CHAPTER IV

EMOTION.

1. THE BIRTH OF EMOTION.

EMOTION is riot a simple or primary state of consciousness, but is a compound made up by the interaction of two of the aspects of the Self-Desire and Intellect. The play of Intellect on Desire gives birth to Emotion; it is the child of both, and shows some of the characteristics of its father, Intellect, as well as of its mother, Desire.

In the developed condition Emotion seems so different from Desire that their fundamental identity is somewhat veiled; but we can see this identity either by tracing the development of a desire into an emotion, or by studying both side by side, and finding that both have the same characteristics, the same divisions, that the [348] one is, in fact, an elaborated form of the other, the elaboration being due to the presence in the later of a number of intellectual elements absent from, or less markedly prominent in, the earlier.

Let us trace the development of a desire into an emotion in one of the commonest of human relations, the relation of sex. Here is desire in one of its simplest forms; desire for food, desire for sexual union, are the two fundamental desires of all living things - desire for food to maintain life, desire for sexual union to increase life. In both the sense of “moreness” is experienced, or, otherwise stated, pleasure is felt. The desire for food remains a desire; the food is appro­priated, assimilated, loses its separate identity, becomes part of the “Me”. There is no continued relation between the eater and the food which gives scope for the elaboration of an emotion. It is otherwise in the sex-relation, which tends to become more and more permanent with the evolution of the individuality.

Two savages are drawn towards each other by the attraction of sex; a passion [349] to possess the other arises in each; each desires the other. The desire is as simple as the desire for food. But it cannot be satisfied to the same extent, for neither can wholly appropriate and assimilate the other; each to some extent maintains his or her separate identity, and each only partially becomes the “Me” of the other. There is indeed an extension of the “Me”, but it is by way of inclusion and not by way of self-identification. The presence of this persisting barrier is necessary for the transformation of a desire into an emotion. This makes possible the attach­ment of memory and anticipation to the same object, and not to another object similar in kind - as in the case of food. A continuing desire for union with the same object becomes an emotion, thoughts thus mingling with the primary desire to possess. The barrier which keeps the mutually attracted objects as two not one, which prevents their fusion, while it seems to frustrate really immortalises; were it swept away, desire and emotion alike would vanish, and the Twain-become­-One must then seek another external [350] object for the further self-expansion of pleasure.

To return to our savages, desire-united. The woman falls sick, and ceases, for the time, to be an object of sex-gratification. But the man remembers past, and antici­pates future, delight, and a feeling of sympathy with her suffering, of com­passion for her weakness, arises within him. The persisting attraction towards her, due to memory and anticipation, changes desire into emotion, passion into love, and sympathy and compassion are its earliest manifestations. These, in turn, will lead to his sacrificing himself to her, waking to nurse her when he would sleep, exerting himself for her when he would rest. These spontaneous moods of the love-emotion in him will later solidify into virtues, i.e., will become permanent moods in his character, showing themselves in response to the calls of human need to all persons with whom he comes into contact, whether they attract him or not. We shall see later that virtues are simply permanent moods of right emotion.

Before, however, dealing with the [351] relation of ethics and emotion, we must further realise the fundamental identity of Desire and Emotion by noting their characteristics and divisions. As this is done, we shall find that emotions do not form a mere jungle, but that all spring from one root, dividing into two main stems, each of these again subdividing into branches, on which grow the leaves of virtues and of vices. This fruitful idea, making possible a science of the emotions, and hence an intelligible and rational system of ethics, is due to an Indian author, Bhagavan Das, who has for the first time introduced order into this hitherto confused region of consciousness. Students of psychology will find in his Science of the Emotions a lucid treatise, setting forth this scheme, which reduces the chaos of the emotions into a cosmos, and shapes therein an ordered morality. The broad lines of exposition followed here are drawn from that work, to which readers are referred for fuller details.

We have seen that Desire has two main expressions: desire to attract, in order to possess, or again to come into contact [352] with, any object which has previously afforded pleasure; desire to repel, in order to drive far away, or to avoid contact with, any object which has previously inflicted pain. We have seen that Attraction and Repulsion are the two forms of Desire, swaying the Self.

Emotion, being Desire infused with Intellect, inevitably shows the same division into two. The Emotion which is of the nature of Attraction, attracting objects to each other by pleasure, the integrating energy in the universe, is called Love. The Emotion which is of the nature of Repulsion, driving objects apart from each other by pain, the dis­integrating energy in the universe, is called Hate. These are the two stems from the root of Desire, and all the branches of the emotions may be traced back to one of these twain.

Hence the identity of the characteristics of Desire and Emotion; Love seeks to draw to itself the attractive object, or to go after it, in order to unite with it, to possess, or be possessed by, it. It binds by pleasure, by happiness, as Desire binds. [353] Its ties are indeed more lasting, more com­plicated, are composed of more numerous and more delicate threads interwoven into greater complexity, but the essence of Desire-Attraction, the binding of two objects together, is the essence of Emotion-Attraction, of Love. And so also does Hate seek to drive away from itself the repellent object, or to flee from it, in order to be apart from it, to repulse, or be repulsed by, it. It separates by pain, by unhappiness. And thus the essence of Desire-Repulsion, the driving apart of two objects, is the essence of Emotion-Repulsion, of Hate. Love and Hate are the elaborated and thought-­infused forms of the simple Desires to possess and to shun.

2. THE PLAY OF EMOTION IN THE FAMIILY,

Man has been described as “a social animal” - the biological way of saying that he develops best in contact with, not in isolation from, his fellows. His dis­tinctively intellectual characteristics need, for their evolution, a social medium, and [354] his keenest pleasures - and hence neces­sarily his keenest pains - arise in his relations with others of his own species. They alone can evoke from him the responses on which his further growth depends. All evolution, all the calling out of latent powers, is in response to stimuli from without, and, when the human stage is reached, the most poignant and effective stimuli can only come from contacts with human beings.

Sex-attraction is the first social bond, and the children born to the husband and wife form, with them, the first social unit, the family. The prolonged helplessness and dependence of the human infant give time for the physical passion of parentage to ripen into the emotion of maternal and paternal love, and thus give stability to the family, while the family itself forms a field in which the various emotions inevit­ably play. Herein are first established definite and permanent relations between human beings, and on the harmony of these relations, on the benefits bestowed by these relations on each member of the family, does the happiness of each depend. [355]

We can advantageously study the play of Emotion in the family, since here we have a comparatively simple social unit, which yet affords a picture in miniature of society at large. We can find here the origin and evolution of virtues and vices, and see the meaning and object of morality.

We have already seen how sex-passion evolves, under stress of circumstances, into the emotion of love, and how this love shows itself as tenderness and compassion when the wife, instead of being the equal mate, becomes helpless and dependent, in the temporary physical inferiority caused, say, by child-bearing. Similarly, should sickness or accident reduce the husband to the temporary physical inferiority, tender­ness and compassion will flow out to him from the wife. But these manifestations of love cannot be shown by the stronger without evoking from the weaker answer­ing love-manifestations; these in the condition of weakness will have as their natural characteristics trust, confi­dence, gratitude, all equally love-emotions coloured by weakness and dependence. [356] In the relation of parents to children and of children to parents, where physical superiority and inferiority are far more strongly marked and persist for a con­siderable period of time, these love ­emotions will be continually manifested on both sides. Tenderness, compassion, protection, will be constantly shown by the parents to the children, and trust, confidence, gratitude, will be the constant answer of the children. Variations in the expression of the love-emotion will be caused by variety of circumstances, which will call out generosity, forgiveness, patience, etc., on the part of the parents, and obedience, dutifulness, serviceableness, etc., on the part of the children. Taking these two classes of love-emotions, we see that the common essence in the one class is benevolence, and in the other reverence; the first is love looking downwards on those weaker, inferior to itself; the other love looking upwards on those stronger, superior to itself. And we can then generalise and say: Love looking down­wards is Benevolence; Love looking upwards is Reverence; and these are the [357] several common characteristics of Love from superiors to inferiors, and Love from inferiors to superiors universally.

The normal relations between husband and wife, and those between brothers and sisters, afford us the field for studying the manifestations of love between equals. We see love showing itself as mutual tenderness and mutual trustfulness, as con­sideration, respect, and desire to please, as quick insight into and endeavour to fulfil the wishes of the other, as magnanimity, forbearance. The elements present in the love-emotions of superior to inferior are found here, but mutuality is impressed on all of them. So we may say that the common characteristic of Love between equals is Desire for Mutual Help.

Thus we have Benevolence, Desire for Mutual Help, and Reverence as the three main divisions of the Love-Emotion, and under these all love emotions may be classified. For all human relations are summed up under the three classes: the relations of superiors to inferiors, of equals to equals, of inferiors to superiors.

A similar study of the Hate-Emotion in [358] the family will yield us similar fruits. Where there is hate between husband and wife, the temporary superior will show harshness, cruelty, oppression to the temporary inferior, and these will be answered by the inferior with hate-manifestations characteristic of weakness, such as vindictiveness, fear, and treachery. These will be even more apparent in the relations between parents and children, when both are dominated by the Hate­-Emotion, since the disparity is here greater, and tyranny breeds a whole crop of evil emotions - deceit, servility, cowardice, while the child is helpless, and disobedience, revolt and revenge as it grows older. Here again we seek a common characteristic, and find that Hate looking downwards is Scorn, and looking upwards is Fear.

Similarly, Hate between equals will show itself in anger, combativeness, dis­respect, violence, aggressiveness, jealousy, insolence, etc.- all the emotions which repel man from man when they stand as rivals, face to face, not hand in hand. The common characteristic of Hate [359] between equals will thus be Mutual Injury. And the three main characteristics of the Hate­-Emotion are Scorn, Desire for Mutual Injury, and Fear.

Love is characterised in all its mani­festations by sympathy, self-sacrifice, the desire to give; these are its essential factors, whether as Benevolence, as Desire for Mutual Help, as Reverence. For all these directly serve Attraction, bring about union, are of the very nature of Love. Hence Love is of the Spirit; for sympathy is the feeling for another as one would feel for oneself; self-sacrifice is the recognition of the claim of the other, as oneself; giving is the condition of spiritual life. Thus Love is seen to belong to the Spirit, to the life-side of the universe.

Hate, on the other hand, is characterised in all its manifestations by antipathy, self-aggrandisement, the desire to take; these are its essential factors, whether as Scorn, Desire for Mutual Injury, or Fear. All these directly serve Repulsion, driving one apart from another. Hence, Hate is of Matter, emphasises manifoldness and differences, is essentially separateness, [360] belongs to the form-side of the universe.

We have thus far dealt with the play of Emotion in the family, because the family serves as a miniature of society. Society is only the integration of numerous family units, but the absence of the blood-­tie between these units, the absence of recognised common interests and common objects, makes it necessary to find some bond which will supply the place of the natural bonds in the family. The family units in a Society appear on the surface as rivals, rather than as brothers and sisters; hence the Hate-Emotion is more likely to rise than the Love-Emotion, and it is necessary to find some way of maintaining harmony; this is done by the transmuta­tion of Love-Emotions into virtues.

3. THE BIRTH OF VIRTUES.

We have seen that when members of a family pass beyond the small circle of relatives, and meet people whose interests are either indifferent or opposed to them, there is not between them and the others the mutual interplay of Love. Rather does [361] Hate show itself, ranging from the watch­ful attitude of suspicion to the destroying fury of war. How then is a society to be composed of the separate family units?

It can only be done by making per­manent all the emotional moods which spring from Love, and by eradicating those which spring from Hate. A per­manent mood of a love-emotion directed towards a living being is a Virtue; a permanent mood of a hate-emotion directed against a living being is a Vice. This change is wrought by the Intellect, which bestows on the emotion a permanent character, seeking harmony in all relations in order that happiness may result. That which conduces to harmony and therefore to happiness in the family, springing spontaneously from Love, is Virtue when practised towards all in every relation of life. Virtue springs from Love and its result is happiness. So also that which conduces to disharmony and therefore to misery in the family, springing spon­taneously from Hate, is Vice when practised towards all in all relations of life. [362]

An objection is raised to this theory, that the permanent mood of a love­-emotion is a virtue, by pointing out that adultery, theft, and other vices may spring from the love-emotion. Here analysis of the elements entering into, the mental attitude is necessary. It is complex, not simple. The act of adultery is motived by love, but not by love alone. There enter into it also contempt of the honour of another, indifference to the happiness of another, the selfish grasping at personal pleasure at the cost of social stability, social honour, social decency. All these spring from hate-emotions. The love is the one redeeming feature in the whole transaction, the one virtue in the bundle of sordid vices. Similar analysis will always show that when the exercise of a love-emotion is wrong, the wrongness lies in the vices bound up with its exercise, and not in the love-emotion itself.

4. RIGHT AND WRONG.

Let us now turn, for a moment, to the question of Right and Wrong, and see the [363] relation they bear to bliss and misery. For there is an idea widely current that there is something low and materialistic in the view that virtue is the means to bliss. Many thinly that this idea degrades virtue, giving it the second place where it should hold the first, and making it a means instead of an end. Let us then see why virtue must be the path to bliss, and how this inheres in the nature of things.

When the Intellect studies the world, and sees the innumerable relations estab­lished therein, and observes that har­monious relations bring about happiness, and that jarring relations bring about misery, it sets to work to find out the way of establishing universal harmony and hence universal bliss. Further, it dis­covers that the world is moving along a path which it is compelled to tread - the path of evolution, and it finds out the law of evolution. For a part, a unit, to set itself with the law of the whole to which it belongs means peace, harmony, and there­fore happiness, while for it to set itself against that law means friction, [364] disharmony, and therefore misery. Hence the Right is that which, being in harmony with the great law, brings bliss, and the Wrong is that which, being in conflict with the great law, brings misery. When the intellect, illuminated by the Spirit, sees nature as an expression of divine Thought, the law of evolution as an expression of the divine Will, the goal as an expression of divine Bliss, then for harmony with the law of evolution we may substitute harmony with the divine Will, and the Right becomes that which is in harmony with the Will of God, and morality becomes permeated with religion.

5. VIRTUE AND BLISS.

Perfection, harmony with the divine Will, cannot be separated from bliss. Virtue is the road to bliss, and if anything does not lead there it is not virtue. The perfection of the divine nature expresses itself in harmony, and when the scattered “divine fragments” come into harmony they taste bliss.

This fact is sometimes veiled by [365] another, i.e., that the practice of a virtue under certain circumstances brings about misery. That is true, but the misery is temporary and superficial, and the balance between that outer misery and the inner bliss arising from the virtuous conduct, is in favour of the latter; and further, the misery is not due to the virtue but to the circumstances which oppose its practice, to the friction between the good organism and the evil environment. So when you strike a harmonious chord amid a mass of discords, for a moment it increases the discord. The virtuous man is thrown into conflict with evil, but this should not blind us to the fact that bliss is ever wedded indissolubly to Right and misery to Wrong. Even though the righteous may suffer temporarily, nothing but righteous­ness can lead to bliss. And if we examine the consciousness of the righteous, we find that he is happier in doing the right though superficial pain may result, than in doing the wrong which would ruffle the inner peace. The commission of a wrong act would cause him inner anguish out­weighing the external pleasure. Even in [366] the case where righteousness leads to external suffering, the suffering is less than would be caused by unrighteousness. Miss Helen Taylor has well said that for the man who dies for the sake of truth, death is easier than life with falsehood. It is easier and pleasanter for the righteous man to die as a martyr, than to live as a hypocrite.

Since the nature of the Self is bliss, and that bliss is only hindered in manifestation by resisting circumstances, that which removes the friction between itself and these circumstances and opens its onward way must lead to its Self-realisation, i.e., to the realisation of bliss. Virtue does this, and therefore virtue is a means to bliss. Where the inner nature of things is peace and joy, the harmony which permits that nature to unveil itself must bring peace and joy, and to bring about this harmony is the work of virtue.

6. THE TRANSMUTATION OF EMOTIONS INTO VIRTUES AND VICES.

We have now to see more fully the truth of what was said above, that virtue [367] grows out of emotion, and how far it is true that a virtue or a vice is merely a permanent mood of an emotion. Our definition is that virtue is a permanent mood of the love-emotion, and vice a permanent mood of the hate-emotion.

The emotions belonging to love are the constructive energies which, drawing people together, build up the family, the tribe, the nation. Love is a manifestation of attraction, and hence holds objects together. This process of integration begins with the family; and the relations established between its members in the common life of the family entail, if there is to be happiness, the acting towards each other in a helpful and kindly way. The obligations necessary for the estab­lishment of happiness in these relations are called duties, that which is due from one to the other. If these duties are not discharged the family relations become a source of misery, since the close contacts of the family make the happiness of each dependent on the treatment of him by the others. No relation can be entered into between human beings which does not [368] establish an obligation between them, a duty of each towards the other. The husband loves the wife, the wife the husband, and nothing more is needed to lead each to seek the other’s happiness than the intense spontaneous wish to make the beloved happy. This leads the one who can give to supply what the other needs. In the fullest sense, “love is the fulfilling of the law”[84]; there is no need for the feeling of an obligation, for love seeks ever to help and to bless, and there is no need for “thou shalt”, or “thou shalt not”.

But when a person, moved by love to discharge all the duties of his relation with another, comes into relation with those he does not love, how is a harmonious relation with them to be established? By recognising the obliga­tions of the relation into which he has entered, and discharging them. The doings which grew out of love in the one case present themselves as obliga­tions, as duties, in the other, where love is not present. Right reason works the [369] spontaneous actions of love into per­manent obligations, or duties, and the love-emotion, made a permanent element of conduct, is called a virtue. This is the justification of the statement that a virtue is the permanent mood of a love­-emotion. A permanent state of emotion is established which will show itself when a relation is made; the man discharges the duties of that relation; he is a virtuous man. He is moved by emotions made per­manent by the intellect, which recognises that happiness depends on the establish­ment of harmony in all relations. Love, rationalised and fixed by the intellect, is virtue.

In this way may be built up a science of ethics, of which the laws are as much an inevitable sequence as those on which any other science is built.

So also between the hate-emotion and vices there is a similar relation. The permanent mood of a hate-emotion is a vice. One person injures another, and the second returns the injury; the relation between these two is inharmonious, pro­ductive of misery. And as each expects [370] injury from the other, each tries to weaken the other’s power to inflict injury, and this is the spontaneous action of hate. When this mood becomes permanent, and a man shows it in any relation into which he enters wherein the opportunity for its manifestation arises, then it is called a vice. A man of uncontrolled passions and undeveloped nature strikes a blow, a spontaneous expression of hate. He repeats this often, and it becomes habitual when he is angry. He inflicts pain and takes pleasure in the infliction. The vice of cruelty is developed, and if he meets a child or a person weaker than himself, he will show cruelty merely because he comes into relation with them. As the love-emotion, guided and fixed by right reason, is virtue, so the hate-emotion, guided and fixed by distorted and blinded reason, is vice.

7. APPLICATION OF THE THEORY TO CONDUCT.

When the nature of virtue and vice is thus seen, it is clear that the shortest way of strengthening the virtues and [372] eliminating the vices is to work directly on the emotional side of the character. We can strive to develop the love-­emotion, thus affording the material which the reason will elaborate into its charac­teristic virtues. The development of the love-emotion is the most effective way of evolving the moral character, virtues being but the blossoms and the fruits which spring from the root of love.

The value of this clear view of the transmutation of emotions into virtues and vices lies in the fact that it gives us a definite theory on which we can work; it is as though we were seeking a distant place, and a map were placed before our eyes; we trace thereon the road which leads from our present position to our goal. So many really good and earnest people spend years in vague aspirations after goodness, and yet make but little progress; they are good in purpose but weak in attainment; this is chiefly because they do not understand the nature in which they are working, and the best methods for its culture. They are like a [372] child in a garden, a child eager to see his garden brilliant with flowers, but without the knowledge to plant and cultivate them, and to exterminate the weeds which overgrow his plot. Like the child, they long for the sweetness of the virtue-flowers, and find their garden overrun with the rank growth of the weeds of vice.

8. THE USES OF EMOTION.

The uses of the love-emotion are so obvious that it seems scarcely necessary to dwell upon them, and yet too much stress cannot be laid on the fact that love is the constructive force in the universe. Having drawn together the family units, it welds these into larger tribal and national units, and these it will build in the future into the Brotherhood of Man. Nor must we omit to note the fact that the smaller units draw out the love-power and prepare it for fuller expression. Their use is to call into manifestation the hidden divine power of love within the Spirit, by giving to it objects close at hand that attract it. The love is not to be confined [373] within these narrow limits, but, as it gains strength by practice, it is to spread outwards until it embraces all sentient beings. We may formulate the law of love: Regard every aged person as your father or mother; regard every person of similar age as your brother or sister; regard every younger person as your child. This sums up human relations. The fulfilment of this law would render earth a paradise, and it is in order that the earth may become such a paradise that the family exists.

A man who would widen his love-rela­tions should begin to regard the welfare of his community as he regards the welfare of his own family. He should try to work for the public good of his community with the energy and interest with which he works for his family. Later, he will extend his loving interest and labour to his nation. Then appears the great virtue of public spirit, the sure precursor of national prosperity. Later still, he will love and labour for humanity, and finally he will embrace within his loving care all sentient beings, and will become “the friend of every creature”. [374]

Few, at the present stage of evolution, are really able to love humanity, and too many speak of loving humanity who are not ready to make any sacrifice to help a suffering brother or sister close at hand. The servant of humanity must not over­look the human beings at his door, nor in imagination water with sentimental sym­pathy the distant garden, while the plants round his doorway are dying from drought.

The uses of hate are not at first so obvious, but are none the less important. At first, when we study hate and see that its essence is disintegration, destruction, it may seem all evil; “He who hateth his brother is a murderer,” saith a great Teacher[85], because murder is but an expression of hate; and even when hate does not go so far as murder, it is still a destroying force; it breaks up the family, the nation, and wherever it goes it tears people apart. Of what use, then, is hate?

First, it drives apart incongruous elements, unfit to combine together, and thus prevents continuing friction. Where incongruous undeveloped people are [375] concerned, it is better for them to be driven far apart to pursue their several paths in evolution, than to be kept within reach of one another, stimulating each other to increased bad emotions. Secondly, the repulsion felt by the average soul for an evil person is beneficial, so long as that evil person has the power of leading him astray; for that repulsion, although it be hate, guards him from an influence under which he might otherwise succumb. Contempt for the liar, the hypocrite, the worker of cruelty on the weak, is an emotion useful to the one who feels it, and also to the one against whom it is directed; for it tends to preserve the one from falling into similar vices, and it tends to arouse in the despised person a feeling of shame that may lift him from the mire in which he is plunged. So long as a person has any tendency to a sin, so long is hatred against those who practise the sin protective and useful. Presently, as he evolves, he will distinguish between the evil­doer and the evil, and will pity the [376] evil-doer and confine his hatred to the evil. Later still, secure in virtue, he will hate neither the evil-doer nor his evil, but will see tranquilly a low stage of evolution, out of which he will strive to lift his younger brother by fitting means. “Righteous indignation”, “noble scorn”, “just wrath”, all are phrases which recognise the usefulness of these emotions, while seeking to veil the fact that they are essentially forms of hate - a veiling which is due to the feeling that hate is an evil thing. None the less are they essentially forms of hate, whatever they may be called, though they play a useful part in evolution, and their storms purify the social atmosphere. Intolerance, of evil is far better than indifference to it, and until a man is beyond the reach of temptation to any given sin, intolerance of those who practise it is for him a necessary safeguard.

Let us take the case of a man little evolved; he desires to avoid gross sins, but yet feels tempted to them. The desire to avoid them will show itself as hatred of those in whom he sees them; to check this hatred would be to plunge him into temptations he is not yet strong enough to resist. As he evolves further and further [377] from the danger of yielding to temptation, he will hate the sins, but will pityingly sympathise with the sinner. Not till he has become a saint can he afford not to hate the evil.

When in ourselves we feel repulsion from a person we may be sure that we have in us some lingering traces of that which we dis­like in him. The Ego, seeing a danger, drags his vehicles away. A man, perfectly temperate, feels less repulsion towards the drunkard than a temperate man who occa­sionally exceeds. A woman, utterly pure, feels no repulsion from a fallen sister, from whose contact the less pure would withdraw their skirts. When we reach perfection, we shall love the sinner as well as the saint, and perchance may show the love more to the sinner, since the saint can stand alone, but the sinner will fall if he be not loved.

When the man has risen to the point where he hates neither sinner nor sin, then the disintegrating force - which is hate among human beings - becomes simply an energy to be used for destroying the obstacles which embarrass the path of evolution. When perfected wisdom guides [378] the constructive and destructive energies, and perfected love is the motive power, then only can the destructive force be used without incurring the root-sin of the feeling of separateness. To feel ourselves different from others is the “great heresy”, for separateness, when the whole is evolving towards unity, is opposition to the Law. The feeling of separateness is definitely wrong, whether it leads to one’s thinking oneself more righteous or more sinful. The perfect saint identifies himself with the criminal as much as with another saint, for the criminal and the saint are alike divine, although in different stages of evolution. When a man can feel thus, he touches the life of the Christ in man. He does not think of himself as separate, but as one with all. To him his own holiness is the holiness of humanity, and the sin of any is his sin. He builds no barrier between himself and the sinner, but pulls down any barrier made by the sinner, and shares the sinner’s evil while sharing with him his good.

Those who can feel the truth of this “counsel of perfection” should, in their [379] daily lives, seek to practise it, however imperfectly. In dealing with the less advanced, they should ever seek to level the dividing wall. For the sense of separateness is subtle, and endures till we achieve Christhood. Yet by this effort we may gradually lessen it, and to strive to identify ourselves with the lowest is to exercise the constructive energy which holds the worlds together, and to become channels for the divine love. [380]