III. GOOD HABITS
THE most important experience which, sooner or later, meets every thoughtful person, both in his own intellectual development and in his observation of others, is this,—that every act, and, indeed, every definite thought, leaves behind it an inclination which is like a material influence, and which makes the next similar thought, or act, easier, and the next dissimilar thought, or act, more difficult. This is the curse of evil conduct,—that it ever brings forth more evil conduct; and this too is the sure and chief reward of good conduct,—that it strengthens the tendency to good and makes permanent what has been gained. Here is the solemn and tragic fact which lies behind all human life,—that what we have once done we can never change. There it remains, just as it happened, little as we may be inclined to believe, or to admit, that it is there. And hence it is that history truly written is no entertaining drama, ending in general reconciliation and embrace, but a tragedy which describes the movement of destiny.
If, then, one begins thus to take life seriously, he will soon observe that its main problem does not concern its thought or its faith, still less any outward confession which may leave the soul within quite undisturbed. The real problem of life is simply and solely one of habit, and the end of all education should be to train people to inclinations toward good. To choose discreetly between good and evil is not always practicable, for human passions are sometimes too strong; but what may be developed is a prompt and spontaneous instinct for the good; and the ideal of human life is one in which all that is good has become sheer habit, and all that is bad is so contrary to nature, that it gives one even a physically perceptible and painful shock. Failing this, all that one calls virtue or piety is but a series of those good intentions with which the path to evil, as to good, may be paved.
What, then, are the most important of good habits? I propose to name a few, not in any systematic fashion; for of systems of morals the modern world seems to have had more than enough, and it is much more likely to give some attention to purely practical suggestions based on practical experience.
The first and chief rule seems to be this,—that one should try rather to cultivate good habits than merely negatively to escape from bad ones. It is much easier in the inner life, as in the outer, to attack positively than to repel defensively; for in aggressive conduct every success brings joy, while in mere resistance much of one’s effort seems to have no positive result. The main point to be gained is the habit of prompt resolution, directed immediately toward action. What Voltaire said of the history of nations is in large degree true of human life: “I have noticed that destiny in every case depends upon the act of a moment.”
The second principle of good habits is fearlessness. Perhaps this is not possible to acquire in a high degree without a strong religious faith. This I will not discuss. It is, at any rate, certain that fear is not only the least agreeable of human emotions, so that one should at any cost conquer it, but that it is also the most superfluous. For fear does not prevent the approach of that which is feared; it only exhausts beforehand the strength which one needs to meet the thing he fears. Most of the things which we fear to meet are not in reality so terrible as they appear to be when looked at from afar. When they meet us, they can be borne. The imagination is inclined to picture evils as more permanent and persistent than they are really to be. If, as one’s trouble approached, he should say to himself: “This is likely to last about three days,” one would in many cases be justified by the event, and, at any rate, would proceed to meet the trouble with a better courage. On the whole, the best defence against fear which philosophy can provide is the conviction that every fear is a symptom of some wrong condition in ourselves. If one search for that weakness and rid himself of it, then, for the most part, fear will vanish also.
Beyond this philosophical defence from fear, however, lie certain spiritual conditions of courage. The chief of these is determining for oneself what are the best blessings of life. First of all, one must acquire as soon as possible the habit of preferring the better things to the worse. He must especially abandon the expectation of possessing at the same time different things which are contradictory of each other. Here is the secret of failure in many a career. In my opinion, a man may not only freely choose his aims in life, but he may attain all those aims which he seriously and wholly desires, provided that for the sake of this desire he is ready to surrender all other desires which are inconsistent with it. The best possessions one can have in life, and the things which, with reasonable sagacity, are the easiest to get, are these: firm moral principles, intellectual discipline, love, loyalty, the capacity for work and the enjoyment of it, spiritual and physical health, and very moderate worldly possessions. No other blessings can be compared with these, and some other possessions are inconsistent with these—for instance, great wealth, great worldly honor and power, habitual self-indulgence. These are the things which people commonly most desire, and which they very often attain, but they must always be attained through the surrender of the better things.
One must, therefore, promptly and unhesitatingly determine to surrender the desire for wealth, honor, and luxury, and to take in their place other possessions. Without this determination, there can be no religious or philosophical basis of spiritual education. What seems to be spiritual development ends in unreality, vacillation, at last hypocrisy. It must be confessed that even the best of men are, as a rule, but half-hearted in making this fundamental resolution. They give up under compulsion one or another fragment of their desires. Few are sagacious enough to foresee the choice which sooner or later must be made, and free themselves while they are still young from their prolonged perplexity by one quick and sublime decision.
A further obstacle to any worthy life is the desire for praise, or for pleasure. The man who is dominated by either of these motives is simply a slave of the opinions or tastes of others. Both of these desires must be, without compromise, expelled, and sympathy, which one has always at his command, must take their place. For, if the lower desires have been cast out and no higher impulses enter, then we have simply an unendurable emptiness in life. “When the unclean spirit,” says the Gospel, “is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.... Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
Thus, at any cost, and even for the sake of one’s own soul, one must make it his habit to cultivate love for others, not first of all inquiring whether they deserve that love or not—a question which is often too hard to answer. For without love life is without joy, especially when one has outgrown his youth. Lacking love, we sink into indifference, and indifference passes easily into aversion, and one’s aversions so poison life that life is no better than death.
Further, our dislikes must be directed, not against people, but against things. Good and evil are too much mingled in persons to be justly distinguished, and each unjust judgment reacts upon those who have permitted themselves to be unjust and embitters their lives. Therefore, permit neither your philosophy nor your experience to crowd out of your life the power to love. Dismiss the preliminary question of another’s right to be loved. Love is the only way of keeping one’s inner life in peace, and of maintaining an interest in people and in things. Without it, both people and things become by degrees an annoyance and affront. Thus love is, at the same time, the highest worldly wisdom. One who loves is always, though unconsciously, wiser than one who does not. If you incline to say with the poet:
“This is my creed and this will ever be,
To love and hate as others may treat me!”
live for a while by this creed, and you will learn soon enough how much of hate and how little of love you are likely to receive.
In all the points thus far indicated, and especially in the last, there is no place for half-way conduct. There must be a complete and absolute decision, with no petty and clever computations of consequences. And in addition to these more decisive rules of habit, there are many smaller ones which go to reinforce and make practicable the larger principles. For instance, there is the Gospel command: “Let the dead bury their dead.” The dead are the best people to do this work. If one refrain from controversy about what is past and gone, then one may give himself to tasks of positive construction, and not merely to that destructive work which, even if it be essential, should be subordinate. Many a memorial has been dedicated to those who destroy which should have been reserved for those who fulfil.
And yet, one must not let himself be cheated. He must not even be thought to be easily duped. He must let the would-be clever people know that he reads their thoughts and knows what they are seeking. One may, as I have already said, read such thoughts quite thoroughly if one be no longer blinded by any selfishness of his own.
Apart from this degree of self-defence, which is so far necessary, the better plan in general is to see the good side of people and to take for granted that there is good in them. Then it not only happens that they often make the effort to be good and become actually better through one’s appreciation of them, but it also happens that one is saved from a personal experience of regret or distress. For intercourse with persons whom one recognizes as bad, demoralizes one’s own nature, and in the case of sensitive persons may go so far as to have even a physical effect. What is bad needs no severity of criticism or of reproach. In most cases it needs only to be brought to the light. Then, even if the man protest that he is not bad, his conscience judges him. Therefore, when one must blame others, he should proceed with great calmness, speak of the matter without disguise and without glossing, but simply and without passion. Passionate reproaches seldom do good, and good people who lack sympathy are apt to be very trying. There is a kind of virtuous character not unfamiliar in some Protestant circles which to those who differ from its convictions seems to have no capacity for love. It is especially aggravating to young people, so that they often prefer the company of the vicious to that of moral but cold-blooded friends.
Finally, it may not appear possible for you to be equally friendly with everybody. Well, then, discriminate among people, but always in favor of the humble, the poor, the simple, the uneducated, the children, even the animals and plants. Never, on the other hand, if you desire a quiet mind, seek the favor of important people, and never expect gratitude for condescension to the humble, but count the love they have for you as precious as you do your love for them.
There are many other of these lesser instances of good habits which I might still further mention, and if my reader should recall them, he is not to regard them as unrecognized by me. I only invite him, in the first place, to put to practical use my list as thus far suggested. As he does so, let him notice—as he soon must notice—that it is much more to his purpose to begin practically with one good habit than to begin by making a complete catalogue of all. The real difficulty in this cultivation of good habits—indeed the only difficulty—is in ridding the heart of its natural selfishness. For selfishness is the practical obstacle to good habits, though it may pretend to believe in them. No one who understands himself will deny that there is in every one a curious tendency to moral degeneration. It is often something that literally borders on depravity. Now, this inclination to evil is to be conquered only by a superior force; and the whole problem, both of philosophy and of religion,—a problem as old as the world and yet new with each individual,—is summed up in the question: “Where shall I find this superior force which shall make me inclined to goodness and shall renew that spiritual health which is essential for the right conduct of life?”
To this question, there are still given many different answers. Dante, in the famous twenty-seventh canto of the Purgatorio, says:
“When underneath us was the stairway all
Run o’er, and we were on the highest step,
Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes,
And said:
By intellect and art I here have brought thee.”[2]
By the guidance of reason, then, the traveller has been led to the Holy Mountain, where at last he hears his guide say:
“Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;
Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.”
And yet—and here we notice a marked inconsistency in the great mediæval poet and philosopher—it is an angel who bears these mortal souls across the sea and brings them to the foot of this mountain, and another angel repeatedly restrains them from returning on their way, even when they have passed the Gate of Grace; and by the diamond threshold, beyond which none may pass without his bidding, sits a third angel, to whom one may approach only by a miracle of God’s grace. In all this journey, then, the “intellect and art” which accompany the traveller play, we must confess, a very limited rôle.
This great question, however, of the moral dynamic is, for the moment, not my theme, and its answer is, I doubt not, to be finally reached only by the way of personal experience. Only this is to be said, once more, that one’s self-discipline begins with the discipline of the will. First of all comes the definite resolution to pursue one worthy end of life with singleness of mind and to turn from all that is opposed to it. Given this decision of the will, and there follows the capacity to act. And this search is not in vain, when one determines to make it a universal and an unreserved search, and to recognize the power that is attained as the only possible proof that the right way has been found. Whatever brings with it no sense of supporting, calming, ethical power is not true, and whatever does contribute this power must, at least, have some degree of truth in it. In the future, any philosophy of life which proposes to be more effective than our present philosophy must meet this test. All else leads astray.
“Why is it that we shrink away
When death, our friend, draws near some day?
We see the shadowy presence stand,
But not the gift within the hand!
So shrinks from love the human heart
As though, like death, love came to part,
For where love enters, self must die
And life find love its destiny.
O death of self! Pass like the night,
And waken us from death to light!”
IV. THE CHILDREN OF THIS
WORLD ARE WISER THAN THE
CHILDREN OF LIGHT
IV. THE CHILDREN OF THIS
WORLD ARE WISER THAN THE
CHILDREN OF LIGHT
I DO not question the truth of this text, but I cannot fail to observe in it the most familiar defence of worldly wisdom against the spirit of idealism. The objection to idealism which we most commonly hear is this, that it is well enough in theory, but that it does not work in practice; and if it be really true that worldly wisdom and idealism are irreconcilable, then most people must hold to the first. They have to live on this earth, and to deal with life as it is; they must accept the inevitable, even though it costs them a moment of deep regret to abandon their idealism. This world calls for worldly wisdom; another world may be blessed with light—on this stone of stumbling many a life which has already overcome the common temptation of selfishness is still wrecked and lost.
The first thing that strikes us, then, in this dangerous text is its high appreciation of what it calls the children of this world. Indeed, these people are never so severely handled by Christ as are the priests and the devout Pharisees of his time. Such sayings as: “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” are not uttered against the children of this world. The children of this world know what they want and pursue the end they set before themselves with energy and persistence, putting away all that stands between them and it; and this the children of light, at least in their earlier stages of development, seldom do. Still further, the children of this world are not wholly impervious to the higher motives of life. Their hearts are not the rock where the good seed falls in vain. They are merely the soil which is choked by other growth, where the seed takes root but cannot prosper. The children of this world may at any rate claim that it is not they who have built the crosses and scaffolds for the servants of the truth.
We must not then think of the children of this world as absolutely bad or as unappreciative of the excellent. On the contrary, they are generally better than they pretend to be, and among them are many persons who are, as it were, hypocrites reversed; who conceal, that is to say, their best thoughts. What they lack is commonly the courage to be good. They do not have a sufficiently substantial confidence in the moral order of the world to guide them in the struggle for existence. And, in fact, this assurance of the moral order does not at first sight appear to be justified. On the contrary, one who deserts the wisdom of the world must anticipate, first of all, that he will be deserted by the world and that he will not improbably pass the greater part of his life in uncertainty whether he has chosen the better path. Such is the testimony of all who have practically followed this path and have not merely heard of it or preached about it. Thus, the children of this world are simply the people who prefer to travel the common and well-known road. The unfamiliar path may appear to them in theory very beautiful and sublime, but they do not find it a practicable path to follow.
It is still more difficult to say who are the children of light. It is true that the Gospels sometimes mention them, but what is the meaning of the light of which the Gospels speak? Whence comes it, and how does it shine into the life of men? Here we touch at once the greatest of human problems. Whence come we? Whither do we go? What is our destiny? All that can be said in plain words of the children of light is this: that they are seeking that which is beyond reality, and are receptive to the suggestions of the ideal world. The children of light are those who supremely desire something better than to eat and drink and to-morrow die. This is the motive which most stirs their hearts and wills, and out of this desire comes to them by degrees, first, faith, and then conviction.
This way to the light is in a certain degree indicated in the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”; and it is more precisely described in the Gospel of Luke: “If thy whole body be full of light, the whole shall be full of light”—a passage whose exact meaning no one has clearly determined. Beyond such evidence as this one can hardly go; for, if we do, the children of this world, who know nothing of such experiences and regard them as extravagances or worse, will at the best turn away like Felix and the Athenians, saying: “We will hear thee again of this matter”; having no more inclination than Felix to be further drawn into such disturbing and unprofitable discussions. The dreams of the children of light, they will say, lead to nothing and had better be forgotten.
It must be sadly confessed that a great part of religious instruction has been singularly unfruitful. Indeed, religion cannot be imparted by instruction. It assumes not only a faith in that which is beyond the world of knowledge, but also a faith in the teachers of religion. The teachers of religion, therefore, can, at the best, only produce in one a kind of mental disposition. They can free the mind from disinclination to their view or from positive incapacity to share it, and they can fortify conviction by their teaching. This limitation in religious instruction has more than one cause. It sometimes happens because the hearer’s way of life is inconsistent with idealism. It is also, and quite as often, caused by a false definition of religion—the notion that religion is a matter of doctrine, a kind of science which can be taught and learned.
Wherein, then, it will be asked, lies the advantage of the wisdom of the light over the wisdom of this world? Surely, the wisdom of the world is a more obvious possession, and guarantees to us more of the good things of life than the children of light can secure. The advantage of the children of light, I answer, is threefold. It is to be found, first, in the assurance that they are the possessors of truth and are made thereby inwardly and wholly at peace. Lessing, in his well-known words, announced that truth was not a thing which men should desire to possess. Happiness, he conceived, was to be found in the search for truth, not in its possession. But the possession of the truth brings with it the only true happiness—a happiness which is abundant and unspeakable, and which no man who has in any degree obtained it would exchange for all the other good things of earth. For the fundamental question is not of possessing any definite outward thing, but of the inward happiness attained through that possession. Even the selfish, the envious, and the self-indulgent do not regard that which they want to possess as their real aim. It is only in their eyes the essential means to the real end, and that end is their own inward happiness. And this is precisely where they are self-deceived. For there is this solemn fact about the order of the world, which reveals itself to every candid observer,—that such people may attain all that they earnestly desire, yet not attain with it their own peace. Their attainment itself, their very success, becomes their punishment. All this may be perhaps somewhat hard to understand, but for the moment it may be accepted merely as a working hypothesis, and one may later observe in life whether it is not true. It is by using thus a working hypothesis that even natural science most easily reaches the truth.
The second advantage which the spirit of the truth, as we may paraphrase it, has over the wisdom of this world is this: that when brought to the test it is in reality much wiser than worldly wisdom. Nothing but the wisdom of the children of light is in harmony with the real laws of the universe. That is the reason why these seemingly unwise persons still for the most part pass through the experiences of life with less trouble and harm than the wise of this world. The consciences of the children of light are undisturbed, and a troubled conscience embitters the best joys. They pass through life also with much less hurry, worry, and fear, both of people and of events. None of these distresses of life is to be escaped except through this frame of mind. Finally, they live more peacefully—not only in their own hearts, but also with other people—because they live without the passions, hatreds, and jealousies which make life hard to endure. Even those who do not desire for themselves this habit of mind, and are not indeed capable of it, as soon as they are convinced that the children of light mean what they seem, that their attitude is not merely a cloak to cover the wisdom of the world, and that they are not vain and supercilious, grow more attached to these “Idealists” than to people like themselves. The affection which goes out toward such persons is quite beyond parallel. It is the reverence, for instance, felt toward characters like Nicolaus von Flüe, or Francis of Assisi, or Catherine of Siena, or in our own time Gordon Pasha. Thousands, for example, in all lands deeply lamented General Gordon’s death and felt it to be a national disaster, although they had not the least notion of following his life. It is a form of sentiment which the most distinguished and most successful political ruler of our own time does not inspire. Persons like these, just because they have denied themselves what seem to others the good things of life and have abandoned the competition for them, have become the true rulers of their people and the heroes of humanity. Truth, happiness, freedom from fear and care, peace with oneself and with all men, the sincere respect and affection of all,—one would think that these might be recognized as beyond a doubt the good things of life, compared with which the accumulation of wealth, the increase of honor, and the resources of luxury have no weight or significance. Indeed, the blessings of the children of light would outweigh the rewards of worldly wisdom, even if these rewards could be attained with certainty and without the bitterness, anxiety, and rivalry which inevitably accompany them.
Lastly, these ideal possessions have this further advantage,—that when attained, they are secure; and that they are within any one’s power to attain. One need only desire them seriously and wholly, and cease from a hesitating dependence on the wisdom and the successes of this world, and then, as many witnesses will testify from their own experience, the blessings of the children of light are surely attained. It may not be through one effort. Indeed, in most cases, it only happens after one or more crises in one’s life—crises which are in fact not unlike death itself, and in which a man renounces all his early hopes. In such a crisis, however, the worst of the way of light is passed. In everything else it is a much easier and more agreeable way than the worldly way, and one is sure to meet much better company.
Christ has compared his way of life to the bearing of a yoke, and indeed it always is a yoke; but compared with other ways of life, it is a much easier and lighter yoke. That is the testimony of all, without exception, who have ever borne that yoke, and not one single person has ever been found who, at the end of such a life, whatever may have been its outward circumstances, has looked back upon it with regret, or has confessed that the way of the world was better and happier. On the other hand, how many there have been since the days of King Solomon who have come to the end of a life which, to the wisdom of this world, seemed successful and free, and have found it only “vanity of vanities.”
One would think that this single fact of human experience would be decisive. It fails of its effect only, as we know, because the lower wisdom withholds one from that higher wisdom which ventures the larger gain for the higher stake. Yet, I will not reproach those who follow the lower wisdom. I simply leave it to the reader’s own reflection to decide whether, on weighing the case as he best can, and considering the conditions in which human life is ordinarily placed, he will do better to choose the lower or the higher way. For, after all, the most foolish people are beyond question those who follow this pilgrimage of life for seventy or eighty years without ever clearly deciding whether to choose the wisdom of this world or the wisdom of light; and to this class of foolish persons, who, for the most part, accomplish nothing in the world, belong, curiously enough, a very considerable number of what we call the cultivated people of our day.
V. THE ART OF HAVING TIME