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III

PERPETUITY OF CHARACTER¹

Character is the medium through which the soul expresses itself, or that form by which the whole mind so manifests. It adheres and does not inhere or form a part of man's inmost. It is a mirror, so to speak, by which the soul looks at itself, a lever upon which it acts, a door through which it passes in and out of the temple. Character is not the soul, neither is it an expression of man's inward nature. You are never more mistaken than when you believe that you know a person's spirit by its characteristic manifestations. Inward nature is compelled to express itself through form, but such form may be the creation of an unfortunate parentage or education. There are three degrees of human character: (i) That which is inherited from Father God and Mother Nature; (2) that which we derive from our immediate, earthly father and mother; (3) that which is acquired by our private habits, or from those with whom we are in sympathy and social communication. There is therefore a foundation character which is innately divine and for ever beautiful. It is God-like, because it is an individualised detachment of the Monotheistic Principle. It is pure, immaculate, the same in essence as in conformation. This radical, innermost, imperishable character is seldom manifested in our present rudimental life. The second or progenitary character—which man inherits from man

¹ See Penetralia—s.v., Questions on the Origin and Perpetuity of Character

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—is almost always visible. These two are beyond our absolute control.¹ The body is inherited like a dwelling-house, and its faculties are the furniture—also inherited with the habitation. It is impossible to change radically a single faculty; it is hard even to make superficial alterations. But there is a third character which comes within the circle of individual responsibility. Varieties of disposition and contrarieties of temperament—in individuals with whom a man lives in contact—go directly toward the formation of superficial character, and this is that character sustained and manifested mainly by mankind.

Man is called to become acquainted with psychological principles of self-development. These will put into his possession the greatest amount of power by which he can control and modify not only his superficial character but the secondary to a considerable extent, or that derived from his progenitors along both lines. When a man knows how he obtained the superficial character through which his spirit is forced to express and misrepresent itself, his knowledge is equivalent to a psychological power by which it can be modified.² By increase

¹ It is presumably in this sense that Davis questions the free will of humanity, as we have seen much earlier in the text. He protests loosely and strongly, but sooner or later revises his own statements. He says, for example: I tell you that man is not free. He is not free to choose, except in so far as his faculties are cultured to see and his heart is intuitive to understand; but such culture and such intuition, for the most part, are effects of his inheritance and of his surrounding circumstances.—Beyond the Valley, p. 267. And again: Does not a man's will determine and choose between the evil and the good? Yes; man's will does consciously co-operate with the drift and election of his inclinations. But how did his evil tendencies originate?—Ibid., p. 343.
² As this illustrates one aspect of the power of thought over the body, it may be noted that, according to Davis, the ideas of the brain, whether expressed or otherwise, descend into every department of the dependent organism. Thence a "sphere" issues which tinges, favourably or unfavourably, every thing as well as every person with which the individual

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of knowledge and wisdom there is acquired ability to undermine and eradicate the superficial. Go deep into human nature and you will find a pure and imperishable inheritance, an incorruptible essence and character, a being whose inmost can disclose the celestial structure. The primary character, derived from Father God and Mother Nature, is immortal. The secondary character, imparted by mundane progenitors, is built over the deepest and inmost. This hereditary possession continues through the present world and may for centuries in the next, but it is capable—under self-control—of harmonial modification. The tertiary character, formed and fixed by habit, has a duration determined by the strength of aspiration to outgrow it and by the associations which aspiration attracts about you. Associate with those who are stedfast in their efforts to attain righteousness. The perpetuity of tertiary character is a question of time, not of eternity. You may strive to overcome and may experience defeat; each defeat is Nature's affirmation that nothing absolute can be done without co-operation. It is necessary not only to have assistance of friends in this world but the spiritualising aid of neighbours in the Spirit Land. It is a great consolation to know that all evil and sin which we condemn in human nature adhere only to those strata of character which are of temporal duration.

A man may take himself apart and thus attain the power of self-rectification, may remove acquired peculiarities which militate against the expression of inner- most characteristics. The Architect's Divine Idea is alone immortal, not the house which He builds, nor the

comes into contact. Thus does each lend his character to the garments on his body, the furniture in his room, the companions about him. If his ideas be false, these things are affected in the sense of falsity. The subtle essences of the thinking principle flow beneath and rise above whatsoever appertains to the individual and to the orbit in which he moves.—The Present Age and the Inner Life, pp. 328, 329

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paint with which artisans embellish it. The imperfections of acquired and parentally inherited character ultimately pass away. Nature will do her work, and you will experience at last a complete realisation of her original Idea. It follows that Nature's ideas of a man may be realised in this life; but, unless they be duly overcome, inherited and acquired characters will survive death and accompany you when you enter the chambers of the Eternal Mansion. You will not lose individuality there; you will be known as you were known by father and mother, such recognition being by the principle of universal sympathy. Neither death—with all its mysterious chemical energies—nor the grave—though it weeps on all sides for months and years together—can cleanse the spirit of certain characteristics which adhere to it, as a consequence of rudimental existence and organic developments. The saving scheme is to elicit that which is integral—the natural image or harmonial character beneath all that is inherited or acquired. But as a general principle natural characteristics are carried into the Spirit Home. The true Irishman does not lose his national or individual peculiarities. The different races preserve a momentum and, for many periods, continue to run the race of a national progression.¹ Ulti-

¹ This is a recurring statement of the view taken by Davis, and it is one which follows logically from his fundamental position that the transition from this life to the next involves no radical change in the being who thus goes forward, while the place to which he removes is in direct analogy with that which he has left. At the same time a certain natural progress is involved and this bespeaks improvement. The worst are better off than they were, while the best benefit in proportion as the spiritual world is superior to that which is physical. Compare Beyond the Valley, p. 266: Very close reasoners in theology will admit that man's power to act in this world is limited; but they hold that the power to choose— the election of either good or evil—is an outcome of the individual nationality and will. On the spur of the moment, Davis is denying this argument; but what is the power to overcome circumstance except the power of the will? It should be understood that I am not concerned

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mately, however, by a closer approximation of tendencies and interchange of sympathies, overarched and beautified by system, divergent races converge and assimilate, acquired and parental characteristics are dropped, till there shines forth alone the innate and beautiful, the celestial and divine character, derived from Father God and Mother Nature.

Most persons exhibit first that character which they have derived from their immediate progenitors, and then that acquired during childhood and adolescence. But there are few whose inter and super structures of character are transparent and plastic enough to reveal the form of the Divine Image. There is now and then a temperamental conformation which affords an opportunity for the innermost to express and delineate itself between the interstices of acquired and inherited characters. In such cases we have reason to rejoice exceedingly that human nature, in the midst of discord and imperfection, can so manifest truth and goodness. It teaches us to look within and behold the imperishable. The best idea of our Divine Progenitors is there—the inmost, harmonial and everlasting.

Here therefore begins a grand lesson of individual responsibility, the knowledge that circumstances are not your masters but that you have the power to overcome, and the knowledge that external character which does not declare the spirit is like the burr surrounding the chestnut. A time arrives when the burr falls away and the sweet meat of the nut is visible. Hope for everyone is based upon this fact—that all external and inherited imperfections are ultimately to be mastered and eradicated, so that not a vestige shall remain to interfere with

with adjudicating on the question of free will but simply with establishing the fact that is granted by Davis in this fullest sense, even when he sets forth to deny it. Moreover, his denials are usually the outcome of an overweening anti-theological basis, which carries him away, so that he forgets his own findings elsewhere.

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the happiness of immortal mind. This notwithstanding, each individual will differ everlastingly from every other individual. There is no one type proper to all mankind. You will be developed therefore in the likeness of your own interior character, bequeathed ante-natally by Father God and Mother Nature.