298 A League of Learning
No league can be more powerful than a league of think-
ers, of men whose one desire is to discover and teach the
truth. What is not less important, there is a sense in which
thinkers, real lovers of truth, cannot help being in league.
For every truth is universal. It is held in common by all
who comprehend it. Truth is not in its nature an exclusive
possession. It were an impossible world if different men
possessed different truths about the same thing: so that
2×2 = 16 to one, 21 to another, and ɪɪ to a third. Every
discovery of truth by its very nature is a potential revelation
to all men, and they concur in it. Error begets disagree-
ment and separates men; truth brings harmony and unites
them, and especially the truths that appertain to man as man,
to man as a rational being, or, as I like the word, to man
as spirit. All truths of the spirit are not only universal, but
they have a directly uniting force within them. Indeed, that
is the characteristic of all spiritual as contrasted with ma-
terial things. The things of the spirit are mutually inclusive.
They contain one another, which is impossible for all things
that are material and occupy space and time. What I have,
if it is a material possession, you have not; and what you
have got, I have not. This piece of land is mine; that piece
of land is yours. I cannot get yours without making you
poorer, nor can you have mine. But whenever we begin to
deal with spiritual things, “mine and thine” are found to
include one another. There is mutual possession. The
Scottish wife, speaking of her husband, calls him aMy man.”
The husband, speaking of her, calls her “My wife.” Now
which of them is the owner? Well, you had better not try
to decide. “My country,” “My people,” “My father,” “My
child”— these are cases of mutual inclusion, every one. The
truth that I may have and impart to you leaves me none
the poorer for being given away. On the contrary, by com-