XIX

QUALITY "THE

 

qual-i—pzg-c-o—"

 

Stephen of the ouija-board, having discussed consciousness so eloquently, went a lumbering gait when next Joan and I conjured him. Laboriously the tripod moved from letter to letter, became incoherent, then stopped dead.

 

Long we sat, but Stephen came not. "And," Joan sighed, "I thought everything would go so smoothly this evening."

 

"Why more smoothly than before?" said I.

 

"Well," she answered, "I was rummaging about to-day, and I found a can of that woodwork wax the painters used when they did over the dining-room. I thought that if the ouija-board were polished it would work better. So I waxed it."

 

"Great business!" I said. "The wax has gummed up the felt tips of the tripod's legs."

 

With turpentine I removed the lily's paint, and again we placed our hands upon the tripod. Behold! Our lost friend was found.

 

"At least," spelled Stephen, "my legs are not bandied any more."

"What can he mean by that?" I exclaimed.

"You remember one of the pointer's legs came out the other night," Joan laughed. "While I was at the waxing I glued Stephen's, I mean the tripod's, legs in."

"Thanks, Joan," spelled the tripod.

"And now," Stephen continued, "let us go on with the discussion. Our subject to-night is the quality of consciousness. Quality of consciousness, as I have already told you, is the soul. But do not understand by the word 'soul' the entire content of the word 'consciousness.' Consciousness is not merely qualitative; it is quantitative as well."

"Then," said I, "there is possible a qualitative and quantitative analysis of consciousness, like that chemistry has made of matter?"

"What you call matter is but the form attribute of consciousness," Stephen replied. "If chemists have found certain materially manifested degrees subject to qualitative and quantitative analysis, is it not time the psychologists were similarly analyzing the spiritually manifested degree—human consciousness?"

 

It was, indeed, high time, I supposed. But somehow my mind had strayed from quality and quantity and gone back to consciousness itself. Consciousness as the one reality, which coincidentally with Stephen's explanation had seemed so clear, now had become hazy.

"Stephen," I said, "you contend that consciousness is the all. Really, an inanimate object doesn't appear to possess consciousness in any degree whatsoever."

"But neither do many forms of life itself," came back Stephen. "In fact, you don't know so very much about the consciousness of your fellow-men. Believe me, some of them have darn little."

 

The thoroughgoingness both of Stephen's language and of his insight into human character brought to Joan's face and mine a smile.

 

"Stephen," said I, "would it be possible for me to accept the truth of this revelation, so called by you, and at the same time hold that in you as a personality distinct from Joan and me there is no truth?"

"Why," answered the ouija-board, "I suppose so, if your mind be that nimble."

 

At this still deeper thrust into mortal frailty Joan and I laughed outright.

 

"You do amuse us, Stephen," I said.

"Well, bear in mind," he answered, "that we are not long­faced here. We have no regrets, therefore no sorrow."

"Why," I offered, "I take it for granted that this earth drama is watched by you graduated ones from your up-yon gallery. If, then, Stephen, you saw an earth friend in trouble, would you not feel sorry for him?"

"You put it strongly," he replied. "And yet I answer, no. For sorrow—that is, real sorrow, as distinct from worry—is a hallucination."

"Do you mean to say that if a man here is ill and penniless, and if his children are hungry and crying for bread, and if there is no bread, do you mean to say that that is not real sorrow?"

"Such things need not be," spelled Stephen.

"But such things are," spoke up practical Joan.

"Do not misunderstand me, replied Stephen. "Many unhappy things are on earth, many things that are negative. When consciousness is fully developed these things will not be." A pause, then, "Do you know that as I stand here watching you as I once was—"

Joan started out of her chair, and the entire ouija outfit went crashing to the floor. "Standing where watching!" she cried.

"Frightened, Joan?" I asked, gathering up my scattered notes. She seated herself again. A moment of waiting, and then

"Dear woman," the invisible Stephen spelled, "I did not mean to startle you, but this is not the first time I have spoken of my materiality. You know, the world knows, that space is full of sights and sounds beyond the human eye and ear. Let us go on. But first, Joan, promise me that you will continue to talk with me until I have told you all the 'philosophy,' as Darby calls it."

 

The tripod had moved rapidly; I withdrew both hands in order to bring my notes down to date.

 

"I won't promise a piece of wood anything," rebelled Joan.

 

Yet when I jokingly accused her of being interested only in having her fortune told, she said, "Come on." Again we placed our hands upon the tripod.

 

"Why should I seek to tell fortunes," queried Stephen, "since you two and I are playing such wonderful parts in the great drama of consciousness? Listen! Could there be a greater thing than pointing the way to scientists, to biologists, chemists, philosophers, for the constructing of a reasonable proof that man's idea of death is wrong, that it is an idea only, not a fact? You pin your faith to your laboratories these days, and that is well; man has all truth within his grasp. All he needs is a light, a clear guide for the separation of facts from emotional hypotheses. Do not be a foolish virgin, Joan. You are the lamp, but I am the oil, and a lamp without oil can give no light."

 

"Stephen means," I expounded, "that his philosophy is like studying Greek, which is brain-fagging till you learn it. Then a wonderful literature is yours."

 

"Or like an automobile, I suppose," said Joan, "a joyous, breeze-creating thing on a hot night, but made possible by the dust and heat of shops and the sweat of many hands."

 

"But surely," spelled Stephen. "The truth I tell, when so linked with modern scientific fact that reasoning minds can accept it, will be a joyous, breeze-creating thing. It will bring coolness to hearts hot with sorrow. It will tell my mother that life and happiness and a chance of making good are not ended for me. And that's what she's crying over; that's all that the mothers and wives are crying over—the thought that we are giving our lives before we had our chance. I would tell them that he that loses his life shall find it. For 'there is no death— life is but prophecy'! But let us go on with our discussion of quality.

 

"When I speak of the quality of gold as being distinct from the quality of iron, the word presents no difficulty. Yet when I speak of the quality of human consciousness you are confused. This should not be, but—as Joan might say—because it is, I tell you the quality of a man's consciousness is his soul.

 

Take electricity. It is force. Take gravitation.

It, too, is force. Now the thing that distinguishes these two forces one from the other is their differing quality.

 

"Well, the quality of human consciousness is parallel to the quality of gravitation and to the quality of electricity. The earth term heretofore used for the quality of human consciousness has been soul, by which term men have sought to name that which distinguishes them from all else. In other words, they have recognized the distinctiveness of their own quality."

 

"Why, that's simple enough," I was forced to admit.

 

"And all great truths are most astounding in their simplicity," spelled the ouija-board.

 

"And now let us say," Stephen continued, that a child is born into your world. The quality of that child's consciousness consists of a given degree of soul endowment, fixed at birth. The quality of the child's consciousness, the quality of your consciousness and that of all individuals, is, on the earth-plane, unalterable. Fixed at birth, it can in earth-life neither be heightened nor lowered.

 

"It is all so plain, when related up to lives as you observe them. Take, for instance, your own impulses, and compare them with those of a criminal. You could not commit murder; such is your quality of consciousness.

 

Yet the real murderer, as distinct from the man who is drunk or angered or insane, actually plans his crime. Such is his quality. These instincts… are the visible indications of quality. Educate the potential murderer all you will, the instinct will not change, though the deed may, in fact, never be committed."

 

A fatalistic view, you say. So said Joan and I, and so we insisted until we understood more clearly. It was one of the wonders of the ouija-board's discourse that fuller understanding did always come.

 

Once Stephen referred to his discussion as an "all­explanatory philosophy."

 

"Why," said I, "has the mere fact of graduation made you omniscient?"

"No," he answered, "but the truth of this revelation applied to all earth theories of any dignity will differentiate between the fundamental facts and the emotional hypotheses."

 

And such, in fact, has been my experience and Joan's. This and that hoary dogma, long realized by us to be false, still for some unknown reason would exercise a spell over us. Suddenly by the magic of Stephen's philosophy the spell is lifted, also accounted for. In these dogmas we have recognized, thanks to Stephen, an ounce of truth embedded in a pound of error. Let me illustrate.

 

The doctrine of fatalism, asserting that man is helpless quite in the grip of predetermined destiny, has constituted the keystone of many a religion's arch. Even in Christian thought, a system essentially optimistic, Calvinistic predestination, foreordaining some to be saved and some to be damned, has found lodgment. Fatalism has refused to down.

 

Why? Because there is in the thought a glimpse, a fundamental fact; to wit, that the quality of consciousness, supernature's gift to the natural plane, cannot on earth be altered by a jot or a tittle. And no fatalism is involved here. "For," says Stephen, "quantitatively men are free. Quantity is developed on your plane. Use to the utmost the quality my plane has vouchsafed you."

 

"By the way," I interjected, this rebirth of quality, Stephen— that's a thing which has been puzzling me. It is mystical, to say the least."

 

"Nothing is mystical," spelled the ouija-board. "I cite you one of man's primest emotional hypotheses: The human mind enjoys a mystery. Rebirth offers a mystery at least no greater than birth itself. Think it over.

 

Now all the while Joan had, indeed, been thinking. For the sake of clearness I elaborate her question as follows:

 

"Stephen, you say that the quality of an individual's consciousness is unalterable on the earth-plane. You say that the qualities of the inanimate world are likewise unalterable. There on the table lies a book. Color is a noticeable quality of that book's binding. The color is red. Stephen, I can dip that binding into various dyes and at will make it green, blue, any color I choose. Where now is the unalterableness of quality?"

 

"Tut, tut!" Stephen returned. "You should seek your parallel not in a compound such as a book. Human consciousness is not compounded. It is an elemental thing. Color is not the essential quality of the book, or of the binding. If the binding were black it would still be a binding and the book a book. By the word quality I refer to essential quality; to that quality, for example, which makes the book a book rather than a glass of water.

 

"Take electricity again. Can you not see that its quality is fixed? it is that very unalterableness of quality that makes it electricity rather than, for example, centrifugal force. So it is with human consciousness.

 

But now get this: Though your quality on the earth-plane is restricted, I on my plane am free to develop quality, just as you now are free to develop quantity."

 

The tripod paused, then moved, then halted again, then said: "Does it mean anything to you when I say that the only difference between your plane of consciousness and mine is that yours is quantitative in its development, while mine is qualitative? At any rate, from now on I shall speak of my plane as the qualitative plane and yours as the quantitative. And now will you please ask questions?"

 

Joan, the practical, wanted to know how the individual in this world can turn the quality of his consciousness to individual advancement. And I, whom Stephen has accused of "seeking to read metaphysics into the grass underfoot," wanted to know how quality is developed in the world beyond.

 

"Let us dispose of the qualitative plane first," spelled Stephen. "It is apparent that for man quality development is a new thought. Therefore, there are no earth terms by which I can adequately describe the process. The best I can do is to tell you some facts.

 

"For one thing, we here associate with degrees higher than ourselves, and learn from them. Of course, our perceptions, our understanding, all our attributes, are intensified, and the knowledge that became ours upon graduation makes us eager to avail ourselves of all opportunities.

 

"For another thing, we serve. Having learned the oneness of consciousness, we seek to aid the development of degrees lower than ourselves. Of my service on the battle-fields I have already told you.

 

"Truth to tell, we here are, on the one hand, development, and, on the other hand, we are service."

 

"But," I asked, "aren't there any slackers there?"

 

"No," answered Stephen. "All who are here want to do all they can. But, of course, those who graduated from the primary grades of earth cannot immediately enter college—I use the expression figuratively, yet not so figuratively, after all. Joan, ask your questions concerning quality on earth."

 

"Well," said she, "there are so many people in life who seem capable of much, yet accomplish little. I have met many a poet who never wrote a line and farmers who never turned a furrow. Yet always these persons believe they could, if they would, and that conviction is often shared by those who best know them. The poemless poets and the fieldless farmers are an unhappy set, I have noticed, discounting their successes as carpenters and bankers. Has the individual quality of consciousness anything to do with this bit of unhappiness?"

 

"But surely," spelled Stephen, "though I must ask you not to confuse quality and talent. Men of the same quality frequently have diverse talents; the same quality might find satisfactory expression in finance, in agriculture. But of the man who forever is dissatisfied with what his hand and brain find to do I would say this: He has refused to listen to the voice of his quality."

 

"Let us see," said Joan. "Do you mean that a John Keats could happily conduct a cigar store?"

 

"I have not said so," Stephen replied. "But take from a John Keats the talent of verse-writing and substitute the music talent. Can you not see that his quality would have been just as satisfactorily fulfilled? Keats' father kept a livery stable. Had the son submitted to the fate that pointed out for him the life of a groom, he would have stifled his quality. After all, you can't use a silk purse as a sow's ear."

 

"Why," asked Joan, as we laughed at Stephen's reversal of the proverb, "do we believe in the silk purse even when we see it used as a sow's ear?"

 

"The world has always recognized high quality," answered Stephen, "even when the individual possessing it refuses to develop quantity. It is the soul that counts."

 

"But can't quality retrograde? If not here, then in your world?" asked Joan.

 

The tripod almost leaped from under our fingers.