XXVI
QUALITATIVE DEVELOPMENT
WHAT an oddity it was that in
grasping each new particular of Stephen's scheme I found it necessary
to grasp much of its whole over again! Pluralistic monism had succeeded
in setting me straight as to man's individualistic survival. And I could
imagine the individual supremacy of man. But it was hard to conceive,
for instance, that even a tree survives death. It seemed improbable that
the tree should survive as an individual and impossible that as an
individual it should go on developing. I could not imagine a supreme
tree.
"How long, how long!" wailed Stephen.
"If you could but forget preconceived ideas! If you would but study the
reasonableness of that which I tell you!
"Let us start all over again. Your
first difficulty is that you doubt the individuality of the earth tree.
You think it a mere composite of branches and twigs and leaves. It is
true the tree puts forth leaves and blossoms. But do
you not grow hair and finger nails?
These are not of the essence of the consciousness which is you, nor are
the tree's leaves of the essence of the consciousness which is the tree.
The life of the tree is not a composite; it is an entity, just as your life is an entity. The tree
which you see is a manifestation of a producing force called by you
plant life, just as you are a manifestation of animal life. You
recognize the individualistic character of all animal life; I think you
must also admit—the individualistic character of all plant life. Tree
life manifests itself now as a hickory and now as a palm. And no two
hickory-trees or palm-trees are just alike; such is the distinctiveness
of their individuality.
"Now let us trace the development,
from earth manifestation on, of an individual tree—for example, an
oak-tree. The oaktree matures and is hewn down. As a material entity it
remains in the form of whatever man fashions it into. The life of it has
vanished from your sight, and you have just as much right to ask what
becomes of the life of that tree as you have to ponder what becomes of the individual
person's life when he is hewn down by death. Where has the life of
that oak-tree gone? It has gone back, as an individual tree, to its
qualitative degree.
“Now the degree of quality to which
the oak-tree
returns—which is made up of many
individual tree qualities— is subject to the same development that every
other degree of consciousness is subject to. The tree, therefore, gives
of itself in rebirth. It is leavened by quantity. It goes on developing
individually. It continues on to the supreme degree, stamped always by
its individual experience plus its assimilation through leavening. "I have told you the form attribute
of consciousness is manifested in the supreme. What the various form
attributes there are I have not told you and cannot tell you; there are
no earth terms by which
supreme form can be made clear to you. I do tell you this: The form attributes of the supreme are not necessarily
all alike; all supremacy is individualistic, and consequently characteristic. That is as much as I can say."
"But," I asked, "does the tree as it
develops ever become comparable to a man?"
"Yes," answered Stephen, "but it is
the comparison I cannot explain to you."
"Can it be," I asked, "that in what I
might call the human degree there are on your side individuals who never
lived on earth as men?"
"But surely," answered Stephen.
"Such individuals," I suggested,
"cannot be the equals of what
might be termed their more strictly human fellows."
"Surely they can be and are," Stephen
answered. "Else how could they be of the given degree?"
"It is a difficult thought, Stephen,"
I said.
“Granted the plane of qualitative
development, how is it possible for that life which manifests itself
here as a tree ever to develop
a quality that will make it the equal of man? What's the process of that development?"
Said Stephen: "Naturally enough you,
who are familiar only with quantitative development, cannot imagine the
process of qualitative development, and you lack terms by which I might
describe it to you. I can only point out to you that such development is
reasonably indicated by your own knowledge. Perhaps an illustration
would help clear the difficulty."
There was silence for a space. Then
Stephen said: "Consider the
quantitative development of a stone on your plane. Take, for example, a
piece of sandstone. As such it cannot serve as food for plant life. A
seed dropped on the piece of sandstone would never germinate. Now, after
a long time infinitesimal and invisible motion wears this piece of
sandstone down to its
component grains of sand; the sandstone becomes a part of the soil. It becomes fertile and develops
a definite service to plant life. It aids in germination. It has a new
function. It has developed quantity. And yet it is still just
sand. It is changed in form; it is
changed as quantity, but that is all. With this simple bit of natural
and empirical knowledge in mind, is it then impossible for you to
conceive that the stone
might, somewhere and under some circumstances, qualitatively progress?"
It is a convincing trait of this
thing we call Stephen that it can be turned aside by no argument of mine
or Joan's. From the beginning we noticed this characteristic, and it was
one of the things that prevented our ready acceptance of Stephen and
his philosophy as the
subconscious products of our own minds. Having taken a position, Stephen
would maintain it with a resource of argument that was the constant
object of our wonderment. I might not be able to imagine the survival
and qualitative development of a tree; endlessly, it seemed, Stephen
could cite facts "reasonably indicating" that tree's eternal progress.
"It is interesting," I said, "to
speculate on the possibility of my consciousness having been once of the tree degree."
"How," spelled Stephen, "do you
explain the great love and understanding some men have for the beauties
and moods of nature? It is because their quality of consciousness
happens to have much of the more potentially exquisite forms of nature
in it. The artist portraying a
sunset, a sea, a landscape, may have
once been of their consciousness. He
puts that part of his soul on canvas. But note that, though the quality
which once was the quality of treeness may be in one man and give to him a
deep understanding of the woods, it may in another man be lacking."
"It would seem, however, reasonable to
suppose it present in all men,"
I ventured.
"I expected you to say as much,"
answered Stephen. "Thus soon you have forgotten the housewife's bluing.
Well, take a pint of water and pour into it a measure of oil. Now shake
the two, thoroughly mixing them. You will agree that as an entirety the
water and oil are pretty well mixed. Now draw out a drop. That drop may
have much oil in it, little or none. So it is with degrees, as they are
leavened by the individual gifts of quantity, and as their quality is
reborn."
"You say all consciousness is reborn,
Stephen?" I asked. "All
consciousness is reborn qualitatively," he answered, "except that of
supremacy."
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