The Soul of the Far East | Page 8

in knowledge, in wisdom, in
experience, as our years increase, but deep down in our heart of hearts
we are still essentially the same. To be sure, people pay us more
deference than they did, which suggests a doubt at times whether we
may not have changed; small boys of a succeeding generation treat us
with a respect that causes us inwardly to smile, as we think how little
we differ from them, if they but knew it. For at bottom we are not
conscious of change from that morning, long ago, when first we
realized ourselves. We feel just as young now as we felt old then. We
are but amused at the world's discrimination where we can detect no
difference.
Every human being has been thus "twice born": once as matter, once as
mind. Nor is this second birth the birthright only of mankind. All the
higher animals probably, possibly even the lower too, have experienced
some such realization of individual identity. However that may be,
certainly to all races of men has come this revelation; only the degree in
which they have felt its force has differed immensely. It is one thing to
the apathetic, fatalistic Turk, and quite another matter to an energetic,
nervous American. Facts, fancies, faiths, all show how wide is the
variance in feelings. With them no introspective [greek]cnzhi seauton
overexcites the consciousness of self. But with us; as with those of old
possessed of devils, it comes to startle and stays to distress. Too apt is it

to prove an ever-present, undesirable double. Too often does it play the
part of uninvited spectre at the feast, whose presence no one save its
unfortunate victim suspects. The haunting horror of his own identity is
to natures far less eccentric than Kenelm Chillingly's only too common
a curse. To this companionship, paradoxical though it sound, is
principally due the peculiar loneliness of childhood. For nothing is so
isolating as a persistent idea which one dares not confide.
And yet,--stranger paradox still,--was there ever any one willing to
exchange his personality for another's? Who can imagine foregoing his
own self? Nay, do we not cling even to its outward appearance? Is there
a man so poor in all that man holds dear that he does not keenly resent
being accidentally mistaken for his neighbor? Surely there must be
something more than mirage in this deep-implanted, widespread
instinct of human race.
But however strong the conviction now of one's individuality, is there
aught to assure him of its continuance beyond the confines of its
present life? Will it awake on death's morrow and know itself, or will it,
like the body that gave it lodgment, disintegrate again into
indistinguishable spirit dust? Close upon the heels of the existing
consciousness of self treads the shadow-like doubt of its hereafter. Will
analogy help to answer the grewsome riddle of the Sphinx? Are the
laws we have learned to be true for matter true also for mind? Matter
we now know is indestructible; yet the form of it with which we once
were so fondly familiar vanishes never to return. Is a like fate to be the
lot of the soul? That mind should be capable of annihilation is as
inconceivable as that matter should cease to be. Surely the spirit we feel
existing round about us on every side now has been from ever, and will
be for ever to come. But that portion of it which we each know as self,
is it not like to a drop of rain seen in its falling through the air?
Indistinguishable the particle was in the cloud whence it came;
indistinguishable it will become again in the ocean whither it is bound.
Its personality is but its passing phase from a vast impersonal on the
one hand to an equally vast impersonal on the other. Thus seers
preached in the past; so modem science is hinting to-day. With us the
idea seems the bitter fruit of material philosophy; by them it was
looked upon as the fairest flower of their faith. What is dreaded now as
the impious suggestion of the godless four thousand years ago was

reverenced as a sacred tenet of religion.
Shorter even than his short threescore years and ten is that soul's life of
which man is directly cognizant. Bounded by two seemingly
impersonal states is the personal consciousness of which he is made
aware: the one the infantile existence that precedes his boyish
discovery, the other the gloom that grows with years,--two twilights
that fringe the two borders of his day. But with the Far Oriental, life is
all twilight. For in Japan and China both states are found together.
There, side by side with the present unconsciousness of the babe exists
the belief in a coming