Part 21

“But when I die, where will I be?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I know that somehow you must be.”

Virginia and Alfred—in fact, all the children—had a long discussion. Alfred said, in speaking of a horse which had been buried in the woods, and over which ferns had grown, “but the ferns were not the horse”—a sensible remark. He said: “When you move your hand, the energy that goes onward is not the hand. And so, when I die, the self that goes out of me may be a force, but it will go out of me, it will not be I.”

“But you yourself,” I said, “are the life, the force, the self, which goes forth, which moves all things.”

Here the children, being left to themselves, went up into thin air. They argued the possibility of nothingness. Virginia told how when she was a little child she used to imagine what would happen if there were no earth. They each described how they couldn’t imagine nothing, and what happened when they tried. Ruth told how one couldn’t imagine perfect unity and understanding, either. I stopped them, and said it made not the least difference in any fact whether they could or couldn’t imagine it. Virginia, the little artist and mystic, said she thought in childhood one touched the truth unconsciously. The others all denied this. I said it was a pleasant and comfortable thought.

Now I said there was one other interesting thing I wanted to speak of, and that was memory. Most people believe we remember nothing from before birth. This is not true. Our whole body, our very being, is a memory. Florence said: “It is a race memory. Often we find it easy to do a thing we never did before, because our ancestors did it.”

“Yes,” I answered, “instinct is a memory. The fact that we are here at all, our minds, our thinking, as well as our bodies, are a memory. We ourselves, our present bodies, are a consequence of the lives before us, a memory from the endless past.”

“We are what they lived,” said Ruth, “as our bodies shall be what we live, not what we think on the surface, but what we live.”

“Yes,” I answered, “but after a while we do live our thoughts.”

Henry said life was a repetition with progress. “But in the one-celled animal,” he asked, “was life an expression of mind?”

“I don’t know,” I said; “but it seems to me self or will must be at the bottom of all motion. I read a theory lately, in an ‘evolution’ book, that was very interesting. It is this: That consciousness or desire is the source of all development, and that lower creatures are conscious of acts which to us are automatic. The lowest creature, which is a mere bag or stomach, would then be conscious of itself, whereas in us the consciousness of primal organs is swamped and lost in our more intense nervous consciousness. Thus, from the first, consciousness and will might be the source of progress, as they are now.”

They all thought it a plausible and interesting theory. Marian said:

“It seems likely. For do not babies have difficulty in walking, and are conscious of every step, whereas we do it almost automatically?”

“Yes,” I said; “it might be the same with the race.”

I insisted that one could know the truth in certain directions, if one were willing to admit absolute ignorance in others. I felt sure I was immortal, but I had not the least idea how. I would not build up a heaven, hell or universe of the dead, because all these conjectures were likely to be false. I said one could know much and learn more only by admitting one’s limitations.

Of course one could not know, I said, but I myself did not believe in personal immortality with definite memory. It might be so, or it might not.

“I think it is not so,” said Marian, “for we remember nothing definite from before birth.”

“But,” I said, “I feel sure that memory, the essence of memory, will go on; just as our bodies and selves are a memory, so whatever we are in this life will have its consequences, and we will be forever according to what we are now. All progress is a memory—and a prophecy.”

I spoke, too, of the endless stream of every least action, how the least word, once spoken, is a spring of eternal consequence, how each moment is tremendously important. I reminded Marian how she had once said school was so short, it did not much matter what one did; and I had answered her, all life was short.

“Some people think actions under certain conditions—in foreign lands, for instance—do not count.”

Virginia said she lived to enjoy herself, no matter what death might be, but her enjoyment included making others happy. I said, that was the only good way to live, to enjoy oneself, and have a very big idea of what enjoyment meant.

In talking we stumbled across difficult, confusing words, “God,” “truth,” “eternity.” Ruth said: “We ought to invent a new language, a code of symbols, for everything in the old language has so many acquired meanings, is so used up.”

“We have made almost a code of our own,” said Marian.

Alfred had said nothing to let me know whether or not he had been convinced of immortality. It will be interesting to hear what he has thought during the week.

We had now finished the first and fundamental part of what we meant to do; we would now test everything by that standard.

“It is strange,” said Marian, “how everything we have said has sprung from just one thing.”

“What is that?” I asked.

“Our idea of God,” she answered.