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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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RGL e-Book Cover
Based on an image created with Microsoft Bing software
I ONCE saw a picture for that part of the book "Pilgrim's Progress" wherein we learn about Christian going through that dark valley where he met Apollyon; and the way in which the painter had drawn this picture fell in and fitted so nicely with sundry things I had been thinking a great deal about, that I could not forbear writing something thereon. The worthy man who had done this drawing had so studied and laboured in doing the sky that it was the most terrible sky, I think, I have ever seen in a picture, for, in some parts were inky clouds, and in some the lightning glared, and in parts stars were falling, and one part was so cunningly painted with vermilion and yellow that it seemed as if hell must be yawning below it. And the lower part of the picture, moreover, was made exceedingly cold-looking and desolate. And, after much looking, I found that this painter had not forgotten either Christian or the devil, but had put in two of the littlest figures conceivable near the middle of the picture to represent them.
Now, as I was thinking about this picture, who should come in to see me but my friend, Gryllotalpa[*], who straightway fell into quite a frenzy of admiration at this device of it.
[* That is, "mole cricket," so named for its appearance and habits.]
Now, Gryllotalpa is one very deep in the new learning, and he fell to at once talking about what he called, the "infinitesimal littleness of men," and said many fine things about the cerulean depths of infinite space and the starry heavens, and the onward progress of the race as revealed to us by evolution, some of which matters I fancied he had talked about before to me. Then I said to Gryllotalpa, "Gryllotalpa, it is like taking walnuts with cold meat to hear you discourse on that picture, which heretofore had little taste for me. Do you really feel akin to the Christian in that vastness?"
Says Gryllotalpa, "I think, my dear old friend, that that picture, which, to you, unlearned in the vast mysteries of physical science, is so insipid, is a far grander picture of a state of man than any I have seen for some time. The old devices of a big man and a devil a little bigger are quite wrong in every way. Man is less than an iota in the infinite universe. He is a Link in an Infinite Chain of Causation and a Factor in a Limitless Sum." Then, said I, interrupting him, "To whom is he thus?" Says Gryllotalpa, in tone of remonstrating surprise, "To me."
"It seems," said I, "that you must have a very extensive mind; for, as for me, I can conceive only of man as altogether the biggest thing in my world."
"Ah," cried he, "I see you know nothing of descriptive astronomy or speculative chemistry, nor have you studied the doctrine of the degradation of energy nor looked into aetiology, which is the dropping of plumb-lines into the past just to see how very bottomless it is; neither have you heard what is known in human physiology on the psychological side."
"True it is, Gryllotalpa," said I, "that I have not even dabbled in any of those things, but thou that hast drunk deep of the draught of knowledge will, perhaps, tell me one thing I am curious to know? By what do you, men of the new learning, measure things, that you say, as you do, that a planetary system is a greater thing than a man?"
He answered "That 'twas by 'sun's distances,' and miles, and feet, and inches," and seemed somewhat scornful with me.
"Then," said I, "despise me not, O Gryllotalpa, but it seems to me that there is somewhat of a general perspective effect which you men of the new learning in your course of taking to pieces and examining all the parts of the universe, now and then lose sight of. A sun may be a big thing millions of miles away, but, surely, here it is not so big as the eye that sees it. Your duty to aid in the developing of humanity is a vast thing, doubtless, but nearer, and every day before you, is your duty to serve your neighbour."
I will not tell what Gryllotalpa said, because I ever love to have the last word. And, in truth, I hardly fancy I could tell, for it was strange sayings, concerning "truth in the absolute" and the like (to me) incomprehensible things.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
Go to Home Page
This work is out of copyright in countries with a copyright
period of 70 years or less, after the year of the author's death.
If it is under copyright in your country of residence,
do not download or redistribute this file.
Original content added by RGL (e.g., introductions, notes,
RGL covers) is proprietary and protected by copyright.