would be harmful. Very well, this is quite natural, and was to
be expected; in fact, was inevitable. Go on; for the sake of
ease and convenience, stick to habit: speak in the first person,
and tell me what your Master thinks about it.
Y.M. Well, to begin: it is a desolating doctrine; it is
not inspiring, enthusing, uplifting. It takes the glory out of
man, it takes the pride out of him, it takes the heroism out of
him, it denies him all personal credit, all applause; it not only
degrades him to a machine, but allows him no control over the
machine; makes a mere coffee-mill of him, and neither permits him
to supply the coffee nor turn the crank, his sole and piteously
humble function being to grind coarse or fine, according to his
make, outside impulses doing the rest.
O.M. It is correctly stated. Tell me–what do men admire
most in each other?
Y.M. Intellect, courage, majesty of build, beauty of
countenance, charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness,
heroism, and–and–
O.M. I would not go any further. These are ELEMENTALS.
Virtue, fortitude, holiness, truthfulness, loyalty, high ideals–
these, and all the related qualities that are named in the
dictionary, are MADE OF THE ELEMENTALS, by blendings,
combinations, and shadings of the elementals, just as one makes
green by blending blue and yellow, and makes several shades and
tints of red by modifying the elemental red. There are several
elemental colors; they are all in the rainbow; out of them we
manufacture and name fifty shades of them. You have named the
elementals of the human rainbow, and also one BLEND–heroism,
which is made out of courage and magnanimity. Very well, then;
which of these elements does the possessor of it manufacture for
himself? Is it intellect?
Y.M. No.
O.M. Why?
Y.M. He is born with it.
O.M. Is it courage?
Y.M. No. He is born with it.
O.M. Is it majesty of build, beauty of countenance?
Y.M. No. They are birthrights.
O.M. Take those others–the elemental moral qualities–
charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness; fruitful seeds,
out of which spring, through cultivation by outside influences,
all the manifold blends and combinations of virtues named in the
dictionaries: does man manufacture any of those seeds, or are
they all born in him?
Y.M. Born in him.
O.M. Who manufactures them, then?
Y.M. God.
O.M. Where does the credit of it belong?
Y.M. To God.
O.M. And the glory of which you spoke, and the applause?
Y.M. To God.
O.M. Then it is YOU who degrade man. You make him claim
glory, praise, flattery, for every valuable thing he possesses–
BORROWED finery, the whole of it; no rag of it earned by himself,
not a detail of it produced by his own labor. YOU make man a
humbug; have I done worse by him?
Y.M. You have made a machine of him.
O.M. Who devised that cunning and beautiful mechanism, a
man’s hand?
Y.M. God.
O.M. Who devised the law by which it automatically hammers
out of a piano an elaborate piece of music, without error, while
the man is thinking about something else, or talking to a friend?
Y.M. God.
O.M. Who devised the blood? Who devised the wonderful
machinery which automatically drives its renewing and refreshing
streams through the body, day and night, without assistance or
advice from the man? Who devised the man’s mind, whose machinery
works automatically, interests itself in what it pleases,
regardless of its will or desire, labors all night when it likes,
deaf to his appeals for mercy? God devised all these things.
_I_ have not made man a machine, God made him a machine. I am
merely calling attention to the fact, nothing more. Is it wrong
to call attention to the fact? Is it a crime?
Y.M. I think it is wrong to EXPOSE a fact when harm can
come of it.
O.M. Go on.
Y.M. Look at the matter as it stands now. Man has been
taught that he is the supreme marvel of the Creation; he believes
it; in all the ages he has never doubted it, whether he was a
naked savage, or clothed in purple and fine linen, and civilized.