Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West/Part First, 5
V
TOURING AND COMMUTING
THE world of knowledge is honeycombed
nowadays with railroads under
private control. We no longer have, as
in the past, a monopoly of transportation
and communication;—not even a Tourist-Agent
who will assume the responsibility
of a personally conducted tour on all the
lines, except it be the Daily Press. And
then, you are likely to lose your baggage
and find yourself stranded in the wilderness
of belief. You begin to doubt, not
only the vaunted omniscience of your
Guide, but even yourself.
The monks of the Middle Ages, though their system of transportation was not based on dividends or profit-sharing schemes, were good conductors, excellent engineers, faithful and experienced guides. The incidents of the journey were not very agreeable, but accidents were scarce. A traveller risked little or nothing by entrusting himself to the monks; his body and his soul were well served, though not with equal consideration; and his baggage, after a thorough examination, of course, was checked and very carefully handled. Moreover, they agreed to let him stop as long as he wished at every stage of the journey, provided he did not overpraise the Line and thereby reduce its solid comforts. And this, the most attractive feature of their Programme, they guaranteed to bring him back to the Starting Point.
The only condition the monks imposed upon their passengers, was silence. No criticisms, no commendations, no suggestions. Not even such incidents as stopping on the way to burn a conductor alive for taking another course than that prescribed in the Schedule, was even to be questioned. Such outside interference was banned under penalty of a similar death. But the people, on the whole, were satisfied with the System, which worked tolerably well for a century or more; although it was whispered, now and then, at the various stages of the Journey that, the fire of the Engine having been exhausted, a few of the passengers, who had the temerity to comment upon one of the untoward incidents of burning, were themselves utilized as fuel.
These whispers spread, slowly acquired a cumulative force, and became in the course of time a voice, a cry, an echoing and re-echoing protest. For the monks of the Middle Ages were human. They abused their monopoly of power. And some of the passengers themselves, the more enterprising who did not embark upon the Journey solely for pleasure, had already surveyed certain lands, mapped out a road of their own, and became in time experienced and reliable Tourist-Agents. The novelty of a personally conducted Tour had its appeal. It became the vogue.
The monks, therefore, soon lost the monopoly. And the Luther and Calvin Lines, the Bruno and Galileo Systems, the Erasmuses', the Schoolmen's, the Knox-Road Limited, the Swedenborg Rapid Transit of the Universe, even the Abu'l-Ala Caravans in the Near East,—all enjoyed a prosperity that made their dividends attractive for a season. But these privately-owned Lines, these personally conducted Tours, continued to increase till it was no longer safe to travel on any of them, because each one went in a different direction and had no connection at all with the others. The transfer system was not known in those days. And the result was that, if you wanted to make a tour of the world, you would be left high and dry in some wilderness, or stranded in some port, if you did not come back to your starting point as often as you had to make a change.
Hence the disappointment and dissatisfaction of the public, who soon began to realize and appreciate again the advantages of the monks' Central and Circumabient System. But we are progressing—we can not go back to the monks, it was urged by some; the commuting habit, its virtues and attractions, were insisted upon by others. But no one seemed to think of a transfer system, or imagine the possibility of a fusion of interests, or even dared to suggest the construction of shuttles between certain Lines. The confusion soon developed to anarchy and chaos. Private-ownership of the roads of knowledge and faith bcame a public nuisance. But how was the nuisance to be abated? By going back to the monks. Their circumambient system of roads, was partly destroyed, partly merged in the private Lines; and it was not possible to reconstruct or redeem even a narrow gauge to the nearest junction of skepticism and doubt.
In fact, though the people did not cease to travel, to commute rather, the heads of the private corporations were discredited. People began to lose faith in the Information Bureau; tickets were destroyed; timetables were burned; and skepticism became the fashion of the day. And like all fashions, it was soon to become the means of another monopoly.
Hence the Voltaires, the Goethes, the Tom Paines, the Encyclopedists, who revived the World-Tour of the monks, newly mapped out, of course, without imposing any conditions or restrictions on the travelling public. It was a howling success, because the world was then, as in the days of the monks, of a single mind. Only that its mind was no longer prostrate, as it were, on the carpet of faith; it was somersaulting on the trapeze of skepticism.
The Voltaire Merry-Go-Round of the Universe, the Goethe System of Scenic Railways, the Encyclopedists' Federated Roads, even the Rousseau Witching Waves became so popular that the cynical and skeptical world was transformed into a veritable Lunar Park of the Mind. Come, shake up your thinking cells and your bones. A Pamphlet will get you through the gate. And then, slap-dash into the infinity of negations, through the holy precincts of the creeds, across the hunting grounds of the privileged aristocracy, down the narrow lanes of convention, over the mountains and plains of freedom to the very heart of the radiant, universal Illusion. But these joy-rides were attended by many uncommonly horrible accidents. Thrones and altars were overturned to construct branch Lines and Shuttles; Kings and Queens and Excellencies were beheaded for being in the way; and even the Christ was run over by the Sanculotte Express, engineered by the Heberts and Marats.
This continued for many years until the Circumambient System came under the control of a more responsible Board of Directors presided by such men as Hugo and Mazzini, Balzac and Dickens, Renan and Carlyle. So an era of peace and prosperity followed, which was the mother of many private fortunes. In fact, the giant Corporation was gradually overshadowed and overpowered by limited private Lines, in which the schools, the universities and the daily press invested much of their capital stock.
Now the honorable habit of commuting is resumed; and joy-riding, not through the infinity of negations, but far into the Nowhere of indifference, has become again the vogue. Instead of patronizing, however, the privately-owned Lines and entrusting their precious life and time to the precariousness of the shuttle and transfer System, those who place safety above dividends, prefer to walk the while they clamor for public ownership of public enterprises. Meanwhile, the rank of those who have their own "flivvers" is growing day by day. And the crying need of the times is an efficient Police Force to direct the Traffic.