But if a man were never to teach his soul
to see, if he were obstinately to close his eyes upon this world,
and look at nothing all the time he was in it, I should be very
doubtful whether the mere fact of going a little more dead, would
make him see. The soul never having learned to see, its sense of
seeing, correspondent to and higher than that of the body, never
having been developed, how should it expand and impower itself by
mere deliverance from the one best schoolmaster to whom it would
give no heed? The senses are, I suspect, only the husks under which
are ripening the deeper, keener, better senses belonging to the next
stage of our life; and so, my lord, I cannot think that, if the will
has not been developed through the means and occasions given in, the
mere passing into another condition will set it free. For freedom is
the unclosing of the idea which lies at our root, and is the vital
power of our existence. The rose is the freedom of the rose tree. I
should think, having lost his brain, and got nothing instead, a man
would find himself a mere centre of unanswerable questions."
"You go too far for me," said his lordship, looking a little
uncomfortable, "but I think it is time to try and break myself a
little of the habit--or almost time. By degrees one might, you
know,--eh?"
"I have little faith in doing things by degrees, my lord--except
such indeed as by their very nature cannot be done at once.
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