Balance, the fundamental verity

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BALANCE : The Fundamental Verity. Crown

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ETERNALISM: A Theory of Infinite Justice.

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BALANCE

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

BALANCE

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

BY

ORLANDO J. SMITH

AUTHOR OF "kTERNALISM"

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY

0bt iSitoetjJibe p^re??, Cambribgc
1904

COPYRIGHT 1904 BY ORLANDO J. SMITH
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published September IQ04

C )
CO

3U
SSSb

CONTENTS

The Power of the Sea curbs the Sea — Physi-
^ cal Excess turns upon Itself, defeats Itself
CO — Excess is defeated also in Chance, into

M

•-1 which Physical Force does not enter —
Deficiency balances Excess — Nature's Law
of Balance

CO

CD

II

Equilibrium, in the Sense of Actual Rest, is
Unknown — Nature is a State of Ceaseless
Motion, regulated by Balance

III

The Scientific Interpretations of Nature point

5 to the Single Interpretation, that Balance

ii rules the World — "To Every Action there

lu IS an Equal Reaction," is the Supreme
tc

Statement
c

^ IV

No Force works aimlessly or wanders away

into Extinction — Balance is Supreme in

[ V ]

15

CONTENTS

the Small, as well as in the Great, Processes
of Nature — Every Physical Transformation
includes Exact Equivalence and Compensa-
tion 24

V

Man's Part in Nature — Progress by Antag-
onism — Nature's Process is by Test and
Trial, by unfolding, changing, ripping up,
undoing and redoing — Error dies in the
Struggle 31

VI

Action and Reaction in Human Affairs —
From Paganism to Christianity, to Asceti-
cism, to the Crusades, to Exploration and
Commerce — Minor Interactions — Reaction
from Words and Tones, Speeches and
Thoughts 43

VII

The Law of Consequences — The Good or
Evil in Things is discovered by Obser-
vation of Consequences — Morals are de-
termined by the Consequences of Human
Actions 54

[ vi ]

CONTENTS

VIII
Equivalence is the Test of Truth — Our Stand-
ards are Instruments of Equivalence — The
Balancing of Alternatives — Reasoning is an
Exploration of the Undetermined, a Search
for Antecedents and Consequences 6i

IX

Compensation in Human Affairs — Problems
of Business are Problems of Compensation —
Right is accomplished by rendering Equiva-
lents — Duty is a Debt, literally a Due —
The Golden Rule is a Law^ of Equivalent
Exchange 7^

X

Order is Regulation ; Balance is Regulator.
Right is Correctness ; Balance is Corrector.
Justice is Compensation ; Balance is Com-
pensator— Balance is Single and Supreme,
without a Mate or Equal 80

XI

Natural Justice — Compensation in Human
Affairs involves a Cycle of Beginning, De-
[ vii ]

CONTENTS

velopment and Conclusion, as Seed Time,
Growth and Harvest — Tyranny is an Anti-
dote for Mean Spiritcdness, and Courage is
the Antidote for Tyranny — Through such
Rude Alternations do \vc move forward 84

XII
Justice is Incomplete in the Present Existence
— Our Life here is as a Broken Part of a
Broader Life — If Death ends All, then the
Mass of Mankind must live, toil, suffer and
die under a Condition of Hopeless Injustice 92

XIII
The Essential Meaning of Religion is found in
the Agreements, and not in the Disagree-
ments, among Believers — There are Three
Fundamental Religious Beliefs : ( i ) That
the Soul is Accountable for its Actions ;
(2) That the Soul survives the Death of the
Body; (3) In a Supreme Power that rights
Things 99

XIV
The Fundamental Meaning of Religion is
revealed by its History — Religion recog-

[ ^"' ]

CONTENTS

nizes that Right rules the World — Science
recognizes that Balance rules the World —
Religion and Science are in Harmony, not
in Conflict 1 19

XV

Religion has been misinterpreted and per-
verted — Science also has been misinter-
preted and perverted — Religion answers
for its Perversions as Science, Truth and
Right answ^er for their Perversions — The
Value of a Truth is measured by the Magni-
tude of its Perversions 124

XVI

Measuring the Value of Religion by its Denial
— Only One School of Thought denies
Religion — Materialism is the Doctrine that
Wrong rules the World — Science and Re-
ligion meet on Grounds of Life, not Death ;
of Persistence, not Annihilation ; of Right,
not Wrong ; on the Ground that the Lavv^s
of Nature are Uniform, not Contradictory 138

C 5^ ]

BALANCE :

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

I

The Power of the Sea curbs the Sea — Physical Ex-
cess turns upon Itself, defeats Itself — Excess is
defeated also in Chance, into which Physical Force
does not enter — Deficiency balances Excess —
Nature's Law of Balance.

LONG ISLAND extends into the
Atlantic Ocean for more than one
hundred miles to the east of the
mainland. The ocean, impelled by the pre-
vailing southwest winds, beats with great
force upon the island, and would over-
whelm it but for a series of sand-banks
which lie next to the sea and resist the
force of its waves. Inside of these dunes
[ • ]

BALANCE

is fin almost continuous line of villages, the
itih^bi'tanis of which live in no fear of the
sea, though they know that one of its storms
would inundate their low-l3'ing lands if they
were unprotected by the dunes.

Against the dunes the ocean wages un-
ceasing war, retiring a little for rest at low
tide, renewing the conflict with the turn
of the tide, and rising often, with the as-
sistance of the wind, to a furious assault.
Each day the ocean wastes more force in
its attacks than was ever exerted upon a
human battle-field, and each day it suffers
defeat.

These barriers against the sea were not
built by human hands nor planned by hu-
man thought, though no modern engineer
could have designed a better protection
for the land or built with less waste of ma-
terial or with a closer calculation of the
strain on the different parts of the line
of defense. On the western shore of the
island, where the force of tlic waves is
[ 2 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

weaker, owing to the proximity of the
mainland, the barriers of sand lie low; to
the eastward they rise higher to meet the
increasing power of the sea. They cut
straight across large bodies of the sea from
one point of land to another, that they
may present no weak angle to the enemy.
The dunes are so constructed as to present
upon their whole front that exact angle to
the line of the prevailing winds that will
make each assault of the sea a glancing
blow.

It is the power of the sea which forms
these barriers against its own depreda-
tions. The force of the waves lifts the sand
from the bottom of the sea, depositing it
upon the shore. Each wave carries a little
sand; the stronger the wave the more sand
does it carry; the severer the storm, the
higher does it lift the sand upon the dunes,
the more impregnably does the ocean
fortify its shores against itself. Why the
power of the ocean gives that exact trend
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BALANCE

to the dunes which makes them strongfest,
is explained by Darwin's theory of natural
selection : only that form of dune fitted to
resist the sea could survive.

The explanation of the dunes is simple,
the processes of their formation still con-
tinuing and being open to examination.
But the meaning of the dunes is less sim-
ple. They testify to the fact that Nature
curbs the excesses of the sea by a process
quite reasonable, indeed unavoidable. The
force of the sea is turned against the sea.
This fact, and numerous other facts, sug-
gest the theory that in some way all excess
is curbed, or will finally defeat itself; that
Nature has no pendulum which swings in
one direction only.

In the case of the dunes we have an
illustration of physical force restraining
and defeating itself. Another example of
Nature's antagonism to excess, into which
physical force does not enter, is found in
the laws of chance — what we call chance

[ 4 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

or luck being quite as much under the
control of law as other things. In a draw-
ing of odd and even numbers, the chance
that the odd number — using the odd for
illustration, the chances of the even num-
ber being the same — will emerge in the
first drawing is one in two; the chance
that the odd will be drawn a second time
is one in four; that it will be drawn a third
time is one in eight; a fourth time one in
sixteen, and so on. There is one chance in
1,024 that the odd will be drawn consecu-
tivel}^ ten times; one chance in 1,048,576
that it will be drawn twenty times; one
chance in a thousand millions that it will
be drawn thirty times; one chance in a
million millions that it will be drawn forty
times. It is as if Nature should say:

" Against the consecutive return of the
odd number, I double the barriers with
each drawing. It is not alone physical
excess which produces opposition; it is
excess in whatever form it appears which
[ 5 ]

BALANCE

turns upon itself, defeats itself. And my
law is no more asrainst excess than against
deficiency. The barriers against the con-
secutive return of the odd number force
the return of the delinquent even number.
In the long run, the odd and e\en num-
bers drawn shall be equalized repeatedly.
" So far as you overdraw the odd, just
so far you underdraw the even. If, in ten
drawings, you have drawn the odd seven
times, and the even three times, then the
odd is in excess bv two drawing^s, and
the even is in deficiency by two drawings
also. Strictly speaking, nothing is ever out
of balance in my processes. That which
is overdone in one direction is underdone
equally in an opposite direction. Excess
can exist only through a corresponding
deficiency, and deficiency can exist only
through a corresponding excess. A defi-
cienc}^ in crops is balanced by an excess
in prices; an excess in crops is balanced
by a deficiency in prices. Equivalence

[ 6 ]

I

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

is universal, all-present and all-powerful.
This is my law of Balance."

We live in a world in which, if science
and philosophy do not err, there is cease-
less motion everywhere, and perfect rest
nowhere. There is motion in the heart of
the granite mountain, in the minutest por-
tions of the human body; motion great
and insignificant, perceptible and imper-
ceptible, disastrous and beneficent. Is this
motion — which is as universal in human
thought and action as in matter — under
no restraint, no order, no law ? or is it un-
der the control of some power or principle
which curbs excess, restrains deficiency,
restores balance, grants compensation?
Whether the return of equivalence and
compensation is not fundamental in Na-
ture, alike in physics and in the human
soul — whether the rational foundation for
man's hope for a future life, and for his
belief in the rightness of the world-order,
should not be sought for in the supremacy
[ 7 ]

BALANCE

of equivalence and compensation — this is
the subject of my inquiry, in which I shall
deal briefly with the relations of balance
to physical science, and pass promptly to
the larger question, the relation of com-
pensation to human affairs.

[ 8 ]

I

II

Equilibrium, in the Sense of Actual Rest, is Un-
known — Nature is a State of Ceaseless Motion,
regulated by Balance.

WHY do I use the word balance
instead of equilibrium? Is not
equilibrium more accurate than
balance? We observe much of stability,
poise and equivalence in and about us,
which we call equilibrium. But we have
not observed -perfect equilibrium. The
word perfect is often misused. Nor have
the physicists, with their finest balances
and instruments of precision, found per-
fect equilibrium. They have invented
scales which, placed in a vacuum, isolated
as far as possible from external disturb-
ance, weigh with remarkable fineness.
But they have invented no scales and dis-
covered no conditions which enable them
to weigh with infinite fineness. The in-
[ 9 ]

BALANCE

linite eludes us. If they should improve
their balances so that they may weigh one
of the motes which we see in a sunbeam,
still they would not reach perfect equi-
librium. Thev must weigh a millionth of
the mote and a millionth of that millionth,
and so on to infinity, the unreachable.

The problem of perfect equilibrium faces
infinite perturbations on all sides. There
is no' perfect vacuum for the scales. Our
government at Washington preserves our
standard measures in an even temperature.
The evenness of temperature can be main-
tained to one degree, perhaps to the hun-
dredth of a degree or to the thousandth,
but not to the millionth or to infinite fine-
ness.

Moreover, the maintenance of a perfect
equilibrium would be in conflict with the
scientific assumption that motion is cease-
less. Perfect equilibrium maintained would
be perfect rest, that which exists nowhere,
according to the theory of the continuity
[ "o ]

1

1

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

of motion and the persistence of force.
Well it is with us and with the world that
perfect rest does not exist! If the blood
in my body should stand at perfect equi-
librium for a moment, I would die. For
motion is life; its cessation would be ex-
tinction.

Equilibrium may be compared with the
present in time, which, strictly speaking,
is that point in which the past and future
meet — a point which is really impercep-
tible, as the reader will realize if he will
pause and try to hold or catch it. It is
gone before we can grasp it; it is swifter
than the thought which would compre-
hend it.

As the present is a fact in time, though
elusive, so we may assume that two
weights, nearly equal, swinging in a bal-
ance, will pass and repass the point of
equilibrium, even of perfect equilibrium,
with each alternate movement of the arms
of the balance. As the present is a point
[ '' ]

BALANCE

which we gain only to lose it, so equi-
hbrium is a point or line which mo-
tion crosses and recrosses without resting
upon it.

When scientific men have occasion to
speak of equilibrium with exactitude, they
use the qualifying term "approximate,"
meaning thereby relative or practical equi-
librium, nearness to perfect equilibrium, a
good state of balance. And this is what we
find — a good state of balance — in Na-
ture, notwithstanding her ceaseless motion
and transformations, some transformations
being slow, requiring millions of years,
some as swift as the transformation of the
future into the past, some open to our sight,
some imperceptible, the greatest being
sometimes the least perceptible to our
senses, as is the motion of the earth in its
ceaseless journey around the sun at the rate
of eighteen miles a second, one thousand
and eighty miles a minute — as if one
should fly from New York to Yonkers in
[ '^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

one second, to Albany in ten seconds, to
Buffalo in thirty seconds, to Chicago in one
minute, to San Francisco in three minutes
— one thousand times faster than an ex-
press train, fifty times the speed of a rifle-
bullet. We are disturbed often by our own
little projects, inventions and affairs, but
we are not fearful that the bulky earth will
come to harm in its mad course, nor would
we know that it moves at such speed, or
that it moves at all, if the astronomers had
not demonstrated the fact. Nor does Her-
schel's discovery that the solar system is
moving at the rate of about twenty thou-
sand miles an hour toward the constella-
tion Lyra disturb us, nor do we worry over
the apparently inevitable collision to follow
this movement, for the astronomers assure
us that that danger is remote, and that it
will come, if it comes at all, long after this
earth has ceased to be habitable. We are
persuaded that the astronomers have dis-
covered regularity and precision in the
[ '3 ]

BALANCE

movements of the heavenly bodies, that
their forecasts of these movements are
trustworthy, and that Nature, in the large,
in her greater and grander manifestations,
is ruled by order.

[ H ]

I

Ill

The Scientific Interpretations of Nature point to
the Single Interpretation, that Balance rules the
World — " To Every Action there is an Equal
Reaction," is the Supreme Statement.

MODERN science accepts with
practical unanimity eight inter-
pretations of the system of Na-
ture, which are recognized usually as fun-
damental : —

I. To every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction.

" If fire doth heate water, the water re-
actethagaine . . . upon the lire, and cooleth
it," says Sir K. Digby (a. d. 1644). The
wagon pulls against the horse with the
same strain that the horse pulls against the
wagon. The knapsack exacts from the sol-
dier who carries it an expenditure of force
equal to its weight. Let me strike a stone
wall with a gloved fist, and it will give
[ >5 ]

BALANCE

back a gloved blow in response. The wall
will be gloved, even as my fist is gloved,
at the point of contact. Let me strike hard
with bare knuckles, and I shall be con-
vinced that Nature gives even to senseless
things some powers of resistance, of de-
fense, even of resentment. If I should be
thrown upon the stone wall by accident,
still the wall will return the blow with
equal force. Nature's ways arc exact —
strain for strain, blow for blow — with no
allowance for intention.

"To every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction," is Newton's Third Law
of Motion, which is accepted as the fun-
damental axiom of physics. In this law
Newton has expressed also, I believe, the
fundamental law of Nature — that action
and reaction are ceaseless, equivalent and
compensatory.

2. That effects folloiv causes in un-
broke?i succession.

Strictly speaking, the axiom of causa-
[ '6 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

tion is only another expression of the axiom
" that reaction equals action." Effects are
the consequences of causes, the reactions
from causes, the equivalents of causes.

3. Gravitation — that every two bodies
or 'portions of matter in the universe
attract each other with a force propor-
tional directly to the quantity of matter
they contain and inversely to the squares
of their distances.

Gravitation, if considered as a force of
attraction only, is a force which balances
its opposite, repulsion. The attraction of
the sun balances the momentum which
would otherwise project the earth on a
straight line into space. This balance holds
the earth steadily in its course around the
sun. Opposite forces of attraction and re-
pulsion, centripetence and centrifugence,
exist in the world in its greatest and small-
est parts, alike in constellations and in
atoms. Science is compelled to recognize
repulsion as being as universal as attrac-
[ '7 ]

BALANCE

tion. To account for these contrary forces
has so far baffled investigation, Newton's
great discovery accounting only in part.
Science knows only this — that these
forces exist; that they meet, offset, neu-
tralize and regulate each other, sometimes
mildly or imperceptibl}-, sometimes vio-
lently and with fearful convulsions, and
that in their influences, contacts, struggles
and wars they hold all things in balance.

4. Evolution — including its opposite,
devolution or dissolution — that the fit
advance and the unfit decline^ advajice-
ment depe7iding upon adaptability, and
decline upon inadaptability, to environ-
ment.

There are seeds that will grow in a sand-
bank, others must have loam; some will
grow only on mountain heights, others on
low levels; some in low temperatures,
others in high; some organisms can live
only in the water, others die in the water;
some are self protected against the ele-
[ 18 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

ments, others must be housed and clothed
— and so on through numberless varia-
tions in requirements. Evolution is the
balancing of organisms with their sur-
rounding conditions, influences and forces.
Those that are fit — that is, in harmony
with their environment — will survive;
those that are unfit will fail. As Herbert
Spencer says : —

" Evolution under all its aspects, general and spe-
cial, is an advance towards equilibrium. We have
seen that the theoretical limit towards which the
integration and differentiation of every aggregate
advances, is a state of balance between all the forces to
which its parts are subject, and the forces which its
parts oppose to them.'' — Biology, ii. 537.

5. That matte?' is indestructible.

6. That force is persistent and inde-
structible.

Mr. Spencer has said (First Principles,

p. 182) that " the verification of the truth

that matter is indestructible " rests only

upon " a tacit assumption of it." " A tacit

[ 19 ]

BALANCE

assumption," with no rational basis for the
assumption, would be no verification; it
would be a guess. The truth that matter
and force are indestructible rests upon a
better ground than an assumption; it is
the inevitable corollary of the truth, " To
every action there is an equal and contrary
reaction.-' If there could be a single case
in which matter and force are annihilated,
then Newton's axiom would be untrue,
for, in that case, reaction would fail to fol-
low action. The turning of something into
nothing, by the destruction of matter or
force, would break the succession of cause
and efTect, of action and reaction ; and con-
sequently the theories of the indestructi-
bility of matter and of force have their
roots in Newton's axiom, in the great law
of consequences, of equivalence, of com-
pensation, of balance.

7. That motion is ceaseless^ and con-
sequently that tra?isformation is contin-
uous.

[ 20 ]

I

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

Here we have confirmation of the con-
clusion that the theories of the indestruc-
tibility of matter and of force rest upon
Newton's axiom. If motion should cease,
then there could be no reaction for " every
action." The modern theories of the per-
sistence of matter and force, and of the
ceaselessness of motion, are extensions, in-
terpretations and necessary consequences
of the fundamental truth that *•' every ac-
tion " is followed by a reaction.

8. The laws and ways oj" Nature are
uniform and harmonious.

Uniform means of one form, agreement,
consistency. Harmony means concord, the
just adaptation of parts to each other,
agreement also, unison. We observe this
uniformit}', harmony and agreement to a
marked degree in the fundamental expla-
nations of Nature which we are now con-
sidering. They teach us that there is nei-
ther halt nor break in Nature's processes;
that motion is ceaseless, transformation con-

[ 2, ]

BALANCE

tinuous, force persistent, matter indestruc-
tible; that in these ceaseless transforma-
tions repulsion balances attraction, effects
balance causes — in short, that reaction
equals action, that balance attends and
controls transformation.

We cannot assume uniformity and har-
mony without also assuming- a ground of
uniformity and harmony. What is Nature's
one form, or rule, or way, or law, or prin-
ciple, upon which her uniformities and
harmonies rest? Of the fundamental ex-
planations of science, one — Newton's law
of ceaseless equivalence and compensa-
tion, " To every action there is an equal
and opposite reaction" — is the imperious
and supreme statement, the others being
subsidiary or complementary to it, or ex-
planatory of it.

The fundamental conceptions of science

point distinctly and with emphasis to a

higher and single generalization — t/iat

Balance rules the world. Balance is the

[ ^^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

key that unlocks them, the word that ex-
plains them, the principle that harmonizes
them.

A man out of balance falls; a globe out
of balance would be destroyed. If the uni-
verse were out of balance, it would pre-
sent a spectacle of anarchy and chaos.
As the Brooklyn bridge could not support
itself without cables and piers, so no or-
ganism could exist without balance. Bal-
ance is of necessity the regulating and
saving force in Nature, since a force supe-
rior and antagonistic to balance — if such
could exist — would be a destroyer. The
supremacy of balance is that which is,
must be, and could not be otherwise; that
without which no order could exist.

[ ^3 ]

IV

No Force works aimlessly or wanders away into
Extinction — Balance is Supreme in the Small, as
well as in the Great, Processes of Nature — Every
Physical Transformation includes Exact Equiva-
lence and Compensation.

WITHOUT the axiom that ac-
tion and reaction are equal and
opposite, astronomy could not
make its exact predictions," says Spencer
(First Principles, p. 193). As astronomy
discerns the operation of the laws of bal-
ance in the remotest regions accessible to
human vision, and in the most tremendous
phenomena, so chemistry discovers the
same accurate adjustments among the
smallest particles of matter of which we
have any knowledge.

Lavoisier is called the founder of mod-
ern chemistry. That which distinguishes
his work from the work of his predeces-
[ M ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

sors is the more accurate measurement of
the materials and forces which are involved
in chemical changes, and a more orderly
view of these phenomena as perfectly bal-
anced interactions. His work destroyed
the theory of " phlogiston," which was in-
consistent with natural balance because it
introduced a mystic agent — " phlogiston,
the spirit of fire " — having unnatural prop-
erties contradictory of the law of action
and reaction.

The problem of oxidation puzzled chem-
ists in Lavoisier's day. The rapid action
of fire and the slow rusting of a metal
were seen to be closely akin, but the cause
was elusive. It was necessary to learn that
the essential of both processes is oxygen,
coming from the air or some other source;
and that there is no actual loss or gain in
the process of oxidation. This truth led
to the broader knowledge that, in every
chemical transformation, whatever disap-
pears in one form, reappears in another;
[ ^5 ]

BALANCE

that every manifestation of force is due
to a disturbance of balance among the
minute, invisible particles which we call
atoms; that no force works aimlessly or
wanders away into extinction.

The most recent discoveries in thermo-
chemistry, in electro-chemistry, in the
phenomena of solution, and in the realm
of molecular structure, depend upon the
same principle: that any apparent super-
abundance or deficiency indicates error,
and that the truth will always reveal a per-
fect correspondence, equivalence, and rec-
titude of law.

The history of chemical experimentation
is full of the most perfect illustrations of
the principle of equivalence, which tinds
its simplest expression in the universal
practice of chemists in writing down every
chemical reaction as an equation: So much
of this plus so much of that equals the
result.

We shall search in vain for an}- demon-
[ 26 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

strated truth concerning the system of Na-
ture, for any law, rule or axiom of physics,
which does not rest fundamentally upon
the equivalence of action and reaction, of
cause and effect. " The straight line joining
the sun and planet must pass over equal
areas in equal times," is Kepler's law. "At
any point in a fluid at rest the pressure is
equal in all directions," is Pascal's prin-
ciple. "A body immersed in a fluid is
buoyed up by a force equal to the weight
of the fluid displaced," is the principle of
Archimedes. " The angles of incidence
and reflection are in the same plane, and
are equal," is the law of reflection. " The
reciprocal of the principal focal length is
equal to the sum of the reciprocals of any
two conjugate focal lengths," is the law of
converging lenses. " The current is equal
to the electro-motive force divided by the
resistance," is Ohm's law. " The disap-
pearance of a definite amount of mechanical
energy is accompanied by the production
[ ^7 ]

BALANCE

of an equivalent amount of heat," is Joule's
principle. Observe how perfectly these
and the other principles and laws of ph3's-
ics agree with Newton's law of motion :
" To every action there is an equal Sind op-
posite reaction."

The universality of equivalence is
broadly expressed in the law of the con-
servation of energy: "When one form of
energy disappears, its exact equivalent
in another J^orm ahvays takes its placeP
This law, accepted by modern science,
leaves no ground for the assumption that
there can be a failure of equivalence in
motion or transformation.

Can we say that the equivalents which
return persistently in motion and transfor-
mation are compensatory ? Yes; the re-
turn of an exact equivalent is exact com-
pensation. Heat is the compensation for
the fuel that produces it; electricity is the
compensation for the energy that is trans-
formed into it; one molecule of water is

[ ^8 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

the compensation for two atoms of hydro-
gen and one atom of oxygen. A definite
amount of matter or force pays for exactly
the same amount in another form. That
which disappears and that which succeeds
are mutually compensatory. Fuel pays for
heat, and heat pays for fuel. The account
balances perfectly. Nature has no profit
and loss account, no bad debts, no failures
in compensation.

The assumption that anything can exist
in the physical world without exact com-
pensation appeals to the scorn alike of
science and of common sense. Our patent
office in Washington refuses to consider
devices to produce perpetual motion, not
because that office would place an arbi-
trary limit on the possibilities of mechan-
ical invention, but because effect without
cause, power without compensation, is im-
possible.

We shall be justified in the conclusion
that the principle of balance presides over
[ ^9 ]

BALANCE

the processes of Nature in the small as
well as in the large — alike in atoms, sat-
ellites and suns — and that ever}- trans-
formation of matter and force, great or
insignificant, includes the return of exact
equivalents and compensation.

[ 30 ]

V

Man's Part in Nature — Progress by Antagonism —
Nature's Process is by Test and Trial, by unfold-
ing, changing, ripping up, undoing and redoing —
Error dies in the Struggle.

A

PART from the world of physics,
and yet inextricably entangled
with the physical, is a realm in
which exist thought, hope, imagination,
reason, comedy, pathos, tragedy, friend-
ship and love, revenge and hate, honor
and humiliation, right and wrong, pleasure
and laughter, pain, agony and despair; a
world which is included in Nature, the
same as mineral and vegetable, matter and
motion, atom and sun. The thought, hopes,
ideals and fate of man belong as much to
Nature as wood, muck, coal or stone.

The conscious part of man — that
which sees, feels and comprehends — is
of higher interest and importance than
[ 31 ]

BALANCE

an3thing purely ph3sical. Newton com-
prehended gravitation, but gravitation
could not comprehend Newton. Priestley
discovered oxygen, but oxygen never dis-
covered Priestley. The astronomers have
seen far-off stars, but no star will ever
see an astronomer. Our great laws and
principles, our immensities, our planets
and suns — they are senseless, they know
nothing, see nothing, feel nothing. But
man, frail, weak and defective though he
be, can see, feel and comprehend.

So far as man is physical, we know
that he is subject to the same laws that
control other manifestations of matter and
force. But what of the conscious part
of man? Is it subject to the same laws
of action and reaction, cause and effect,
equivalence and compensation, that rule
in the physical world? Is there one law
for physical interaction, and a different
law, or no law, for intellectual and moral
interactions? Does compensation exist for
[ 32 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

matter and force only, or does it exist also
for the human soul ?

The polarities of Nature, and the inter-
actions between them, are quite as pro-
nounced in human life as in physics; in-
deed, the polarities extend beyond the
physical and human into the abstract, as
in odd and even numbers. The polarities
are sometimes antagonistic, sometimes re-
ciprocal, and always, I believe, mutually
corrective.

" An inevitable dualism bisects Nature,"
says Emerson, " so that each thing is a
half and suggests another thing to make
it whole — as, spirit, matter; man, woman;
odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out;
upper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay. . . .
The same dualism underlies the nature
and condition of man."

Plato perceived the same law of polar-
ity in " the generation of contraries, of
death out of life, and life out of death, of
recomposition and decomposition."
[ 33 ]

BALANCE

Man faces on all sides the polarities of
Nature, some of which — such as wet and
dry, hot and cold, work and rest, pleasure
and pain — were as apparent in savagery
as they are in civilization. With increas-
ing knowledge man perceives more and
more of these dualities and invents new
words to express them. Roget gives, in
his " Thesaurus," more than twelve thou-
sand words of opposite meaning. '' There
exist comparatively few words of a gen-
eral character to which no correlative term,
either of negation or of opposition, can be
assigned," sa3's Roget.

Hegel held the theory of " progress by
antagonism " — " that forms which are op-
posed are really complementary or neces-
sary to each other, and their conflict is
limited by the unity which they express
and which ultimately must subordinate
them all to itself."

Sometimes we recognize that a stranger
is a teacher or a minister by the tone of
[ 34 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

his voice. The peculiarity in the voice is
partly, but not wholly, oratorical. It is the
voice of the orator who expects no answer,
who anticipates that no one will " talk
back" on equal terms — the voice undis-
ciplined by antagonism. We may observe
also the absence of the discipline of an-
tagonism in the voices and manners of
children, and of those who have too much
or too little self assertion — in the mean
and the haughty, the servile and the arro-
gant. The countryman adjusts himself
with some trouble to the ways of the city,
and the city man to the ways of the farm
or forest, because these changes bring new
antagonisms. We meet new antagonisms
with every change from infancy to the
grave — in learning to walk and to care for
ourselves; in going first to school; with
each new study; in the cares, duties and
responsibilities which come with maturity;
in heat and cold, dust and rain; in conta-
gions; in the numberless enemies which
[ 35 ]

BALANCE

lurk in the water we drink and in the air
we breathe; in old age, '"that malady
which no physician has ever cured."

Life is tilled with issues — moral, intel-
lectual, political, social, philosophical,
commercial, physical — some being grave
and others trivial. The mind of a man
is a field of battle in which contending
ideas, forces and interests meet and clash,
each one seeking for the weak spots in the
other. A thought or proposal arouses an-
tagonistic thoughts and considerations,
and a school of thought begets antagonis-
tic schools. Monotheism rises up against
polytheism, heterodoxy against orthodoxy,
rationalism against superstition, epicu-
reanism against stoicism, realism against
idealism, monism against dualism, will
against fatalism, tolerance against intoler-
ance, equality against privilege, radicalism
against conservatism, trades unions against
employers, farmers against middlemen,
middlemen against combinations, combina-
[ 36 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

tions against competition. Our people are
in perpetual antagonism concerning na-
tional, state or local policies. In these con-
flicts, as in all other conflicts, the stronger
is victorious. Balance forbids a victory
of weakness over strength. By strength I
mean power, whether it be mental or phys-
ical, honest or base. A man is stronger
than a horse through intelligence; one
man rules a thousand or a million men
through superior will, courage, wisdom or
devotion, or by taking advantage of their
ignorance, fanaticism or superstition. In
our political contests the victory goes with
the majority, which may be in accordance
with right, or may be moved by misunder-
standing or passion. The victory of wrong
will in time produce its reaction, which
will be favorable to right. "When bad
becomes bad enough, then right returns."
"Nothing is settled until it is settled
right."

The history of civilization is the history
[ 37 ]

BALANCE

of the settlement of issues in accordance
with their merits, of numberless victories
of tolerance over intolerance, of reason
over ignorance, of right over wrong. Nor
is it true, as is sometimes assumed, that
there has been no philosophical progress.
The old contest between stoic and epicu-
rean — in which some of the greatest
minds of antiquity participated for five or
six centuries — has been definitely settled.
The verdict is expressed in the meaning
which the two words have acquired in our
language. The word stoic is applied to the
strong, emotionless, self denying, uncon-
querable; epicurean to the fastidious, lux-
urious, self indulgent, weak. And modern
thought recognizes that, while the two
words represent opposite tendencies in hu-
man nature — one of which is in the main
noble and the other in the main ignoble
— neither has the substance upon which
to build a philosophy of life. Nor is it
likely that a philosophy of life can be built
[ 38 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

upon one of two antagonistic ideas or prin-
ciples.

The meaning taken on by our words
"cynic" and "sophist" also records the final
verdict concerning the merits of two an-
cient schools of philosophy. Antisthenes,
Diogenes and Menippus, Protagoras, Gor-
gias and Hippias — all important figures
in their time — ■ were cynics or sophists,
but common sense has disposed of their
errors. Experience indicates that the
theories which belittle human nature, and
becloud the issues between right and
wrong, will ultimately become obnoxious
— that the very terms in which they are
expressed will grow into words of ill
meaning.

The failure to settle intellectual conflicts
is not due so much to the misunderstand-
ing of principles as to the misunderstanding
of facts. No one doubts that rationalism is
right and superstition wrong, but men dis-
agree concerning what is rational and what
[ 39 ]

BALANCE

is superstitious. Wrong is not defended
as 7i'?'0?2g; but on the ground that it is
right. The struggle of thought is to dis-
tinguish right from wrong.

In many issues there is truth on both
sides, and a settlement is delayed by the
difficulty in determining the true bal-
ance. Sometimes the truth on one side is
perfectly balanced by the truth on the
other side, and it turns out that there is
no issue, as in the old conflict between
inductive and deductive reasoning. We
now know that each process is sound
when correctly used, and that both pro-
cesses are essential in reasoning. There
are no particulars that -do not harmonize
with a generalization, and there is no gen-
eralization that does not agree with its
underlying facts.

Life is a struggle. Wars end, but the

war of the race — the antagonism of

thought, the strife between men, between

man and the forces external to him, within

[ 40 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

the soul of the individual — ends not save
it be with extinction.

Error gains many a temporary triumph,
but the final victory is with truth. There
is substance in truth that in the last bal-
ance outweighs error.

Nature's process is by test and trial, by
unfolding, changing, ripping up, undoing,
redoing. By contrast and conflict she tries
sincerity and treachery, honor and dis-
honor, fitness and unfitness, courage and
cowardice, truth and error. The conflict
of ideas — between social and political
systems, and between creeds and philoso-
phies — is as rude as the conflict between
the sea and land. Error dies in the struggle.

The fact, however, that the state of
Nature is dualistic in so far as it is a state
of conflict or alternation, should not be
accepted as carrying the conclusion that
Nature is dualistic in a fundamental sense.

The polarities of Nature would, if con-
sidered alone, represent Nature as a state
[ 4' ]

BALANCE

of confusion and anarchy. Since, how-
ever, order reigns in the midst of the con-
fusion, we must accept the alternations
and conflicts of Nature as being compen-
satory, and not as anarchic; as being un-
der the control of law which, in its last
analysis, is single — monistic, not dualistic
— and master of all other forces, even of
gravitation. Water, impelled by gravita-
tion, falls to the earth, runs through the
rivulets, brooks and rivers to the sea.
But it will ascend again to the clouds,
again refresh the land, again return to the
clouds, continuing alternately to 3'ield to
and then to elude the gravitation of the
earth. " What we call gravitation and fancy
ultimate is one fork of a mightier stream
for which we have yet no name," says
Emerson. I venture to suggest that the
" mightier stream " is named Balance.

[ 42 ]

VI

Action and Reaction in Human Affairs — From
Paganism to Christianity, to Asceticism, to the
Crusades, to Exploration and Commerce — Minor
Interactions — Reaction from Words and Tones,
Speeches and Thoughts.

ERROR and evil are located in defi-
ciency or excess. Even excess in
virtue is evil, an excess of humility
being abjectness; of courage, rashness; of
prudence, cowardice; of patience, indif-
ference; of economy, parsimony; of gen-
erosity, waste; of deference, obsequious-
ness. And so also an excess of learning is
pedantry; of ease, indolence; of comfort,
self indulgence; of zeal, fanaticism. Right
and justice are found in moderation, in the
golden mean — in the true balance — be-
tween overdoing and underdoing, going too
fast and too slow.

Philosophical history deals mainly with

[ 43 ]

BALANCE

the record of excess, and the reactions
from excess, in human affairs. Observe
how Lecky traces the cuhnination of the
brutaHty and cruelty of Rome to the glad-
iatorial games, in which the spectacle of
men tiijhtinor to the death in the arena —
where it is said that more than one hun-
dred thousand perished — delighted vast
audiences, including the women of the
first city in the civilized world. It was a
monk, Telemachus, who finally rushed
between the combatants, and " his blood
was the last that stained the arena." The
immediate reaction from cruelty is repug-
nance, aversion, detestation. Disgust for
pagan savagery opened the way for Chris-
tianity, the religion of kindness, humility,
peace and fraternity — the exact opposite
of the pride, arrogance and ferocity of pagan
Rome. The Christians praised peace, con-
demned war, abolished slavery, founded
the first hospitals, and sought to alleviate
human sorrow and suffering with zeal
[ 44 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

which is without parallel. One extreme
follows another in human affairs, like the
swing of a pendulum. The reaction from
excess is excess in an opposite direction.
Excess in moral reformations takes the
form often of fanaticism. Christian fanati-
cism developed in time a monstrous form
of asceticism, glorified the hermit life, beg-
gary, humiliation, flagellation, self torture,
the neglect of cleanliness and the laws of
self preservation, the breaking of family
ties, and other forms of senseless sacri-
fice. Pagan excess led to the sacrifice of
others for sport; Christian excess to the
sacrifice of self to gain the favor of superhu-
man powers. The hero of the pagans was
Caesar, who had risen to fame on the corpses
of 1,100,000 men. The hero of the age of
asceticism was St. Simeon Stylites, who
bound himself with ropes to putrefy his
flesh; who, it is said, stood on one leg for
a year and sat on a pillar for thirty years
bending in ceaseless prayer. And what
[ 45 ]

BALANCE

should we expect as the reaction from as-
ceticism? Again the opposite — the age of
chivalry and the wars of the Crusades. The
ascetics had condemned war, good clothes
and the love of women. The knights of
chivalry rode with love tokens on their
breasts, in brilliant apparel, to rescue the
tomb of Christ from the Moslem. In the
wars of the Crusades 2,000,000 Christians
perished.

Through the Crusades the peoples of
Europe became better acquainted with
one another, and the use of ships was
greatly increased. Consequently the reac-
tion from the age of the Crusades was the
age of commerce, and out of commerce
grew exploration, the discovery of Amer-
ica, the mapping of the globe. Aversion to
the intolerance of the Middle Ages pro-
duced the tolerance of later times. A sim-
ple mechanical contrivance, the printing
press, facilitated the liberation of thought.
The heroes of the later centuries are the
[ 46 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

discoverers, such as Columbus, Newton
and Darwin.

Beneath these great interactions the his-
torian observes minor interactions, cover-
ing shorter periods in the affairs of nations
and communities, as in France when the
indifference of the old regime to the rights
of man led to the period of liberty, equal-
ity and fraternity, and the excesses of the
Revolution to the horrors of the guillotine.
Dickens, in "A Tale of Two Cities,"
says:

"All the devouring and insatiate monsters im-
agined since imagination could record itself are fused
in the one realization, Guillotine. And yet there is
not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate,
a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which
will grow to maturity under conditions more certain
than those that have produced this horror. Crush
humanity out of shape once more, under similar ham-
mers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured
forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and
oppression over again, and it will surely yield the
same fruit according to its kind.

" Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these
[ M ]

BALANCE

back again to what they were, thou powerful en-
chanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the car-
riages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal
nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches
that are not my Father's house but dens of thieves,
the Ijuts of millions of starving peasants ! "

The atrocities of the French Revolu-
tion led to the rise of the empire, and the
excesses of Napoleon to his destruction.
Victor Hugo, in '•• Les Miserables," says
of Bonaparte at Waterloo:

** Another series of facts was preparing, in which
Napoleon had no longer a place : the ill will of events
had been displayed long previously. It was time for
this vast man to fall; his excessive weight in human
destiny disturbed the balance. This individual alone
was of more account than the universal group : such
plethoras of human vitality concentrated in a single
head — the world, mounting to one man's brain —
would be mortal to civilization if they endured. The
moment had arrived for the incorruptible supreme
equity to reflect, and it is probable that the principles
and elements on which the regular gravitations of
the moral order as of the material world depend,
complained. Streaming blood, overcrowded grave-
[ 48 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

yards, mothers in tears, are formidable pleaders.
When the earth is suffering from an excessive burden,
there are mysterious groans from the shadow, which
the abyss hears. Napoleon had been denounced in
infinitude, and his fall was decided. Waterloo is not
a battle, but a transformation of the universe."

Flint, in his " Philosophy of History,"
says :

" History always participates in some measure of
philosophy ; for events are always connected accord-
ing to some real or ideal principle, either of efficient
or final causation. . . . The more the mind of the
historian is awake and active, the more, of course,
it is impelled to go in search of the connection be-
tween causes and effects, between occurrences and
tendencies."

The best chart of industrial conditions in
past years in the United States is the chart
of immigration — the coming of foreigners
being in proportion to the opportunities
for labor. The first great wave of immi-
gration was consequent upon the period of
prosperity which began in 1845, and which
was stimulated later by the gold discov-
[ 49 ]

BALANCE

eries of California and the beginning of
railroad construction. The tide of immi-
gration declined with the panic of 1857
and through the civil war; it rose after the
war, declined with the panic of 1873, rose
by leaps and bounds with the prosperity
which began in 1879, declined with the
business depression of 1883—86, rose again,
declined with the panic of 1893, and rose
to the highest point on record in 1903 as
the result of the preceding prosperity.

We recognize the consequences of busi-
ness prosperity in other and numerous
forms — in contentment, comfort, satisfac-
tion with the party in power, improved
wages, increasing luxury and happiness;
while the results of declining trade are
business failures, reduced wages, precari-
ous employment, discontent with social
and political conditions, want, despair,
suicide.

The influence of the law of action and
reaction can be traced more clearly in
[ so ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

those everyday human affairs which come
under our individual observation than in
the greater movements of mankind which
are often imperfectly recorded. We act,
and are acted upon. The people we meet
make an impression on us; the impres-
sion may be for the moment or it may
last through life. Bloom, fragrance, grace,
harmony, beauty, majesty, affect us agree-
ably; deformity, imbecility, distress, cru-
elty, affect us unpleasantly. The plea of
the unfortunate, the thought of our visitor,
the opinion in the newspaper, the issues
of the time, impress us in accordance with
our moods or natures. Certain words,
tones, sights, awaken echoes within us of
old happiness or pain.

There are words and tones which pro-
duce beautiful reactions — the lullabies of
the mother, the endearments of the lover,
the voice of sympathy, the enchantment
of music, the messages of the poets, the
trumpet calls to honor and duty. And
[ 51 ]

BALANCE

there are words which produce misun-
derstanding, confusion, aversion, anger —
the words of whining, complaining, fault-
finding ; of envy, jealousy, slander ; of
malice, intolerance, brutality.

The response to the public speaker is
reciprocal to his power. If he be dull, the
hearers are wearied; if he be convincing
courageous, forceful, the audience will
kindle, and he may rouse them to laugh-
ter or tears, to indignation or fury, to
generosity or sacrifice. He may change
the opinions and convictions of some and
the course of the lives of others; he may
even save a city from slaughter or make
a state. If his thought be really great, it
ma}' live through many ages, stirring gen-
eration after generation. The reaction of
moral effort may be prolonged; it may
even gain force with time, indicating its
connection with some stupendous primal
energy. The echo of a great physical con-
vulsion dies quickly, but the echo of the
[ 52 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

words of Confucius and Buddha, of Plato,
Seneca and Christ, still lives. The voice
of Socrates before his judges kindles men
whose ancestors were untamed savages
when Socrates spoke. Buildings decay,
monuments fall, rivers run dry, races de-
cline, but a great thought suffers from no
impairment or decrepitude ; it has the gift
of immortal youth and strength.

[ 53 ]

VII

The Law of Consequences — The Good or Evil in
Things is discovered by Observation of Conse-
quences — Morals are determined by the Con-
sequences of Human Actions.

A REACTION is the consequence
of an action, an effect is the con-
sequence of a cause, a result is
the consequence of an antecedent. It is
evident that the words reaction^ effect,
result and consequence express different
manifestations of one law, usualh' called
the Law of Causation, though it would
be, I believe, more correctly named the
Law of Consequences.

We shall understand more clearly the
interactions in human affairs when we
recognize that the meaning of the words
reaction, effect and result is included in
the word consequence. We may doubt the
importance of reaction in our affairs, but
[ 54 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

we shall not doubt the importance of con-
sequences.

We are compelled to give considera-
tion to consequences in the most trivial
affairs. One has consequences in view-
when he strikes a match, sets a pot to
boil, plants a seed, pulls a weed, sharpens
a pencil, mends a fence. Shall I take an
umbrella? I balance the danger of rain
against the annoyance of the umbrella, and
decide accordingly. Shall I change my
coat.'' take another cup of coffee? walk
or ride? Each question will be decided
in accordance with my estimate of the
balance of results. In considering pos-
sible advantages or disadvantages, gains
or losses, we are balancing consequences,
endeavoring to anticipate and weigh the
results of our actions.

Regret is usually a reminder of a neglect
or misjudgment of consequences, while
repentance and reformation indicate a wak-
ing up concerning consequences. Our in-
[ 55 ]

BALANCE

terest, curiosity, anxieties, fears, hopes
and ambitions are concentrated upon con-
sequences. We seek advice when we are
doubtful about consequences. Precepts
and examples elucidate consequences. We
work and rest, eat and drink, scheme and
plan, spend and save, for consequences.
We indulge or sacrifice ourselves for con-
sequences. Caisar expended a million lives
for earthly glory; St. Simeon St}-lites
scourged himself for eternal gain. Our
actions, so far as the}' are controlled by
reason, are determined by our judgment
of consequences.

"What? Does the tramp, the drunk-
ard, the thief, consider consequences?"

The tramp roves because he prefers the
freedom and pleasures of his life to the re-
sults of other ways. The drunkard drinks
because the near pleasure outbalances in
his mind the more remote pain. The thief
steals because he values the quick and
easy gain more than he fears detection.
[ 56 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

Each man judges consequences by his
own lights, which are distorted often by
greed, animalism, ignorance.

The lesson of consequences which the
individual often learns slowly and imper-
fectly, the sound business organizations
acquire quickly and enforce by discipline.
The salesmen in a successful store are
characterized by tidiness, promptness and
a desire to please; the employees of the
important railroads are not even permitted
to answer insult with insult. The indus-
try that is intelligently managed will avoid
misrepresentation and deception, knowing
that a reputation for truth and fairness is
vital to continuous success. The shrewd-
est maxims of trade are built upon the
observation of consequences.

That mind is the strongest which has
the clearest judgment of consequences.
The fools are those who know little about
consequences. The child must be guarded
because it is ignorant of consequences.
[ 57 ]

BALANCE

What we know of narcotics, stimulants,
antidotes, hygiene, surgery, chemistry, ag-
riculture, mechanics, commerce, culture,
we know through the observation of con-
sequences. The best razor, plough, sani-
tary system, plan of social betterment,
is that which produces the best results.
Knowledge, learning and experience deal
wholl}' with cause and consequence. The
science of astronomy seeks to compre-
hend the heavenly bodies and their influ-
ences upon each other. The science of
chemistry explains the consequences of
chemical action. The science of political
economy aims to distinguish and mark the
good and evil results of different systems
of land tenure, taxation, trade and finance.
The science of government would deter-
mine what political system is best for a
people. The science of war seeks to know
what arms, equipments, forces and ma-
noeuvres will inflict the greatest injur}-
upon the enemy with a minimum of ex-
[ 58 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

penditure. The science of language deals
with the utility of words, pronunciation and
forms of expression. And so on through
the whole of human experience, knowl-
edge seeks to distinguish that which has
the best results from that which has infe-
rior or evil results.

Our ideas of right and wrong are due
to the nature of the responses to human
actions. How do we know that truth is
better than falsehood? Because we are
better pleased with ourselves when we
speak truthfully than when we lie; be-
cause truth is essential to understanding;
because we despise lying in others; be-
cause lying leads to confusion, uncertainty,
chaos, enmity, and to other evil conse-
quences. And so also we have formed a
judgment of loyalty and treachery, cruelty
and kindness, virtue and vice, by their
consequences.

Our laws, customs and commandments
would not prove to us that truth is better
[ 59 ]

BALANCE

than Kins: if our own experience did not
contirm it. Tlie Decalogue is effective
only so far as Nature corroborates it.

Our common conceptions of morality
are the results of the observation of human
actions and their consequences — of cause
and effect, of action and reaction. We
know that certain actions are right and
others wrong, as we know that bread is
good and straw bad for food; that light
clothing is more useful in summer than
in winter; that cleanliness is better than
filthiness; that the way to walk is forward,
not backward; that mirth is pleasanter
than grief.

As the value of a machine or imple-
ment is shown in its working, and the
value of a tree by its fruit, so the merit or
demerit of food, drink, medicine, acts and
thoughts is determined by their results,
reactions or effects — by their conse-
quences.

[ 60 ]

VIII

Equivalence is the Test of Truth — Our Standards
are Instruments of Equivalence — The Balancing
of Alternatives — Reasoning is an Exploration of
the Undetermined, a Search for Antecedents and
Consequences.

IN mathematics, our one exact science,
equivalence is the test of truth. Con-
sider the unalterable nature of the
truth expressed in the simplest equation:
one plus one equals two. Nothing can
change this result. That which is so im-
pregnable is the principle of equivalence.
One added to one equals two, and can equal
nothing else.

Equivalence is the test of truth also in
the physical sciences, so far as our knowl-
edge is exact, as in chemical combinations.
Our standards — the cent and dollar;
pint and gallon; ounce, pound and ton;
inch, foot and mile — are instruments
[ 6i ]

BALANCE

of equivalence. We measure accurately
only by equivalents. In the absence of a
standard, we fall back on resemblance,
analog}', comparison, or some other sub-
stitute for an equivalent.

The chief substitute, used alike b}' the
humblest and highest minds, is the balanc-
ing of alternatives — the measuring of one
thing by its opposite. The rules of logic are
unknown to the mass of mankind, but no
one possessed of intelligence is unfamiliar
with the process of balancing alternatives.
Even the animals use it when they choose
between two paths, or two actions, as be-
tween fight and flight. IMen use it in every
dilemma, great or small, from the choice
between the simplest actions, to the issue
of life or death. Is the thing under con-
sideration good or bad? Shall I vote for
A or B? Shall I act now or postpone?
Shall I take a risk ? Shall I stop or go on ?
Shall I change my course? Shall I do this
or that? In these and other dilemmas, we
[ 62 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

balance the consequences of one alterna-
tive against the other, and choose what ap-
pears to be the better. Facing death in two
forms, we choose the better way. Balanc-
ing alternatives, one will jump from a high
window to the pavement to escape fire.

The moral dilemmas presented to us are
not always limited to a clear choice be-
tween right and wrong. It is wrong to
steal, but should one starve, or permit those
dependent on him to starve, rather than
steal ? It is right to tell the truth, but should
one tell the truth when it involves the be-
trayal of his comrades, his country, his fam-
ily ? It is wrong to deceive, but would not
one be justified in deceiving the enemy
who would destroy him? It is wrong to
kill, but may not one kill in self defense?

The problem of morals presses con-
stantly upon the human race, presenting
to each individual in turn new trials,
difficulties and repugnant choices. Each
must, to a large degree, choose his own
[ 63 ]

BALANCE

way, fight his own battle. These are the
facts which confuse our ethical counselors.
It is not possible to act always in exact
harmony with our moral code. If one is
so placed that he can save his mother from
starvation only by stealing, he will violate
the fifth commandment if he permits her
to starve, and lie will violate the eighth
commandment if he chooses to steal. The
choice between two evils often comes to
the individual suddenly and imperatively.
He must act at once, rendering a deci-
sion for which there is often no precedent
known to him. The Decalogue which he
can recite, the philosophical analysis of the
evolution of ethics, do not aid him.

He who is thus tried, and who desires
to do right, will choose the course which
is least evil. He will balance the alterna-
tives, exactly as does the one who jumps
to the pavement rather than remain in the
burning building.

Other alternatives crowd upon us. Na-
[ 6+ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

ture presents to us almost continuously
the choice between near pleasure and re-
mote good. Shall I rest now and enjoy
myself, or shall I work, postponing my en-
joyment? Shall I give the years of my
youth to study or to play? Shall I accept
present privation that I may in time enjoy
security? Shall I consider my own inter-
ests wholl}^, or shall I make a sacrifice for
others? Shall I stay at home in comfort,
or shall I risk my life for my country?
Shall I disown my faith, or shall I accept
death by torture? Numberless are the
choices between the near and the remote
good which men must make. The lower
men show little appreciation of the remote
good, save as they are inspired by the
instinct of self preservation. The higher
men are distinguished by their high valua-
tion of the remote good — by provision
for the future, by attention to health, by
interest in culture, by sound investments,
by building business, houses and charac-
[ 65 ]

BALANCE

ter substantially, by a high estimate of
honor and duty.

Reasoning is an exploration of the unde-
termined— an elucidation of the unknown
throutrh the known or the discoverable.
There is no difficulty in measuring with
exact standards to measure by, and with
something tangible to measure — for ex-
ample, in determining the number of cubic
feet in a room, or the power of an engine.
Reasoning, which is eas}' so far as it deals
with exact equivalents, becomes difficult
when applied to things the equivalents of
which are unknown. The mind instinc-
tivel}' seeks for the unknown equivalents,
and finds them in antecedents or conse-
quences. Chemical experimentation is a
search for consequences; bacteriological
investiofation is a search for antecedents.
The search in both cases is for equivalents
by which we may determine the nature and
meaning of the thing: tried, or its relations

to other things.

[ 66 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

The syllogism in logic is a form by
which one may advance from antecedents
to a consequent. The essence of a syllo-
gism is this : that a premise includes all of
its consequences. If a premise be true, its
consequences will be true; if it be false,
its consequences will be false. Conclu-
sions, corollaries, deductions, judgments,
inferences, discoveries and estimates are
consequences — each following from an
antecedent or antecedents.

The failure to consider, or to estimate
correctly, the consequences of a position
is fatal in reasoning. This is illustrated
in the case of a number of schools of
thought holding conclusions concerning
the most important questions of life which
are in contradiction to human experience
or to reason — for example, idealism and
fatalism.

That form of idealism which denies the
existence of matter, has been supported
by many famous minds, in neglect of its
[ 67 ]

BALANCE

consequences, for we know that no idealist
could act as if matter had no existence —
could live and move about in contempt of
mud, stone walls, mountains, rivers, seas,
snow, ice, fire, food, poison, gunpowder,
clothing, beds.

Fatalism — known under different names,
as foreordination, predestination, neces-
sity, determinism — the theory that man
is an automaton, an instrument moved
and played upon by external influences
or powers, has been defended b}' many
eminent theologians, philosophers and
other thinkers, including some distin-
guished modern scientists. Observe, in
the face of the intellectual prominence
of the fatalists, how completely the con-
sequences of fatalism refute that theory.
One convinces himself that fatalism is
true, that he and all other men are au-
tomatons. He must convince himself
through reason. But an automaton can-
not reason. He convinces himself through
[ 68 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

reason that he is an automaton without

reason

The method of reasoning justified by ex-
perience, used by men in contact with the
problems and difficulties of life, whether
the problems and difficulties be the most
simple or the most complex, is the method
of common sense — the testing of ante-
cedents by consequents, and of conse-
quents by antecedents.

We judge the value of a machine, a
field, a cow, a pig, by what it will pro-
duce; a picture, a scene, a play, a spec-
tacle, a poem, a song, a book, a thought,
by what it gives back to us; a creed, an
opinion, a plan, a policy, a system, a phi-
losophy, a deduction, a conclusion, by
what we believe its consequences are or
will be.

We estimate the value of a nation, a

race, by its history, its antecedent record.

The calculations of future events by the

astronomers are based on antecedent ex-

[ 69 ]

BALANCE

perience. We must judge what will be by
what has been. We search alike for good
seeds and evil germs that we may propa-
gate the one, and destro}' the other.

To comprehend the unknown seed, we
plant it and observe its consequences. To
comprehend an unexplained crime, we
search for its antecedents. The process
of reasoning, e\en of the most abstract
reasoning, is the same. Our knowledge
of a thing is limited by our knowledge of
its antecedents and consequences. An ad-
vance in knowledge, from the humblest
step to the highest scientific achievement,
comes from the investigation of antece-
dents or consequences.

As a physical interaction includes cause
and effect, and perfect equivalence be-
tween them, so does the mental interaction
which we call reasoning include antecedent
and consequence, and perfect equivalence
between them. We are unable to think of
antecedents and consequences as being
[ 7° ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

other than exact — of peaches as growing
on apple trees, or of acorns that produce
potatoes. The measure of truth and false-
hood will be found in their equivalents —
in their antecedents and consequences.

C 71 ]

IX

Compensation in Human Affairs — Problems of Busi-
ness are Problems of Compensation — Right is
accomplished by rendering Equivalents — Duty
is a Debt, literally a Due — The Golden Rule is a
Law of Equivalent Exchange.

IN primitive times trade was by bar-
ter — a fish for a rabbit, a shell for a
cocoanut, or service for service — a
direct exchange of articles or labor. Mod-
ern coinmerce is still correctly designated
as "trade" or '" exchange," though methods
are improved. Money, drafts, credit and
transportation are instrumentalities of ex-
change, of balance. I exchange my labor
for money, which is good in exchange for
whatever may be in the market. A debt
is a deferred balance. A promissory note
is an agreement to settle a balance. A
bank check is a draft upon a balance in
bank to close or reduce a balance else-

r 72 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

where. Systems of accounting are agencies
of balance. The correctness of bookkeep-
ing is tested by a balance.

Interest is the pcnalt}' for a postponed
payment, for a delayed balance. The busi-
ness done on a cash basis is balanced
continuously; the business done on credit
is out of balance, involving risk. The de-
lay of compensation is dangerous. Fail-
ures, bankruptcies and business panics
are due to debt, the neglect of compensa-
tion.

Life consists almost wholly of buying,
selling, paying. There are no gifts, noth-
ing that does not call for an equivalent.
If we cannot pay for gifts in kind, we must
pay in gratitude or service, or we shall
rank as moral bankrupts.

If I would have a good situation, I must
pay for it not only in labor, but in prompt-
ness, intelligence, faithfulness and good
manners. If I would have good service, I
must pa}' not onl}- in money, but in con-
[ 73 ]

BALANCE

sideration, recognition, appreciation, fair-
ness. I can liold no one to me if I mis-
use him.

All things are to be had for the bining.
Would you have friends? Then pay the
price. The price of friendship is to be
worthy of friendship. The price of glory
is to do something glorious. The price of
shame is to do something shameful.

Friendship, glorv, honor, admiration,
courage, infam}', contempt, hatred, are all
in the market-place for sale at a price.
We are buying and selling these things
constantl}' as we will. Even beauty is for
sale. Plain women can gain beauty by cul-
tivating grace, animation, pleasant speech,
intelligence, helpfulness, courage or good
will. Beauty is not in the features alone;
it is in the soul also.

Good will buys good will, friendliness
buys friendship, confidence begets confi-
dence, service rewards service ; and hate
pays for hate, suspicion for suspicion,

[ 74 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

treachery for treachery, contempt for
ingratitude, slovenliness, laziness and
lying.

We plant a shrub, a rosebush, an orchard,
with the expectation that they will pay us
back. We build roads, mend harness and
patch the roof with the same expectation.
We will trust even these unconscious
things to pay their debts.

Some of our investments are good, and
some are bad. The good qualities we
acquire — moderation, industry, courtesy,
order, patience, candor — are sound in-
vestments. Our evil institutions and habits
are bad investments, involving us in losses.
We become debtors to them, and they are
exacting creditors, forcing payment in full
in money and labor, and sometimes in
blood, agony, tears, humiliation or shame.

We recently had in this country the in-
stitution of chattel slaverv, which we had
cultivated for two hundred years. Prepar-
atory to going out of business, this insti-
[ 75 ]

BALANCE

tiition called on us for final settlement.
Our indebtedness, which proved to be
large — amounting to more than half a
million lives and over six thousand mil-
lion dollars — was paid in full. It seems
strange that our institution of slavery,
with no standing among the great powers
of the earth, should have been able to col-
lect such an indemnity in blood, treasure
and pain from an enlightened people, tak-
ing a drop of blood from the dominant
race '' for every drop drawn by the lash."

We are administering compensation
continualh' in our praise and blame of our
fellow men — in applause to a poet or dis-
coverer, in condemnation of the greedy and
rapacious, in aversion to injustice, in love
to our benefactors.

" Each day," as Emerson says, " is a day
of judgment." We are judged continually,
and usually correctly, by our associates and
friends. And we are constant!}' paying
penalties to or receiving rewards from
[ :6 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

our judges — penalties in the indifference,
dislike, contempt and detestation of our
fellows; rewards in their appreciation,
confidence, good will and love.

The vulgar receive no respect, the heart-
less no sympathy, the rapacious no affec-
tion. It is better to be a dog that has earned
a little love than Caesar in triumph, his
enemies on his chariot wheels.

Compensation is in the frost on the win-
dow pane, and in the sunset of gold and
crimson and purple, which reward the ar-
tistic sense in the minds even of the for-
lorn and poor; in the hope in the hearts
of men which makes life endurable; in the
first cry of the infant which rewards the
mother's agony.

Right is accomplished by rendering
equivalents. Duty is a debt, literally a due,
which we owe to ourselves or to others.
The Golden Rule is a perfect law of equiv-
alent exchange, and Kant's " categorical
imperative " — " Act according to that
[ 11 ]

BALANCE

maxim only wliich you can wish at the
same time to become the universal hiw "
— is also an exact law of reciprocity.

'^ The real tirst truth of morality," says
Victor Cousin, ''is justice. It is justice,
therefore, and not duty, that strictly de-
serves the name of a principle." " Univer-
sal justice," says Aristotle, " includes all
virtue." "Justice is the greatest good,"
says Plato.

Justice is the foundation of retribution,
vindication, reparation, obligation, reci-
procity, accountability, duty. Justice is
compensation.

Everything in Nature, conscious and un-
conscious, animate and inanimate, is busily
engaged in paying its debts. By what sys-
tem is this perfect accounting made? We
see no books, observe no management, and
yet the numberless settlements are made
with as much exactness as if each one were
superintended by a group of experts, com-
bining more of knowledge and justice than
[ 78 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

are possessed by all of the mathemati-
cians, scientists, thinkers, philosophers and
judges in the world. We cannot explain
this accounting on the theory of chance
or accident; we must conclude that it is
the consequence of a supreme power or
principle of order, right and justice which
regulates the affairs of the world.

[ 79 ]

X

Order is Regulation ; Balance is Regulator. Right
is Correctness ; Balance is Corrector. Justice is
Compensation ; Balance is Compensator — Balance
is Single and Supreme, without a Mate or Equal.

BALANCE is a word in which are
concentrated, I hold, the higher
meanings of the words order, right
and justice.

The high and more general meanings of
the word order — such as sequence, regu-
larity of succession and method, right ar-
rangement— fit well into the word balance.
In other words, balance may include the
higher meanings of order, but order does
not include all of balance. We shall not
find the fundamental explanations of the
system of Nature in order. Effect, it is
true, follows cause, and reaction follows
action, in an orderly manner. This is a
process, a general way of Nature. Such a
[ 80 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

statement, however, gives out little light.
But when we say that effect balances
cause, that reaction balances action, then
we make a distinct advance toward unity
and light.

Right is a word of broad and noble
meaning, but it also does not fit com-
pletely into the fundamental explanations
of the system of Nature, or apply as per-
fectly as does the word balance to every
interaction.

The figure illustrating justice is a god-
dess blindfolded, holding the scales of bal-
ance in her hands. Justice is balance in
human affairs. Balance is wider than jus-
tice, since it includes justice and more than
justice. There is no justice in the moon,
where there is no life, but balance is there.

Balance includes order, right and jus-
tice, but none of the latter can include
completely the former. Balance is an
active, governing principle, supreme, cen-
tral, automatic. Order is regulation; bal-
[ 8i ]

BALANCE

ance is regulator. Right is correctness;
balance is corrector. Justice is compen-
sation; balance is compensator.

As we advance in knowledge we per-
ceive more and more of duality in the
processes of Nature. Doubtless we shall
know in time that all processes, save the
supreme process, are double. We know
now that the law of causation is misnamed;
it is reallv the law of cause and effect.
And so also the law of evolution is actually
the law of evolution and devolution. That
the tit survive is only a half truth, the
other half being this — that the unfit die.
That matter and force are indestructible
is also a half of the complete truth that
matter and force are indestructible and
uncreatable. The law of consequences is
really the law of antecedents and conse-
quences, though I shall continue, for the
sake of brevity, to designate it as single.

As Roget has shown, nearly all of the
important words in our language are bal-
[ 82 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

anced by words of opposite meaning.
Even honor is balanced by dishonor, vir-
tue by vice, right by wrong. But where
shall we find the obverse of balance, its
other half, mate or contrar}^, the force
which matches balance on equal terms ?
I know of no such energy or principle. It
has no name; no word in our language
expresses such meaning. We say that re-
action balances action, attraction balances
repulsion, order balances disorder, and so
on, but what balances Balance? These
words in which I attempt to consider the
balancing of balance become ridiculous,
indicating the absurdity of the thought
that balance is itself subject to balance.
Balance is single and supreme, without a
mate or equal.

[ 83 ]

XI

Natural Justice — Compensation in Human Affairs
involves a Cycle of Beginning, Development and
Conclusion, as Seed Time, Growth and Harvest —
Tyranny is an Antidote for Mean Spiritedness, and
Courage is the Antidote for Tyranny — Through
such Rude Alternations do we move forward.

" 1 \ VT what of the failures of balance,

II uf the awful accidents and terrible

convulsions of Nature in which

balance seems to be absent, or at least

tardy or inefficient?"

The convulsions of Nature arc not
violations of balance ; they are the phe-
nomena connected with Nature's great
interactions. LisfhtninCT is the shock ac-
companying the establishing of equipoise
between two clouds, or between a cloud
and the earth. An earthquake is the
equalization of an internal pressure upon
the crust of the earth. And so cyclones,
[ 84 1

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, epi-
demics and other disturbances are the
consequences of the antecedents which
produced them.

" You admit, then, that things are not
always in balance, and that man can defy
balance ? "

Man cannot defy balance. His acts must
produce equivalent consequences. The use
of rotten harness, imperfect boilers, defect-
ive flues, bad plumbing, weak buildings
and faulty machinery will invite disaster.
Whenever the internal pressure overbal-
ances the strength of the boiler, we have
what we call an accident, though it is
not really an accident, being the result
of ignorance or of a miscalculation of
forces.

We invite evil consequences in overeat-
ing and overdrinking, in overworking and
underworking, in neglecting sanitary pre-
cautions, in worrying and straining beyond
our strength, thereby receiving many a
[ 85 ]

BALANCE

hard rap and sometimes a deathblow. We
live in the kingdom of equivalence and
compensation. Its laws are very strict,
and wc cannot evade them. If we violate
them, we must pay the penalty.

To sav that compensation is defeated
because it requires time for completion is
as unreasonable as if one should say that a
journey is endless because its conclusion
is not reached in an instant, or that the
seed planted this morning is a failure be-
cause it does not produce an ear of corn
this afternoon. We do not comprehend
the Rocky INIountains through the first
glimpse of one of its peaks, nor is the
whole process of evolution to be found in
one of Darwin's lines. And compensation
also is revealed only by the whole of it
— in its completeness — and not in one
glimpse or line.

The processes of compensation in human
affairs involve usually a cycle of begin-
ning, development and conclusion — as

[ 86 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

seed time, growth and harvest — for com-
pletion. A headache, separated from the
indulgence that preceded it, is apparently
wrong; connected with its cause, it is
right. To judge a thing, we must know
its antecedents and consequences. We
cannot determine the exact status of a
wrong, or of what appears to be a wrong,
unless we know that antecedents do not
justify it, or that consequences will not
rectify it.

At the end of all our reasoning con-
cerning the fundamental questions of life,
we must choose between two alternatives
— either (i) all things are in the process
of being righted, or (2) the world-order
is hopelessly wrong.

The correction of excess and deficiency
is the province of balance. It would be
impossible to make a list of the influences
and forces which antagonize excess or de-
ficiency, for we do not know, and doubt-
less never will know, all of them, as they
[ 87 ]

BALANCE

are included in the most subtle and minute
phenomena of action and reaction, of cause
and effect. Human law, for illustration, is
designed to prevent excess or deficiency

— not only statute law and common law,
but haws of decorum, ceremony, courtesy,
etiquette, custom, usage, manners, trade.
These laws are more or less defective,
themselves subject to excess or deficiency

— as laws of despotism, privilege, mono-
poly, fashion — and sadly require the regu-
lation of balance. To one who suffers from
defective laws, the force that corrects them
seems to be far off or even non-existent.
We should remember, however, that bal-
ance works sometimes secretly, as in the
imperceptible rhythm said to exist in all
motion, and sometimes silently through
centuries, as in the transformation of sun-
shine into coal.

The world has doubtless suffered more
from t3Tann3' in its many forms than from
any other perversion of order in human

[ 88 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

affairs. Yet we may perceive much of
balance in the origin, development and
conclusion even of tyranny. The tyrant
rules because he is the stronger. Strength
will rule over weakness. No protest or
complaint, no weeping or wailing, will
change that fact. Tyranny exists by the
consent of the oppressed. Those are en-
slaved who are willing to be owned, who
are too ignorant or cowardly to resist, or
who consent to temporize. We enslaved
the negro because he lacked spirit, but we
failed to enslave the Indian. The Indian
accepted death, and declined slavery.
There were negroes, too, who declined
slavery, and found freedom in the north
or in death.

There is something in tyranny that
rouses the spirit of men, even of dull and
cowardly men. It may be that we owe
more to our tyrants than to our benevo-
lent autocracies, which have soothed and
lulled us into indifference and inglorious
[ 89 ]

BALANCE

content. Tyranny is an antidote for mean
spiritedness, and courage is the antidote
for t3Tanny. Through these rude alterna-
tions do we move forward. We would
value freedom little if we knew nothing of
oppression.

As for the tyrant, he thinks of poison
when he eats and drinks; he sees danger
in the sullen faces of his slaves. He lives
in dread of assassination, and often dies
by it. He sees danger even where there is
no danger. He cuts a sony figure in his-
tory. His life is uneasy and his memory
is detested. There are no happy tyrants.
The ofreat tyrants earn ininiortal infamy;
the small ones secure the hatred of those
who know them. The account, as we see it,
balances rudel}' ; doubtless it would bal-
ance to a hair if we could trace all of the
remote antecedents and consequences of
tyranny. Doubtless also, if we could trace
the antecedents and consequences of all
other evils, we should know tliat there is
[ 90 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

no trouble which time will not heal, no
wrong which is not in the process of being
righted.

The universe is under the reign of law,
which is everywhere — in things mean and
minute as well as in things noble and great.
So far as we have come into an under-
standing of these laws, we have found
none defective.

No sound philosophy can concede that
a law of Nature can be out of balance or
in any way less than true and perfect.
When we advance a theory to the point
where it would prove that a law of Nature
is out of balance and defective, we should
know that the conclusion is wrong; that
it is our reasoning, and not the law, that is
out of balance and defective.

[ 91 ]

XII

Justice is Incomplete in the Present Existence — Our
Life here is as a Broken Part of a Broader Life —
If Death ends All, then the Mass of Mankind must
live, toil, suffer and die under a Condition of Hope-
less Injustice.

WE must admit, however, that jus-
tice, which is balance in human
affairs, is incomplete in this life.
All men are endowed at birth with unequal
strength, intelligence and moral qualities.
One, born of superior antecedents, is
reared under benign influences, develops
into noble manhood, lives under favorable
environments to a good old age, and dies
tranquill}-. Another, a woman, born of
low antecedents, is sold by a degraded
mother into prostitution, lives a short and
wretched life, and dies miserably. One,
inheriting a mean intellect, lives on a
level a little above the brute ; another,
[ 9^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

the idiot, is more helpless than the brute.
To one pair are born tine children, who
grow up to helpful maturity; to another
pair comes a drunkard, a degenerate, an
imbecile or a criminal. One, who con-
forms to the opinions or institutions of his
time, perhaps ignorantly or dishonestly,
lives peacefully to old age; another, more
intelligent or sincere, suffers martyrdom
for his devotion to right and duty.

A few live long and pleasant lives, into
which enters no unusual trouble,opain or
misfortune. The lives of the many are
short and broken, or rendered burdensome
by slavish toil ; " by griefs that gnaw deep,
by woes that are hard to bear." Story
pictures these, in his " lo Victis," as —

..." the low and the humble, the weary and broken

in heart,
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent

and desperate part ;
Whose youth bore no flower on its branches, whose

hopes burned in ashes away,
[ 93 ]

BALANCE

From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped
at, who stood at the dying of day,

With the work of their life all around them, unpitied,
unheeded, alone.

With death swooping down o'er their failure, and all
but their faith overthrown."

Nor are the good always happy nor the
vicious wretched in proportion to their de-
serts in this life. To the contrary, the good
are often wretched and the vicious happy.

The life here is as one act in a play or
one chapter in a novel, in which the plot
has neither opening nor conclusion, and
in which the action, separated from the
preceding and succeeding parts, is appar-
ently without purpose, sense or justice —
in which wrong and villain}' may be tri-
umphant and integrity and virtue trampled
in the dust.

Perhaps our passion for fiction and the

drama is due to the fact that in them we

find that completeness and justice which

we rarely see in real life. In them the

[ 94 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

good, after many difficulties and troubles,
are triumphant, and the evil are finally un-
done.

Our fondness for biography and history
— which abound also in rewards, retribu-
tions and other equities — can be explained
on similar grounds. We discover that com-
pleteness and justice come to the individ-
ual slowly, but surely, in a historic sense;
that those made great by accident are in
time forgotten; that the tyrannical and the
cruel are detested; that Columbus left a
better legacy than Caesar; that Newton is
more honored than any English king; that
Burns, the rustic poet, is better loved than
Bonaparte, the conqueror. And we ob-
serve that Lincoln — whose youth was for-
lorn, whose life was full of care, who was
murdered in the hour of his triumph —
still lives in the hearts of his countrymen.

And we learn to believe that the books
of Nature must balance; that Time glori-
fies the just, humiliates the arrogant, levels
[ 95 ]

BALANCE

all inequalities, revenges all outrages, rights
all wrong.

Thus we tind in both fact and fiction,
and in the hunger for justice in our own
hearts, some warrant for our old faith that
the present life is only a broken part of a
much broader life which will be complete,
and in which all things will be made right
and even.

If this life were broken into still shorter
fragments, it would appear to be still more
unjust. If, for illustration, each life con-
sisted of one day only, then the lives of
some would fall upon fair, mild or bril-
liant days, and others upon wet, cold or
hot davs; some upon the long da3's of
June, and others upon the short days of
December; and some upon days into which
no sunlight would enter, and these would
doubt even the existence of the sun.

But our life here consists of man}- days,
and we know that the good days outnum-
ber the bad ones; that the seasons return
[ 96 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

with precision, and that there are but slight
variations in the annual rainfall and tem-
perature of any given district.

A week or even a month of bad days
does not discourage us, for we know that
in the round of a year we shall have about
so much of rain and drought, sunshine and
fog, heat and cold. So far as the weather
is concerned. Nature's average restores
approximate equilibrium in the cvcle of
a year, and complete balance in a term of
years.

The broader the basis of reckoning, the
more perfect is the equivalence established
by statistics and experience. While we
have in our present life manifestations of
balance in the alternations of the weather,
in the recurrence of the seasons and in
many other phenomena, and while a tend-
ency toward justice is evident in all hu-
man affairs, it is clear that the life here is
neither lon^ enous^h nor broad enough to
establish complete compensation.
[ 97 ]

BALANCE

A full consideration of the subject leads
to the conclusion that, if death ends all,
then the mass of mankind must live, toil,
suffer and die under a condition of hope-
less injustice — and hence that the only
basis for the belief that justice will be
completel}' established in human affairs is
in the doctrine of the immortality of the
soul.

This conclusion sheds much light upon
the universality, persistence and rational
meaning of religion.

XIII

The Essential Meaning of Religion is found in the
Agreements, and not in the Disagreements, among
Believers — There are Three Fundamental Reli-
gious Beliefs : (i) That the Soul is Accountable
for its Actions ; (2) That the Soul survives the
Death of the Body ; (3) In a Supreme Power that
rights Things.

RELIGION is the oldest, the most
universal and the most permanent
of the institutions of men. We
have no historic record of a people who
were destitute of every form and manifes-
tation of religion. It is nurtured by civili-
zation; it existed among the earlier and
lower men.

Tylor ranks perhaps as the foremost in-
vestigator of primitive beliefs. In consid-
ering the theory that there must be tribes
so low as to be destitute of religious faith,
he says:

[ 99 ]

BALANCE

" Though the theoretical niche is ready and con-
venient, the actual statue to fill it is not forthcoming.
The case is in some degree similar to that of the
tribes asserted to exist without language or without
the use of fire ; nothing in the nature of things seems
to forbid the possibility of such existence, but as a
matter of fact the tribes are not found. Thus the
assertion that rude non-religious tribes have been
known in actual existence, though in theory possible,
and perhaps in fact true, does not at present rest on
that sufficient proof which, for an exceptional state
of things, we are entitled to demand." — Primitive
Culture, i. 418.

Concerning the harmonies in religious
beliefs, Tylor also says:

" No religion of mankind lies in utter isolation
from the rest, and the thoughts and principles of
modern Christianity are attached to intellectual clues
which run back through far pre-Christian ages to the
very origin of human civilization, perhaps even of
human existence." — Primitive Culture, i, 421,

Spencer says;

" Of religion, then, we must always remember that
amid its many errors and corruptions it has asserted
and diffused a supreme I'erify. From the first, the

[ »°° ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

recognition of this supreme verity, in however imper-
fect a manner, has been its vital element; and its
various defects, once extreme but gradually dimin-
ishing, have been so many failures to recognize in
full that which it recognized in part. The truly reli-
gious element of religion has always been good ; that
which has proved untenable in doctrine and vicious
in practice has been its irreligious element ; and from
this it has ever been undergoing purification," — First
Principles, p. 104.

Religion is a word which has not been
clearly defined. It has one meaning to
Jews, another to Christians, another to
Mohammedans, another to Buddhists.
Even the Christians — being divided into
many sects — hold views more or less in
conflict concerning the meaning of reli-
gion. The lexicographers have defined the
word timidly and haltingly, drawing no
clear distinction between religion and
theology.

What is the actual meaning of the great
fact which we call religion ? Where shall
we find the " supreme verity " to which
[ •°' ]

BALANCE

Mr. Spencer refers, and the harmony of
which Mr. Tylor speaks?

It would be useless to attempt to dis-
cover a ground of agreement in all of
the thought of the world concerning reli-
gion, for the tliinking on the subject has
been voluminous and endless, good and
bad, sane and insane. Nor slunild we ex-
pect to tind an essential harmony in all
religious organizations, great and small,
temporary and permanent, powerful and
insignificant. It is conceivable that a sect
claiming to be religious is really irre-
ligious.

We should seek for the essential meaning
of religion in the broad principle or prin-
ciples which have been accepted by great
masses of men in places and times wide
apart; in the permanent manifestations of
religious sentiment, and in the instinctive,
spontaneous and untaught beliefs common
to primitive men which survive in more
highly developed form among the enlight-
[ '°^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

ened. And we must seek for it finally in
the harmony of belief in the great religious
organizations now in existence; for they
must contain, in the natural order of
growth, that which is worthy of survival
in the religious faith that has preceded
them. We must seek for the meaning of
religion in the agreements, and not in the
disagreements, among believers.

It is now conceded by enlightened the-
ologians, as well as by philosophers, that
religious institutions and beliefs have de-
veloped through the universal principle of
evolution. And it follows that, as the oak
is something more complete than the
acorn, astronomy than astrology, man than
the ape, so we shall find religious beliefs
to be more perfectly developed in enlight-
enment than in savagery.

" For a principle of development," says

Edward Caird (Evolution of Religion,

pp. 43-45), "necessarily manifests itself

most clearly in the most mature form of

[ '°3 ]

BALANCE

that whicli develops. ... It is tlie devel-
oped organism that explains the germ
from which it grew. . . . We must find
the key to the meaning of the first stage
in the last."

I. The Belief that the Soul is Account-
able for its Actions.

" I entertain a good hope," says Socrates,
*' that something awaits those who die, and
that, as was said long since, it will be far
better for the good than the evil."

A very old belief — which grows with
man's growth and strengthens with his
enlightenment — is the faith that he is ac-
countable for his actions.

Tylor, who doubts that the doctrine of
compensation was universal among primi-
tive races, admits that it existed among
man}', and that it extended and developed
with the growth of mankind. He sa3's:

" A comparison of doctrines held at various stages
of culture may justify a tentative speculation as to
[ •°4 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

their actual sequence in history, favoring the opinion
that through an intermediate stage the doctrine of
simple future existence was actually developed into
the doctrine of future reward and punishment, a
transition which, for deep import to human life, has
scarcely its rival in the history of religion." — Primi-
tive Culture, ii. 84.

D'Alviella says:

" The idea of a judgment of the dead, to which the
theory of rewards and punishments naturally leads as
its culmination, appears to have found its way into
the minds even of very backward peoples." — Hib-
bert Lectures, p. 193.

Tangible evidence of the belief in ac-
countability by primitive tribes now extinct
being lacking, many scientific investigators
deny that it existed.

Yet these investigators agree that pro-
pitiation was an universal rite among the
lowest men, that it developed with man's
culture, and survives even to the present
time. Why did primitive men propitiate
the spirits of their dead.^ And why did
[ ^°5 ]

BALANCE

the later cults propitiate fetiches, idols and
gods ?

Propitiation is offered through fear to
powers to which one acknowledges ac-
countability. The culprit propitiates his
judge, the slave his master, the subject
his ruler. It is evident that the motive
strong enough and general enough to im-
pel the primitive tribes to propitiate the
spirits of the dead must have been based
on the belief that man was accountable
to the spirits, whom he credited with ex-
traordinary powers.

It appears to me that the sense of ac-
countability was in the nature of things
the first religious sentiment in the mind of
man; that it is older than the belief in a
future life and in superhuman powers; that
it was based and still rests upon cause and
effect, which are apparent to the dull, as
well as to the enlightened; that the lower
men perceived that the fruits of certain
acts and things were good and of others
[ '°6 ]

I

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

bad, and that this perception led inevita-
bly, in the infancy of thought, to the recog-
nition of the law of consequences^ which
is the law of accountability, of rewards
and penalties.

The knowledge of primitive man begins
with cause and efTect. He discovers that
water quenches thirst, game is found under
certain conditions, a cave gives shelter,
friction brings fire, the sun yields heat
and light, some plants are poisonous, frost
withers, lightning kills.

The first lesson learned by the infant
is connected with cause and effect. The
mother is the source of food, the cause of
protection. Later the child learns that
through effort it can walk; that some
things are hurtful and others helpful;
some bitter, some sweet; some heavy,
some light. It discovers that some actions
are beneficial and may be safely repeated;
that others are injurious and should be
avoided. The beneficial it recognizes as
[ '°7 ]

BALANCE

good, the harmful as evil. That which
hurts, even if inanimate, the child would
punish; that which is pleasant it rewards
at least with a smile. The baby becomes
a judge, and gives forth verdicts. Before
it can speak its first word, it knows much
instinctively of cause and effect, of good
and evil, recognizes the utilit}' of rewards
and penalties, and realizes dimly its own
accountability.

The brute also, in proportion to its in-
telligence, understands cause and effect;
it recognizes its enemies, comprehends its
own weakness and strength, declines con-
flict save on terms favorable to itself, and
knows the distinction in numerous cases
between things harmful and things bene-
ficial. The wisest man is distinguished in-
tellectually from the lower men, and from
the brutes, by his superior knowledge of
cause and effect and of the distinctions be-
tween good and evil.

Man's belief in his accountability — that
[ 'OS ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

is, in cause and effect — is fundamental. It
begins with his first rational consideration
of his relations to the external world and
to the order of Nature, which he will later
deify. Nature has two imperative com-
mands which primitive man hears con-
stantly—" Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt
not." As his mind grows, the horizon of
his accountability extends until it passes
beyond the confines of this life. Believing
in his own survival of death, he anticipates
that in the after-life it will be "far better
for the good than the evil."

It would be a reasonable assumption
that the theories of a superhuman power
or powers, of potent spirits, fetiches, idols,
of many gods, and finally of one God, grew
out of man's feeling of accountability. His
sense of accountability forced him to be-
lieve that he was responsible to some
power which sets things right. Man has
been so impressed usually by his accounta-
bility for his sins — by " the dread of some-
[ '°9 ]

BALANCE

thing after death" — that he has sought
means of escape from it as he would from
wild beasts, from flood or from tire.

D'Alviella (Hibbert Lectures, p. 179)
says that religion from the first " de-
veloped a spirit of subordination" and
"favored the sacrifice of a direct and im-
mediate satisfaction to a greater but more
distant and indirect good."

The theory of " a standard of duty pre-
scribed by something loftier than imme-
diate advantage," as Brinton expresses it,
which was recognized dimly and roughly
by the lower tribes, has been accepted by
all later forms of faith.

We find the doctrine that the soul is
accountable for its actions bedded in
the foundations of religion, entering com-
pletely into the life here and into the life
hereafter. It lies at the base of all religious
theories of reward and retribution, of a
day of judgment, of salvation and dam-
nation, of heaven and hell.
[ ''o ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

2. The Belief that the Soul survives the
Death of the Body.

Tylor claims (Primitive Culture, i. 424)
" as a minimum definition of religion, the
belief in spiritual beings^'' which ap-
pears (p. 425) "among all low races with
whom we have attained to thoroughly in-
timate relations." He defines " the belief
in spiritual beings " (p. 427) as including
in its full development " the belief in souls
and in a future stated

This belief, he says (p. 426), is '■'■ the
groundwork of the -philosophy of reli-
gion, from that of savages up to that of
civilized man;" and constitutes (p. 427)
*' an ancient and world-wide philosophy."

Grant Allen says :

" Religion, however, has one element within it still
older, more fundamental, and more persistent than
any mere belief in a God or gods — nay, even than
the custom of supplicating and appeasing ghosts or
gods by gifts and observances. That element is the
conception of the life of the dead. On the primitive
[ "^ ]

BALANCE

belief in such a life all religion ultimately bases itself.
The belief is in fact the earliest thing to appear in
religion, for there are savage tribes who have nothing
worth calling gods, but have still a religion or cult
of their dead relatives." — The Evolution of the Idea
of God, p. 42.

Brinton says:

" I shall tell you of religions so crude as to have
no temples or altars, no rites or prayers ; but I can
tell you of none that does not teach the belief of the
intercommunion of the spiritual powers and man."

— Religions of Primitive Peoples, p. 50.

D'Alviella says:

" The discoveries of the last five-and-twenty j'ears,
especially in the caves of France and Belgium, have
established conclusively that as early as the mam-
moth age man practiced funeral rites, believed ifi a
future life, and possessed fetiches and perhaps even
idols." — Hibbert Lectures, p. 15.

Huxley says:

"There are savages without God in any proper
sense of the word, but there are none without ghosts."

— Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 163.

Spencer says that the conception of the
soul's survival of physical death,
[ ^'^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

" along with the multiplying and complicating ideas
arising from it, we find everywhere — alike in the
arctic regions and the tropics ; in the forests of North
America and in the deserts of Arabia ; in the val-
leys of the Himalayas and in African jungles ; on the
flanks of the Andes and in the Polynesian islands.
It is exhibited with equal clearness by races so re-
mote in type from one another that competent judges
think they must have diverged before the existing
distribution of land and sea was established — among
straight haired, curly haired, woolly haired races ;
among white, tawny, copper colored, black. And we
find it among peoples who have made no advances
in civilization as well as among the semi-civilized
and the civilized." — Sociology, ii. 689.

Some recognition of the doctrine of a
future life is found in the religious cults,
ancient and modern, of which we have ac-
curate knowledge. Even the ancient He-
brews, whose faith was more materialistic
doubtless than any other that is known to
us, believed in spirits within and without
men, that Elijah " went up by a whirlwind
into heaven," that the dead Samuel ap-
peared to Saul, that " the Lord killeth and
[ ^'3 ]

BALANCE

maketh alive: he bringeth down to the
grave, and bringeth iip,"" and that all souls
went at death to a vague and shadowy
hereafter which could not be called life,
and yet was not complete annihilation. The
modern Hebrews repudiate the material-
ism of early Judaism. For more than six
hundred years the Jewish church has ac-
cepted the doctrine of " the resurrection
of the dead " in the creed of Maimonides.

In the same way the Chinese have re-
pudiated Confucius. While the thought of
Confucius is materialistic, the Chinese re-
ligions are profoundly spiritualistic. Not
even Confucius, the adored and venerated
philosopher of the Chinese, nor the writers
of the Old Testament, could wean their
followers permanently from the instinctive
belief in a future life.

Instinctive religion — that which is

permanent and untaught as distinguished

from that which is temporary, isolated, or

based on speculation or authority — toler-

[ ••+ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

ates no limitation upon the after-life of
man. Here and there some teacher or
prophet has proclaimed that only women,
or the married, or the great or the good,
or even that no one, will survive death,
but such theories have left no permanent
impression upon the religious convic-
tions of mankind. The modern religious
organizations of substance and permanence
hold that all mankind will survive death.
We may conclude, in the light of all the
facts obtainable, that the belief in a future
life — that the soul survives the death of
the body — is a fundamental precept of
religion.

3. The Belief in a Supreme Power that
rights Things.

The belief in superhuman influences and
powers has been and continues to be uni-
versal, accepted alike by the lowest savage
and the highest philosopher; by the deist,
pantheist and atheist, as well as by the the-
[ 1^5 ]

BALANCE

ist. Primitive man had a low or dull con-
ception of the overruling power. Some-
times he located it in a pebble or great
rock; in a hill or mountain; in the dawn,
sun, moon or stars ; in a mummy or idol;
in his own ancestor; even in animals, fishes
or reptiles. In whatever form he recog-
nized it, however, it was to him a power
that rights things, a beneficence to which
he offered sacrifices and implorations.

The primitive interpretations of the su-
preme energy improved with man's growth
in culture. The lower conceptions gave
way to something better, and these to some-
thing still better — fetichism to idolatry,
idolatry to polytheism, polytheism to mon-
otheism.

It is sometimes said that Buddhism is
a godless religion, and this assertion has
been used as a foundation for the assump-
tion that a belief in God is not fundamen-
tal in religion. It may be that Buddhism
recognizes no supreme being, but it is
[ "6 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

not true that Buddhism recognizes no
power or powers that right things. No
religion recognizes more completely than
Buddhism the eternal forces of reward and
retribution, as is illustrated in Karma, the
law of just consequences.

Religion deals fundamentally with the
order and regulation of humankind, with
their present, past and future. It has as-
sumed naturally, indeed necessarily, that
man is subject to some order or ruler
possessed of unlimited power. While the
lower cults have recognized in the fetich
or idol a force which is helpful of or con-
siderate to mankind, the more elevated
races and sects have attributed more sub-
lime qualities to the supreme force. A
divine power is recognized in Varuna,
the chief deity of the early Aryans; in
Brahma, the absolute of the Hindoos; in
Jehovah, the almighty of the Hebrews
and Christians; in Odin, the all-father of
the Norsemen; in Zeus, the highest deity
[ ''7 ]

BALANCE

of the Greeks; in Jupiter, the chief God
of the Romans; in Allah, the one God of
the IMohammedans. The strongest words
expressive of beneficence and omnipo-
tence are applied habitually to God — the
providence, the divine, the infinite, the
eternal, the all-powerful, the all-present,
the all-hoi}', the immutable, the most high,
the ruler of heaven and earth, the king
of kings, the light of the world, the sun of
righteousness. We may safely claim that
the belief in a sup7'eme power thai rights
thing's is fundamental in religion.

[ 1.8 ]

XIV

The Fundamental Meaning of Religion is revealed
by its History — Religion recognizes that Right
rules the World — Science recognizes that Balance
rules the World — Religion and Science are in
Harmony, not in Conflict.

WE have, then, three fundamental
reHgious beliefs:

I. That the soul is account^
able for its actions.

2. That the soul survives the death of
the body,

2,. In a supreme power that rights
things.

The belief that the soul is accountable
for its actions^ is the recognition that the
law of consequences applies to the indi-
vidual soul, that the good shall fare better
than the evil, that men shall reap as they
sow.

The belief that the soul survives the
[ ''9 ]

BALANCE

death of the body, is the recognition that
accountability does not end with the death
of the body; that the wrongs which are not
righted here must be righted elsewhere;
that the good which is not rewarded here
must be rewarded hereafter; that there can
be no break in the processes of account-
abilit}-. As science assumes that cause and
effect, action and reaction, motion and
transform.ation, are ceaseless in the ph3's-
ical world, so religion assumes that cause
and effect, actions and consequences, are
ceaseless in the soul of the individual.
The religious doctrine of ceaseless moral
accountability is identical with the scien-
tific doctrine of ceaseless cause and effect.
The belief /;/ a supreme power that
rights things^ is the necessary corollary of
the two preceding beliefs. The doctrines
that the actions of the individual will be
balanced by their consequences, and that
this process does not cease with death,
include the recognition of a supreme
[ >^° ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

power of Tightness — a -power that rights
things.

Combined, read from one into the other,
what is the message conveyed by these
three fundamental religious beliefs ? Are
they in harmony or in conflict? is the
message discordant, or feeble, or subtle,
or unworthy of the great fact which we
call religion? or is it harmonious, simple
and clear, a noble interpretation of divine
truth? This is the message of the three
religious beliefs: That man is account-
able for his actions; that he is subject
ceaselessly to the law of jicst conse-
quences^ to a supreme power of rightness.
The message is so clear and simple that
it may even be more briefly expressed
as the declaration that right rules the
world.

This interpretation of the meaning of

religion is not the interpretation of one

sect or church, of one time or place; it is

the interpretation of all sects and churches

[ '^' ]

BALANCE

that can be classed as religious, and of all
times and places in which religion has
been manifest. It is not the product of
speculation or inspiration; it is the product
of all human experience bearing upon the
subject of religion. The meaning of re-
ligion, the message of religion, is found in
its own history. Reliiiion contains within
itself its own story, as the rocks contain
within themselves their own story. The
message of religion is not vague, difficult
or unworthy; it is plain, eas}' to compre-
hend; it is lofty and good. Mankind's
recognition of religion as something holy,
sacred and divine is fully justified by the
interpretation of religion revealed by the
history of religion — ihat I'ighf rules the
world.

We have observed the harmony in the
scientific interpretations of the sj'stem of
Nature — that each interpretation points
unerringly to a higher and single interpre-
tation. And we now observe the same
[ >2^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

harmony in the fundamental conceptions
of religion, which point with equal certi-
tude to a conclusion in unity with the su-
preme interpretation reached by science.

Religion, dealing with the essential obli-
gations and relations of man, rests with
the recognition of eternal justice — that
right rules the ivorld. Science, dealing
with all truth, with the explanation and
reconciliation of all phenomena, advances
to a still broader position — that balance
rules the world — a position so broad that
it includes the fundamental grounds of re-
ligion.

Religion and science are in harmony,
not in conflict. They have never been in
real conflict. The appearance of conflict
has been due to the misunderstanding and
misinterpretation of both religion and sci-
ence through the ages in which men have
been groping and toiling upward from
darkness to light.

[ 123 ]

XV

Religion has been misinterpreted and perverted —
Science also has been misinterpreted and per-
verted — Religion answers for its Perversions as
Science, Truth and Right answer for their Per-
versions— The Value of a Truth is measured by
the Magnitude of its Perversions.

SCIENCE is the search for truth; it
measures all things by truth, has no
other standard than truth. As truth
never conflicts with truth, the demonstra-
tions of science arc necessarily harmoni-
ous, the same original demonstration often
being reached by strangers wide apart.
Science consists of a stupendous unity
linking the smallest and most obscure
truths with higher truths, and these with
still higher truths, on to their connection
with fundamental truth. The achieve-
ments of science are due to tlie methods
of science — to experimentation, investi-
[ 124 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

gation, critical examination — to the pa-
tient weighing of facts by the standard of
truth.

Religious thought has evolved necessa-
rily on other lines. The problems of re-
ligion — the war between good and evil,
the mystery of life and death, the nature
of superhuman powers, of the government
of the world, of the future state, of man's
accountability — have appealed with con-
tinuous force to the interest and imagina-
tion of men. The yearning to know was
gratified in the beginning by savage dream-
ers and mystics, who assumed to be, or
believed themselves to be, inspired to utter
divine truth. Religion has been inter-
preted by sorcerers and by sages, by im-
postors and by truth-seekers, by dull and
by exalted minds. Some of the interpreta-
tions are childish or base ; others supply to
us our highest conceptions of honor, duty
and responsibility. Great systems of faith
grew up, each claiming to be built upon
[ 1^5 ]

BALANCE

sacred and infallible authority. The re-
ligious spirit is reverential and steadfast;
men have yielded slowl}' the faith of their
fathers. The Hebrews accept one author-
ity, the Buddhists another, the Christians
another, the Mohammedans another, and
other authorities are accepted by other
believers. Men have measured religious
truth by authority, not authority by truth.
Each of the great S3'stems of faith assumes
the perfect truth of its own authority, and
denies the truth of all authority except its
own, thereby admitting the existence of
false authorities, false prophets and the
worship of false gods.

Admitting many contradictions and im-
perfections in the interpretation of religion,
shall we conclude that there is no truth in
religion? Grant numberless errors and
impostures, must we say that all religion
is error and imposture? Let us be as fair
to religion as to science. Have no errors
or impostures been advanced in the name
[ '^6 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

of science ? Consider only that branch of
science which deals with healing. Have
there been no false doctors in the world ?
no errors in determining the cause and
cure of disease ? no medical zealots, in-
flamed with a fanatical regard for their
own methods, and with enmity for other
methods? no conflicting schools of medi-
cal thought? Because of the errors, im-
postures and strife known to exist among
those engaged in the art of healing, do
people of intelligence conclude that the
science of medicine consists wholly of er-
ror, delusion and imposture ? that it has
discovered no antidotes, no laws of health,
no causes of disease? that sanitation and
surgery have no merit?

The record of the science of healing
contains superstitions as dull and rites as
base as the lowest religious cults; indeed,
the false medicine man and the false pro-
phet have often been one and the same.
Men have sought the healer of the body
[ 1^7 ]

BALANCE

because of their fear of the consequences
of physical disease; they have sought the
healer of the soul because of their dread
of the consequences of moral disease. The
healers, physical and spiritual, have dealt
sometimes in nostrums, exorcisms, con-
jurations and sorceries; and again in bet-
ter remedies which, on the one hand, have
alleviated pain, cured disease and saved
life, and, on the other hand, have strength-
ened men in right-doing, purified them,
given them noble ideals of life and duty,
and comforted them in trouble, sorrow,
bereavement, agony, and in the face of
death.

Let us not underweigh the fact that
men have believed in their souls, in life
after death, in responsibility that does not
end, in an unbroken chain of cause and
effect, in eternal justice — that they have
spanned the abyss of death with a bridge
of faith leading to a land where the ine-
qualities, misunderstandings and wrongs of
[ '^8 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

this life may be righted. Intuition, instinct,
or some other form of insight, sometimes
anticipates science. The supreme law of
compensation, which the early mystics
recognized through that happy insight by
which men grasp truth which they cannot
yet demonstrate, science recognizes also
after thousands of years of investigation
and experimentation.

Let us not be impatient. Civilization
was not made in a day. Our sciences have
been built slowly; they are not yet com-
pleted, and we must assume that they never
will be completed, unless it be possible
that a time will come when truth will be
exhausted. The search for truth has been
slow and difficult, and many are the errors
into which men have fallen. " The laws of
Plato," says Lecky, " of the twelve tables,
of the consuls, of the emperors, and of all
nations and legislators — Persian, Hebrew,
Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian,
Spanish, English — decreed capital penal-
[ J29 ]

BALANCE

ties against sorcerers." When IMontaigne
denounced the belief in witchcraft as a de-
lusion, its existence was accepted by the
foremost magistrates, physicians and scien-
tific men of France. Bacon regarded the
Copernican theor\- as a strange fancy.
Kepler, who discovered the laws of plane-
tar}- motion, believed tliat a spirit guided
the movements of each planet. The chem-
ists of the eighteenth century up to the
time of Lavoisier believed in the theor}-
of " phlogiston," a curious error. Priest-
ley, the discoverer of oxygen, died a firm
believer in phlogiston. Guyton de INIor-
veau, Macquer and others taught that
phlogiston was something that weighed
less than nothing! Political science has
not yet discovered a way of governing an
American city honestly and efficiently, nor
has economic science reformed the in-
equitable distribution of wealth. The phi-
losophers of the world, from the beginning
of philosophy to the present day, have
[ uo ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

reached no agreement concerning the
motives of human actions or the meaning
of morals.

Science has achieved much, but it is not
at the end, or nearthe,end, of achievement.
It has struggled up from small beginnings;
scientific men, wise men in their day, have
accepted error. Science is not responsible
for their errors; science has nothing to do
with error but to reject it. And so reli-
gious men have accepted error, and reli-
gion is not responsible for their mistakes.
It seems sometimes as if men must try all
wrong ways, in every line of advancement,
before they can find the right way.

The interpretations of religion have dealt
with the questions: How does right rule
the world? How will justice be done to
the individual soul? It is not strange that
there have been numerous and conflicting^
answers to these questions; and that many
of these answers are crude and ignorant,
and some even monstrous and forbidding.
[ M' ]

BALANCE

The primitive mystics, recognizing dimly
the law of consequences, clothed it in sj-m-
bols adapted to their own comprehension
and to the comprehension of their kind —
in fetiches and idols, in straifge gods, in
numberless forms of penance and propitia-
tion, in curious judgments, rewards and
penalties, in heavens and hells which were
circumscribed only by the limits of their
imaginations. This may be said to their
credit: they recognized rewards and pen-
alties, recompense and retribution, heaven
and hell. Their lowest conceptions of a
future state included some recog-nition of
moral responsibility and of the supremacy
of justice. I do not despise their efforts.
They expressed man's greatest hope — that
right rules the world — in terms which
they could understand. They could do no
more. If that hope — I would prefer to say
that truth — had waited for its complete
and perfect exposition, it would doubtless
be unexpressed to this da}'.
[ '3^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

The earlier symbols gave way to better
symbols, and these to still better; in time,
doubtless, all religious symbols will give
way to the truth which they symbol ize. En-
lightenment grows; superstition dwindles.
Thought grows clearer. Many creeds have
been revised. The doctrines of a hell of
literal fire, and of eternal torment, have
been abandoned by enlightened people.
This advance must continue until the
churches of civilization shall abandon the
lastform, rite, ceremony and doctrine which
stand in conflict with the fundamental reli-
gious principle that right rules the world."
They must in time accept the book of Na-
ture as the book of God, and recognize that
the truth-finders are God's prophets — that
truth, wherever and whenever discovered,
is the infallible revelation of God — that
religious truth can be demonstrated only
by reason, and that God's justice must be
proved by the processes of Nature if it
is to be proved at all — that God's jus-
[ 133 ]

BALANCE

tice, omnipotence and omnipresence can
be proved more perfectly by the fact
that cause and effect are equivalent, com-
pensator}-, ceaseless, all-powerful and all-
present, than by any sacred book — that
science, in its fundamental interpretation
of the s}stem of Nature, in its sublime
conception of the permanence, uniformity
and rectitude of the world-order, must be
accepted as the defender, and not as the
antagonist, of religion. There is no con-
flict in the revelations of Nature. In all
times and places. Nature's laws have been
the same, and truth the same. Never has
Nature altered or truth changed.

Religion has been misinterpreted ; it
has also been perverted. While there are
no cults known to us which do not recog-
nize the law of consequences, there are
many which teach that it can be evaded
— that the favor of God can be gained
by means other than by right-doing.
And, in the name of religion, learning
[ '.H ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

has been persecuted, freedom suppressed,
great and cruel wars have been waged,
and monstrous crimes committed — in-
cluding torture and many forms of mur-
der, from the slaughter of children on the
sacrificial altar to the butchery of sects
and communities. How shall religion
answer for these evasions, iniquities and
atrocities ?

Wrong seeks to disguise itself under
the cloak of right; tyrants claim to be
good, not bad; privilege, slavery, the sup-
pression of thought, are represented by
their beneficiaries to be right, not wrong
— to be good even for the unprivileged,
the enslaved and the shackled. Error dis-
guises itself as truth. The liar does not
say, " I am telling you a lie; " he says, " I
am telling you the truth." The misinter-
preters of history, biography, philosophy
and science do not label their misinter-
pretations as errors; they proclaim them
as truths.

[ '35 ]

BALANCE

Religion must answer for its perver-
sions as right answers for the perversions
of right, as truth answers for the perver-
sions of truth, as science answers for the
perversions of science. Right answers
that its perversions are wrong, not right;
truth answers that its perversions are er-
rors, not truth; science answers that its
perversions are unscientific, not scientific;
religion answers that its perversions are
irreligious, not religious.

Onl}' good and truth can be perverted.
The value and quality of a good or truth
— the usefulness of the art of healing, the
nobility of toleration and justice, the value
of science — are measured with accuracy
by the wide extent of its perversions. And
so also the usefulness, nobility and value
of religion are indicated by the magnitude
of its perversions. I believe that the per-
versions of religion — unequaled as they
are in magnitude b}- any other record of
perversion — point unerringly to the con-
[ '36 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

elusion that religion rests fundamentally
upon a great and noble truth.

Religion is single, not plural. There is
only one religion. The creeds written, the
acts done, in the name of religion are re-
ligious in so far as they conform to the
fundamental religious principle that right
rules the world; they are irreligious in so
far as they are in conflict with that prin-
ciple.

[ '37 ]

XVI

Measuring the Value of Religion by its Denial —
Only One School of Thought denies Religion —
Materialism is the Doctrine that Wrong rules the
World — Science and Religion meet on Grounds
of Life, not Death ; of Persistence, not Annihila-
tion ; of Right, not Wrong ; on the Ground that the
Laws of Nature are Uniform, not Contradictory.

WE can measure the strength or
weakness of religion by the
strength or weakness of its op-
posite, its denial. If religion be strong, its
denial will be weak; if religion be weak,
its denial will be strong.

The denial that right rules the world is
the affirmation that wrong rules the world.
The assumption that wrong rules the world
has no foundation in the demonstrations of
science — which point unerringly to the
return of equivalence and compensation in
the processes of Nature — and has had
[ '38 ] '

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

slight recognition in human thought. It is
true that men have held beliefs which lead
logically to the conclusion that wrong
rules the world, but there have been few
who could accept that conclusion. No
school of thought proclaims it, and it rarely
secures lodgment in the human mind save
as the consequence of pessimism or mis-
fortune. We must conclude that the denial
of relisrion which takes form in the asser-
tion that wrong rules the world is weak,
not strong.

The existence of a supreme power —
whether it be accepted as personal or as
impersonal, as knowable or as unknowable
— is universally recognized. It is usually
assumed to be a power of rightness. It
could not be called a power of wrongness
without accepting the weak conclusion
that wrong rules the world.

The assumption that man is, or should
be, accountable for his actions, is recog-
nized in our civil and criminal laws, which
[ ^39 ]

BALANCE

enforce penalties upon wrong-doing, and
compel men to keep their contracts and
pay their debts; in our moral code, and in
our judgments concerning right and wrong.
The alternative, that men should not reap
as the}' sow, should not enjoy what they
earn, should not suffer for their evil acts,
is recosfnized nowhere. A few believe
that wrong: does rule the world, but no
one can believe that wrong should rule
the world.

Only one fundamental religious belief
— the belief in a future life — is denied
with force or persistence. Many men, in-
cludino: some of the crreat intellects of the
world, from Confucius to Herbert Spencer,
have doubted or denied that the soul sur-
vives the death of the bod}'.

It is a curious fact that the doctrine of
the annihilation of the soul has not yet ac-
quired a definite name, though its adher-
ents include a number of learned men,
capable in the expression of thought and
[ '40 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

in the coining of words. "Materialism"
is the word used, in the absence of a better,
to name this doctrine, but the dictionaries
do not justify that use. Haeckel, recog-
nizing its namelessness, has recently in-
vented the word " thanatism " — in English,
"deathism" — a fit name for the belief in
the extinction of the soul. I shall, how-
ever, use the word " materialism," which
is better known.

What rational foundation exists for the
belief in annihilation? Has science dis-
covered annihilation? No; science has
not discovered annihilation; it has not
discovered annihilation even in the physi-
cal body of man. At the change which,
through old custom, we call death, the
physical body of the individual is trans-
formed under ordinary conditions into
numberless other living bodies, the one
life into swarms of life. Even if the physi-
cal body be consumed by fire, not one
atom is annihilated, and life springs from

r '41 ]

BALANCE

the ashes. Science is acquainted with mo-
tion only, not rest ; with life, not death.
Science recognizes the indestructiblHty
of matter and force, that nothing in the
phj'sical world is annihilated. It comes to
this — that the materialist, accepting the
immortality of matter and force, must
affirm that nothing dies but the soul.

There are other and more serious incon-
sistencies in the theory of annihilation.
The ceaselessness of action and reaction,
of cause and effect, is a fundamental postu-
late of science. " To every action there
is an equal and opposite reaction," says
Newton. If death ends all, then the indi-
vidual reaches in extinction a point where
moral effect fails to follow moral cause,
and the materialist must den}- the cease-
lessness of cause and effect.

One dies in the commission of a crime,
when his heart is full of greed or lust or
hate; if death ends all, he suffers no con-
sequences of his sin; he goes to the same
[ H^ ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

silence which awaits the martyr who dies
for man. If suicide be a sin, then the sui-
cide commits an act, if death ends all, for
which there is no penalty. The doctrine
of extinction includes the assumption that
there will be no reckoning hereafter for
the tyrants, oppressors and scourgers of
the weak, for the brutes who trample on
women and children, for ingrates and
murderers, for those who have tortured
their kind — that man sows what he will
not reap, and reaps what he has not sown.
Religion affirms, on the other hand, that
death does not break the chain of cause
and effect; that men shall reap as they
sow; that there shall come a day of reck-
oning for the tyrant and the torturer; that
the suicide shall not escape the conse-
quences of self destruction; that no man
shall escape the penalty of his sin, or be
denied the reward of his virtue; that, for
those who live justly, there is no trouble
which will not end, no night of sorrow or
[ H^ ]

BALANCE

anguish which will not be succeeded by
the dawn of peace and joy.

Relijrion declares that moral accounta-
bility is ceaseless; materialism declares
that moral accountability ends in death.
Religion is the recognition that right rules
the world; materialism is the recognition
that wrong rules the world. Religion de-
clares that the wrongs which are not
righted here will be righted hereafter;
materialism declares that the wrongs which
are not righted here ivill be righted no-
where.

Materialism is a sweeping denial of
good and right. In denying the ceaseless-
ness of action and reaction, it denies the
uniformity of Nature; in denying the per-
sistence of the soul, it proclaims the doc-
trine of annihilation, which is unknown
to science; in denying the continuance
of human accountability, it denies the
foundation of morals. Materialism is the
doctrine of eternal wrong, of hopeless in-
[ '44 ]

THE FUNDAMENTAL VERITY

justice. Comprehending the nature and
meaning of the theory of annihilation,
we shall understand why it is nameless;
why our language has failed to produce
a word to fit its exact meaning; why its
most famous living defender, Haeckel,
has been unable to coin for it a better
name than the somber and forbidding word
" deathism."

We shall search in vain for any good
or substantial fruits of materialism — for
hospitals, charities or institutions of learn-
ing founded in its name or honor; for
monuments which recognize it; for any
part that it has played in the advancement
of civilization; for uplifting songs, hymns,
poems or speeches inspired by it; for a
noble thought or sentiment that is depend-
ent upon it; for sublime or heroic deeds
in its defense. The doctrine of material-
ism, built upon an imperfect understand-
ing of its relations and consequences, is a
cold, dry, unstimulating faith which has
[ H? ]

BALANCE

never reached the human heart save with
the icy touch of hopelessness and despair.

The scientific interpretations of Nature
have advanced constantly in breadth —
into the uniform, the boundless, the uni-
versal, the eternal, tlic ceaseless, the death-
less. Upon these broad grounds, religion
and science meet — on grounds of life,
not death; of persistence, not annihilation;
of right, not wrong — on the ground of
the uniformity of Nature: that the conse-
quences of human action are as definite as
the consequences of chemical action; that
the laws of equivalence and compensation
which operate in the realm of physics act
with the same unfailing certainty, and with
the same eternal ceaselessness, upon the
soul of man.

[ '4^ ]

dbe fiibcrsibe prc^iS

EUctrotyped and printed by //. O. Houghton &' Co.
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.

ETERNALISM

A THEORY OF
INFINITE JUSTICE

By ORLANDO J. SMITH

?N this volume the author discusses the
fundamental principles of Religion, and
seeks an answer to such questions as
these : " If God or Nature has created
a criminal, can we acquit the Creator
of all accountability for the criminal ? Has not the
soul which is created vicious been deeply wronged?
How can men be held to equal moral accountability
if they have not been endowed in the beginning with
equal goodness, equal strength, equal intelligence ?
Are those who are born vicious really the victims of
the malice of Nature or of the wrath of God ? "

He reaches the conclusion that creation and anni-
hilation are unknown to science, and that the only
theory of Infinite Justice will be found in the assump-
tion that the individual soul is eternal, — pre-existent
and deathless — that each man builds his own charac-
ter, " If his soul be mean, it is the hovel which he
has made for himself ; if it be noble, it is a palace of
his own building."

A tiutiiber of theologians and other thinkers, 7i.'ho liis-
sent from the conclusions of the author in particulars
or in general, have made these comments upon " Eter-
nalism ." —

Dr. William Henry Scott, Ohio State University :
" A strong and earnest book. . . . Candid, thoughtful
and suggestive. . . . The earnest desire for truth and
the noble and fervent passion for justice which per-
vade it will prove to be a mental tonic of uncommon
wholesomeness and virtue."

Dr. Alvah Hovey, Newton Theological Institution:
" In spirit and style this work is bold, positive, con-
troversial, and attractive."

Alfred Russel Wallace : " A bold effort to solve
the great problem of the universe. . . . The author
of this book treats the subject from a somewhat dif-
ferent standpoint from most of his predecessors, and
may thus claim a certain amount of originality. He
possesses also a terse and forcible style."

Professor N. S. Shaler : " This view [of the eternal
nature of the individual soul] is maintained in this
remarkable book with a rare skill in presentation.
Within the limits of the writing the task could hardly
have been more effectively or more logically accom-
plished. . . .

" The value of ' Eternalism ' is not to be measured
by the soundness of its contentions. It is rather to
be taken as the sign of a return to the primitive
method of explaining the universe by the individual
consciousness. Men have gone far with natural
science and philosophy with the hope that they might
find an answer to the grave question as to their place

in the realm. Here is a man who has read much and
widely, who, for all his learning, trusts to his instincts
for guidance ; for while the book has evidently been a
matter of most elaborate preparation, having been sub-
mitted to several hundred critics before publication,
and the answers of some four hundred considered in
the revision, it remains singularly original and indi-
vidual."

Monaire D. Comvay : " When he [the author] looks
into his consciousness and writes, when he transmutes
his experience into thought, he is clear, powerful, and
convincing. . . . The author by vigorous reasoning
brings religion into the sphere of nature and life
where it may be studied in freedom and harmonized
with consciousness and thought."

Dr. Henry Goodwin Smith, Lane TJieological Semi-
nary: " * Eternalism' is written by an independent
and a sincere thinker. . . . The author shows no lack
of ingenuity in dealing with special difficulties."

Dr. Francis Brown, Union Theological Seminary:
" The sentences are crisp, the chapters are short. . . .
It is not hard to read, and its main purpose is clear.
. . . His [the author's] standard is unswerving, his
ideal lofty."

Dr. Paul Cams : " An unusual and noteworthy
attempt at solving the most difficult and basic prob-
lem of life."

Crown 8vo. $1.25, nef. (Postage 13 cents.)

Published by HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

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