Human equity

Preface

In presenting this book to a possible reader, the purpose is, to consider the difference between spontaneous revelation and what is acquired by external contact. If no such difference is recognized to exist the book has no more meaning than blank paper. It should be allowed, however, that an affirmative opinion is possible or the book itself would be impossible. Neither the style or who says it is true has any bearing upon the general principle of what is true. Also to observe what is not, without recognizing what is, would be equivalent to denying a personal revelation of any character for it would be equally unfortunate for a negative if the positive has no existence.

Index to Chapters

CHAPTER PAGE

I. PERFECT KNOWLEDGE i

II. FIGURATIVE COMMUNICATION 10

III. THE UNIT OF PERSONALITY 20

IV. SIMPLE UNDERSTANDING 30

V. AGNOSTICISM 38

VI. TECHNICAL EXCLUSIVENESS 47

VII. THE BALANCE OF POWER 56

VIII. SUBJECTIVE INFLUENCE 65

IX. NATURAL PROGRESS 74

X. MATERIAL PROGRESS 83

XL PARADOXICAL ABSURDITIES 93

XII. DEFINITE ABSURDITIES 102

XIII. ILLUSIVE QUALITY 112

XIV. INTRINSIC PRINCIPLES 121

XV. DIFFICULTIES 130

XVI. SACRED PERSONALITY 140

XVII. INSTITUTIONAL QUACKERY 149

XVIII. ADVANTAGE OF CULTURE 159

XIX. THE DISPOSITION TO COMMAND 169

XX. SOMETHING FOR NOTHING 179

XXL VAGUE ASSERTIONS 189

XXII. PARALYZED CONVICTIONS 199

XXIII. THE EQUITY OF EXCHANGE 209

XXIV. SUPERFICIAL REPUTATION 218

XXV. EXTRAVAGANT EXPECTATION 228

XXVI. THE DISPOSITION TO COMMAND 238

XXVII. CENSORIOUS CRITICISM 248

INDEX TO CHAPTERS — Continued

CHAPTER PAGE

XXVIII. NEGATIVE SCIENCE 257

XXIX. MORAL SUASION 266

XXX. THE WORSHIP OF FORM 275

XXXI. POLITICAL DESPOTISM 284

XXXII. POPULAR OPINION 293

XXXIII. THE COLORED RACE 303

XXXIV. IDEAL SPECULATION 313

XXXV. THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS 323

XXXVI. MORAL COURAGE 333

XXXVII ANCIENT REFERENCES 343

XXXVIII. MODERN REFERENCES 352

XXXIX SUMMARY 362

K,

Chapter I

PERFECT KNOWLEDGE nowledge is God, it is more than theory, doctrine or belief. It is the essence that knows, and therefore the ultimate limit of everything that can be known. The reason Knowledge has baffled theology, philosophy, and science, is because it is a Supreme Power from which no abstract can be deducted. It is the analyzing Power, hence an ultimate principle that will not permit of analyzing itself, since experience and conscious existence is an individual conception that will not permit of the most vague speculation, that universal humanity ever become cognizant of knowledge from any other source or method.

Polity, doctrines, schemes, notions, opinions, and beliefs are all abstracts of hypothetical speculation, practically using the power of knowledge in the vain effort to betray its virtue. Because words are contingencies of progress, written language cannot transcend or equal Perfect Knowledge ; it is the reason why language is imperfect and inadequate when used in search of even a theory of knowledge. To grope in the dark for a light is to seek blindly and to search for a light, in the light, is more foolish than blind. The communion of Spirit is the Perfect Knowledge that philosophers have vainly tried to account for and with equal persistency, the polity of greed not only goes to its own destruction but would consign the entire human race to a condition of darkness.

Light corresponds with light, Spirit with Spirit, Darkness with darkness, Polity with polity, Systems with systems, Doctrines with doctrines, etc., but what is most important to understand is the fact that no symbol has ever been invented by man, to express the invisible relation between man and God. Militant policy has contended against the power of Knowledge since it was possible to frighten the timid and attract the credulous. The man in darkness is not deprived of Perfect Knowledge, he also has an advantage, that polity can never bestow upon a man in the light. No child or adult needs to be told what Perfect Knowledge is, since the authority of experience is the conviction, that to know is God, while the contingency of policy and belief are not a prerequisite of Knowledge.

The polemic activity of the literally learned are so thoroughly allied to politics that such refuse to recognize that Knowledge and God are identical. All governments betray their own necessity since the great mass of humanity are too timid to assert their direct knowledge of God and the learned will not yield their political advantage to the same end. Two hundred years ago, to have directly asserted that Knowledge was God, would have been as dangerous as to defy a mad bull. The philosophers of the period gave evidence that they knew more than they dared to express in simple language. There is no better evidence needed than the reciprocity of fear between the strong and the weak. The fear of the strong, that the weak might discover they were equally strong, would be a tacit admission of fear on the part of the strong.

The equity of God identical with the power of knowledge is a principle apart from belief, for to know is the ultimatum of belief, it being a contradiction of consciousness for a person to believe he knows. A person can deny a belief in God, but it is only the figure of speech that is false which would equally apply to the effort of making knowledge an attribute of God rather than honestly admitting the omnipotence of God, and the equity of individual conception.

Belief is a contingency of fear and what is often termed an attribute of God is a hypothetical illusion to prove the inequality of man, and profit by his fear, that is too often encouraged for the sake of the profit. To analyze an attribute that is presumed to be abstracted from a state of perfection to prove its imperfection is a political subterfuge regardless of the eminence of the man proclaiming his ability to perform the feat. It is plain therefore that a person can be in possession of Perfect Knowledge, while the contingency of fear will so dominate his acts, as to make him a ready victim of the very object that excites his fear.

A person thoroughly crystalized in esoteric terminology and technical structures of method is powerless to command another in whatever conception of God that is presented to his mind. Freedom is inseparable at the present time with whatever pertains to God, knowledge, religion or education. There is no historical proof that political authority has ever been able to control the relation between God and man ; in fact, the evidence is entirely to the contrary, that is (technically speaking) the relation has always been empirical to every individual with courage enough to assert it either in act or word. Political authority pertains to the protection of society, it having no relation to God or knowledge other than what it usurps by its own fiat.

To know God or not know Him, is the individual choice of will from which there is no escape. The relation between God and man is prior to the relation between man and man ; besides it is a state of perfection, compared to the imperfections of written language. Man must choose between his relation with God as directly conceived by experience, or that derived from his relations with his fellow men. There is no escape; and when a person discovers he has a clear title to the private communion of Spirit, he cannot deny the privilege to another without an irreverence for the knowledge which revealed the fact to himself. The relation between man and man is separated by policy in a multitude of forms merely to promote material movement, the motor Spirit being the energy employed to make the movement. The same knowledge which reveals to an individual the power of self-motion, also reveals the sense of feeling and taste, when the will is discovered to be a factor in directing material movement at the pleasure of the corporeal person.

It is the simplest form of learning to recognize the primitive character of knowing by personal conception, of more consequence than what books can teach for the reason they could not teach anything except for the primitive conception derived from Spiritual Knowledge. Freedom is more than a permission from one man to another, or even the State, to confer it upon either citizen or subject. "Obey your master" is a mere figure of speech, it has no authority of supercedure over the spiritual command followed by punishment at each and every disobedience. The political effort of the ancients to establish a theoretic government for the purpose of perpetuating compulsory servitude proves the slave to have been in touch with God in common equity with the master, who was defying the same touch. If a Theocracy had been as justifiable in its Divine appointment as the relation of individual man to God, freedom would have continued to be a sentiment, and humanity inferior to the lowest animal. Because a child is weak in its period of adolescence, as G. Stanley Hall so ably declares to the world, it is no more reason why it should be trained to serve those who were more developed in knowledge ; what was claimed to be a special privilege by the Ancients.

Attractions and fear were the only principles by which the ancient slave could be utilized. It is common to children, which any individual can determine without being told by another. The transfer of human bondage from the individual to state ownership, involves the same principle of slavery. The pretence of teaching freedom and knowledge could be explained as an exchange of service, but the recognized principle of contract would be in contempt since only one party to the contract was admitted. That is, the child by reason of its weakness has no voice in whatever method of training is thrust upon him. To lay aside policy and dogmatic prejudice and permit the light of knowledge to assert itself, would be at least a recognition of a common origin. A diversity of opinion in what constitutes knowledge has no bearing upon the first conception of light that is just as much unsought as birth itself. The light may be termed subjective or objective, also the child maybe considered as belonging to its parents, yet the child cannot be deprived of the one circumstance that light reveals ; and if that is not knowledge the word is false and meaningless.

There is no single moment between light and darkness, or life and death that does not belong to God, thus all that man knows is God, for no man has ever proved himself able to bestow the power to see upon another. With this fact in view, what greater wrong could an adult person do to a child than to win its confidence and seek to transcend its direct relation by diverting it to that of designing man?

When visible crowns are the ultimate end of all policy, it is not strange that youth can be led away from the invisible, of which the power of revealed knowledge can only imagine in weak expectation. That every seed does not develop a perfect bloom could not justly be charged to the general principle of reproduction. For which reason the individual could not justly demand more than what the touch of God reveals direct ; if not more than knowledge certainly no less. The direct relation between individual man and God is an invisible crown that has no comparison to the visible made so attractive with a few feathers that multitudes will chase it until reality is entirely forsaken. Knowledge in the absence of a choice of conduct would be as useless as a policy of attraction with no objects to attract. Also a reasonable person would soon realize that he could discover more by his own light than to follow in the wake of policy and become content in being enveloped in another shadow. Of course this is heresy so far as policy is concerned, but when the individual is compelled to be born, and then told as soon as the sense of hearing is revealed that he will always be compelled to serve at the command of others, it would be a reasonable query to determine for what purpose he was given a light that was not solicited, and then taught by his predecessor to blow it out for fear he might see something to endanger his future welfare.

The communion of Spirit cannot be studied on doctrinal lines or from any system of policy, for policy and Christianity were never comfortable bed-fellows. The outer and inner world constitutes the differential to which education is strictly confined. What God reveals to the unit of humanity is beyond the province of man to reveal to each other. It presents the objective to the subjective and embraces the imperfection of language to bridge this impassable gulf. The authority of the object over the subject has always been the incentive of activity; always depending upon the submission of the subject to the object. Association, therefore, is no less a fact than the communion of Spirit imprisoned within the individual man. The wisdom of this feature of human equity is sublime, it surpasses the most brilliant attempt of man to establish a theory of knowledge in the tentative effort to discover the truth as it is often expressed.

To admit that the Truth was revealed to every unit of humanity would be extremely impolitic for a political man to do, for his relation as guardian of society would be immediately advanced as a reason why individual independence would be treated as absurd. It would be overlooked, however, that no better proof exists of the independence of each and every person, than what is proclaimed in denying it. Because one individual is of such slight importance as a part of the whole, that egoism would be the insignia of reproach for anyone to assert that he knows more about God than any man could impart to him. There is no better evidence that a person has completely surrendered to the objective feature of existence than a display of ostentation in contempt for what he terms "inferiors" since he never tires in expressing admiration for his "superiors." He presents himself as an object to his "inferiors" while at the same time he is a subject to his "superiors." It is a mere figure of speech concerning etymology more than concrete Truth. It was more than Aristotle could explain how one man could be superior to another when a common source could not be disposed of except by the coining of a word signifying phenomenon or a mysterious appearance, which modern philosophers affirm to be the "unknown."

If policy is embraced with clinging affection, the search for the Truth could be deferred, since the attention would be too preoccupied with a positive to permit of a negative disturbance. In addition to the revelation of knowledge man is endowed with ambition to progress in distinction from the animals. The man who seeks to transcend the wisdom of God by refusing to acknowledge his omniparity, betrays an absurdity to the observation of the commonest mortal, even if he is politically compelled to remain silent. Professor G. Stanley Hall, Ph.D., L.L. D., has discovered that a "common laborer" can perform his duty with a maximum of five hundred words, while many thousand can be imparted to the plastic receptacle of youth; for what purpose appears to be deferred to inference, which can be deducted from the fact as stated. The possibility of becoming more than a common laborer would be inferred as the incentive for the tacking on of such a multitude of words with inference again that enough could be stored in the memory to transcend the simple knowledge that God bestows impartially to all. This does not imply a purpose to dispute the fact as stated, but the absence of facts not stated is the immediate observation. For, if the common laborer was inferior by reason of his being deficient in the objective symbols externally imparted, it appeared to be overlooked that the common laborer is equally dependent upon thought subjective, as another with a profusion of symbols derived from thoughts objective.

It is the effort to transcend the power of God by reason of the faculty of progress, that has been a universal phenomenon. Because as a rule man grows important as he progresses, he has never succeeded either from science or political effort to make a god by the common Power which is the true God.

IO HUMAN KOUITY

Chapter II. Figurative Communication

In the absence of any method of communicating thought, the relation between man and man would be a condition of equity by reason of the inability to make signs and figures of comparison by which means a correspondence is possible. If every presentation of an object revealed a positive character to whatever subject it came in contact with, it would be a. state of equity that would make the communion of thought absurd. That is, if knowledge had the power to impart knowledge, the equity between subject and object would have been established at birth. Allowing that existence in the light of complete equity would be a paradise, it could readily be seen that learning would be impossible because there would be nothing to learn. To say that "something exists" would be equivalent to a "thinking thing" which Spenoza appeared to believe, in trying to prove that substance could think. The genus of pure thinking is the invisible Logos, or Word of God, or communication of thought between man and man would be impossible. To contend that the figurative is "vulgar" while the literal is culture, presents an obstacle between the Logos or natural intelligence and the acquired (literal) that is more political than honest or moral. That the learned in letters are more responsible for this duplicity than the illiterate, makes such personality accountable to God, even if the thought that individuality depends upon for its corporal existence, can be silenced by a policy and maintained by collective institutions which seek to preserve the old dogma that might was right.

If human equity was a visible reality in the same sense that it is a spiritual fact, it would be a passive condition suggestive of the millennium. To evade this spiritual fact for material profit would not detract from the personal conception of human equity. Neither does silence convey an ignorance of the communion of spirit. A personal presence, however, to the contrary is an evidence of equity that the learning of all ages has ever failed to disprove. The Logos of thought establishes the genus of personality that nothing but the individual will can defy. A dogmatic policy takes advantage of the protective sense of fear, but the reaction is more effective upon the dissembler, if observation is reliable.

To allege abruptly that culture is responsible for the misery and evil in the world repels attention, since the first principle of communication is attraction. Allowing that the genius of culture embraces all the wickedness of the world it does not follow that culture as such is wicked. Progress signifies culture and represents the line of demarcation between the animal and human, in the absence of which culture itself would be impossible. Crystalized materialism could represent culture incarnate, but all subject matter is predicated by heat from which the activity of progress demands attention. It transcends the most orthodox conviction, so simple is activity engendered by the universal character of heat, that it establishes a human equity to which every phase of human conduct is subordinate.

That the literal method of communication is an improvement over the figurative, which is due to the innate inspiration of progress, it does not effect the principle of communication since it always rests upon the direct inspiration of progress. There is a potential policy in treating the literal as antithetical to the figurative since the two principles are strikingly synthetic. It points to a motive antagonistic to civilization no less than progress. The fact that progress persists in becoming an established fact, the potential effort of the learned in claiming specific inspiration instrumental of the end obtained, becomes involved in the means employed.

If the truth depended upon a false foundation there were no need for such words as logic and reason. Specific inspiration and reason are more antithetical than figurative and literal methods of communications. There is a purpose in this distinction that presents an absurdity, since the directing influence of the literal is employed to subordinate the power of God by the secondary power of man. That man is in communion with God during the entire period of corporal existence requires no proof other than a personal presence. It is a cardinal personality possessing a clear title to the "thinking thing" as literally termed to express the soul. Not that it is a thing of substance, but the thinking that constitutes the important feature of person, to dispute which, the proof would devolve upon the disputant.

The strenuous effort of the learned to maintain class supremacy parallel to the caste system of the

East, becomes more obvious as culture appears to give greater promise of an escape from moral obligation. The illiterate are a ready prey to the greed of the cultured and by maintaining the dogma of the ancient tyrants prior even to the Christian era, even the cultured appear sincere in the worship of literal vagaries which maintain a superficial appearance of religion and moral rectitude. That this modern system of culture from a moral standpoint is a delusion, the relation between literal and figurative methods of portraying thought is a remarkable witness. The relation between the secular and political culture grows stronger as the disintegration between religion and politics reflects natural progress.

If dominant interests are forced to abandon the political control of religion and retreat to a position of secular culture with defective communication, (the present written language) it will be interesting to watch the result even if it is not seriously disastrous. It should always be borne in mind that culture and virtue are antithetical terms, for evil can be as readily cultivated as goodness, frequently more so. For this reason it is a misfortune to mistake culture for virtue suggesting a return to paganism of which the renaissance period furnishes a recorded evidence. The inference is that culture guided by the policy of material greed was never remarkable for moral conduct. More suggestive even than the vagaries of culture is the gradual dawn of personal freedom so long burdened with political religion.

In considering the differential between the letter and figure, both terms being embraced in the figure of speech, it is important to observe than an argument, considered apart from discussion, is scarcely more than the defining of words. The science of language would be no science at all unless a fundamental standard of definition was strictly adhered to. The science of language (figuratively) is an esoteric chamber, from which perch one can look down without being seen from below. It presents a logical figure that does not detract from a speaker's argument because the person cannot comprehend the terms employed. If the motive is political the differential between the figure and letter is essential. If the motive is spiritual or philanthropic there is no difference whatever between the figure and letter.

The use of a figure to communicate ideas of thought is more license than political authority can consistently permit, because the letter permits of a more definite precision in restricting a limit. Hence for a political purpose a strict standard of communication must be maintained as a state measure, regardless of the Truth, or whether the established standard is right or wrong from a moral stand. The policy of all civil governments, since society demanded political protection, has been to control religion, which is more readily comprehended by the figure of communication than the letter, for the reason it appeals more readily to common understanding than the letter or articulate speech. That is, the picture of a horse is more naturally conceived by the mind in duplicate image than the word horse. It appears to be overlooked, however, by politicians and scientific scholars who would shout in derision against the mere suggestion of human equity, that the word horse would never convey the conception of one prior to perceiving it per se, or figuratively communicated by picture. It should be apparent, therefore, that the policy of deference shown to the letter is more to disguise the Truth for fear the common people will discover that human equity is more of a reality than political sagacity sustained without a resort to duplicity. The ignorance of letters gives color to political authority but the figure of precedent rises like a ghost in the dark, and asserts its pre-eminence to natural language. In comparison to the literal, the relation of the latter is a mere shadow.

The multitude of objections that can be hurled at reality or the supreme truth is as futile as to attempt the destruction of space and time, because words derived from the science of letters are relative only to the figure which is always the fact. The most ingenious effort has been resorted to in all time that any record preserves, to simply transcend Spiritual authority by physical strength directed by political sagacity. It has been shown and possibly misunderstood that in the absence of difficulties progress would have no field of operation ; and human equity would be a matter of fact requiring no effort to demonstrate; but activity will not admit of a passive state, when it can be readily observed that every normal human being possesses the ambition of progress which is a feature of his body with the consciousness of life. If a person has not the courage to admit what he knows to be a fact, it presents a proposition foreign to a state of equality. The point is, if the wicked can bear their punishment, knowing they are wicked, the innocent can bear physical pain with a fortitude that would put the wicked, knowing his wickedness, to shame.

The science of etymology is more political than logical if the word "logic" is permitted to bear a positive definition. This important word is played with for political effect, but no scientific argument of any character can be maintained with a dual definition of terms employed.

It gives the man of letters ("a literature") that practically excludes the figurative man or, technically speaking, the "layman" from any recognition other than a secondary position, but the point again is whether a policy can transcend the Truth. The mere assertion that the Truth is the ultimate end of an argument cannot be conducted politically, for reasons stated that terms are defined to protect political authority as supreme over religion, which is usually referred to as "Church and State." It presents an inexhaustible controversy from a literary point of view, and to recognize the political definition of words, is to maintain a supremacy of the literal over the figurative, it presents a parallel situation as that between the political and religion, which could be extended to the natural relation with the artificial or materialism to the spiritual.

To consider the search for the Truth it could be seen that the difficulty is more political than real, hence to view the situation without political bias, it could be observed that the figurative must be recognized as the fundamental principle of communication, by reason of the simplicity in which understanding can be exchanged. The figure appeals to natural intelligence when the letter would be a blank, yet in logic the letter is also a figure which science would give it a material attribute with the avowed purpose of discovering a Spiritual Truth. The erudite class of humanity form a learned peerage in such close alliance to political sagacity that a personal attempt to reform politics would be to invite persecution which the records of the past bear ample evidence.

It can be demonstrated by the figure pictorial, or the letter literal, that both forms are figures of speech pertaining to the Logos, or it would cease to be the ver}' source of logic. The fact that the term "Logos" represents a "distinct personality" is a definition remote from any political definition and the fact that personality is recognized it excludes any policy that could definitely elevate itself to a position of authority to distinguish one personality from another, — that is, in the absence of politics or statecraft. The State has always to maintain a standard of weights and measurements, for science has never been able to demonstrate the weight of a pound or length of a foot ; this pertains to matter or a passive substance. Now to pass into the realm of the active and affirm that the State should maintain a standard of methods in the commerce of thoughts it would be a state of harmony that would transcend the most ideal. In act, ideal progress proves, and discovery would not exist, if the State could legislate and maintain a standard of thought or to a nicety restrict every subject to a limitation of what to think, or not to think. Nothing could be more absurd in science or theory to exexploit such a self-evident impossibility. It would practically be an attempt to restrain the power of God. Thus if the Logos means any thing it is no less than God. As a base of more extended observations the Logos pertains to "distinct personality." (The Century Dictionary.) It should be observed that personality is qualified by distinction. This distinction could not be maintained as authority without the power of the State which would be establishing a standard of thinking.

The fact that the Logos pertains to more than the State has any possible jurisdiction over, it throws a little ray of light upon a dual authority divided between the Spiritual and political. It would be absurd for the object to attempt to prove what the subject knows, even if the object reflected the knowledge known, which the science of psychology exploits to an exhaustive length. The point in brief is, if the qualifying word "distinction" with any other seeking to qualify a word representing the Truth — Logos — God — Knowledge, the State is responsible for the attempt to qualify whatever word is used to designate the Truth. In the absence of any policy the word "Logos" would signify "person" without the "distinction," a distinct effort to intrude upon the realm of Spirit. It remains for the objector to prove that the Logos does not apply to human unity rather than a distinct personality which science and philosophy have never been able to more than affirm.