Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 1061
Where, then, is there peace if the primary law of all the universe is a law of dual attraction and repulsion, a law of polarity? How does the earth pulse round her orbit save in her overwhelming haste towards the sun and her equivalent rejection back from the sun? She swings in these two, the earth of our habitation, making the systole-diastole of our diurnal, of our yearly life. She pulses in a diurnal leap of attraction and repulsion, she travels in a great rhythm of approach and repulse.
Where, then, is there peace? There is peace in that perfect consummation when duality and polarity is transcended into absorption. In lovely, perfect peace the earth rests on her orbit. She has found the pure resultant of gravitation. She goes on for ever in pure rest, she rests for ever in perfect motion, consummated into absolution from a complete duality. Fulfilled from two, she is transported into the perfection of her orbit.
And this is peace. The lion is but a lion, the lamb is but a lamb, half and half separate. But we are the two halves together. I am a lion of pride and wrath, I am a lamb with Christ in meekness. They live in one landscape of my soul; the roaring and the tremulous bleating of their different voices sound from the distance like pure music.
It is by the rage and strength of the lion, and the white, joyous freedom from strength of the lamb, by the equipoise of these two in perfect conjunction, that I pass from the limitation of a relative world into the glad absolution of the rose. It is when I am drawn by centripetal force into communion with the whole, and when I flee in equivalent centrifugal force away into the splendour of beaming isolation, when these two balance and match each other in mid- space, that suddenly, like a miracle, I find the peace of my orbit. Then I travel neither back nor forth. I hover in the unending delight of a rapid, resultant orbit.
When the darkness of which I am an involved seed, and the light which is involved in me as in a seed, when these two draw from the infinite sources towards me, when they meet and embrace in a perfect kiss and a perfect contest of me, when they foam and mount on their ever-intensifying communion in me until they achieve a resultant absolution of oneness, a rose of being blossoming upon the bush of my mortality, then I have peace.
It is not of love that we are fulfilled, but of love in such intimate equipoise with hate that the transcendence takes place. It is not in pride that we are free, but in pride, so perfectly matched by meekness that we are liberated as into blossom. There is a transfiguration, a rose with glimmering petals, upon a bush that knew no more than the dusk of green leaves heretofore. There is a new heaven on the earth, there is new heaven and new earth, the heaven and earth of the perfect rose.
I am not born fulfilled. The end is not before the beginning. I am born uncreated. I am a mixed handful of life as I issue from the womb. Thenceforth I extricate myself into singleness, the slow- developed singleness of manhood. And then I set out to meet the other, the unknown of womanhood. I give myself to the love that makes me join and fuse towards a universal oneness; I give myself to the hate that makes me detach myself, extricate myself vividly from the other in sharp passion; I am given up into universality of fellowship and communion, I am distinguished in keen resistance and isolation, both so utterly, so exquisitely, that I am and I am not at once; suddenly I lapse out of the duality into a sheer beauty of fulfilment. I am a rose of lovely peace.
LIFE
Midmost between the beginning and the end is Man. He is neither the created nor the creator. But he is the quick of creation. He has on one hand the primal unknown from which all creation issues; on the other hand, the whole created universe, even the world of finite spirits. But between the two man is distinct and other; he is creation itself, that which is perfect.
Man is born unfulfilled from chaos, uncreated, incomplete, a baby, a child, a thing immature and inconclusive. It is for him to become fulfilled, to enter at last the state of perfection, to achieve pure and immitigable being, like a star between day and night, disclosing the other world which has no beginning nor end, the other- world of utterly completed creation, perfect beyond the creator, and conclusive beyond the thing created, living beyond life itself and deathly beyond death, partaking of both and transcending both.
When he comes into his own, man has being beyond life and beyond death; he is perfect of both. There he comprehends the singing of birds and the silence of the snake.
Yet man cannot create himself, nor can he achieve the finality of a thing created. All his time he hovers in the no-land, hovering till he can enter the otherworld of perfection; he still does not create himself, nor does he arrive at the static finality of a thing created. Why should he, since he has transcended the state of creativity and the state of being created, both?
Midway between the beginning and the end is man, midway between that which creates and that which is created, midway in an otherworld, partaking of both, yet transcending.
All the while man is referred back. He cannot create himself. At no moment can man create himself. He can but submit to the creator, to the primal unknown out of which issues the all. At every moment we issue like a balanced flame from the primal unknown. We are not self-contained or self-accomplished. At every moment we derive from the unknown.
This is the first and greatest truth of our being. Upon this elemental truth all our knowledge rests. We issue from the primal unknown. Behold my hands and feet, where I end upon the created universe! But who can see the quick, the well-head, where I have egress from the primordial creativity? Yet at every moment, like a flame which burns balanced upon a wick, do I burn in pure and transcendent equilibrium upon the wick of my soul, balanced and clipped like a flame corporeal between the fecund darkness of the first unknown and the final darkness of the afterlife, wherein is all that is created and finished.
We are balanced like a flame between the two darknesses, the darkness of the beginning and the darkness of the end. We derive from the unknown, and we result into the unknown. But for us the beginning is not the end, for us the two are not one.
It is our business to burn, pure flame, between the two unknowns. We are to be fulfilled in the world of perfection, which is the world of pure creation. We must come into being in the transcendent otherworld of perfection, consummated in life and death both, two in one.
I turn my face, which is blind and yet which knows, like a blind man turning to the sun, I turn my face to the unknown, which is the beginning, and like a blind man who lifts his face to the sun I know the sweetness of the influx from the source of creation into me. Blind, for ever blind, yet knowing, I receive the gift, I know myself the ingress of the creative unknown. Like a seed which unknowing receives the sun and is made whole, I open onto the great invisible warmth of primal creativity and begin to be fulfilled.
This is the law. We shall never know what is the beginning. We shall never know how it comes to pass that we have form and being. But we may always know how through the doorways of the spirit and the body enters the vivid unknown, which is made known in us. Who comes, who is that we hear outside in the night? Who knocks, who knocks again? Who is that that unlatches the painful door?
Then behold, there is something new in our midst. We blink our eyes, we cannot see. We lift the lamp of previous understanding, we illuminate the stranger with the light of our established knowledge. Then at last we accept the newcomer, he is enrolled among us.
So is our life. How do we become new? How is it we change and develop? Whence comes the newness, the further being, into us? What is added unto us, and how does it come to pass?
There is an arrival in us from the unknown, from the primal unknown whence all creation issues. Did we call for this arrival, did we summon the new being, did we command the new creation of ourselves, the new fulfilment? We did not, it is not of us. We are not created of ourselves. But from the unknown, from the great darkness of the outside that which is strange and new arrives on our threshold, enters and takes place in us. Not of ourselves, it is not of ourselves, but of the unknown which is the outside.
This is the first and greatest truth of our being and of our existence. How do we come to pass? We do not come to pass of ourselves. Who can say, Of myself I will bring forth newness? Not of myself, but of the unknown which has ingress into me.
And how has the unknown ingress into me? The unknown has ingress into me because, whilst I live, I am never sealed and set apart; I am but a flame conducting unknown to unknown, through the bright transition of creation. I do but conduct the unknown of my beginning to the unknown of my end, through the transfiguration of perfect being. What is the unknown of the beginning, and what is the unknown of the end? That I can never answer, save that in my completeness of being the two unknowns are consummated in a oneness, a rose of perfect explanation.
The unknown of my beginning has ingress into me through the spirit. My spirit is troubled, it is uneasy. Far off it hears the approach of footsteps through the night. Who is coming? Ah, let the newcomer arrive, let the newcomer arrive. In my spirit I am lonely and inert. I wait for the newcomer. My spirit aches with misery, dread of the newcomer. But also there is the tension of expectancy. I expect a visit, I expect a newcomer. For oh, I am conceited and unrefreshed, I am alone and barren. Yet still is my spirit alert and chuckling with subtle expectancy, awaiting the visit. It will come to pass. The stranger will come.
I listen, in my spirit I listen and listen. Many sounds there are from the unknown. And surely those are footsteps? In haste I open the door. But, alasl there is no one there. I must wait in patience, wait and always wait up for the stranger. Not of myself, it cannot happen of myself. With this in mind I check my impatience, I learn to wait and to watch.
And at last, out of all my desire and weariness, the door opens and this is the stranger. Ah, now! ah, joy! There is the new creation in me. Ah, beautiful! Ah, delight of delights! I am come to pass from the unknown, the unknown is added on to me. The sources of joy and strength are filled in me. I rise up to a new achievement of being, a new fulfilment in creation, a new rose of roses, new heavens on earth.
This is the story of our coming to pass. There is no other way. I must have patience in my soul, to stand and wait. Above all, it must be said in my soul that I wait for the unknown, for I cannot avail anything of myself. I wait upon the unknown, and from the unknown comes my new beginning. Not of myself, not of myself, but of my insuperable faith, my waiting. I am like a small house on the edge of the forest. Out of the unknown darkness of the forest, in the eternal night of the beginning, comes the spirit of creation towards me. But I must keep the light shining in the window, or how will the spirit see my house? If my house is in darkness of sleep or fear, the angel will pass it by. Above all, I must have no fear. I must watch and wait. Like a blind man looking for the sun, I must lift my face to the unknown darkness of space and wait until the sun lights on me. It is a question of creative courage. It is no good if I crouch over a coal fire. This will never bring me to pass.
Once the new has entered into my spirit, from the beginning, I am glad. No one and nothing can make me sorry any more. For I am potential with a new fulfilment, I am enriched with a new incipient perfection. Now no longer do I hover in the doorway listlessly, seeking for something to make up my life. The quota is made up in me, I can begin. It is conceived in me, the invisible rose of fulfilment, which in the end will shine out in the skies of absolution. So long as it is conceived in me, all labour of travail is joy. If I am in bud with the unseen rose of creation, what is labour to me, and what is pain, but pang after pang of new, strange joy? My heart is always glad like a star. My heart is a vivid, quivering star which will fan itself slowly out in flakes and gains creation, a rose of roses taking place.
Where do I pay homage, whereunto do I yield myself? To the unknown, only to the unknown, the Holy Ghost. I wait for the beginning, when the great and all creative unknown shall take notice of me, shall turn to me and inform me. This is my joy and my delight. And again, I turn to the unknown of the end, the darkness which is final, which will gather me into finality.
Do I fear the strange approach of the creative unknown to my door? I fear it only with pain and with unspeakable joy. And do I fear the invisible dark hand of death plucking me into the darkness, gathering me blossom by blossom from the stem of my life into the unknown of my afterwards? I fear it only in reverence and with strange satisfaction. For this is my final satisfaction, to be gathered blossom by blossom, all my life long, into the finality of the unknown which is my end.
DEMOCRACY
I
THE AVERAGE
Whitman gives two laws or principles for the establishment of Democracy. We may epitomize them as:
(1) The Law of the Average; (2) The Principle of Individualism, or Personalism, or Identity.
The Law of the Average is well known to us. Upon this law rests all the vague dissertation concerning equality and social perfection. Rights of Man, Equality of Man, Social Perfectibility of Man: all these sweet abstractions, once so inspiring, rest upon the fatal little hypothesis of the Average.
What is the Average? As we are well aware, there is no such animal. It is a pure abstraction. It is the reduction of the human being to a mathematical unit. Every human being numbers one, one single unit. That is the grand proposition of the Average.
Let us further examine this mysterious One, this Unit, this Average; let us examine it corporeally. The average human being: put him on the table, the little monster, and let us see what his works are like. He is just a little monster. He has two legs, two eyes, one nose — all exact. He has a stomach and a penis. He is a little organism. He is one very complicated organ, a unit, an identity.
What is he for? If he’s an organ, he must have a purpose. If he’s an organism, he must have a purpose. The question is premature, yet it shall be answered. Since he has a mouth, he is made for eating. Since he has feet, he is made for walking. Since he has a penis, he is made for reproducing his species. And so on, and so on.
What a loathsome little beast he is, this Average, this Unit, this Homunculus. Yet he has his purposes. He is useful to measure by. That’s the purpose of all averages. An average is not invented to be an Archetype. What a really comical mistake we have made about him. He is invented to serve as a standard in the business of comparison. He is invented to serve as a standard, just like any other standard, like the metre, or the gramme, or the English pound sterling. That’s what he is for — nothing else. He was never intended to be worshipped. What comical, fetish-smitten savages we are.
We use a foot-rule to tell us how big our house is. We don’t proceed to say that the foot-rule is the sceptre which sways the earth and all the stars. Yet we have said as much of this little standardized invention of ours, the Average Man, the man-in-the-street. We have made prime fools of ourselves.
Now let us pull the gilt off the image, and see exactly what it is, and what we want it for. It is a mathematical quantity, like the metre or the foot-rule: a purely arbitrary institution of the human mind. Let us be quite clear about that.
But the human mind has invented the institution for its own purposes. Granted. What are the purposes? Merely for the comparing of one living man with another living man, in case of necessity: just as money is merely a contrivance for comparing a leg of mutton with a volume of Keats’s poems. The money in itself is nothing. It is simply the arbitrary static measure for human desires. We mistake the measure for the thing it measures, and proceed to base our desires on money. It is nonsensical materialism.
Now for the Average Man himself. He is five-feet-six-inches high: and therefore you, John, will take an over-size pair of trousers, reach-me-downs; and you, Francois, mon cher, will take an under- size. The Average Man also has a mouth and a stomach, which consume two pounds of bread and six ounces of meat per day: and therefore you, Fritz, exceed the normal consumption of food, while you, dear Emily, consume less than your share. The Average Man has also a penis; and therefore all of you, Francois, Fritz, John, and Giacomo, you may begin begetting children at the average age, let us say, of twenty-five.
The Average Man is somehow very unsatisfactory. He is not sufficiently worked out. It is astonishing that we have not perfected him before. But this is because we have mixed the issues. How could we scientifically establish the Average, whilst he had to stand draped upon a pedestal, as an Ideal? Haul him down at once. He is no Ideal. He is just a Standard, the creature on whom Standard suits and Standard boots are fitted, to whose stomach Standard bread is adjusted, and for whose eyes the Standard Lamps are lighted, the Standard Oil Company is busy refining its gallons. He comes under the Government Weights and Measures Act.
Perfect him quickly: the Average, the Normal, the Man-in-the- street. He is so many inches high, broad, deep; he weighs so many pounds. He must eat so much, and sleep so much, and work so much, and play so much, and love so much, and think so much, and argue so much, and read so many newspapers, and have so many children. Somebody, quick, — some Professor of Social Economy- draw us up a perfect Average, and let us have him before the middle of next week. He is urgently required at the moment.
This is all your Man-in-the-street amounts to: this tailor’s dummy of an average. He is the image and effigy of all your equality. Men are not equal, and never were, and never will be, save by the arbitrary determination of some ridiculous human Ideal. But still, in the normal course of things, all men do have two eyes and one nose and a stomach and a penis. In the teeth of all opposition we assert it. In the normal course of things, all men do hunger and thirst and sleep and laugh and feel miserable and fall in love and ache for coition and ache to escape from the woman again. And the Average Man just represents what all men need and desire, physically, functionally, materially, and socially. Materially need: that’s the point. The Average Man is the standard of material need in the human being.
