Spencer Heath Archive

Item 2045

Copy of letter addressed from Elkridge MD to Paul Limbert, 21 Claremont Avenue, New York City, January 4, 1936, with seven typed pages, plus a single page entitled, WHAT DYNAMIC RELIGION MEANS TO ME, dated the following month, February 1936. The single page, judging from date and content, evidently was a condensation of the seven pages, which according to Heath’s penciled notation on an envelope, were the original version of what later came to be called THE INSPIRATION OF BEAUTY, published in booklet form (Item 2022).

 

 

 

 

My dear Doctor Limbert:

 

     In compliance with your request, I have sketched out some of the ideas that I tried to express at the last meeting of the Graduate Group. I hope you will find in what I have written a paragraph or two that will serve your purpose. I trust you have begun a New Year that will be filled with love and happiness and the joy of human service.

 

Cordially and sincerely,

 

    Spencer Heath

 

 

 

What distinguishes human from other beings is that in addition to their animal functions and capacities they are endowed with a higher nervous organization, consciousness and imagination, that gives them creative powers — makes them children of God. These higher powers have brought them forward into a new mode of life and organi­zation in which each member, instead of seeking to serve himself directly and alone, finds his highest self-service indirectly through giving specialized services to others and, by the technique of exchange, enjoying the products and services of others in vast abundance and variety and convenience as to time and circumstance. This creative process, this mighty mutuality and co-operation, when re­leased from the manifold restrictions now imposed upon it, will render the life of each individual essential to the highest existence of every other and magnify each as the servant of all.

 

     In the animal mode of existence nature imposes severe limitations and restrictions. Being without creative powers, their only subsistence is what nature provides, and they can use their subsistence to no other end but to multiply their numbers. Without the social creativeness of men, they cannot command and control the forces and materials of nature and thus multiply their subsistence far beyond anything their increasing numbers can require. So it comes about that in the animal world of scarce and limited subsistence, broadly speaking, the very existence of each individual or group is inimical to every other, and their necessary technique is to restrict and destroy. This practice among men is a heritage from their animal origin. It cannot be adapted to their social-ized state. All social progress, all the sciences and the arts, all creativeness, comes out of the predominance of the distinctively human — the divine — the technique of creation through exchange of services.

 

     In the human world evil is atavistic. It is reversion to modes of action no longer adaptive, hence not enduring. It exists only by reason of less than the whole of human energy being expressed in creative form. All re­sistance against evil, all fights against sin, all war against wrong, is but a further perversion of the creative power. It is only in the full and free exercise of this power that evil is dissolved and overcome. The carrying on of this power is the cosmic pageant of evolving nature. This is the divine business of life, the abiding reality. It is the bringing into being of relationships that endure through becoming the elements of still higher relationships. All others are transitory and must dissolve. It is their impermanence that gives them their character as evil.

 

     All our prepossession of evil and wrong has to do with the impermanent, the unreal. All opposition to evil, even in the most necessitous situations, involves a further cancellation of creative force without positive gain. Even in the defeat of evil no positive good is achieved. All con­flict destroys. Any religion that seeks to destroy evil is a religion of war. Salvation itself is not an end; it is only incidental to the real business of life. Life is organic; it is manifested only in growth, creation, achievement of higher relationships. The true and enduring office of religion, as of all the aesthetic arts that have flowered from her, is not conflict, not reform, not salvation, not to destroy nor yet to save. It is to inspire. It is to qualify the energy of life with the divine beauty of its creative expression.

 

     There are in nature and in the vicissitudes of life, besides failures and defeats, and even beyond ordinary satis­factions, certain experiences, appreciations and achievements that suffuse us with a sense of beauty, power, capacity and well-being. By these things we are figuratively and even literally inspired. To cherish and cultivate these in the consciousness and imagination is the true spiritual discipline, for the inspired mind is the creative mind; it cannot destroy. It is illumined with understanding. The secret beauties of nature and of human nature are revealed to it. It is at one with God in the joyous putting forth of divine power, for it has entered into the perpetual springtime of infinite creation.

 

     Men of this spiritual perception throughout the ages are moved to record and preserve by outward means of expression the elements and experiences from which deep inspiration has come to them. They employ symbols and devise rituals, all re­miniscent of the sources of their inspiration and conveying it to others. In the creative arts they rebuild it in form and color, rhythmic motion and melodic sound, and in the magic of poesy, song and story. Through these they communicate and preserve their divine experiences and inspire others with the sense of wonder and of beauty and creative power. This is the only enduring office of religion and of all the arts.

 

     Those persons who yield themselves to the persuasions of beauty are so far exempt from the dumb compulsions of animal life. They are transferred to the positive side of existence where they seek not least pain but highest exaltation. They dream dreams and see visions. That which they love they love not to possess but to be possessed by it. By such as these are the creative elements and modes of action to be distinguished in the social organism as well as in the individual life. By their joyous devotion to vision, the relationships and the in­stitutions of men may be drawn to the pattern of all the loveli­ness that lies prisoned in human nature only to be awakened by beauty to be creative and divine. There can be no service so high as that of the aesthetic in religion and the arts for the building of love and beauty into the institutions and the lives of men.

 

     I am sure to be reminded by some vigorous and impatient protester that hunger, suffering and degrading conditions of life close the minds and hearts of great masses of men against the in­fluence of beauty and its inspiration to creative life. I am fully mindful of all this and for that reason I make my appeal primarily to those who are amenable to inspiration. I urge that they teach their minds to distinguish

anti-social and destructive activities from those that are social and creative — acts that are truly of service from those that repress and inhibit social co-operation and exchange of services.

 

     Those acts of individuals that restrict and restrain others are by common agreement forbidden and punished as crimes. It is to our sanction of violent and destructive activities on the part of government and public authority that I would invite enlightened attention. We should realize and remember that all the authority for anti-social restrictions lies in our silent endorsement of them and it is by our power they are enforced. In our actions through government we have neglected to distinguish between creation and destruction, between acts that assist ex­changes of services and acts that hinder and prohibit them. We have no moral standards for governments as we have for men. It seems to be our notion that all government is comprised in its regulative, restrictive and corrective activities when, in fact, all this should be but the smallest part of government, concerned only or mainly with crimes. Every law penalizing acts that are not crimes, not anti-social and therefore not malum in se, is in restraint of mutual service and creative- activity. Every such law creates unemployment of men and of their instruments of pro­duction and service, with all the sorry evils that follow in its train.

 

     But human energy persists, and if restrained from crea­tion must express itself destructively in crime and violence or in individual and social decay. The business cycle, every econo­mic perversion, and the final decay and fall of nations can be distinctly traced to governmental restraints and restrictions. They impoverish and finally destroy the whole society, and during this process the restraints and limitations imposed simulate for men the impoverished condition of the lower animals in nature, where each one is inimical to every other, and men are held down to the same combative relationships and inevitable wars.

 

     Societies can advance and endure only through their governments relinquishing their restrictions on societal activities and evolving into agencies of public service. And these must be public services, for any service by government to an individual or to a special group becomes a special privilege and a private service. Public services, therefore, can be rendered to society as such only by being supplied and delivered to its territory through rights of way and other public reservations. These ser­vices increase the production of wealth in the territory served, and the portion of this increased production that is offered and given as location rent is the public revenue resulting from the activities of public servants and other publicly created agencies for performing services.

 

     All acts of government must be by proxies, officers or agents invested with specific powers and responsibilities. Land owners are the creatures and agents of government whose function it is to collect in the form of location rents the value of the public services in proportion as these services are supplied to each location. It is also their function to use these revenues for the wages of the public servants and to direct and supervise their work. If this supervision is well performed, if the public services are well supervised and administered, the rents created by them must by far exceed the cost of the labor and materials in the public services, and this excess will be the proper and earned compensation to the land owners for their supervisory and adminis­trative services. Such administrators, unlike our present elect­ed ones, would have everything to gain by honesty and efficiency and everything to lose by corruption and waste.

 

     The change from government by restrictions and repress­ions to one of public service and assistance in men’s employment of one another and exchange together of their services and pro­ducts will mark a great change in human relationships. The animal technique of warfare and elimination becomes lost in un­restrained creative activity. The very abundance of wealth and service will cancel fear and forbid accumulations and take all the distinction out of individual possessions. What is still more vital, all men now can come under the inspiration and cre­ative influences of religion and all the arts. The requisite conditions are present for an indefinite expansion of spiritual and artistic achievement end of relationships of love and beauty beyond all past or present dreams.

 

_____________________

 

 

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WHAT DYNAMIC RELIGION MEANS TO ME

There are in nature and in the vicissitudes of life, besides our failures and defeats, certain experiences, appre­ciations and achievements that suffuse us with a sense of beauty, power, capacity and well-being. By these things we are, both figuratively and literally, inspired. To cherish and to cultivate these in the consciousness is the true spiritual discipline. The inspired mind is the creative mind. It cannot destroy. It is illumined with understanding. The hidden beauties of nature and of human nature are revealed to it. It is at one with God in the joyous putting forth of divine power, for it has entered into the perpetual springtime of infinite creation.

Men of this spiritual perception throughout the ages are moved to record and preserve by means of outward expres­sion the elements and experiences from which deep inspiration has come to them. They employ symbols and devise rituals, all reminiscent of the source of their inspiration. In the creative arts they rebuild it in color and form, rhythmic mo­tion and melodic sound, and in the magic of poesy, song and story. Through these they preserve and communicate their divine experiences and inspire others with the sense of beauty and creative power. This is the only enduring office of religion and of all the aesthetic arts.

Evil exists only by default,- only through less than the whole of human energy being expressed in creative form. All fighting against sin, all war against wrong, is but a further perversion of the creative power. Only in the full and free exercise of this power is evil dissolved and overcome. The carrying on of this power is the cosmic pageant of evolving nature. This is the divine business of life, the abiding reality. It is the bringing into being of relationships that endure through becoming the elements of still higher relation­ships. All others are transitory and must dissolve. It is their impermanence that gives them their character as evil.

Any religion that attacks evil is a religion of war. All conflict destroys; its wages is death. Opposition to evil involves cancellation of creative force, of life. Even in the supposed defeat of evil no positive good is achieved. And salvation is only incidental to the real business of life. Life is organic; its technique is growth, creation, achieve­ment of higher relationships. The true and enduring office of religion and of all the arts that have flowered from her is not conflict, not reform, not salvation, not to destroy nor yet to save. It is to inspire. It is to qualify the energy of life with the divine beauty of its creative ex­pression.

 

Spencer Heath

New York City

February, 1936