Receptiveness in national life is gauged by the knowledge the nation has of others. This can be gained by intelligent travel or by study. Where the citizens of a country travel little or for amusement only, and are but slightly conversant with other languages than their own, we may be sure that the national mind is lacking in this quality. The number of foreign students in a great university is a test of this element of progress in the character of their respective nationalities.
Hence the practical deduction of the importance of a knowledge of modern languages. Without them, the minds of other nations are closed books to us. They may be surpassing us in wisdom and we be ignorant of it. In that case, some day we or our children will weep for our negligence.
6. Forethought.—In one of his works Professor Letourneau remarks that forethought is par excellence the ripe fruit of intellectual development. The ancient Greeks embodied this truth in the pregnant myth of Prometheus (Forethought), who stole fire from the gods and gave it unto men and his brother Epimetheus (Afterthought).
He who is willing to sacrifice the present for the future must possess self-control, fixity of purpose, faith in what governs the future, decision of character. His actions must be conscious, purposive, directed by intelligence. His will must be trained in the choice of motive, and his passions curbed into obedience to his reason. Self-restraint, self-sacrifice, even self-immolation, are the virtues he must be ready to practise.
The distant aim for which he is thus denying himself may be within the confines of his own expectation of life, and thus be after all centred in personal ambitions; or it may be directed toward some hoped-for life hereafter, in the next world, the spirit-land; or, noblest of all, it may be in the interest of unborn generations and humanity at large. Perhaps in his zeal he misses present joys for the illusions of a fancied future; but better this than to sacrifice the future to the present.
In such deliberate and conscious planning for remote aims he is not like the squirrel who lays up a store of nuts for the winter; for the man exercises his will and decides between motives, and his actions are not controlled by external events but by inner, psychical reflections. There is even something not despicable in that avarice which heaps up riches and knows not who shall enjoy them. In it is revealed that anxiety to labour for a remote future, at present sacrifice, which, in nobler expressions, is a fine, essentially human, trait.
This characteristic differs widely in mankind, and in individuals. So significant is it of the progress of the group that in various forms it has been chosen by several writers as the main distinction between savagery and civilisation. The efforts of the barbarian aim at the satisfaction of his immediate wants only. His means of livelihood—hunting, fishing, and the collection of natural products—do not admit of saving for a far-off future. As the soul rises in culture, its horizon expands. Not merely against winter’s want, but against the inevitable periods of sickness and decrepitude which lie in wait for all, must we be prepared. Then there are the feeble and the helpless, and farther still the unborn, our descendants, for whom we feel responsible. Finally, the horizon falls co-equal with the limits of the world, and the future of all humanity appeals to the loftiest souls as demanding their strenuous labours.
The best-directed efforts of humanitarians to-day are aimed at the cultivation of forethought in the minds and habits of the lower, so called, improvident classes of society. Wise governments are engaged in providing secure depositories for small savings, in devising methods of insurance against want in old age and poverty, and in urging upon all the wisdom of guarding property against attacks, thus aiding in the survival of the nations.
These are the primary factors of progress in the ethnic mind. Everywhere and at all times their assiduous cultivation makes for national strength and life. Where they are all active, success is assured. Where even one is neglected danger is incurred.
But, it will be objected, are there not other mental traits just as necessary,—for instance, courage, enthusiasm, loyalty, patriotism? Yes, they are sometimes advantageous, sometimes necessary; but these and similar emotions are secondary; in themselves, they do not insure progress; in frequent instances, they oppose it, and lead their possessors to ruin. Blind courage, for example, like misdirected energy, is mischievous and destructive.