| EMERSON,
in his essay on “Compensation,” says that
he had long wished to draw attention to that important
law of the universe. Giving and Taking, the law of exchange,
is merely a part of compensation.
The capacity for giving and
taking is an elemental one. In all nature it seems to
be the most primary law of life. The very weathering
of rocks mean that they receive the sun and frost and
rain, absorb them, transmute them by chemic change,
and then give off the resultant dust and detritus —
infinitestimal portions of themselves to be returned
to the great clearing-house of nature.
A
grade higher, in the plant world, the exchange is more
apparent. The flowers and [Page 89] trees
and grasses, the whole sensitive covering of the earth,
taking from the elements and giving to the elements,
seem to have no other function than this process of
exchange. The living organism of the flower is, we know,
endowed with capacities and needs for receiving light
and moisture and warmth from the heaven above and the
earth beneath. Sunshine and dews and showers and the
more solid elements of the ground are received by it
and made part of its very composition. It has the power
to take of these passing phenomena just so much as it
may need and transform it by a secret law into a part
and parcel of its own singular beauty. The flower is
born after its kind, but hour by hour, day by day, year
by year, minute by minute, it is sustaining its life,
its individual self, from particular qualities which
it takes from its surroundings. And also minute by minute
and year after year the flower or the tree is giving
again to the world about it something of itself —
seeds, perfume, shade, and falling leaves and petals.
[Page 90] Evidently it could not go
on for ever, or even for an hour, receiving sap and
air and giving out nothing in return. One-half of its
nature would be paralyzed; it would begin to die. It
would begin to perish just as surely as if it ceased
to receive and continued to give. The power of exchange,
the power of receiving and giving, is the very vitality
of the plant.
This
equal law runs on up through the higher grades of created
things. The creatures which move over the face of the
ground and with conscious desire seek their nourishment
here and there are really doing only what the flowers
do. They feed on this and that, some on herbage, some
on other flesh; they inhale, some by air and some by
water, the oxygen they need; they are warmed to what
degree their nature requires. Always they are taking
from the world about them those elements necessary for
their subsistence, and always they are giving back again
these elements, after they have transmuted them to [Page
91] their own use, or rather to their own nature.
In growth, in energy, in motion, in deeds, the animal
is constantly giving out to the earth about it an equal
compensation for all it receives.
How
all these processes are carried on, ministering to life
from hour to hour, and transmitting that life from generation
to generation, we can largely understand. The patient
and devout labours of science are daily making it clearer
to us. But why they are carried on does not yet appear.
Science shows us wonder after wonder of beautiful law
and orderly succession, and gives us the clear reason
for this or that method of procedure, and yet stands
abashed before the final query. Why the beaver should
build his house is clear enough. He wishes to survive
the iron winter, and his wisdom has contrived that admirable
plan of doing so. Why he should wish to survive, no
man can tell. I know why I go to market and to the tailor’s
and to the bookshop, and why I do a hundred things;
[Page 92] it is because I am glad of
life. I know that I am glad of life; I know how I am
glad of it; but why I am glad of it I do not know. If
I knew that, I should know everything, for the What,
the How, and the Why are all there is of the universe.
It sometimes seems as if we might comprehend the what
and the how, the physical and mental, of the universe.
But the why, the spiritual, is still hidden.
In
man’s life certainly, as in the lower manifestations
of existence, the law of give and take obtains. And
there, as in the sub-human kingdom, that process of
transmutation, that change of what we receive into what
we bestow, is the essence of life itself. You and I,
like our friends the trees and our cousins the creatures,
are every moment receiving. We must have air and light
and food and water to cast into the crucible of the
body and be transformed into blood and bone. Every moment
we are parting with some transformed remnant of this
matter in exhalations of the lungs, and evaporations
[Page 93] from the skin. This is only
the grosser and more obvious transformation of matter
in which we participate. But there are finer, more delicate
changes as well. Our need of rest and activity is the
need of chemical change in the tissues of muscle and
nerve. And while the changes of circulation and breathing
are instant and imperative, the timekeeping rhythms
of life, other energizings and recuperations are more
leisurely — eating and abstinences, sleeping and
waking, for example. In all these operations there is
the obvious rhythm, a balancing of receipt and output.
So,
too, in a still more intangible way, the impressions
we receive are transmuted by our own thought and emotion,
and are then given back again to the world in words
and looks and actions, as expressions of ourselves;
so that expression is nature plus personality. The best
thought of the world, the most beautiful art treasures
that we have, are the creation of man, no doubt. Yet
whence did [Page 94] they come to him?
Did he not first receive them as impressions of the
natural world about him? Then having made them his own,
he gave them back again. First the taking and then the
giving.
Always,
through every metamorphic process, we may notice how
imperative it is that the rhythm be kept up. Indeed,
it is impossible that existence should continue unless
both functions are being performed. In the world of
organized being there can be no such thing as giving
constantly without receiving, for exhaustion and death
would follow quickly. On the other hand, there can be
no such thing as receiving continually without giving
forth again, for death, though more tardy, would be
no less sure. Starvation will produce death, but so
also will a coat of varnish over the body. In the one
case, our power of receiving is interfered with; in
the other, our power of giving. Life is a stream for
ever flowing through these fragile and diaphanous shapes
of ours. [Page 95]
Just
so, too, our spiritual or intellectual life is always
fleeting, passing, renewing itself. I am myself for
a few years or decades; but I am not the same without
change for two moments together. And the obvious thought
to be derived from this physical life is, that in the
higher as well as in the material existence there must
always imperatively be a balance of giving and taking,
perceiving and expressing. It is this thought which
shows us the folly of greed, the absurd ambition which
so easily besets us to possess everything which pleases
us. Do you wish to own a whole museum of beautiful objects?
Do you not see that, according to the laws of life,
you could never keep these things for yourself? You
would have to give them away again in one way or another.
What you really need, that you may take, and that no
one can keep from you. Do you think the one success
in life is to receive and have? Under the pinch of hunger
and cold, it seems to you that death through poverty
is the only horror in the [Page 96] world
to be guarded against. It seems to you that those who
have devoted all the splendid energies of man to receiving
and acquiring alone are the fortunate ones of the earth.
You think that what is called wealth is the one thing
needful. But if you look a second time, and consider
all the persons of affluence whom you know, and all
those whom you see in public places, you will perceive
that many of them are dying as certainly as the destitute,
perishing of inertia, a dyspepsia of body and spirit.
And because they are so mistaken, those poor, unhappy,
fat people, trundled uselessly by in their carriages
are as deserving of your pity as the beggar on the sidewalk.
Between
giving and taking lies the nice poise or calm which
is the gladness of life itself, perhaps. [Page
97]
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