CHAPTER XLII.
ETERNITY WITHOUT TIME.
"Man's conception of eternity is that of infinite duration, continuancewithout beginning or end, and yet everything he knows is bounded by twoor more opposites. From a beginning, as he sees a form of matter, thatsubstance passes to an end." Thus spoke my guide.
Then he asked, and showed by his question that he appreciated the natureof my recent experiences: "Do you recall the instant that you left mestanding by this bowl to start, as you imagined, with me as a companion,on the journey to the cavern of the grotesque?"
"No; because I did not leave you. I sipped of the liquid, and then youmoved on with me from this spot; we were together, until at last we wereseparated on the edge of the cave of drunkards."
"Listen," said he; "I neither left you nor went with you. You neitherwent from this spot nor came back again. You neither saw nor experiencedmy presence nor my absence; there was no beginning to your journey."
"Go on."
"You ate of the narcotic fungus; you have been intoxicated."
"I have not," I retorted. "I have been through your accursed caverns,and into hell beyond. I have been consumed by eternal damnation in thejourney, have experienced a heaven of delight, and also an eternity ofmisery."
"Upon the contrary, the time that has passed since you drank the liquidcontents of that fungus fruit has only been that which permitted you tofall upon your knees. You swallowed the liquor when I handed you theshell cup; you dropped upon your knees, and then instantly awoke. See,"he said; "in corroboration of my assertion the shell of the fungus fruitat your feet is still dripping with the liquid you did not drink. Timehas been annihilated. Under the influence of this potent earth-brednarcoto-intoxicant, your dream begun inside of eternity; you did notpass into it."
"You say," I interrupted, "that I dropped upon my knees, that I haveexperienced the hallucination of intoxication, that the experiences ofmy vision occurred during the second of time that was required for me todrop upon my knees."
"Yes."
"Then by your own argument you demonstrate that eternity requires time,for even a millionth part of a second is time, as much so as a millionof years."
"You mistake," he replied, "you misinterpret my words. I said that allyou experienced in your eternity of suffering and pleasure, occurredbetween the point when you touched the fungus fruit to your lips, andthat when your knees struck the stone."
"That consumed time," I answered.
"Did I assert," he questioned, "that your experiences were scatteredover that entire period?"
"No."
"May not all that occurred to your mind have been crushed into thesecond that accompanied the mental impression produced by the liquor, orthe second of time that followed, or any other part of that period, or afraction of any integral second of that period?"
"I can not say," I answered, "what part of the period the hallucination,as you call it, occupied."
"You admit that so far as your conception of time is concerned, theoccurrences to which you refer may have existed in either an inestimablefraction of the first, the second, or the third part of the period."
"Yes," I replied, "yes; if you are correct in that, they wereillusions."
"Let me ask you furthermore," he said; "are you sure that the flash thatbred your hallucination was not instantaneous, and a part of neither thefirst, second, nor third second?"
"Continue your argument."
"I will repeat a preceding question with a slight modification. May notall that occurred to your mind have been crushed into the space betweenthe second of time that preceded the mental impression produced by theliquor, and the second that followed it? Need it have been a part ofeither second, or of time at all? Indeed, could it have been a part oftime if it were instantaneous?"
"Go on."
"Suppose the entity that men call the soul of man were in process ofseparation from the body. The process you will admit would occupy time,until the point of liberation was reached. Would not dissolution, so faras the separation of matter and spirit is concerned at its criticalpoint be instantaneous?"
I made no reply.
"If the critical point is instantaneous, there would be no beginning,there could be no end. Therein rests an eternity greater than man canotherwise conceive of, for as there is neither beginning nor end, timeand space are annihilated. The line that separates the soul that is inthe body from the soul that is out of the body is outside of all things.It is a between, neither a part of the nether side nor of the upperside; it is outside the here and the hereafter. Let us carry thisthought a little further," said he. "Suppose a good man were to undergothis change, could not all that an eternity of happiness might offer becrushed into this boundless conception, the critical point? All that amother craves in children dead, could reappear again in their once lovedforms; all that a good life earns, would rest in the soul's experiencein that eternity, but not as an illusion, although no mental pleasure,no physical pain is equal to that of hallucinations. Suppose that avicious life were ended, could it escape the inevitable critical point?Would not that life in its previous journey create its own sad eternity?You have seen the working of an eternity with an end but not a beginningto it, for you can not sense the commencement of your vision. You havebeen in the cavern of the grotesque,--the realms of the beautiful, andhave walked over the boundless sands that bring misery to the soul, andhave, as a statue, seen the frozen universe dissolve. You are thankfulthat it was all an illusion as you deem it now; what would you think hadonly the heavenly part been spread before you?"
"I would have cursed the man who dispelled the illusion," I answered.
"Then," he said, "you are willing to admit that men who so live as togain such an eternity, be it mental illusion, hallucination or real,make no mistake in life."
"I do," I replied; "but you confound me when you argue in so cool amanner that eternity may be everlasting to the soul, and yet without theconception of time."
"Did I not teach you in the beginning of this journey," he interjected,"that time is not as men conceive it. Men can not grasp an idea ofeternity and retain their sun bred, morning and evening, conception oftime. Therein lies their error. As the tip of the whip-lash passes withthe lash, so through life the soul of man proceeds with the body. Asthere is a point just when the tip of the whip-lash is on the edge ofits return, where all motion of the line that bounds the tip ends, sothere is a motionless point when the soul starts onward from the body ofman. As the tip of the whip-lash sends its cry through space, not whileit is in motion either way, but from the point where motion ceases, thespaceless, timeless point that lies between the backward and theforward, so the soul of man leaves a cry (eternity) at the criticalpoint. It is the death echo, and thus each snap of the life-threadthrows an eternity, its own eternity, into eternity's seas, and eacheternity is made up of the entities thus cast from the critical point.With the end of each soul's earth journey, a new eternity springs intoexistence, occupying no space, consuming no time, and not conflictingwith any other, each being exactly what the soul-earth record makes it,an eternity of joy (heaven), or an eternity of anguish (hell). There canbe no neutral ground."
Then he continued:
"The drunkard is destined to suffer in the drunkard's eternity, as youhave suffered; the enticement of drink is evanescent, the agony tofollow is eternal. You have seen that the sub-regions of earth supply anintoxicant. Taste not again of any intoxicant; let your recent lesson beyour last. Any stimulant is an enemy to man, any narcotic is a fiend. Itdestroys its victim, and corrupts the mind, entices it into pasturesgrotesque, and even pleasant at first, but destined to eternal misery inthe end. Beware of the eternity that follows the snapping of thelife-thread of a drunkard. Come," he abruptly said, "we will pursue ourjourney."
[NOTE.--Morphine, belladonna, hyoscyamus and cannabis indica are narcotics, and yet each differs in its action from the others. Alcohol and methyl alcohol are intoxicants; ether, chloroform,
and chloral are anaesthetics, and yet no two are possessed of the same qualities. Is there any good reason to doubt that combinations of the elements as yet hidden from man can not cause hallucinations that combine and intensify the most virulent of narcotics, intoxicants, and anaesthetics, and pall the effects of hashish or of opium?
If, in the course of experimentation, a chemist should strike upon a compound that in traces only would subject his mind and drive his pen to record such seemingly extravagant ideas as are found in the hallucinations herein pictured, would it not be his duty to bury the discovery from others, to cover from mankind the existence of such a noxious fruit of the chemist's or pharmaceutist's art? Introduce such an intoxicant, and start it to ferment in humanity's blood, and before the world were advised of its possible results, might not the ever increasing potency gain such headway as to destroy, or debase, our civilization, and even to exterminate mankind?--J. U. L.]
INTERLUDE.