One also minutely notes that the tricks of imagination are universal and beyond numbering in variety, permeating all phases of the social fabric. Hence man’s vagaries and follies and cruelties are beyond computation; yet all these betrayals and cajolings and trickeries flow from the same single source, namely the individual, unconscious that his imagination is incessantly at work. Because he is not acquainted with its nature, and unaware that he is its puppet, his waking hours are a continuing dream of inverted Self.
It is the mass dream of inverted self, populous with fears overt and secret, that forms the continuous but gossamer thread upon which are strung as phantom beads all civilizations from the remotest past of record to that of the present day and hour. As we follow back upon this thread—one end of which is delicately attached to our own inverted secret thoughts, we find it unchanging from end to end, regardless of environment; the civilizations it passes through and upholds on its way are but local manifestations and exhibits.
This intense and continuing preoccupation with inverted self makes it clear why man has turned his back on man, and why man is still unknown to himself—and unsuspected.
So long as imagination slyly tricked him into self deprecation, self debasement and the slavery of the creature conviction, or into the opposite, megalomania, with its unquenchable thirst for blood, for plunder, and dominion; or with siren song beguiled him through the portals of a closed world of abstraction—he could not know himself, and the neighbor must remain a stranger to be feared, despised, or placated.
Indeed, until we come as pioneers, to seek out and know imagination as such, to view it clearly defined as an erratic and dangerous power, to be controlled; until we have observed with realistic clarity its multifarious doings from black magic upward to mighty deeds of hand and head and heart, we shall remain remote from man’s reality, and from the splendor of his native powers.
One who has made the rough pilgrimage through the jungled infirmities of philosophy, of theology, and through the wilderness of turbid dream-words uttered by the practical man who deals in cold, hard facts; one who as pioneer worked his troubled way through the undergrowth of culture with its acceptances, its preconceptions and precious finalities; one who, led on by a faith unfaltering, at last arrives at the rendezvous with Life, here testifies the natural man as sound to the core and kindly, yet innocent of himself as the seat of genius, as container of limitless creative powers of beneficence.
Solely on the strength of this faith was begun the story of a child-dream of power.
Wherefore we may now inquire: What are these powers, and what is the reality we affirm to be man?
He is none other than ourselves divested of our wrappings. If we in imagination divest ourselves of our wrappings we may see that he is ourselves. If we remove our blinders we shall see more clearly. If we look out between the bars of our self-imprisonment, we may note him nearby, walking familiarly in the Garden of Life. Undoubtedly he is ourselves, he is our youth, he is our spirit, he is that within us which has yearned for frank utterance—how long—and still yearns.
It is appalling to think he is ourselves; to wake from our dreams and see him. Yet will it not be inspiriting to find him at our elbow—no longer a stranger—no longer to be feared? To know that he is like us all? To feel the widening sense, as we regard him, that he stands not only as our explanation, but as our self-revelation. True, he is not at all what we had supposed and what we have affirmed. Yet will he be grimly recognized as he comes into view—to our amaze, for he is precisely that which we have denied.
We may be shocked at first, retreat, and disclaim; for denial of the power of life is our habit of old. We have other habits of old woven into weird grotesqueries. These are among our wrappings.
Inasmuch as man has been affirmed herein as sound and kindly, let us examine him. Rest assured we shall find naught in him that is not truly in ourselves and was not there in latency at birth.
To begin: He is a Worker and a Wanderer in varied ways. With his bodily powers he may go here and there, he may move objects about, he may change the order of things. Here at the onset we find a portentous power—the power to change situations; he can make new situations. With his ten fingers he can do wonderful things, make things he needs, make accessory things to extend his muscular powers. Thus he manipulates—he further changes situations. He changes his own situations, he creates an environment of his own. One sees here the Adventurer, the Craftsman, the Doer—ever growing in power. Thus man’s first collective power within himself is the power to aspire, to work—to wander—to go from place to place near and far—to return to his home.
Now comes into view that power we call Curiosity
—and coupled with it the power to inquire. Man’s power to inquire we call a mental power, to distinguish it from his somatic power. It may have had a beginning, it can have no end. The result of inquiry we call knowledge; its high objective we call science. The objective of science is more knowledge, more power; more inquiry, more power.
Now, if to the power to do we added the power to inquire, Man, the worker, grows visibly more compact in power, more potent to change situations and to make new situations for himself. The situation may be a deep gorge
