Spencer Heath Archive

Item 404

Penciled by Heath on notepad paper at Roadsend Gardens, Elkridge MD.

Winter 1957-1958

 

 

/MAN AS MICROCOSM/

 

The universe is a cosmos, not a chaos. It is a cosmos of orderly, understandable events and series of similar events, cycles. And there are two kinds of events: those which are uniformly and mechanically determined, without any options or alternatives within themselves and in no degree self-directed towards any end or aim; and there are those so organized that they are in some degree purposive and determinant towards optional aims and ends. The first are called inorganic; the second are called organic, as possessing a limited degree of that absolute self-determination that of necessity must characterize that infinite Unity whence all lesser units spring and in which all abide. These lesser units are purposive microcosms within the macrocosm, having the same fundamental characteristics but in their composition less differentiated, less complex and developed than the boundless and infinite, on-going and self-determining whole.

 

Among and above all these myriad lesser living things stands man. Like all these, his all-pervading purpose, conscious and unconscious, is to maintain himself and perpetuate his type or kind and gain immortality for his kinship bonded group in tribe or clan. In all this he is but a creature, as all lesser creatures are. Like them, he has evolved out of the workings of the Universal, the product of his total environment. And, like his total environment, he exhibits objectively a composition of three and only three fundamental and measurable aspects or elements, mass, motion and time. He is, in fact a construct of energy in-action, a finite cycle or event set apart and marked off within the infinite and thus interacting therewith — and having, in his limited degree, all the characteristics thereof — a microcosm, during his moment, within the macrocosm.

 

All living things are such because of their will to live. Purpose can be inferred objectively only from acts, from objective behavior. Life is the evidence of its own desiring, seeking ever more of itself, always to elaborate itself and lengthen its span; thus does it evolve. Every finite thus emulates the infinite. And the endless duration of the infinite proceeds from the ever-increasing intricacy and duration of its evolving and surviving lesser living forms.

 

Man derives, from that intricacy a consciousness of himself and of objective events. He lives them conceptually, imaginatively, outside and beyond the objective dimensions and limitations of events themselves. In imagination he can analyze events, take their dimensions separately and re-combine them imaginatively in new proportions indefinitely and without limitations as to mass, motion or time. In this conceptual, this imaginative faculty he reflects subjectively the absolute of which objectively he is but a finite part.

 

Sense impressions supply imagination with finite data concerning the objective world. Imagination discovers in these not only dimensions but uniformities of process or mode and marks them as “natural laws.” The finite mind thus discovers modes of the cosmic mind and by itself emulating these modes, it achieves at-one-ment with the cosmic mind. Its purposiveness becomes one with the cosmic purpose of infinite self-creation. It becomes itself a creator within the cosmic creation, realizing its own aspirations, ideals and dreams. It enters with full consciousness and purpose into the cosmic pageant of advancing and never-ending life. The mechanical uniformities of inorganic process, through becoming rationally understood, not only come under dominion of man’s participation in the Cosmic mind. They become the swift and ready servants of his creative urge and will.

 

But there is a necessary condition that first must be fulfilled. He must first be reborn out of bondage to his animal and primitive nature into a creative capacity through interacting with his fellow men. He must enter into free and voluntary relations with his fellow men, into contractual relationships, doing unto all others as he would be done by and thereby leave off coercing and all manner of preying upon his fellow men.

 

Elkridge, Winter 1957-8