Henry Travers Edge – England, USA
Henry Travers Edge
A certain writer, in discussing the meaning of the phrase, 'The State,' contrasts the theorie s of Rousseau and Plato, and consequently of the two schools of thought which they represent. Avoiding lengthy detail, we may sum up the matter by saying that the former starts from the assumption that the individual is a separate unit; and then, having made this false assumption, proceeds to devise means for the harmonious mutual adjustment of the lives of various individuals; and so the State appears as an artificial contrivance for preventing the (supposed) rights of different individuals from conflicting with each other.
Between the State and the individual, a contract is supposed to exist, by which the individual agrees to modify or surrender some of his rights, in return for the protection which the State affords him from the encroachment of other people's rights. On the contrary, the Platonic idea was that the individual is not really separate at all; hence, so far from needing an artificial contrivance to insure harmonious cooperation, he tends naturally to form associations, because thus only can he realize the purport of his life. Not being a separate unit, he cannot live alone; and the State now appears as the natural and logical outcome of man's instincts and requirements.
That the individual is not a separate unit in the sense required by the former theory, can be argued either by studying the nature of the individual, or by examining the consequences which ensue upon the acceptance of that theory as a starting-point. This view of the State represents it as necessarily repressive, however much we may palliate that circumstance by calling it the result of a contract. It gives perpetual recognition to individualism; the forces in operation in the community are opposed to one another in a position of unstable equilibrium; and as the writer we are citing points out, there is nothing in the theory to prevent an individual (or group of individuals) from doing exactly what he pleases, so long only as he can manage to do so without violating the terms of the contract. In short, the balance rests upon might rather than right.
But in the second theory the State is represented as the fulfillment of the individual's needs, and is therefore not repressive but expressive. But the best part of this view is that it allows for the indefinite development of the individual along right lines. For the inference is that, the more highly developed he becomes, the greater will be his need for union, and therefore the more perfect will be the form of the State that arises out of that need. In this way it is supposed that the bounds of family, clan, tribe, city-state, kingdom, and empire are successively outgrown, as man the individual develops; until at last the limits of nationality become merged in a union of all mankind. If this be so, the plans for a FORCIBLE union of nations are wrongly conceived. There should be no need for force; nor if it were needed could it ever be successfully applied.
Unique phto of the author, bee keeping in the garden at Lomaland, around 1920
Thanks to Kenneth Small
The second of the two theories above mentioned -- that assigned to Plato -- is the one on which Theosophy bases its teaching of brotherhood. Men are not separate units to be brought together and made amicable by artificial inducements or restraints; they are actually united, and need only learn to realize this fact. Brotherhood is not a pooling of separate interests; it is the recognition of a common interest. To achieve brotherhood is to open our eyes and look at something that actually exists; not to try to create something which does not exist. Unbrotherliness is a failure to see our unity and to mold our acts in accordance therewith; it is the giving of undue prominence to such desires as are merely personal, and the devising of policies of conduct and theories of the State based on personal desires. For it is of course true that men are separate in some respects: they have separate bodies, and a part of the mind attaches itself to these bodies and becomes involved in their interests.
Man is dual; he is a God grafted on an animal stock. The lower part of his nature, where the stem enters the ground, is apt to send out shoots of the old stock. Yet a tree is fed not only by earth and water from below, but also by air and sunlight from above. The achievement of brotherhood, then, is a learning to live in the higher part of our nature. The writer quoted believes that international unity is the natural logical sequel of man's needs; and this idea Theosophy emphasizes, adding the light of its luminous teachings.
If people are asking themselves the practical question, "What shat we do." a large part of the answer may be given by saying, "First turn your eyes in the right direction." If this idea of the nature of brotherhood, this better idea of the nature of the State and of the relation of the individual thereto, can gain ground; if thereby it can replace unworthy ideas, individualistic, animalistic; much will have been gained; humanity will begin to move in the direction its eyes are fixed in.
As for one's individual conduct -- what is it but to strive more earnestly than before to realize one's place as a member of the human family (or, better, of the family of all that lives); to set aside personal aims as of small value; to transfer one's hopes and happiness from these personal aims to larger aspirations; to try to make duty govern one's feelings, instead of defining duty BY one's feelings? Not that it is necessary for everybody to blossom forth into a social reformer; the principle can and should be applied in what are perhaps considered small affairs. A man may marry a woman because he loves her; he may also love her because he has married her. We can find out what is our duty, and then throw our whole enthusiasm into it; in which case we are director of our emotions instead of being lured by them.
In weighing the respective merits of the various kinds of government, one feels disposed, in the light of the above considerations, to distinguish all corporate unions into the natural and the artificial, rather than into the hackneyed types of democracy, oligarchy, and autocracy.
Artificial governments would thus be defined as those which aim to bring about by constraint and devices a unity which does not actually exist among the elements to be governed; and such governments are unstable, whichever of the forms they may be classed under.
The natural or spontaneous governments, of which we have abundant examples in history and contemporary annals, arise out of some urgent common need and are voluntary; they assume whatever form of organization is found best suited to the exigencies of the occasion. Unity of control is usually found to be a requisite condition; but this is not based on force, precedent, or heredity, but on trust and confidence. It may be said that the spontaneous unions recorded in our annals are not usually based on very exalted motives; and this is true.
The history of Greece provides us with a story of one little state after another coming to the supremacy by means of a civic unity based upon opposition to the other little states; and often we find two unfriendly powers drawn together by their common jealousy of a third. The several lower estates of the people unite in a revolution to overthrow the higher power which they deem their common enemy. All classes in a nation are united. Sectional jealousies are laid aside, but merely in the interests of the national side in a destructive war. All the same, the principle is good, though its application in these cases may leave cause for regret; and we must endeavor to give it its right application.
It has often been pointed out that mankind has been drawn together naturally by its own development in material resources. In other words, commerce and science have become internationalized. Thus the beneficent law of human evolution works ever onwards towards its goal, even when its path leads through the slime of earth; just as a selfish man may find higher responsibilities forced upon him when his natural desires have conducted him into the position of father of a family. We find that our individual requirements have waxed so great that we can no longer live without one another. We must have sugar from here, rubber from there. Our brother will send us his cotton, and we will return it made up. If we are interested in music, it would be a pity to docket it with national names and choose our repertoire by national prejudices. The expansion of my own mind demands that I shall study Indian philosophy and Chinese metaphysics.
Speculation about international unity has usually confined itself to economical considerations. But man is ESSENTIALLY a spiritual being. His higher faculties are not a mere efflorescence of his lower nature; they are attributes of the divinity in him. Again, it is not a question of creating a spiritual unity, but of recognizing one that already exists. It is this spiritual unity that is the true basis of solidarity; and solidarity will arise spontaneously in proportion as individual men recognize their spiritual nature and cultivate their spiritual needs. Man has to OUTGROW his limitations. Those who hunger to live more truly, more earnestly, but do not see a way, will find it in Theosophy; for Theosophy does not impose upon man anything artificial, but points to realities and interprets life as it is.
Life as it IS, -- contrasted with life as it is supposed to be. The latter is a conglomeration of wrong theories, the chief of which is that theory which persists in regarding all wholes as nothing more than fortuitous aggregations of separate units. We have just been considering this theory in its application to social science, and it is familiar enough in the natural sciences.
Theosophy proposes to regard wholes as the essential existences, and the parts into which they may be separated as being of altogether minor importance. A brick gains its importance from its being part of a house; a house is not a mere agglomeration of bricks. It is the same way with man. We have been suffering from economic theories based on the false assumption that, if the desires of the individuals are consulted and given rein, the welfare of the community will necessarily ensue by the working of some mysterious law. This law, we are now being told, is not true. The welfare of the community is paramount and the welfare of the individual conditional thereupon. This likewise applies in an international sense. Another capital error was the regarding of a single earth-life as the whole of a man's existence and the consequent attempt to adjust ideals and policies to that theory. But in view of reincarnation, things wear a totally different aspect. It is such ideas as these -- which, as said, are not new, but are revivals of ancient knowledge -- that give Theosophy a power where other resources fail.
It may be argued that progress is due to the assertion of individuality, and that uniformity can be secured only by the suppression of individuality, and therefore at the expense of progress. But we are not proposing to level men DOWN by a process of pruning that would reduce them all to stumps; it is to level them UP that we aim.
Curious inquirers may have expected to find that the resident workers at the International Theosophical Headquarters would be of the colorless and uniform kind that is wont to be found in communities organized by pressure from above rather than by innate strength. And these inquirers may have been surprised to find that such is not the case at Point Loma; but that, on the contrary, union and harmony have been secured without the suppression of individual character and initiative.
The explanation however is simple; the concrete result thus attained merely follows the abstract principle. The people are cooperating voluntarily in the working-out of a common purpose; and so, instead of shrinking into a mold, they are expanding symmetrically in accordance with natural laws recognized by all. Mutual adaptation is of course necessary, but this does not mean suppression or enforced conformity to dogmas and artificial rules. Those who adhere to their original purpose, which caused them to become workers for Theosophy, find ample room for the expansion of their nature; and if anyone finds himself cramped, it is because he has fallen away from that purpose and no longer finds himself willing to pursue it.
The same thing is observable in the Raja-Yoga College and School, where the pupils show marked individual differences of character, and not that monotonous likeness that is so apt to be produced among children in institutions. This proves that Theosophy does not suppress individuality but merely directs its growth and thus preserves it from running to excrescences on the one hand or from yielding to some conventional mold on the other hand.
Presumably it would be the same in the world at large. Common notions of individuality and personality are of course much confused and often topsy-turvy. People rebel at the idea of following a high principle of conduct, calling it slavery and convention; but yet they slavishly obey the conventions of fashion, whether it be in the symbolical form of wearing precisely the same kind of necktie and socks as other people, or whether it be in those minute points of conventional behavior and habit thus symbolized. In a word, the more people clamor for individual freedom, the more they run into a mold. Given their individuality, they exercise it, as they must, in following some law; and choose the conventional rules. Theosophy does not hamper the power of choice or the right to choose; it simply offers us something to choose that is worth choosing.
The distinction made by Theosophical writers between individuality and personality needs emphasis. Personality means personal desires; and to give rein to these would mean chaos; but individuality means the real character -- freedom to follow the right. Theosophy aims at the development of the individuality and seeks to produce a type of man who will choose the right, believing that a harmonious community is the natural outcome of harmoniously developed individuals.
As to government -- the final authority is the PRINCIPLES accepted and venerated by the people; and the visible administrators are those who represent these principles. We have already seen that unanimity produces efficient government -- even in such matters as war and business. What is needed therefore is unanimity in higher ideals. Knowledge of the truth makes for harmony; because truth is single, and error manifold; and Theosophy proclaims old and well-tried truths which always have made for harmony wherever their influence has prevailed.
From: The Theosophical Path, April 1918, pages 325-30
+++++++
For more information regarding Henry Travers Edge go to Theosophy Wiki, click HERE