THE BURIED TEMPLE.

M. Maurice Maeterlinck, author of "The Buried Temple," is one of the newest of the Continental mystics, the representative of Belguim in the "'Perfectionist" school of philosophy—if, indeed, the Perfectionists, can be said to form a school, single and in divisible. For though Maeterlinck and Nietzsche resemble each other in this—that they find in the "perfecting" of the individual the highest good, the highest aim of human existence, in other respects they are as wide as the poles apart. And even such agreement as exists between them does not carry them very far. The perfectionism of Nietzsche was designed for the privileged few. That of Maeterlinck embraces mankind. But the methods also vary. With Maeterlinck, as with Goethe, self-culture, self-suppression, is the supreme good, But the perfectionism of Nietzsche is a development of Darwinian evolution, and is attainable by deliberate selection, or, at least, by the removal of all restrictions upon the working of human nature. If Nietzsche had had his way he would have killed off the unfit (or all whom he regarded as unfit) of the human race by some pleasantly euthanastic process, no doubt, but, anyhow, he would have them made an end of. There was no philanthropy in Nietzsche; no compassion for the weak, but only an ultra-pagan craving (God had no place in his philosophy at all) for physical and mental strength. Maeterlinck's philosophy on the other hand is founded on the innate desire of humanity for justice. Wrong is not made right because it is triumphant. Poland, Denmark, Finland, and other small communities, which through the ages have been the victims of superior force, directed by cupidity, have not, in Maeterlinck's opinion, proved their incapacity to survive under just conditions. These just conditions for nations and for individuals humanity is striving to realise, and the, author of "The Buried Temple" shows how the process may be expedited.

It is true that the book is not a philosophic treatise. As in his previous works, "The Life of the Bee," "The Treasure of the Humble," "Wisdom and Destiny," M. Maeterlinck (like Henry James, the novelist), conveys his meaning by oblique rather than by direct statement. This makes the meaning at times a little difficult to follow. But if the by-ways are somewhat intricate, the main road is clear. The '"buried temple" is the obscure basis of our personality, lying beneath our conscious states of willing, and thinking, and feeling:—

Within us is a being that is our veritable ego, our first-born, immemorial, illimitable, universal, and probably immortal. Our intellect, which is merely a kind of phosphorescence that plays on this inner sea, has as yet but faint knowledge of it. But our intellect is gradually learning that every secret of the human phenomena it has hitherto not understood must reside there, and there alone. This unconscious being lives on another plane than our intellect, in another world. It knows nothing of time and space, the two formidable but illusory walls between which our reason must flow if it would not be hopelessly lost. It knows no proximity, it knows no distance; past and future concern it not, or the resistance of matter. It is familiar with all things; there is nothing it cannot do. To this power, this knowledge, we have, indeed, at, all times accorded a certain varying recognition; we have given names to its manifestations, we have called them instinct, soul, unconsciousness, sub-consciousness, reflex action, presentiment, intuition, etc. We credit it more especially with the indeterminate and often prodigious force contained in those of our nerves that do not directly serve to produce our will and our reason; a force that would appear to be the very fluid of life.

It is to this obscure basis and foundation of Self, underlying our conscious states our thoughts, our affections, that we must look for the ultimate solution of such problems as are involved in the range of chance, the oppression of destiny, the conflict of human opinion, and that curious thing called "luck," which plays so momentous a part in the cosmic drama. The minds of most people are more or less dominated by a belief in some unknown force or influence which sways every human life, and M. Maeterlinck is persuaded that the belief has some foundation. But he rejects the current definitions of this influence or force. He can no more accept the Christian explanation, which throws the responsibility for unmerited suffering or unmerited happiness upon a Higher Justice than he can the "Kismet" of the Mohammedans, or the "luck" which answered the purpose of a religious creed with Bret Harte's gambling hero. A man's destiny is to be read, not in external forces, but in his own character. If Judas goes forth tonight it is not under the impulse of some arbitrary, external force dominating his will, oppressing him, and torturing him in his own despite. He is driven not by the author of all evil, but by the character he has allowed to grow up out of his circumstances and opportunities, the fixed disposition of his mind, the settled trend of his will. Still there is a racial as well as an individual responsibility, for heredity plays no unimportant part in M. Maeterlinck's philosophy, and our characters are in part moulded by environment. But if we inherit the developed vices of our forefathers, we inherit their undeveloped virtues also. We have a choice between good and evil, and the power to make the choice. And hard as it may be to resist the influence of an evil environment the difficulty is not insurmountable. The task implies self-sacrifice, in smaller or greater measure, and though in framing his philosophy M. Maeterlinck disavows being under any obligation to Christianity or other creed, he is at one with the Great Teacher in holding virtue to be synonymous with self sacrifice, and to be impossible without it.

It is no virtue to refrain from robbing a till if you do not want the money. And there are degrees in virtue. Resistance to temptation is a lower form of virtue than the devotion which prompts the complete abnegation of self for the sake of kindred, or, still mere, of humanity. What is the touchstone of virtue? With M. Maeterlinck it is conformity to justice; and justice he defines as the prevention or cure of unmerited suffering. Justice is "the central jewel of the human soul;" but, alas! there is nothing less understood by mortal men:—

All men love justice, but not with the same ardent, fierce, and exclusive love; nor have they all the same scruples, the same sensitiveness, or the same deep conviction. We meet people of highly developed intellect in whom the sense of what is just and unjust is yet infinitely less delicate, less clearly marked, than in others whose intellect would seem to be mediocre; for here a great part is played by that little-known, ill-defined side of ourselves that we term character. And yet it is difficult to tell how much more or less unconscious intellect must of necessity go with the character that is unaffectedly honest. The point before us, however, is to learn how best to illumine, and increase within us, our desire for justice; and it is certain that, at the start, our character is less directly influenced by the desire for justice than is our intellect, the development of which this desire in a large measure controls; and the co-operation of the intellect, which recognises and encourages our good intentions, is necessary (or this intention to penetrate into and mould our character. That portion of our love of justice, therefore, which depends on our character, will benefit by its passage through the intellect; for in proportion as the intellect rises and acquires enlightenment, will it succeed in mastering, enlightening, and transforming our instincts and our feelings. But let us no longer believe that this love must be sought in a kind of superhuman, and often inhuman, infinite. None of the grandeur and beauty that this infinite may possess would fall to its portion it would only be incoherent, inactive, and vague. Whereas by seeking it in ourselves, where it truly is; by observing it there, listening to it, marking how it profits by every, acquirement of our mind, every joy and sorrow of our heart, we soon shall learn what we best had do to purify and increase it.

M. Maeterlinck speaks for "those who do not believe in the existence of a unique all powerful, infallible Judge, forever intent on our thoughts, our feelings, and actions, maintaining justice in this world, and completing it in the next." But of the reality of the "thing called justice" (whatever the origin) he has no doubt whatever. Its existence is proved by the retribution which falls upon those who neglect its dictates; as Napoleon paid tragically for his many acts of injustice, including the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, the intrigues which led to the robbery of the Spanish crown, and the "frightful, unpardonable Russian campaign":—

We are punished because our entire moral being, our mind no less than our character, is incapable of living and acting except in justice. Leaving that, we leave our natural element; we are carried, as it were, into a planet of which we know nothing, where the ground slips from under our feet, and all things disconcert us; for while the humblest intellect feels itself at home injustice, and can readily foretell the consequence of every just act, the most profound and penetrating mind loses its way hopelessly in the injustice itself has created, and can form no conception of what results shall ensue. The man of genius who forsakes the equity that the humble peasant has at heart will find all paths strange to him; and these will be stranger still should he overstep the limit his own sense of justice imposes; for the justice that soars aloft, keeping pace with the intellect, creates new boundaries around all it throws open, while at the same time strengthening and rendering more insurmountable still the ancient barriers of instinct. The moment we cross the primitive frontier of equity all things seem to fail us; one falsehood gives birth to a hundred, and treachery returns to us through a thousand channels.

But how changeable, and, at present, illusory is the ideal of justice!:—

It is lessened by all that is still unknown to us in the universe, by all that we do not perceive or perceive incompletely, by all that we question too superficially. It is hedged round by the most insidious dangers; it falls victim to the strangest oblivion, the most inconceivable blunders. Of all our ideals, it is the one that we should watch with the greatest care and anxiety, with the most passionate, pious eagerness, and solicitude. What seems irreproachably just to us at the moment is probably the merest fraction of what would seem just could we shift our point of view. We need only compare what we were doing yesterday with what we do to-day; and what we do to-day would appear full of faults against equity, were it granted to us to rise still higher, and compare it with what we shall do tomorrow. There needs but a passing event, a thought that rises, a duty to ourselves that takes definite form, an unexpected responsibility that is suddenly made clear, for the whole organisation of our inward justice to totter and be transformed. Slow as our advance may have been, we still should find it impossible to begin life, over again in the midst of many a sorrow whereof we were the involuntary cause, many a discouragement to which we unconsciously gave rise; and yet, when these things came into being around us, we appeared to be in the right, and did not consider ourselves unjust. And even so are we convinced to-day of our excellent intentions, even so do we tell ourselves that we are the cause of no suffering and no tears, that we stay not a murmur of happiness, shorten no moment of peace or of love; and it may be that there passes, unperceived of us, to our right or our left, an illimitable injustice that spreads over three fourths of our life.

The truth is that the ideal of justice is progressive. In the least advanced of the human races glimmerings of it are to be found, and though the existence of abject poverty beside limitless wealth, "the great injustice of life," is one proof to M. Maeterlinck that the "proper relation of justice with conduct" is still imperfectly understood, the "central jewel of the human soul" does shine with lustre of a kind. It is found at the heart of our every ideal. It is at the centre of our love of beauty. It is kindness and pity, it is generosity, heroism, love; for all these are the acts of justice of one who has risen sufficiently high to perceive that justice and injustice are not exclusively confined to what lies before him, to the narrow circle of obligations chance may have imposed, but that they stretch far beyond years, beyond neighboring destinies, beyond what he regards as his duty, beyond what he loves, beyond what he seeks and encounters, beyond what he approves or rejects, beyond his doubts and his fears, beyond the wrong-doing and even the crimes of the men, his brothers.

The Advertiser 28/6/1902,