In many cases of what we judge to be bad conduct the man belongs to a group whose standards are not the same as those of our own group by which we judge him. If his own group is with him his conscience and self-respect will not suffer, nor will he, so far as this group is concerned, undergo any blame or moral isolation. Practically all historical judgments are subject to this principle. I may believe that slaveholding was wrong; but it would be very naïve of me to suppose that slaveholders suffered from a bad conscience, or found this practice any bar to their success. On the contrary, as it is conventional morality that makes for conventional success, it would be the abolitionist who would suffer in a slaveholding society. It is simply a question of the mores, which, as Sumner so clearly showed, may make anything right or anything wrong, so far as a particular group is concerned.
The conflict of group standards within a larger society is also a common example. The political grafter, the unscrupulous man of business, the burglar, or the bad boy, seldom stands alone in his delinquency, but is usually associated with a group whose degenerate standards more or less uphold him, and in which he may be so completely immersed as not to feel the more general standards at all. If so, we cannot expect his conscience will trouble or his group restrain him. That must be done by the larger society, inflicting blame or punishment, and especially, if possible, breaking up the degenerate group. In many, perhaps most, of such cases the mind of the individual is divided; he is conscious of the degenerate standards and also of those of the larger group; they contend for his allegiance.
There is no question of this kind more interesting than that of the effect upon success of a higher or non-conforming morality. What may one expect when he breaks convention and strives to do better than the group that surrounds him? Evidently his situation will in many respects be like that of the wrong-doer; in fact he will usually be a wrong-doer in the eyes of those about him, who have no means of distinguishing a higher transgression from a lower.
In general this higher righteousness will contribute to an intrinsic success, measured by character, self-respect, and influence, but may be expected to involve some sacrifice of conventional objects like wealth and position. These generally imply conformity to the group that has the power to grant them.
The rewards of the first sort, if only a man has the resolution to put his idea through, are beyond estimate—a worthy kind of pride, a high sense of the reality and significance of his life, the respect and appreciation of congenial spirits, the conviction that he is serving man and God. The bold and constant innovators—whatever their external fortunes may be—are surely as happy a set of men as there is, and we need waste no pity upon them because they are now and then burned at the stake.
The ability to put his idea through, however, depends on his maintaining his faith and self-reliance in spite of the immediate environment, which pours upon him a constant stream of undermining suggestions, tending to make him doubt the reality of his ideas or the practicability of carrying them out. The danger is not so much from assault, which often arouses a wholesome counteraction, as from the indifference that is apt to benumb him. Against these influences he may make head by forming a more sympathetic environment through the aid of friends, of books, of imaginary companions, of anything which may help him to cherish the right kind of thoughts. From the mass of people he may expect only disfavor.
The trouble with many of us is that, though we reject the customary, we have not the resolution and the clearness of mind to carry out our own ideals and accept the consequences. We try to serve two masters. Conscious that we have deserved well of the world in striving for the higher right, we are not quite content with the higher sort of success appropriate to such a striving, but vaguely feel that we ought to have external rewards too—which is quite unreasonable. This falling between two stools is a much more common cause of failure than excessive boldness. To gain wealth or popularity is success for some, and for them it is a proper aim; but the man of a finer strain must be true to his finer ideal. For him to “decline upon” these things is ruin.
Sir Thomas Browne remarks that “It is a most unjust ambition to desire to engross the mercies of the Almighty” by demanding the goods of body and fortune when we already have those of mind, and goes on to say that God often deals with us like those parents who give most of their material support to their weak or defective children, and leave those that are strong to look out for themselves.[[24]] Ordinary success—wealth, power, or standing coming as the prompt reward of endeavor—is, after all, for second-rate men, those who do a little better than others the jobs offered by the ruling institutions. The notably wise, good, or original are in some measure protestants against these institutions, and must expect their antagonism. The higher success always has been and always must be attained at more or less sacrifice of the lower. The blood of the martyrs is still the seed of the church.
We ought to be prepared for sacrifice; and yet in these more tolerant times there may be less need for it than we anticipate, and many a young man who has set out prepared to renounce the world for an ideal has found that he was not so much ahead of his time as he thought. Sometimes he has gained more honor and salary than was good for him, and has ended in a moral relaxation and decline. I think that even if one were advising a young man with a view to worldly success alone, and it were a question between conformity and a bold pursuit of ideals, the latter would usually be the course to recommend, since the gain in character and intrinsic power in following it would more than offset, in most cases, the advantage of conventional approval. Ministers who offend churches by modern views, politicians who refuse to propitiate the corrupt element, business men who will not make the usual compromises with honesty, are as likely as not to profit by their course, though they should be prepared for the opposite. That which appeals to the individual as a higher right seldom appeals to him alone, but is likely to be obscurely working in others also, and on the line of growth for the group as a whole, which may therefore respond to his initiative and make him a leader.
Perhaps this same principle may illuminate the general question of Might versus Right in the social process. We mean by might, I suppose, some established and tangible form of power, like military force, wealth, office, or the like; while right is that which is approved by conscience, perhaps in defiance of all these things. It would seem at first as if these two ought to coincide, that the good should also be the strong.