Friday, January 1, 2010

"Hope and Fear; Dialogues on Death and the Immortality of the Soul". End of term essay

I

Mary Wollstonecraft knocked firmly on the door of the lighthouse. She was consumed, inexplicably, she admitted to herself, with anger at the lighthouse keeper who, having undoubtedly seen the pilot light beckoning from the ship, refused to come out and row her to shore. After convincing the captain to depart from the norm and allow the crew to bring her, she immediately set out to expostulate or even scold the keeper.

The old man who opened the door was very glad to see her, the art of hospitality strong as it was in the men and women of the country.

“I go many days and weeks without greeting a body at the door. I would, I wish, have such occasion as to welcome many more!” he said with great cheer.

“Did you not see the pilot light calling to you from our ship?” was her crisp reply.

“Come up into the tower and see with your own eyes, that which I saw, and you will think not that I lie.”

Angry as she was, she followed him up the ladder and into the light tower. And there, plain for any but the blind to see, was her ship's pilot light burning in full view, as the boat churned and rocked in the cold, grey, choppy sea.

“I now have no doubt that you saw the light and so must reason that you chose not to come. How do you defend such selfishness, such recalcitrance of your duty?” she demanded.

He smiled kindly at her. “Is it not sweet to watch from dry land when the storm-winds roil a mighty ocean's waters, and see another's bitter toil – not because you relish someone else's misery – rather, it's sweet to know from what misfortunes you are free.”

The anger she had carried from the boat to shore now rose from her chest to her cheeks in a torrent of heat. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. “Do you mock me?” she heard herself say, although her ability to reason had long since fled and she was in no way certain, when recalling the conversation as she wrote her letters later that night, of what her actual words might have been.

“Your anger at my answer is not anger at me. 'Tis the Dread Of Death, from which your heart must flee! But if instead, we see these things are laughable, mere jokes, why doubt that reason alone can quench this terror with its spark?”

The storm of feelings in her body was thrown into an uproar by his words. How had he seen this in her? This fear of annihilation she had carefully hidden from the view of civilized company – so she thought – that had swelled and swayed in her heart like the very sea they were watching from the tower, now lay bare for examination by any and all.

“You can't possibly know the nature of my feelings in such fleeting a moment as this,” she retorted.

He would not relent. “You feel heaviness upon your mind, it's plain to see, that weighs you down. If you could grasp the cause of this ennui, this heap of misery and care that hunkers on the heart, you would not lead the life you do, not knowing what you want, ever seeking a change of place – as if you could lay down your burden by travelling through space!”

“How fallacious!” she replied. “ This dread of death that you deride, I ask you in turn, what, if not either hope or the fear of annihilation, is to sustain life?”

“There is the answer, in the question you ask. This misery must take you no more to task. For 'tis hope and fear which cause the pain, you see, and their end is the end that you truly must seek.”

For the next hour, Mary sat spellbound as he explained that the body and the soul are made of indestructible atoms, and as life is born, these atoms collide and bond to form bodies which, after death, the bonds dissolving, return to individual atoms. The soul, which he termed as the union of mind and spirit, is formed, too, of atoms of a different nature. And they, like the atoms of the body, at death return to their natural form to be swept out into the infinite sea of atoms.

Mary was shocked. “I cannot bear to think of being no more – of losing myself – though existence is often a painful consciousness of misery; nay, it appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should only be organized dust – ready to fly abroad the moment the spring snaps!” she argued.

He looked at her sadly, like a doctor giving his patient some bad news. “If the nature of the soul is immortal, and it creeps into the body as we're born, why is it no one keeps a memory of time before? For if the mind has undergone a transformation vast enough to cancel out all the remembrance of things past, that is a state approaching little short of death, I'd say. Therefore you must admit that what it was has passed away.”

“And what of hope?” she asked. “What of God? Is there nothing to desire in life but misery and the sadness of a broken heart?” The sorrow lodged in her throat made no pretense of receding anymore.

“Religion! Superstition!” he hissed, shocking Mary to take a step back. “It is Religion breeds wickedness and that has given rise to wrongful deeds!” His face grew red with fury. “It is the turn of Superstition to lie prone, trod underfoot, while by philosophy's victory we reach the heavens!”

His voice echoed around Mary as she hurried down the ladder and out the door of the lighthouse to the waiting party.

That night, as she wrote her account of the conversation, she struggled again with her feelings. It seemed they would never leave her a moment’s rest.

“Ah, let me be happy whilst I can,” she said aloud to no one. But the tears started as she thought of it. “I must fly from thought, and find refuge from sorrow in a strong imagination – the only solace for a feeling heart”, she wrote. “But surely something resides in this heart that is not perishable – and life is more than a dream.”

And she was asleep.



II

Mary stood in a recess of the church in Tonsberg looking at the coffins. The bodies inside she knew to be preserved, an abominable art. Preserved. Is this my fate?, she thought. How futile to term it a preservation when the noblest parts are immediately sacrificed merely to save the muscles, skin and bone from rottenness. It is a treason against humanity, thus to lift up the awful veil which would fain hide its weakness.

She then spoke aloud without taking notice, as she did with growing frequency on this journey of solitude and so little affection. “Life, what art thou? Where goes this breath? This I, so much alive?”

“A philosopher, or an actress?” a weak voice behind her hissed. She turned to see a young, pallidly complected minister observing her from the back of the church. He bore the affect of a bookish man who rarely stepped outdoors from his studies.

“Neither,” she replied, embarrassed at being caught speaking in such dramatic tones. “A traveler.” Looking back at the coffins, she asked, “Who lies here, inside the church?”

The young minister coughed hoarsely as he stepped forward. “Those who are close to God. Those who were granted grace in this life. The fortunate few.”

“And those who were not so fortunate? Those who defy God with ambivalence or perhaps unnatural death?” she inquired, trying to seem intellectually curious.

He looked past her out the window at the rear of the church. She followed his eyes to the land in the distance. A rugged and dreary road lined with nothing but bare, grey rocks, leading to a forest that appeared to have been burnt in time past. Desolation and gloom beyond measure.

“How unfortunate” she smiled. Her attempt at humour was ignored. He stared at her, unblinking. She turned back to the coffins. “Do you have an answer to my questions, then? Is this death? Our tissue frozen against time? Our soul lost for eternity?”

“If that is what you choose to believe, then that is what is true.”

Such riddles, she thought. “And if I desire to believe more? How does one find grace? How do I believe in that which I cannot see, know what I cannot know?”

“You are wise to know that you cannot know, but you must at least get it into your head that, if you are unable to believe, it is because of your passions, since reason compels you to believe and yet you cannot do so.”

“Does reason compel me to believe?”

“Yes,” he raised his finger to make his point as he moved closer to her, “but if we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. Yet, if we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous.”

“You speak in circles,” she laughed. He stopped walking and clasped his hands behind his back, visibly offended by her remark.

“If it is reason you seek, then here it is: God either exists or He doesn't. If you choose to believe and He does exist, you will live in eternity. If He does not and yet you choose to believe, then you will at least be faithful, honest, humble, full of good works, a sincere, true friend. So reason gives but reason to believe.”

“You, sir, appear to be the philosopher of the two of us. Can you answer the question: 'How does one achieve grace if not by reason?' Passion? What of love?”

“Cleopatra's nose!” came the odd reply. “Love is vanity! And passion only leads you further from God. If there were only reason without passion! If there were only passion without reason! But since he has both, man can only be at peace with one when he is at war with the other. Concentrate not on convincing yourself by multiplying proofs of God's existence, but by diminishing your passions, for they are vanity!”

She wondered who between them was the actor. “So neither reason nor passion can bring me closer to happiness? We're left in a wretched place, then, aren't we?”

“Happiness is man with God. Unhappiness is man without God. Man's greatness is in knowing that he is wretched. Our desire for happiness is punishment for our fall from grace.” He smirked at her, as though he had beaten her at chess with one bold move.

“More circles!” she protested. He was wearing thin her patience. “I'm beginning to think you mad!”

“Men are so inevitably mad that not to be mad would be to give a mad twist to madness.” He laughed for the first time – a human being after all. He continued, his voice growing weaker as his obviously heartfelt conviction rose. “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing. It is the heart which perceives God, and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason.”

With that last riddle, the minister began coughing uncontrollably. A young woman rushed in from outside. Clearly, she had been listening close by.

“My brother is ill, he cannot be brought to agitation!” She snapped at Mary as she walked him out of the church. “Stay if you will, but question him no more.”

And they were gone, leaving Mary alone to contemplate the strange encounter. How could there be faith without reason, reason without passion, yet faith that could only be found in the heart? She reasoned and reasoned, but her heart was too full to allow her to remain in the church, so she determined to walk the road in the dead forest beyond the church till she was wearied out, to purchase rest – or rather forgetfulness.

She walked through the forest of grey, cobweb-like pines; the fibres whitening as they lost their moisture, imprisoned life seemingly stolen away. “Death” she thought, “under every form appears to me like something getting free – to expand in I-know-not-what element; nay I feel that this conscious being must be as unfettered, have wings of thought, before it can be happy.”

She soon reached a cascade. The impetuous dashing of the rebounding torrent mocked her exploring eye, producing an equal activity in her mind. “Why am I chained to life and its misery?” she lamented aloud, sure this time not to be heard by some unseen observer over the rush of the water. Her deserted heart felt the weight of her sorrow and loneliness, but still, the tumultuous emotions this sublime object excited were pleasurable; and viewing it, her soul rose with renewed dignity above its cares. And she stretched her hand to touch the spray of the water – to eternity, bounding over the dark speck of life to come.

Thinking of death always made her cling tenderly to her affections.



III

Mary had purposely sought out the town of Larvik, a metropolis, relative to the towns her recent travels had taken her. Her thoughts had flown from the wilderness to the polished circles of the world. She hoped to rub off the rust of thought, and polish the taste which the contemplation of nature had rendered just. Her encounters of late had left her in a state of furious contemplation. As a woman of taste and education, how was she to rationalize the upheaval of passion that pushed her, unwillingly at times, into the deepest of sorrows only then to pull her to the highest of joys? What was she to think of her deep desire to cling to life when some days every step she took felt so heavy and laboured that the very thought of another step reduced her to weeping and made her desirous of an end to her mortal struggles?

A letter of introduction had brought her into the company of a warm and amiable man, a lawyer, and one who clearly passed much time in contemplation on matters of the human mind and soul. He sat with her at his club, a gentlemen's club, her entrance to which, he assured her, would not be questioned under his patronage. She found herself in the midst of a group of lawyers. Her head turned round, her heart grew sick. Regarding the visages of the men sitting nearby, she felt not nearly so welcome as her benefactor insisted.

She recounted to him her previous conversations in the lighthouse and the church in as much detail as she remembered. He listened with great care and interest as she reasoned through the arguments that had been presented to her and, although she tried desperately to refrain from allowing her passions to surface, she could not fully prevent it. Such was the temperature of her soul. She ended her story by posing the question, or rather, lament, which had driven her to this place and this moment: “Considering the question of human happiness, where, oh, where does it reside? Has it taken up its abode with the unconscious ignorance, or with the high-wrought mind?”

The gentleman studied her tortured face for a moment, weighing his reply. He felt compassion, the most natural of human impulses, for her struggle, but insisted to himself that he should answer her as rationally and truthfully as possible.

“The topic of human misery has been insisted on with the most pathetic eloquence that sorrow and melancholy could aspire.” He began. “But in misery, there is no virtue. It has neither utility nor enjoyment to either you or society. And while I commend you for allowing your passions to lead you, for reason can and should only ever be their slave, this misery must end itself either by imagination” he hesitated a moment, “or by force.”

She looked into his eyes. They were warm and filled with the best of human kindness, for he was, she saw, a man with a great portion of common sense, and heart – yes, a warm heart.

She smiled, barely covering the sadness held within her breast. “Here I came to talk of anything but the pangs arising from the discovery of estranged affection, and the lonely sadness of a deserted heart, and yet I cannot stop. My imagination arrests any other subject and forces misery's cruel hands upon my neck, which it holds without mercy or quarter.”

Her hand trembled as she said the next words, their sound echoing in her mind, to be heard again and again forever after. “So then, what of force?”.

He shifted slightly in his chair and looked down for a brief moment. “So great is our horror of death, that when it presents itself under any form besides that to which a man has endeavored to reconcile his imagination, it acquires new terrors, and overcomes his futile courage. But when the passions play, when the judgment dictates, when the limbs obey, this is all the operation of God. Men are entrusted to their own judgment and discretion, and may employ every faculty with which they are endowed, in order to provide for their ease, happiness, or preservation. But what is the meaning of that principle, then, if we say that a man who has tired of life, is hunted by pain and misery, bravely overcomes his terror of death, and makes his escape from this cruel scene? That he has incurred the indignation of his creator and disturbed the order of the universe?”

“Is there a principle to be found?” Mary stammered, trying to laugh. “These are perhaps the vapourings of a heart ill at ease – the effusions of a sensibility wounded almost to madness.” She could scarce believe she had revealed her soul so deeply and irrevocably.

He continued, unmoved by her diversion. “Has not every man the free disposal of his own life? It would be equally criminal to act for the preservation of life as for its destruction. Suppose a malefactor is justly condemned to a shameful death – can any reason be imagined why he may not save himself all the anguish on thinking on its dreadful approaches? He invades the business of Providence no more than the magistrate did who ordered his execution.”

“I know of a similar story,” said Mary, fighting against the powerful reason that spoke so seductively to the darkness in her heart. “A wretch in Portugal who had been imprisoned several years, during which period lamps had been put up, was at last condemned to a cruel death; yet, on his way to execution, he only wished for one night's respite, to see the city lights.”

“Are you possessed of a similar hope?” he inquired.

“I hope for the immorality of my living soul,” she answered. It was yet true.

“I'm afraid in that regard, I must agree with your lighthouse keeper. Reasoning from the common course of nature it must be said that what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth; and if the former existence noways concerned us, neither will the latter. This is merely the metaphysical argument, which must presume dominance over the argument of the First Cause. We must also examine the moral argument, which would assure you of punishment. But punishment, according to our conception, should bear some proportion to the offence. Why then eternal punishment for the temporary offences of so frail a creature as man?”

“How dare I assume to know the quality of Divine moral judgment?” asked Mary.

“Precisely, you cannot!” he replied sternly. “The chief source of moral ideas is the reflection on the interests of human society.” He leaned forward and covered her trembling hand with his. “Death is in the end unavoidable; yet the human species could not be preserved had nature not inspired us with an aversion towards it.”

He caught himself, withdrawing his hand and sitting back in his chair. But it was too late, for the conversation around the room had all but ceased; and every man was looking in their direction. Mary had never been more aware of being a woman in her life. She straightened herself in her chair, imitating his manner, and, controlling her emotions, decided to conclude the conversation and leave the club, which had become for her as objectionable a place as she had ever been. She brazenly returned the stares of the men in the room, who's wits had been sharpened by knavery, who here undermined morality, confounding right and wrong. These locusts will probably diminish, as the people become more enlightened, she thought.

She turned to her companion. “Your reason and compassion are the soundest, most sincere argument I have heard. But my heart, as the young minister proposed, my heart cannot deny its cry to God for mercy upon my soul; for grace,” she said.

He smiled after a moment of reflection, and reached for a cigar. He admired her courage. He leaned forward and spoke quietly, as to ensure that none in the room but her could hear. “Nothing could set in a fuller light the infinite obligations which mankind has to Divine revelation, since we find that no other medium could ascertain this great and important truth.”



IV

The evening was extremely calm and beautiful. Not being able to walk, she requested a boat, her only means of enjoying free air. The view of the town was extremely fine. A huge, rocky mountain stood up behind it, and a vast cliff stretched on each side, forming a semicircle. In the recess of the rocks was a clump of pines, amongst which a steeple rose picturesquely beautiful.

“I should rather choose,” she thought “did it admit to a choice, to sleep in some of the caves of the rocks”. For she had become better reconciled to them since she climbed their craggy sides, listening to the finest echoes she had ever heard. The night air brushed lightly over her face as the sound of the oars passing rhythmically through the water lulled her into a dream. Spirits unseen seemed to walk abroad, and flit from cliff to cliff, soothing her soul to peace. And to the echoes, she raised her own voice – a song from her heart – dance from cave to cave. She cared not if she were overheard.

Shimmering,
iridescent,
deathless Aphrodite,
child of Zeus, weaver of wiles,
I beg you,
do not crush my spirit with anguish, Lady,
but come to me now, if ever before
you heard my voice in the distance
and leaving your father's golden house
drove your chariot pulled by sparrows
swift and beautiful
over the black earth, their wings a blur
as they streaked down from heaven
across the bright sky –

and then you were with me, a smile
playing about your mortal lips
as you asked,
what is it this time?
Why are you calling again?
And asked what my heart in its lovesick raving
most wanted to happen:

“Whom now
should I persuade to love you?
Who is wronging you, Sappho?
She may run now, but she'll be chasing soon.
She may spurn gifts, but soon she'll be giving.
She may not love now, but soon she will,
willing or not”

Come to me again now, release me
from my agony, fulfill all
that my heart desires, and fight for me,

fight at my side, Goddess.

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