,,fantasia ,,of ,,the ,,unconscious by ,d4 ,h4 ,,lawrence ,new ,york ,thomas ,seltzer #aibb ,copyright1 #aibb1 by ,thomas ,seltzer1 ,inc4 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,foreword ,i4 ,,introduction ,,ii4 ,,the ,,holy ,,family ,,iii4 ,,plexuses1 ,,planes ,,and ,,so ,,on ,,iv4 ,,trees ,,and ,,babies ,,and ,,papas ,,and ,,mamas ,v4 ,,the ,,five ,,senses ,,vi4 ,,first ,,glimmerings ,,of ,,mind ,,vii4 ,,first ,,steps ,,in ,,education ,,viii4 ,,education ,,and ,,sex ,,in ,,man1 ,,woman ,,and ,,child ,,ix4 ,,the ,,birth ,,of ,,sex ,x4 ,,parent ,,love ,,xi4 ,,the ,,vicious ,,circle ,,xii4 ,,litany ,,of ,,exhortations ,,xiii4 ,,cosmological ,,xiv4 ,,sleep ,,and ,,dreams ,,xv4 ,,the ,,lower ,,self ,,epilogue ,,foreword ,the present book is a continuation from ,psychoanalysis and the ,unconscious4 ,the generality of readers had better just leave it alone4 ,the generality of critics likewise4 ,i really don't want to convince anybody4 ,it is quite in opposition to my whole nature4 ,i don't intend my books for the generality of readers4 ,i count it a mistake of our mistaken democracy1 that every man who can read print is allowed to believe that he can read all that is printed4 ,i count it a misfortune that serious books are exposed in the public market1 like slaves exposed naked for sale4 ,but there we are1 since we live in an age of mistaken democracy1 we must go through with it4 ,i warn the generality of readers1 that this present book will seem to them only a rather more revolting mass of wordy nonsense than the last4 ,i would warn the generality of critics to throw it in the waste paper basket without more ado4 ,as for the limited few1 in whom one must perforce find an answerer1 ,i may as well say straight off that ,i stick to the solar plexus4 ,that statement alone1 ,i hope1 will thin their numbers considerably4 ,finally1 to the remnants of a remainder1 in order to apologize for the sudden lurch into cosmology1 or cosmogony1 in this book1 ,i wish to say that the whole thing hangs inevitably together4 ,i am not a scientist4 ,i am an amateur of amateurs4 ,as one of my critics said1 you either believe or you don't4 ,i am not a proper archaeologist nor an anthropologist nor an ethnologist4 ,i am no scholar of any sort4 ,but ,i am very grateful to scholars for their sound work4 ,i have found hints1 suggestions for what ,i say here in all kinds of scholarly books1 from the ,yoga and ,plato and ,st4 ,john the ,evangel and the early ,greek philosophers like ,herakleitos down to ,fraser and his ,golden ,bough1 and even ,freud and ,frobenius4 ,even then ,i only remember hints--and ,i proceed by intuition4 ,this leaves you quite free to dismiss the whole wordy mass of revolting nonsense1 without a qualm4 ,only let me say1 that to my mind there is a great field of science which is as yet quite closed to us4 ,i refer to the science which proceeds in terms of life and is established on data of living experience and of sure intuition4 ,call it subjective science if you like4 ,our objective science of modern knowledge concerns itself only with phenomena1 and with phenomena as regarded in their cause-and-effect relationship4 ,i have nothing to say against our science4 ,it is perfect as far as it goes4 ,but to regard it as exhausting the whole scope of human possibility in knowledge seems to me just puerile4 ,our science is a science of the dead world4 ,even biology never considers life1 but only mechanistic functioning and apparatus of life4 ,i honestly think that the great pagan world of which ,egypt and ,greece were the last living terms1 the great pagan world which preceded our own era once1 had a vast and perhaps perfect science of its own1 a science in terms of life4 ,in our era this science crumbled into magic and charlatanry4 ,but even wisdom crumbles4 ,i believe that this great science previous to ours and quite different in constitution and nature from our science once was universal1 established all over the then-existing globe4 ,i believe it was esoteric1 invested in a large priesthood4 ,just as mathematics and mechanics and physics are defined and expounded in the same way in the universities of ,china or ,bolivia or ,london or ,moscow to-day1 so1 it seems to me1 in the great world previous to ours a great science and cosmology were taught esoterically in all countries of the globe1 ,asia1 ,polynesia1 ,america1 ,atlantis and ,europe4 ,belt's suggestion of the geographical nature of this previous world seems to me most interesting4 ,in the period which geologists call the ,glacial ,period1 the waters of the earth must have been gathered up in a vast body on the higher places of our globe1 vast worlds of ice4 ,and the sea-beds of to-day must have been comparatively dry4 ,so that the ,azores rose up mountainous from the plain of ,atlantis1 where the ,atlantic now washes1 and the ,easter ,isles and the ,marquesas and the rest rose lofty from the marvelous great continent of the ,pacific4 ,in that world men lived and taught and knew1 and were in one complete correspondence over all the earth4 ,men wandered back and forth from ,atlantis to the ,polynesian ,continent as men now sail from ,europe to ,america4 ,the interchange was complete1 and knowledge1 science was universal over the earth1 cosmopolitan as it is to-day4 ,then came the melting of the glaciers1 and the world flood4 ,the refugees from the drowned continents fled to the high places of ,america1 ,europe1 ,asia1 and the ,pacific ,isles4 ,and some degenerated naturally into cave men1 neolithic and paleolithic creatures1 and some retained their marvelous innate beauty and life-perfection1 as the ,south ,sea ,islanders1 and some wandered savage in ,africa1 and some1 like ,druids or ,etruscans or ,chaldeans or ,amerindians or ,chinese1 refused to forget1 but taught the old wisdom1 only in its half-forgotten1 symbolic forms4 ,more or less forgotten1 as knowledge3 remembered as ritual1 gesture1 and myth-story4 ,and so1 the intense potency of symbols is part at least memory4 ,and so it is that all the great symbols and myths which dominate the world when our history first begins1 are very much the same in every country and every people1 the great myths all relate to one another4 ,and so it is that these myths now begin to hypnotize us again1 our own impulse towards our own scientific way of understanding being almost spent4 ,and so1 besides myths1 we find the same mathematic figures1 cosmic graphs which remain among the aboriginal peoples in all continents1 mystic figures and signs whose true cosmic or scientific significance is lost1 yet which continue in use for purposes of conjuring or divining4 ,if my reader finds this bosh and abracadabra1 all right for him4 ,only ,i have no more regard for his little crowings on his own little dunghill4 ,myself1 ,i am not so sure that ,i am one of the one-and-onlies4 ,i like the wide world of centuries and vast ages--mammoth worlds beyond our day1 and mankind so wonderful in his distances1 his history that has no beginning yet always the pomp and the magnificence of human splendor unfolding through the earth's changing periods4 ,floods and fire and convulsions and ice-arrest intervene between the great glamorous civilizations of mankind4 ,but nothing will ever quench humanity and the human potentiality to evolve something magnificent out of a renewed chaos4 ,i do not believe in evolution1 but in the strangeness and rainbow-change of ever-renewed creative civilizations4 ,so much1 then1 for my claim to remarkable discoveries4 ,i believe ,i am only trying to stammer out the first terms of a forgotten knowledge4 ,but ,i have no desire to revive dead kings1 or dead sages4 ,it is not for me to arrange fossils1 and decipher hieroglyphic phrases4 ,i couldn't do it if ,i wanted to4 ,but then ,i can do something else4 ,the soul must take the hint from the relics our scientists have so marvelously gathered out of the forgotten past1 and from the hint develop a new living utterance4 ,the spark is from dead wisdom1 but the fire is life4 ,and as an example--a very simple one--of how a scientist of the most innocent modern sort may hint at truths which1 when stated1 he would laugh at as fantastic nonsense1 let us quote a word from the already old-fashioned ,golden ,bough4 ,it must have appeared to the ancient ,aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from the fire which resided in the sacred oak4 ,exactly4 ,the fire which resided in the ,tree of ,life4 ,that is1 life itself4 ,so we must read3 ,it must have appeared to the ancient ,aryan that the sun was periodically recruited from life4--,which is what the early ,greek philosophers were always saying4 ,and which still seems to me the real truth1 the clue to the cosmos4 ,instead of life being drawn from the sun1 it is the emanation from life itself1 that is1 from all the living plants and creatures which nourish the sun4 ,of course1 my dear critic1 the ancient ,aryans were just doddering--the old duffers3 or babbling1 the babes4 ,but as for me1 ,i have some respect for my ancestors1 and believe they had more up their sleeve than just the marvel of the unborn me4 ,one last weary little word4 ,this pseudo-philosophy of mine--pollyanalytics1 as one of my respected critics might say--is deduced from the novels and poems1 not the reverse4 ,the novels and poems come unwatched out of one's pen4 ,and then the absolute need which one has for some sort of satisfactory mental attitude towards oneself and things in general makes one try to abstract some definite conclusions from one's experiences as a writer and as a man4 ,the novels and poems are pure passionate experience4 ,these pollyanalytics are inferences made afterwards1 from the experience4 ,and finally1 it seems to me that even art is utterly dependent on philosophy3 or if you prefer it1 on a metaphysic4 ,the metaphysic or philosophy may not be anywhere very accurately stated and may be quite unconscious1 in the artist1 yet it is a metaphysic that governs men at the time1 and is by all men more or less comprehended1 and lived4 ,men live and see according to some gradually developing and gradually withering vision4 ,this vision exists also as a dynamic idea or metaphysic--exists first as such4 ,then it is unfolded into life and art4 ,our vision1 our belief1 our metaphysic is wearing woefully thin1 and the art is wearing absolutely threadbare4 ,we have no future2 neither for our hopes nor our aims nor our art4 ,it has all gone gray and opaque4 ,we've got to rip the old veil of a vision across1 and find what the heart really believes in1 after all3 and what the heart really wants1 for the next future4 ,and we've got to put it down in terms of belief and of knowledge4 ,and then go forward again1 to the fulfillment in life and art4 ,rip the veil of the old vision across1 and walk through the rent4 ,and if ,i try to do this--well1 why not8 ,if ,i try to write down what ,i see--why not8 ,if a publisher likes to print the book--all right4 ,and if anybody wants to read it1 let him4 ,but why anybody should read one single word if he doesn't want to1 ,i don't see4 ,unless of course he is a critic who needs to scribble a dollar's worth of words1 no matter how4 ,,taormina ,october #h1 #aiba ,,fantasia ,,of ,,the ,,unconscious ,,chapter ,i ,,introduction ,let us start by making a little apology to ,psychoanalysis4 ,it wasn't fair to jeer at the psychoanalytic unconscious2 or perhaps it was fair to jeer at the psychoanalytic unconscious1 which is truly a negative quantity and an unpleasant menagerie4 ,what was really not fair was to jeer at ,psychoanalysis as if ,freud had invented and described nothing but an unconscious1 in all his theory4 ,the unconscious is not1 of course1 the clue to the ,freudian theory4 ,the real clue is sex4 ,a sexual motive is to be attributed to all human activity4 ,now this is going too far4 ,we are bound to admit than an element of sex enters into all human activity4 ,but so does an element of greed1 and of many other things4 ,we are bound to admit that into all human relationships1 particularly adult human relationships1 a large element of sex enters4 ,we are thankful that ,freud has insisted on this4 ,we are thankful that ,freud pulled us somewhat to earth1 out of all our clouds of superfineness4 ,what ,freud says is always partly true4 ,and half a loaf is better than no bread4 ,but really1 there is the other half of the loaf4 ,all is not sex4 ,and a sexual motive is not to be attributed to all human activities4 ,we know it1 without need to argue4 ,sex surely has a specific meaning4 ,sex means the being divided into male and female2 and the magnetic desire or impulse which puts male apart from female1 in a negative or sundering magnetism1 but which also draws male and female together in a long and infinitely varied approach towards the critical act of coition4 ,sex without the consummating act of coition is never quite sex1 in human relationships3 just as a eunuch is never quite a man4 ,that is to say1 the act of coition is the essential clue to sex4 ,now does all life work up to the one consummating act of coition8 ,in one direction1 it does1 and it would be better if psychoanalysis plainly said so4 ,in one direction1 all life works up to the one supreme moment of coition4 ,let us all admit it1 sincerely4 ,but we are not confined to one direction only1 or to one exclusive consummation4 ,was the building of the cathedrals a working up towards the act of coition8 ,was the dynamic impulse sexual8 ,no4 ,the sexual element was present1 and important4 ,but not predominant4 ,the same in the building of the ,panama ,canal4 ,the sexual impulse1 in its widest form1 was a very great impulse towards the building of the ,panama ,canal4 ,but there was something else1 of even higher importance1 and greater dynamic power4 ,and what is this other1 greater impulse8 ,it is the desire of the human male to build a world3 not to build a world for you1 dear2 but to build up out of his own self and his own belief and his own effort something wonderful4 ,not merely something useful4 ,something wonderful4 ,even the ,panama ,canal would never have been built simply to let ships through4 ,it is the pure disinterested craving of the human male to make something wonderful1 out of his own head and his own self1 and his own soul's faith and delight1 which starts everything going4 ,this is the prime motivity4 ,and the motivity of sex is subsidiary to this3 often directly antagonistic4 ,that is1 the essentially religious or creative motive is the first motive for all human activity4 ,the sexual motive comes second4 ,and there is a great conflict between the interests of the two1 at all times4 ,what we want to do1 is to trace the creative or religious motive to its source in the human being1 keeping in mind always the near relationship between the religious motive and the sexual4 ,the two great impulses are like man and wife1 or father and son4 ,it is no use putting one under the feet of the other4 ,the great desire to-day is to deny the religious impulse altogether1 or else to assert its absolute alienity from the sexual impulse4 ,the orthodox religious world says faugh6 to sex4 ,whereupon we thank ,freud for giving them tit for tat4 ,but the orthodox scientific world says fie6 to the religious impulse4 ,the scientist wants to discover a cause for everything4 ,and there is no cause for the religious impulse4 ,freud is with the scientists4 ,jung dodges from his university gown into a priest's surplice till we don't know where we are4 ,we prefer ,freud's ,sex to ,jung's ,libido or ,bergson's ,elan ,vital4 ,sex has at least some definite reference1 though when ,freud makes sex accountable for everything he as good as makes it accountable for nothing4 ,we refuse any ,cause1 whether it be ,sex or ,libido or ,elan ,vital or ether or unit of force or perpetuum mobile or anything else4 ,but also we feel that we cannot1 like ,moses1 perish on the top of our present ideal ,pisgah1 or take the next step into thin air4 ,there we are1 at the top of our ,pisgah of ideals1 crying ,excelsior and trying to clamber up into the clouds3 that is1 if we are idealists with the religious impulse rampant in our breasts4 ,if we are scientists we practice aeroplane flying or eugenics or disarmament or something equally absurd4 ,the promised land1 if it be anywhere1 lies away beneath our feet4 ,no more prancing upwards4 ,no more uplift4 ,no more little ,excelsiors crying world-brotherhood and international love and ,leagues of ,nations4 ,idealism and materialism amount to the same thing on top of ,pisgah1 and the space is very crowded4 ,we're all cornered on our mountain top1 climbing up one another and standing on one another's faces in our scream of ,excelsior4 ,to your tents1 ,o ,israel6 ,brethren1 let us go down4 ,we will descend4 ,the way to our precious ,canaan lies obviously downhill4 ,an end of uplift4 ,downhill to the land of milk and honey4 ,the blood will soon be flowing faster than either1 but we can't help that4 ,we can't help it if ,canaan has blood in its veins1 instead of pure milk and honey4 ,if it is a question of origins1 the origin is always the same1 whatever we say about it4 ,so is the cause4 ,let that be a comfort to us4 ,if we want to talk about ,god1 well1 we can please ourselves4 ,god has been talked about quite a lot1 and ,he doesn't seem to mind4 ,why we should take it so personally is a problem4 ,likewise if we wish to have a tea party with the atom1 let us3 or with the wriggling little unit of energy1 or the ether1 or the ,libido1 or the ,elan ,vital1 or any other ,cause4 ,only don't let us have sex for tea4 ,we've all got too much of it under the table2 and really1 for my part1 ,i prefer to keep mine there1 no matter what the ,freudians say about me4 ,but it is tiring to go to any more tea parties with the ,origin1 or the ,cause1 or even the ,lord4 ,let us pronounce the mystic ,om1 from the pit of the stomach1 and proceed4 ,there's not a shadow of doubt about it1 the ,first ,cause is just unknowable to us1 and we'd be sorry if it wasn't4 ,whether it's ,god or the ,atom4 ,all ,i say is ,om6 ,the first business of every faith is to declare its ignorance4 ,i don't know where ,i come from--nor where ,i exit to4 ,i don't know the origins of life nor the goal of death4 ,i don't know how the two parent cells which are my biological origin became the me which ,i am4 ,i don't in the least know what those two parent cells were4 ,the chemical analysis is just a farce1 and my father and mother were just vehicles4 ,and yet1 ,i must say1 since ,i've got to know about the two cells1 ,i'm glad ,i do know4 ,the ,moses of ,science and the ,aaron of ,idealism have got the whole bunch of us here on top of ,pisgah4 ,it's a tight squeeze1 and we'll be falling very1 very foul of one another in five minutes1 unless some of us climb down4 ,but before leaving our eminence let us have a look round1 and get our bearings4 ,they say that way lies the ,new ,jerusalem of universal love3 and over there the happy valley of indulgent ,pragmatism3 and there1 quite near1 is the chirpy land of the ,vitalists3 and in those dark groves the home of successful ,analysis1 surnamed ,psycho3 and over those blue hills the ,supermen are prancing about1 though you can't see them4 ,and there is ,besantheim1 and there is ,eddyhowe1 and there1 on that queer little tableland1 is ,wilsonia1 and just round the corner is ,rabindranathopolis4444 ,but ,lord1 ,i can't see anything4 ,help me1 heaven1 to a telescope1 for ,i see blank nothing4 ,i'm not going to try any more4 ,i'm going to sit down on my posterior and sluther full speed down this ,pisgah1 even if it cost me my trouser seat4 ,so ho6--away we go4 ,in the beginning--there never was any beginning1 but let it pass4 ,we've got to make a start somehow4 ,in the very beginning of all things1 time and space and cosmos and being1 in the beginning of all these was a little living creature4 ,but ,i don't know even if it was little4 ,in the beginning was a living creature1 its plasm quivering and its life-pulse throbbing4 ,this little creature died1 as little creatures always do4 ,but not before it had had young ones4 ,when the daddy creature died1 it fell to pieces4 ,and that was the beginning of the cosmos4 ,its little body fell down to a speck of dust1 which the young ones clung to because they must cling to something4 ,its little breath flew asunder1 the hotness and brightness of the little beast--,i beg your pardon1 ,i mean the radiant energy from the corpse flew away to the right hand1 and seemed to shine warm in the air1 while the clammy energy from the body flew away to the left hand1 and seemed dark and cold4 ,and so1 the first little master was dead and done for1 and instead of his little living body there was a speck of dust in the middle1 which became the earth1 and on the right hand was a brightness which became the sun1 rampaging with all the energy that had come out of the dead little master1 and on the left hand a darkness which felt like an unrisen moon4 ,and that was how the ,lord created the world4 ,except that ,i know nothing about the ,lord1 so ,i shouldn't mention it4 ,but ,i forgot the soul of the little master4 ,it probably did a bit of flying as well--and then came back to the young ones4 ,it seems most natural that way4 ,which is my account of the ,creation4 ,and ,i mean by it1 that ,life is not and never was anything but living creatures4 ,that's what life is and will be just living creatures1 no matter how large you make the capital ,l4 ,out of living creatures the material cosmos was made3 out of the death of living creatures1 when their little living bodies fell dead and fell asunder into all sorts of matter and forces and energies1 sun1 moons1 stars and worlds4 ,so you got the universe4 ,where you got the living creature from1 that first one1 don't ask me4 ,he was just there4 ,but he was a little person with a soul of his own4 ,he wasn't ,life with a capital ,l4 ,if you don't believe me1 then don't4 ,i'll even give you a little song to sing4 ,if it be not true to me ,what care ,i how true it be 4 4 ,that's the kind of man ,i really like1 chirping his insouciance4 ,and ,i chirp back3 ,though it be not true to thee ,it's gay and gospel truth to me4 4 4 ,the living live1 and then die4 ,they pass away1 as we know1 to dust and to oxygen and nitrogen and so on4 ,but what we don't know1 and what we might perhaps know a little more1 is how they pass away direct into life itself--that is1 direct into the living4 ,that is1 how many dead souls fly over our untidiness like swallows and build under the eaves of the living4 ,how many dead souls1 like swallows1 twitter and breed thoughts and instincts under the thatch of my hair and the eaves of my forehead1 ,i don't know4 ,but ,i believe a good many4 ,and ,i hope they have a good time4 ,and ,i hope not too many are bats4 ,i am sorry to say ,i believe in the souls of the dead4 ,i am almost ashamed to say1 that ,i believe the souls of the dead in some way reenter and pervade the souls of the living3 so that life is always the life of living creatures1 and death is always our affair4 ,this bit1 ,i admit1 is bordering on mysticism4 ,i'm sorry1 because ,i don't like mysticism4 ,it has no trousers and no trousers seat3 n'a pas de quoi4 ,and ,i should feel so uncomfortable if ,i put my hand behind me and felt an absolute blank4 ,meanwhile a long1 thin1 brown caterpillar keeps on pretending to be a dead thin beech-twig1 on a little bough at my feet4 ,he had got his hind feet and his fore feet on the twig1 and his body looped up like an arch in the air between1 when a fly walked up the twig and began to mount the arch of the imitator1 not having the least idea that it was on a gentleman's coat-tails4 ,the caterpillar shook his stern1 and the fly made off as if it had seen a ghost4 ,the dead twig and the live twig now remain equally motionless1 enjoying their different ways4 ,and when1 with this very pencil1 ,i push the head of the caterpillar off from the twig1 he remains on his tail1 arched forward in air1 and oscillating unhappily1 like some tiny pendulum ticking4 ,ticking1 ticking in mid-air1 arched away from his planted tail4 ,till at last1 after a long minute and a half1 he touches the twig again1 and subsides into twigginess4 ,the only thing is1 the dead beech-twig can't pretend to be a wagging caterpillar4 ,yet how the two commune6 ,however--we have our exits and our entrances1 and one man in his time plays many parts4 ,more than he dreams of1 poor darling4 ,and ,i am entirely at a loss for a moral6 ,well1 then1 we are born4 ,i suppose that's a safe statement4 ,and we become at once conscious1 if we weren't so before4 ,nem con4 ,and our little baby body is a little functioning organism1 a little developing machine or instrument or organ1 and our little baby mind begins to stir with all our wonderful psychical beginnings4 ,and so we are in bud4 ,but it won't do4 ,it is too much of a ,pisgah sight4 ,we overlook too much4 ,descendez1 cher ,moise4 ,vous voyez trop loin4 ,you see too far all at once1 dear ,moses4 ,too much of a bird's-eye view across the ,promised ,land to the shore4 ,come down1 and walk across1 old fellow4 ,and you won't see all that milk and honey and grapes the size of duck's eggs4 ,all the dear little budding infant with its tender virginal mind and various clouds of glory instead of a napkin4 ,not at all1 my dear chap4 ,no such luck of a promised land4 ,climb down1 ,pisgah1 and go to ,jericho4 ,allons1 there is no road yet1 but we are all ,aarons with rods of our own4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,holy ,,family ,we are all very pleased with ,mr4 ,einstein for knocking that eternal axis out of the universe4 ,the universe isn't a spinning wheel4 ,it is a cloud of bees flying and veering round4 ,thank goodness for that1 for we were getting drunk on the spinning wheel4 ,so that now the universe has escaped from the pin which was pushed through it1 like an impaled fly vainly buzzing3 now that the multiple universe flies its own complicated course quite free1 and hasn't got any hub1 we can hope also to escape4 ,we won't be pinned down1 either4 ,we have no one law that governs us4 ,for me there is only one law3 ,i am ,i4 ,and that isn't a law1 it's just a remark4 ,one is one1 but one is not all alone4 ,there are other stars buzzing in the center of their own isolation4 ,and there is no straight path between them4 ,there is no straight path between you and me1 dear reader1 so don't blame me if my words fly like dust into your eyes and grit between your teeth1 instead of like music into your ears4 ,i am ,i1 but also you are you1 and we are in sad need of a theory of human relativity4 ,we need it much more than the universe does4 ,the stars know how to prowl round one another without much damage done4 ,but you and ,i1 dear reader1 in the first conviction that you are me and that ,i am you1 owing to the oneness of mankind1 why1 we are always falling foul of one another1 and chewing each other's fur4 ,you are not me1 dear reader1 so make no pretentions to it4 ,don't get alarmed if ,i say things4 ,it isn't your sacred mouth which is opening and shutting4 ,as for the profanation of your sacred ears1 just apply a little theory of relativity1 and realize that what ,i say is not what you hear1 but something uttered in the midst of my isolation1 and arriving strangely changed and travel-worn down the long curve of your own individual circumambient atmosphere4 ,i may say ,bob1 but heaven alone knows what the goose hears4 ,and you may be sure that a red rag is1 to a bull1 something far more mysterious and complicated than a socialist's necktie4 ,so ,i hope now ,i have put you in your place1 dear reader4 ,sit you like ,watts' ,hope on your own little blue globe1 and ,i'll sit on mine1 and we won't bump into one another if we can help it4 ,you can twang your old hopeful lyre4 ,it may be music to you1 so ,i don't blame you4 ,it is a terrible wowing in my ears4 ,but that may be something in my individual atmosphere2 some strange deflection as your music crosses the space between us4 ,certainly ,i never hear the concert of ,world ,regeneration and ,hope ,revived ,again without getting a sort of lock-jaw1 my teeth go so keen on edge from the twanging harmony4 ,still1 the world-regenerators may really be quite excellent performers on their own jews'-harps4 ,blame the edginess of my teeth4 ,now ,i am going to launch words into space so mind your cosmic eye4 ,as ,i said in my small but naturally immortal book1 ,psychoanalysis and the ,unconscious1 there's more in it than meets the eye4 ,there's more in you1 dear reader1 than meets the eye4 ,what1 don't you believe it8 ,do you think you're as obvious as a poached egg on a piece of toast1 like the poor lunatic8 ,not a bit of it1 dear reader4 ,you've got a solar plexus1 and a lumbar ganglion not far from your liver1 and ,i'm going to tell everybody4 ,nothing brings a man home to himself like telling everybody4 ,and ,i will drive you home to yourself1 do you hear8 ,you've been poaching in my private atmospheric grounds long enough1 identifying yourself with me and me with everybody4 ,a nice row there'd be in heaven if ,aldebaran caught ,sirius by the tail and said1 ,look here1 you're not to look so green1 you damm dog-star6 ,it's an offense against star-regulations4 ,which reminds me that the ,arabs say the shooting stars1 meteorites1 are starry stones which the angels fling at the poaching demons whom they catch sight of prowling too near the palisades of heaven4 ,i must say ,i like ,arab angels4 ,my heaven would coruscate like a catherine wheel1 with white-hot star-stones4 ,away1 you dog1 you prowling cur4--,got him under the left ear-hole1 ,gabriel--6 ,see him1 see him1 ,michael8 ,that hopeful blue devil6 ,land him one6 ,biff on your bottom1 you hoper4 ,but ,i wish the ,arabs wouldn't entice me1 or you1 dear reader1 provoke me to this4 ,i feel with you1 dear reader1 as ,i do with a deaf-man when he pushes his vulcanite ear1 his listening machine1 towards my mouth4 ,i want to shout down the telephone ear-hole all kinds of improper things1 to see what effect they will have on the stupid dear face at the end of the coil of wire4 ,after all1 words must be very different after they've trickled round and round a long wire coil4 ,whatever becomes of them6 ,and ,i1 who am a bit deaf myself1 and may in the end have a deaf-machine to poke at my friends1 it ill becomes me to be so unkind1 yet that's how ,i feel4 ,so there we are4 ,help me to be serious1 dear reader4 ,in that little book1 ,psychoanalysis and the ,unconscious1 ,i tried rather wistfully to convince you1 dear reader1 that you had a solar plexus and a lumbar ganglion and a few other things4 ,i don't know why ,i took the trouble4 ,if a fellow doesn't believe he's got a nose1 the best way to convince him is gently to waft a little pepper into his nostrils4 ,and there was ,i painting my own nose purple1 and wistfully inviting you to look and believe4 ,no more1 though4 ,you've got first and foremost a solar plexus1 dear reader2 and the solar plexus is a great nerve center which lies behind your stomach4 ,i can't be accused of impropriety or untruth1 because any book of science or medicine which deals with the nerve-system of the human body will show it to you quite plainly4 ,so don't wriggle or try to look spiritual4 ,because1 willy-nilly1 you've got a solar plexus1 dear reader1 among other things4 ,i'm writing a good sound science book1 which there's no gainsaying4 ,now1 your solar plexus1 most gentle of readers1 is where you are you4 ,it is your first and greatest and deepest center of consciousness4 ,if you want to know how conscious and when conscious1 ,i must refer you to that little book1 ,psychoanalysis and the ,unconscious4 ,at your solar plexus you are primarily conscious3 there1 behind you stomach4 ,there you have the profound and pristine conscious awareness that you are you4 ,don't say you haven't4 ,i know you have4 ,you might as well try to deny the nose on your face4 ,there is your first and deepest seat of awareness4 ,there you are triumphantly aware of your own individual existence in the universe4 ,absolutely there is the keep and central stronghold of your triumphantly-conscious self4 ,there you are1 and you know it4 ,so stick out your tummy gaily1 my dear1 with a ,me voila4 ,with a ,here ,i am6 ,with an ,ecco mi6 ,with a ,da bin ich6 ,there you are1 dearie4 ,but not only a triumphant awareness that ,there you are4 ,an exultant awareness also that outside this quiet gate1 this navel1 lies a whole universe on which you can lay tribute4 ,aha--at birth you closed the central gate for ever4 ,too dangerous to leave it open4 ,too near the quick4 ,but there are other gates4 ,there are eyes and mouths and ears and nostrils1 besides the two lower gates of the passionate body1 and the closed but not locked gates of the breasts4 ,many gates4 ,and besides the actual gates1 the marvelous wireless communication between the great center and the surrounding or contiguous world4 ,authorized science tells you that this first great plexus1 this all-potent nerve-center of consciousness and dynamic life-activity is a sympathetic center4 ,from the solar plexus as from your castle-keep you look around and see the fair lands smiling1 the corn and fruit and cattle of your increase1 the cottages of your dependents and the halls of your beloveds4 ,from the solar plexus you know that all the world is yours1 and all is goodly4 ,this is the great center1 where in the womb1 your life first sparkled in individuality4 ,this is the center that drew the gestating maternal blood-stream upon you1 in the nine-months lurking1 drew it on you for your increase4 ,this is the center whence the navel-string broke1 but where the invisible string of dynamic consciousness1 like a dark electric current connecting you with the rest of life1 will never break until you die and depart from corporate individuality4 ,they say1 by the way1 that doctors now perform a little operation on the born baby1 so that no more navel shows4 ,no more belly-buttons1 dear reader6 ,lucky ,i caught you this generation1 before the doctors had saved your appearances4 ,yet1 caro mio1 whether it shows or not1 there you once had immediate connection with the maternal blood-stream4 ,and1 because the male nucleus which derived from the father still lies sparkling and potent within the solar plexus1 therefore that great nerve-center of you1 still has immediate knowledge of your father1 a subtler but still vital connection4 ,we call it the tie of blood4 ,so be it4 ,it is a tie of blood4 ,but much more definite than we imagine4 ,for true it is that the one bright male germ which went to your begetting was drawn from the blood of the father4 ,and true it is that that same bright male germ lies unquenched and unquenchable at the center of you1 within the famous solar plexus4 ,and furthermore true is it that this unquenched father-spark within you sends forth vibrations and dark currents of vital activity all the time2 connecting direct with your father4 ,you will never be able to get away from it while you live4 ,the connection with the mother may be more obvious4 ,is there not your ostensible navel1 where the rupture between you and her took place8 ,but because the mother-child relation is more plausible and flagrant1 is that any reason for supposing it deeper1 more vital1 more intrinsic8 ,not a bit4 ,because if the large parent mother-germ still lives and acts vividly and mysteriously in the great fused nucleus of your solar plexus1 does the smaller1 brilliant male-spark that derived from your father act any less vividly8 ,by no means4 ,it is different--it is less ostensible4 ,it may be even in magnitude smaller4 ,but it may be even more vivid1 even more intrinsic4 ,so beware how you deny the father-quick of yourself4 ,you may be denying the most intrinsic quick of all4 ,in the same way it follows that1 since brothers and sisters have the same father and mother1 therefore in every brother and sister there is a direct communication such as can never happen between strangers4 ,the parent nuclei do not die within the new nucleus4 ,they remain there1 marvelous naked sparkling dynamic life-centers1 nodes1 well-heads of vivid life itself4 ,therefore in every individual the parent nuclei live1 and give direction connection1 blood connection we call it1 with the rest of the family4 ,it is blood connection4 ,for the fecundating nuclei are the very spark-essence of the blood4 ,and while life lives the parent nuclei maintain their own centrality and dynamic effectiveness within the solar plexus of the child4 ,so that every individual has mother and father both sparkling within himself4 ,but this is rather a preliminary truth than an intrinsic truth4 ,the intrinsic truth of every individual is the new unit of unique individuality which emanates from the fusion of the parent nuclei4 ,this is the incalculable and intangible ,holy ,ghost each time--each individual his own ,holy ,ghost4 ,when1 at the moment of conception1 the two parent nuclei fuse to form a new unit of life1 then takes place the great mystery of creation4 ,a new individual appears--not the result of the fusion merely4 ,something more4 ,the quality of individuality cannot be derived4 ,the new individual1 in his singleness of self1 is a perfectly new whole4 ,he is not a permutation and combination of old elements1 transferred through the parents4 ,no1 he is something underived and utterly unprecedented1 unique1 a new soul4 ,this quality of pure individuality is1 however1 only the one supreme quality4 ,it consummates all other qualities1 but does not consume them4 ,all the others are there1 all the time4 ,and only at his maximum does an individual surpass all his derivative elements1 and become purely himself4 ,and most people never get there4 ,in his own pure individuality a man surpasses his father and mother1 and is utterly unknown to them4 ,woman1 what have ,i to do with thee8 ,but this does not alter the fact that within him lives the mother-quick and the father-quick1 and that though in his wholeness he is rapt away beyond the old mother-father connections1 they are still there within him1 consummated but not consumed4 ,nor does it alter the fact that very few people surpass their parents nowadays1 and attain any individuality beyond them4 ,most men are half-born slaves3 the little soul they are born with just atrophies1 and merely the organism emanates1 the new self1 the new soul1 the new swells into manhood1 like big potatoes4 ,so there we are4 ,but considering man at his best1 he is at the start faced with the great problem4 ,at the very start he has to undertake his tripartite being1 the mother within him1 the father within him1 and the ,holy ,ghost1 the self which he is supposed to consummate1 and which mostly he doesn't4 ,and there it is1 a hard physiological fact4 ,at the moment of our conception1 the father nucleus fuses with the mother nucleus1 and the wonder emanates1 the new self1 the new soul1 the new individual cell4 ,but in the new individual cell the father-germ and the mother-germ do not relinquish their identity4 ,there they remain still1 incorporated and never extinguished4 ,and so1 the blood-stream of race is one stream1 for ever4 ,but the moment the mystery of pure individual newness ceased to be enacted and fulfilled1 the blood-stream would dry up and be finished4 ,mankind would die out4 ,let us go back then to the solar plexus4 ,there sparkle the included mother-germ and father-germ1 giving us direct1 immediate blood-bonds1 family connection4 ,the connection is as direct and as subtle as between the ,marconi stations1 two great wireless stations4 ,a family1 if you like1 is a group of wireless stations1 all adjusted to the same1 or very much the same vibration4 ,all the time they quiver with the interchange1 there is one long endless flow of vitalistic communication between members of one family1 a long1 strange rapport1 a sort of life-unison4 ,it is a ripple of life through many bodies as through one body4 ,but all the time there is the jolt1 the rupture of individualism1 the individual asserting himself beyond all ties or claims4 ,the highest goal for every man is the goal of pure individual being4 ,but it is a goal you cannot reach by the mere rupture of all ties4 ,a child isn't born by being torn from the womb4 ,when it is born by natural process that is rupture enough4 ,but even then the ties are not broken4 ,they are only subtilized4 ,from the solar plexus first of all pass the great vitalistic communications between child and parents1 the first interplay of primal1 pre-mental knowledge and sympathy4 ,it is a great subtle interplay1 and from this interplay the child is built up1 body and psyche4 ,impelled from the primal conscious center in the abdomen1 the child seeks the mother1 seeks the breast1 opens a blind mouth and gropes for the nipple4 ,not mentally directed and yet certainly directed4 ,directed from the dark pre-mind center of the solar plexus4 ,from this center the child seeks1 the mother knows4 ,hence the true mindlessness of the pristine1 healthy mother4 ,she does not need to think1 mentally to know4 ,she knows so profoundly and actively at the great abdominal life-center4 ,but if the child thus seeks the mother1 does it then know the mother alone8 ,to an infant the mother is the whole universe4 ,yet the child needs more than the mother4 ,it needs as well the presence of men1 the vibration from the present body of the man4 ,there may not be any actual1 palpable connection4 ,but from the great voluntary center in the man pass unknowable communications and unreliable nourishment of the stream of manly blood1 rays which we cannot see1 and which so far we have refused to know1 but none the less essential1 quickening dark rays which pass from the great dark abdominal life-center in the father to the corresponding center in the child4 ,and these rays1 these vibrations1 are not like the mother-vibrations4 ,far1 far from it4 ,they do not need the actual contact1 the handling and the caressing4 ,on the contrary1 the true male instinct is to avoid physical contact with a baby4 ,it may not need even actual presence4 ,but present or absent1 there should be between the baby and the father that strange1 intangible communication1 that strange pull and circuit such as the magnetic pole exercises upon a needle1 a vitalistic pull and flow which lays all the life-plasm of the baby into the line of vital quickening1 strength1 knowing4 ,and any lack of this vital circuit1 this vital interchange between father and child1 man and child1 means an inevitable impoverishment to the infant4 ,the child exists in the interplay of two great life-waves1 the womanly and the male4 ,in appearance1 the mother is everything4 ,in truth1 the father has actively very little part4 ,it does not matter much if he hardly sees his child4 ,yet see it he should1 sometimes1 and touch it sometimes1 and renew with it the connection1 the life-circuit1 not allow it to lapse1 and so vitally starve his child4 ,but remember1 dear reader1 please1 that there is not the slightest need for you to believe me1 or even read me4 ,remember1 it's just your own affair4 ,don't implicate me4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,plexuses1 ,,planes ,,and ,,so ,,on ,the primal consciousness in man is pre-mental1 and has nothing to do with cognition4 ,it is the same as in the animals4 ,and this pre-mental consciousness remains as long as we live the powerful root and body of our consciousness4 ,the mind is but the last flower1 the cul de sac4 ,the first seat of our primal consciousnesses the solar plexus1 the great nerve-center situated behind the stomach4 ,from this center we are first dynamically conscious4 ,for the primal consciousness is always dynamic1 and never1 like mental consciousness1 static4 ,thought1 let us say what we will about its magic powers1 is instrumental only1 the soul's finest instrument for the business of living4 ,thought is just a means to action and living4 ,but life and action take rise actually at the great centers of dynamic consciousness4 ,the solar plexus1 the greatest and most important center of our dynamic consciousness1 is a sympathetic center4 ,at this main center of your first-mind we know as we can never mentally know4 ,primarily we know1 each man1 each living creature knows1 profoundly and satisfactorily and without question1 that ,i am ,i4 ,this root of all knowledge and being is established in the solar plexus2 it is dynamic1 pre-mental knowledge1 such as cannot be transferred into thought4 ,do not ask me to transfer the pre-mental dynamic knowledge into thought4 ,it cannot be done4 ,the knowledge that ,i am ,i can never be thought3 only known4 ,this being the very first term of our life-knowledge1 a knowledge established physically and psychically the moment the two parent nuclei fused1 at the moment of the conception1 it remains integral as a piece of knowledge in every subsequent nucleus derived from this one original4 ,but yet the original nucleus1 formed from the two parent nuclei at our conception1 remains always primal and central1 and is always the original fount and home of the first and supreme knowledge that ,i am ,i4 ,this original nucleus is embodied in the solar plexus4 ,but the original nucleus divides4 ,the first division1 as science knows1 is a division of recoil4 ,from the perfect oneing of the two parent nuclei in the egg-cell results a recoil or new assertion4 ,that which was perfect one now divides again1 and in the recoil becomes again two4 ,this second nucleus1 the nucleus born of recoil1 is the nuclear origin of all the great nuclei of the voluntary system1 which are the nuclei of assertive individualism4 ,and it remains central in the adult human body as it was in the egg-cell4 ,in the adult human body the first nucleus of independence1 first-born from the great original nucleus of our conception1 lies always established in the lumbar ganglion4 ,here we have our positive center of independence1 in a multifarious universe4 ,at the solar plexus1 the dynamic knowledge is this1 that ,i am ,i4 ,the solar plexus is the center of all the sympathetic system4 ,the great prime knowledge is sympathetic in nature4 ,i am ,i1 in vital centrality4 ,i am ,i1 the vital center of all things4 ,i am ,i1 the clew to the whole4 ,all is one with me4 ,it is the one identity4 ,but at the lumbar ganglion1 which is the center of separate identity1 the knowledge is of a different mode1 though the term is the same4 ,at the lumbar ganglion ,i know that ,i am ,i1 in distinction from a whole universe1 which is not as ,i am4 ,this is the first tremendous flash of knowledge of singleness and separate identity4 ,i am ,i1 not because ,i am at one with all the universe1 but because ,i am other than all the universe4 ,it is my distinction from all the rest of things which makes me myself4 ,because ,i am set utterly apart and distinguished from all that is the rest of the universe1 therefore ,i am ,i4 ,and this root of our knowledge in separateness lies rooted all the time in the lumbar ganglion4 ,it is the second term of our dynamic psychic existence4 ,it is from the great sympathetic center of the solar plexus that the child rejoices in the mother and in its own blissful centrality1 its unison with the as yet unknown universe4 ,look at the pictures of ,madonna and ,child1 and you will even see it4 ,it is from this center that it draws all things unto itself1 winningly1 drawing love for the soul1 and actively drawing in milk4 ,the same center controls the great intake of love and of milk1 of psychic and of physical nourishment4 ,and it is from the great voluntary center of the lumbar ganglion that the child asserts its distinction from the mother1 the single identity of its own existence1 and its power over its surroundings4 ,from this center issues the violent little pride and lustiness which kicks with glee1 or crows with tiny exultance in its own being1 or which claws the breast with a savage little rapacity1 and an incipient masterfulness of which every mother is aware4 ,this incipient mastery1 this sheer joy of a young thing in its own single existence1 the marvelous playfulness of early youth1 and the roguish mockery of the mother's love1 as well as the bursts of temper and rage1 all belong to infancy4 ,and all this flashes spontaneously1 must flash spontaneously from the first great center of independence1 the powerful lumbar ganglion1 great dynamic center of all the voluntary system1 of all the spirit of pride and joy in independent existence4 ,and it is from this center too that the milk is urged away down the infant bowels1 urged away towards excretion4 ,the motion is the same1 but here it applies to the material1 not to the vital relation4 ,it is from the lumbar ganglion that the dynamic vibrations are emitted which thrill from the stomach and bowels1 and promote the excremental function of digestion4 ,it is the solar plexus which controls the assimilatory function in digestion4 ,so1 in the first division of the egg-cell is set up the first plane of psychic and physical life1 remaining radically the same throughout the whole existence of the individual4 ,the two original nuclei of the egg-cell remain the same two original nuclei within the corpus of the adult individual4 ,their psychic and their physical dynamic is the same in the solar plexus and lumbar ganglion as in the two nuclei of the egg-cell4 ,the first great division in the egg remains always the same1 the unchanging great division in the psychic and the physical structure2 the unchanging great division in knowledge and function4 ,it is a division into polarized duality1 psychical and physical1 of the human being4 ,it is the great vertical division of the egg-cell1 and of the nature of man4 ,then1 this division having taken place1 there is a new thrill of conjunction or collision between the divided nuclei1 and at once the second birth takes place4 ,the two nuclei now split horizontally4 ,there is a horizontal division across the whole egg-cell1 and the nuclei are now four1 two above1 and two below4 ,but those below retain their original nature1 those above are new in nature4 ,and those above correspond again to those below4 ,in the developed child1 the great horizontal division of the egg-cell1 resulting in four nuclei1 this remains the same4 ,the horizontal division-wall is the diaphragm4 ,the two upper nuclei are the two great nerve-centers1 the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion4 ,we have again a sympathetic center primal in activity and knowledge1 and a corresponding voluntary center4 ,in the center of the breast1 the cardiac plexus acts as the great sympathetic mode of new dynamic activity1 new dynamic consciousness4 ,and near the spine1 by the wall of the shoulders1 the thoracic ganglion acts as the powerful voluntary center of separateness and power1 in the same vertical line as the lumbar ganglion1 but horizontally so different4 ,now we must change our whole feeling4 ,we must put off the deep way of understanding which belongs to the lower body of our nature1 and transfer ourselves into the upper plane1 where being and functioning are different4 ,at the cardiac plexus1 there in the center of the breast1 we have now a new great sun of knowledge and being4 ,here there is no more of self4 ,here there is no longer the dark1 exultant knowledge that ,i am ,i4 ,a change has come4 ,here ,i know no more of myself4 ,here ,i am not4 ,here ,i only know the delightful revelation that you are you4 ,the wonder is no longer within me1 my own dark1 centrifugal1 exultant self4 ,the wonder is without me4 ,the wonder is outside me4 ,and ,i can no longer exult and know myself the dark1 central sun of the universe4 ,now ,i look with wonder1 with tenderness1 with joyful yearning towards that which is outside me1 beyond me1 not me4 ,behold1 that which was once negative has now become the only positive4 ,the other being is now the great positive reality1 ,i myself am as nothing4 ,positivity has changed places4 ,if we want to see the portrayed look1 then we must turn to the ,north1 to the fair1 wondering1 blue-eyed infants of the ,northern masters4 ,they seem so frail1 so innocent and wondering1 touching outwards to the mystery4 ,they are not the same as the ,southern child1 nor the opposite4 ,their whole life mystery is different4 ,instead of consummating all things within themselves1 as the dark little ,southern infants do1 the ,northern ,jesus-children reach out delicate little hands of wondering innocence towards delicate1 flower-reverential mothers4 ,compare a ,botticelli ,madonna1 with all her wounded and abnegating sensuality1 with a ,hans ,memling ,madonna1 whose soul is pure and only reverential4 ,beyond me is the mystery and the glory1 says the ,northern mother3 let me have no self1 let me only seek that which is all-pure1 all-wonderful4 ,but the ,southern mother says3 ,this is mine1 this is mine1 this is my child1 my wonder1 my master1 my lord1 my scourge1 my own4 ,from the cardiac plexus the child goes forth in bliss4 ,it seeks the revelation of the unknown4 ,it wonderingly seeks the mother4 ,it opens its small hands and spreads its small fingers to touch her4 ,and bliss1 bliss1 bliss1 it meets the wonder in mid-air and in mid-space it finds the loveliness of the mother's face4 ,it opens and shuts its little fingers with bliss1 it laughs the wonderful1 selfless laugh of pure baby-bliss1 in the first ecstasy of finding all its treasure1 groping upon it and finding it in the dark4 ,it opens wide1 child-wide eyes to see1 to see4 ,but it cannot see4 ,it is puzzled1 it wrinkles its face4 ,but when the mother puts her face quite near1 and laughs and coos1 then the baby trembles with an ecstasy of love4 ,the glamour1 the wonder1 the treasure beyond4 ,the great uplift of rapture4 ,all this surges from that first center of the breast1 the sun of the breast1 the cardiac plexus4 ,and from the same center acts the great function of the heart and breath4 ,ah1 the aspiration1 the aspiration1 like a hope1 like a yearning constant and unfailing with which we take in breath4 ,when we breathe1 when we take in breath1 it is not as when we take in food4 ,when we breathe in we aspire1 we yearn towards the heaven of air and light4 ,and when the heart dilates to draw in the stream of dark blood1 it opens its arms as to a beloved4 ,it dilates with reverent joy1 as a host opening his doors to an honored guest1 whom he delights to serve3 opening his doors to the wonder which comes to him from beyond1 and without which he were nothing4 ,so it is that our heart dilates1 our lungs expand4 ,they are bidden by that great and mysterious impulse from the cardiac plexus1 which bids them seek the mystery and the fulfillment of the beyond4 ,they seek the beyond1 the air of the sky1 the hot blood from the dark under-world4 ,and so we live4 ,and then1 they relax1 they contract4 ,they are driven by the opposite motion from the powerful voluntary center of the thoracic ganglion44 ,that which was drawn in1 was invited1 is now relinquished1 allowed to go forth1 negatively4 ,not positively dismissed1 but relinquished4 ,there is a wonderful complementary duality between the voluntary and the sympathetic activity on the same plane4 ,but between the two planes1 upper and lower1 there is a further dualism1 still more startling1 perhaps4 ,between the dark1 glowing first term of knowledge at the solar plexus3 ,i am ,i1 all is one in me2 and the first term of volitional knowledge3 ,i am myself1 and these others are not as ,i am2--there is a world of difference4 ,but when the world changes again1 and on the upper plane we realize the wonder of other things1 the difference is almost shattering4 ,the thoracic ganglion is a ganglion of power4 ,when the child in its delicate bliss seeks the mother and finds her and is added on to her1 then it fulfills itself in the great upper sympathetic mode4 ,but then it relinquishes her4 ,it ceases to be aware of her4 ,and if she tries to force its love to play upon her again1 like light revealing her to herself1 then the child turns away4 ,or it will lie1 and look at her with the strange1 odd1 curious look of knowledge1 like a little imp who is spying her out4 ,this is the curious look that many mothers cannot bear4 ,involuntarily it arouses a sort of hate in them--the look of scrutinizing curiosity1 apart1 and as it were studying1 balancing them up4 ,yet it is a look which comes into every child's eyes4 ,it is the reaction of the great voluntary plexus between the shoulders4 ,the mother is suddenly set apart1 as an object of curiosity1 coldly1 sometimes dreamily1 sometimes puzzled1 sometimes mockingly observed4 ,again1 if a mother neglect her child1 it cries1 it weeps for her love and attention4 ,its pitiful lament is one of the forms of compulsion from the upper center4 ,this insistence on pity1 on love1 is quite different from the rageous weeping1 which is compulsion from the lower center1 below the diaphragm4 ,again1 some children just drop everything they can lay hands on over the edge of their crib1 or their table4 ,they drop everything out of sight4 ,and then they look up with a curious look of negative triumph4 ,this is again a form of recoil from the upper center1 the obliteration of the thing which is outside4 ,and here a child is acting quite differently from the child who joyously smashes4 ,the desire to smash comes from the lower centers4 ,we can quite well recognize the will exerted from the lower center4 ,we call it headstrong temper and masterfulness4 ,but the peculiar will of the upper center--the sort of nervous1 critical objectivity1 the deliberate forcing of sympathy1 the play upon pity and tenderness1 the plaintive bullying of love1 or the benevolent bullying of love--these we don't care to recognize4 ,they are the extravagance of spiritual will4 ,but in its true harmony the thoracic ganglion is a center of happier activity3 of real1 eager curiosity1 of the delightful desire to pick things to pieces1 and the desire to put them together again1 the desire to find out1 and the desire to invent3 all this arises on the upper plane1 at the volitional center of the thoracic ganglion4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,trees ,,and ,,babies ,,and ,,papas ,,and ,,mamas ,oh1 damn the miserable baby with its complicated ping-pong table of an unconscious4 ,i'm sure1 dear reader1 you'd rather have to listen to the brat howling in its crib than to me expounding its plexuses4 ,as for mixing those babies up1 ,i'd mix him up like a shot if ,i'd anything to mix him with4 ,unfortunately he's my own anatomical specimen of a pickled rabbit1 so there's nothing to be done with the bits4 ,but he gets on my nerves4 ,i come out solemnly with a pencil and an exercise book1 and take my seat in all gravity at the foot of a large fir-tree1 and wait for thoughts to come1 gnawing like a squirrel on a nut4 ,but the nut's hollow4 ,i think there are too many trees4 ,they seem to crowd round and stare at me1 and ,i feel as if they nudged one another when ,i'm not looking4 ,i can feel them standing there4 ,and they won't let me get on about the baby this morning4 ,just their cussedness4 ,i felt they encouraged me like a harem of wonderful silent wives1 yesterday4 ,it is half rainy too--the wood so damp and still and so secret1 in the remote morning air4 ,morning1 with rain in the sky1 and the forest subtly brooding1 and me feeling no bigger than a pea-bug between the roots of my fir4 ,the trees seem so much bigger than me1 so much stronger in life1 prowling silent around4 ,i seem to feel them moving and thinking and prowling1 and they overwhelm me4 ,ah1 well1 the only thing is to give way to them4 ,it is the edge of the ,black ,forest--sometimes the ,rhine far off1 on its ,rhine plain1 like a bit of magnesium ribbon4 ,but not to-day4 ,to-day only trees1 and leaves1 and vegetable presences4 ,huge straight fir-trees1 and big beech-trees sending rivers of roots into the ground4 ,and cuckoos1 like noise falling in drops off the leaves4 ,and me1 a fool1 sitting by a grassy wood-road with a pencil and a book1 hoping to write more about that baby4 ,never mind4 ,i listen again for noises1 and ,i smell the damp moss4 ,the looming trees1 so straight4 ,and ,i listen for their silence4 ,big1 tall-bodied trees1 with a certain magnificent cruelty about them4 ,or barbarity4 ,i don't know why ,i should say cruelty4 ,their magnificent1 strong1 round bodies6 ,it almost seems ,i can hear the slow1 powerful sap drumming in their trunks4 ,great full-blooded trees1 with strange tree-blood in them1 soundlessly drumming4 ,trees that have no hands and faces1 no eyes4 ,yet the powerful sap-scented blood roaring up the great columns4 ,a vast individual life1 and an overshadowing will4 ,the will of a tree4 ,something that frightens you4 ,suppose you want to look a tree in the face8 ,you can't4 ,it hasn't got a face4 ,you look at the strong body of a trunk3 you look above you into the matted body-hair of twigs and boughs3 you see the soft green tips4 ,but there are no eyes to look into1 you can't meet its gaze4 ,you keep on looking at it in part and parcel4 ,it's no good looking at a tree1 to know it4 ,the only thing is to sit among the roots and nestle against its strong trunk1 and not bother4 ,that's how ,i write all about these planes and plexuses1 between the toes of a tree1 forgetting myself against the great ankle of the trunk4 ,and then1 as a rule1 as a squirrel is stroked into its wickedness by the faceless magic of a tree1 so am ,i usually stroked into forgetfulness1 and into scribbling this book4 ,my tree-book1 really4 ,i come so well to understand tree-worship4 ,all the old ,aryans worshiped the tree4 ,my ancestors4 ,the tree of life4 ,the tree of knowledge4 ,well1 one is bound to sprout out some time or other1 chip of the old ,aryan block4 ,i can so well understand tree-worship4 ,and fear the deepest motive4 ,naturally4 ,this marvelous vast individual without a face1 without lips or eyes or heart4 ,this towering creature that never had a face4 ,here am ,i between his toes like a pea-bug1 and him noiselessly over-reaching me4 ,and ,i feel his great blood-jet surging4 ,and he has no eyes4 ,but he turns two ways4 ,he thrusts himself tremendously down to the middle earth1 where dead men sink in darkness1 in the damp1 dense under-soil1 and he turns himself about in high air4 ,whereas we have eyes on one side of our head only1 and only grow upwards4 ,plunging himself down into the black humus1 with a root's gushing zest1 where we can only rot dead2 and his tips in high air1 where we can only look up to4 ,so vast and powerful and exultant in his two directions4 ,and all the time1 he has no face1 no thought3 only a huge1 savage1 thoughtless soul4 ,where does he even keep his soul8--,where does anybody8 ,a huge1 plunging1 tremendous soul4 ,i would like to be a tree for a while4 ,the great lust of roots4 ,root-lust4 ,and no mind at all4 ,he towers1 and ,i sit and feel safe4 ,i like to feel him towering round me4 ,i used to be afraid4 ,i used to fear their lust1 their rushing black lust4 ,but now ,i like it1 ,i worship it4 ,i always felt them huge primeval enemies4 ,but now they are my only shelter and strength4 ,i lose myself among the trees4 ,i am so glad to be with them in their silent1 intent passion1 and their great lust4 ,they feed my soul4 ,but ,i can understand that ,jesus was crucified on a tree4 ,and ,i can so well understand the ,romans1 their terror of the bristling ,hercynian wood4 ,yet when you look from a height down upon the rolling of the forest--this ,black ,forest--it is as suave as a rolling1 oily sea4 ,inside only1 it bristles horrific4 ,and it terrified the ,romans4 ,the ,romans6 ,they too seem very near4 ,nearer than ,hindenburg or ,foch or even ,napoleon4 ,when ,i look across the ,rhine plain1 it is ,rome1 and the legionaries of the ,rhine that my soul notices4 ,it must have been wonderful to come from ,south ,italy to the shores of this sea-like forest3 this dark1 moist forest1 with its enormously powerful intensity of tree life4 ,now ,i know1 coming myself from rock-dry ,sicily1 open to the day4 ,the ,romans and the ,greeks found everything human4 ,everything had a face1 and a human voice4 ,men spoke1 and their fountains piped an answer4 ,but when the legions crossed the ,rhine they found a vast impenetrable life which had no voice4 ,they met the faceless silence of the ,black ,forest4 ,this huge1 huge wood did not answer when they called4 ,its silence was too crude and massive4 ,and the soldiers shrank3 shrank before the trees that had no faces1 and no answer4 ,a vast array of non-human life1 darkly self-sufficient1 and bristling with indomitable energy4 ,the ,hercynian wood1 not to be fathomed4 ,the enormous power of these collective trees1 stronger in their somber life even than ,rome4 ,no wonder the soldiers were terrified4 ,no wonder they thrilled with horror when1 deep in the woods1 they found the skulls and trophies of their dead comrades upon the trees4 ,the trees had devoured them3 silently1 in mouthfuls1 and left the white bones4 ,bones of the mindful ,romans--and savage1 preconscious trees1 indomitable4 ,the true ,german has something of the sap of trees in his veins even now3 and a sort of pristine savageness1 like trees1 helpless1 but most powerful1 under all his mentality4 ,he is a tree-soul1 and his gods are not human4 ,his instinct still is to nail skulls and trophies to the sacred tree1 deep in the forest4 ,the tree of life and death1 tree of good and evil1 tree of abstraction and of immense1 mindless life2 tree of everything except the spirit1 spirituality4 ,but after bone-dry ,sicily1 and after the gibbering of myriad people all rattling their personalities1 ,i am glad to be with the profound indifference of faceless trees4 ,their rudimentariness cannot know why we care for the things we care for4 ,they have no faces1 no minds and bowels3 only deep1 lustful roots stretching in earth1 and vast1 lissome life in air1 and primeval individuality4 ,you can sacrifice the whole of your spirituality on their altar still4 ,you can nail your skull on their limbs4 ,they have no skulls1 no minds nor faces1 they can't make eyes of love at you4 ,their vast life dispenses with all this4 ,but they will live you down4 ,the normal life of one of these big trees is about a hundred years4 ,so the ,herr ,baron told me4 ,one of the few places that my soul will haunt1 when ,i am dead1 will be this4 ,among the trees here near ,ebersteinburg1 where ,i have been alone and written this book4 ,i can't leave these trees4 ,they have taken some of my soul4 99 99 99 99 99 ,excuse my digression1 gentle reader4 ,at first ,i left it out1 thinking we might not see wood for trees4 ,but it doesn't much matter what we see4 ,it's nice just to look round1 anywhere4 ,so there are two planes of being and consciousness and two modes of relation and of function4 ,we will call the lower plane the sensual1 the upper the spiritual4 ,the terms may be unwise1 but we can think of no other4 ,please read that again1 dear reader2 you'll be a bit dazzled1 coming out of the wood4 ,it is obvious that from the time a child is born1 or conceived1 it has a permanent relation with the outer universe1 relation in the two modes1 not one mode only4 ,there are two ways of love1 two ways of activity and independence4 ,and there needs some sort of equilibrium between the two modes4 ,in the same way1 in physical function there is eating and drinking1 and excrementation1 on the lower plane and respiration and heartbeat on the upper plane4 ,now the equilibrium to be established is fourfold4 ,there must be a true equilibrium between what we eat and what we reject again by excretion3 likewise between the systole and diastole of the heart1 the inspiration and expiration of our breathing4 ,suffice to say the equilibrium is never quite perfect4 ,most people are either too fat or too thin1 too hot or too cold1 too slow or too quick4 ,there is no such thing as an actual norm1 a living norm4 ,a norm is merely an abstraction1 not a reality4 ,the same on the psychical plane4 ,we either love too much1 or impose our will too much1 are too spiritual or too sensual4 ,there is not and cannot be any actual norm of human conduct4 ,all depends1 first1 on the unknown inward need within the very nuclear centers of the individual himself1 and secondly on his circumstance4 ,some men must be too spiritual1 some must be too sensual4 ,some must be too sympathetic1 and some must be too proud4 ,we have no desire to say what men ought to be4 ,we only wish to say there are all kinds of ways of being1 and there is no such thing as human perfection4 ,no man can be anything more than just himself1 in genuine living relation to all his surroundings4 ,but that which ,i am1 when ,i am myself1 will certainly be anathema to those who hate individual integrity1 and want to swarm4 ,and that which ,i1 being myself1 am in myself1 may make the hair bristle with rage on a man who is also himself1 but very different from me4 ,then let it bristle4 ,and if mine bristle back again1 then let us1 if we must1 fly at one another like two enraged men4 ,it is how it should be4 ,we've got to learn to live from the center of our own responsibility only1 and let other people do the same4 ,to return to the child1 however1 and his development on his two planes of consciousness4 ,there is all the time a direct dynamic connection between child and mother1 child and father also1 from the start4 ,it is a connection on two planes1 the upper and lower4 ,from the lower sympathetic center the profound intake of love or vibration from the living co-respondent outside4 ,from the upper sympathetic center the outgoing of devotion and the passionate vibration of given love1 given attention4 ,the two sympathetic centers are always1 or should always be1 counterbalanced by their corresponding voluntary centers4 ,from the great voluntary ganglion of the lower plane1 the child is self-willed1 independent1 and masterful4 ,in the activity of this center a boy refuses to be kissed and pawed about1 maintaining his proud independence like a little wild animal4 ,from this center he likes to command and to receive obedience4 ,from this center likewise he may be destructive and defiant and reckless1 determined to have his own way at any cost4 ,from this center1 too1 he learns to use his legs4 ,the motion of walking1 like the motion of breathing1 is twofold4 ,first1 a sympathetic cleaving to the earth with the foot3 then the voluntary rejection1 the spurning1 the kicking away1 the exultance in power and freedom4 ,from the upper voluntary center the child watches persistently1 wilfully1 for the attention of the mother3 to be taken notice of1 to be caressed1 in short to exist in and through the mother's attention4 ,from this center1 too1 he coldly refuses to notice the mother1 when she insists on too much attention4 ,this cold refusal is different from the active rejection of the lower center4 ,it is passive1 but cold and negative4 ,it is the great force of our day4 ,from the ganglion of the shoulders1 also1 the child breathes and his heart beats4 ,from the same center he learns the first use of his arms4 ,in the gesture of sympathy1 from the upper plane1 he embraces his mother with his arms4 ,in the motion of curiosity1 or interest1 which derives from the thoracic ganglion1 he spreads his fingers1 touches1 feels1 explores4 ,in the motion of rejection he drops an undesired object deliberately out of sight4 ,and then1 when the four centers of what we call the first field of consciousness are fully active1 then it is that the eyes begin to gather their sight1 the mouth to speak1 the ears to awake to their intelligent hearings2 all as a result of the great fourfold activity of the first dynamic field of consciousness4 ,and then also1 as a result1 the mind wakens to its impressions and to its incipient control4 ,for at first the control is non-mental1 even non-cerebral4 ,the brain acts only as a sort of switchboard4 ,the business of the father1 in all this incipient child-development1 is to stand outside as a final authority and make the necessary adjustments4 ,where there is too much sympathy1 then the great voluntary centers of the spine are weak1 the child tends to be delicate4 ,then the father by instinct supplies the roughness1 the sternness which stiffens in the child the centers of resistance and independence1 right from the very earliest days4 ,often1 for a mere infant1 it is the father's fierce or stern presence1 the vibration of his voice1 which starts the frictional and independent activity of the great voluntary ganglion and gives the first impulse to the independence which later on is life itself4 ,but on the other hand1 the father1 from his distance1 supports1 protects1 nourishes his child1 and it is ultimately on the remote but powerful father-love that the infant rests1 in a rest which is beyond mother-love4 ,for in the male the dominant centers are naturally the volitional centers1 centers of responsibility1 authority1 and care4 ,it is the father's business1 again1 to maintain some sort of equilibrium between the two modes of love in his infant4 ,a mother may wish to bring up her child from the lovely upper centers only1 from the centers of the breast1 in the mode of what we call pure or spiritual love4 ,then the child will be all gentle1 all tender and tender-radiant1 always enfolded with gentleness and forbearance1 always shielded from grossness or pain or roughness4 ,now the father's instinct is to be rough and crude1 good-naturedly brutal with the child1 calling the deeper centers1 the sensual centers1 into play4 ,what do you want8 ,my watch8 ,well1 you can't have it1 do you see1 because it's mine4 ,not a lot of explanations of the ,you see1 darling4 ,no such nonsense4--,or if a child wails unnecessarily for its mother1 the father must be the check4 ,stop your noise1 you little brat6 ,what ails you1 you whiner8 ,and if children be too sensitive1 too sympathetic1 then it will do the child no harm if the father occasionally throws the cat out of the window1 or kicks the dog1 or raises a storm in the house4 ,storms there must be4 ,and if the child is old enough and robust enough1 it can occasionally have its bottom soundly spanked--by the father1 if the mother refuses to perform that most necessary duty4 ,for a child's bottom is made occasionally to be spanked4 ,the vibration of the spanking acts direct upon the spinal nerve-system1 there is a direct reciprocity and reaction1 the spanker transfers his wrath to the great will-centers in the child1 and these will-centers react intensely1 are vivified and educated4 ,on the other hand1 given a mother who is too generally hard or indifferent1 then it rests with the father to provide the delicate sympathy and the refined discipline4 ,then the father must show the tender sensitiveness of the upper mode4 ,the sad thing to-day is that so few mothers have any deep bowels of love--or even the breast of love4 ,what they have is the benevolent spiritual will1 the will of the upper self4 ,but the will is not love4 ,and benevolence in a parent is a poison4 ,it is bullying4 ,in these circumstances the father must give delicate adjustment1 and1 above all1 some warm1 native love from the richer sensual self4 ,the question of corporal punishment is important4 ,it is no use roughly smacking a shrinking1 sensitive child4 ,and yet1 if a child is too shrinking1 too sensitive1 it may do it a world of good cheerfully to spank its posterior4 ,not brutally1 not cruelly1 but with real sound1 good-natured exasperation4 ,and let the adult take the full responsibility1 half humorously1 without apology or explanation4 ,let us avoid self-justification at all costs4 ,real corporal punishments apply to the sensual plane4 ,the refined punishments of the spiritual mode are usually much more indecent and dangerous than a good smack4 ,the pained but resigned disapprobation of a mother is usually a very bad thing1 much worse than the father's shouts of rage4 ,and sendings to bed1 and no dessert for a week1 and so on1 are crueller and meaner than a bang on the head4 ,when a parent gives his boy a beating1 there is a living passionate interchange4 ,but in these refined punishments1 the parent suffers nothing and the child is deadened4 ,the bullying of the refined1 benevolent spiritual will is simply vitriol to the soul4 ,yet parents administer it with all the righteousness of virtue and good intention1 sparing themselves perfectly4 ,the point is here4 ,if a child makes you so that you really want to spank it soundly1 then soundly spank the brat4 ,but know all the time what you are doing1 and always be responsible for your anger4 ,never be ashamed of it1 and never surpass it4 ,the flashing interchange of anger between parent and child is part of the responsible relationship1 necessary to growth4 ,again1 if a child offends you deeply1 so that you really can't communicate with it any more1 then1 while the hurt is deep1 switch off your connection from the child1 cut off your correspondence1 your vital communion1 and be alone4 ,but never persist in such a state beyond the time when your deep hurt dies down4 ,the only rule is1 do what you really1 impulsively1 wish to do4 ,but always act on your own responsibility sincerely4 ,and have the courage of your own strong emotion4 ,they enrichen the child's soul4 ,for a child's primary education depends almost entirely on its relation to its parents1 brothers1 and sisters4 ,between mother and child1 father and child1 the law is this3 ,i1 the mother1 am myself alone3 the child is itself alone4 ,but there exists between us a vital dynamic relation1 for which ,i1 being the conscious one1 am basically responsible4 ,so1 as far as possible1 there must be in me no departure from myself1 lest ,i injure the preconscious dynamic relation4 ,i must absolutely act according to my own true spontaneous feeling4 ,but1 moreover1 ,i must also have wisdom for myself and for my child4 ,always1 always the deep wisdom of responsibility4 ,and always a brave responsibility for the soul's own spontaneity4 ,love--what is love8 ,we'd better get a new idea4 ,love is1 in all1 generous impulse--even a good spanking4 ,but wisdom is something else1 a deep collectedness in the soul1 a deep abiding by my own integral being1 which makes me responsible1 not for the child1 but for my certain duties towards the child1 and for maintaining the dynamic flow between the child and myself as genuine as possible3 that is to say1 not perverted by ideals or by my will4 ,most fatal1 most hateful of all things is bullying4 ,but what is bullying8 ,it is a desire to superimpose my own will upon another person4 ,sensual bullying of course is fairly easily detected4 ,what is more dangerous is ideal bullying4 ,bullying people into what is ideally good for them4 ,i embrace for example an ideal1 and ,i seek to enact this ideal in the person of another4 ,this is ideal bullying4 ,a mother says that life should be all love1 all delicacy and forbearance and gentleness4 ,and she proceeds to spin a hateful sticky web of permanent forbearance1 gentleness1 hushedness around her naturally passionate and hasty child4 ,this so foils the child as to make him half imbecile or criminal4 ,i may have ideals if ,i like--even of love and forbearance and meekness4 ,but ,i have no right to ask another to have these ideals4 ,and to impose any ideals upon a child as it grows is almost criminal4 ,it results in impoverishment and distortion and subsequent deficiency4 ,in our day1 most dangerous is the love and benevolence ideal4 ,it results in neurasthenia1 which is largely a dislocation or collapse of the great voluntary centers1 a derangement of the will4 ,it is in us an insistence upon the one life-mode only1 the spiritual mode4 ,it is a suppression of the great lower centers1 and a living a sort of half-life1 almost entirely from the upper centers4 ,thence1 since we live terribly and exhaustively from the upper centers1 there is a tendency now towards pthisis and neurasthenia of the heart4 ,the great sympathetic center of the breast becomes exhausted1 the lungs1 burnt by the over-insistence of one way of life1 become diseased1 the heart1 strained in one mode of dilation1 retaliates4 ,the powerful lower centers are no longer fully active1 particularly the great lumbar ganglion1 which is the clue to our sensual passionate pride and independence1 this ganglion is atrophied by suppression4 ,and it is this ganglion which holds the spine erect4 ,so1 weak-chested1 round-shouldered1 we stoop hollowly forward on ourselves4 ,it is the result of the all-famous love and charity ideal1 an ideal now quite dead in its sympathetic activity1 but still fixed and determined in its voluntary action4 ,let us beware and beware1 and beware of having a high ideal for ourselves4 ,but particularly let us beware of having an ideal for our children4 ,so doing1 we damn them4 ,all we can have is wisdom4 ,and wisdom is not a theory1 it is a state of soul4 ,it is the state wherein we know our wholeness and the complicate1 manifold nature of our being4 ,it is the state wherein we know the great relations which exist between us and our near ones4 ,and it is the state which accepts full responsibility1 first for our own souls1 and then for the living dynamic relations wherein we have our being4 ,it is no use expecting the other person to know4 ,each must know for himself4 ,but nowadays men have even a stunt of pretending that children and idiots alone know best4 ,this is a pretty piece of sophistry1 and criminal cowardice1 trying to dodge the life-responsibility which no man or woman can dodge without disaster4 ,the only thing is to be direct4 ,if a child has to swallow castor-oil1 then say3 ,child1 you've got to swallow this castor-oil4 ,it is necessary for your inside4 ,i say so because it is true4 ,so open your mouth4 ,why try coaxing and logic and tricks with children8 ,children are more sagacious than we are4 ,they twig soon enough if there is a flaw in our own intention and our own true spontaneity4 ,and they play up to our bit of falsity till there is hell to pay4 ,you love mother1 don't you1 dear8--,just a piece of indecent trickery of the spiritual will4 ,the great emotions like love are unspoken4 ,speaking them is a sign of an indecent bullying will4 ,poor pussy6 ,you must love poor pussy6 ,what cant6 ,what sickening cant6 ,an appeal to love based on false pity4 ,that's the way to inculcate a filthy pharisaic conceit into a child4--,if the child ill-treats the cat1 say3 ,stop mauling that cat4 ,it's got its own life to live1 so let it live it4 ,then if the brat persists1 give tit for tat4 ,what1 you pull the cat's tail6 ,then ,i'll pull your nose1 to see how you like it4 ,and give his nose a proper hard pinch4 ,children must pull the cat's tail a little4 ,children must steal the sugar sometimes4 ,they must occasionally spoil just the things one doesn't want them to spoil4 ,and they must occasionally tell stories--tell a lie4 ,circumstances and life are such that we must all sometimes tell a lie3 just as we wear trousers1 because we don't choose that everybody shall see our nakedness4 ,morality is a delicate act of adjustment on the soul's part1 not a rule or a prescription4 ,beyond a certain point the child shall not pull the cat's tail1 or steal the sugar1 or spoil the furniture1 or tell lies4 ,but ,i'm afraid you can't fix this certain soul's humor4 ,and so it must4 ,if at a sudden point you fly into a temper and thoroughly beat the boy for hardly touching the cat--well1 that's life4 ,all you've got to say to him is3 ,there1 that'll serve you for all the times you have pulled her tail and hurt her4 ,and he will feel outraged1 and so will you4 ,but what does it matter8 ,children have an infinite understanding of the soul's passionate variabilities1 and forgive even a real injustice1 if it was spontaneous and not intentional4 ,they know we aren't perfect4 ,what they don't forgive us is if we pretend we are3 or if we bully4 ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,five ,,senses ,science is wretched in its treatment of the human body as a sort of complex mechanism made up of numerous little machines working automatically in a rather unsatisfactory relation to one another4 ,the body is the total machine2 the various organs are the included machines2 and the whole thing1 given a start at birth1 or at conception1 trundles on by itself4 ,the only god in the machine1 the human will or intelligence1 is absolutely at the mercy of the machine4 ,such is the orthodox view4 ,soul1 when it is allowed an existence at all1 sits somewhat vaguely within the machine1 never defined4 ,if anything goes wrong with the machine1 why1 the soul is forgotten instantly4 ,we summon the arch-mechanic of our day1 the medicine-man4 ,and a marvelous earnest fraud he is1 doing his best4 ,he is really wonderful as a mechanic of the human system4 ,but the life within us fails more and more1 while we marvelously tinker at the engines4 ,doctors are not to blame4 ,it is obvious that1 even considering the human body as a very delicate and complex machine1 you cannot keep such a machine running for one day without most exact central control4 ,still more is it impossible to consider the automatic evolution of such a machine4 ,when did any machine1 even a single spinning-wheel1 automatically evolve itself8 ,there was a god in the machine before the machine existed4 ,so there we are with the human body4 ,there must have been1 and must be a central god in the machine of each animate corpus4 ,the little soul of the beetle makes the beetle toddle4 ,the little soul of the homo sapiens sets him on his two feet4 ,don't ask me to define the soul4 ,you might as well ask a bicycle to define the young damsel who so whimsically and so god-like pedals her way along the highroad4 ,a young lady skeltering off on her bicycle to meet her young man--why1 what could the bicycle make of such a mystery1 if you explained it till doomsday4 ,yet the bicycle wouldn't be spinning from ,streatham to ,croydon by itself4 ,so we may as well settle down to the little god in the machine4 ,we may as well call it the individual soul1 and leave it there4 ,it's as far as the bicycle would ever get1 if it had to define ,mademoiselle4 ,but be sure the bicycle would not deny the existence of the young miss who seats herself in the saddle4 ,not like us1 who try to pretend there is no one in the saddle4 ,why even the sun would no more spin without a rider than would a cycle-pedal4 ,but1 since we have innumerable planets to reckon with1 in the spinning we must not begin to define the rider in terms of our own exclusive planet4 ,nevertheless1 rider there is3 even a rider of the many-wheeled universe4 ,but let us leave the universe alone4 ,it is too big a bauble for me4--,revenons4--,at the start of me there is me4 ,there is a mysterious little entity which is my individual self1 the god who builds the machine and then makes his gay excursion of seventy years within it4 ,now we are talking at the moment about the machine4 ,for the moment we are the bicycle1 and not the feather-brained cyclist4 ,so that all we can do is to define the cyclist in terms of ourself4 ,a bicycle could say3 ,here1 upon my leather saddle1 rests a strange and animated force1 which ,i call the force of gravity1 as being the one great force which controls my universe4 ,and yet1 on second thoughts1 ,i must modify myself4 ,this great force of gravity is not always in the saddle4 ,sometimes it just is not there--and ,i lean strangely against a wall4 ,i have been even known to turn upside down1 with my wheels in the air2 spun by the same mysterious ,miss4 ,so that ,i must introduce a theory of ,relativity4 ,however1 mostly1 when ,i am awake and alive1 she is in the saddle2 or it is in the saddle1 the mysterious force4 ,and when it is in the saddle1 then two subsidiary forces plunge and claw upon my two pedals1 plunge and claw with inestimable power4 ,and at the same time1 a kind and mysterious force sways my head-stock1 sways most incalculably1 and governs my whole motion4 ,this force is not a driving force1 but a subtle directing force1 beneath whose grip my bright steel body is flexible as a dipping highroad4 ,then let me not forget the sudden clutch of arrest upon my hurrying wheels4 ,oh1 this is pain to me6 ,while ,i am rushing forward1 surpassing myself in an elan vital1 suddenly the awful check grips my back wheel1 or my front wheel1 or both4 ,suddenly there is a fearful arrest4 ,my soul rushes on before my body1 ,i feel myself strained1 torn back4 ,my fibers groan4 ,then perhaps the tension relaxes4 ,so the bicycle will continue to babble about itself4 ,and it will inevitably wind up with a philosophy4 ,oh1 if only the great and divine force rested for ever upon my saddle1 and if only the mysterious will which sways my steering gear remained in place for ever3 then my pedals would revolve of themselves1 and never cease1 and no hideous brake should tear the perpetuity of my motions4 ,then1 oh then ,i should be immortal4 ,i should leap through the world for ever1 and spin to infinity1 till ,i was identified with the dizzy and timeless cycle-race of the stars and the great sun4444 ,poor old bicycle4 ,the very thought is enough to start a philanthropic society for the prevention of cruelty to bicycles4 ,well1 then1 our human body is the bicycle4 ,and our individual and incomprehensible self is the rider thereof4 ,and seeing that the universe is another bicycle riding full tilt1 we are bound to suppose a rider for that also4 ,but we needn't say what sort of rider4 ,when ,i see a cockroach scuttling across the floor and turning up its tail ,i stand affronted1 and think3 ,a rum sort of rider you must have4 ,you've no business to have such a rider1 do you hear8--,and when ,i hear the monotonous and plaintive cuckoo in the ,june woods1 ,i think3 ,who the devil made that clock8--,and when ,i see a politician making a fiery speech on a platform1 and the crowd gawping1 ,i think3 ,lord1 save me--they've all got riders4 ,but ,holy ,moses6 you could never guess what was coming4--,and so ,i shouldn't like1 myself1 to start guessing about the rider of the universe4 ,i am all too flummoxed by the masquerade in the tourney round about me4 ,we ourselves then3 wisdom1 like charity1 begins at home4 ,we've each of us got a rider in the saddle3 an individual soul4 ,mostly it can't ride1 and can't steer1 so mankind is like squadrons of bicycles running amok4 ,we should every one fall off if we didn't ride so thick that we hold each other up4 ,horrid nightmare6 ,as for myself1 ,i have a horror of riding en bloc4 ,so ,i grind away uphill1 and sweat my guts out1 as they say4 ,well1 well--my body is my bicycle3 the whole middle of me is the saddle where sits the rider of my soul4 ,and my front wheel is the cardiac plane1 and my back wheel is the solar plexus4 ,and the brakes are the voluntary ganglia4 ,and the steering gear is my head4 ,and the right and left pedals are the right and left dynamics of the body1 in some way corresponding to the sympathetic and voluntary division4 ,so that now ,i know more or less how my rider rides me1 and from what centers controls me4 ,that is1 ,i know the points of vital contact between my rider and my machine3 between my invisible and my visible self4 ,i don't attempt to say what is my rider4 ,a bicycle might as well try to define its young ,miss by wriggling its handle-bars and ringing its bell4 ,however1 having more or less determined the four primary motions1 we can see the further unfolding4 ,in a child1 the solar plexus and the cardiac plexus1 with corresponding voluntary ganglia1 are awake and active4 ,from these centers develop the great functions of the body4 ,as we have seen1 it is the solar plexus1 with the lumbar ganglion1 which controls the great dynamic system1 the functioning of the liver and the kidneys4 ,any excess in the sympathetic dynamism tends to accelerate the action of the liver1 to cause fever and constipation4 ,any collapse of the sympathetic dynamism causes anaemia4 ,the sudden stimulating of the voluntary center may cause diarrhoea1 and so on4 ,but all this depends so completely on the polarized flow between the individual and the correspondent1 between the child and mother1 child and father1 child and sisters or brothers or teacher1 or circumambient universe1 that it is impossible to lay down laws1 unless we state particulars4 ,nevertheless1 the whole of the great organs of the lower body are controlled from the two lower centers1 and these organs work well or ill according as there is a true dynamic psychic activity at the two primary centers of consciousness4 ,by a true dynamic psychic activity we mean an activity which is true to the individual himself1 to his own peculiar soul-nature4 ,and a dynamic psychic activity means a dynamic polarity between the individual himself and other individuals concerned in his living2 or between him and his immediate surroundings1 human1 physical1 geographical4 ,on the upper plane1 the lungs and heart are controlled from the cardiac plane and the thoracic ganglion4 ,any excess in the sympathetic mode from the upper centers tends to burn the lungs with oxygen1 weaken them with stress1 and cause consumption4 ,so it is just criminal to make a child too loving4 ,no child should be induced to love too much4 ,it means derangement and death at last4 ,but beyond the primary physiological function--and it is the business of doctors to discover the relation between the functioning of the primary organs and the dynamic psychic activity at the four primary consciousness-centers1--beyond these physical functions1 there are the activities which are half-psychic1 half-functional4 ,such as the five senses4 ,of the five senses1 four have their functioning in the face-region4 ,the fifth1 the sense of touch1 is distributed all over the body4 ,but all have their roots in the four great primary centers of consciousness4 ,from the constellation of your nerve-nodes1 from the great field of your poles1 the nerves run out in every direction1 ending on the surface of the body4 ,inwardly this is an inextricable ramification and communication4 ,and yet the body is planned out in areas1 there is a definite area-control from the four centers4 ,on the back the sense of touch is not acute4 ,there the voluntary centers act in resistance4 ,but in the front of the body1 the breast is one great field of sympathetic touch1 the belly is another4 ,on these two fields the stimulus of touch is quite different1 has a quite different psychic quality and psychic result4 ,the breast-touch is the fine alertness of quivering curiosity1 the belly-touch is a deep thrill of delight and avidity4 ,correspondingly1 the hands and arms are instruments of superb delicate curiosity1 and deliberate execution4 ,through the elbows and the wrists flows the dynamic psychic current1 and a dislocation in the current between two individuals will cause a feeling of dislocation at the wrists and elbows4 ,on the lower plane1 the legs and feet are instruments of unfathomable gratifications and repudiations4 ,the thighs1 the knees1 the feet are intensely alive with love-desire1 darkly and superbly drinking in the love-contact1 blindly4 ,or they are the great centers of resistance1 kicking1 repudiating4 ,sudden flushing of great general sympathetic desire will make a man feel weak at the knees4 ,hatred will harden the tension of the knees like steel1 and grip the feet like talons4 ,thus the fields of touch are four1 two sympathetic fields in front of the body from the throat to the feet1 two resistant fields behind from the neck to the heels4 ,there are two fields of touch1 however1 where the distribution is not so simple3 the face and the buttocks4 ,neither in the face nor in the buttocks is there one single mode of sense communication4 ,the face is of course the great window of the self1 the great opening of the self upon the world1 the great gateway4 ,the lower body has its own gates of exit4 ,but the bulk of our communication with all the outer universe goes on through the face4 ,and every one of the windows or gates of the face has its direct communication with each of the four great centers of the first field of consciousness4 ,take the mouth1 with the sense of taste4 ,the mouth is primarily the gate of the two chief sensual centers4 ,it is the gateway to the belly and the loins4 ,through the mouth we eat and we drink4 ,in the mouth we have the sense of taste4 ,at the lips1 too1 we kiss4 ,and the kiss of the mouth is the first sensual connection4 ,in the mouth also are the teeth4 ,and the teeth are the instruments of our sensual will4 ,the growth of the teeth is controlled entirely from the two great sensual centers below the diaphragm4 ,but almost entirely from the one center1 the voluntary center4 ,the growth and the life of the teeth depend almost entirely on the lumbar ganglion4 ,during the growth of the teeth the sympathetic mode is held in abeyance4 ,there is a sort of arrest4 ,there is pain1 there is diarrhoea1 there is misery for the baby4 ,and we1 in our age1 have no rest with our teeth4 ,our mouths are too small4 ,for many ages we have been suppressing the avid1 negroid1 sensual will4 ,we have been converting ourselves into ideal creatures1 all spiritually conscious1 and active dynamically only on one plane1 the upper1 spiritual plane4 ,our mouth has contracted1 our teeth have become soft and un-quickened4 ,where in us are the sharp and vivid teeth of the wolf1 keen to defend and devour8 ,if we had them more1 we should be happier4 ,where are the white negroid teeth8 ,where8 ,in our little pinched mouths they have no room4 ,we are sympathy-rotten1 and spirit-rotten1 and idea-rotten4 ,we have forfeited our flashing sensual power4 ,and we have false teeth in our mouths4 ,in the same way the lips of our sensual desire go thinner and more meaningless1 in the compression of our upper will and our idea-driven impulse4 ,let us break the conscious1 self-conscious love-ideal1 and we shall grow strong1 resistant teeth once more1 and the teething of our young will not be the hell it is4 ,teething is strictly the period when the voluntary center of the lower plane first comes into full activity1 and takes for a time the precedence4 ,so1 the mouth is the great sensual gate to the lower body4 ,but let us not forget it is also a gate by which we breathe1 the gate through which we speak and go impalpably forth to our object1 the gate at which we can kiss the pinched1 delicate1 spiritual kiss4 ,therefore1 although the main sensual gate of entrance to the lower body1 it has its reference also to the upper body4 ,taste1 the sense of taste1 is an intake of a pure communication between us and a body from the outside world4 ,it contains the element of touch1 and in this it refers to the cardiac plexus4 ,but taste1 qua taste1 refers purely to the solar plexus4 ,and then smell4 ,the nostrils are the great gate from the wide atmosphere of heaven to the lungs4 ,the extreme sigh of yearning we catch through the mouth4 ,but the delicate nose advances always into the air1 our palpable communicator with the infinite air4 ,thus it has its first delicate root in the cardiac plexus1 the root of its intake4 ,and the root of the delicate-proud exhalation1 rejection1 is in the thoracic ganglion4 ,but the nostrils have their other function of smell4 ,here the delicate nerve-ends run direct from the lower centers1 from the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion1 or even deeper4 ,there is the refined sensual intake when a scent is sweet4 ,there is the sensual repudiation when a scent is unsavoury4 ,and just as the fullness of the lips and the shape of the mouth depend on the development from the lower or the upper centers1 the sensual or the spiritual1 so does the shape of the nose depend on the direct control of the deepest centers of consciousness4 ,a perfect nose is perhaps the result of a balance in the four modes4 ,but what is a perfect nose6--,we only know that a short snub nose goes with an over-sympathetic nature1 not proud enough2 while a long nose derives from the center of the upper will1 the thoracic ganglion1 our great center of curiosity1 and benevolent or objective control4 ,a thick1 squat nose is the sensual-sympathetic nose1 and the high1 arched nose the sensual voluntary nose1 having the curve of repudiation1 as when we turn up our nose from a bad smell1 but also the proud curve of haughtiness and subjective authority4 ,the nose is one of the greatest indicators of character4 ,that is to say1 it almost inevitably indicates the mode of predominant dynamic consciousness in the individual1 the predominant primary center from which he lives4--,when savages rub noses instead of kissing1 they are exchanging a more sensitive and a deeper sensual salute than our lip-touch4 ,the eyes are the third great gateway of the psyche4 ,here the soul goes in and out of the body1 as a bird flying forth and coming home4 ,but the root of conscious vision is almost entirely in the breast4 ,when ,i go forth from my own eyes1 in delight to dwell upon the world which is beyond me1 outside me1 then ,i go forth from wide open windows1 through which shows the full and living lambent darkness of my present inward self4 ,i go forth1 and ,i leave the lovely open darkness of my sensient self revealed2 when ,i go forth in the wonder of vision to dwell upon the beloved1 or upon the wonder of the world1 ,i go from the center of the glad breast1 through the eyes1 and who will may look into the full soft darkness of me1 rich with my undiscovered presence4 ,but if ,i am displeased1 then hard and cold my self stands in my eyes1 and refuses any communication1 any sympathy1 but merely stares outwards4 ,it is the motion of cold objectivity from the thoracic ganglion4 ,or1 from the same center of will1 cold but intense my eyes may watch with curiosity1 as a cat watches a fly4 ,it may be into my curiosity will creep an element of warm gladness in the wonder which ,i am beholding outside myself4 ,or it may be that my curiosity will be purely and simply the cold1 almost cruel curiosity of the upper will1 directed from the ganglion of the shoulders3 such as is the acute attention of an experimental scientist4 ,the eyes have1 however1 their sensual root as well4 ,but this is hard to transfer into language1 as all our vision1 our modern ,northern vision is in the upper mode of actual seeing4 ,there is a sensual way of beholding4 ,there is the dark1 desirous look of a savage who apprehends only that which has direct reference to himself1 that which stirs a certain dark yearning within his lower self4 ,then his eye is fathomless blackness4 ,but there is the dark eye which glances with a certain fire1 and has no depth4 ,there is a keen quick vision which watches1 which beholds1 but which never yields to the object outside3 as a cat watching its prey4 ,the dark glancing look which knows the strangeness1 the danger of its object1 the need to overcome the object4 ,the eye which is not wide open to study1 to learn1 but which powerfully1 proudly or cautiously glances1 and knows the terror or the pure desirability of strangeness in the object it beholds4 ,the savage is all in all in himself4 ,that which he sees outside he hardly notices1 or1 he sees as something odd1 something automatically desirable1 something lustfully desirable1 or something dangerous4 ,what we call vision1 that he has not4 ,we must compare the look in a horse's eye with the look in a cow's4 ,the eye of the cow is soft1 velvety1 receptive4 ,she stands and gazes with the strangest intent curiosity4 ,she goes forth from herself in wonder4 ,the root of her vision is in her yearning breast4 ,the same one hears when she moos4 ,the same massive weight of passion is in a bull's breast2 the passion to go forth from himself4 ,his strength is in his breast1 his weapons are on his head4 ,the wonder is always outside him4 ,but the horse's eye is bright and glancing4 ,his curiosity is cautious1 full of terror1 or else aggressive and frightening for the object4 ,the root of his vision is in his belly1 in the solar plexus4 ,and he fights with his teeth1 and his heels1 the sensual weapons4 ,both these animals1 however1 are established in the sympathetic mode4 ,the life mode in both is sensitively sympathetic1 or preponderantly sympathetic4 ,those animals which like cats1 wolves1 tigers1 hawks1 chiefly live from the great voluntary centers1 these animals are1 in our sense of the word1 almost visionless4 ,sight in them is sharpened or narrowed down to a point3 the object of prey4 ,it is exclusive4 ,they see no more than this4 ,and thus they see unthinkably far1 unthinkably keenly4 ,most animals1 however1 smell what they see3 vision is not very highly developed4 ,they know better by the more direct contact of scent4 ,and vision in us becomes faulty because we proceed too much in one mode4 ,we see too much1 we attend too much4 ,the dark1 glancing sightlessness of the intent savage1 the narrowed vision of the cat1 the single point of vision of the hawk--these we do not know any more4 ,we live far too much from the sympathetic centers1 without the balance from the voluntary mode4 ,and we live far1 far too much from the upper sympathetic center and voluntary center1 in an endless objective curiosity4 ,sight is the least sensual of all the senses4 ,and we strain ourselves to see1 see1 see--everything1 everything through the eye1 in one mode of objective curiosity4 ,there is nothing inside us1 we stare endlessly at the outside4 ,so our eyes begin to fail2 to retaliate on us4 ,we go short-sighted1 almost in self-protection4 ,hearing the last1 and perhaps the deepest of the senses4 ,and here there is no choice4 ,in every other faculty we have the power of rejection4 ,we have a choice of vision4 ,we can1 if we choose1 see in the terms of the wonderful beyond1 the world of light into which we go forth in joy to lose ourselves in it4 ,or we can see1 as the ,egyptians saw1 in the terms of their own dark souls3 seeing the strangeness of the creature outside1 the gulf between it and them1 but finally1 its existence in terms of themselves4 ,they saw according to their own unchangeable idea1 subjectively1 they did not go forth from themselves to seek the wonder outside4 ,those are the two chief ways of sympathetic vision4 ,we call our way the objective1 the ,egyptian the subjective4 ,but objective and subjective are words that depend absolutely on your starting point4 ,spiritual and sensual are much more descriptive terms4 ,but there are1 of course1 also the two ways of volitional vision4 ,we can see with the endless modern critical sight1 analytic1 and at last deliberately ugly4 ,or we can see as the hawk sees the one concentrated spot where beats the life-heart of our prey4 ,in the four modes of sight we have some choice4 ,we have some choice to refuse tastes or smells or touch4 ,in hearing we have the minimum of choice4 ,sound acts direct upon the great affective centers4 ,we may voluntarily quicken our hearing1 or make it dull4 ,but we have really no choice of what we hear4 ,our will is eliminated4 ,sound acts direct1 almost automatically1 upon the affective centers4 ,and we have no power of going forth from the ear4 ,we are always and only recipient4 ,nevertheless1 sound acts upon us in various ways1 according to the four primary poles of consciousness4 ,the singing of birds acts almost entirely upon the centers of the breast4 ,birds1 which live by flight1 impelled from the strong conscious-activity of the breast and shoulders1 have become for us symbols of the spirit1 the upper mode of consciousness4 ,their legs have become idle1 almost insentient twigs4 ,only the tail flirts from the center of the sensual will4 ,but their singing acts direct upon the upper1 or spiritual centers in us4 ,so does almost all our music1 which is all ,christian in tendency4 ,but modern music is analytical1 critical1 and it has discovered the power of ugliness4 ,like our martial music1 it is of the upper plane1 like our martial songs1 our fifes and our brass-bands4 ,these act direct upon the thoracic ganglion4 ,time was1 however1 when music acted upon the sensual centers direct4 ,we hear it still in savage music1 and in the roll of drums1 and in the roaring of lions1 and in the howling of cats4 ,and in some voices still we hear the deeper resonance of the sensual mode of consciousness4 ,but the tendency is for everything to be brought on to the upper plane1 whilst the lower plane is just worked automatically from the upper4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,first ,,glimmerings ,,of ,,mind ,we can now see what is the true goal of education for a child4 ,it is the full and harmonious development of the four primary modes of consciousness1 always with regard to the individual nature of the child4 ,the goal is not ideal4 ,the aim is not mental consciousness4 ,we want effectual human beings1 not conscious ones4 ,the final aim is not to know1 but to be4 ,there never was a more risky motto than that3 ,know thyself4 ,you've got to know yourself as far as possible4 ,but not just for the sake of knowing4 ,you've got to know yourself so that you can at last be yourself4 ,be yourself is the last motto4 ,the whole field of dynamic and effectual consciousness is always pre-mental1 non-mental4 ,not even the most knowing man that ever lived would know how he would be feeling next week2 whether some new and utterly shattering impulse would have arisen in him and laid his nicely-conceived self in ruins4 ,it is the impulse we have to live by1 not the ideals or the idea4 ,but we have to know ourselves pretty thoroughly before we can break the automatism of ideals and conventions4 ,the savage in a state of nature is one of the most conventional of creatures4 ,so is a child4 ,only through fine delicate knowledge can we recognize and release our impulses4 ,now our whole aim has been to force each individual to a maximum of mental control1 and mental consciousness4 ,our poor little plans of children are put into horrible forcing-beds1 called schools1 and the young idea is there forced to shoot4 ,it shoots1 poor thing1 like a potato in a warm cellar4 ,one mass of pallid sickly ideas and ideals4 ,and no root1 no life4 ,the ideas shoot1 hard enough1 in our sad offspring1 but they shoot at the expense of life itself4 ,never was such a mistake4 ,mental consciousness is a purely individual affair4 ,some men are born to be highly and delicately conscious4 ,but for the vast majority1 much mental consciousness is simply a catastrophe1 a blight4 ,it just stops their living4 ,our business1 at the present1 is to prevent at all cost the young idea from shooting4 ,the ideal mind1 the brain1 has become the vampire of modern life1 sucking up the blood and the life4 ,there is hardly an original thought or original utterance possible to us4 ,all is sickly repetition of stale1 stale ideas4 ,let all schools be closed at once4 ,keep only a few technical training establishments1 nothing more4 ,let humanity lie fallow1 for two generations at least4 ,let no child learn to read1 unless it learns by itself1 out of its own individual persistent desire4 ,that is my serious admonition1 gentle reader4 ,but ,i am not so flighty as to imagine you will pay any heed4 ,but if ,i thought you would1 ,i should feel my hope surge up4 ,and if you don't pay any heed1 calamity will at length shut your schools for you1 sure enough4 ,the process of transfer from the primary consciousness to recognized mental consciousness is a mystery like every other transfer4 ,yet it follows its own laws4 ,and here we begin to approach the confines of orthodox psychology1 upon which we have no desire to trespass4 ,but this we can say4 ,the degree of transfer from primary to mental consciousness varies with every individual4 ,but in most individuals the natural degree is very low4 ,the process of transfer from primary consciousness is called sublimation1 the sublimating of the potential body of knowledge with the definite reality of the idea4 ,and with this process we have identified all education4 ,the very derivation of the ,latin word education shows us4 ,of course it should mean the leading forth of each nature to its fullness4 ,but with us1 fools that we are1 it is the leading forth of the primary consciousness1 the potential or dynamic consciousness1 into mental consciousness1 which is finite and static4 ,now before we set out so gayly to lead our children en bloc out of the dynamic into the static way of consciousness1 let us consider a moment what we are doing4 ,a child in the womb can have no idea of the mother4 ,i think orthodox psychology will allow us so much4 ,and yet the child in the womb must be dynamically conscious of the mother4 ,otherwise how could it maintain a definite and progressively developing relation to her8 ,this consciousness1 however1 is utterly non-ideal1 non-mental1 purely dynamic1 a matter of dynamic polarized intercourse of vital vibrations1 as an exchange of wireless messages which are never translated from the pulse-rhythm into speech1 because they have no need to be4 ,it is a dynamic polarized intercourse between the great primary nuclei in the foetus and the corresponding nuclei in the dynamic maternal psyche4 ,this form of consciousness is established at conception1 and continues long after birth4 ,nay1 it continues all life long4 ,but the particular interchange of dynamic consciousness between mother and child suffers no interruption at birth4 ,it continues almost the same4 ,the child has no conception whatsoever of the mother4 ,it cannot see her1 for its eye has no focus4 ,it can hear her1 because hearing needs no transmission into concept1 but it has no oral notion of sounds4 ,it knows her4 ,but only by a form of vital dynamic correspondence1 a sort of magnetic interchange4 ,the idea does not intervene at all4 ,gradually1 however1 the dark shadow of our object begins to loom in the formless mind of the infant4 ,the idea of the mother is1 as it were1 gradually photographed on the cerebral plasm4 ,it begins with the faintest shadow--but the figure is gradually developed through years of experience4 ,it is never quite completed4 ,how does the figure of the mother gradually develop as a conception in the child mind8 ,it develops as the result of the positive and negative reaction from the primary centers of consciousness4 ,from the first great center of sympathy the child is drawn to a lovely oneing with the mother4 ,from the first great center of will comes the independent self-assertion which locates the mother as something outside1 something objective4 ,and as a result of this twofold notion1 a twofold increase in the child4 ,first1 the dynamic establishment of the individual consciousness in the infant3 and then the first shadow of a mental conception of the mother1 in the infant brain4 ,the development of the original mind in every child and every man always and only follows from the dual fulfillment in the dynamic consciousness4 ,but mark further4 ,each time1 after the fourfold interchange between two dynamic polarized lives1 there results a development in the individuality and a sublimation into consciousness1 both simultaneously in each party3 and this dual development causes at once a diminution in the dynamic polarity between the two parties4 ,that is1 as its individuality and its mental concept of the mother develop in the child1 there is a corresponding waning of the dynamic relation between the child and the mother4 ,and this is the natural progression of all love4 ,as we have said before1 the accomplishment of individuality never finally exhausts the dynamic flow between parents and child4 ,in the same way1 a child can never have a finite conception of either of its parents4 ,it can have a very much more finite1 finished conception of its aunts or its friends4 ,the portrait of the parent can never be quite completed in the mind of the son or daughter4 ,as long as time lasts it must be left unfinished4 ,nevertheless1 the inevitable photography of time upon the mental plasm does print at last a very substantial portrait of the parent1 a very well-filled concept in the child mind4 ,and the nearer a conception comes towards finality1 the nearer does the dynamic relation1 out of which this concept has arisen1 draw to a close4 ,to know1 is to lose4 ,when ,i have a finished mental concept of a beloved1 or a friend1 then the love and the friendship is dead4 ,it falls to the level of an acquaintance4 ,as soon as ,i have a finished mental conception1 a full idea even of myself1 then dynamically ,i am dead4 ,to know is to die4 ,but knowledge and death are part of our natural development4 ,only1 of course1 most things can never be known by us in full4 ,which means we do never absolutely die1 even to our parents4 ,so that ,jesus' question to ,his mother1 ,woman1 what have ,i to do with thee6--while expressing a major truth1 still has an exaggerated sound1 which comes from its denial of the minor truth4 ,this progression from dynamic relationship towards a finished individuality and a finished mental concept is carried on from the four great primary centers through the correspondence medium of all the senses and sensibilities4 ,first of all1 the child knows the mother only through touch--perfect and immediate contact4 ,and yet1 from the moment of conception1 the egg-cell repudiated complete adhesion and even communication1 and asserted its individual integrity4 ,the child in the womb1 perfect a contact though it may have with the mother1 is all the time also dynamically polarized against this contact4 ,from the first moment1 this relation in touch has a dual polarity1 and1 no doubt1 a dual mode4 ,it is a fourfold interchange of consciousness1 the moment the egg-cell has made its two spontaneous divisions4 ,as soon as the child is born1 there is a real severance4 ,the contact of touch is interrupted1 it now becomes occasional only4 ,true1 the dynamic flow between mother and child is not severed when simple physical contact is missing4 ,though mother and child may not touch1 still the dynamic flow continues between them4 ,the mother knows her child1 feels her bowels and her breast drawn to it1 even if it be a hundred miles away4 ,but if the severance continue long1 the dynamic flow begins to die1 both in mother and child4 ,it wanes fairly quickly--and perhaps can never be fully revived4 ,the dynamic relation between parent and child may fairly easily fall into quiescence1 a static condition4 ,for a full dynamic relationship it is necessary that there be actual contact4 ,the nerves run from the four primary dynamos1 and end with live ends all over the body4 ,and it is necessary to bring the live ends of the nerves of the child into contact with the live ends of corresponding nerves in the mother1 so that a pure circuit is established4 ,wherever a pure circuit is established1 there occurs a pure development in the individual creation1 and this is inevitably accompanied by sensation2 and sensation is the first term of mental knowledge4 ,so1 from the field of the breast and arms1 the upper circuit1 and from the field of the knees and feet and belly1 the lower circuit4 ,and then1 the moment a child is born1 the face is alive4 ,and the face communicates direct with both planes of primary consciousness4 ,the moment a child is born1 it begins to grope for the breast4 ,and suddenly a new great circuit is established1 the four poles all working at once1 as the child sucks4 ,there is the profound desirousness of the lower center of sympathy1 and the superior avidity of the center of will1 and at the same time1 the cleaving yearning to the nipple1 and the tiny curiosity of lips and gums4 ,the nipple of the mother's breast is one of the great gates of the body1 hence of the living psyche4 ,in the nipple terminate vivid nerves which flash their very powerful vibrations through the mouth of the child and deep into its four great poles of being and knowing4 ,even the nipples of the man are gateways to the great dynamic flow3 still gateways4 ,touch1 taste1 and smell are now active in the baby4 ,and these senses1 so-called1 are strictly sensations4 ,they are the first term of the child's mental knowledge4 ,and on these three cerebral reactions the foundation of the future mind is laid4 ,the moment there is a perfect polarized circuit between the first four poles of dynamic consciousness1 at that moment does the mind1 the terminal station1 flash into cognition4 ,the first cognition is merely sensation3 sensation and the remembrance of sensation being the first element in all knowing and in all conception4 ,the circuit of touch1 taste1 and smell must be well established1 before the eyes begin actually to see4 ,all mental knowledge is built up of sensation and of memory4 ,it is the continually recurring sensation of the touch of the mother which forms the basis of the first conception of the mother4 ,after that1 the gradually discriminated taste of the mother1 and scent of the mother4 ,till gradually sight and hearing develop and largely usurp the first three senses1 as medium of correspondence and of knowledge4 ,and while1 of course1 the sensational knowledge is being secreted in the brain1 in some much more mysterious way the living individuality of the child is being developed in the four first nuclei1 the four great nerve-centers of the primary field of consciousness and being4 ,as time goes on1 the child learns to see the mother4 ,at first he sees her face as a blur1 and though he knows her1 knows her by a direct glow of communication1 as if her face were a warm glowing life-lamp which rejoiced him4 ,but gradually1 as the circuit of touch1 taste1 and smell become powerfully established2 gradually1 as the individual develops in the child1 and so retreats towards isolation2 gradually1 as the child stands more immune from the mother1 the circuit of correspondence extends1 and the eyes now communicate across space1 the ears begin to discriminate sounds4 ,last of all develops discriminate hearing4 ,now gradually the picture of the mother is transferred to the child's mind1 and the sound of the first baby-words is imprinted4 ,and as the child learns to discriminate visually1 objectively1 between the mother and the nurse1 he learns to choose1 and becomes individually free4 ,and still1 the dynamic correspondence is not finished4 ,it only changes its circuit4 ,while the brain is registering sensations1 the four dynamic centers are coming into perfect relation4 ,or rather1 as we see1 the reverse is the case4 ,as the dynamic centers come into perfect relation1 the mind registers and remembers sensations1 and begins consciously to know4 ,but the great field of activity is still and always the dynamic field4 ,when a child learns to walk1 it learns almost entirely from the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion1 the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion balancing the upper body4 ,there is a perfected circuit of polarity4 ,the two lower centers are the positive1 the two upper the negative poles4 ,and so the child strikes out with his feet for the earth1 presses1 and strikes away again from the earth1 the two upper centers meanwhile corresponding implicitly in the balance of the upper body4 ,it is a chain of spontaneous activity in the four primary centers1 establishing a circuit through the whole body4 ,but the positive poles are the lower centers4 ,and the brain has probably nothing at all to do with it4 ,even the desire to walk is not born in the brain1 but in the primary nuclei4 ,the same with the use of the hands and arms4 ,it means the establishment of a pure circuit between the four centers1 the two upper poles now being the positive1 the lower the negative poles1 and the hands the live end of the wire4 ,again the brain is not concerned4 ,probably1 even in the first deliberate grasping of an object1 the brain is not concerned4 ,not until there is an element of recognition and sensation-memory4 ,all our primal activity originates and circulates purely in the four great nerve centers4 ,all our active desire1 our genuine impulse1 our love1 our hope1 our yearning1 everything originates mysteriously at these four great centers or well-heads of our existence3 everything vital and dynamic4 ,the mind can only register that which results from the emanation of the dynamic impulse and the collision or communion of this impulse with its object4 ,so now we see that we can never know ourselves4 ,knowledge is to consciousness what the signpost is to the traveler3 just an indication of the way which has been traveled before4 ,knowledge is not even in direct proportion to being4 ,there may be great knowledge of chemistry in a man who is a rather poor being3 and those who know1 even in wisdom like ,solomon1 are often at the end of the matter of living1 not at the beginning4 ,as a matter of fact1 ,david did the living1 the dynamic achievement4 ,to ,solomon was left the consummation and the finish1 and the dying down4 ,yet we must know1 if only in order to learn not to know4 ,the supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how not to know4 ,that is1 how not to interfere4 ,that is1 how to live dynamically1 from the great ,source1 and not statically1 like machines driven by ideas and principles from the head1 or automatically1 from one fixed desire4 ,at last1 knowledge must be put into its true place in the living activity of man4 ,and we must know deeply1 in order even to do that4 ,so a new conception of the meaning of education4 ,education means leading out the individual nature in each man and woman to its true fullness4 ,you can't do that by stimulating the mind4 ,to pump education into the mind is fatal4 ,that which sublimates from the dynamic consciousness into the mental consciousness has alone any value4 ,this1 in most individuals1 is very little indeed4 ,so that most individuals1 under a wise government1 would be most carefully protected from all vicious attempts to inject extraneous ideas into them4 ,every extraneous idea1 which has no inherent root in the dynamic consciousness1 is as dangerous as a nail driven into a young tree4 ,for the mass of people1 knowledge must be symbolical1 mythical1 dynamic4 ,this means1 you must have a higher1 responsible1 conscious class3 and then in varying degrees the lower classes1 varying in their degree of consciousness4 ,symbols must be true from top to bottom4 ,but the interpretation of the symbols must rest1 degree after degree1 in the higher1 responsible1 conscious classes4 ,to those who cannot divest themselves again of mental consciousness and definite ideas1 mentality and ideas are death1 nails through their hands and feet4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,first ,,steps ,,in ,,education ,the first process of education is obviously not a mental process4 ,when a mother talks to a baby1 she is not encouraging its little mind to think4 ,when she is coaxing her child to walk1 she is not making a theoretic exposition of the science of equilibration4 ,she crouches before the child1 at a little distance1 and spreads her hands4 ,come1 baby--come to mother4 ,come6 ,baby1 walk6 ,yes1 walk6 ,walk to mother6 ,come along4 ,a little walk to its mother4 ,come6 ,come then6 ,why yes1 a pretty baby6 ,oh1 he can toddle6 ,yes--yes--,no1 don't be frightened1 a dear4 ,no--,come to mother-- and she catches his little pinafore by the tip--and the infant lurches forward4 ,there6 ,there6 ,a beautiful walk6 ,a beautiful walker1 yes6 ,walked all the way to mother1 baby did4 ,yes1 he did-- ,now who will tell me that this talk has any rhyme or reason8 ,not a spark of reason4 ,yet a real rhyme3 or rhythm1 much more important4 ,the song and the urge of the mother's voice plays direct on the affective centers of the child1 a wonderful stimulus and tuition4 ,the words hardly matter4 ,true1 this constant repetition in the end forms a mental association4 ,at the moment they have no mental significance at all for the baby4 ,but they ring with a strange palpitating music in his fluttering soul1 and lift him into motion4 ,and this is the way to educate children3 the instinctive way of mothers4 ,there should be no effort made to teach children to think1 to have ideas4 ,only to lift them and urge them into dynamic activity4 ,the voice of dynamic sound1 not the words of understanding4 ,damn understanding4 ,gestures1 and touch1 and expression of the face1 not theory4 ,never have ideas about children--and never have ideas for them4 ,if we are going to teach children we must teach them first to move4 ,and not by rule or mental dictation4 ,horror6 ,but by playing and teasing and anger1 and amusement4 ,a child must learn to move blithe and free and proud4 ,it must learn the fullness of spontaneous motion4 ,and this it can only learn by continuous reaction from all the centers1 through all the emotions4 ,a child must learn to contain itself4 ,it must learn to sit still if need be4 ,part of the first phase of education is the learning to stay still and be physically self-contained4 ,then a child must learn to be alone1 and to adventure alone1 and to play alone4 ,any peevish clinging should be quite roughly rebuffed4 ,from the very first day1 throw a child back on its own resources--even a little cruelly sometimes4 ,but don't neglect it1 don't have a negative attitude to it4 ,play with it1 tease it and roll it over as a dog her puppy1 mock it when it is too timorous1 laugh at it1 scold it when it really bothers you--for a child must learn not to bother another person--and when it makes you genuinely angry1 spank it soundly4 ,but always remember that it is a single little soul by itself2 and that the responsibility for the wise1 warm relationship is yours1 the adult's4 ,then always watch its deportment4 ,above all things encourage a straight backbone and proud shoulders4 ,above all things despise a slovenly movement1 an ugly bearing and unpleasing manner4 ,and make a mock of petulance and of too much timidity4 ,we are imbeciles to start bothering about love and so forth in a child4 ,forget utterly that there is such a thing as emotional reciprocity4 ,but never forget your own honor as an adult individual towards a small individual4 ,it is a question of honor1 not of love4 ,a tree grows straight when it has deep roots and is not too stifled4 ,love is a spontaneous thing1 coming out of the spontaneous effectual soul4 ,as a deliberate principle it is an unmitigated evil4 ,also morality which is based on ideas1 or on an ideal1 is an unmitigated evil4 ,a child which is proud and free in its movements1 in all its deportment1 will be quite as moral as need be4 ,honor is an instinct1 a superb instinct which should be kept keenly alive4 ,immorality1 vice1 crime1 these come from a suppression or a collapse at one or other of the great primary centers4 ,if one of these centers fails to maintain its true polarity1 then there is a physical or psychic derangement1 or both4 ,and viciousness or crime are the result of a derangement in the primary system4 ,pure morality is only an instinctive adjustment which the soul makes in every circumstance1 adjusting one thing to another livingly1 delicately1 sensitively4 ,there can be no law4 ,therefore1 at every cost and charge keep the first four centers alive and alert1 active1 and vivid in reaction4 ,and then you need fear no perversion4 ,what we have done1 in our era1 is1 first1 we have tried as far as possible to suppress or subordinate the two sensual centers4 ,we have so unduly insisted on and exaggerated the upper spiritual or selfless mode--the living in the other person and through the other person--that we have caused already a dangerous over-balance in the natural psyche4 ,to correct this we go one worse1 and try to rule ourselves more and more by the old ideas of sympathy and benevolence4 ,we think that love and benevolence will cure anything4 ,whereas love and benevolence are our poison1 poison to the giver1 and still more poison to the receiver4 ,poison only because there is practically no spontaneous love left in the world4 ,it is all will1 the fatal love-will and insatiable morbid curiosity4 ,the pure sympathetic mode of love long ago broke down4 ,there is now only deadly1 exaggerated volition4 ,this is also why general education should be suppressed as soon as possible4 ,we have fallen into a state of fixed1 deadly will4 ,everything we do and say to our children in school tends simply to fix in them the same deadly will1 under the pretence of pure love4 ,our idealism is the clue to our fixed will4 ,love1 beauty1 benevolence1 progress1 these are the words we use4 ,but the principle we evoke is a principle of barren1 sanctified compulsion of all life4 ,we want to put all life under compulsion4 ,how to outwit the nerves1 for example4--,and therefore1 to save the children as far as possible1 elementary education should be stopped at once4 ,no child should be sent to any sort of public institution before the age of ten years4 ,if ,i could but advise1 ,i would advise that this notice should be sent through the length and breadth of the land4 ,parents1 the ,state can no longer be responsible for the mind and character of your children4 ,from the first day of the coming year1 all schools will be closed for an indefinite period4 ,fathers1 see that your boys are trained to be men4 ,mothers1 see that your daughters are trained to be women4 ,all schools will shortly be converted either into public workshops or into gymnasia4 ,no child will be admitted into the workshops under ten years of age4 ,active training in primitive modes of fighting and gymnastics will be compulsory for all boys over ten years of age4 ,all girls over ten years of age must attend at one domestic workshop4 ,all girls over ten years of age may1 in addition1 attend at one workshop of skilled labor1 or of technical industry1 or of art4 ,admission for three months' probation4 ,all boys over ten years of age must attend at one workshop of domestic crafts1 and at one workshop of skilled labor1 or of technical industry1 or of art4 ,a boy may choose1 with his parents' consent1 his school of labor1 or technical industry or art1 but the directors reserve the right to transfer him to a more suitable department1 if necessary1 after a three months' probation4 ,it is the intention of this ,state to form a body of active1 energetic citizens4 ,the danger of a helpless1 presumptuous1 news-paper-reading population is universally recognized4 ,all elementary education is left in the hands of the parents1 save such as is necessary to the different branches of industry4 ,schools of mental culture are free to all individuals over fourteen years of age4 ,universities are free to all who obtain the first culture degree4 ,the fact is1 our process of universal education is to-day so uncouth1 so psychologically barbaric1 that it is the most terrible menace to the existence of our race4 ,we seize hold of our children1 and by parrot-compulsion we force into them a set of mental tricks4 ,by unnatural and unhealthy compulsion we force them into a certain amount of cerebral activity4 ,and then1 after a few years1 with a certain number of windmills in their heads1 we turn them loose1 like so many inferior ,don ,quixotes1 to make a mess of life4 ,all that they have learnt in their heads has no reference at all to their dynamic souls4 ,the windmills spin and spin in a wind of words1 ,dulcinea del ,toboso beckons round every corner1 and our nation of inferior ,quixotes jumps on and off tram-cars1 trains1 bicycles1 motor-cars1 buses1 in one mad chase of the divine ,dulcinea1 who is all the time chewing chocolates and feeling very1 very bored4 ,it is no use telling the poor devils to stop4 ,they read in the newspapers about more ,dulcineas and more chivalry due to them and more horrid persons who injure the fair fame of these bored females4 ,and round they skelter1 after their own tails4 ,that is1 when they are not forced to grind out their lives for a wage4 ,though work is the only thing that prevents our masses from going quite mad4 ,to tell the truth1 ideas are the most dangerous germs mankind has ever been injected with4 ,they are introduced into the brain by injection1 in schools and by means of newspapers1 and then we are done for4 ,an idea which is merely introduced into the brain1 and started spinning there like some outrageous insect1 is the cause of all our misery to-day4 ,instead of living from the spontaneous centers1 we live from the head4 ,we chew1 chew1 chew at some theory1 some idea4 ,we grind1 grind1 grind in our mental consciousness1 till we are beside ourselves4 ,our primary affective centers1 our centers of spontaneous being1 are so utterly ground round and automatized that they squeak in all stages of disharmony and incipient collapse4 ,we are a people--and not we alone--of idiots1 imbeciles and epileptics1 and we don't even know we are raving4 ,and all is due1 directly and solely1 to that hateful germ we call the ,ideal4 ,the ,ideal is always evil1 no matter what ideal it be4 ,no idea should ever be raised to a governing throne4 ,this does not mean that man should immediately cut off his head and try to develop a pair of eyes in his breasts4 ,but it does mean this3 that an idea is just the final concrete or registered result of living dynamic interchange and reactions3 that no idea is ever perfectly expressed until its dynamic cause is finished2 and that to continue to put into dynamic effect an already perfected idea means the nullification of all living activity1 the substitution of mechanism1 and all the resultant horrors of ennui1 ecstasy1 neurasthenia1 and a collapsing psyche4 ,the whole tree of our idea of life and living is dead4 ,then let us leave off hanging ourselves and our children from its branches like medlars4 ,the idea1 the actual idea1 must rise ever fresh1 ever displaced1 like the leaves of a tree1 from out of the quickness of the sap1 and according to the forever incalculable effluence of the great dynamic centers of life4 ,the tree of life is a gay kind of tree that is forever dropping its leaves and budding out afresh1 quite different ones4 ,if the last lot were thistle leaves1 the next lot may be vine4 ,you never can tell with the ,tree of ,life4 ,so we come back to that precious child who costs us such a lot of ink4 ,by what right1 ,i ask you1 are we going to inject into him our own disease-germs of ideas and infallible motives8 ,by the right of the diseased1 who want to infect everybody4 ,there are few1 few people in whom the living impulse and reaction develops and sublimates into mental consciousness4 ,there are all kinds of trees in the forest4 ,but few of them indeed bear the apples of knowledge4 ,the modern world insists1 however1 that every individual shall bear the apples of knowledge4 ,so we go through the forest of mankind1 cut back every tree1 and try to graft it into an apple-tree4 ,a nice wood of monsters we make by so doing4 ,it is not the nature of most men to know and to understand and to reason very far4 ,therefore1 why should they make a pretense of it8 ,it is the nature of some few men to reason1 then let them reason4 ,those whose nature it is to be rational will instinctively ask why and wherefore1 and wrestle with themselves for an answer4 ,but why every ,tom1 ,dick and ,harry should have the why and wherefore of the universe rammed into him1 and should be allowed to draw the conclusion hence that he is the ideal person and responsible for the universe1 ,i don't know4 ,it is a lie anyway--for neither the whys nor the wherefores are his own1 and he is but a parrot with his nut of a universe4 ,why should we cram the mind of a child with facts that have nothing to do with his own experiences1 and have no relation to his own dynamic activity8 ,let us realize that every extraneous idea effectually introduced into a man's mind is a direct obstruction of his dynamic activity4 ,every idea which is introduced from outside into a man's mind1 and which does not correspond to his own dynamic nature1 is a fatal stumbling-block for that man3 is a cause of arrest for his true individual activity1 and a derangement to his psychic being4 ,for instance1 if ,i teach a man the idea that all men are equal4 ,now this idea has no foundation in experience1 but is logically deduced from certain ethical or philosophic principles4 ,but there is a disease of idealism in the world1 and we all are born with it4 ,particularly teachers are born with it4 ,so they seize on the idea of equality1 and proceed to instil it4 ,with what result8 ,your man is no longer a man1 living his own life from his own spontaneous centers4 ,he is a theoretic imbecile trying to frustrate and dislocate all life4 ,it is the death of all life to force a pure idea into practice4 ,life must be lived from the deep1 self-responsible spontaneous centers of every individual1 in a vital1 non-ideal circuit of dynamic relation between individuals4 ,the passions or desires which are thought-born are deadly4 ,any particular mode of passion or desire which receives an exclusive ideal sanction at once becomes poisonous4 ,if this is true for men1 it is much more true for women4 ,teach a woman to act from an idea1 and you destroy her womanhood for ever4 ,make a woman self-conscious1 and her soul is barren as a sandbag4 ,why were we driven out of ,paradise8 ,why did we fall into this gnawing disease of unappeasable dissatisfaction8 ,not because we sinned4 ,ah1 no4 ,all the animals in ,paradise enjoyed the sensual passion of coition4 ,not because we sinned4 ,but because we got our sex into our head4 ,when ,eve ate that particular apple1 she became aware of her own womanhood1 mentally4 ,and mentally she began to experiment with it4 ,she has been experimenting ever since4 ,so has man4 ,to the rage and horror of both of them4 ,these sexual experiments are really anathema4 ,but once a woman is sexually self-conscious1 what is she to do8 ,there it is1 she is born with the disease of her own self-consciousness1 as was her mother before her4 ,she is bound to experiment and try one idea after another1 in the long run always to her own misery4 ,she is bound to have fixed one1 and then another idea of herself1 herself as woman4 ,first she is the noble spouse of a not-quite-so-noble male3 then a ,mater ,dolorosa3 then a ministering ,angel3 then a competent social unit1 a ,member of ,parliament or a ,lady ,doctor or a platform speaker3 and all the while1 as a side show1 she is the ,isolde of some ,tristan1 or the ,guinevere of some ,lancelot1 or the ,fata ,morgana of all men--in her own idea4 ,she can't stop having an idea of herself4 ,she can't get herself out of her own head4 ,and there she is1 functioning away from her own head and her own consciousness of herself and her own automatic self-will1 till the whole man and woman game has become just a hell1 and men with any backbone would rather kill themselves than go on with it--or kill somebody else4 ,yet we are going to inculcate more and more self-consciousness1 teach every little ,mary to be more and more a nice little ,mary out of her own head1 and every little ,joseph to theorize himself up to the scratch4 ,and the point lies here4 ,there will have to come an end4 ,every race which has become self-conscious and idea-bound in the past has perished4 ,and then it has all started afresh1 in a different way1 with another race4 ,and man has never learnt any better4 ,we are really far1 far more life-stupid than the dead ,greeks or the lost ,etruscans4 ,our day is pretty short1 and closing fast4 ,we can pass1 and another race can follow later4 ,but there is another alternative4 ,we still have in us the power to discriminate between our own idealism1 our own self-conscious will1 and that other reality1 our own true spontaneous self4 ,certainly we are so overloaded and diseased with ideas that we can't get well in a minute4 ,but we can set our faces stubbornly against the disease1 once we recognize it4 ,the disease of love1 the disease of spirit1 the disease of niceness and benevolence and feeling good on our own behalf and good on somebody else's behalf4 ,pah1 it is all a gangrene4 ,we can retreat upon the proud1 isolate self1 and remain there alone1 like lepers1 till we are cured of this ghastly white disease of self-conscious idealism4 ,and we really can make a move on our children's behalf4 ,we really can refrain from thrusting our children any more into those hot-beds of the self-conscious disease1 schools4 ,we really can prevent their eating much more of the tissues of leprosy1 newspapers and books4 ,for a time1 there should be no compulsory teaching to read and write at all4 ,the great mass of humanity should never learn to read and write--never4 ,and instead of this gnawing1 gnawing disease of mental consciousness and awful1 unhealthy craving for stimulus and for action1 we must substitute genuine action4 ,the war was really not a bad beginning4 ,but we went out under the banners of idealism1 and now the men are home again1 the virus is more active than ever1 rotting their very souls4 ,the mass of the people will never mentally understand4 ,but they will soon instinctively fall into line4 ,let us substitute action1 all kinds of action1 for the mass of people1 in place of mental activity4 ,even twelve hours' work a day is better than a newspaper at four in the afternoon and a grievance for the rest of the evening4 ,but particularly let us take care of the children4 ,at all cost1 try to prevent a girl's mind from dwelling on herself1 ,make her act1 work1 play3 assume a rule over her girlhood4 ,let her learn the domestic arts in their perfection4 ,let us even artificially set her to spin and weave4 ,anything to keep her busy1 to prevent her reading and becoming self-conscious4 ,let us awake as soon as possible to the repulsive machine quality of machine-made things4 ,they smell of death4 ,and let us insist that the home is sacred1 the hearth1 and the very things of the home4 ,then keep the girls apart from any familiarity or being pals with the boys4 ,the nice clean intimacy which we now so admire between the sexes is sterilizing4 ,it makes neuters4 ,later on1 no deep1 magical sex-life is possible4 ,the same with the boys4 ,first and foremost establish a rule over them1 a proud1 harsh1 manly rule4 ,make them know that at every moment they are in the shadow of a proud1 strong1 adult authority4 ,let them be soldiers1 but as individuals not machine units4 ,there are wars in the future1 great wars1 which not machines will finally decide1 but the free1 indomitable life spirit4 ,no more wars under the banners of the ideal1 and in the spirit of sacrifice4 ,but wars in the strength of individual men4 ,and then1 pure individualistic training to fight1 and preparation for a whole new way of life1 a new society4 ,put money into its place1 and science and industry4 ,the leaders must stand for life1 and they must not ask the simple followers to point out the direction4 ,when the leaders assume responsibility they relieve the followers forever of the burden of finding a way4 ,relieved of this hateful incubus of responsibility for general affairs1 the populace can again become free and happy and spontaneous1 leaving matters to their superiors4 ,no newspapers--the mass of the people never learning to read4 ,the evolving once more of the great spontaneous gestures of life4 ,we can't go on as we are4 ,poor1 nerve-worn creatures1 fretting our lives away and hating to die because we have never lived4 ,the secret is1 to commit into the hands of the sacred few the responsibility which now lies like torture on the mass4 ,let the few1 the leaders1 be increasingly responsible for the whole4 ,and let the mass be free3 free1 save for the choice of leaders4 ,leaders--this is what mankind is craving for4 ,but men must be prepared to obey1 body and soul1 once they have chosen the leader4 ,and let them choose the leader for life's sake only4 ,begin then--there is a beginning4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,education ,,and ,,sex ,,in ,,man1 ,,woman ,,and ,,child ,the one thing we have to avoid1 then1 even while we carry on our own old process of education1 is this development of the powers of so-called self-expression in a child4 ,let us beware of artificially stimulating his self-consciousness and his so-called imagination4 ,all that we do is to pervert the child into a ghastly state of self-consciousness1 making him affectedly try to show off as we wish him to show off4 ,the moment the least little trace of self-consciousness enters in a child1 good-by to everything except falsity4 ,much better just pound away at the ,,abc and simple arithmetic and so on4 ,the modern methods do make children sharp1 give them a sort of slick finesse1 but it is the beginning of the mischief4 ,it ends in the great unrest of a nervous1 hysterical proletariat4 ,begin to teach a child of five to understand4 ,to understand the sun and moon and daisy and the secrets of procreation1 bless your soul4 ,understanding all the way4--,and when the child is twenty he'll have a hysterical understanding of his own invented grievance1 and there's an end of him4 ,understanding is the devil4 ,a child mustn't understand things4 ,he must have them his own way4 ,his vision isn't ours4 ,when a boy of eight sees a horse1 he doesn't see the correct biological object we intend him to see4 ,he sees a big living presence of no particular shape with hair dangling from its neck and four legs4 ,if he puts two eyes in the profile1 he is quite right4 ,because he does not see with optical1 photographic vision4 ,the image on his retina is not the image of his consciousness4 ,the image on his retina just does not go into him4 ,his unconsciousness is filled with a strong1 dark1 vague prescience of a powerful presence1 a two-eyed1 four-legged1 long-maned presence looming imminent4 ,and to force the boy to see a correct one-eyed horse-profile is just like pasting a placard in front of his vision4 ,it simply kills his inward seeing4 ,we don't want him to see a proper horse4 ,the child is not a little camera4 ,he is a small vital organism which has direct dynamic rapport with the objects of the outer universe4 ,he perceives from his breast and his abdomen1 with deep-sunken realism1 the elemental nature of the creature4 ,so that to this day a ,noah's ,ark tree is more real than a ,corot tree or a ,constable tree3 and a flat ,noah's ,ark cow has a deeper vital reality than even a ,cuyp cow4 ,the mode of vision is not one and final4 ,the mode of vision is manifold4 ,and the optical image is a mere vibrating blur to a child--and1 indeed1 to a passionate adult4 ,in this vibrating blur the soul sees its own true correspondent4 ,it sees1 in a cow1 horns and squareness1 and a long tail4 ,it sees1 for a horse1 a mane1 and a long face1 round nose1 and four legs4 ,and in each case a darkly vital presence4 ,now horns and squareness and a long thin ox-tail1 these are the fearful and wonderful elements of the cow-form1 which the dynamic soul perfectly perceives4 ,the ideal-image is just outside nature1 for a child--something false4 ,in a picture1 a child wants elemental recognition1 and not correctness or expression1 or least of all1 what we call understanding4 ,the child distorts inevitably and dynamically4 ,but the dynamic abstraction is more than mental4 ,if a huge eye sits in the middle of the cheek1 in a child's drawing1 this shows that the deep dynamic consciousness of the eye1 its relative exaggeration1 is the life-truth1 even if it is a scientific falsehood4 ,on the other hand1 what on earth is the good of saying to a child1 ,the world is a flattened sphere1 like an orange4 ,it is simply pernicious4 ,you had much better say the world is a poached egg in a frying pan4 ,that might have some dynamic meaning4 ,the only thing about the flattened orange is that the child just sees this orange disporting itself in blue air1 and never bothers to associate it with the earth he treads on4 ,and yet it would be so much better for the mass of mankind if they never heard of the flattened sphere4 ,they should never be told that the earth is round4 ,it only makes everything unreal to them4 ,they are balked in their impression of the flat good earth1 they can't get over this sphere business1 they live in a fog of abstraction1 and nothing is anything4 ,save for purposes of abstraction1 the earth is a great plain1 with hills and valleys4 ,why force abstractions and kill the reality1 when there's no need8 ,as for children1 will we never realize that their abstractions are never based on observations1 but on subjective exaggerations8 ,if there is an eye in the face1 the face is all eye4 ,it is the child soul which cannot get over the mystery of the eye4 ,if there is a tree in a landscape1 the landscape is all tree4 ,always this partial focus4 ,the attempt to make a child focus for a whole view--which is really a generalization and an adult abstraction--is simply wicked4 ,yet the first thing we do is to set a child making relief-maps in clay1 for example3 of his own district4 ,imbecility6 ,he has not even the faintest impression of the total hill on which his home stands4 ,a steepness going up to a door--and front garden railings--and perhaps windows4 ,that's the lot4 ,the top and bottom of it is1 that it is a crime to teach a child anything at all1 school-wise4 ,it is just evil to collect children together and teach them through the head4 ,it causes absolute starvation in the dynamic centers1 and sterile substitute of brain knowledge is all the gain4 ,the children of the middle classes are so vitally impoverished1 that the miracle is they continue to exist at all4 ,the children of the lower classes do better1 because they escape into the streets4 ,but even the children of the proletariat are now infected4 ,and1 of course1 as my critics point out1 under all the school-smarm and newspaper-cant1 man is to-day as savage as a cannibal1 and more dangerous4 ,the living dynamic self is denaturalized instead of being educated4 ,we talk about education--leading forth the natural intelligence of a child4 ,but ours is just the opposite of leading forth4 ,it is a ramming in of brain facts through the head1 and a consequent distortion1 suffocation1 and starvation of the primary centers of consciousness4 ,a nice day of reckoning we've got in front of us4 ,let us lead forth1 by all means4 ,but let us not have mental knowledge before us as the goal of the leading4 ,much less let us make of it a vicious circle in which we lead the unhappy child-mind1 like a cow in a ring at a fair4 ,we don't want to educate children so that they may understand4 ,understanding is a fallacy and a vice in most people4 ,i don't even want my child to know1 much less to understand4 ,i don't want my child to know that five fives are twenty-five1 any more than ,i want my child to wear my hat or my boots4 ,i don't want my child to know4 ,if he wants five fives let him count them on his fingers4 ,as for his little mind1 give it a rest1 and let his dynamic self be alert4 ,he will ask why often enough4 ,but he more often asks why the sun shines1 or why men have mustaches1 or why grass is green1 than anything sensible4 ,most of a child's questions are1 and should be1 unanswerable4 ,they are not questions at all4 ,they are exclamations of wonder1 they are remarks half-sceptically addressed4 ,when a child says1 ,why is grass green8 he half implies4 ,is it really green1 or is it just taking me in8 ,and we solemnly begin to prate about chlorophyll4 ,oh1 imbeciles1 idiots1 inexcusable owls6 ,the whole of a child's development goes on from the great dynamic centers1 and is basically non-mental4 ,to introduce mental activity is to arrest the dynamic activity1 and stultify true dynamic development4 ,by the age of twenty-one our young people are helpless1 hopeless1 selfless1 floundering mental entities1 with nothing in front of them1 because they have been starved from the roots1 systematically1 for twenty-one years1 and fed through the head4 ,they have had all their mental excitements1 sex and everything1 all through the head1 and when it comes to the actual thing1 why1 there's nothing in it4 ,blase4 ,the affective centers have been exhausted from the head4 ,before the age of fourteen1 children should be taught only to move1 to act1 to do4 ,and they should be taught as little as possible even of this4 ,adults simply cannot and do not know any more what the mode of childish intelligence is4 ,adults always interfere4 ,they always force the adult mental mode4 ,therefore children must be preserved from adult instructions4 ,make a child work--yes4 ,make it do little jobs4 ,keep a fine and delicate and fierce discipline1 so that the little jobs are performed as perfectly as is consistent with the child's nature4 ,make the child alert1 proud1 and becoming in its movements4 ,make it know very definitely that it shall not and must not trespass on other people's privacy or patience4 ,teach it songs1 tell it tales4 ,but never instruct it school-wise4 ,and mostly1 leave it alone1 send it away to be with other children and to get in and out of mischief1 and in and out of danger4 ,forget your child altogether as much as possible4 ,all this is the active and strenuous business of parents1 and must not be shelved off on to strangers4 ,it is the business of parents mentally to forget but dynamically never to forsake their children4 ,it is no use expecting parents to know why schools are closed1 and why they1 the parents1 must be quite responsible for their own children during the first ten years4 ,if it is quite useless to expect parents to understand a theory of relativity1 much less will they understand the development of the dynamic consciousness4 ,but why should they understand8 ,it is the business of very few to understand and for the mass1 it is their business to believe and not to bother1 but to be honorable and humanly to fulfill their human responsibilities4 ,to give active obedience to their leaders1 and to possess their own souls in natural pride4 ,some must understand why a child is not to be mentally educated4 ,some must have a faint inkling of the processes of consciousness during the first fourteen years4 ,some must know what a child beholds1 when it looks at a horse1 and what it means when it says1 ,why is grass green8 ,the answer to this question1 by the way1 is ,because it is4 ,the interplay of the four dynamic centers follows no one conceivable law4 ,mental activity continues according to a law of co-relation4 ,but there is no logical or rational co-relation in the dynamic consciousness4 ,it pulses on inconsequential1 and it would be impossible to determine any sequence4 ,out of the very lack of sequence in dynamic consciousness does the individual himself develop4 ,the dynamic abstraction of a child's precepts follows no mental law1 and even no law which can ever be mentally propounded4 ,and this is why it is utterly pernicious to set a child making a clay relief-map of its own district1 or to ask a child to draw conclusions from given observations4 ,dynamically1 a child draws no conclusions4 ,all things still remain dynamically possible4 ,a conclusion drawn is a nail in the coffin of a child's developing being4 ,let a child make a clay landscape1 if it likes4 ,but entirely according to its own fancy1 and without conclusions drawn4 ,only1 let the landscape be vividly made--always the discipline of the soul's full attention4 ,oh1 but where are the factory chimneys8--or else--,why have you left out the gas-works8 or ,do you call that sloppy thing a church8 ,the particular focus should be vivid1 and the record in some way true4 ,the soul must give earnest attention1 that is all4 ,and so actively disciplined1 the child develops for the first ten years4 ,we need not be afraid of letting children see the passions and reactions of adult life4 ,only we must not strain the sympathies of a child1 in any direction1 particularly the direction of love and pity4 ,nor must we introduce the fallacy of right and wrong4 ,spontaneous distaste should take the place of right and wrong4 ,and least of all must there be a cry3 ,you see1 dear1 you don't understand4 ,when you are older-- ,a child's sagacity is better than an adult understanding1 anyhow4 ,of course it is ten times criminal to tell young children facts about sex1 or to implicate them in adult relationships4 ,a child has a strong evanescent sex consciousness4 ,it instinctively writes impossible words on back walls4 ,but this is not a fully conscious mental act4 ,it is a kind of dream act--quite natural4 ,the child's curious1 shadowy1 indecent sex-knowledge is quite in the course of nature4 ,and does nobody any harm at all4 ,adults had far better not notice it4 ,but if a child sees a cockerel tread a hen1 or two dogs coupling1 well and good4 ,it should see these things4 ,only1 without comment4 ,let nothing be exaggeratedly hidden4 ,by instinct1 let us preserve the decent privacies4 ,but if a child occasionally sees its parent nude1 taking a bath1 all the better4 ,or even sitting in the ,w4 ,c4 ,exaggerated secrecy is bad4 ,but indecent exposure is also very bad4 ,but worst of all is dragging in the mental consciousness of these shadowy dynamic realities4 ,in the same way1 to talk to a child about an adult is vile4 ,let adults keep their adult feelings and communications for people of their own age4 ,but if a child sees its parents violently quarrel1 all the better4 ,there must be storms4 ,and a child's dynamic understanding is far deeper and more penetrating than our sophisticated interpretation4 ,but never make a child a party to adult affairs4 ,never drag the child in4 ,refuse its sympathy on such occasions4 ,always treat it as if it had no business to hear1 even if it is present and must hear4 ,truly1 it has no business mentally to hear4 ,and the dynamic soul will always weigh things up and dispose of them properly1 if there be no interference of adult comment or adult desire for sympathy4 ,it is despicable for any one parent to accept a child's sympathy against the other parent4 ,and the one who received the sympathy is always more contemptible than the one who is hated4 ,of course so many children are born to-day unnaturally mentally awake and alive to adult affairs1 that there is nothing left but to tell them everything1 crudely3 or else1 much better1 to say3 ,ah1 get out1 you know too much1 you make me sick4 ,to return to the question of sex4 ,a child is born sexed4 ,a child is either male or female1 in the whole of its psyche and physique is either male or female4 ,every single living cell is either male or female1 and will remain either male or female as long as life lasts4 ,and every single cell in every male child is male1 and every cell in every female child is female4 ,the talk about a third sex1 or about the indeterminate sex1 is just to pervert the issue4 ,biologically1 it is true1 the rudimentary formation of both sexes is found in every individual4 ,that doesn't mean that every individual is a bit of both1 or either1 ad lib4 ,after a sufficient period of idealism1 men become hopelessly self-conscious4 ,that is1 the great affective centers no longer act spontaneously1 but always wait for control from the head4 ,this always breeds a great fluster in the psyche1 and the poor self-conscious individual cannot help posing and posturing4 ,our ideal has taught us to be gentle and wistful3 rather girlish and yielding1 and very yielding in our sympathies4 ,in fact1 many young men feel so very like what they imagine a girl must feel1 that hence they draw the conclusion that they must have a large share of female sex inside them4 ,false conclusion4 ,these girlish men have often1 to-day1 the finest maleness1 once it is put to the test4 ,how is it then that they feel1 and look1 so girlish8 ,it is largely a question of the direction of the polarized flow4 ,our ideal has taught us to be so loving and so submissive and so yielding in our sympathy1 that the mode has become automatic in many men4 ,now in what we will call the natural mode1 man has his positivity in the volitional centers1 and women in the sympathetic4 ,in fulfilling the ,christian love ideal1 however1 men have reversed this4 ,man has assumed the gentle1 all-sympathetic role1 and woman has become the energetic party1 with the authority in her hands4 ,the male is the sensitive1 sympathetic nature1 the woman the active1 effective1 authoritative4 ,so that the male acts as the passive1 or recipient pole of attraction1 the female as the active1 positive1 exertive pole1 in human relations4 ,which is a reversal of the old flow4 ,the woman is now the initiator1 man the responder4 ,they seem to play each other's parts4 ,but man is purely male1 playing woman's part1 and woman is purely female1 however manly4 ,the gulf between ,heliogabalus1 or the most womanly man on earth1 and the most manly woman1 is just the same as ever3 just the same old gulf between the sexes4 ,the man is male1 the woman is female4 ,only they are playing one another's parts1 as they must at certain periods4 ,the dynamic polarity has swung around4 ,if we look a little closer1 we can define this positive and negative business better4 ,as a matter of fact1 positive and negative1 passive and active cuts both ways4 ,if the man1 as thinker and doer1 is active1 or positive1 and the woman negative1 then1 on the other hand1 as the initiator of emotion1 of feeling1 and of sympathetic understanding the woman is positive1 the man negative4 ,the man may be the initiator in action1 but the woman is initiator in emotion4 ,the man has the initiative as far as voluntary activity goes1 and the woman the initiative as far as sympathetic activity goes4 ,in love1 it is the woman naturally who loves1 the man who is loved4 ,in love1 woman is the positive1 man the negative4 ,it is woman who asks1 in love1 and man who answers4 ,in life1 the reverse is the case4 ,in knowing and in doing1 man is positive and woman negative3 man initiates1 and woman lives up to it4 ,naturally this nicely arranged order of things may be reversed4 ,action and utterance1 which are male1 are polarized against feeling1 emotion1 which are female4 ,and which is positive1 which negative8 ,was man1 the eternal protagonist1 born of woman1 from her womb of fathomless emotion8 ,or was woman1 with her deep womb of emotion1 born from the rib of active man1 the first created8 ,man1 the doer1 the knower1 the original in being1 is he lord of life8 ,or is woman1 the great ,mother1 who bore us from the womb of love1 is she the supreme ,goddess8 ,this is the question of all time4 ,and as long as man and woman endure1 so will the answer be given1 first one way1 then the other4 ,man1 as the utterer1 usually claims that ,eve was created out of his spare rib3 from the field of the creative1 upper dynamic consciousness1 that is4 ,but woman1 as soon as she gets a word in1 points to the fact that man inevitably1 poor darling1 is the issue of his mother's womb4 ,so the battle rages4 ,but some men always agree with the woman4 ,some men always yield to woman the creative positivity4 ,and in certain periods1 such as the present1 the majority of men concur in regarding woman as the source of life1 the first term in creation3 woman1 the mother1 the prime being4 ,and then1 the whole polarity shifts over4 ,man still remains the doer and thinker4 ,but he is so only in the service of emotional and procreative woman4 ,his highest moment is now the emotional moment when he gives himself up to the woman1 when he forms the perfect answer for her great emotional and procreative asking4 ,all his thinking1 all his activity in the world only contributes to this great moment1 when he is fulfilled in the emotional passion of the woman1 the birth of rebirth1 as ,whitman calls it4 ,in his consummation in the emotional passion of a woman1 man is reborn1 which is quite true4 ,and there is the point at which we all now stick4 ,life1 thought1 and activity1 all are devoted truly to the great end of ,woman1 wife and mother4 ,man has now entered on to his negative mode4 ,now1 his consummation is in feeling1 not in action4 ,now1 his activity is all of the domestic order and all his thought goes to proving that nothing matters except that birth shall continue and woman shall rock in the nest of this globe like a bird who covers her eggs in some tall tree4 ,man is the fetcher1 the carrier1 the sacrifice1 the crucified1 and the reborn of woman4 ,this being so1 the whole tendency of his nature changes4 ,instead of being assertive and rather insentient1 he becomes wavering and sensitive4 ,he begins to have as many feelings--nay1 more than a woman4 ,his heroism is all in altruistic endurance4 ,he worships pity and tenderness and weakness1 even in himself4 ,in short1 he takes on very largely the original role of woman4 ,woman meanwhile becomes the fearless1 inwardly relentless1 determined positive party4 ,she grips the responsibility4 ,the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world4 ,nay1 she makes man discover that cradles should not be rocked1 in order that her hands may be left free4 ,she is now a queen of the earth1 and inwardly a fearsome tyrant4 ,she keeps pity and tenderness emblazoned on her banners4 ,but ,god help the man whom she pities4 ,ultimately she tears him to bits4 ,therefore we see the reversal of the old poles4 ,man becomes the emotional party1 woman the positive and active4 ,man begins to show strong signs of the peculiarly strong passive sex desire1 the desire to be taken1 which is considered characteristic of woman4 ,man begins to have all the feelings of woman--or all the feelings which he attributed to woman4 ,he becomes more feminine than woman ever was1 and worships his own femininity1 calling it the highest4 ,in short1 he begins to exhibit all signs of sexual complexity4 ,he begins to imagine he really is half female4 ,and certainly woman seems very male4 ,so the hermaphrodite fallacy revives again4 ,but it is all a fallacy4 ,man1 in the midst of all his effeminacy1 is still male and nothing but male4 ,and woman1 though she harangue in ,parliament or patrol the streets with a helmet on her head1 is still completely female4 ,they are only playing each other's roles1 because the poles have swung into reversion4 ,the compass is reversed4 ,but that doesn't mean that the north pole has become the south pole1 or that each is a bit of both4 ,of course a woman should stick to her own natural emotional positivity4 ,but then man must stick to his own positivity of being1 of action1 disinterested1 non-domestic1 male action1 which is not devoted to the increase of the female4 ,once man vacates his camp of sincere1 passionate positivity in disinterested being1 his supreme responsibility to fulfill his own profoundest impulses1 with reference to none but ,god or his own soul1 not taking woman into count at all1 in this primary responsibility to his own deepest soul2 once man vacates this strong citadel of his own genuine1 not spurious1 divinity2 then in comes woman1 picks up the scepter and begins to conduct a rag-time band4 ,man remains man1 however he may put on wistfulness and tenderness like petticoats1 and sensibilities like pearl ornaments4 ,your sensitive little big-eyed boy1 so much more gentle and loving than his harder sister1 is male for all that1 believe me4 ,perhaps evilly male1 so mothers may learn to their cost3 and wives still more4 ,of course there should be a great balance between the sexes4 ,man1 in the daytime1 must follow his own soul's greatest impulse1 and give himself to life-work and risk himself to death4 ,it is not woman who claims the highest in man4 ,it is a man's own religious soul that drives him on beyond woman1 to his supreme activity4 ,for his highest1 man is responsible to ,god alone4 ,he may not pause to remember that he has a life to lose1 or a wife and children to leave4 ,he must carry forward the banner of life1 though seven worlds perish1 with all the wives and mothers and children in them4 ,hence ,jesus1 ,woman1 what have ,i to do with thee8 ,every man that lives has to say it again to his wife or mother1 once he has any work or mission in hand1 that comes from his soul4 ,but again1 no man is a blooming marvel for twenty-four hours a day4 ,jesus or ,napoleon or any other of them ought to have been man enough to be able to come home at tea-time and put his slippers on and sit under the spell of his wife4 ,for there you are1 the woman has her world1 her positivity3 the world of love1 of emotion1 of sympathy4 ,and it behooves every man in his hour to take off his shoes and relax and give himself up to his woman and her world4 ,not to give up his purpose4 ,but to give up himself for a time to her who is his mate4--,and so it is one detests the clock-work ,kant1 and the petit-bourgeois ,napoleon divorcing his ,josephine for a ,hapsburg--or even ,jesus1 with his ,woman1 what have ,i to do with thee8--,he might have added just now4--,they were all failures4 ,,chapter ,,ix ,,the ,,birth ,,of ,,sex ,the last chapter was a chapter of semi-digression4 ,we now return to the straight course4 ,is the straightness none too evident8 ,ah well1 it's a matter of relativity4 ,a child is born with one sex only1 and remains always single in his sex4 ,there is no intermingling1 only a great change of roles is possible4 ,but man in the female role is still male4 ,sex--that is to say1 maleness and femaleness--is present from the moment of birth1 and in every act or deed of every child4 ,but sex in the real sense of dynamic sexual relationship1 this does not exist in a child1 and cannot exist until puberty and after4 ,true1 children have a sort of sex consciousness4 ,little boys and little girls may even commit indecencies together4 ,and still it is nothing vital4 ,it is a sort of shadow activity1 a sort of dream-activity4 ,it has no very profound effect4 ,but still1 boys and girls should be kept apart as much as possible1 that they may have some sort of respect and fear for the gulf that lies between them in nature1 and for the great strangeness which each has to offer the other1 finally4 ,we are all wrong when we say there is no vital difference between the sexes4 ,there is every difference4 ,every bit1 every cell in a boy is male1 every cell is female in a woman1 and must remain so4 ,women can never feel or know as men do4 ,and in the reverse men can never feel and know1 dynamically1 as women do4 ,man1 acting in the passive or feminine polarity1 is still man1 and he doesn't have one single unmanly feeling4 ,and women1 when they speak and write1 utter not one single word that men have not taught them4 ,men learn their feelings from women1 women learn their mental consciousness from men4 ,and so it will ever be4 ,meanwhile1 women live forever by feeling1 and men live forever from an inherent sense of purpose4 ,feeling is an end in itself4 ,this is unspeakable truth to a woman1 and never true for one minute to a man4 ,when man1 in the ,epicurean spirit1 embraces feeling1 he makes himself a martyr to it--like ,maupassant or ,oscar ,wilde4 ,woman will never understand the depth of the spirit of purpose in man1 his deeper spirit4 ,and man will never understand the sacredness of feeling to woman4 ,each will play at the other's game1 but they will remain apart4 ,the whole mode1 the whole everything is really different in man and woman4 ,therefore we should keep boys and girls apart1 that they are pure and virgin in themselves4 ,on mixing with one another1 in becoming familiar1 in being pals1 they lose their own male and female integrity4 ,and they lose the treasure of the future1 the vital sex polarity1 the dynamic magic of life4 ,for the magic and the dynamism rests on otherness4 ,for actual sex is a vital polarity4 ,and a polarity which rouses into action1 as we know1 at puberty4 ,and how8 ,as we know1 a child lives from the great field of dynamic consciousness established between the four poles of the dynamic psyche1 two great poles of sympathy1 two great poles of will4 ,the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion1 great nerve-centers below the diaphragm1 act as the dynamic origin of all consciousness in man1 and are immediately polarized by the other two nerve-centers1 the cardiac plexus and the thoracic ganglion above the diaphragm4 ,at these four poles the whole flow1 both within the individual and from without him1 of dynamic consciousness and dynamic creative relationship is centered4 ,these four first poles constitute the first field of dynamic consciousness for the first twelve or fourteen years of the life of every child4 ,and then a change takes place4 ,it takes place slowly1 gradually and inevitably1 utterly beyond our provision or control4 ,the living soul is unfolding itself in another great metamorphosis4 ,what happens1 in the biological psyche1 is that deeper centers of consciousness and function come awake4 ,deep in the lower body the great sympathetic center1 the hypogastric plexus has been acting all the time in a kind of dream-automatism1 balanced by its corresponding voluntary center1 the sacral ganglion4 ,at the age of twelve these two centers begin slowly to rumble awake1 with a deep reverberant force that changes the whole constitution of the life of the individual4 ,and as these two centers1 the sympathetic center of the deeper abdomen1 and the voluntary center of the loins1 gradually sparkle into wakeful1 conscious activity1 their corresponding poles are roused in the upper body4 ,in the region of the throat and neck1 the so-called cervical plexuses and the cervical ganglia dawn into activity4 ,we have now another field of dawning dynamic consciousness1 that will extend far beyond the first4 ,and now various things happen to us4 ,first of all actual sex establishes its strange and troublesome presence within us4 ,this is the massive wakening of the lower body4 ,and then1 in the upper body1 the breasts of a woman begin to develop1 her throat changes its form4 ,and in the man1 the voice breaks1 the beard begins to grow round the lips and on to the throat4 ,there are the obvious physiological changes resulting from the gradual bursting into free activity of the hypogastric plexus and the sacral ganglion1 in the lower body1 and of the cervical plexuses and ganglia of the neck1 in the upper body4 ,why the growth of hair should start at the lower and upper sympathetic regions we cannot say4 ,perhaps for protection4 ,perhaps to preserve these powerful yet supersensitive nodes from the inclemency of changes in temperature1 which might cause a derangement4 ,perhaps for the sake of protective warning1 as hair warns when it is touched4 ,perhaps for a screen against various dynamic vibrations1 and as a receiver of other suited dynamic vibrations4 ,it may be that even the hair of the head acts as a sensitive vibration-medium for conveying currents of physical and vitalistic activity to and from the brain4 ,and perhaps from the centers of intense vital surcharge hair springs as a sort of annunciation or declaration1 like a crest of life-assertion4 ,perhaps all these things1 and perhaps others4 ,but with the bursting awake of the four new poles of dynamic consciousness and being1 change takes place in everything1 the features now begin to take individual form1 the limbs develop out of the soft round matrix of child-form1 the body resolves itself into distinctions4 ,a strange creative change in being has taken place4 ,the child before puberty is quite another thing from the child after puberty4 ,strange indeed is this new birth1 this rising from the sea of childhood into a new being4 ,it is a resurrection which we fear4 ,and now1 a new world1 a new heaven and a new earth4 ,now new relationships are formed1 the old ones retire from their prominence4 ,now mother and father inevitably give way before masters and mistresses1 brothers and sisters yield to friends4 ,this is the period of ,schwaermerei1 of young adoration and of real initial friendships4 ,a child before puberty has playmates4 ,after puberty he has friends and enemies4 ,a whole new field of passional relationship4 ,and the old bonds relaxing1 the old love retreating4 ,the father and mother bonds now relax1 though they never break4 ,the family love wanes1 though it never dies4 ,it is the hour of the stranger4 ,let the stranger now enter the soul4 ,and it is the first hour of true individuality1 the first hour of genuine1 responsible solitariness4 ,a child knows the abyss of forlornness4 ,but an adolescent alone knows the strange pain of growing into his own isolation of individuality4 ,all this change is an agony and a bliss4 ,it is a cataclysm and a new world4 ,it is our most serious hour1 perhaps4 ,and yet we cannot be responsible for it4 ,now sex comes into active being4 ,until puberty1 sex is submerged1 nascent1 incipient only4 ,after puberty1 it is a tremendous factor4 ,what is sex1 really8 ,we can never say1 satisfactorily4 ,but we know so much3 we know that it is a dynamic polarity between human beings1 and a circuit of force always flowing4 ,the psychoanalyst is right so far4 ,there can be no vivid relation between two adult individuals which does not consist in a dynamic polarized flow of vitalistic force or magnetism or electricity1 call it what you will1 between these two people4 ,yet is this dynamic flow inevitably sexual in nature8 ,this is the moot point for psychoanalysis4 ,but let us look at sex1 in its obvious manifestation4 ,the sexual relation between man and woman consummates in the act of coition4 ,now what is the act of coition8 ,we know its functional purpose of procreation4 ,but1 after all our experience and all our poetry and novels we know that the procreative purpose of sex is1 to the individual man and woman1 just a side-show4 ,to the individual1 the act of coition is a great psychic experience1 a vital experience of tremendous importance4 ,on this vital individual experience the life and very being of the individual largely depends4 ,but what is the experience8 ,untellable4 ,only1 we know something4 ,we know that in the act of coition the blood of the individual man1 acutely surcharged with intense vital electricity--we know no word1 so say electricity1 by analogy--rises to a culmination1 in a tremendous magnetic urge towards the magnetic blood of the female4 ,the whole of the living blood in the two individuals forms a field of intense1 polarized magnetic attraction4 ,so1 the two poles must be brought into contact4 ,in the act of coition1 the two seas of blood in the two individuals1 rocking and surging towards contact1 as near as possible1 clash into a oneness4 ,a great flash of interchange occurs1 like an electric spark when two currents meet or like lightning out of the densely surcharged clouds4 ,there is a lightning flash which passes through the blood of both individuals1 there is a thunder of sensation which rolls in diminishing crashes down the nerves of each--and then the tension passes4 ,the two individuals are separate again4 ,but are they as they were before8 ,is the air the same after a thunder-storm as before8 ,no4 ,the air is as it were new1 fresh1 tingling with newness4 ,so is the blood of man and woman after successful coition4 ,after a false coition1 like prostitution1 there is not newness but a certain disintegration4 ,but after coition1 the actual chemical constitution of the blood is so changed1 that usually sleep intervenes1 to allow the time for chemical1 biological readjustment through the whole system4 ,so1 the blood is changed and renewed1 refreshed1 almost recreated1 like the atmosphere after thunder4 ,out of the newness of the living blood pass the new strange waves which beat upon the great dynamic centers of the nerves3 primarily upon the hypogastric plexus and the sacral ganglion4 ,from these centers rise new impulses1 new vision1 new being1 rising like ,aphrodite from the foam of the new tide of blood4 ,and so individual life goes on4 ,perhaps1 then1 we will allow ourselves to say what1 in psychic individual reality1 is the act of coition4 ,it is the bringing together of the surcharged electric blood of the male with the polarized electric blood of the female1 with the result of a tremendous flashing interchange1 which alters the constitution of the blood1 and the very quality of being1 in both4 ,and this1 surely1 is sex4 ,but is this the whole of sex8 ,that is the question4 ,after coition1 we say the blood is renewed4 ,we say that from the new1 finely sparkling blood new thrills pass into the great affective centers of the lower body1 new thrills of feeling1 of impulse1 of energy4--,and what about these new thrills8 ,now1 a new story4 ,the new thrills are passed on to the great upper centers of the dynamic body4 ,the individual polarity now changes1 within the individual system4 ,the upper centers1 cardiac plexus and cervical plexuses1 thoracic ganglion and cervical ganglia now assume positivity4 ,these1 the upper polarized centers1 have now the positive role to play1 the solar and the hypogastric plexuses1 the lumbar and the sacral ganglia1 these have the submissive1 negative role for the time being4 ,and what then8 ,what now1 that the upper centers are finely active in positivity8 ,now it is a different story4 ,now there is new vision in the eyes1 new hearing in the ears1 new voice in the throat and speech on the lips4 ,now the new song rises1 the brain tingles to new thought1 the heart craves for new activity4 ,the heart craves for new activity4 ,for new collective activity4 ,that is1 for a new polarized connection with other beings1 other men4 ,is this new craving for polarized communion with others1 this craving for a new unison1 is it sexual1 like the original craving for the woman8 ,not at all4 ,the whole polarity is different4 ,now1 the positive poles are the poles of the breast and shoulders and throat1 the poles of activity and full consciousness4 ,men1 being themselves made new after the act of coition1 wish to make the world new4 ,a new1 passionate polarity springs up between men who are bent on the same activity1 the polarity between man and woman sinks to passivity4 ,it is now daytime1 and time to forget sex1 time to be busy making a new world4 ,is this new polarity1 this new circuit of passion between comrades and co-workers1 is this also sexual8 ,it is a vivid circuit of polarized passion4 ,is it hence sex8 ,it is not4 ,because what are the poles of positive connection8--the upper1 busy poles4 ,what is the dynamic contact8--a unison in spirit1 in understanding1 and a pure commingling in one great work4 ,a mingling of the individual passion into one great purpose4 ,now this is also a grand consummation for men1 this mingling of many with one great impassioned purpose4 ,but is this sex8 ,knowing what sex is1 can we call this other also sex8 ,we cannot4 ,this meeting of many in one great passionate purpose is not sex1 and should never be confused with sex4 ,it is a great motion in the opposite direction4 ,and ,i am sure that the ultimate1 greatest desire in men is this desire for great purposive activity4 ,when man loses his deep sense of purposive1 creative activity1 he feels lost1 and is lost4 ,when he makes the sexual consummation the supreme consummation1 even in his secret soul1 he falls into the beginnings of despair4 ,when he makes woman1 or the woman and child the great center of life and of life-significance1 he falls into the beginnings of despair4 ,man must bravely stand by his own soul1 his own responsibility as the creative vanguard of life4 ,and he must also have the courage to go home to his woman and become a perfect answer to her deep sexual call4 ,but he must never confuse his two issues4 ,primarily and supremely man is always the pioneer of life1 adventuring onward into the unknown1 alone with his own temerarious1 dauntless soul4 ,woman for him exists only in the twilight1 by the camp fire1 when day has departed4 ,evening and the night are hers4 ,the psychoanalysts1 driving us back to the sexual consummation always1 do us infinite damage4 ,we have to break away1 back to the great unison of manhood in some passionate purpose4 ,now this is not like sex4 ,sex is always individual4 ,a man has his own sex3 nobody else's4 ,and sexually he goes as a single individual2 he can mingle only singly4 ,so that to make sex a general affair is just a perversion and a lie4 ,you can't get people and talk to them about their sex1 as if it were a common interest4 ,we have got to get back to the great purpose of manhood1 a passionate unison in actively making a world4 ,this is a real commingling of many4 ,and in such a commingling we forfeit the individual4 ,in the commingling of sex we are alone with one partner4 ,it is an individual affair1 there is no superior or inferior4 ,but in the commingling of a passionate purpose1 each individual sacredly abandons his individual4 ,in the living faith of his soul1 he surrenders his individuality to the great urge which is upon him4 ,he may have to surrender his name1 his fame1 his fortune1 his life1 everything4 ,but once a man1 in the integrity of his own individual soul1 believes1 he surrenders his own individuality to his belief1 and becomes one of a united body4 ,he knows what he does4 ,he makes the surrender honorably1 in agreement with his own soul's deepest desire4 ,but he surrenders1 and remains responsible for the purity of his surrender4 ,but what if he believes that his sexual consummation is his supreme consummation8 ,then he serves the great purpose to which he pledges himself only as long as it pleases him4 ,after which he turns it down1 and goes back to sex4 ,with sex as the one accepted prime motive1 the world drifts into despair and anarchy4 ,of all countries1 ,america has most to fear from anarchy1 even from one single moment's lapse into anarchy4 ,the old nations are organically fixed into classes1 but ,america not4 ,you can shake ,europe to atoms4 ,and yet peasants fall back to peasantry1 artisans to industrial labor1 upper classes to their control--inevitably4 ,but can you say the same of ,america8 ,america must not lapse for one single moment into anarchy4 ,it would be the end of her4 ,she must drift no nearer to anarchy4 ,she is near enough4 ,well1 then1 ,americans must make a choice4 ,it is a choice between belief in man's creative1 spontaneous soul1 and man's automatic power of production and reproduction4 ,it is a choice between serving man1 or woman4 ,it is a choice between yielding the soul to a leader1 leaders1 or yielding only to the woman1 wife1 mistress1 or mother4 ,the great collective passion of belief which brings men together1 comrades and co-workers1 passionately obeying their soul-chosen leader or leaders1 this is not a sex passion4 ,not in any sense4 ,sex holds any two people together1 but it tends to disintegrate society1 unless it is subordinated to the great dominating male passion of collective purpose4 ,but when the sex passion submits to the great purposive passion1 then you have fulness4 ,and no great purposive passion can endure long unless it is established upon the fulfillment in the vast majority of individuals of the true sexual passion4 ,no great motive or ideal or social principle can endure for any length of time unless based upon the sexual fulfillment of the vast majority of individuals concerned4 ,it cuts both ways4 ,assert sex as the predominant fulfillment1 and you get the collapse of living purpose in man4 ,you get anarchy4 ,assert purposiveness as the one supreme and pure activity of life1 and you drift into barren sterility1 like our business life of to-day1 and our political life4 ,you become sterile1 you make anarchy inevitable4 ,and so there you are4 ,you have got to base your great purposive activity upon the intense sexual fulfillment of all your individuals4 ,that was how ,egypt endured4 ,but you have got to keep your sexual fulfillment even then subordinate1 just subordinate to the great passion of purpose3 subordinate by a hair's breadth only3 but still1 by that hair's breadth1 subordinate4 ,perhaps we can see now a little better--to go back to the child--where ,freud is wrong in attributing a sexual motive to all human activity4 ,it is obvious there is no real sexual motive in a child1 for example4 ,the great sexual centers are not even awake4 ,true1 even in a child of three1 rudimentary sex throws strange shadows on the wall1 in its approach from the distance4 ,but these are only an uneasy intrusion from the as-yet-uncreated1 unready biological centers4 ,the great sexual centers of the hypogastric plexus1 and the immensely powerful sacral ganglion are slowly prepared1 developed in a kind of prenatal gestation during childhood before puberty4 ,but even an unborn child kicks in the womb4 ,so do the great sex-centers give occasional blind kicks in a child4 ,it is part of the phenomenon of childhood4 ,but we must be most careful not to charge these rather unpleasant apparitions or phenomena against the individual boy or girl4 ,we must be very careful not to drag the matter into mental consciousness4 ,shoo it away4 ,reprimand it with a pah6 and a faugh6 and a bit of contempt4 ,but do not get into any heat or any fear4 ,do not startle a passional attention4 ,drive the whole thing away like the shadow it is1 and be very careful not to drive it into the consciousness4 ,be very careful to plant no seed of burning shame or horror4 ,throw over it merely the cold water of contemptuous indifference1 dismissal4 ,after puberty1 a child may as well be told the simple and necessary facts of sex4 ,as things stand1 the parent may as well do it4 ,but briefly1 coldly1 and with as cold a dismissal as possible4--,look here1 you're not a child any more2 you know it1 don't you8 ,you're going to be a man4 ,and you know what that means4 ,it means you're going to marry a woman later on1 and get children4 ,you know it1 and ,i know it4 ,but in the meantime1 leave yourself alone4 ,i know you'll have a lot of bother with yourself1 and your feelings4 ,i know what is happening to you4 ,and ,i know you get excited about it4 ,but you needn't4 ,other men have all gone through it4 ,so don't you go creeping off by yourself and doing things on the sly4 ,it won't do you any good4--,i know what you'll do1 because we've all been through it4 ,i know the thing will keep coming on you at night4 ,but remember that ,i know4 ,remember4 ,and remember that ,i want you to leave yourself alone4 ,i know what it is1 ,i tell you4 ,i've been through it all myself4 ,you've got to go through these years1 before you find a woman you want to marry1 and whom you can marry4 ,i went through them myself1 and got myself worked up a good deal more than was good for me4--,try to contain yourself4 ,always try to contain yourself1 and be a man4 ,that's the only thing4 ,always try and be manly1 and quiet in yourself4 ,remember ,i know what it is4 ,i've been the same1 in the same state that you are in4 ,and probably ,i've behaved more foolishly and perniciously than ever you will4 ,so come to me if anything really bothers you4 ,and don't feel sly and secret4 ,i do know just what you've got and what you haven't4 ,i've been as bad and perhaps worse than you4 ,and the only thing ,i want of you is to be manly4 ,try and be manly1 and quiet in yourself4 ,that is about as much as a father can say to a boy1 at puberty4 ,you have to be very careful what you do3 especially if you are a parent4 ,to translate sex into mental ideas is vile1 to make a scientific fact of it is death4 ,as a matter of fact there should be some sort of initiation into true adult consciousness4 ,boys should be taken away from their mothers and sisters as much as possible at adolescence4 ,they should be given into some real manly charge4 ,and there should be some actual initiation into sex life4 ,perhaps like the savages1 who make the boy die again1 symbolically1 and pull him forth through some narrow aperture1 to be born again1 and make him suffer and endure terrible hardships1 to make a great dynamic effect on the consciousness1 a terrible dynamic sense of change in the very being4 ,in short1 a long1 violent initiation1 from which the lad emerges emaciated1 but cut off forever from childhood1 entered into the serious1 responsible pale of manhood4 ,and with his whole consciousness convulsed by a great change1 as his dynamic psyche actually is convulsed4--,and something in the same way1 to initiate girls into womanhood4 ,there should be the intense dynamic reaction3 the physical suffering and the physical realization sinking deep into the soul1 changing the soul for ever4 ,sex should come upon us as a terrible thing of suffering and privilege and mystery3 a mysterious metamorphosis come upon us1 and a new terrible power given us1 and a new responsibility4 ,telling8--,what's the good of telling8--,the mystery1 the terror1 and the tremendous power of sex should never be explained away4 ,the mass of mankind should never be acquainted with the scientific biological facts of sex3 never4 ,the mystery must remain in its dark secrecy1 and its dark1 powerful dynamism4 ,the reality of sex lies in the great dynamic convulsions in the soul4 ,and as such it should be realized1 a great creative-convulsive seizure upon the soul4--,to make it a matter of test-tube mixtures1 chemical demonstrations and trashy lock-and-key symbols is just blasting4 ,even more sickening is the line3 ,you see1 dear1 one day you'll love a man as ,i love ,daddy1 more than anything else in the whole world4 ,and then1 dear1 ,i hope you'll marry him4 ,because if you do you'll be happy1 and ,i want you to be happy1 my love4 ,and so ,i hope you'll marry the man you really love 7kisses the child74--,and then1 darling1 there will come a lot of things you know nothing about now4 ,you'll want to have a dear little baby1 won't you1 darling8 ,your own dear little baby4 ,and your husband's as well4 ,because it'll be his1 too4 ,you know that1 don't you1 dear8 ,it will be born from both of you4 ,and you don't know how1 do you8 ,well1 it will come from right inside you1 dear1 out of your own inside4 ,you came out of mother's inside1 etc41 etc4 ,but ,i suppose there's really nothing else to be done1 given the world and society as we've got them now4 ,the mother is doing her best4 ,but it is all wrong4 ,it is wrong to make sex appear as if it were part of the dear-darling-love smarm3 the spiritual love4 ,it is even worse to take the scientific test-tube line4 ,it all kills the great effective dynamism of life1 and substitutes the mere ash of mental ideas and tricks4 ,the scientific fact of sex is no more sex than a skeleton is a man4 ,yet you'd think twice before you stock a skeleton in front of a lad and said1 ,you see1 my boy1 this is what you are when you come to know yourself4--,and the ideal1 lovey-dovey explanation of sex as something wonderful and extra lovey-dovey1 a bill-and-coo process of obtaining a sweet little baby--or else ,god made us so that we must do this1 to bring another dear little baby to life--well1 it just makes one sick4 ,it is disastrous to the deep sexual life4 ,but perhaps that is what we want4 ,when humanity comes to its senses it will realize what a fearful ,sodom apple our understanding is4 ,what terrible mouths and stomachs full of bitter ash we've all got4 ,and then we shall take away knowledge and understanding1 and lock them up along with the rest of poisons1 to be administered in small doses only by competent people4 ,we have almost poisoned the mass of humanity to death with understanding4 ,the period of actual death and race-extermination is not far off4 ,we could have produced the same barrenness and frenzy of nothingness in people1 perhaps1 by dinning it into them that every man is just a charnel-house skeleton of unclean bones4 ,our understanding1 our science and idealism have produced in people the same strange frenzy of self-repulsion as if they saw their own skulls each time they looked in the mirror4 ,a man is a thing of scientific cause-and-effect and biological process1 draped in an ideal1 is he8 ,no wonder he sees the skeleton grinning through the flesh4 ,our leaders have not loved men3 they have loved ideas1 and have been willing to sacrifice passionate men on the altars of the blood-drinking1 ever-ash-thirsty ideal4 ,has ,president ,wilson1 or ,karl ,marx1 or ,bernard ,shaw ever felt one hot blood-pulse of love for the working man1 the half-conscious1 deluded working man8 ,never4 ,each of these leaders has wanted to abstract him away from his own blood and being1 into some foul ,methuselah or abstraction of a man4 ,and me8 ,there is no danger of the working man ever reading my books1 so ,i shan't hurt him that way4 ,but oh1 ,i would like to save him alive1 in his living1 spontaneous1 original being4 ,i can't help it4 ,it is my passionate instinct4 ,i would like him to give me back the responsibility for general affairs1 a responsibility which he can't acquit1 and which saps his life4 ,i would like him to give me back the responsibility for the future4 ,i would like him to give me back the responsibility for thought1 for direction4 ,i wish we could take hope and belief together4 ,i would undertake my share of the responsibility1 if he gave me his belief4 ,i would like him to give me back books and newspapers and theories4 ,and ,i would like to give him back1 in return1 his old insouciance1 and rich1 original spontaneity and fullness of life4 ,,chapter ,x ,,parent ,,love ,in the serious hour of puberty1 the individual passes into his second phase of accomplishment4 ,but there cannot be a perfect transition unless all the activity is in full play in all the first four poles of the psyche4 ,childhood is a chrysalis from which each must extricate himself4 ,and the struggling youth or maid cannot emerge unless by the energy of all powers2 he can never emerge if the whole mass of the world and the tradition of love hold him back4 ,now we come to the greater peril of our particular form of idealism4 ,it is the idealism of love and of the spirit3 the idealism of yearning1 outgoing love1 of pure sympathetic communion and understanding4 ,and this idealism recognizes as the highest earthly love1 the love of mother and child4 ,and what does this mean8 ,it means1 for every delicately brought up child1 indeed for all the children who matter1 a steady and persistent pressure upon the upper sympathetic centers1 and a steady and persistent starving of the lower centers1 particularly the great voluntary center of the lower body4 ,the center of sensual1 manly independence1 of exultation in the sturdy1 defiant self1 willfulness and masterfulness and pride1 this center is steadily suppressed4 ,the warm1 swift1 sensual self is steadily and persistently denied1 damped1 weakened1 throughout all the period of childhood4 ,and by sensual we do not mean greedy or ugly1 we mean the deeper1 more impulsive reckless nature4 ,life must be always refined and superior4 ,love and happiness must be the watchword4 ,the willful1 critical element of the spiritual mode is never absent1 the silent1 if forbearing disapproval and distaste is always ready4 ,vile bullying forbearance4 ,with what result8 ,the center of upper sympathy is abnormally1 inflamedly excited2 and the centers of will are so deranged that they operate in jerks and spasms4 ,the true polarity of the sympathetic-voluntary system within the child is so disturbed as to be almost deranged4 ,then we have an exaggerated sensitiveness alternating with a sort of helpless fury3 and we have delicate frail children with nerves or with strange whims4 ,and we have the strange cold obstinacy of the spiritual will1 cold as hell1 fixed in a child4 ,then one parent1 usually the mother1 is the object of blind devotion1 whilst the other parent1 usually the father1 is an object of resistance4 ,the child is taught1 however1 that both parents should be loved1 and only loved3 and that love1 gentleness1 pity1 charity1 and all higher emotions1 these alone are genuine feelings1 all the rest are false1 to be rejected4 ,with what result8 ,the upper centers are developed to a degree of unnatural acuteness and reaction--or again they fall numbed and barren4 ,and then between parents and children a painfully false relation grows up3 a relation as of two adults1 either of two pure lovers1 or of two love-appearing people who are really trying to bully one another4 ,instead of leaving the child with its own limited but deep and incomprehensible feelings1 the parent1 hopelessly involved in the sympathetic mode of selfless love1 and spiritual love-will1 stimulates the child into a consciousness which does not belong to it1 on the one plane1 and robs it of its own spontaneous consciousness and freedom on the other plane4 ,and this is the fatality4 ,long before puberty1 by an exaggeration and an intensity of spiritual love from the parents1 the second centers of sympathy are artificially aroused into response4 ,and there is an irreparable disaster4 ,instead of seeing as a child should see1 through a glass1 darkly1 the child now opens premature eyes of sympathetic cognition4 ,instead of knowing in part1 as it should know1 it begins1 at a fearfully small age1 to know in full4 ,the cervical plexuses and the cervical ganglia1 which should only begin to awake after adolescence1 these centers of the higher dynamic sympathy and cognition1 are both artificially stimulated1 by the adult personal love-emotion and love-will into response1 in a quite young child1 sometimes even in an infant4 ,this is a holy obscenity4 ,our particular mode of idealism causes us to suppress as far as possible the sensual centers1 to make them negative4 ,the whole of the activity is concentrated1 as far as possible1 in the upper or spiritual centers1 the centers of the breast and throat1 which we will call the centers of dynamic cognition1 in contrast to the centers of sensual comprehension below the diaphragm4 ,and then a child arrives at puberty1 with its upper nature already roused into precocious action4 ,the child nowadays is almost invariably precocious in understanding4 ,in the north1 spiritually precocious1 so that by the time it arrives at adolescence it already has experienced the extended sympathetic reactions which should have lain utterly dark4 ,and it has experienced these extended reactions with whom8 ,with the parent or parents4 ,which is man devouring his own offspring4 ,for to the parents belongs1 once and for all1 the dynamic reaction on the first plane of consciousness only1 the reaction and relationship at the first four poles of dynamic consciousness4 ,when the second1 the farther plane of consciousness rouses into action1 the relationship is with strangers4 ,all human instinct and all ethnology will prove this to us4 ,what sex-instinct there is in a child is always adverse to the parents4 ,but also1 the parents are all too quick4 ,they all proceed to swallow their children before the children can get out of their clutches4 ,and even if parents do send away their children at the age of puberty--to school or elsewhere--it is not much good4 ,the mischief has been done before4 ,for the first twelve years the parents and the whole community forcibly insist on the child's living from the upper centers only1 and particularly the upper sympathetic centers1 without the balance of the warm1 deep sensual self4 ,parents and community alike insist on rousing an adult sympathetic response1 and a mental answer in the child-schools1 ,sunday-schools1 books1 home-influence--all works in this one pernicious way4 ,but it is the home1 the parents1 that work most effectively and intensely4 ,there is the most intimate mesh of love1 love-bullying1 and understanding in which a child is entangled4 ,so that a child arrives at the age of puberty already stripped of its childhood's darkness1 bound1 and delivered over4 ,instead of waking now to a whole new field of consciousness1 a whole vast and wonderful new dynamic impulse towards new connections1 it finds itself fatally bound4 ,puberty accomplishes itself4 ,the hour of sex strikes4 ,but there is your child1 bound1 helpless4 ,you have already aroused in it the dynamic response to your own insatiable love-will4 ,you have already established between your child and yourself the dynamic relation in the further plane of consciousness4 ,you have got your child as sure as if you had woven its flesh again with your own4 ,you have done what it is vicious for any parent to do3 you have established between your child and yourself the bond of adult love3 the love of man for man1 woman for woman1 or man for woman4 ,all your tenderness1 your cherishing will not excuse you4 ,it only deepens your guilt4 ,you have established between your child and yourself the bond of further sympathy4 ,i do not speak of sex4 ,i speak of pure sympathy1 sacred love4 ,the parents establish between themselves and their child the bond of the higher love1 the further spiritual love1 the sympathy of the adult soul4 ,and this is fatal4 ,it is a sort of incest4 ,it is a dynamic spiritual incest1 more dangerous than sensual incest1 because it is more intangible and less instinctively repugnant4 ,but let psychoanalysis fall into what discredit it may1 it has done us this great service of proving to us that the intense upper sympathy1 indeed the dynamic relation either of love-will or love-sympathy1 between parent and child1 upon the upper plane1 inevitably involves us in a conclusion of incest4 ,for although it is our aim to establish a purely spiritual dynamic relation on the upper plane only1 yet1 because of the inevitable polarity of the human psychic system1 we shall arouse at the same time a dynamic sensual activity on the lower plane1 the deeper sensual plane4 ,we may be as pure as angels1 and yet1 being human1 this will and must inevitably happen4 ,when ,mrs4 ,ruskin said that ,john ,ruskin should have married his mother she spoke the truth4 ,he was married to his mother4 ,for in spite of all our intention1 all our creed1 all our purity1 all our desire and all our will1 once we arouse the dynamic relation in the upper1 higher plane of love1 we inevitably evoke a dynamic consciousness on the lower1 deeper plane of sensual love4 ,and then what8 ,of course1 parents can reply that their love1 however intense1 is pure1 and has absolutely no sensual element4 ,maybe--and maybe not4 ,but admit that it is so4 ,it does not help4 ,the intense excitement of the upper centers of sympathy willy-nilly arouses the lower centers4 ,it arouses them to activity1 even if it denies them any expression or any polarized connection4 ,our psyche is so framed that activity aroused on one plane provokes activity on the corresponding plane1 automatically4 ,so the intense pure love-relation between parent and child inevitably arouses the lower centers in the child1 the centers of sex4 ,now the deeper sensual centers1 once aroused1 should find response from the sensual body of some other1 some friend or lover4 ,the response is impossible between parent and child4 ,myself1 ,i believe that biologically there is radical sex-aversion between parent and child1 at the deeper sensual centers4 ,the sensual circuit cannot adjust itself spontaneously between the two4 ,so what have you8 ,child and parent intensely linked in adult love-sympathy and love-will1 on the upper plane1 and in the child1 the deeper sensual centers aroused1 but finding no correspondent1 no objective1 no polarized connection with another person4 ,there they are1 the powerful centers of sex1 acting spasmodically1 without balance4 ,they must be polarized somehow4 ,so they are polarized to the active upper centers within the child1 and you get an introvert4 ,this is how introversion begins4 ,the lower sexual centers are aroused4 ,they find no sympathy1 no connection1 no response from outside1 no expression4 ,they are dynamically polarized by the upper centers within the individual4 ,that is1 the whole of the sexual or deeper sensual flow goes on upwards in the individual1 to his own upper1 from his own lower centers4 ,the upper centers hold the lower in positive polarity4 ,the flow goes on upwards4 ,there must be some reaction4 ,and so you get1 first and foremost1 self-consciousness1 an intense consciousness in the upper self of the lower self4 ,this is the first disaster4 ,then you get the upper body exploiting the lower body4 ,you get the hands exploiting the sensual body1 in feeling1 fingering1 and in masturbation4 ,you get a pornographic longing with regard to the self4 ,you get the obscene post cards which most youths possess4 ,you get the absolute lust for dirty stories1 which so many men have4 ,and you get various mild sex perversions1 such as masturbation1 and so on4 ,what does all this mean8 ,it means that the activity of the lower psyche and lower body is polarized by the upper body4 ,eyes and ears want to gather sexual activity and knowledge4 ,the mind becomes full of sex3 and always1 in an introvert1 of his own sex4 ,if we examine the apparent extroverts1 like the flaunting ,italian1 we shall see the same thing4 ,it is his own sex which obsesses him4 ,and to-day what have we but this8 ,almost inevitably we find in a child now an intense1 precocious1 secret sexual preoccupation4 ,the upper self is rabidly engaged in exploiting the lower self4 ,a child and its own roused1 inflamed sex1 its own shame and masturbation1 its own cruel1 secret sexual excitement and sex curiosity1 this is the greatest tragedy of our day4 ,the child does not so much want to act as to know4 ,the thought of actual sex connection is usually repulsive4 ,there is an aversion from the normal coition act4 ,but the craving to feel1 to see1 to taste1 to know1 mentally in the head1 this is insatiable4 ,anything1 so that the sensation and experience shall come through the upper channels4 ,this is the secret of our introversion and our perversion to-day4 ,anything rather than spontaneous direct action from the sensual self4 ,anything rather than the merely normal passion4 ,introduce any trick1 any idea1 any mental element you can into sex1 but make it an affair of the upper consciousness1 the mind and eyes and mouth and fingers4 ,this is our vice1 our dirt1 our disease4 ,and the adult1 and the ideal are to blame4 ,but the tragedy of our children1 in their inflamed1 solitary sexual excitement1 distresses us beyond any blame4 ,it is time to drop the word love1 and more than time to drop the ideal of love4 ,every frenzied individual is told to find fulfillment in love4 ,so he tries4 ,whereas1 there is no fulfillment in love4 ,half of our fulfillment comes through love1 through strong1 sensual love4 ,but the central fulfillment1 for a man1 is that he possess his own soul in strength within him1 deep and alone4 ,the deep1 rich aloneness1 reached and perfected through love4 ,and the passing beyond any further quest of love4 ,this central fullness of self-possession is our goal1 if goal there be any4 ,but there are two great ways of fulfillment4 ,the first1 the way of fulfillment through complete love1 complete1 passionate1 deep love4 ,and the second1 the greater1 the fulfillment through the accomplishment of religious purpose1 the soul's earnest purpose4 ,we work the love way falsely1 from the upper self1 and work it to death4 ,the second way1 of active unison in strong purpose1 and in faith1 this we only sneer at4 ,but to return to the child and the parent4 ,the coming to the fulfillment of single aloneness1 through love1 is made impossible for us by the ideal1 the monomania of more love4 ,at the very age dangereuse1 when a woman should be accomplishing her own fulfillment into maturity and rich quiescence1 she turns rabidly to seek a new lover4 ,at the very crucial time when she should be coming to a state of pure equilibrium and rest with her husband1 she turns rabidly against rest or peace or equilibrium or husband in any shape or form1 and demands more love1 more love1 a new sort of lover1 one who will understand her4 ,and as often as not she turns to her son4 ,it is true1 a woman reaches her goal of fulfillment through feeling4 ,but through being understood she reaches nowhere1 unless the lover understands what a vice it is for a woman to get herself and her sex into her head4 ,a woman reaches her fulfillment through love1 deep sensual love1 and exquisite sensitive communion4 ,but once she reaches the point of fulfillment1 she should not break off to ask for more excitements4 ,she should take the beauty of maturity and peace and quiet faithfulness upon her4 ,this she won't do1 however1 unless the man1 her husband1 goes on beyond her4 ,when a man approaches the beginning of maturity and the fulfillment of his individual self1 about the age of thirty-five1 then is not his time to come to rest4 ,on the contrary4 ,deeply fulfilled through marriage1 and at one with his own soul1 he must now undertake the responsibility for the next step into the future4 ,he must now give himself perfectly to some further purpose1 some passionate purposive activity4 ,till a man makes the great resolution of aloneness and singleness of being1 till he takes upon himself the silence and central appeasedness of maturity2 and then1 after this1 assumes a sacred responsibility for the next purposive step into the future1 there is no rest4 ,the great resolution of aloneness and appeasedness1 and the further deep assumption of responsibility in purpose--this is necessary to every parent1 every father1 every husband1 at a certain point4 ,if the resolution is never made1 the responsibility never embraced1 then the love-craving will run on into frenzy1 and lay waste to the family4 ,in the woman particularly the love-craving will run on to frenzy and disaster4 ,seeking1 seeking the fulfillment in the deep passional self2 diseased with self-consciousness and sex in the head1 foiled by the very loving weakness of the husband who has not the courage to withdraw into his own stillness and singleness1 and put the wife under the spell of his fulfilled decision2 the unhappy woman beats about for her insatiable satisfaction1 seeking whom she may devour4 ,and usually1 she turns to her child4 ,here she provokes what she wants4 ,here1 in her own son who belongs to her1 she seems to find the last perfect response for which she is craving4 ,he is a medium to her1 she provokes from him her own answer4 ,so she throws herself into a last great love for her son1 a final and fatal devotion1 that which would have been the richness and strength of her husband and is poison to her boy4 ,the husband1 irresolute1 never accepting his own higher responsibility1 bows and accepts4 ,and the fatal round of introversion and complex starts once more4 ,if man will never accept his own ultimate being1 his final aloneness1 and his last responsibility for life1 then he must expect woman to dash from disaster to disaster1 rootless and uncontrolled4 ,on revient toujours a son premier amour4 ,it sounds like a cynicism to-day4 ,as if we really meant3 ,on ne revient jamais a son premier amour4 ,but as a matter of fact1 a man never leaves his first love1 once the love is established4 ,he may leave his first attempt at love4 ,once a man establishes a full dynamic communication at the deeper and the higher centers1 with a woman1 this can never be broken4 ,but sex in the head breaks down1 and half circuits break down4 ,once the full circuit is established1 however1 this can never break down4 ,nowadays1 alas1 we start off self-conscious1 with sex in the head4 ,we find a woman who is the same4 ,we marry because we are pals4 ,the sex is a rather nasty fiasco4 ,we keep up a pretense of pals--and nice love4 ,sex spins wilder in the head than ever4 ,there is either a family of children whom the dissatisfied parents can devote themselves to1 thereby perverting the miserable little creatures3 or else there is a divorce4 ,and at the great dynamic centers nothing has happened at all4 ,blank nothing4 ,there has been no vital interchange at all in the whole of this beautiful marriage affair4 ,establish between yourself and another individual a dynamic connection at only two of the four further poles1 and you will have the devil of a job to break the connection4 ,especially if it be the first connection you have made4 ,especially if the other individual be the first in the field4 ,this is the case of the parents4 ,parents are first in the field of the child's further consciousness4 ,they are criminal trespassers in that field4 ,but that makes no matter4 ,they are first in the field4 ,they establish a dynamic connection between the two upper centers1 the centers of the throat1 the centers of the higher dynamic sympathy and cognition4 ,they establish this circuit4 ,and break it if you can4 ,very often not even death can break it4 ,and as we see1 the establishment of the upper love-and-cognition circuit inevitably provokes the lower sex-sensual centers into action1 even though there be no correspondence on the sensual plane between the two individuals concerned4 ,then see what happens4 ,if you want to see the real desirable wife-spirit1 look at a mother with her boy of eighteen4 ,how she serves him1 how she stimulates him1 how her true female self is his1 is wife-submissive to him as never1 never it could be to a husband4 ,this is the quiescent1 flowering love of a mature woman4 ,it is the very flower of a woman's love3 sexually asking nothing1 asking nothing of the beloved1 save that he shall be himself1 and that for his living he shall accept the gift of her love4 ,this is the perfect flower of married love1 which a husband should put in his cap as he goes forward into the future in his supreme activity4 ,for the husband1 it is a great pledge1 and a blossom4 ,for the son also it seems wonderful4 ,the woman now feels for the first time as a true wife might feel4 ,and her feeling is towards her son4 ,or1 instead of mother and son1 read father and daughter4 ,and then what8 ,the son gets on swimmingly for a time1 till he is faced with the actual fact of sex necessity4 ,he gleefully inherits his adolescence and the world at large1 without an obstacle in his way1 mother-supported1 mother-loved4 ,everything comes to him in glamour1 he feels he sees wondrous much1 understands a whole heaven1 mother-stimulated4 ,think of the power which a mature woman thus infuses into her boy4 ,he flares up like a flame in oxygen4 ,no wonder they say geniuses mostly have great mothers4 ,they mostly have sad fates4 ,and then8--and then1 with this glamorous youth8 ,what is he actually to do with his sensual1 sexual self8 ,bury it8 ,or make an effort with a stranger8 ,for he is taught1 even by his mother1 that his manhood must not forego sex4 ,yet he is linked up in ideal love already1 the best he will ever know4 ,no woman will give to a stranger that which she gives to her son1 her father or her brother3 that beautiful and glamorous submission which is truly the wife-submission4 ,to a stranger1 a husband1 a woman insists on being queen1 goddess1 mistress1 the positive1 the adored1 the first and foremost and the one and only4 ,this she will not ask from her near blood-kin4 ,of her blood-kin1 there is always one she will love devotedly4 ,and so1 the charming young girl who adores her father1 or one of her brothers1 is sought in marriage by the attractive young man who loves his mother devotedly4 ,and a pretty business the marriage is4 ,we can't think of it4 ,of course they may be good pals4 ,it's the only thing left4 ,and there we are4 ,the game is spoilt before it is begun4 ,within the circle of the family1 owing to our creed of insatiable love1 intense adult sympathies are provoked in quite young children4 ,in ,italy1 the ,italian stimulates adult sex-consciousness and sex-sympathy in his child1 almost deliberately4 ,but with us1 it is usually spiritual sympathy and spiritual criticism4 ,the adult experiences are provoked1 the adult devotional sympathies are linked up1 prematurely1 as far as the child is concerned4 ,we have the heart-wringing spectacle of intense parent-child love1 a love intense as the love of man and woman1 but not sexual2 or else the great brother-sister devotion4 ,and thus1 the great love-experience which should lie in the future is forestalled4 ,within the family1 the love-bond forms quickly1 without the shocks and ruptures inevitable between strangers4 ,and so1 it is easiest1 intensest--and seems the best4 ,it seems the highest4 ,you will not easily get a man to believe that his carnal love for the woman he has made his wife is as high a love as that he felt for his mother or sister4 ,the cream is licked off from life before the boy or the girl is twenty4 ,afterwards--repetition1 disillusion1 and barrenness4 ,and the cause8--always the same4 ,that parents will not make the great resolution to come to rest within themselves1 to possess their own souls in quiet and fullness4 ,the man has not the courage to withdraw at last into his own soul's stillness and aloneness1 and then1 passionately and faithfully1 to strive for the living future4 ,the woman has not the courage to give up her hopeless insistence on love and her endless demand for love1 demand of being loved4 ,she has not the greatness of soul to relinquish her own self-assertion1 and believe in the man who believes in himself and in his own soul's efforts3--if there are any such men nowadays1 which is very doubtful4 ,alas1 alas1 the future6 ,your son1 who has tasted the real beauty of wife-response in his mother or sister4 ,your daughter1 who adores her brother1 and who marries some woman's son4 ,they are so charming to look at1 such a lovely couple4 ,and at first it is all such a good game1 such good sport4 ,then each one begins to fret for the beauty of the lost1 non-sexual1 partial relationship4 ,the sexual part of marriage has proved so--so empty4 ,while that other loveliest thing--the poignant touch of devotion felt for mother or father or brother--why1 this is missing altogether4 ,the best is missing4 ,the rest isn't worth much4 ,ah well1 such is life4 ,settle down to it1 and bring up the children carefully to more of the same4--,the future6--,you've had all your good days by the time you're twenty4 ,and1 ,i ask you1 what good will psychoanalysis do you in this state of affairs8 ,introduce an extra sex-motive to excite you for a bit and make you feel how thrillingly immoral things really are4 ,and then--it all goes flat again4 ,father complex1 mother complex1 incest dreams3 pah1 when we've had the little excitement out of them we shall forget them as we have forgotten so many other catch-words4 ,and we shall be just where we were before3 unless we are worse1 with more sex in the head1 and more introversion1 only more brazen4 ,,chapter ,,xi ,,the ,,vicious ,,circle ,here is a very vicious circle4 ,and how to get out of it8 ,in the first place1 we have to break the love-ideal1 once and for all4 ,love1 as we see1 is not the only dynamic4 ,taking love in its greatest sense1 and making it embrace every form of sympathy1 every flow from the great sympathetic centers of the human body1 still it is not the whole of the dynamic flow1 it is only the one-half4 ,there is always the other voluntary flow to reckon with1 the intense motion of independence and singleness of self1 the pride of isolation1 and the profound fulfillment through power4 ,the very first thing of all to be recognized is the danger of idealism4 ,it is the one besetting sin of the human race4 ,it means the fall into automatism1 mechanism1 and nullity4 ,we know that life issues spontaneously at the great nodes of the psyche1 the great nerve-centers4 ,at first these are four only3 then1 after puberty1 they become eight3 later there may still be an extension of the dynamic consciousness1 a further polarization4 ,but eight is enough at the moment4 ,first at four1 and then at eight dynamic centers of the human body1 the human nervous system1 life starts spontaneously into being4 ,the soul bursts day by day into fresh impulses1 fresh desire1 fresh purpose1 at these our polar centers4 ,and from these dynamic generative centers issue the vital currents which put us into connection with our object4 ,we have really no will and no choice1 in the first place4 ,it is our soul which acts within us1 day by day unfolding us according to our own nature4 ,from the objective circuits and from the subjective circuits which establish and fulfill themselves at the first four centers of consciousness we derive our first being1 our child-being1 and also our first mind1 our child-mind4 ,by the objective circuits we mean those circuits which are established between the self and some external object3 mother1 father1 sister1 cat1 dog1 bird1 or even tree or plant1 or even further still1 some particular place1 some particular inanimate object1 a knife or a chair or a cap or a doll or a wooden horse4 ,for we must insist that every object which really enters effectively into our lives does so by direct connection4 ,if ,i love my mother1 it is because there is established between me and her a direct1 powerful circuit of vital magnetism1 call it what you will1 but a direct flow of dynamic vital interchange and intercourse4 ,i will not call this vital flow a force1 because it depends on the incomprehensible initiative and control of the individual soul or self4 ,force is that which is directed only from some universal will or law4 ,life is always individual1 and therefore never controlled by one law1 one ,god4 ,and therefore1 since the living really sway the universe1 even if unknowingly2 therefore there is no one universal law1 even for the physical forces4 ,because we insist that even the sun depends1 for its heartbeat1 its respiration1 its pivotal motion1 on the beating hearts of men and beast1 on the dynamic of the soul-impulse in individual creatures4 ,it is from the aggregate heartbeat of living individuals1 of we know not how many or what sort of worlds1 that the sun rests stable4 ,which may be dismissed as metaphysics1 although it is quite as valid or even as demonstrable as ,newton's ,law of ,gravitation1 which law still remains a law1 even if not quite so absolute as heretofore4 ,but this is a digression4 ,the argument is1 that between an individual and any external object with which he has an affective connection1 there exists a definite vital flow1 as definite and concrete as the electric current whose polarized circuit sets our tram-cars running and our lamps shining1 or our ,marconi wires vibrating4 ,whether this object be human1 or animal1 or plant1 or quite inanimate1 there is still a circuit4 ,my dog1 my canary has a polarized connection with me4 ,nay1 the very cells in the ash-tree ,i loved as a child had a dynamic vibratory connection with the nuclei in my own centers of primary consciousness4 ,and further still1 the boots ,i have worn are so saturated with my own magnetism1 my own vital activity1 that if anyone else wear them ,i feel it is a trespass1 almost as if another man used my hand to knock away a fly4 ,i doubt very much if a blood-hound1 when it takes a scent1 smells1 in our sense of the word4 ,it receives at the infinitely sensitive telegraphic center of the dog's nostrils the vital vibration which remains in the inanimate object from the individual with whom the object was associated4 ,i should like to know if a dog would trace a pair of quite new shoes which had merely been dragged at the end of a string4 ,that is1 does he follow the smell of the leather itself1 or the vibration track of the individual whose vitality is communicated to the leather8 ,so1 there is a definite vibratory rapport between a man and his surroundings1 once he definitely gets into contact with these surroundings4 ,any particular locality1 any house which has been lived in has a vibration1 a transferred vitality of its own4 ,this is either sympathetic or antipathetic to the succeeding individual in varying degree4 ,but certain it is that the inhabitants who live at the foot of ,etna will always have a certain pitch of life-vibration1 antagonistic to the pitch of vibration even of a ,palermitan1 in some measure4 ,and old houses are saturated with human presence1 at last to a degree of indecency1 unbearable4 ,and tradition1 in its most elemental sense1 means the continuing of the same peculiar pitch of vital vibration4 ,such is the objective dynamic flow between the psychic poles of the individual and the substance of the external object1 animate or inanimate4 ,the subjective dynamic flow is established between the four primary poles within the individual4 ,every dynamic connection begins from one or the other of the sympathetic centers3 is1 or should be1 almost immediately polarized from the corresponding voluntary center4 ,then a complete flow is set up1 in one plane4 ,but this always rouses the activity on the other1 corresponding plane1 more or less intense4 ,there is a whole field of consciousness established1 with positive polarity of the first plane1 negative polarity of the second4 ,which being so1 a whole fourfold field of dynamic consciousness now working within the individual1 direct cognition takes place4 ,the mind begins to know1 and to strive to know4 ,the business of the mind is first and foremost the pure joy of knowing and comprehending the pure joy of consciousness4 ,the second business is to act as medium1 as interpreter1 as agent between the individual and his object4 ,the mind should not act as a director or controller of the spontaneous centers4 ,these the soul alone must control3 the soul being that forever unknowable reality which causes us to rise into being4 ,there is continual conflict between the soul1 which is for ever sending forth incalculable impulses1 and the psyche1 which is conservative1 and wishes to persist in its old motions1 and the mind1 which wishes to have freedom1 that is spasmodic1 idea-driven control4 ,mind1 and conservative psyche1 and the incalculable soul1 these three are a trinity of powers in every human being4 ,but there is something even beyond these4 ,it is the individual in his pure singleness1 in his totality of consciousness1 in his oneness of being3 the ,holy ,ghost which is with us after our ,pentecost1 and which we may not deny4 ,when ,i say to myself3 ,i am wrong1 knowing with sudden insight that ,i am wrong1 then this is the whole self speaking1 the ,holy ,ghost4 ,it is no piece of mental inference4 ,it is not just the soul sending forth a flash4 ,it is my whole being speaking in one voice1 soul and mind and psyche transfigured into oneness4 ,this voice of my being ,i may never deny4 ,when at last1 in all my storms1 my whole self speaks1 then there is a pause4 ,the soul collects itself into pure silence and isolation--perhaps after much pain4 ,the mind suspends its knowledge1 and waits4 ,the psyche becomes strangely still4 ,and then1 after the pause1 there is fresh beginning1 a new life adjustment4 ,conscience is the being's consciousness1 when the individual is conscious in toto1 when he knows in full4 ,it is something which includes and which far surpasses mental consciousness4 ,every man must live as far as he can by his own soul's conscience4 ,but not according to any ideal4 ,to submit the conscience to a creed1 or an idea1 or a tradition1 or even an impulse1 is our ruin4 ,to make the mind the absolute ruler is as good as making a ,cook's tourist-interpreter a king and a god1 because he can speak several languages1 and make an ,arab understand that an ,englishman wants fish for supper4 ,and to make an ideal a ruling principle is about as stupid as if a bunch of travelers should never cease giving each other and their dragoman sixpence1 because the dragoman's main idea of virtue is the virtue of sixpence-giving4 ,in the same way1 we know we cannot live purely by impulse4 ,neither can we live solely by tradition4 ,we must live by all three1 ideal1 impulse1 and tradition1 each in its hour4 ,but the real guide is the pure conscience1 the voice of the self in its wholeness1 the ,holy ,ghost4 ,we have fallen now into the mistake of idealism4 ,man always falls into one of the three mistakes4 ,in ,china1 it is tradition4 ,and in the ,south ,seas1 it seems to have been impulse4 ,ours is idealism4 ,each of the three modes is a true life-mode4 ,but any one1 alone or dominant1 brings us to destruction4 ,we must depend on the wholeness of our being1 ultimately only on that1 which is our ,holy ,ghost within us4 ,whereas1 in an ideal of love and benevolence1 we have tried to automatize ourselves into little love-engines always stoked with the sorrows or beauties of other people1 so that we can get up steam of charity or righteous wrath4 ,a great trick is to pour on the fire the oil of our indignation at somebody else's wickedness1 and then1 when we've got up steam like hell1 back the engine and run bish6 smash6 against the belly of the offender4 ,because he said he didn't want to love any more1 we hate him for evermore1 and try to run over him1 every bit of him1 with our love-tanks4 ,and all the time we yell at him3 ,will you deny love1 you villain8 ,will you8 ,and by the time he faintly squeaks1 ,i want to be loved6 ,i want to be loved6 we have got so used to running over him with our love-tanks that we don't feel in a hurry to leave off4 ,sois mon frere1 ou je te tue4 ,sois mon frere1 ou je me tue4 ,there are the two parrot-threats of love1 on which our loving centuries have run as on a pair of railway-lines4 ,excuse me if ,i want to get out of the train4 ,excuse me if ,i can't get up any love-steam any more4 ,my boilers are burst4 ,we have made a mistake1 laying down love like the permanent way of a great emotional transport system4 ,there we are1 however1 running on wheels on the lines of our love4 ,and of course we have only two directions1 forwards and backwards4 ,onward1 ,christian soldiers1 towards the great terminus where bottles of sterilized milk for the babies are delivered at the bedroom windows by noiseless aeroplanes each morn1 where the science of dentistry is so perfect that teeth are planted in a man's mouth without his knowing it1 where twilight sleep is so delicious that every woman longs for her next confinement1 and where nobody ever has to do anything except turn a handle now and then in a spirit of universal love-- ,that is the forward direction of the ,english-speaking race4 ,the ,germans unwisely backed their engine4 ,we have a city of light4 ,but instead of lying ahead it lies direct behind us4 ,so reverse engines4 ,reverse engines1 and away1 away to our city1 where the sterilized milk is delivered by noiseless aeroplanes1 at the very precise minute when our great doctors of the ,fatherland have diagnosed that it is good for you3 where the teeth are not only so painlessly planted that they grow like living rock1 but where their composition is such that the friction of eating stimulates the cells of the jaw-bone and develops the superman strength of will which makes us gods3 and where not only is twilight sleep serene1 but into the sleeper are inculcated the most useful and instructive dreams1 calculated to perfect the character of the young citizen at this crucial period1 and to enlighten permanently the mind of the happy mother1 with regard to her new duties towards her child and towards our great ,fatherland-- ,here you see we are1 on the railway1 with ,new ,jerusalem ahead1 and ,new ,jerusalem away behind us4 ,but of course it was very wrong of the ,germans to reverse their engines1 and cause one long collision all along the line4 ,why should we go their way to the ,new ,jerusalem1 when of course they might so easily have kept on going our way4 ,and now there's wreckage all along the line6 ,but clear the way is our motto--or make the ,germans clear it4 ,because get on we will4 ,meanwhile we sit rather in the cold1 waiting for the train to get a start4 ,people keep on signaling with green lights and red lights4 ,and it's all very bewildering4 ,as for me1 ,i'm off4 ,i'm damned if ,i'll be shunted along any more4 ,and ,i'm thrice damned if ,i'll go another yard towards that sterilized ,new ,jerusalem1 either forwards or backwards4 ,new ,jerusalem may rot1 if it waits for me4 ,i'm not going4 ,so good-by6 ,there we leave humanity1 encamped in an appalling mess beside the railway-smash of love1 sitting down1 however1 and having not a bad time1 some of 'em1 feeding themselves fat on the plunder3 others1 further down the line1 with mouths green from eating grass4 ,but all grossly1 stupidly1 automatically gabbling about getting the love-service running again1 the trains booked for the ,new ,jerusalem well on the way once more4 ,and occasionally a good engine gives a screech of love1 and something seems to be about to happen4 ,and sometimes there is enough steam to set the indignation-whistles whistling4 ,but never any more will there be enough love-steam to get the system properly running4 ,it is done4 ,good-by1 then6 ,you may have laid your line from one end to the other of the infinite4 ,but still there's plenty of hinterland4 ,i'll go4 ,good-by4 ,ach1 it will be so nice to be alone3 not to hear you1 not to see you1 not to smell you1 humanity4 ,i wish you no ill1 but wisdom4 ,good-by6 ,to be alone with one's own soul4 ,not to be alone without my own soul1 mind you4 ,but to be alone with one's own soul6 ,this1 and the joy of it1 is the real goal of love4 ,my own soul1 and myself4 ,not my ego1 my conceit of myself4 ,but my very soul4 ,to be at one in my own self4 ,not to be questing any more4 ,not to be yearning1 seeking1 hoping1 desiring1 aspiring4 ,but to pause1 and be alone4 ,and to have one's own gentle spouse by one's side1 of course1 to dig one in the ribs occasionally4 ,because really1 being alone in peace means being two people together4 ,two people who can be silent together1 and not conscious of one another outwardly4 ,me in my silence1 she in hers1 and the balance1 the equilibrium1 the pure circuit between us4 ,with occasional lapses of course3 digs in the ribs if one gets too vague or self-sufficient4 ,they say it is better to travel than to arrive4 ,it's not been my experience1 at least4 ,the journey of love has been rather a lacerating1 if well-worth-it1 journey4 ,but to come at last to a nice place under the trees1 with your amiable spouse who has at last learned to hold her tongue and not to bother about rights and wrongs3 her own particularly4 ,and then to pitch a camp1 and cook your rabbit1 and eat him3 and to possess your own soul in silence1 and to feel all the clamor lapse4 ,that is the best ,i know4 ,i think it is terrible to be young4 ,the ecstasies and agonies of love1 the agonies and ecstasies of fear and doubt and drop-by-drop fulfillment1 realization4 ,the awful process of human relationships1 love and marital relationships especially4 ,because we all make a very1 very bad start to-day1 with our idea of love in our head1 and our sex in our head as well4 ,all the fight till one is bled of one's self-consciousness and sex-in-the-head4 ,all the bitterness of the conflict with this devil of an amiable spouse1 who has got herself so stuck in her own head4 ,it is terrible to be young4--,but one fights one's way through it1 till one is cleaned3 the self-consciousness and sex-idea burned out of one1 cauterized out bit by bit1 and the self whole again1 and at last free4 ,the best thing ,i have known is the stillness of accomplished marriage1 when one possesses one's own soul in silence1 side by side with the amiable spouse1 and has left off craving and raving and being only half one's self4 ,but ,i must say1 ,i know a great deal more about the craving and raving and sore ribs1 than about the accomplishment4 ,and ,i must confess that ,i feel this self-same accomplishment of the fulfilled being is only a preparation for new responsibilities ahead1 new unison in effort and conflict1 the effort to make1 with other men1 a little new way into the future1 and to break through the hedge of the many4 ,but--to your tents1 my ,israel4 ,and to that precious baby you've left slumbering there4 ,what ,i meant to say was1 in each phase of life you have a great circuit of human relationship to establish and fulfill4 ,in childhood1 it is the circuit of family love1 established at the first four consciousness centers1 and gradually fulfilling itself1 completing itself4 ,at adolescence1 the first circuit of family love should be completed1 dynamically finished4 ,and then1 it falls into quiescence4 ,after puberty1 family love should fall quiescent in a child4 ,the love never breaks4 ,it continues static and basic1 the basis of the emotional psyche1 the foundation of the self4 ,it is like the moon when the moon at last subsides into her eternal orbit1 round the earth4 ,she travels in her orbit so inevitably that she forgets1 and becomes unaware4 ,she only knits her brows over the earth's greater aberrations in space4 ,the circuit of parental love1 once fulfilled1 is not done away with1 but only established into silence4 ,the child is then free to establish the new connections1 in which he surpasses his parents4 ,and let us repeat1 parents should never try to establish adult relations1 of sympathy or interest or anything else1 between themselves and their children4 ,the attempt to do so only deranges the deep primary circuit which is the dynamic basis of our living4 ,it is a clambering upwards only by means of a broken foundation4 ,parents should remain parents1 children children1 for ever1 and the great gulf preserved between the two4 ,honor thy father and thy mother should always be a leading commandment4 ,but this can only take place when father and mother keep their true parental distances1 dignity1 reserve1 and limitation4 ,as soon as father and mother try to become the friends and companions of their children1 they break the root of life1 they rupture the deepest dynamic circuit of living1 they derange the whole flow of life for themselves and their children4 ,for let us reiterate and reiterate3 you cannot mingle and confuse the various modes of dynamic love4 ,if you try1 you produce horrors4 ,you cannot plant the heart below the diaphragm or put an ocular eye in the navel4 ,no more can you transfer parent love into friend love or adult love4 ,parent love is established at the great primary centers1 where man is father and child1 playmate and brother1 but where he cannot be comrade or lover4 ,comrade and lover1 this is the dynamic activity of the further centers1 the second four centers4 ,and these second four centers must be active in the parent1 their intense circuit established even if not fulfilled1 long before the child is born4 ,the circuit of friendship1 of personal companionship1 of sexual love must needs be established before the child is begotten1 or at least before it attains to adolescence4 ,these circuits of the extended field are already fully established in the parent before the centers of correspondence in the child are even formed4 ,when therefore the four great centers of the extended consciousness arouses in a child1 at adolescence1 they must needs seek a strange complement1 a foreign conjunction4 ,not only is this the case1 but the actual dynamic impulse of the new life which rouses at puberty is alien to the original dynamic flow4 ,the new wave-length by no means corresponds4 ,the new vibration by no means harmonizes4 ,force the two together1 and you cause a terrible frictional excitement and jarring4 ,it is this instinctive recognition of the different dynamic vibrations from different centers1 in different modes1 and in different directions of positive and negative1 which lies at the base of savage taboo4 ,after puberty1 members of one family should be taboo to one another4 ,there should be the most definite limits to the degree of contact4 ,and mothers-in-law should be taboo to their daughters' husbands1 and fathers-in-law to their sons' wives4 ,we must again begin to learn the great laws of the first dynamic life-circuits4 ,these laws we now make havoc of1 and consequently we make havoc of our own soul1 psyche1 mind and health4 ,this book is written primarily concerning the child's consciousness4 ,it is not intended to enter the field of the post-puberty consciousness4 ,but yet1 the dynamic relation of the child is established so directly with the physical and psychical soul of the parent1 that to get any inkling of dynamic child-consciousness we must understand something of parent-consciousness4 ,we assert that the parent-child love-mode excludes the possibility of the man-and-woman1 or friend-and-friend love mode4 ,we assert that the polarity of the first four poles is inconsistent with the polarity of the second four poles4 ,nay1 between the two great fields is a certain dynamic opposition1 resistance1 even antipathy4 ,so that in the natural course of life there is no possibility of confusing parent love and adult love4 ,but we are mental creatures1 and with the explosive and mechanistic aid of ideas we can pervert the whole psyche4 ,only1 however1 in a destructive degree1 not in a positive or constructive4 ,let us return then4 ,in the ordinary course of development1 by the time that the child is born and grown to puberty the whole dynamic soul of the mother is engaged3 first1 with the children1 and second1 on the further1 higher plane1 with the husband1 and with her own friends4 ,so that when the child reaches adolescence it must inevitably cast abroad for connection4 ,but now let us remember the actual state of affairs to-day1 when the poles are reversed between the sexes4 ,the woman is now the responsible party1 the law-giver1 the culture-bearer4 ,she is the conscious guide and director of the man4 ,she bears his soul between her two hands4 ,and her sex is just a function or an instrument of power4 ,this being so1 the man is really the servant and the fount of emotion1 love and otherwise4 ,which is all very well1 while the fun lasts4 ,but like all perverted processes1 it is exhaustive1 and like the fun wears out4 ,leaving an exhaustion1 and an irritation4 ,each looks on the other as a perverter of life4 ,almost invariably a married woman1 as she passes the age of thirty1 conceives a dislike1 or a contempt of her husband1 or a pity which is too near contempt4 ,particularly if he be a good husband1 a true modern4 ,and he1 for his part1 though just as jarred inside himself1 resents only the fact that he is not loved as he ought to be4 ,then starts a new game4 ,the woman1 even the most virtuous1 looks abroad for new sympathy4 ,she will have a new man-friend1 if nothing more4 ,but as a rule she has got something more4 ,she has got her children4 ,a relation between mother and child to-day is practically never parental4 ,it is personal--which means1 it is critical and deliberate1 and adult in provocation4 ,the mother1 in her new role of idealist and life-manager never1 practically for one single moment1 gives her child the unthinking response from the deep dynamic centers4 ,no1 she gives it what is good for it4 ,she shoves milk in its mouth as the clock strikes1 she shoves it to sleep when the milk is swallowed1 and she shoves it ideally through baths and massage1 promenades and practice1 till the little organism develops like a mushroom to stand on its own feet4 ,then she continues her ideal shoving of it through all the stages of an ideal up-bringing1 she loves it as a chemist loves his test-tubes in which he analyzes his salts4 ,the poor little object is his mother's ideal4 ,but of her head she dictates his providential days1 and by the force of her deliberate mentally-directed love-will she pushes him up into boyhood4 ,the poor little devil never knows one moment when he is not encompassed by the beautiful1 benevolent1 idealistic1 ,botticelli-pure1 and finally obscene love-will of the mother4 ,never1 never one mouthful does he drink of the milk of human kindness3 always the sterilized milk of human benevolence4 ,there is no mother's milk to-day1 save in tigers' udders1 and in the udders of sea-whales4 ,our children drink a decoction of ideal love1 at the breast4 ,never for one moment1 poor baby1 the deep warm stream of love from the mother's bowels to his bowels4 ,never for one moment the dark proud recoil into rest1 the soul's separation into deep1 rich independence4 ,never this lovely rich forgetfulness1 as a cat trots off and utterly forgets her kittens1 utterly1 richly forgets them1 till suddenly1 click1 the dynamic circuit reverses itself in her1 and she remembers1 and rages round in a frenzy1 shouting for her young4 ,our miserable infants never know this joy and richness and pang of real maternal warmth4 ,our wonderful mothers never let us out of their minds for one single moment4 ,not for a second do they allow us to escape from their ideal benevolence4 ,not one single breath does a baby draw1 free from the imposition of the pure1 unselfish1 ,botticelli-holy1 detestable love-will of the mother4 ,always the will1 the will1 the love-will1 the ideal will1 directed from the ideal mind4 ,always this stone1 this scorpion of maternal nourishment4 ,always this infernal self-conscious ,madonna starving our living guts and bullying us to death with her love4 ,we have made the idea supplant both impulse and tradition4 ,we have no spark of wholeness4 ,and we live by an evil love-will4 ,alas1 the great spontaneous mode is abrogated4 ,there is no lovely great flux of vital sympathy1 no rich rejoicing of pride into isolation and independence4 ,there is no reverence for great traditions of parenthood4 ,no1 there is substitute for everything--life-substitute--just as we have butter-substitute1 and meat-substitute1 and sugar-substitute1 and leather-substitute1 and silk-substitute1 so we have life-substitute4 ,we have beastly benevolence1 and foul good-will1 and stinking charity1 and poisonous ideals4 ,the poor modern brat1 shoved horribly into life by an effort of will1 and shoved up towards manhood by every appliance that can be applied to it1 especially the appliance of the maternal will1 it is really too pathetic to contemplate4 ,the only thing that prevents us wringing our hands is the remembrance that the little devil will grow up and beget other similar little devils of his own1 to invent more aeroplanes and hospitals and germ-killers and food-substitutes and poison gases4 ,the problem of the future is a question of the strongest poison-gas4 ,which is certainly a very sure way out of our vicious circle4 ,there is no way out of a vicious circle1 of course1 except breaking the circle4 ,and since the mother-child relationship is to-day the viciousest of circles1 what are we to do8 ,just wait for the results of the poison-gas competition presumably4 ,oh1 ideal humanity1 how detestable and despicable you are6 ,and how you deserve your own poison-gases6 ,how you deserve to perish in your own stink4 ,it is no use contemplating the development of the modern child1 born out of the mental-conscious love-will1 born to be another unit of self-conscious love-will3 an ideal-born beastly little entity with a devil's own will of its own1 benevolent1 of course1 and a ,satan's own seraphic self-consciousness1 like a beastly ,botticelli brat4 ,once we really consider this modern process of life and the love-will1 we could throw the pen away1 and spit1 and say three cheers for the inventors of poison-gas4 ,is there not an ,american who is supposed to have invented a breath of heaven whereby1 drop one pop-cornful in ,hampstead1 one in ,brixton1 one in ,east ,ham1 and one in ,islington1 and ,london is a ,pompeii in five minutes6 ,or was the ,american only bragging8 ,because anyhow1 whom has he experimented on8 ,i read it in the newspaper1 though4 ,london a ,pompeii in five minutes4 ,makes the gods look silly6 ,,chapter ,,xii ,,litany ,,of ,,exhortations ,i thought ,i'd better turn over a new leaf1 and start a new chapter4 ,the intention of the last chapter was to find a way out of the vicious circle4 ,and it ended in poison-gas4 ,yes1 dear reader1 so it did4 ,but you've not silenced me yet1 for all that4 ,we're in a nasty mess4 ,we're in a vicious circle4 ,and we're making a careful study of poison-gases4 ,the secret of ,greek fire was lost long ago1 when the world left off being wonderful and ideal4 ,now it is wonderful and ideal again1 much wonderfuller and much more ideal4 ,so we ought to do something rare in the way of poison-gas4 ,london a ,pompeii in five minutes6 ,how to outdo ,vesuvius6--title of a new book by ,american authors4 ,there is only one single other thing to do4 ,and it's more difficult than poison-gas4 ,it is to leave off loving4 ,it is to leave off benevolenting and having a good will4 ,it is to cease utterly4 ,just leave off4 ,oh1 parents1 see that your children get their dinners and clean sheets1 but don't love them4 ,don't love them one single grain1 and don't let anybody else love them4 ,give them their dinners and leave them alone4 ,you've already loved them to perdition4 ,now leave them alone1 to find their own way out4 ,wives1 don't love your husbands any more3 even if they cry for it1 the great babies6 ,sing3 ,i've had enough of that old sauce4 ,and leave off loving them or caring for them one single bit4 ,don't even hate them or dislike them4 ,don't have any stew with them at all4 ,just boil the eggs and fill the salt-cellars and be quite nice1 and in your own soul1 be alone and be still4 ,be alone1 and be still1 preserving all the human decencies1 and abandoning the indecency of desires and benevolencies and devotions1 those beastly poison-gas apples of the ,sodom vine of the love-will4 ,wives1 don't love your husbands nor your children nor anybody4 ,sit still1 and say ,hush6 ,and while you shake the duster out of the drawing-room window1 say to yourself--,in the sweetness of solitude4 ,and when your husband comes in and says he's afraid he's got a cold and is going to have double pneumonia1 say quietly surely not4 ,and if he wants the ammoniated quinine1 give it him if he can't get it for himself4 ,but don't let him drive you out of your solitude1 your singleness within yourself4 ,and if your little boy falls down the steps and makes his mouth bleed1 nurse and comfort him1 but say to yourself1 even while you tremble with the shock3 ,alone4 ,alone4 ,be alone1 my soul4 ,and if the servant smashes three electric-light bulbs in three minutes1 say to her3 ,how very inconsiderate and careless of you6 ,but say to yourself3 ,don't hear it1 my soul4 ,don't take fright at the pop of a light-bulb4 ,husbands1 don't love your wives any more4 ,if they flirt with men younger or older than yourselves1 let your blood not stir4 ,if you can go away1 go away4 ,but if you must stay and see her1 then say to her1 ,i would rather you didn't flirt in my presence1 ,eleanora4 ,then1 when she goes red and loosens torrents of indignation1 don't answer any more4 ,and when she floods into tears1 say quietly in your own self1 ,my soul is my own2 and go away1 be alone as much as possible4 ,and when she works herself up1 and says she must have love or she will die1 then say3 ,not my love1 however4 ,and to all her threats1 her tears1 her entreaties1 her reproaches1 her cajolements1 her winsomenesses1 answer nothing1 but say to yourself3 ,shall ,i be implicated in this display of the love-will8 ,shall ,i be blasted by this false lightning8 ,and though you tremble in every fiber1 and feel sick1 vomit-sick with the scene1 still contain yourself1 and say1 ,my soul is my own4 ,it shall not be violated4 ,and learn1 learn1 learn the one and only lesson worth learning at last4 ,learn to walk in the sweetness of the possession of your own soul4 ,and whether your wife weeps as she takes off her amber beads at night1 or whether your neighbor in the train sits in your coat bottoms1 or whether your superior in the office makes supercilious remarks1 or your inferior is familiar and impudent2 or whether you read in the newspaper that ,lloyd ,george is performing another iniquity1 or the ,germans plotting another plot1 say to yourself3 ,my soul is my own4 ,my soul is with myself1 and beyond implication4 ,and wait1 quietly1 in possession of your own soul1 till you meet another man who has made the choice1 and kept it4 ,then you will know him by the look on his face3 half a dangerous look1 a look of ,cain1 and half a look of gathered beauty4 ,then you two will make the nucleus of a new society--,ooray6 ,bis6 ,bis66 ,but if you should never meet such a man3 and if your wife should torture you every day with her love-will3 and even if she should force herself into a consumption1 like ,catherine ,linton in ,wuthering ,heights1 owing to her obstinate and determined love-will 7which is quite another matter than love73 and if you see the world inventing poison-gas and falling into its poisoned grave3 never give in1 but be alone1 and utterly alone with your own soul1 in the stillness and sweet possession of your own soul4 ,and don't even be angry4 ,and never be sad4 ,why should you8 ,it's not your affair4 ,but if your wife should accomplish for herself the sweetness of her own soul's possession1 then gently1 delicately let the new mode assert itself1 the new mode of relation between you1 with something of spontaneous paradise in it1 the apple of knowledge at last digested4 ,but1 my word1 what belly-aches meanwhile4 ,that apple is harder to digest than a lead gun-cartridge4 ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,cosmological ,well1 dear reader1 ,chapter ,,xii was short1 and ,i hope you found it sweet4 ,but remember1 this is an essay on ,child ,consciousness1 not a tract on ,salvation4 ,it isn't my fault that ,i am led at moments into exhortation4 ,well1 then1 what about it8 ,one fact now seems very clear--at any rate to me4 ,we've got to pause4 ,we haven't got to gird our loins with a new frenzy and our larynxes with a new ,glory ,song4 ,not a bit of it4 ,before you dash off to put salt on the tail of a new religion or of a new ,leader of ,men1 dear reader1 sit down quietly and pull yourself together4 ,say to yourself3 ,come now1 what is it all about8 ,and you'll realize1 dear reader1 that you're all in a fluster1 inwardly4 ,then say to yourself3 ,why am ,i in such a fluster8 ,and you'll see you've no reason at all to be so3 except that it's rather exciting to be in a fluster1 and it may seem rather stale eggs to be in no fluster at all about anything4 ,and yet1 dear little reader1 once you consider it quietly1 it's so much nicer not to be in a fluster4 ,it's so much nicer not to feel one's deeper innards storming like the ,bay of ,biscay4 ,it is so much better to get up and say to the waters of one's own troubled spirit3 ,peace1 be still 4446 ,and they will be still 444 perhaps4 ,and then one realizes that all the wild storms of anxiety and frenzy were only so much breaking of eggs4 ,it isn't our business to live anybody's life1 or to die anybody's death1 except our own4 ,nor to save anybody's soul1 nor to put anybody in the right2 nor yet in the wrong1 which is more the point to-day4 ,but to be still1 and to ignore the false fine frenzy of the seething world4 ,to turn away1 now1 each one into the stillness and solitude of his own soul4 ,and there to remain in the quiet with the ,holy ,ghost which is to each man his own true soul4 ,this is the way out of the vicious circle4 ,not to rush round on the periphery1 like a rabbit in a ring1 trying to break through4 ,but to retreat to the very center1 and there to be filled with a new strange stability1 polarized in unfathomable richness with the center of centers4 ,we are so silly1 trying to invent devices and machines for flying off from the surface of the earth4 ,instead of realizing that for us the deep satisfaction lies not in escaping1 but in getting into the perfect circuit of the earth's terrestrial magnetism4 ,not in breaking away4 ,what is the good of trying to break away from one's own8 ,what is the good of a tree desiring to fly like a bird in the sky1 when a bird is rooted in the earth as surely as a tree is8 ,nay1 the bird is only the topmost leaf of the tree1 fluttering in the high air1 but attached as close to the tree as any other leaf4 ,mr4 ,einstein's ,theory of ,relativity does not supersede the ,newtonian ,law of ,gravitation or of ,inertia4 ,it only says1 ,beware6 ,the ,law of ,inertia is not the simple ideal proposition you would like to make of it4 ,it is a vast complexity4 ,gravitation is not one elemental uncouth force4 ,it is a strange1 infinitely complex1 subtle aggregate of forces4 ,and yet1 however much it may waggle1 a stone does fall to earth if you drop it4 ,we should like1 vulgarly1 to rejoice and say that the new ,theory of ,relativity releases us from the old obligation of centrality4 ,it does no such thing4 ,it only makes the old centrality much more strange1 subtle1 complex1 and vital4 ,it only robs us of the nice old ideal simplicity4 ,which ideal simplicity and logicalness has become such a fish-bone stuck in our throats4 ,the universe is once more in the mental melting-pot4 ,and you can melt it down as long as you like1 and mutter all the jargon and abracadabra1 aldeboronti fosco fornio of science that mental monkey-tricks can teach you1 you won't get anything in the end but a formula and a lie4 ,the atom8 ,why1 the moment you discover the atom it will explode under your nose4 ,the moment you discover the ether it will evaporate4 ,the moment you get down to the real basis of anything1 it will dissolve into a thousand problematic constituents4 ,and the more problems you solve1 the more will spring up with their fingers at their nose1 making a fool of you4 ,there is only one clue to the universe4 ,and that is the individual soul within the individual being4 ,that outer universe of suns and moons and atoms is a secondary affair4 ,it is the death-result of living individuals4 ,there is a great polarity in life itself4 ,life itself is dual4 ,and the duality is life and death4 ,and death is not just shadow or mystery4 ,it is the negative reality of life4 ,it is what we call ,matter and ,force1 among other things4 ,life is individual1 always was individual and always will be4 ,life consists of living individuals1 and always did so consist1 in the beginning of everything4 ,there never was any universe1 any cosmos1 of which the first reality was anything but living1 incorporate individuals4 ,i don't say the individuals were exactly like you and me4 ,and they were never wildly different4 ,and therefore it is time for the idealist and the scientist--they are one and the same1 really--to stop his monkey-jargon about the atom and the origin of life and the mechanical clue to the universe4 ,there isn't any such thing4 ,i might as well say3 ,then they took the cart1 and rubbed it all over with grease4 ,then they sprayed it with white wine1 and spun round the right wheel five hundred revolutions to the minute and the left wheel1 in the opposite direction1 seven hundred and seventy-seven revolutions to the minute4 ,then a burning torch was applied to each axle4 ,and lo1 the footboard of the cart began to swell1 and suddenly as the cart groaned and writhed1 the horse was born1 and lay panting between the shafts4 ,the whole scientific theory of the universe is not worth such a tale3 that the cart conceived and gave birth to the horse4 ,i do not believe one-fifth of what science can tell me about the sun4 ,i do not believe for one second that the moon is a dead world spelched off from our globe4 ,i do not believe that the stars came flying off from the sun like drops of water when you spin your wet hanky4 ,i have believed it for twenty years1 because it seemed so ideally plausible4 ,now ,i don't accept any ideal plausibilities at all4 ,i look at the moon and the stars1 and ,i know ,i don't believe anything that ,i am told about them4 ,except that ,i like their names1 ,aldebaran and ,cassiopeia1 and so on4 ,i have tried1 and even brought myself to believe in a clue to the outer universe4 ,and in the process ,i have swallowed such a lot of jargon that ,i would rather listen now to a negro witch-doctor than to ,science4 ,there is nothing in the world that is true except empiric discoveries which work in actual appliances4 ,i know that the sun is hot4 ,but ,i won't be told that the sun is a ball of blazing gas which spins round and fizzes4 ,no1 thank you4 ,at length1 for my part1 ,i know that life1 and life only is the clue to the universe4 ,and that the living individual is the clue to life4 ,and that it always was so1 and always will be so4 ,when the living individual dies1 then is the realm of death established4 ,then you get ,matter and ,elements and atoms and forces and sun and moon and earth and stars and so forth4 ,in short1 the outer universe1 the ,cosmos4 ,the ,cosmos is nothing but the aggregate of the dead bodies and dead energies of bygone individuals4 ,the dead bodies decompose as we know into earth1 air1 and water1 heat and radiant energy and free electricity and innumerable other scientific facts4 ,the dead souls likewise decompose--or else they don't decompose4 ,but if they do decompose1 then it is not into any elements of ,matter and physical energy4 ,they decompose into some psychic reality1 and into some potential will4 ,they reenter into the living psyche of living individuals4 ,the living soul partakes of the dead souls1 as the living breast partakes of the outer air1 and the blood partakes of the sun4 ,the soul1 the individuality1 never resolves itself through death into physical constituents4 ,the dead soul remains always soul1 and always retains its individual quality4 ,and it does not disappear1 but reenters into the soul of the living1 of some living individual or individuals4 ,and there it continues its part in life1 as a death-witness and a life-agent4 ,but it does not1 ordinarily1 have any separate existence there1 but is incorporate in the living individual soul4 ,but in some extraordinary cases1 the dead soul may really act separately in a living individual4 ,how this all is1 and what are the laws of the relation between life and death1 the living and the dead1 ,i don't know4 ,but that this relation exists1 and exists in a manner as ,i describe it1 for my own part ,i know4 ,and ,i am fully aware that once we direct our living attention this way1 instead of to the absurdity of the atom1 then we have a whole living universe of knowledge before us4 ,the universe of life and death1 of which we1 whose business it is to live and to die1 know nothing4 ,whilst concerning the universe of ,force and ,matter we pile up theories and make staggering and disastrous discoveries of machinery and poison-gas1 all of which we were much better without4 ,it is life we have to live by1 not machines and ideals4 ,and life means nothing else1 even1 but the spontaneous living soul which is our central reality4 ,the spontaneous1 living1 individual soul1 this is the clue1 and the only clue4 ,all the rest is derived4 ,how it is contrived that the individual soul in the living sways the very sun in its centrality1 ,i do not know4 ,but it is so4 ,it is the peculiar dynamic polarity of the living soul in every weed or bug or beast1 each one separately and individually polarized with the great returning pole of the sun1 that maintains the sun alive4 ,for ,i take it that the sun is the great sympathetic center of our inanimate universe4 ,i take it that the sun breathes in the effluence of all that fades and dies4 ,across space fly the innumerable vibrations which are the basis of all matter4 ,they fly1 breathed out from the dying and the dead1 from all that which is passing away1 even in the living4 ,these vibrations1 these elements pass away across space1 and are breathed back again4 ,the sun itself is invisible as the soul4 ,the sun itself is the soul of the inanimate universe1 the aggregate clue to the substantial death1 if we may call it so4 ,the sun is the great active pole of the sympathetic death-activity4 ,to the sun fly the vibrations or the molecules in the great sympathy-mode of death1 and in the sun they are renewed1 they turn again as the great gift back again from the sympathetic death-center towards life1 towards the living4 ,but it is not even the dead which really sustain the sun4 ,it is the dynamic relation between the solar plexus of individuals and the sun's core1 a perfect circuit4 ,the sun is materially composed of all the effluence of the dead4 ,but the quick of the sun is polarized with the living1 the sun's quick is polarized in dynamic relation with the quick of life in all living things1 that is1 with the solar plexus in mankind4 ,a direct dynamic connection between my solar plexus and the sun4 ,likewise1 as the sun is the great fiery1 vivifying pole of the inanimate universe1 the moon is the other pole1 cold and keen and vivifying1 corresponding in some way to a voluntary pole4 ,we live between the polarized circuit of sun and moon4 ,and the moon is polarized with the lumbar ganglion1 primarily1 in man4 ,sun and moon are dynamically polarized to our actual tissue1 they affect this tissue all the time4 ,the moon is1 as it were1 the pole of our particular terrestrial volition1 in the universe4 ,what holds the earth swinging in space is first1 the great dynamic attraction to the sun1 and then counterposing assertion of independence1 singleness1 which is polarized in the moon4 ,the moon is the clue to our earth's individual identity1 in the wide universe4 ,the moon is an immense magnetic center4 ,it is quite wrong to say she is a dead snowy world with craters and so on4 ,i should say she is composed of some very intense element1 like phosphorus or radium1 some element or elements which have very powerful chemical and kinetic activity1 and magnetic activity1 affecting us through space4 ,it is not the sun which we see in heaven4 ,it is the rushing thither and the rushing thence of the vibrations expelled by death from the body of life1 and returned back again to the body of life4 ,possibly even a dead soul makes its journey to the sun and back1 before we receive it again in our breast4 ,just as the breath we breathe out flies to the sun and back1 before we breathe it in again4 ,and as the water that evaporates rises right to the sun1 and returns here4 ,what we see is the great golden rushing thither1 from the death exhalation1 towards the sun1 as a great cloud of bees flying to swarm upon the invisible queen1 circling round1 and loosing again4 ,this is what we see of the sun4 ,the center is invisible for ever4 ,and of the moon the same4 ,the moon has her back to us for ever4 ,not her face1 as we like to think4 ,the moon also pulls the water1 as the sun does4 ,but not in evaporation4 ,the moon pulls by the magnetic force we call gravitation4 ,gravitation not being quite such a ,newtonian simple apple as we are accustomed to find it1 we are perhaps farther off from understanding the tides of the ocean than we were before the fruit of the tree fell to ,sir ,isaac's head4 ,it is certainly not simple little-things tumble-towards-big-things gravitation4 ,in the moon's pull there is peculiar1 quite special force exerted over those water-born substances1 phosphorus1 salt1 and lime4 ,the dynamic energy of salt water is something quite different from that of fresh water4 ,and it is this dynamic energy which the sea gives off1 and which connects it with the moon4 ,and the moon is some strange coagulation of substance such as salt1 phosphorus1 soda4 ,it certainly isn't a snowy cold world1 like a world of our own gone cold4 ,nonsense4 ,it is a globe of dynamic substance like radium or phosphorus1 coagulated upon a certain vivid pole of energy1 which pole of energy is directly polarized with our earth1 in opposition with the sun4 ,the moon is born from the death of individuals4 ,all things1 in their oneing1 their unification into the pure1 universal oneness1 evaporate and fly like an imitation breath towards the sun4 ,even the crumbling rocks breathe themselves off in this rocky death1 to the sun of heaven1 during the day4 ,but at the same time1 during the night they breathe themselves off to the moon4 ,if we come to think of it1 light and dark are a question both of the third body1 the intervening body1 what we will call1 by stretching a point1 the individual4 ,as we all know1 apart from the existence of molecules of individual matter1 there is neither light nor dark4 ,a universe utterly without matter1 we don't know whether it is light or dark4 ,even the pure space between the sun and moon1 the blue space1 we don't know whether1 in itself1 it is light or dark4 ,we can say it is light1 we can say it is dark4 ,but light and dark are terms which apply only to ourselves1 the third1 the intermediate1 the substantial1 the individual4 ,if we come to think of it1 light and dark only mean whether we have our face or our back towards the sun4 ,if we have our face to the sun1 then we establish the circuit of cosmic or universal or material or infinite sympathy4 ,these four adjectives1 cosmic1 universal1 material1 and infinite are almost interchangeable1 and apply1 as we see1 to that realm of the non-individual existence which we call the realm of the substantial death4 ,it is the universe which has resulted from the death of individuals4 ,and to this universe alone belongs the quality of infinity3 to the universe of death4 ,living individuals have no infinity save in this relation to the total death-substance and death-being1 the summed-up cosmos4 ,light and dark1 these great wonders1 are relative to us alone4 ,these are two vast poles of the cosmic energy and of material existence4 ,these are the vast poles of cosmic sympathy1 which we call the sun1 and the other white pole of cosmic volition1 which we call the moon4 ,to the sun belong the great forces of heat and radiant energy1 to the moon belong the great forces of magnetism and electricity1 radium-energy1 and so on4 ,the sun is not1 in any sense1 a material body4 ,it is an invariable intense pole of cosmic energy1 and what we see are the particles of our terrestrial decomposition flying thither and returning1 as fine grains of iron would fly to an intense magnet1 or better1 as the draught in a room veers towards the fire1 attracted infallibly1 as a moth towards a candle4 ,the moth is drawn to the candle as the draught is drawn to the fire1 in the absolute spell of the material polarity of fire4 ,and air escapes again1 hot and different1 from the fire4 ,so is the sun4 ,fire1 we say1 is combustion4 ,it is marvelous how science proceeds like witchcraft and alchemy1 by means of an abracadabra which has no earthly sense4 ,pray1 what is combustion8 ,you can try and answer scientifically1 till you are black in the face4 ,all you can say is that it is that which happens when matter is raised to a certain temperature--and so forth and so forth4 ,you might as well say1 a word is that which happens when ,i open my mouth and squeeze my larynx and make various tricks with my throat muscles4 ,all these explanations are so senseless4 ,they describe the apparatus1 and think they have described the event4 ,fire may be accompanied by combustion1 but combustion is not necessarily accompanied by fire4 ,all ,a is ,b1 but all ,b is not ,a4 ,and therefore fire1 no matter how you jiggle1 is not identical with combustion4 ,fire4 ,,fire4 ,i insist on the absolute word4 ,you may say that fire is a sum of various phenomena4 ,i say it isn't4 ,you might as well tell me a fly is a sum of wings and six legs and two bulging eyes4 ,it is the fly which has the wings and legs1 and not the legs and wings which somehow nab the fly into the middle of themselves4 ,a fly is not a sum of various things4 ,a fly is a fly1 and the items of the sum are still fly4 ,so with fire4 ,fire is an absolute unity in itself4 ,it is a dynamic polar principle4 ,establish a certain polarity between the moon-principle and the sun-principle1 between the positive and negative1 or sympathetic and volitional dynamism in any piece of matter1 and you have fire1 you have the sun-phenomenon4 ,it is the sudden flare into the one mode1 the sun mode1 the material sympathetic mode4 ,correspondingly1 establish an opposite polarity between the sun-principle and the water-principle1 and you have decomposition into water1 or towards watery dissolution4 ,there are two sheer dynamic principles in our universe1 the sun-principle and the moon-principle4 ,and these principles are known to us in immediate contact as fire and water4 ,the sun is not fire4 ,but the principle of fire is the sun-principle4 ,that is1 fire is the sudden swoop towards the sun1 of matter which is suddenly sun-polarized4 ,fire is the sudden sun-assertion1 the release towards the one pole only4 ,it is the sudden revelation of the cosmic ,one ,polarity1 ,one ,identity4 ,but there is another pole4 ,there is the moon4 ,and there is another absolute and visible principle1 the principle of water4 ,the moon is not water4 ,but it is the soul of water1 the invisible clue to all the waters4 ,so that we begin to realize our visible universe as a vast dual polarity between sun and moon4 ,two vast poles in space1 invisible in themselves1 but visible owing to the circuit which swoops between them1 round them1 the circuit of the universe1 established at the cosmic poles of the sun and moon4 ,this then is the infinite1 the positive infinite of the positive pole1 the sun-pole1 negative infinite of the negative pole1 the moon-pole4 ,and between the two infinites all existence takes place4 ,but wait4 ,existence is truly a matter of propagation between the two infinites4 ,but it needs a third presence4 ,sun-principle and moon-principle1 embracing through the aeons1 could never by themselves propagate one molecule of matter4 ,the hailstone needs a grain of dust for its core4 ,so does the universe4 ,midway between the two cosmic infinites lies the third1 which is more than infinite4 ,this is the ,holy ,ghost ,life1 individual life4 ,it is so easy to imagine that between them1 the two infinites of the cosmos propagated life4 ,but one single moment of pause and silence1 one single moment of gathering the whole soul into knowledge1 will tell us that it is a falsity4 ,it was the living individual soul which1 dying1 flung into space the two wings of the infinite1 the two poles of the sun and the moon4 ,the sun and the moon are the two eternal death-results of the death of individuals4 ,matter1 all matter1 is the ,life-born4 ,and what we know as inert matter1 this is only the result of death in individuals1 it is the dead bodies of individuals decomposed and resmelted between the hammer and anvil1 fire and sand of the sun and the moon4 ,when time began1 the first individual died1 the poles of the sun and moon were flung into space1 and between the two1 in a strange chaos and battle1 the dead body was torn and melted and smelted1 and rolled beneath the feet of the living4 ,so the world was formed1 always under the feet of the living4 ,and so we have a clue to gravitation4 ,we1 mankind1 are all one family4 ,in our individual bodies burns the positive quick of all things4 ,but beneath our feet1 in our own earth1 lies the intense center of our human1 individual death1 our grave4 ,the earth has one center1 to which we are all polarized4 ,the circuit of our life is balanced on the living soul within us1 as the positive center1 and on the earth's dark center1 the center of our abiding and eternal and substantial death1 our great negative center1 away below4 ,this is the circuit of our immediate individual existence4 ,we stand upon our own grave1 with our death fire1 the sun1 on our right hand1 and our death-damp1 the moon1 on our left4 ,the earth's center is no accident4 ,it is the great individual pole of us who die4 ,it is the center of the first dead body4 ,it is the first germ-cell of death1 which germ-cell threw out the great nuclei of the sun and the moon4 ,to this center of our earth we1 as humans1 are eternally polarized1 as are our trees4 ,inevitably1 we fall to earth4 ,and the clue of us sinks to the earth's center1 the clue of our death1 of our weight4 ,and the earth flings us out as wings to the sun and moon3 or as the death-germ dividing into two nuclei4 ,so from the earth our radiance is flung to the sun1 our marsh-fire to the moon1 when we die4 ,we fall into the earth4 ,but our rising was not from the earth4 ,we rose from the earthless quick1 the unfading life4 ,and earth1 sun1 and moon are born only of our death4 ,but it is only their polarized dynamic connection with us who live which sustains them all in their place and maintains them all in their own activities4 ,the inanimate universe rests absolutely on the life-circuit of living creatures1 is built upon the arch which spans the duality of living beings4 ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,sleep ,,and ,,dreams ,this is going rather far1 for a book--nay1 a booklet--on the child consciousness4 ,but it can't be helped4 ,child-consciousness it is4 ,and we have to roll away the stone of a scientific cosmos from the tomb-mouth of that imprisoned consciousness4 ,now1 dear reader1 let us see where we are4 ,first of all1 we are ourselves--which is the refrain of all my chants4 ,we are ourselves4 ,we are living individuals4 ,and as living individuals we are the one1 pure clue to our own cosmos4 ,to which cosmos living individuals have always been the clue1 since time began1 and will always be the clue1 while time lasts4 ,i know it is not so fireworky as the sudden evolving of life1 somewhere1 somewhen and somehow1 out of force and matter with a pop4 ,but that pop never popped1 dear reader4 ,the boot was on the other leg4 ,and ,i wish ,i could mix a few more metaphors1 like pops and legs and boots1 just to annoy you4 ,life never evolved1 or evoluted1 out of force and matter1 dear reader4 ,there is no such thing as evolution1 anyhow4 ,there is only development4 ,man was man in the very first plasm-speck which was his own individual origin1 and is still his own individual origin4 ,as for the origin1 ,i don't know much about it4 ,i only know there is but one origin1 and that is the individual soul4 ,the individual soul originated everything1 and has itself no origin4 ,so that time is a matter of living experience1 nothing else1 and eternity is just a mental trick4 ,of course every living speck1 amoeba or newt1 has its own individual soul4 ,and we sit on our own globe1 dear reader1 here individually located4 ,our own individual being is our own single reality4 ,but the single reality of the individual being is dynamically and directly polarized to the earth's center1 which is the aggregate negative center of all terrestrial existence4 ,in short1 the center which in life we thrust away from1 and towards which we fall1 in death4 ,for1 our individual existence being positive1 we must have a negative pole to thrust away from4 ,and when our positive individual existence breaks1 and we fall into death1 our wonderful individual gravitation-center succumbs to the earth's gravitation-center4 ,so there we are1 individuals1 single1 life-born1 life-living1 yet all the while poised and polarized to the aggregate center of our substantial death1 our earth's quick1 powerful center-clue4 ,there may be other individuals1 alive1 and having other worlds under their feet1 polarized to their own globe's center4 ,but the very sacredness of my own individuality prevents my pronouncing about them1 lest ,i1 in attributing qualities to them1 transgress against the pure individuality which is theirs1 beyond me4 ,if1 however1 there be truly other people1 with their own world under their feet1 then ,i think it is fair to say that we all have our infinite identity in the sun4 ,that in the rush and swirl of death we pass through fiery ways to the same sun4 ,and from the sun1 can the spores of souls pass to the various worlds8 ,and to the worlds of the cosmos seed across space1 through the wild beams of the sun8 ,is there seed of ,mars in my veins8 ,and is astrology not altogether nonsense8 ,but if the sun is the center of our infinite oneing in death with all the other after-death souls of the cosmos3 and in that great central station of travel1 the sun1 we meet and mingle and change trains for the stars3 then ought we to assume that the moon is likewise a meeting-place of dead souls8 ,the moon surely is a meeting-place of cold1 dead1 angry souls4 ,but from our own globe only4 ,the moon is the center of our terrestrial individuality in the cosmos4 ,she is the declaration of our existence in separateness4 ,save for the intense white recoil of the moon1 the earth would stagger towards the sun4 ,the moon holds us to our own cosmic individuality1 as a world individual in space4 ,she is the fierce center of retraction1 of frictional withdrawal into separateness4 ,she it is who sullenly stands with her back to us1 and refuses to meet and mingle4 ,she it is who burns white with the intense friction of her withdrawal into separation1 that cold1 proud white fire of furious1 almost malignant apartness1 the struggle into fierce1 frictional separation4 ,her white fire is the frictional fire of the last strange1 intense watery matter1 as this matter fights its way out of combination and out of combustion with the sun-stuff4 ,to the pure polarity of the moon fly the essential waters of our universe4 ,which essential waters1 at the moon's clue1 are only an intense invisible energy1 a polarity of the moon4 ,there are only three great energies in the universal life1 which is always individual and which yet sways all the physical forces as well as the vital energy2 and then the two great dynamisms of the sun and the moon4 ,to the dynamism of the sun belong heat1 expansion-force1 and all that range4 ,to the dynamism of the moon the essential watery forces3 not just gravitation1 but electricity1 magnetism1 radium-energy1 and so on4 ,the moon likewise is the pole of our night activities1 as the sun is the pole of our day activities4 ,remember that the sun and moon are but great self-abandons which individual life has thrown out1 to the right hand and to the left4 ,when individual life dies1 it flings itself on the right hand to the sun1 on the left hand to the moon1 in the dual polarity1 and sinks to earth4 ,when any man dies1 his soul divides in death2 as in life1 in the first germ1 it was united from two germs4 ,it divides into two dark germs1 flung asunder3 the sun-germ and the moon-germ4 ,then the material body sinks to earth4 ,and so we have the cosmic universe such as we know it4 ,what is the exact relationship between us and the death-realm of the afterwards we shall never know4 ,but this relation is none the less active every moment of our lives4 ,there is a pure polarity between life and death1 between the living and the dead1 between each living individual and the outer cosmos4 ,between each living individual and the earth's center passes a never-ceasing circuit of magnetism4 ,it is a circuit which in man travels up the right side1 and down the left side of the body1 to the earth's center4 ,it never ceases4 ,but while we are awake it is entirely under the control and spell of the total consciousness1 the individual consciousness1 the soul1 or self4 ,when we sleep1 however1 then this individual consciousness of the soul is suspended for the time1 and we lie completely within the circuit of the earth's magnetism1 or gravitation1 or both3 the circuit of the earth's centrality4 ,it is this circuit which is busy in all our tissue removing or arranging the dead body of our past day4 ,for each time we lie down to sleep we have within us a body of death which dies with the day that is spent4 ,and this body of death is removed or laid in line by the activities of the earth-circuit1 the great active death-circuit1 while we sleep4 ,as we sleep the current sweeps its own way through us1 as the streets of a city are swept and flushed at night4 ,it sweeps through our nerves and our blood1 sweeping away the ash of our day's spent consciousness towards one form or other of excretion4 ,this earth-current actively sweeping through us is really the death-activity busy in the service of life4 ,it behooves us to know nothing of it4 ,and as it sweeps it stimulates in the primary centers of consciousness vibrations which flash images upon the mind4 ,usually1 in deep sleep1 these images pass unrecorded2 but as we pass towards the twilight of dawn and wakefulness1 we begin to retain some impression1 some record of the dream-images4 ,usually also the images that are accidentally swept into the mind in sleep are as disconnected and as unmeaning as the pieces of paper which the street cleaners sweep into a bin from the city gutters at night4 ,we should not think of taking all these papers1 piecing them together1 and making a marvelous book of them1 prophetic of the future and pregnant with the past4 ,we should not do so1 although every rag of printed paper swept from the gutter would have some connection with the past day's event4 ,but its significance1 the significance of the words printed upon it is so small1 that we relegate it into the limbo of the accidental and meaningless4 ,there is no vital connection between the many torn bits of paper--only an accidental connection4 ,each bit of paper has reference to some actual event3 a bus-ticket1 an envelope1 a tract1 a pastry-shop bag1 a newspaper1 a hand-bill4 ,but take them all together1 bus-ticket1 torn envelope1 tract1 paper-bag1 piece of newspaper and hand-bill1 and they have no individual sequence1 they belong more to the mechanical arrangements than to the vital consequence of our existence4 ,and the same with most dreams4 ,they are the heterogeneous odds and ends of images swept together accidentally by the besom of the night-current1 and it is beneath our dignity to attach any real importance to them4 ,it is always beneath our dignity to go degrading the integrity of the individual soul by cringing and scraping among the rag-tag of accident and of the inferior1 mechanic coincidence and automatic event4 ,only those events are significant which derive from or apply to the soul in its full integrity4 ,to go kow-towing before the facts of change1 as gamblers and fortune-readers and fatalists do1 is merely a perverting of the soul's proud integral priority1 a rearing up of idiotic idols and fetishes4 ,most dreams are purely insignificant1 and it is the sign of a weak and paltry nature to pay any attention to them whatever4 ,only occasionally they matter4 ,and this is only when something threatens us from the outer mechanical1 or accidental death-world4 ,when anything threatens us from the world of death1 then a dream may become so vivid that it arouses the actual soul4 ,and when a dream is so intense that it arouses the soul--then we must attend to it4 ,but we may have the most appalling nightmare because we eat pancakes for supper4 ,here again1 we are threatened with an arrest of the mechanical flow of the system4 ,this arrest becomes so serious that it affects the great organs of the heart and lungs1 and these organs affect the primary conscious-centers4 ,now we shall see that this is the direct reverse of real living consciousness4 ,in living consciousness the primary affective centers control the great organs4 ,but when sleep is on us1 the reverse takes place4 ,the great organs1 being obstructed in their spontaneous-automatism1 at last with violence arouse the active conscious-centers4 ,and these flash images to the brain4 ,these nightmare images are very frequently purely mechanical3 as of falling terribly downwards1 or being enclosed in vaults4 ,and such images are pure physical transcripts4 ,the image of falling1 of flying1 of trying to run and not being able to lift the feet1 of having to creep through terribly small passages1 these are direct transcripts from the physical phenomena of circulation and digestion4 ,it is the directly transcribed image of the heart which1 impeded in its action by the gases of indigestion1 is switched out of its established circuit of earth-polarity1 and is as if suspended over a void1 or plunging into a void3 step by step1 falling downstairs1 maybe1 according to the strangulation of the heart beats4 ,the same paralytic inability to lift the feet when one needs to run1 in a dream1 comes directly from the same impeded action of the heart1 which is thrown off its balance by some material obstruction4 ,now the heart swings left and right in the pure circuit of the earth's polarity4 ,hinder this swing1 force the heart over to the left1 by inflation of gas from the stomach or by dead pressure upon the blood and nerves from any obstruction1 and you get the sensation of being unable to lift the feet from earth3 a gasping sensation4 ,or force the heart to over-balance towards the right1 and you get the sensation of flying or of falling4 ,the heart telegraphs its distress to the mind1 and wakes us4 ,the wakeful soul at once begins to deal with the obstruction1 which was too much for the mechanical night-circuits4 ,the same holds good of dreams of imprisonment1 or of creeping through narrow passages4 ,they are direct transfers from the squeezing of the blood through constricted arteries or heart chambers4 ,most dreams are stimulated from the blood into the nerves and the nerve-centers4 ,and the heart is the transmission station4 ,for the blood has a unity and a consciousness of its own4 ,it has a deeper1 elemental consciousness of the mechanical or material world4 ,in the blood we have the body of our most elemental consciousness1 our almost material consciousness4 ,and during sleep this material consciousness transfers itself into the nerves and to the brain4 ,the transfer in wakefulness results in a feeling of pain or discomfort--as when we have indigestion1 which is pure blood-discomfort4 ,but in sleep the transfer is made through the dream-images which are mechanical phenomena like mirages4 ,nightmares which have purely mechanical images may terrify us1 give us a great shock1 but the shock does not enter our souls4 ,we are surprised1 in the morning1 to find that the bristling horror of the night seems now just nothing--dwindled to nothing4 ,and this is because what was a purely material obstruction in the physical flow1 temporary only1 is indeed a nothingness to the living1 integral soul4 ,we are subject to such accidents--if we will eat pancakes for supper4 ,and that is the end of it4 ,but there are other dreams which linger and haunt the soul4 ,these are true soul-dreams4 ,as we know1 life consists of reactions and interrelations from the great centers of primary consciousness4 ,i may start a chain of connection from one center1 which inevitably stimulates into activity the corresponding center4 ,for example1 ,i may develop a profound and passional love for my mother1 in my days of adolescence4 ,this starts1 willy-nilly1 the whole activity of adult love at the lower centers4 ,but admission is made only of the upper1 spiritual love1 the love dynamically polarized at the upper centers4 ,nevertheless1 whether the admission is made or not1 once establish the circuit in the upper or spiritual centers of adult love1 and you will get a corresponding activity in the lower1 passional centers of adult love4 ,the activity at the lower center1 however1 is denied in the daytime4 ,there is a repression4 ,then the friction of the night-flow liberates the repressed psychic activity explosively4 ,and then the image of the mother figures in passionate1 disturbing1 soul-rending dreams4 ,the ,freudians point to this as evidence of a repressed incest desire4 ,the ,freudians are too simple4 ,it is always wrong to accept a dream-meaning at its face value4 ,sleep is the time when we are given over to the automatic processes of the inanimate universe4 ,let us not forget this4 ,dreams are automatic in their nature4 ,the psyche possesses remarkably few dynamic images4 ,in the case of the boy who dreams of his mother1 we have the aroused but unattached sex plunging in sleep1 causing a sort of obstruction4 ,we have the image of the mother1 the dynamic emotional image4 ,and the automatism of the dream-process immediately unites the sex-sensation to the great stock image1 and produces an incest dream4 ,but does this prove a repressed incest desire8 ,on the contrary4 ,the truth is1 every man has1 the moment he awakes1 a hatred of his dream1 and a great desire to be free of the dream1 free of the persistent mother-image or sister-image of the dream4 ,it is a ghoul1 it haunts his dreams1 this image1 with its hateful conclusions4 ,and yet he cannot get free4 ,as long as a man lives he may1 in his dreams of passion or conflict1 be haunted by the mother-image or sister-image1 even when he knows that the cause of the disturbing dream is the wife4 ,but even though the actual subject of the dream is the wife1 still1 over and over again1 for years1 the dream-process will persist in substituting the mother-image4 ,it haunts and terrifies a man4 ,why does the dream-process act so8 ,for two reasons4 ,first1 the reason of simple automatic continuance4 ,the mother-image was the first great emotional image to be introduced in the psyche4 ,the dream-process mechanically reproduces its stock image the moment the intense sympathy-emotion is aroused4 ,again1 the mother-image refers only to the upper plane4 ,but the dream-process is mechanical in its logic4 ,because the mother-image refers to the great dynamic stress of the upper plane1 therefore it refers to the great dynamic stress of the lower4 ,this is a piece of sheer automatic logic4 ,the living soul is not automatic1 and automatic logic does not apply to it4 ,but for our second reason for the image4 ,in becoming the object of great emotional stress for her son1 the mother also becomes an object of poignancy1 of anguish1 of arrest1 to her son4 ,she arrests him from finding his proper fulfillment on the sensual plane4 ,now it is almost always the object of arrest which becomes impressed1 as it were1 upon the psyche4 ,a man very rarely has an image of a person with whom he is livingly1 vitally connected4 ,he only has dream-images of the persons who1 in some way1 oppose his life-flow and his soul's freedom1 and so become impressed upon his plasm as objects of resistance4 ,once a man is dynamically caught on the upper plane by mother or sister1 then the dream-image of mother or sister will persist until the dynamic rapport between himself and his mother or sister is finally broken4 ,and the dream-image from the upper plane will be automatically applied to the disturbance of the lower plane4 ,because--and this is very important--the dream-process loves its own automatism4 ,it would force everything to an automatic-logical conclusion in the psyche4 ,but the living1 wakeful psyche is so flexible and sensitive1 it has a horror of automatism4 ,while the soul really lives1 its deepest dread is perhaps the dread of automatism4 ,for automatism in life is a forestalling of the death process4 ,the living soul has its great fear4 ,the living soul fears the automatically logical conclusion of incest4 ,hence the sleep-process invariably draws this conclusion4 ,the dream-process1 fiendishly1 plays a triumph of automatism over us4 ,but the dream-conclusion is almost invariably just the reverse of the soul's desire1 in any distress-dream4 ,popular dream-telling understood this1 and pronounced that you must read dreams backwards4 ,dream of a wedding1 and it means a funeral4 ,wish your friend well1 and fear his death1 and you will dream of his funeral4 ,every desire has its corresponding fear that the desire shall not be fulfilled4 ,it is fear which forms an arrest-point in the psyche1 hence an image4 ,so the dream automatically produces the fear-image as the desire-image4 ,if you secretly wished your enemy dead1 and feared he might flourish1 the dream would present you with his wedding4 ,of course this rule of inversion is too simple to hold good in all cases4 ,yet it is one of the most general rules for dreams1 and applies most often to desire-and-fear dreams of a psychic nature4 ,so that an incest-dream would not prove an incest-desire in the living psyche4 ,rather the contrary1 a living fear of the automatic conclusion3 the soul's just dread of automatism4 ,and though this may sound like casuistry1 ,i believe it does explain a good deal of the dream-trick4--,that which is lovely to the automatic process is hateful to the spontaneous soul4 ,the wakeful living soul fears automatism as it fears death3 death being automatic4 ,it seems to me these are the first two dream-principles1 and the two most important3 the principle of automatism and the principle of inversion4 ,they will not resolve everything for us1 but they will help a great deal4 ,we have to be very wary of giving way to dreams4 ,it is really a sin against ourselves to prostitute the living spontaneous soul to the tyranny of dreams1 or of chance1 or fortune or luck1 or any of the processes of the automatic sphere4 ,then consider other dynamic dreams4 ,first1 the dream-image generally4 ,any significant dream-image is usually an image or a symbol of some arrest or scotch in the living spontaneous psyche4 ,there is another principle4 ,but if the image is a symbol1 then the only safe way to explain the symbol is to proceed from the quality of emotion connected with the symbol4 ,for example1 a man has a persistent passionate fear-dream about horses4 ,he suddenly finds himself among great1 physical horses1 which may suddenly go wild4 ,their great bodies surge madly round him1 they rear above him1 threatening to destroy him4 ,at any minute he may be trampled down4 ,now a psychoanalyst will probably tell you off-hand that this is a father-complex dream4 ,certain symbols seem to be put into complex catalogues4 ,but it is all too arbitrary4 ,examining the emotional reference we find that the feeling is sensual1 there is a great impression of the powerful1 almost beautiful physical bodies of the horses1 the nearness1 the rounded haunches1 the rearing4 ,is the dynamic passion in a horse the danger-passion8 ,it is a great sensual reaction at the sacral ganglion1 a reaction of intense1 sensual1 dominant volition4 ,the horse which rears and kicks and neighs madly acts from the intensely powerful sacral ganglion4 ,but this intense activity from the sacral ganglion is male3 the sacral ganglion is at its highest intensity in the male4 ,so that the horse-dream refers to some arrest in the deepest sensual activity in the male4 ,the horse is presented as an object of terror1 which means that to the man's automatic dream-soul1 which loves automatism1 the great sensual male activity is the greatest menace4 ,the automatic pseudo-soul1 which has got the sensual nature repressed1 would like to keep it repressed4 ,whereas the greatest desire of the living spontaneous soul is that this very male sensual nature1 represented as a menace1 shall be actually accomplished in life4 ,the spontaneous self is secretly yearning for the liberation and fulfillment of the deepest and most powerful sensual nature4 ,there may be an element of father-complex4 ,the horse may also refer to the powerful sensual being in the father4 ,the dream may mean a love of the dreamer for the sensual male who is his father4 ,but it has nothing to do with incest4 ,the love is probably a just love4 ,the bull-dream is a curious reversal4 ,in the bull the centers of power are in the breast and shoulders4 ,the horns of the head are symbols of this vast power in the upper self4 ,the woman's fear of the bull is a great terror of the dynamic upper centers in man4 ,the bull's horns1 instead of being phallic1 represent the enormous potency of the upper centers4 ,a woman whose most positive dynamism is in the breast and shoulders is fascinated by the bull4 ,her dream-fear of the bull and his horns which may run into her may be reversed to a significance of desire for connection1 not from the centers of the lower1 sensual self1 but from the intense physical centers of the upper body3 the phallus polarized from the upper centers1 and directed towards the great breast center of the woman4 ,her wakeful fear is terror of the great breast-and-shoulder1 upper rage and power of man1 which may pierce her defenseless lower self4 ,the terror and the desire are near together--and go with an admiration of the slender1 abstracted bull loins4 ,other dream-fears1 or strong dream-impressions1 may be almost imageless4 ,they may be a great terror1 for example1 of a purely geometric figure--a figure from pure geometry1 or an example of pure mathematics4 ,or they may have no image1 but only a sensation of smell1 or of color1 or of sound4 ,these are the dream-fears of the soul which is falling out of human integrity into the purely mechanical mode4 ,if we idealize ourselves sufficiently1 the spontaneous centers do at last work only1 or almost only1 in the mechanical mode4 ,they have no dynamic relation with another being4 ,they cannot have4 ,their whole power of dynamic relationship is quenched4 ,they act now in reference purely to the mechanical world1 of force and matter1 sensation and law4 ,so that in dream-activity sensation or abstraction1 abstract law or calculation occurs as the predominant or exclusive image4 ,in the dream there may be a sensation of admiration or delight4 ,the waking sensation is fear4 ,because the soul fears above all things its fall from individual integrity into the mechanic activity of the outer world1 which is the automatic death-world4 ,and this is our danger to-day4 ,we tend1 through deliberate idealism or deliberate material purpose1 to destroy the soul in its first nature of spontaneous1 integral being1 and to substitute the second nature1 the automatic nature of the mechanical universe4 ,for this purpose we stay up late at night1 and we rise late in the morning4 ,to stay up late into the night is always bad4 ,let us be as ideal as we may1 when the sun goes down the natural mode of life changes in us4 ,the mind changes its activity4 ,as the soul gradually goes passive1 before yielding up its sway1 the mind falls into its second phase of activity4 ,it collects the results of the spent day into consciousness1 lays down the honey of quiet thought1 or the bitter-sweet honey of the gathered flower4 ,it is the consciousness of that which is past4 ,evening is our time to read history and tragedy and romance--all of which are the utterance of that which is past1 that which is over1 that which is finished1 is concluded3 either sweetly concluded1 or bitterly4 ,evening is the time for this4 ,but evening is the time also for revelry1 for drink1 for passion4 ,alcohol enters the blood and acts as the sun's rays act4 ,it inflames into life1 it liberates into energy and consciousness4 ,but by a process of combustion4 ,that life of the day which we have not lived1 by means of sun-born alcohol we can now flare into sensation1 consciousness1 energy and passion1 and live it out4 ,it is a liberation from the laws of idealism1 a release from the restriction of control and fear4 ,it is the blood bursting into consciousness4 ,but naturally the course of the liberated consciousness may be in either direction3 sharper mental action1 greater fervor of spiritual emotion1 or deeper sensuality4 ,nowadays the last is becoming much more unusual4 ,the active mind-consciousness of the night is a form of retrospection1 or else it is a form of impulsive exclamation1 direct from the blood1 and unbalanced4 ,because the active physical consciousness of the night is the blood-consciousness1 the most elemental form of consciousness4 ,vision is perhaps our highest form of dynamic upper consciousness4 ,but our deepest lower consciousness is blood-consciousness4 ,and the dynamic lower centers are swayed from the blood4 ,when the blood rouses into its night intensity1 it naturally kindles first the lowest dynamic centers4 ,it transfers its voice and its fire to the great hypogastric plexus1 which governs1 with the help of the sacral ganglion1 the flow of urine through us1 but which also voices the deep swaying of the blood in sex passion4 ,sex is our deepest form of consciousness4 ,it is utterly non-ideal1 non-mental4 ,it is pure blood-consciousness4 ,it is the basic consciousness of the blood1 the nearest thing in us to pure material consciousness4 ,it is the consciousness of the night1 when the soul is almost asleep4 ,the blood-consciousness is the first and last knowledge of the living soul3 the depths4 ,it is the soul acting in part only1 speaking with its first hoarse half-voice4 ,and blood-consciousness cannot operate purely until the soul has put off all its manifold degrees and forms of upper consciousness4 ,as the self falls back into quiescence1 it draws itself from the brain1 from the great nerve-centers1 into the blood1 where at last it will sleep4 ,but as it draws and folds itself livingly in the blood1 at the dark and powerful hour1 it sends out its great call4 ,for even the blood is alone and in part1 and needs an answer4 ,like the waters of the ,red ,sea1 the blood is divided in a dual polarity between the sexes4 ,as the night falls and the consciousness sinks deeper1 suddenly the blood is heard hoarsely calling4 ,suddenly the deep centers of the sexual consciousness rouse to their spontaneous activity4 ,suddenly there is a deep circuit established between me and the woman4 ,suddenly the sea of blood which is me heaves and rushes towards the sea of blood which is her4 ,there is a moment of pure frictional crisis and contact of blood4 ,and then all the blood in me ebbs back into its ways1 transmuted1 changed4 ,and this is the profound basis of my renewal1 my deep blood renewal4 ,and this has nothing to do with pretty faces or white skin or rosy breasts or any of the rest of the trappings of sexual love4 ,these trappings belong to the day4 ,neither eyes nor hands nor mouth have anything to do with the final massive and dark collision of the blood in the sex crisis1 when the strange flash of electric transmutation passes through the blood of the man and the blood of the woman4 ,they fall apart and sleep in their transmutation4 ,but even in its profoundest1 and most elemental movements1 the soul is still individual4 ,even in its most material consciousness1 it is still integral and individual4 ,you would think the great blood-stream of mankind was one and homogeneous4 ,and it is indeed more nearly one1 more near to homogeneity than anything else within us4 ,the blood-stream of mankind is almost homogeneous4 ,but it isn't homogeneous4 ,in the first place1 it is dual in a perfect dark dynamic polarity1 the sexual polarity4 ,no getting away from the fact that the blood of woman is dynamically polarized in opposition1 or in difference to the blood of man4 ,the crisis of their contact in sex connection is the moment of establishment of a new flashing circuit throughout the whole sea3 the dark1 burning red waters of our under-world rocking in a new dynamic rhythm in each of us4 ,and then in the second place1 the blood of an individual is his own blood4 ,that is1 it is individual4 ,and though we have a potential dynamic sexual connection1 we men1 with almost every woman1 yet the great outstanding fact of the individuality even of the blood makes us need a corresponding individuality in the woman we are to embrace4 ,the more individual the man or woman1 the more unsatisfactory is a non-individual connection3 promiscuity4 ,the more individual1 the more does our blood cry out for its own specific answer1 an individual woman1 blood-polarized with us4 ,we have made the mistake of idealism again4 ,we have thought that the woman who thinks and talks as we do will be the blood-answer4 ,and we force it to be so4 ,to our disaster4 ,the woman who thinks and talks as we do is almost sure to have no dynamic blood-polarity with us4 ,the dynamic blood-polarity would make her different from me1 and not like me in her thought mode4 ,blood-sympathy is so much deeper than thought-mode1 that it may result in very different expression1 verbally4 ,we have made the mistake of turning life inside out3 of dragging the day-self into the night1 and spreading the night-self over into the day4 ,we have made love and sex a matter of seeing and hearing and of day-conscious manipulation4 ,we have made men and women come together on the grounds of this superficial likeness and commonalty--their mental1 and upper sympathetic consciousness4 ,and so we have forced the blood to submission4 ,which means we force it into disintegration4 ,we have too much light in the night1 and too much sleep in the day4 ,it is an evil thing for us to prolong as we do the mental1 visual1 ideal consciousness far into the night when the hour has come for this upper consciousness to fade1 for the blood alone to know and to act4 ,by provoking the reaction of the great blood-stress1 the sex-reaction1 from the upper1 outer mental consciousness and mental lasciviousness of conscious purpose1 we thereby destroy the very blood in our bodies4 ,we prevent it from having its own dynamic sway4 ,we prevent it from coming to its own dynamic crisis and connection1 from finding its own fundamental being4 ,no matter how we work our sex1 from the upper or outer consciousness1 we don't achieve anything but the falsification and impoverishment of our own blood-life4 ,we have no choice4 ,either we must withdraw from interference1 or slowly deteriorate4 ,we have made a corresponding mistake in sleeping on into the day4 ,once the sun rises our constitution changes4 ,once the sun is well up our sleep--supposing our life fairly normal--is no longer truly sleep4 ,when the sun comes up the centers of active dynamic upper consciousness begin to wake4 ,the blood changes its vibration and even its chemical constitution4 ,and then we too ought to wake4 ,we do ourselves great damage by sleeping too long into the day4 ,the half-hour's sleep after midday meal is a readjustment4 ,but the long hours of morning sleep are just a damage4 ,we submit our now active centers of upper consciousness to the dominion of the blood-automatic flow4 ,we chain ourselves down in our morning sleep4 ,we transmute the morning's blood-strength into false dreams and into an ever-increasing force of inertia4 ,and naturally1 in the same line of inertia we persist from bad to worse4 ,with the result that our chained-down1 active nerve-centers are half-shattered before we arise4 ,we never become newly day-conscious1 because we have subjected our powerful centers of day-consciousness to be trampled and wasted into dreams and inertia by the heavy flow of the blood-automatism in the morning sleeps4 ,then we arise with a feeling of the monotony and automatism of life4 ,there is no good1 glad refreshing4 ,we feel tired to start with4 ,and so we protract our day-consciousness on into the night1 when we do at last begin to come awake1 and we tell ourselves we must sleep1 sleep1 sleep in the morning and the daytime4 ,it is better to sleep only six hours than to prolong sleep on and on when the sun has risen4 ,every man and woman should be forced out of bed soon after the sun has risen3 particularly the nervous ones4 ,and forced into physical activity4 ,soon after dawn the vast majority of people should be hard at work4 ,if not1 they will soon be nervously diseased4 ,,chapter ,,xv ,,the ,,lower ,,self ,so it comes about that the moon is the planet of our nights1 as the sun of our days4 ,and this is not just accidental1 or even mechanical4 ,the influence of the moon upon the tides and upon us is not just an accident in phenomena4 ,it is the result of the creation of the universe by life itself4 ,it was life itself which threw the moon apart on the one hand1 the sun on the other4 ,and it is life itself which keeps the dynamic-vital relation constant between the moon and the living individuals of the globe4 ,the moon is as dependent upon the life of individuals1 for her continued existence1 as each single individual is dependent upon the moon4 ,the same with the sun4 ,the sun sets and has his perfect polarity in the life-circuit established between him and all living individuals4 ,break that circuit1 and the sun breaks4 ,without man1 beasts1 butterflies1 trees1 toads1 the sun would gutter out like a spent lamp4 ,it is the life-emission from individuals which feeds his burning and establishes his sun-heart in its powerful equilibrium4 ,the same with the moon4 ,she lives from us1 primarily1 and we from her4 ,everything is a question of relativity4 ,not only is every force relative to other force or forces1 but every existence is relative to other existences4 ,not only does the life of man depend on man1 beast1 and herb1 but on the sun and moon1 and the stars4 ,and in another manner1 the existence of the moon depends absolutely on the life of herb1 beast1 and man4 ,the existence of the moon depends upon the life of individuals1 that which alone is original4 ,without the life of individuals the moon would fall asunder4 ,and the moon particularly1 because she is polarized dynamically to this1 our own earth4 ,we do not know what far-off life breathes between the stars and the sun4 ,but our life alone supports the moon4 ,just as the moon is the pole of our single terrestrial individuality4 ,therefore we must know that between the moon and each individual being exists a vital dynamic flow4 ,the life of individuals depends directly upon the moon1 just as the moon depends directly upon the life of individuals4 ,but in what way does the life of individuals depend directly upon the moon8 ,the moon is the mother of darkness4 ,she is the clue to the active darkness4 ,and we1 below the waist1 we have our being in darkness4 ,below the waist we are sightless4 ,when1 in the daytime1 our life is polarized upwards1 towards the open1 sun-wakened eyes and the mind which sees in vision1 then the powerful dynamic centers of the lower body act in subservience1 in their negative polarity4 ,and then we flow upwards1 we go forth seeking the universe1 in vision1 speech1 and thought--we go forth to see all things1 to hear all things1 to know all things by acquaintance and by knowledge4 ,one flood of dynamic flow are we1 upwards polarized1 in our tallness and our wide-eyed spirit seeking to bring all the universe into the range of our conscious individuality1 and eager always to make new worlds1 out of this old world1 to bud new green tips on the tree of life4 ,just as a tree would die if it were not making new green tips upon all its vast old world of a body1 so the whole universe would perish if man and beast and herb were not always putting forth a newness3 the toad taking a vivider color1 spreading his hands a little more gently1 developing a more ruse intelligence1 the birds adding a new note to their speech and song1 a new sharp swerve to their flight1 a new nicety to their nests2 and man1 making new worlds1 new civilizations4 ,if it were not for this striving into new creation on the part of living individuals1 the universe would go dead1 gradually1 gradually and fall asunder4 ,like a tree that ceases to put forth new green tips1 and to advance out a little further4 ,but each new tip arises out of the apparent death of the old1 the preceding one4 ,old leaves have got to fall1 old forms must die4 ,and if men must at certain periods fall into death in millions1 why1 so must the leaves fall every single autumn4 ,and dead leaves make good mold4 ,and so dead men4 ,even dead men's souls4 ,so if death has to be the goal for a great number1 then let it be so4 ,if ,america must invent this poison-gas1 let her4 ,when death is our goal of goals we shall invent the means of death1 let our professions of benevolence be what they will4 ,but this time1 it seems to me1 we have consciously and responsibly to carry ourselves through the winter-period1 the period of death and denudation3 that is1 some of us have1 some nation even must4 ,for there are not now1 as in the ,roman times1 any great reservoirs of energetic barbaric life4 ,goths1 ,gauls1 ,germans1 ,slavs1 ,tartars4 ,the world is very full of people1 but all fixed in civilizations of their own1 and they all have all our vices1 all our mechanisms1 and all our means of destruction4 ,this time1 the leading civilization cannot die out as ,greece1 ,rome1 ,persia died4 ,it must suffer a great collapse1 maybe4 ,but it must carry through all the collapse the living clue to the next civilization4 ,it's no good thinking we can leave it to ,china or ,japan or ,india or ,africa--any of the great swarms4 ,and here we are1 we don't look much like carrying through to a new era4 ,what have we got that will carry through8 ,the latest craze is ,mr4 ,einstein's ,relativity ,theory4 ,curious that everybody catches fire at the word ,relativity4 ,there must be something in the mere suggestion1 which we have been waiting for4 ,but what8 ,as far as ,i can see1 ,relativity means1 for the common amateur mind1 that there is no one absolute force in the physical universe1 to which all other forces may be referred4 ,there is no one single absolute central principle governing the world4 ,the great cosmic forces or mechanical principles can only be known in their relation to one another1 and can only exist in their relation to one another4 ,but1 says ,einstein1 this relation between the mechanical forces is constant1 and may be expressed by a mathematical formula3 which mathematical formula may be used to equate all mechanical forces of the universe4 ,i hope that is not scientifically all wrong4 ,it is what ,i understand of the ,einstein theory4 ,what ,i doubt is the equation formula4 ,it seems to me1 also1 that the velocity of light through space is the deus ex machina in ,einstein's physics4 ,somebody will some day put salt on the tail of light as it travels through space1 and then its simple velocity will split up into something complex1 and the ,relativity formula will fall to bits4--,but ,i am a confirmed outsider1 so ,i'll hold my tongue4 ,all ,i know is that people have got the word ,relativity into their heads1 and catch-words always refer to some latent idea or conception in the popular mind4 ,it has taken a ,jew to knock the last center-pin out of our ideally spinning universe4 ,the ,jewish intelligence for centuries has been picking holes in our ideal system--scientific and sociological4 ,very good thing for us4 ,now ,mr4 ,einstein1 we are glad to say1 has pulled out the very axle pin4 ,at least that is how the vulgar mind understands it4 ,the equation formula doesn't count4--,so now1 the universe1 according to the popular mind1 can wobble about without being pinned down4--,really1 an anarchical conclusion4 ,but the ,jewish mind insidiously drives us to anarchical conclusions4 ,we are glad to be driven from false1 automatic fixities1 anyhow4 ,and once we are driven right on to nihilism we may find a way through4 ,so1 there is nothing absolute left in the universe4 ,nothing4 ,lord ,haldane says pure knowledge is absolute4 ,as far as it goes1 no doubt4 ,but pure knowledge is only such a tiny bit of the universe1 and always relative to the thing known and to the knower4 ,i feel inclined to ,relativity myself4 ,i think there is no one absolute principle in the universe4 ,i think everything is relative4 ,but ,i also feel1 most strongly1 that in itself each individual living creature is absolute3 in its own being4 ,and that all things in the universe are just relative to the individual living creature4 ,and that individual living creatures are relative to each other4 ,and what about a goal8 ,there is no final goal4 ,but every step taken has its own little relative goal4 ,so what about the next step8 ,well1 first and foremost1 that every individual creature shall come to its own particular and individual fullness of being4--,very nice1 very pretty--but how8 ,well1 through a living dynamic relation to other creatures4--,very nice again1 pretty little adjectives4 ,but what sort of a living dynamic relation8--,well1 not the relation of love1 that's one thing1 nor of brotherhood1 nor equality4 ,the next relation has got to be a relationship of men towards men in a spirit of unfathomable trust and responsibility1 service and leadership1 obedience and pure authority4 ,men have got to choose their leaders1 and obey them to the death4 ,and it must be a system of culminating aristocracy1 society tapering like a pyramid to the supreme leader4 ,all of which sounds very distasteful at the moment4 ,but upon all the vital lessons we have learned during our era of love and spirit and democracy we can found our new order4 ,we wanted to be all of a piece4 ,and we couldn't bring it off4 ,because we just aren't all of a piece4 ,we wanted first to have nothing but nice daytime selves1 awfully nice and kind and refined4 ,but it didn't work4 ,because whether we want it or not1 we've got night-time selves4 ,and the most spiritual woman ever born or made has to perform her natural functions just like anybody else4 ,we must always keep in line with this fact4 ,well1 then1 we have night-time selves4 ,and the night-self is the very basis of the dynamic self4 ,the blood-consciousness and the blood-passion is the very source and origin of us4 ,not that we can stay at the source4 ,nor even make a goal of the source1 as ,freud does4 ,the business of living is to travel away from the source4 ,but you must start every single day fresh from the source4 ,you must rise every day afresh out of the dark sea of the blood4 ,when you go to sleep at night1 you have to say3 ,here dies the man ,i am and know myself to be4 ,and when you rise in the morning you have to say3 ,here rises an unknown quantity which is still myself4 ,the self which rises naked every morning out of the dark sleep of the passionate1 hoarsely-calling blood3 this is the unit for the next society4 ,and the polarizing of the passionate blood in the individual towards life1 and towards leader1 this must be the dynamic of the next civilization4 ,the intense1 passionate yearning of the soul towards the soul of a stronger1 greater individual1 and the passionate blood-belief in the fulfillment of this yearning will give men the next motive for life4 ,we have to sink back into the darkness and the elemental consciousness of the blood4 ,and from this rise again4 ,but there is no rising until the bath of darkness and extinction is accomplished4 ,as social units1 as civilized men we have to do what we do as physical organisms4 ,every day1 the sun sets from the sky1 and darkness falls1 and every day1 when this happens1 the tide of life turns in us4 ,instead of flowing upwards and outwards towards mental consciousness and activity1 it turns back1 to flow downwards4 ,downwards towards the digestion processes1 downwards further to the great sexual conjunctions1 downwards to sleep4 ,this is the soul now retreating1 back from the outer life of day1 back to the origins4 ,and so1 it stays its hour at the first great sensual stations1 the solar plexus and the lumbar ganglion4 ,but the tide ebbs on1 down to the immense1 almost inhuman passionate darkness of sex1 the strange and moon-like intensity of the hypogastric plexus and the sacral ganglion1 then deep1 deeper1 past the last great station of the darkest psyche1 down to the earth's center4 ,then we sleep4 ,and the moon is the tide-turner4 ,the moon is the great cosmic pole which calls us back1 back out of our day-self1 back through the moonlit darknesses of the sensual planes1 to sleep4 ,it is the moon that sways the blood1 and sways us back into the extinction of the blood4--,and as the soul retreats back into the sea of its own darkness1 the mind1 stage by stage1 enjoys the mental consciousness that belongs to this retreat back into the sensual deeps2 and then it goes extinguished4 ,there is sleep4 ,and so we resolve back towards our elementals4 ,we dissolve back1 out of the upper consciousness1 out of mind and sight and speech1 back1 down into the deep and massive1 swaying consciousness of the dark1 living blood4 ,at the last hour of sex ,i am no more than a powerful wave of mounting blood4 ,which seeks to surge and join with the answering sea in the other individual4 ,when the sea of individual blood which ,i am at that hour heaves and finds its pure contact with the sea of individual blood which is the woman at that hour1 then each of us enters into the wholeness of our deeper infinitude1 our profound fullness of being1 in the ocean of our oneness and our consciousness4 ,this is under the spell of the moon1 of sea-born ,aphrodite1 mother and bitter goddess4 ,for ,i am carried away from my sunny day-self into this other tremendous self1 where knowledge will not save me1 but where ,i must obey as the sea obeys the tides4 ,yet however much ,i go1 ,i know that ,i am all the while myself1 in my going4 ,this then is the duality of my day and my night being3 a duality so bitter to an adolescent4 ,for the adolescent thinks with shame and terror of his night4 ,he would wish to have no night-self4 ,but it is ,moloch1 and he cannot escape it4 ,the tree is born of its roots and its leaves4 ,and we of our days and our nights4 ,without the night-consummation we are trees without roots4 ,and the night-consummation takes place under the spell of the moon4 ,it is one pure motion of meeting and oneing4 ,but even so1 it is a circuit1 not a straight line4 ,one pure motion of meeting and oneing1 until the flash breaks forth1 when the two are one4 ,and this1 this flashing moment of the ignition of two seas of blood1 this is the moment of begetting4 ,but the begetting of a child is less than the begetting of the man and the woman4 ,woman is begotten of man at that moment1 into her greater self3 and man is begotten of woman4 ,this is the main4 ,and that which cannot be fulfilled1 perfected in the two individuals1 that which cannot take fire into individual life1 this trickles down and is the seed of a new life1 destined ultimately to fulfill that which the parents could not fulfill4 ,so it is for ever4 ,sex then is a polarization of the individual blood in man towards the individual blood in woman4 ,it is more1 also4 ,but in its prime functional reality it is this4 ,and sex union means bringing into connection the dynamic poles of sex in man and woman4 ,in sex we have our basic1 most elemental being4 ,here we have our most elemental contact4 ,it is from the hypogastric plexus and the sacral ganglion that the dark forces of manhood and womanhood sparkle4 ,from the dark plexus of sympathy run out the acute1 intense sympathetic vibrations direct to the corresponding pole4 ,or so it should be1 in genuine passionate love4 ,there is no mental interference4 ,there is even no interference of the upper centers4 ,love is supposed to be blind4 ,though modern love wears strong spectacles4 ,but love is really blind4 ,without sight or scent or hearing the powerful magnetic current vibrates from the hypogastric plexus in the female1 vibrating on to the air like some intense wireless message4 ,and there is immediate response from the sacral ganglion in some male4 ,and then sight and day-consciousness begin to fade4 ,in the lower animals apparently any male can receive the vibration of any female3 and if need be1 even across long distances of space4 ,but the higher the development the more individual the attunement4 ,every wireless station can only receive those messages which are in its own vibration key4 ,so with sex in specialized individuals4 ,from the powerful dynamic center the female sends out her dark summons1 the intense dark vibration of sex4 ,and according to her nature1 she receives her responses from the males4 ,the male enters the magnetic field of the female4 ,he vibrates helplessly in response4 ,there is established at once a dynamic circuit1 more or less powerful4 ,it would seem as if1 while ever life remains free and wild and independent1 the sex-circuit1 while it lasts1 is omnipotent4 ,there is one electric flow which encompasses one male and one female1 or one male and one particular group of females all polarized in the same key of vibration4 ,this circuit of vital sex magnetism1 at first loose and wide1 gradually closes and becomes more powerful1 contracts and grows more intense1 until the two individuals arrive into contact4 ,and even then the pulse and flow of attraction and recoil varies4 ,in free wild life1 each touch brings about an intense recoil1 and each recoil causes an intense sympathetic attraction4 ,so goes on the strange battle of desire1 until the consummation is reached4 ,it is the precise parallel of what happens in a thunder-storm1 when the dynamic forces of the moon and the sun come into collision4 ,the result is threefold3 first1 the electric flash1 then the birth of pure water1 new water4 ,so it is in sex relation4 ,there is a threefold result4 ,first1 the flash of pure sensation and of real electricity4 ,then there is the birth of an entirely new state of blood in each partner4 ,and then there is the liberation4 ,but the main thing1 as in the thunder-storm1 is the absolute renewal of the atmosphere3 in this case1 the blood4 ,it would no doubt be found that the electro-dynamic condition of the white and red corpuscles of the blood was quite different after sex union1 and that the chemical composition of the fluid of the blood was quite changed4 ,and in this renewal lies the great magic of sex4 ,the life of an individual goes on apparently the same from day to day4 ,but as a matter of fact there is an inevitable electric accumulation in the nerves and the blood1 an accumulation which weighs there and broods there with intolerable pressure4 ,and the only possible means of relief and renewal is in pure passional interchange4 ,there is and must be a pure passional interchange from the upper self1 as when men unite in some great creative or religious or constructive activity1 or as when they fight each other to the death4 ,the great goal of creative or constructive activity1 or of heroic victory in fight1 must always be the goal of the daytime self4 ,but the very possibility of such a goal arises out of the vivid dynamism of the conscious blood4 ,and the blood in an individual finds its great renewal in a perfected sex circuit4 ,a perfected sex circuit and a successful sex union4 ,and there can be no successful sex union unless the greater hope of purposive1 constructive activity fires the soul of the man all the time3 or the hope of passionate1 purposive destructive activity3 the two amount religiously to the same thing1 within the individual4 ,sex as an end in itself is a disaster3 a vice4 ,but an ideal purpose which has no roots in the deep sea of passionate sex is a greater disaster still4 ,and now we have only these two things3 sex as a fatal goal1 which is the essential theme of modern tragedy3 or ideal purpose as a deadly parasite4 ,sex passion as a goal in itself always leads to tragedy4 ,there must be the great purposive inspiration always present4 ,but the automatic ideal-purpose is not even a tragedy1 it is a slow humiliation and sterility4 ,the great thing is to keep the sexes pure4 ,and by pure we don't mean an ideal sterile innocence and similarity between boy and girl4 ,we mean pure maleness in a man1 pure femaleness in a woman4 ,woman is really polarized downwards1 towards the center of the earth4 ,her deep positivity is in the downward flow1 the moon-pull4 ,and man is polarized upwards1 towards the sun and the day's activity4 ,women and men are dynamically different1 in everything4 ,even in the mind1 where we seem to meet1 we are really utter strangers4 ,we may speak the same verbal language1 men and women3 as ,turk and ,german might both speak ,latin4 ,but whatever a man says1 his meaning is something quite different and changed when it passes through a woman's ears4 ,and though you reverse the sexual polarity1 the flow between the sexes1 still the difference is the same4 ,the apparent mutual understanding1 in companionship between a man and a woman1 is always an illusion1 and always breaks down in the end4 ,woman can polarize her consciousness upwards4 ,she can obtain a hand even over her sex receptivity4 ,she can divert even the electric spasm of coition into her upper consciousness3 it was the trick which the snake and the apple between them taught her4 ,the snake1 whose consciousness is only dynamic1 and non-cerebral4 ,the snake1 who has no mental life1 but only an intensely vivid dynamic mind1 he envied the human race its mental consciousness4 ,and he knew1 this intensely wise snake1 that the one way to make humanity pay more than the price of mental consciousness was to pervert woman into mentality3 to stimulate her into the upper flow of consciousness4 ,for the true polarity of consciousness in woman is downwards4 ,her deepest consciousness is in the loins and belly4 ,even when perverted1 it is so4 ,the great flow of female consciousness is downwards1 down to the weight of the loins and round the circuit of the feet4 ,pervert this1 and make a false flow upwards1 to the breast and head1 and you get a race of intelligent women1 delightful companions1 tricky courtesans1 clever prostitutes1 noble idealists1 devoted friends1 interesting mistresses1 efficient workers1 brilliant managers1 women as good as men at all the manly tricks3 and better1 because they are so very headlong once they go in for men's tricks4 ,but then1 after a while1 pop it all goes4 ,the moment woman has got man's ideals and tricks drilled into her1 the moment she is competent in the manly world--there's an end of it4 ,she's had enough4 ,she's had more than enough4 ,she hates the thing she has embraced4 ,she becomes absolutely perverse1 and her one end is to prostitute herself and her ideals to sex4 ,which is her business at the present moment4 ,we bruise the serpent's head3 his flat and brainless head4 ,but his revenge of bruising our heel is a good one4 ,the heels1 through which the powerful downward circuit flows3 these are bruised in us1 numbed with a horrible neurotic numbness4 ,the dark strong flow that polarizes us to the earth's center is hampered1 broken4 ,we become flimsy fungoid beings1 with no roots and no hold in the earth1 like mushrooms4 ,the serpent has bruised our heel till we limp4 ,the lame gods1 the enslaved gods1 the toiling limpers moaning for the woman4 ,you don't find the sun and moon playing at pals in the sky4 ,their beams cross the great gulf which is between them4 ,so with man and woman4 ,they must stand clear again4 ,they must fight their way out of their self-consciousness3 there is nothing else4 ,or1 rather1 each must fight the other out of self-consciousness4 ,instead of this leprous forbearance which we are taught to practice in our intimate relationships1 there should be the most intense open antagonism4 ,if your wife flirts with other men1 and you don't like it1 say so before them all1 before wife and man and all1 say you won't have it4 ,if she seems to you false1 in any circumstance1 tell her so1 angrily1 furiously1 and stop her4 ,never mind about being justified4 ,if you hate anything she does1 turn on her in a fury4 ,harry her1 and make her life a hell1 so long as the real hot rage is in you4 ,don't silently hate her1 or silently forbear4 ,it is such a dirty trick1 so mean and ungenerous4 ,if you feel a burning rage1 turn on her and give it to her1 and never repent4 ,it'll probably hurt you much more than it hurts her4 ,but never repent for your real hot rages1 whether they're justifiable or not4 ,if you care one sweet straw for the woman1 and if she makes you that you can't bear any more1 give it to her1 and if your heart weeps tears of blood afterwards1 tell her you're thankful she's got it for once1 and you wish she had it worse4 ,the same with wives and their husbands4 ,if a woman's husband gets on her nerves1 she should fly at him4 ,if she thinks him too sweet and smarmy with other people1 she should let him have it to his nose1 straight out4 ,she should lead him a dog's life1 and never swallow her bile4 ,with wife or husband1 you should never swallow your bile4 ,it makes you go all wrong inside4 ,always let fly1 tooth and nail1 and never repent1 no matter what sort of a figure you make4 ,we have a vice of love1 of softness and sweetness and smarminess and intimacy and promiscuous kindness and all that sort of thing4 ,we think it's so awfully nice of us to be like that1 in ourselves4 ,but in our wives or our husbands it gets on our nerves horribly4 ,yet we think it oughtn't to1 so we swallow our spleen4 ,we shouldn't4 ,when ,jesus said if thine eye offend thee1 pluck it out1 he was beside the point4 ,the eye doesn't really offend us4 ,we are rather fond of our own squint eye4 ,it only offends the person who cares for us4 ,and it's up to this person to pluck it out4 ,this holds particularly good of the love and intimacy vice4 ,it'll never offend us in ourselves4 ,while it will be gall and wormwood to our wife or husband4 ,and it is on this promiscuous love and intimacy and kindness and sweetness1 all a vice1 that our self-consciousness really rests4 ,if we are battered out of this1 we shall be battered out of self-consciousness4 ,and so1 men1 drive your wives1 beat them out of their self-consciousness and their soft smarminess and good1 lovely idea of themselves4 ,absolutely tear their lovely opinion of themselves to tatters1 and make them look a holy ridiculous sight in their own eyes4 ,wives1 do the same to your husbands4 ,but fight for your life1 men4 ,fight your wife out of her own self-conscious preoccupation with herself4 ,batter her out of it till she's stunned4 ,drive her back into her own true mode4 ,rip all her nice superimposed modern-woman and wonderful-creature garb off her4 ,reduce her once more to a naked ,eve1 and send the apple flying4 ,make her yield to her own real unconscious self1 and absolutely stamp on the self that she's got in her head4 ,drive her forcibly back1 back into her own true unconscious4 ,and then you've got a harder thing still to do4 ,stop her from looking on you as her lover4 ,cure her of that1 if you haven't cured her before4 ,put the fear of the ,lord into her that way4 ,and make her know she's got to believe in you again1 and in the deep purpose you stand for4 ,but before you can do that1 you've got to stand for some deep purpose4 ,it's no good faking one up4 ,you won't take a woman in1 not really4 ,even when she chooses to be taken in1 for prettiness' sake1 it won't do you any good4 ,but combat her4 ,combat her in her sexual pertinacity1 and in her secret glory or arrogance in the sexual goal4 ,combat her in her cock-sure belief that she knows and that she is right4 ,take it all out of her4 ,make her yield once more to the male leadership3 if you've got anywhere to lead to4 ,if you haven't1 best leave the woman alone2 she has one goal of her own1 anyhow1 and it's better than your nullity and emptiness4 ,you've got to take a new resolution into your soul1 and break off from the old way4 ,you've got to know that you're a man1 and being a man means you must go on alone1 ahead of the woman1 to break a way through the old world into the new4 ,and you've got to be alone4 ,and you've got to start off ahead4 ,and if you don't know which direction to take1 look round for the man your heart will point out to you4 ,and follow--and never look back4 ,because if ,lot's wife1 looking back1 was turned to a pillar of salt1 these miserable men1 for ever looking back to their women for guidance1 they are miserable pillars of half-rotten tears4 ,you'll have to fight to make a woman believe in you as a real man1 a real pioneer4 ,no man is a man unless to his woman he is a pioneer4 ,you'll have to fight still harder to make her yield her goal to yours3 her night goal to your day goal4 ,the moon1 the planet of women1 sways us back from our day-self1 sways us back from our real social unison1 sways us back1 like a retreating tide1 in a friction of criticism and separation and social disintegration4 ,that is woman's inevitable mode1 let her words be what they will4 ,her goal is the deep1 sensual individualism of secrecy and night-exclusiveness1 hostile1 with guarded doors4 ,and you'll have to fight very hard to make a woman yield her goal to yours1 to make her1 in her own soul1 believe in your goal as the goal beyond1 in her goal as the way by which you go4 ,she'll never believe until you have your soul filled with a profound and absolutely inalterable purpose1 that will yield to nothing1 least of all to her4 ,she'll never believe until1 in your soul1 you are cut off and gone ahead1 into the dark4 ,she may of course already love you1 and love you for yourself4 ,but the love will be a nest of scorpions unless it is overshadowed by a little fear or awe of your further purpose1 a living belief in your going beyond her1 into futurity4 ,but when once a woman does believe in her man1 in the pioneer which he is1 the pioneer who goes on ahead beyond her1 into the darkness in front1 and who may be lost to her for ever in this darkness2 when once she knows the pain and beauty of this belief1 knows that the loneliness of waiting and following is inevitable1 that it must be so2 ah1 then1 how wonderful it is6 ,how wonderful it is to come back to her1 at evening1 as she sits half in fear and waits6 ,how good it is to come home to her6 ,how good it is then when the night falls6 ,how richly the evening passes6 ,and then1 for her1 at last1 all that she has lost during the day to have it again between her arms1 all that she has missed1 to have it poured out for her1 and a richness and a wonder she had never expected4 ,it is her hour1 her goal4 ,that's what it is to have a wife4 ,ah1 how good it is to come home to your wife when she believes in you and submits to your purpose that is beyond her4 ,then1 how wonderful this nightfall is6 ,how rich you feel1 tired1 with all the burden of the day in your veins1 turning home6 ,then you too turn to your other goal3 to the splendor of darkness between her arms4 ,and you know the goal is there for you3 how rich that feeling is4 ,and you feel an unfathomable gratitude to the woman who loves you and believes in your purpose and receives you into the magnificent dark gratification of her embrace4 ,that's what it is to have a wife4 ,but no man ever had a wife unless he served a great predominant purpose4 ,otherwise1 he has a lover1 a mistress4 ,no matter how much she may be married to him1 unless his days have a living purpose1 constructive or destructive1 but a purpose beyond her and all she stands for2 unless his days have this purpose1 and his soul is really committed to his purpose1 she will not be a wife1 she will be only a mistress and he will be her lover4 ,if the man has no purpose for his days1 then to the woman alone remains the goal of her nights3 the great sex goal4 ,and this goal is no goal1 but always cries for the something beyond3 for the rising in the morning and the going forth beyond1 the man disappearing ahead into the distance of futurity1 that which his purpose stands for1 the future4 ,the sex goal needs1 absolutely needs1 this further departure4 ,and if there be no further departure1 no great way of belief on ahead3 and if sex is the starting point and the goal as well3 then sex becomes like the bottomless pit1 insatiable4 ,it demands at last the departure into death1 the only available beyond4 ,like ,carmen1 or like ,anna ,karenina4 ,when sex is the starting point and the returning point both1 then the only issue is death4 ,which is plain as a pike-staff in ,carmen or ,anna ,karenina1 and is the theme of almost all modern tragedy4 ,our one hackneyed1 hackneyed theme4 ,ecstasies and agonies of love1 and final passion of death4 ,death is the only pure1 beautiful conclusion of a great passion4 ,lovers1 pure lovers should say ,let it be so4 ,and one is always tempted to say ,let it be so4 ,but no1 let it be not so4 ,only ,i say this1 let it be a great passion and then death1 rather than a false or faked purpose4 ,tolstoi said ,no to the passion and the death conclusion4 ,and then drew into the dreary issue of a false conclusion4 ,his books were better than his life4 ,better the woman's goal1 sex and death1 than some false goal of man's4 ,better ,anna ,karenina and ,vronsky a thousand times than ,natasha and that porpoise of a ,pierre4 ,this pretty1 slightly sordid couple tried so hard to kid themselves that the porpoise ,pierre was puffing with great purpose4 ,better ,vronsky than ,tolstoi himself1 in my mind4 ,better ,vronsky's final statement3 ,as a soldier ,i am still some good4 ,as a man ,i am a ruin--better that than ,tolstoi and ,tolstoi-ism and that beastly peasant blouse the old man wore4 ,better passion and death than any more of these isms4 ,no more of the old purpose done up in aspic4 ,better passion and death4 ,but still--we might live1 mightn't we8 ,for heaven's sake answer plainly ,no1 if you feel like it4 ,no good temporizing4 ,,epilogue ,tutti i salmi finiscono in gloria4 ,all the psalms wind up with the ,gloria4--,as it was in the beginning1 is now1 and ever shall be1 ,world without end4 ,amen4 ,well1 then1 ,amen4 ,i hope you say ,amen6 along with me1 dear little reader3 if there be any dear little reader who has got so far4 ,if not1 ,i say ,amen6 all by myself4--,but don't you think the show is all over4 ,i've got another volume up my sleeve1 and after a year or two years1 when ,i have shaken it down my sleeve1 ,i shall bring it and lay it at the foot of your ,liberty statue1 oh ,columbia1 as ,i do this one4 ,i suppose ,columbia means the ,states4--,hail ,columbia6--,i suppose1 etymologically1 it is a nest of turtle-doves1 ,lat4 columba1 a dove4 ,coo me softly1 then1 ,columbia2 don't roar me like the sucking doves of the critics of my ,psychoanalysis and the ,unconscious4 ,and when ,i lay this little book at the foot of the ,liberty statue1 that brawny lady is not to look down her nose and bawl3 ,do you see any green in my eye8 ,of course ,i don't1 dear lady4 ,i only see the reflection of that torch--or is it a carrot8--which you are holding up to light the way into ,new ,york harbor4 ,well1 many an ass has strayed across the uneasy paddock of the ,atlantic1 to nibble your carrot1 dear lady4 ,and ,i must say1 you can keep on slicing off nice little carrot-slices of guineas and doubloons for an extraordinarily inexhaustible long time4 ,and innumerable asses can collect themselves nice little heaps of golden carrot-slices1 and then lift up their heads and brag over them with fairly pan-demoniac yells of gratification4 ,of course ,i don't see any green in your eye1 dear ,libertas1 unless it is the smallest glint from the carrot-tips4 ,the gleam in your eye is golden1 oh ,columbia6 ,nevertheless1 and in spite of all this1 up trots this here little ass and makes you a nice present of this pretty book4 ,you needn't sniff1 and glance at your carrot-sceptre1 lady ,liberty4 ,you needn't throw down the thinnest carrot-paring you can pare off1 and then say3 ,why should ,i pay for this tripe1 this wordy mass of rather revolting nonsense6 ,you can't pay for it1 darling4 ,if ,i didn't make you a present of it you could never buy it4 ,so don't shake your carrot-sceptre and feel supercilious4 ,here's a gift for you1 ,missis4 ,you can look in its mouth1 too4 ,mind it doesn't bite you4--,no1 you needn't bother to put your carrot behind your back1 nobody wants to snatch it4 ,how do you do1 ,columbia6 ,look1 ,i brought you a posy3 this nice little posy of words and wisdom which ,i made for you in the woods of ,ebersteinburg1 on the borders of the ,black ,forest1 near ,baden ,baden1 in ,germany1 in this summer of scanty grace but nice weather4 ,i made it specially for you--,whitman1 for whom ,i have an immense regard1 says ,these ,states4 ,i suppose ,i ought to say3 ,those ,states4 ,if the publisher would let me1 ,i'd dedicate this book to you1 to ,those ,states4 ,because ,i wrote this book entirely for you1 ,columbia4 ,you may not take it as a compliment4 ,you may even smell a tiny bit of ,schwarzwald sap in it1 and be finally disgusted4 ,i admit that trees ought to think twice before they flourish in such a disgraced place as the ,fatherland4 ,chi va coi zoppi1 all' anno zoppica4 ,but you've not only to gather ye rosebuds while ye may1 but where ye may4 ,and so1 as ,i said before1 the ,black ,forest1 etc4 ,i know1 ,columbia1 dear ,libertas1 you'll take my posy and put your carrot aside for a minute1 and smile1 and say3 ,i'm sure1 ,mr4 ,lawrence1 it is a long time since ,i had such a perfectly beautiful bunch of ideas brought me4 ,and ,i shall blush and look sheepish and say3 ,so glad you think so4 ,i believe you'll find they'll keep fresh quite a long time1 if you put them in water4 ,whereupon you1 ,columbia1 with real ,american gallantry3 ,oh1 they'll keep for ever1 ,mr4 ,lawrence4 ,they couldn't be so cruel as to go and die1 such perfectly lovely-colored ideas4 ,lovely6 ,thank you ever1 ever so much4 ,just think of it1 ,columbia1 how pleased we shall be with one another3 and how much nicer it will be than if you snorted ,high-falutin' ,nonsense--or ,wordy mass of repulsive rubbish4 ,when they were busy making ,italy1 and were just going to put it in the oven to bake3 that is1 when ,garibaldi and ,vittorio ,emmanuele had won their victories at ,caserta1 ,naples prepared to give them a triumphant entry4 ,so there sat the little king in his carriage3 he had short legs and huge swagger mustaches and a very big bump of philoprogeniture4 ,the town was all done up1 in spite of the rain4 ,and down either side of the wide street were hasty statues of large1 well-fleshed ladies1 each one holding up a fore-finger4 ,we don't know what the king thought4 ,but the staff held their breath4 ,the king's appetite for strapping ladies was more than notorious1 and naturally it looked as if ,naples had done it on purpose4 ,as a matter of fact1 the fore-finger meant ,italia ,una6 ,italy shall be one4 ,ask ,don ,sturzo4 ,now you see how risky statues are4 ,how many nice little asses and poets trot over the ,atlantic and catch sight of ,liberty holding up this carrot of desire at arm's length1 and fairly hear her say1 as one does to one's pug dog1 with a lump of sugar3 ,beg6 ,beg6--and ,jump6 ,jump1 then6 ,and each little ass and poodle begins to beg and to jump1 and there's a rare game round about ,liberty1 zap1 zap1 zapperty-zap6 ,do lower the carrot1 gentle ,liberty1 and let us talk nicely and sensibly4 ,i don't like you as a carotaia1 precious4 ,talking about the moon1 it is thrilling to read the announcements of ,professor ,pickering of ,harvard1 that it's almost a dead cert that there's life on our satellite4 ,it is almost as certain that there's life on the moon as it is certain there is life on ,mars4 ,the professor bases his assertions on photographs--hundreds of photographs--of a crater with a circumference of thirty-seven miles4 ,i'm not satisfied4 ,i demand to know the yards1 feet and inches4 ,you don't come it over me with the triteness of these round numbers4 ,hundreds of photographic reproductions have proved irrefutably the springing up at dawn1 with an unbelievable rapidity1 of vast fields of foliage which come into blossom just as rapidly 7sic67 and which disappear in a maximum period of eleven days4--,again ,i'm not satisfied4 ,i want to know if they're cabbages1 cress1 mustard1 or marigolds or dandelions or daisies4 ,fields of foliage1 mark you4 ,and blossom6 ,come now1 if you can get so far1 ,professor ,pickering1 you might have a shrewd guess as to whether the blossoms are good to eat1 or if they're purely for ornament4 ,i am only waiting at last for an aeroplane to land on one of these fields of foliage and find a donkey grazing peacefully4 ,hee-haw6 ,the plates moreover show that great blizzards1 snow-storms1 and volcanic eruptions are also frequent4 ,so no doubt the blossoms are edelweiss4 ,we find1 says the professor1 a living world at our very doors where life in some respects resembles that of ,mars4 ,all ,i can say is3 ,pray come in1 ,mr4 ,moony4 ,and how is your cousin ,signor ,martian8 ,now ,i'm sure ,professor ,pickering's photographs and observations are really wonderful4 ,but his explanations6 ,come now1 ,columbia1 where is your ,high-falutin' ,nonsense trumpet8 ,vast fields of foliage which spring up at dawn 76667 and come into blossom just as quickly 766667 are rather too flowery even for my flowery soul4 ,but there1 truth is stranger than fiction4 ,i'll bet my moon against the ,professor's1 anyhow4 ,so long1 ,columbia4 ,a riverderci4