16 September: Boreham on the Boomerang

A Primitive Triumph
It stands to the eternal renown of the Australian blackfellow that he was the first to meditate lugubriously on the distressing circumstance that, whenever he flung his club at his enemy without hitting him, he furnished his foe with a missile that could at once be hurled back to his own undoing. Then, noticing the peculiar way in which leaves and other flat substances glided and gyrated in the air, it flashed upon him that it should be possible so to carve his weapon that, when it missed its mark, it would swing back to his own hand. And so he whittled away at his sticks—for how many years or generations, nobody knows—until he at length completed the weapon that will abide upon the earth as his memorial long after he himself has joined the ghostly ranks of the extinct nationalities.

Ever since the first white person saw an Australian aborigine with a boomerang in their hand, moralists and philosophers have employed the weapon as the natural emblem of certain processes and principles; but it must be sadly confessed that they have handled the symbolism of the boomerang with a dexterity vastly inferior to the skill with which the blackfellow has wielded the implement itself. It may be perfectly true that, when one man maliciously injures another, the reflex influence of his spitefulness rebounds upon his own head. And, in the same way, it may be perfectly true that no man ever yet did a noble and unselfish deed without being himself the better for it. This is supposed to be the law of the boomerang—the return upon oneself of the vice or virtue of one's effort. Analysed coldly, however, it is obviously fantastic. Incidentally, it implies that the boomerang has an uncomfortable habit of coming back to split its owner's skull after having split the skull of the man at whom the owner threw it. Which, as Euclid would say, is absurd. In reality, the one outstanding and essential fact about the boomerang is the fact that, if it achieves its purpose, it does not return. The philosopher cannot have it both ways. He may tell us, if he will, that the boomerang hits its target and falls to the ground; or he may tell us that it misses its mark and circles back; but he must not tell us that it both strikes its victim and then seeks the person of its thrower. No aborigine, however expert with the boomerang, ever committed murder and suicide with one tremendous throw.

Vituperation Makes Its Author Its Victim
The orators must try again. Let them keep steadily in mind the vital circumstance that it is only the futile throw that brings back the boomerang. On the instant, a new realm of most suggestive imagery will unfold itself. Prof. Walter Murdoch has an illuminating essay on "The Art of Cursing." Incidentally, he regales his readers with some terrifying examples of the use of invective, vituperation, abuse. He pillories John Milton, Thomas Nash, William Cobbett, Alexander Pope, Algernon Swinburne and others. He shows that, in each case, the man so venomously assailed remained unscathed; the very savagery of the outburst defeated its own ends; it was the man who belched forth the fiery torrent of malignancy who fell into general contempt. And the professor concludes his essay by pointing a practical moral. "Beware," he says, "beware of boomerang invective!" In this case, it will be noted, the use of the word is altogether felicitous. It is the wildly-thrown boomerang that, having whirred and whooped and whistled round, accomplishing nothing, comes impotently to rest somewhere near its starting point, making its owner look supremely ridiculous in the process.

Similarly, when the moralist is in the mood to deal with the reflex influence of goodness, the boomerang offers him a far finer philosophy than the paltry contention that he who does good is himself enriched by his well-doing. That, after all, is a sordid philosophy of self-interest. But let the moralist ponder the significant fact that when the boomerang, striking its target, does not return, the blackfellow is glad to have it so. The success of the throw is its best reward. If, that is to say, a good man's service achieves some purpose in the world, he is, in that golden circumstance, amply rewarded; he does not ask for the return of that which he sends forth. But what if the throw fails?

Is There Such A Thing As Failure of Goodness?
In the case of failure, and only in the case of failure, the boomerang returns to the blackfellow. And since, in that case, the boomerang returns, the possibility of total failure is entirely eliminated. A man may pour all his soul into a gallant enterprise that nobody seems to appreciate: he may write with the intensity of a passionate purpose, a book that nobody will condescend to read: he may give a coin to a beggar who straightway squanders it at the nearest bar. What then? It is at this point that the boomerang speaks out bravely its message of comfort.

It is the futile boomerang that returns, and that, by returning, cancels its own futility. Nothing is lost, after all! This is the subtle and profound secret that the good priest whispered to the heartbroken Evangeline—

Talk not of wasted affection, affection never was wasted:
If it enrich not
the heart of another; the waters returning.
Back to their springs, like the
rain, shall fill them full of refreshment;
That which the fountain sends
forth returns again to the fountain.

That is surely what the Psalmist meant when he affirmed that his prayer, apparently unanswered, "returned, into his own bosom." That is clearly what the Master meant when, addressing His first ministers, He told them to bless every home that they entered. For if, He added, if the people be not worthy, your benediction shall return to you. That is the profound significance of the boomerang. It is a significance that will not be lost upon those who, having lived bravely, unselfishly, and with lofty ideals, sometimes fancy that they have nevertheless lived in vain.

F W Boreham

Image: Boomerang

Note: This editorial was written by F W Boreham in a day when different words were used to describe the aborigine.