XXII
QUANTITY

 

STEPHEN at our next meeting was wholly determined to complete his discussion of the quantity of consciousness. He led off thus:

 

"Quantity of consciousness is developed, not simply through the undergoing of mortal experience, but rather through its assimilation. The man who greatly develops his quantity orders his experience, which of itself is chaotic. He learns of life not only knowledge, but wisdom.

 

"Now, to say that in its potentiality such a servant attribute as reason is qualitative is a fairly accurate way of stating the truth. Its earth-plane development, however, is quantitative. And the individual who develops such an attribute thereby gathers unto himself some measure of quantity, but not necessarily the greatest measure. And why not, Darby?"

 

"The goal," I answered, "is complete and perfect recognition by the individual of his partness with the whole. Great is the quantity of the man who uses his quality, be it high or not so high, in service of the whole."

 

"Again," spelled Stephen, "there is joy in heaven. A man of great mental attainment, if he would greatly develop his quantity, must place his mental equipment at the disposal of the whole's development. Truly service is the practical expression of quantity."

 

And now must I set down fact that no sooner had my scholarship for a second time caused "joy in heaven," than I betrayed a grievous misunderstanding.

 

I said: "Except Stephen, as the individual, wins quantity from sources outside himself, from where does it come? And yet how preposterous, if the quantity of one man's consciousness is won by him at the expense of another's!"

 

"Preposterous is right!" spelled the ouija-board. "I have said nothing to justify your inference. The whole of consciousness can neither increase nor diminish; science has glimpsed this fact in its theory of the conservation of matter and energy. But that whole is subject to development, both of a quantitative and qualitative nature, and the individual differs not from the whole. Man's development on earth is quantitative. This does not mean that he actually amasses consciousness.

It means only that that consciousness which he is develops quantitatively. By development of quantity, therefore, I refer to that development which pertains to consciousness as quantity."

 

I raised the white flag. Joan, complaining of "fine-spun theories," shifted the trend of the discussion.

 

"Stephen," she said, "can you take a specific individual and tell us of his quantitative development?"

 

"But surely," answered the ouija-board, inviting Joan and me to consider the instance of one I shall call D. R., an old man afflicted with an incurable disease which, though it permitted him to be about, had rendered him quite childish. Joan and I had spent Christmas with D. R.

 

"D. R., as you have always recognized, is of a high quality of consciousness," spelled Stephen. "He has, however, developed the quantity of his consciousness out of all proportion to his quality. Though never possessed of great reasoning power, he had an unusually retentive memory. This he developed to its utmost, thereby compensating for what he lacked in reason. Then, too, he had unusual insight into human nature, and this also he fostered. His third great asset was his liking for people and the resulting craving for good opinion. This cast of mind he put to great advantage; it gave him sympathy for many men of many sorts, and at the same time saved him from falling into the pitfalls laid for the good mixer.

 

"Now, by using what gifts he had, D. R. developed quantity such as is frequently unachieved by men of greater quality. There was, it is true, a selfishness in his quality, but because of his quantitative development he was able to overcome this and give to the world a wonderful service.

 

"And here is a thought that will bear being kept with you always. D. R., by the development of his own quantity and by virtue of the service that necessarily resulted from that development, was the direct cause of the development of quantity in hundreds of others, the hundreds whom directly and indirectly he served. The thought you will do well always to hold to is this, that the individual's development of the quantity of consciousness leavens the whole of consciousness. 'The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.'"

"Must D. R. soon die?" asked Joan.

"I am no fortune-teller," answered Stephen. "But this I will say, that D. R. is being prepared for graduation. His old friend, H. J."

(dead these many years) "is with him constantly. The other day he recognized his friend."

 

And it was true. A letter we received a few days later told us that D. R. had asked, quite without thought of the thing being abnormal, "What is H. doing here?"

 

Had D. R., a few months before, mentioned his dead friend as being present with him we would have set the affair down as the hallucination of a wavering mind. Even now we cannot assert that it was otherwise. Yet to be told one week by a ouija­board that D. R. recognized his dead friend's presence, and the next week to be informed in a letter from D. R.'s home that he had inquired, "What is H. doing here?"—this pulls one up to a stop. Can coincidence, the accidental agreement of the words of an irresponsible toy and the actual fact as it was developing miles distant, account for such a happening?

 

"D. R. will graduate happily," continued Stephen. "His usefulness on earth is impaired by his physical disability, and he is eager for conscious resuming of his work. You may have noticed his restlessness. He is impatient to be away."

 

"When he has graduated what mind will he have," I asked, "his former active mentality or that which is now his?"

 

"He is sick now," said Stephen, "that is all.

 

Upon graduation he will come into possession of all that he ever was and far more than he knew himself to be."

 

"Is, then," Joan asked, "the old-age mind just a sick mind?"

 

"It results simply from the breaking down of the material brain and nervous system," Stephen replied. "Often, too, as in the case of D. R., old age is a period of preparation for graduation."

 

"Do you mean that D. R., despite his mental feebleness, is still developing?" I questioned, adding that he seemed so "far away."

 

"Yes, for graduation," Stephen answered. "That which you note as uncanniness is but the result of new appreciations he is developing, new realization of the whole of which he is a part."

 

"But," I said, "he seems to me unhappy."

 

"He is not unhappy," spelled Stephen. "He is but impatient to come back to the whole of his degree of quality, as all who do not experience sudden death are glad to come back. He would come back to the broader consciousness, to recognition of the great truth, to work, to service, and the development of a new quality according to the quantity he has achieved. Already he knows what he always believed, that earth life is preparation of the mortal for immortality."

 

"Why," I asked, "did he believe this? He never made profession of religion."

"Because in the practice of his calling," Stephen replied, "it was given him to be present at so many graduations and hear the testimony of delight at the meeting of passing souls with friends. It is the beautiful glimpse."

"Death-bed visions?" I asked.

"Yes," said Stephen, "but to the passing soul these experiences are not visions. They are reality."

 

And then, in seeming defiance of the untheoretical Joan, the ouija-board spelled:

 

"A word more, of summary. Take consciousness as the one and only whole. Suppose it to be divided into halves. Now suppose the individual's consciousness to be divided into halves. The halves of consciousness are quality and quantity. The halves of the individual's consciousness are at least, for the purpose of psychology—soul and mind. The soul of the individual is to be compared to quality; the mind, to quantity. Now the quality of the consciousness of an individual may be, in fact is, of a certain degree. Degrees of quality may be high or low and are easily recognized; so also it is with quantity. An individual, then, at graduation, possesses his original degree endowment of quality and the added degrees of quantity earth life developed. And just as his development of quantity on earth depended, in the final limit, on his degree of quality, so his qualitative progress here will be governed by his earthly quantitative advance, save, however, as each individual's gift of quantity leavens the whole."