The Drama of Love and Death: A Study of Human Evolution and TransfigurationCarpenter, Edward
Philosophy
The Drama of Love and Death: A Study of Human Evolution and Transfiguration
Carpenter, Edward
Death; Love; Personality
I think it is obvious that in the hour of death there are only two
directions in which that human soul can turn, in which “we” can turn. We
can turn for help either outwards toward the region of the animal self,
or inwards toward the central universal self. And I think it equally
obvious that the latter direction can alone really supply our need. At
first no doubt it may be natural to seek outwards; but now alas! in the
hour of dissolution the man discovers that all that region of his
nature, in which indeed he has often found comfort before, is becoming
involved in the ruin above described. Large portions of his animal
faculties are already being torn away—or are sinking into lethargy and
sleep. His bodily organs are losing their vitality; some of them have
already become useless. His mental faculties—especially the more
concrete and external faculties, like the memory of events and
names—are becoming disintegrated. True, his general outlook may in
cases seem to become wider and more serene as death approaches, and his
inner character and personality to become more luminous and gracious;
but it is a perilous passage on which he is embarked and in general
threatening clouds gather round. The consciousness is painfully invaded
by the lesser mentalities which surround it; the ruling passions
domineer; silly little habits and tricks, of mind and body, obsess the
man; phantoms and delirium overpower, or seek to overpower, him; he is
astonished and perturbed to find himself on the fringe of a world in
which figures, half-strange, half-familiar, come and go, and force
themselves upon him with an odd persistence and a rather terrible kind
of intelligence. It requires all his presence of mind to gather himself
together, to hold his own, to suppress the rebel rout, and to find amid
all the flux something indomitable and sure to which to cling.
There is clearly only one thing to cling to—and this must be insisted
on—only that one great redeeming universal Self of which we have
spoken: only that superb omnipresent Life which we find in the very
central depth of our souls. (And fortunate he who has already so far
taken refuge in this, that the wreck and ruin of the visible world and
the mortal onset of Death cannot dislodge him!) That alone is fixed and
sure; and to that the personal man must turn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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