Weston looked somewhat taken aback at the
interruption & went on. “During my convalescence I
had that leisure for reflection which I had denied myself for many years. In
particular I reflected on the objections you had felt to that liquidation of
the non-human inhabitants of Malacandra which was, of course, the necessary
preliminary to its occupation by our own species. The traditional &, if I
may say so, the humanitarian form in which you advanced those objections had
till then concealed from me their true strength. That strength I now
began to perceive. I began to see that my own exclusive devotion to human
utility was really based on an unconscious dualism.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that all my life I had been making a
wholly unscientific dichotomy or antithesis between Man & Nature -- had
conceived myself fighting for Man against his non-human environment. During my
illness I plunged into Biology, & particularly into what may be called
biological philosophy. Hitherto, as a physicist, I had been content to regard
Life as a subject outside my scope. The conflicting views of those who drew a
sharp line between the organic & the inorganic & those who held that
what we call Life was inherent in matter from the very beginning had not
interested me. Now it did. I saw almost at once that I could admit no break, no
discontinuity, in the unfolding of the cosmic process.
I became a convinced believer in emergent evolution. All is one. The
stuff of mind, the unconsciously purposive dynamism, is present from the very
beginning.”
Here he paused. Ransom had heard this sort of thing pretty often before
& wondered when his companion was coming to the point. When Weston resumed
it was with an even deeper solemnity of tone.
“The majestic spectacle of this blind,
inarticulate purposiveness thrusting its way upward & ever upward in an
endless unity of differentiated achievements towards an ever-increasing
complexity of organisation, towards spontaneity & spirituality, swept away
all my old conception of a duty to Man as such. Man in himself is nothing. The
forward movements of Life -- the growing spirituality -- is everything. I say
to you quite freely, Ransom, that I should have been wrong in liquidating the
Malacandrians. It was a mere prejudice that made me prefer our own race to
theirs. To spread spirituality, not to spread the human race, is henceforth my
mission. This sets the coping-stone on my career. I worked first for myself;
then for science; then for humanity; but now at last for Spirit itself -- I
might say, borrowing language which will be more familiar to you, the Holy
Spirit”
“Now what exactly do you mean by that?” asked
Ransom.
“I mean,” said Weston, that nothing now divides you & me except a few outworn
theological technicalities with which organised religion has unhappily allowed
itself to get encrusted. But I have penetrated that crust. The Meaning
beneath it is as true & living as ever. If you will excuse me for putting
it that way, the essential truth of the religious view of life finds a
remarkable witness in the fact that it enabled you, on Malacandra, to grasp, in
your own mythical & imaginative fashion, a truth which was hidden from me.”
“I don’t know much about what people call the
religious view of life,” said Ransom, wrinkling his brow. “You see, I’m a Christian. And what we mean by the Holy Ghost is not
a blind, inarticulate purposiveness.”
“My dear Ransom,” said Weston, “I understand
you perfectly. I have no doubt that my phraseology will seem strange to you,
& perhaps even shocking. Early & revered
associations may have put it out of your power to recognise in this new form
the very same truths which religion has so long preserved & which science
is now at last re-discovering. But whether you can see it or not,
believe me, we are talking about exactly the same thing.”
“I’m not at all sure that we are.”
“That, if you will permit me to say so, is one
of the real weaknesses of organised religion -- that adherence to formulae, the
failure to recognise one’s own friends. God is a spirit, Ransom. Get hold of
that. You’re familiar with that already. Stick to it. God is a spirit.”
“Well, of course. But what then?”
“What then? Why, spirit -- mind freedom -- spontaneity
that’s what I’m talking about. That is the goal towards which the whole cosmic
process is moving. The final disengagement of that freedom, that spirituality,
is the work to which I dedicate my own life & the life of humanity. The
goal, Ransom, the goal: think of it! Pure spirit: the final vortex of
self-thinking, self-originating activity.”
“Final?” said Ransom. “You mean it doesn’t yet
exist?”
“Ah,” said Weston, “I see what’s bothering you.
Of course I know. Religion pictures it as being there from the beginning. But
surely that is not a real difference? To make it one, would be to take time too
seriously. When it has once been attained, you might then say it had been at
the beginning just as well as at the end. Time is one of the things it will
transcend.”
“By the way,” said Ransom, “is it in any sense
at all personal -- is it alive?”
An indescribable expression passed over
Weston’s face. He moved a little nearer to Ransom & began speaking in a
lower voice.
“That’s what none of them understand,” he said.
It was such a gangster’s or a schoolboy’s whisper & so unlike his usual
orotund lecturing style that Ransom for a moment felt a sensation almost of
disgust.
“Yes,” said Weston, “I couldn’t have believed,
myself, till recently. Not a person, of course. Anthropomorphism
is one of the childish diseases of popular religion” (here he had
resumed his public manner), “but the opposite extreme of excessive abstraction
has perhaps in the aggregate proved more disastrous. Call it a Force. A great,
inscrutable Force, pouring up into us from the dark bases of being. A Force
that can choose its instruments. It is only lately, Ransom, that I’ve learned
from actual experience something which you have believed all your life as part
of your religion.” Here he suddenly subsided again into a whisper -- a croaking
whisper unlike his usual voice. “Guided,” he said.
“Chosen. Guided. I’ve become conscious that I’m a man set apart. Why did
I do physics? Why did I discover the Weston rays? Why did I go to Malacandra?
It -- the Force -- has pushed me on all the time. I’m being guided. I know now that I am the greatest scientist the world has
yet produced. I’ve been made so for a purpose. It is through me that
Spirit itself is at this moment pushing on to its goal.” +Isabel Tanaka
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