A Full Life: The Works of Charlotte Mason

‘Conversion’ is not Contrary to Natural Law––Wherefore ‘conversion’ in the Biblical sense, in the sense in which the promoters of this scheme depend upon its efficacy, though a miracle of divine grace in so far as it is a sign and a marvel, is no miracle in the popular sense of that which is outside of and opposed to the workings of ‘natural law.’ Conversion is entirely within the divine scheme of things, even if we choose to limit our vision of that scheme to the ‘few, faint, and feeble’ flashes which Science is as yet able to throw upon the mysteries of being. But is this all? Ah, no; this is no more than the dim vestibule of Nature to the temple of grace; we are not concerned, however, to say one word here of how ‘great is the mystery of godliness’; of the cherishing of the Father, the saving and the indwelling of the Son, the sanctifying of the Spirit; neither need we speak of ’spiritual wickedness in high places.’ The aim of this slight essay is to examine the assertion that what we call conversion is contrary to natural law; and we do this with a view, not to General Booth’s scheme only, but to all efforts of help.

Hope shows an ever stronger case for the regeneration of the vicious. Not only need we be no more oppressed by the fear of an inheritance of invincible propensities to evil, but the strength of lifelong habit may be vanquished by the power of an idea, new habits of thought may be set up on the instant, and these may be fostered and encouraged until that habit which is ten natures is the habit of the new life, and the thoughts which, so to speak, think themselves all day long are thoughts of purity and goodness.

                                   THE LAW FOR US––POTENCY OF AN IDEA

Many Conversions in a Lifetime––A man may, most men do, undergo this process of renovation many times in their lives; whenever an idea strong enough to divert his thoughts (as we most correctly say) from all that went before is introduced, the man becomes a new creature; when he is ‘in love,’ for example; when the fascinations of art or of nature take hold of him; an access of responsibility may bring about a sudden and complete conversion:––

          The breath no sooner left his father’s body
          But that his wildness, mortified in him,
          Seem’d to die too; yea, at that very moment,
          Consideration, like an angel came
          And whipped the offending Adam out of him;
          Leaving his body as a paradise
          To envelop and contain celestial spirits.

Here is a picture––psychologically true, anyway; Shakespeare makes no mistakes in psychology––of an immediate absolute conversion. The conversion may be to the worse, alas, and not to the better, and the value of the conversion must depend upon the intrinsic worthiness of the idea by whose instrumentality it is brought about. The point worth securing is, that man carries in his physical structure the conditions of renovation; conditions, so far as we can conceive, always in working order, always ready to be put in force.

Conversion no Miracle––And now, at last, the miracle of conversion is made plain to our dull understanding. We perceive that conversion, however sudden, is no miracle at all––using the word miracle to describe that which takes place in opposition to natural law. On the contrary, we find that every man carries in his physical substance the gospel of perpetual, or of always possible, renovation; and we find how, from the beginning, Nature was prepared with her response to the demand of Grace. Is conversion possible? we ask; and the answer is, that it is, so to speak, a function for which there is latent provision in our physical constitution, to be called forth by the touch of a potent idea. Truly His commandment is exceeding broad, and grows broader day by day with each new revelation of Science.

Natural Preparation for Salvation––There is growth to the new thoughts in a new tract of the brain, and, ‘One custom overcometh another’; here is the natural preparation for salvation. The words are very old, the words of Thomas a’ Kempis, but the perception that they have a literal physical meaning has been reserved for us to-day. Only one train of ideas can be active at one time; the old cell connections are broken, and benign Nature is busy building up the waste places, even be they the waste places of many generations. NO ROAD is set up in the track where unholy thoughts carried on their busy traffic. New tissue is formed; the wound is healed, and, save, perhaps, for a scar, some little tenderness, that place is whole and sound as the rest.

This is how one custom overcometh another: there is no conflict, no contention, no persuasion. Secure for the new idea a weighty introduction, and it will accomplish all the rest for itself. It will feed and grow; it will increase and multiply; it will run its course of its own accord; will issue in that current of automatic unconscious involuntary thought of the man which shapes his character. Behold, a new man! Ye must be born again, we are told; and we say, with a sense of superior knowledge of the laws of Nature, How can a man be born again? Can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb and be born? This would be a miracle, and we have satisfied ourselves that ‘miracles do not happen.’

Education Stronger than Nature––The child’s future depends not upon his lineage so much as upon his bringing-up, for education is stronger than nature, and no human being need be given over to despair. We need not abate our hope of the regeneration of the vicious for the bugbear of an inheritance of irresistible propensity to evil.

                                   THE LAW FOR US––’ONE CUSTOM OVERCOMETH ANOTHER.’

But habit! It is bad enough to know that use is second nature, and that man is a bundle of habits; but how much more hopeless to look into the rationale of habit, and perceive that the enormous strength of the habit that binds us connotes a structural modification, a shaping of the brain tissues to the thought of which the habit is the outward and visible sign and expression. Once such growth has taken place, is not the thing done, so that it can’t be undone––has not the man taken shape for life when his ways of thinking are registered in the substance of his brain?

Not so; because one habit has been formed and registered in the brain is no reason at all why another and contrary habit should not be formed and registered in its turn. To-day is the day of salvation, physically speaking, because a habit is a thing of now; it may be begun in a moment, formed in a month, confirmed in three months, become the character, the very man, in a year.

Acquired Modification not Transmitted––The necessary corollary to the latest presentation of the theory of evolution is––acquired modifications of structure are not transmitted. All hail to the good news; to realise it, is like waking up from a hideous nightmare. This, definitely, is our gain; the man who by the continuous thinking of criminal thoughts has modified the structure of his brain so as to adapt it to the current of such thoughts, does not necessarily pass on this modification to his child. There is no necessary adaptation in the cerebrum of the new-born child to make place for evil thoughts. In a word, the child of the vicious may be born as fit and able for good living as the child of the righteous. Inherent modifications are, it is true transmitted, and the line between inherent and acquired modifications may not be easy to define. But anyway, there is hope to go on with. The child of the wicked may have as good a start in life, so far as his birthright goes, as the child of the just.

Vicious Imaginations––And what of a scheme whose first condition is the regeneration of the vicious––vicious, not only by inherited propensity, and by unbroken inveterate habit, but reduced to that state of, shall we say, inevitable viciousness––when ‘unconscious cerebration,’ with untiring activity, goes to the emanation of vicious imaginations? All these things are against us.

                                   THE LAW FOR US––LIMITATIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF HEREDITY.

But the last word of Science, and she has more and better words in store, is full of hope. The fathers have eaten sour grapes, but it is not inevitable that the children’s teeth be set on edge. The soul that sinneth it shall die, said the prophet of old and Science is hurrying up with her ‘Even so.’

Thoughts Think Themselves––Those who are accustomed to write know what it is to sit down and ‘reel off’ sheet after sheet of matter without plan or premeditation, clear, coherent, ready for press, hardly needing revision. We are told of a lawyer who wrote in his sleep a lucid opinion throwing light on a most difficult case; of a mathematician who worked out in his sleep a computation which baffled him when awake. We know that Coleridge dreamed ‘Kubla Khan’ in an after-dinner nap, line by line, and wrote it down when he awoke. What do these cases and a thousand like them point to? To no less than this: that, though the all-important ego must, no doubt, ‘assist’ at the thinking of the initial thought on a given subject, yet, after that first thought or two, ‘brain’ and ‘mind’ manage the matter between them, and the thoughts, so to speak, think themselves; not after the fashion of a pendulum which moves to and fro, to and fro, in the same interval of space, but in that of a carriage rolling along the same road, but into ever new developments of the landscape. An amazing thought––but have we not abundant internal evidence of the fact? We all know that there are times when we cannot get rid of the thoughts that will think themselves within us, though they drive away sleep and peace and joy. In the face of this law, benign as it eases us of the labour of original thought and decision about the everyday affairs of life, terrible when it gets beyond our power of control and diversion, what hope for those in whose debauched brain vile thoughts, involuntary, automatic, are for ever running with frightful rapidity in the one well-worn track? Truly, the in-look is appalling. What hope for these?

The Vicious by Inveterate Habit––Use is second nature, we say. Habit is ten natures; habit begins as a cobweb, and ends as a cable. ‘Oh, you’ll get used to it,’ whatever it is. Dare we face the habits in which these people have their being? It is not only the obscene speech, the unholy acts; that which signifies is the manner of thoughts we think; speech, act, are the mere outcome; it is the habitual thought of a man which shapes that which we call his character. And these, can we reasonably doubt that every imagination of their heart is only evil continually? We say, use is second nature, but let us consider what we mean by the phrase; what is the philosophy of habit so far as it has been discovered to us. The seat of habit is the brain; the actual grey nervous matter of the cerebrum. And the history of a habit is shortly this: ‘The cerebrum of man grows to those modes of thought in which it is habitually exercised.’ That ‘immaterial’ thought should mould the ‘material’ brain need not surprise nor scandalise us, for do we not see with our eyes that immaterial thought moulds the face, forms what we call countenance, lovely or loathsome according to the manner of thought it registers? The how of this brain growth is not yet in evidence, nor is this the time and place to discuss it; but, bearing in mind this structural adaptation to confirmed habit, what chance, again, we say, has a scheme which has for its first condition the regeneration of the vicious, vicious not only by inherited propensity, but by unbroken inveterate habit?

                                   THE LAW AGAINST US––UNCONSCIOUS CEREBRATION.

The Vicious by Inheritance––Who are these whom General Booth cheerfully undertakes to fashion and make amenable to the conditions of godly and righteous and sober living? Let us hear the life history of many of them in his own words:––

          ’The rakings of the human cesspool.’

‘Little ones, whose parents are habitually drunk.
. . . Whose ideas of merriment are gained from the familiar spectacle of the nightly debauch.’
‘The obscenity of the talk of many of the children of some of our public schools could hardly be outdone even in Sodom and Gomorrah.’

And the childhood––save the word!––of the children of today reproduces the childhood of their parents, their grandparents, who knows? their great grand parents. These are, no doubt, the worst; but the worst must be reckoned with first, for if these slip through the meshes of the remedial net, the masses more inert than vicious slide out through the breaks. In the first place, then, the scheme embraces the vicious by inheritance; proposes to mix up with the rest a class whose sole heritage is an inconceivable and incalculable accumulation of vicious inclinations and propensities. And this, in the face of that conception of heredity which is quietly taking possession of the public mind, and causing many thoughtful parents to abstain from very active efforts to mould the characters of their children.

Those of us whose attention has been fixed upon the working of the law of heredity until it appears to us to run its course, unmodified and unlimited by other laws, may well be pardoned for regarding with doubtful eye a scheme which has, for its very first condition, the regeneration of the vicious; of the Vicious by inherited propensity.

                                   THE LAW AGAINST US––HABIT.