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What does all this experience mean? Whither does it lead? What is the link between the child dreaming dreams and seeing visions and the woman sitting judgment on her fellows on the Magistrates’ Bench.
For me, on the material plan, experience has led to very definite conclusions.
Before the war the world was a world of scarcity, there were not enough of the necessities of life to go round. Lord Snowden said and said truly: “We can’t help the poor without robbing the rich.” And if some of us thought that did not matter, the poor must be helped anyway, it was not the general attitude and there seemed to be an impasse. It is different to-day; we live in a world of ever increasing plenty and there is no limit to the productive power of the land fertilised by the sun, watered by the rivers and cultivated by more and more effective machinery. And all over the world mankind is realising this and more and more mankind is asking why is there still scarcity; why is food destroyed while men, women and children are undernourished, why are machines not working full time, why are inventions help up while many are needing the barest necessities of life.
The answer is that our economics are regulated by the conditions of scarcity.
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At one time economists talked about "The Economic Man". I learnt about him in my school days. To-day he has gone and a human being has taken his place. And to-day there is only one economic question that matters and that is to readjust our fiscal system so that this plenty which is at our feet to-day shall somehow reach every man, woman and child. There are new economists to-day who are working on the problem and a solution must and will be found. It is in the line of evolution and nothing can eventually stop it. How soon we shall see the new economics of plenty in action depends on how many of us have enough insight to realise what it will mean to the race and on what we are prepared to do to bring it about.
And what is the spiritual goal, what is the ultimate achievement of human life? I think it is to experience a growing consciousness of union with every living thing, with all beauty, with all truth as it is slowly revealed to our inner consciousness. It is only to be found within the Kingdom of God which cometh not by observation but is within each one of us. Isolation is death, only in union is life.
There is a realisation of this to-day as never before and in that lies the hope of the race.
And so this "Tale that is Tol"” comes to an end and what remains to be lived will not be told.
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Only "farewell’ remains to be said: "Till the shadows lengthen and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging and a holy rest and peace at the last."
Green Bushes,
Littlehampton, Sussex.
1937-1939
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