DR. FELL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18173, 19 August 1922, Page 1 (Supplement)

DR. FELL.

LIKES AND DISLIKES.

J ,Br FEANK MOnTOtf.

I believe that a man makes a great mistake if he permits himself to be too readily ashamed of his instinctive dislikes. It is a folly of which I have often been guilty, and always to my ultimate cost. Instinct, after all, is only another aspect of the force within us that we often call conscience. It is frequently difficult to say just where instinct ends and reason begins, and the man who follows instinct when reason falters is generally ~ found to be in tho right way. " I do not like you, Dr. Fell." It may seem a bit hard on the doctor, but ours not to reason why. It may even be just as hard on us when Dr. Fell dislikes us, but maybe he knows something, or feels something—a thins; often more important. Who was this Dr. Fell, who has since become so fiunous as—how 3hall I say?— the symbol if a' negation? He lived 61 years, and died Bishop of Oxford. He was what you call a brilliant boy, even in those days when great learning seemed to come so easily to men. His father died of urief when he heard of the execution of Charles 1., and so Charles 11. (a very good fellow at heart) remembered ; the son to the son's profit: there are; many ways by which a man may become a bishop. The doctor once preached " a very formal discourse " on Rom. xv. 2, and we have Evelyn's word for it that he was a jrood man. When the doctor died in 1686 Evelyn noted again, "an extraordinary loss to the poor church at this time." One gets an idea of him as a shrewd man, just in his manner x and with a very solid belief in himself; but a snuffy man, repellant to the youthful spirit of his time. I fail to discover that any honest man had definite cause of grievance against him apart from that fata: " 1 do not like you, Dr. Fell." And so I know that I should not 'have liked Dr. Fell myself. These just, shrewd, snuffy men have stuck pins into me once too often. The type is insufferable to me. My type is just as insufferable in the eyes of the Dr. Fells. Nature provides a balance. Instinct and Reason. Be that as it may, when I disregard my instinct, I always suffer for it. Reason says, "My dear sir, you must not do it!" Instinct says, "Go on! go on! Do it, and get it over! " But :[ take reason's advice, and afterwards, as the Americans say, I get. it in the neck. I begin to think that instinct is the breastplate God provided me withal, and that when I doff it I am a poor' naked creature at best. I remember once disliking a bluff and rather cordial sort of fellow because he wore awful flaming neckerchiefs. I chid myself over that, but instinct prevailed. And that mpn was later convicted of an unpleasant trick he had of marrying sundry wives, murdering them, and burying the remains under hearthstones to the sore prejudice of house-property and good morals. I let instinct triumph over reason. Was I right? Onctt in the north of Bengal I was staying with a friendly planter who had gone away for the evening on some racket. After dinner I sat on the verandah in the dark till the mosquitoes became very troublesome. Then I turned to go into the dark drawing room and at the door something held me. I told myself that it was silly to be afraid of nothing, afraid -without really being afraid; but in the end instinct carried the day, and I returned to my long- | chair. A little later the khansamah came with a light and a whisky and soda, and when I told him I would have it inside and get <ff to bed he preceded me into the room. In.thefJightof the lamp we saw a big cobra'dead on the floor: the pet mongoose' of the establishment must have killed it about the time, when I was about to go into.'the'' room. Good old instinct! You. see, if I had been guided by reason, in all probability I should not now be here to tell the moving tale. ■....■.,. "* Yon may «ay, of course, "What about the instinct that- kept you in the bungalow that "night, so dangerously near to the deadly reptile?" But it wasn't instinct that-kept tne: it was boils. I could mention several other occasions on which instinct, in the teeth of all reason, has held me back from a bad spin, but the attempt to heap Pelion on tho other mountain was ever, rather wasteful labour, and so we'll leave it at that. My point is simply that a man who casually disregards instinct is a fool. What is instinct? I don't know: I merely know that it IS. I have read books about 'it, I have -heard lectures about it; bnt I am little wiser in my heart. Mr. Jethro Bithell says : In proportion &s we become "wise, we escape from some of our instinctive, destines. Every man who is able to diminish the blind force of instinct .in diminishes around him the. force of destiny. Destiny has remained a barbarian ; it cannot reach that have grown nobler than itself. . . .• •' ** predestination exists, it only exists m character; and -sharacter can be modified. Fatality obeys those who daro give it orders, and therefore there is no inevitable tragedy. Very ingenious, but I don't believe a •word of it: it seems to me like merely barking round the subject. I don't believe that a man can diminish the force of his destiny, though by wisdom he may sometimes evade its apparent effects. I don't belifve that any soul is ever robler than its destiny, because I do believe 1 that every man's destiny is God's pur- ' pose in his soul. A n,an ma J' hy wis- \ dom arm himself against his destiny, but he cannot alter or control it, I may be 1 good to Dr. Fell, I may even bring him hie shaving-water or polish his boots; ! but I cannot like him, because I am des--1 tined not to like him, and instinct is ' wiser than I. Instinct and Affection. ' I think instinct warns a man against } the things and the people that are bad . for him. Not against his enemies, bej cause his enemies are often good for him. I I know a man who has been in fact and intention my enemy, but instinctively I , do not dislike him in the least. I can ) love my enemy, so long as instinct does I not warn me that he is in some subtle and dreadful way the enemy predestined of my Me. Instinct may, on tho other hand, warn me, / fn the teeth of my 3 affections, against my friend. I may be bad for a person who loves mc, and that l person may be bad for nie ; and instinct , will fail to separate mo from that person: that persistence in love against instinct is I the body of this death from which noth- { ing but the miraculous mercy of God can deliver any of us. I hate the underlying spirit of what we call prohibition, and I love my brother, who is a prohibitionist; ,' but the warning of instinct is good bef cause it saves me from permitting my love of my brother to induce me to truckle 5 with the error in him that I feel deep down to be radically bad. In the same way instinct will prevent me from loving , a man whose opinions on vital subjects are as like mine as one pod of peas is • like another pod of peas. The sympathy \_ that breeds love has no relationship to k reason. Instinct guards, but love saves j us. Maeterlinck, whom Mr. Bithell discusses in the main so wisely, is very helpful about here, even when, one dist agrees with him. and that book of his 1 that ho calls "Wisdom and Destiny" is s one of the wonder-books of good counsel. y It is not orthodox, of course: books that t are helpful seldom arc—the Bible is one of the least orthodox of all books in the t library of religion. As to V Wisdom and t Destiny"— 1 'The book is strongly anti-Christian in its rejection of what are called parasitic ' virtues— arbitrary chastity, sterile self- " sacrifice, penitence, and others—which turn the waters of human morality .! from their course and force them into i. a stastnant pool. The saints were cgotists, because they fiod from life to shel- " ■ ter in a narrow cell: but it is contact [j with men which teaches ub how to love a God Z But is the book anti-Christian ? I ' think not. It has certainly nothing in common with Antichriet.