, present and future) is fully appreciated
only in the Nordic Sub-race, by the development of an analysis
of the future. This was examined at some length in our
earlier booklet, [The Evolurion of
Man, pages 59, 69, 89] so that here
it must suffice to draw attention to the accurate and detailed
analysis of the future which the Nordic languages provide
(English offers some twenty-five variations of the future
tense), and to the inclusion of evolution among the scientific
concepts of the day. Where there is no objective understanding
of the future there can be no science of evolution,
for the essence of such a science lies in the fact that
a specific type of future development can be brought about
by the manipulation of appropriate causes in the present,
while a study of the past in relation to the present reveals
the nature of those causes. Horticulture and stock-breeding
afford examples of this.
In
human (spiritual) terms this means that man himself, as
a spiritual entity, is subject to the evolutionary process
and can therefore, to a certain extent, determine his own
future. This is implicit in the Christian doctrine of immortality,
although, until the full realisation of the three aspects
of time became possible in recent years, it was coupled
with the [Page
63] doctrine of special creation which the
pre-fifth phase of consciousness demands. Now this is giving
place to the higher mind concept of an enduring spiritual
entity, who is the heir of his own past and the embryo
of his own future. This is true spiritual evolution.[Page
64]
CHAPTER IX
SOME SIGNS OF THE NEW AGE
FROM
the foregoing chapters it will be evident that we are at
the commencement of a New Age in consciousness. The Nordic
Sub-race has passed through the first five of its sub-levels
and is now preparing to enter upon the sixth. Added to
which comes the appearance, chiefly in western America,
of a new racial type, derived from Aryan sources, which
is the nucleus of the Sixth Aryan Sub-race. All this is
accompanied by changes and upheavals in every department
of life, for the sixth sub-level of consciousness brings
with it a new outlook and a new cycle of manifestation.
It is the purpose of this chapter to indicate the nature
and significance of some of these changes.
The
sixth cycle of consciousness touches the intuitional world.
But, reverting to the simile of the tower in the Introduction,
it must be clearly recognised that the reservoir of Aryan
consciousness is in the synthetic mind, and can never rise
above that level. The most that can occur is the downflow
of some water from the intuitional world into the social
mind tank, giving to its contents a new colour and therefore
changing the water supply of the whole edifice. The consciousness
of the new Sub-race, and of the New Age, is therefore that
much of the [Page
65] intuition which it is possible to introduce
into the higher mind. That much, and no more; the true
intuitional possibilities remain subjective for our Race.
We
use this phrase for want of a better, knowing full well
that it is inaccurate. What the correct expression will
be remains for the Sixth Root Race to determine when it
arises. The word “intuition” means, literally, “knowledge
coming in”, and ours being a higher mind Race, it implies
knowledge entering the mind. This can occur in two directions,
from without (so long as the within is ignored) and from
within. Until recently it meant knowledge coming to the
mind through the senses. Kant used the word with this meaning,
and in addition spoke of the “pure intuition”, that of
time and space, which belongs to the mind alone, but only
when working in touch with outer reality. Not until 1889
did Bergson, the forerunner of the New Age, give to it
the meaning of knowledge coming to the mind from within.
But
all this concerns essentially the mind level of consciousness.
We have at present no perception of, and certainly no language
in which to express, any analysis of the sixth world which
in Sanscrit is termed the Buddhic, and to which
Krishnamurti refers as “Life”, “Truth”, trackless and unanalysable.
This experience and the words to express it await the appearance
of the Sixth Root Race.
The
intuition is at present understood as the conscious power
which knows, loves and acts through the mind, the spiritual
energy which is the life of men.[Page
66]
Various attempts have been made to describe it; to Bergson
it is the élan vital, in Freud's psychoanalysis
it is libido, Krishnamurti, whom we consider to be
the incarnation of this new race consciousness, uses various
expressions such as life, truth, the kingdom of happiness,
the process of its realisation being described as liberation.
Whichever description be preferred, it must have dynamism as
its essence, and this is the word that we therefore propose
to use in our present work.
The
mind, on the other hand, is now able to analyse the formal
world, and to synthesise its phenomena into a number of
fundamental categories — time, space, substance,
etc. — which are seen as equal members in a synthetic
universe. These were, till recently, thought to be absolute
realities, but the awakening of the intuitional sub-level
of the higher mind has enabled us to analyse them, and
see them as partial and related forms of our consciousness.
Hence relativity is the word which describes the
viewpoint of this consciousness.
If
now we bear in mind these two words, dynamism and relativity,
and apply them to the new outlook on life which is emerging
today, we shall find that they afford a key to the present
situation. They will serve to show which movements in the
world are significant of the future and which, like a plough,
are connected only with the breaking up of old forms of
the past in order to make way for the new. Let us now turn
our attention to some of these movements, applying this
key to their understanding.
In
the field of religious mysticism, Christian [Page
67] philosophy has defined mysticism as “a
merging of the individual into the absolute consciousness”,
it being understood that “absolute consciousness” means
the transcendental Deity. Indeed, the language of mystics
seems to corroborate that definition, but modern psychology
and its application to the evolution of human consciousness
asks for a revision of past opinion.
The
Modernist leaders of Christian thought are ready to alter
the traditional notions of mysticism. They criticise the
use of the word “absolute” and, because they admit of evolution,
conceive of religion as relativistic. They see that the
conception of the world has gradually passed from one of
geocentricism in the early centuries of Christianity to
one of helio centricism with Copernicus in the Renaissance,
and one of indefinite extension with modern astrophysics;
and that ideas about the Absolute have changed accordingly.
It was relatively easy for mysticism to admit of union
with the god of a world of which the earth was the centre.
It might be admissible with the Copernican view to regard
the Absolute as central to our world, like the sun, and
to feel the contact of His presence, as we felt the light
and heat of our central star. But when our sun and its
planets come to be regarded as a very small part of a Universe
comprising billions of such stellar systems, it becomes,
naturally, more difficult to conceive of mysticism as bringing
us to union with the Absolute of that stupendous whole.
The progress of religion, moreover, shows a closer connection
with the evolving consciousness of succeeding ages than [Page
68] the community of language used by mystics
had led us to believe. Arjuna's vision corroborates Hindu
pantheism. Nothing in their accounts of mystical experience
allows us to believe that Ignatius of Loyola, perceiving
in ecstasy the plan of Divine Wisdom, saw more of it than
was known in his time; or that St. Theresa, seeing all
things contained in God, perceived any things that were
only discovered in succeeding centuries; or that Jacob
Böehme, descrying in his ecstasy the virtues of all
plants, had any information of them other than the botany
of his time accepted. Every mystic belongs to a particular
faith and in his experience raises to the Absolute the
tenets of his faith; it is an evolutionary view of those
faiths themselves, with their varieties of mystical experience,
that Modernism is prepared to accept.
Religion
itself is beginning to lay emphasis on immanence rather
than transcendence as the field and object of the religious
experience. It does not, of course, deny that life immanent
in man is the life of a transcendent Deity, an Absolute
with regard to it, but since an evolution of the mystical
experience is now admitted, from that of the primitive
to that of the Christ, we cannot avoid conceiving it as
keeping pace with the progress in the self-consciousness
of life immanent. For evolution is life unrolling its potentialities,
so that if spiritual life in man evolves, its experience
or self-consciousness evolves also.
A
double change, then, has come about in religious thought:
(a) Spirit, once considered transcendent, is now conceived
as being immanent, man's real life, of [Page
69] which he is self-conscious; (b) Spirit,
the object of the mystical experience, is an evolving factor,
and the variations of the mystical experience should reproduce
the variations in spiritual evolution. It is, in fact,
from the point of view of dual man (soul and body) that
spirit is regarded as transcendent to the soul. As soon
as spirit becomes immanent, the mystical experience is
also reabsorbed into immanence.
Philosophy
has undergone a similar change. So long as truth was regarded
as a static abstraction, such as Kant and others supposed,
then it could be enshrined in a system of philosophy, like
the kernel in the shell of a nut. But with Bergson's philosophy
of change, and with the modern conception of emergence,
this is entirely altered. Truth being no longer a static
quantity but an ever-changing dynamic force, it cannot
be expressed, save partially, in any system. The systems
thus become relative as giving glimpses of truth, but the
truth itself is a becoming, not an attainment.
The
recent discoveries of science are too popularly known to
need more than passing mention. The dynamical view of the
universe has completely superseded the older static or
mechanistic conception. Matter, as a basic reality, no
longer exists, that which we call an atom being nothing
but a bundle of waves, a vortex of energy.
Time
and space have likewise ceased to be fundamental. Both
are now dependent upon velocity (i.e. dynamism) and are
therefore relative. This is the union of form (space) and
life (time) which is evolution. And since, in human terms,
the velocity or [Page
70] rate of time flow is individual, varying
for each person, so is the rate of human evolution dependent
upon the individual alone. It is the rate at which he “invites
the future into the present”. The Time consciousness of
the New Age is that of the Eternal Becoming.
Psychology
arrives at the same conclusion from its own standpoint.
It recognises not only the libido, the dynamic life
of man, but also it can measure with great accuracy the
“rate of time flow” for each individual. The intelligence
tests show clearly how rapidly or how slowly the “psyche”
of each individual is evolving — and the rate varies
for each. Out of psychology there is gradually emerging
a science of the spiritual evolution of man.
In
the study of the conflicts arising from the refusal of
the conscious self to exhaust the energies which it provides
for the solution of each of life's situations, and their
consequent repression into the unconscious mind, psychoanalysis
also exemplifies the dynamic nature of consciousness. The
conflicts set up are essentially dynamic in nature.
Relativism
is also clearly illustrated in psychology as it is in natural science. For
just as the physicist, discovering the energy of the atom, perceives it to
be the energy of our own solar system alone and therefore relative to it,
so the
psychologist finds that the conscious energy he measures is different both
in power and range for each individual subject. Psychology is as individualistic
(and
therefore relativist) with regard to spiritual man as astrophysics is in
respect of
the universe. [Page
71]
In Ethics also great changes are occurring. The old standards of
morality are being overthrown, not because they were not good, but rather
because they were rigid, because they came through the authority of religion
as the decree of a transcendent God, unquestioning obedience being
demanded. In our previous booklet [The Evolution
of Man, pages 61-63] we
have cited several instances to show how that part of human consciousness
which is still subjective, and cannot therefore find direct expression,
makes the laws of its nature felt as restrictions in the environment, clothing
them in the
garb of sacred ordinance. But as evolution gradually objectifies these
levels, the religious taboo falls away, and the law of being which
it represented becomes a matter of direct knowledge. Losing its religious
quality, it enters the domain of secular science. This is happening among
ethical principles of today.
The intuitional life has hitherto protected its creative power by
religious
taboos, but now that this life becoming partially objective,
the creative power becomes a matter for science, and is appearing as social
hygiene.
The purity of the race will undoubtedly be preserved, and also
increased, but the newer generations will find their own laws of conduct
based upon their own knowledge (i.e. science). Tb will not submit to the
authority of a
past age.
Industry
likewise shows forth the new consciousness. The nineteenth
century was an age of machine, a synthetic instrument crystallised
from higher mind. And the machine has become a Moloch who
devours the man. But modern industry [Page
72] is entering upon an age of power (i.e.
life, dynamism), as the enormous development of electrical
application, not merely in big industry, but also in the
home, abundantly testifies. The machine is gradually becoming
the instrument or tool, and man, because he is a living
being, is reasserting his supremacy. The power will come
under his control, the machine will be his instrument of
labour.
The
process of direct trading, and the development of anonymous
advertising such as “Eat More Fruit”, “Buy Empire Goods”,
are further signs of the New Age in industry.
Politics
is also undergoing a fundamental change, even though this
department of life is often one of the last to depart from
established standards and methods. But it is becoming increasingly
clear that the days of the Party System are numbered. The
Parties themselves are expressions of the synthetic mind
consciousness. They are groupings of people who, whatever
their superficial differences of opinion (and these are
usually many), are agreed upon some fundamental concepts
as being the necessary basis of successful government.
These Parties are in politics what the categories are in
Kant's philosophy. In a Social Mind Age they are fundamental
and absolute.
But
can this be said of them today ? Both in England and abroad
the Party System is breaking down, and there is arising
in its place the rudiments of a government by the whole
nation, or at least the majority of it, and not merely
by one section, as heretofore. In Italy this has taken
the form of a [Page
73] block vote; in Germany there are now
so many “parties” that they are ceasing to have much individual
significance, so that the tendency is towards a government
group which represents the bulk of the nation, and an opposition
group which represents the minority. Signs of the same
kind are not wanting in our own country. Further, there
is no longer a set policy (which belongs to the “static
system” of the mind), but a process of meeting the needs
of the moment by whatever method commends itself as being
the best. Once again dynamism and relativity.
In
Finance the abandoning of the gold standard — again
a fixed system — by country after country is significant
of the New Age. What precise form the new financial relationships
will take is still uncertain, but it seems not improbable
that some kind of “managed currency” is likely to be adopted.
This would enable matters to be adapted to the changing
needs of the time. If such a scheme arises, then we shall
have a dynamic currency in place of a fixed and unalterable
system, and one more indication of the New Age will have
appeared.
The
world of Art, too, is pregnant with the new consciousness
that is seeking appropriate expression, and many new forms
are arising. But among them the student must learn to distinguish
between those which are the true beginnings of the new,
and those others which are the death agony of the old.
Taking
music as an illustration, one can discern several influences
at work. Remembering the close connection which exists
between the intuitional and [Page
74] the emotional levels of consciousness,
it is not surprising to find that an awakening of the former
results in a stimulation of the latter. Hence the recent
popularity of Jazz, which is but a westernised form of
Negro (Third Root Race) music. It has no abiding value
in connection with the New Age, The spread of “Negro Spirituals”
(Third Sub-race of Fourth Root Race) has a similar origin,
but not the same injurious effect. Concerning the former
Mr. Cyril Scott, himself one of the new musicians, writes
as follows :
“Jazz has been definitely ' put through ' by the
Black Brotherhood, known in the Christian Tradition as the
Powers of Evil or Darkness — with the intention of
inflaming the sexual nature and so diverting mankind from
spiritual progress”. [Influence of Music, page
151]
With
this view C.W. Leadbeater
heartily concurs, saying:
“All
this being so — and there is not the slightest question that it is so — what
can we do in the matter”. [The Theosophist, January
1932, page 389]
The
second line of influence is the breaking up of the old
Fifth Sub-race standards without, however, creating anything
new in their place. It is the work of those who, feeling
the need for change in common with their fellows, are,
nevertheless, unable as yet to rise to a perception of
the true influence of the intuition upon the mind. They
therefore analyse the dynamism of sound to the extreme
in all aspects, of rhythm (in syncopation, etc.), of timbre
(saxophone, xylophone, and other new instruments, both [Page
75] wind and percussion), of melody and harmony
(intervals and chords hitherto considered too wide or too
narrow). Their usefulness is like that of the plough. They
clear the musical soil, but they are not in themselves
the seed of the new music.
Much
more significant of the future, in our opinion, are the
works of such composers as Stravinsky, Holst (c.f. The
Planets), Cyril Scott and others, in which one finds
the two elements of dynamic power (intuitional life) and
harmony (higher mind synthesis) of a new type blended together.
It is along such lines that a study of evolutionary psychology
leads us to suppose that the New Age music will develop.
These
principles could equally be illustrated in the other realms
of art, where Cubism, for example, would represent the
second of the above influences and, in sculpture, the works
of Epstein are an instance of the third. There is great
controversy over his works, and to many they are not aesthetically
pleasing, but it must certainly be conceded that they succeed
in portraying dynamic power. In this element we perceive
the seed of Sixth Sub-race artistic expression. The older
art demanded realism, such as is rendered by the camera,
for it needed only to satisfy the social mind consciousness
with its perception of form relationships. The new art
requires symbolism, for it represents an attempt not merely
to portray a form but to penetrate behind that form to
a living force which cannot yet be analysed. It can therefore
only be revealed symbolically as a power breathing through
a mask.[Page
76]
CHAPTER X
THE INTUITION
IT
is not possible to understand the place in contemporary
language and thought occupied by the idea of intuition
unless we admit that it answers to some reality present
in the consciousness of our time. Eagerly adopted by philosophy,
science, literature and art, its psychological reality
is admitted even by those who oppose its metaphysics. It
accompanies the modern attitude of consciousness towards
itself. All schools of psychology, from the old positivist
to the new idealist, concur in admitting the existence
of a self which transcends all its functions, thought included.
They regard intuition as the self-assertion of that central
consciousness.
Psychologists
now conceive of an organic self which transcends all bodily
functions, rules over them, and uses them for its own purposes.
It is seen as a governing unit. In psychology that unit
is regarded as the spiritual self which is neither thought,
emotion, activity or perception. It is the creator of thought
when working through the mind, the creator of emotion through
the feelings, of activity through vital energy, of perception
through the organs of sense.
A specific
faculty must be ascribed to this centre of consciousness,
a faculty which expresses the [Page
77] immediacy of this total, eternal, universal
consciousness. This faculty is intuition: immediate,
because it is the direct affirmation of our inmost self; absolute,
because it expresses the present totality of our being; synthetic,
because it manifests a consciousness which is universal in
time and space.
This
intuition manifests itself in every department of human
life, for it is itself that life which organises the departments.
What Bergson describes as “the intuition” is merely an intuition — an
intuition of knowledge. He omits to mention the aesthetic
intuition, the mystic intuition, and the intuition of action.
Yet each of these forms of intuition shows in its appropriate
field the same structure and process as the intuition of
knowledge. A new process of manufacture is an intuition
expressed in terms of action; a system of philosophy is
an intuition expressed in terms of intellect; a school
of mysticism in terms of emotion; a work of art in terms
of form; an institution in terms of human will or power.
The
intuition is, in fact, consciousness in action, the activity
of the true self, by which he sends out into the world
a fragment of himself, a portion of his life, an emanation
of his consciousness. It is not a rising of the personality
towards the ego, but a coming forth of the ego to the world
through the personality.
Proceeding
as it does from the centre of life in each human being,
it always appears to him as the consciousness of “wholeness”,
of universality, even though it be only a relative “whole”
which, in the course of his evolution, expands to include
ever more [Page
78] of the truly universal. It is present
at all stages of evolution, in the child as in the adult,
in the primitive as in the genius or saint, at every period
in the history of a race, sub-race or nation. It is the
manifestation of the creative power of man, and the history
of mankind is therefore the history of intuition.
The
earlier chapters of this book have already shown how the
self fixes his attention successively in his different
functions, organising his hold upon them and transforming
them, so far as he is able, from organs into instruments.
These afterwards become the “automatic unconsciousness”
of the psychoanalyst. It is well known that dreams analysed
and compared in children and adults prove that the contents
of the unconscious mind have been acquired progressively.
But the psychology of the self establishes the significant
fact that the unconscious, with all it's good and evil
potentialities, has previously been the conscious. Hence
we see how important it is, at every stage of evolution,
to obtain perfect control over the function.
But
the evolution of the intuition becomes clearer still when
examined in the life cycle of a race, and we shall endeavour
to illustrate this briefly from the history of Europe during
the last 1,300 years.
During
the period from A.D. 600 -1100 all the intuitions which
organise society and create civilisation are forms of the
active intuition. In the political field it devises the
feudal system and establishes the hierarchy of knighthood,
the knight being the hero of action. In the realms of religion
and morals this same active intuition brings about the
code of [Page
79] chivalry, or idealised action, while
in literature there appears the epic poem, glorifying the
man of action. Organising in the field of science, it produces
the armourers and other practical workers. The simple strength
of Norman architecture is also a manifestation of the intuition
of action.
Towards
A.D. 1100 a change occurs, which lasts until about the
year 1600. During this time the organisation of society
is achieved by a new intuition, working through the emotions.
As a consequence the Church triumphs over the State, and
the lady supersedes the knight. Warfare ceases to be merely
political and becomes religious in its object; it is the
age of Crusades. In religion itself the cult of the Virgin
assumes a prominent place, whilst in the secular world
there comes the exaltation of woman and the idealising
of love. Poetry, therefore, ceases to be epic and becomes
lyrical. The mind also is swept into the intuition of the
emotions, and makes of philosophy a systematic ordering
of revelation, an object of faith and not of knowledge.
It is not authoritative because true, but is as accepted
as true because authoritative, and becomes a dogma. This
same intuition inspires the Gothic form of architecture
and conceives of science as alchemy and astrology, in which
the basic unity of matter is perceived and linked, through
transmutation, to the fundamental spiritual unity.
There
follows the intuition of the lower mind, from 1600 to 1800,
which ushers in the Renaissance. During this time knowledge
becomes truly scientific; natural phenomena and beings,
analysed directly by [Page
80] the mind, are classified into groups
according to their common qualities. Science now begins
to demand accurate observation and measurement, employing
the inductive method, demanding intellectual freedom and
engaging in quantitative experiments of various kinds.
This is an age of discovery, of religious and political
revolutions, of the rise of empires. In philosophy this
intuition finds its expression in the metaphysics of analytical
concepts, of abstraction, the doctrine of “innate ideas”.
This same spirit invades even the realm of religion at
the time of the Reformation, affirming the right of mind
to supersede faith in things religious, or at least in
matters ecclesiastical. In the field of literature it inspires
the poetry of humanism and the glorification of reason.
All
this gives place, from about A.D. 1750 onwards, to the
intuition of the higher mind or “social sense”, an age
in which synthesis takes precedence over analysis. The
conception of man as a social being leads to the assertion
of his natural rights. Sociology therefore replaces politics
as a science. The subject becomes a citizen, and absolute
monarchy comes to an end. This higher mind intuition also
creates its own philosophy. Discarding “innate ideas” and
pure reason, it affirms its own social ideal of the categorical
imperative of duty. Kant is the great philosopher of this
age. In literature this is the period of romanticism, in
which the feelings of the social sense are exalted and
expanded until they embrace the universe. Nature is thus
brought into fellowship with man, partaking of his sorrows
and joys. In science itself we are led to the discovery
of [Page
81] universal laws and, by the classification
of forms according to time, to the development of the idea
of evolution. Realising his membership of a social group,
the scientist also applies his knowledge to the service
of man, and thus helps to bring about the industrial revolution.
In
the New Age which has now begun intuition merges self-consciousness
in the flux of universal life. It is the intuition of the
cosmic sense which is changing the whole attitude to life
in every department of civilisation, as has always been
the case when the intuition has fixed upon a new level
of consciousness as its centre of life. Some of the ways
in which these changes are appearing have already been
discussed in the preceding chapter and need not here be
repeated.
Hitherto
man has identified himself with one after another of his
faculties, but now that, transcending the higher mind and
its social consciousness, he discovers his true nature,
his real self, it is natural that he should recognise the
intuition as his fundamental and essential faculty. Through
it he perceives the unity of universal life — not
by contemplation but by intimate experience; not by going
out, objectivising himself and piercing through the shells
of exterior bodies, but by retreating within and sensing
his own life; not by framing thoughts and building representations
of the semblances of things, but by communion uniting his
life with theirs. The new metaphysics, resulting from this
intuition, will be obtained, says M. Bergson, “by a kind
of intellectual sympathy” which “installs itself in that
which is [Page
82] moving and adopts the very life of things”
.( Introduction to Metaphysics).
Thus,
by retreating within, he finds both his own life and the
life of all things; one and the same life, immediately
sensed as one, and therefore at once known, loved and possessed;
not merely a psychological absolute, the totality of his
own consciousness, his own self, but also a metaphysical
absolute, the totality of the consciousness of his world;
the life of the individualised gods, and, since we are
God's progeny, also the life of the universal God.
This
intuition makes clear to us at last how knowledge, love
and power can come into being. How can we know, love and
act, unless we are the object of knowledge, love
or action ? Have we not felt it throughout the ages, this
potential universality of our consciousness? Has there
not been a background of universality behind our every
act ? Knowing one object, do we not feel that we are capable
of knowing more and more, in an ever-extending series,
and this, not because there is always some new object to
be known, but because we ourselves possess infinite powers
of knowledge? This background of universality is within
in the knower, not without in the known : we can know the
whole world because we are the whole world.
And
even though our love is as yet limited to so small a number
of our fellow-men, do we not know that there will come
a time when we shall love them all, when they will all
become to us “fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers”
? Here again the [Page
83] background of universality is not without
but within, in the universal oneness of the self: we can
love the whole world because we are the whole world.
And
again within our actions, restricted as they are, we feel
a background of universal power, which springs not from
the limitless field of activity without, but from the inexhaustible
fount of power within us. We know that in due time we shall
conquer the world. But if our will is able to dominate
the forces of nature it can only be because our will is
identical with them.
Momentous
consequences follow upon this self-discovery. Because man
no longer identifies himself with his functions, but is
immediately aware of the totality of himself, there can
no longer be any separation between knowledge, religion,
science, art — the particularised intuitions due
to the predominance of some one function in the conscious
organism. Theosophy is the philosophy of the new consciousness
because, being the intuition of the universal self, it
is the synthesis of all particular intuitions.
Yet
the psychology of the intuition, while it opens these splendid
vistas for the New Age, must still retain its sense of
relativity. A psychology of evolution cannot lose sight
of the relativity of time. We are ever at some intermediate
point in the progress of eternal self-consciousness, and
that psychology reminds us, as does that Theosophy, that
we are not entering on a final Golden Age or touching the
consummation of things. The New Age is the cosmic-sense
period of a particular race-cycle — the Sixth (cosmic
sense) Sub-race of the Fifth (higher mind) [Page
84] Root Race. The buddhi whose consciousness
is now generally manifesting in the West is only that which
is compatible with a higher-mind-race consciousness.
But
the New Age will also see the birth of an entirely new
Race, one whose consciousness will be centred in buddhi instead
of in the higher mind, and a pure cosmic-sense will be
manifested in its children (Sixth Root Race).
And
finally, an age of the cosmic-sense cannot be one of sacrificial
renunciation. For its intuition of universal and external
life atonement must proceed, not from compassionate submission
to fatal misery and death, but out of the joy of communion
with the perennially springing fountain of creation. Sin
loses its condemnation and death its sting when life has
been found by all men. The new Gospel of the Divine love
must indeed preach, the Kingdom of Happiness.
BIBLIOGRAPHY |
AUTHOR |
TITLE |
Bergson, Henri |
Creative Evolution |
Bergson, Henri |
Introduction to metaphysics |
Darmesteter, J. |
Zenda Avesta |
Das, Bhagavan |
Science of Social Organisation (Laws of Manu) |
Krishnamurti,J. |
The Kingdom of Happiness |
Marcault,J.E. |
Psychology of Intuition |
Marcault,J.E. and Hawliczek,I.A. |
Evolution of Man |
Müller, Max. |
Six systems of Indian Philosophy |
Preston, E.W., and Trew,C.G. |
Studies in Evolutionary Psychology |
Scott,Cyril |
Influence of Music on History and Morals |
Stevenson, R.L. |
A Child's garden of Verses |
|