Hin[d.][=u]ism, on which the whole of this is based, has added to this
broad criterion the division of a life into four stages, to each of
which appropriate virtues are assigned: the Student Period, with its
virtues of perfect continence, industry, frugality, exertion; the
Household Period, with its virtue of duties appropriate to the position,
the earning and enjoying of wealth, the gratification of desires; the
Retirement Period, with the virtues of the renouncing of worldly
gain and of sacrifice; the Ascetic Period, of complete renunciation,
meditation and preparation for post-mortem life. These indications
make more easy the decisions as to Right and Wrong.
The more we think upon and work out into detail this view of Morality as
based on Evolution, the more we realise its soundness, and the more we
find that the moral law is as discoverable by observation, by reason,
and by experiment, as any other law of Nature. If a man disregards it,
either ignorantly or wilfully, he suffers. A man may disregard physical
hygienic and sanitary laws because of his ignorance; none the less will
he suffer from physical disease. A man may disregard moral laws because
of ignorance; none the less will he suffer from moral disease. The sign
of disease in both cases is pain and unhappiness; experts in both cases
warn us, and if we disregard the warning, we learn its truth later by
experience. There is no hurry; but the law is sure. Working with the
law, man evolves swiftly with happiness; working against it, he evolves
slowly with pain. In either case, he evolves, advancing joyously as a
free man, or scourged onwards as a slave. The most obstinate fool in
life's class, refusing to learn, fortunately dies and cannot quite
escape after death the knowledge of his folly.
Let the reader try for himself the solution of moral problems,
accepting, as a hypothesis, the facts of evolution and of the two halves
of its huge spiral, and see for himself if this view does not offer a
rational, intelligible, practical meaning to the much-vexed words, Right
and Wrong. Let him see how it embraces all that is true in the other
bases suggested, is their summation, and rationalises their precepts.
He will find that Morality is no longer dependent on the maxims of great
Teachers--though indeed they proclaimed its changeless laws--nor on the
imperfect resultant of individual experiences, nor on the happiness of
some only of the great human family, but that it inheres in the very
nature of things, an essential law of happy life and ordered progress.
Then indeed is Morality founded on a basis that cannot be moved; then
indeed can it speak with an imperial authority the "ought" that must
be obeyed; then it unfolds its beauty as humanity evolves to its
perfecting, and leads to Bliss Eternal, the Brahman Bliss, where the
human will, in fullest freedom, accords itself in harmony with the
divine.
* * * * *
V
MYSTICISM
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