Herbert Spencer tells of throwing up a good job as civil engineer in order to experiment with a matter that a fortnight proved to be utterly impossible. Yet fifty years later he thus reviewed this apparently self-injurious act: "Had there not been this seemingly foolish act, I should have passed a humdrum and not very prosperous life as a civil engineer. That which has since been done would never have been done."
In other words, the act that shook him out of the rut, the contented, common, mediocre path, compelled him to find a new path for himself, and this called upon all the resources of his great and, to him and others, unknown nature, and he developed into the transcendent genius, the profound philosopher, whose writings had greater influence, perhaps, upon his century than those of any other man.
Hence I want to radiate the spirit of complete fearlessness, not only for myself, but for my young friends of both sexes, all the sons and daughters of men. I would calmly watch them plunge overboard into the ocean of life, trustful and confident, having first taught them the first few strokes of swimming—the principles of true and godly living—and then stand, fearlessly, and watch them strike out for themselves. I swam,—why should not they? God is in His heaven to-day watching the sparrows fly just as He was a score, a hundred, a thousand years ago.
In the mental world how fearful people often are of breaking away from old ideas. Only the other day a friend wrote me that he had been to a funeral, conducted by an orthodox clergyman. He said: "I imagine his is a very orthodox denomination, if he is a fair sample of what they believe. Glimmerings of a soul that hungers for larger things than its creed allowed was evident in his talk, however. Is it not pitiful, and more, is it not tragical, how people allow their soul-instincts and natural outreachings to be killed, or hampered, or stilled by what their befuddled brains or the brains of others have decided is proper, or accepted as proper, to believe?"
I can remember when good Methodists and Congregationalists were "kicked out of the church" for daring to hope that all men would ultimately be saved, and I have heard preachers and doctors fulminating against Christian Science and everything else that did not conform exactly to what they believed, and seeking to work upon the fears of their congregations to prevent any investigation. This kind of fear is unworthy the human soul. Be in a daring, a receptive, an investigative state of mind. I would radiate a readiness and willingness to listen to anything that has proven, or seems to have proven, a truth to another. I want to welcome truth from wherever it comes, whether popular or unpopular, wanted or unwanted. I would broaden my horizon, heighten my aspirations and deepen my conceptions of truth and be glad to receive from any source. I well remember John Ruskin saying to me: "Never read that book or listen to that sermon which you know beforehand you will agree with. By so doing you deepen the ruts of your own mentality." I want no mental or spiritual ruts. Good roads are never "rutted." I wish to be a broad, wide, well-paved, solid road, over which all truth may run, welcome, free, untaxed, life-giving.
In his Memory and Rime, Joaquin Miller in speaking of poets refers to them as "these men who have room and strength and the divine audacity to think for themselves."
When a man strikes out for himself, in thought and action, he does have to be audacious, in the higher sense of the word. He has to dare his fellow men, dare their criticism, dare their disapproval, dare to shock them, dare to grieve them, perhaps. He has to dare himself, throw down the gauntlet to himself in his struggle to become completely what he believes to be highest and best. It takes a great deal of courage to do all that, a great deal of resolution—an initiative that may seem impudence, a fearlessness that may seem recklessness.
The strength that makes it possible to do this must be a strength like to the divine strength. A strength ordained from the foundation of the earth as a part of man's birthright, to become a part of himself, when he begins to try for himself to conceive of higher good and to live it. The man who thinks only as other men think, dares act only as other men act, is as a babe in swaddling clothes, helpless, dependent. One can never be strong until he learns to walk alone, independent of another's hand to cling to or another's strength to steady himself by. One must learn to stand on his own feet, learn to keep his own balance, learn to step by his own volition. If he does not he becomes a cripple. Most lives are as the lives of cripples, and we help to make them so by our continued trying to force people to cling to us and our ideas, frightening them into believing that they are in great danger if they try to step alone. A little trembling of the legs as one first stands alone is nothing to be alarmed at. A few falls and bumps as we first step out never seriously injure us.
It is only when a life has strength to stand out alone, independent of its fellows, that its soul can take hold of God.