very proud of his achievement, the rat is proud of his. Yet both
are machines; they have done machine work, they have originated
nothing, they have no right to be vain; the whole credit belongs
to their Maker. They are entitled to no honors, no praises, no
monuments when they die, no remembrance. One is a complex and
elaborate machine, the other a simple and limited machine, but
they are alike in principle, function, and process, and neither
of them works otherwise than automatically, and neither of them
may righteously claim a PERSONAL superiority or a personal
dignity above the other.
Y.M. In earned personal dignity, then, and in personal merit
for what he does, it follows of necessity that he is on the
same level as a rat?
O.M. His brother the rat; yes, that is how it seems to me.
Neither of them being entitled to any personal merit for what he
does, it follows of necessity that neither of them has a right to
arrogate to himself (personally created) superiorities over his
brother.
Y.M. Are you determined to go on believing in these
insanities? Would you go on believing in them in the face of
able arguments backed by collated facts and instances?
O.M. I have been a humble, earnest, and sincere Truth-Seeker.
Y.M. Very well?
O.M. The humble, earnest, and sincere Truth-Seeker is
always convertible by such means.
Y.M. I am thankful to God to hear you say this, for now I
know that your conversion–
O.M. Wait. You misunderstand. I said I have BEEN a Truth-Seeker.
Y.M. Well?
O.M. I am not that now. Have your forgotten? I told you
that there are none but temporary Truth-Seekers; that a permanent
one is a human impossibility; that as soon as the Seeker finds
what he is thoroughly convinced is the Truth, he seeks no
further, but gives the rest of his days to hunting junk to patch
it and caulk it and prop it with, and make it weather-proof and
keep it from caving in on him. Hence the Presbyterian remains a
Presbyterian, the Mohammedan a Mohammedan, the Spiritualist a
Spiritualist, the Democrat a Democrat, the Republican a
Republican, the Monarchist a Monarchist; and if a humble,
earnest, and sincere Seeker after Truth should find it in the
proposition that the moon is made of green cheese nothing could
ever budge him from that position; for he is nothing but an
automatic machine, and must obey the laws of his construction.
Y.M. After so–
O.M. Having found the Truth; perceiving that beyond question
man has but one moving impulse–the contenting of his own spirit–
and is merely a machine and entitled to no personal merit for
anything he does, it is not humanly possible for me to seek further.
The rest of my days will be spent in patching and painting and
puttying and caulking my priceless possession and in looking the
other way when an imploring argument or a damaging fact approaches.
—–
1. The Marquess of Worcester had done all of this more than a
century earlier.
VI
Instinct and Thought
Young Man. It is odious. Those drunken theories of yours,
advanced a while ago–concerning the rat and all that–strip Man
bare of all his dignities, grandeurs, sublimities.
Old Man. He hasn’t any to strip–they are shams, stolen
clothes. He claims credits which belong solely to his Maker.
Y.M. But you have no right to put him on a level with a rat.
O.M. I don’t–morally. That would not be fair to the rat.
The rat is well above him, there.
Y.M. Are you joking?
O.M. No, I am not.
Y.M. Then what do you mean?
O.M. That comes under the head of the Moral Sense. It is a
large question. Let us finish with what we are about now, before
we take it up.
Y.M. Very well. You have seemed to concede that you place
Man and the rat on A level. What is it? The intellectual?
O.M. In form–not a degree.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. I think that the rat’s mind and the man’s mind are the
same machine, but of unequal capacities–like yours and Edison’s;
like the African pygmy’s and Homer’s; like the Bushman’s and Bismarck’s.