Literary values, and other papers

by John Burroughs

Many of the dogmas of theology have a grain of natural truth in them. This does not prove their truth, as applicable to some hypothetical other world, but as applied to this world. The kingdom of heaven, as the founder of Christianity taught, is not yonder and of to-morrow, but is now and here.

Tolstoi, I think, is guilty of false analogy when, in attempting to get rid of the idea of pleasure as the aim and purpose of art, he makes the comparison with food, and says that pleasure is no more the end in eating than it is in painting, or poetry, or music. The analogy is false because the necessities of our bodies are not to be compared with the luxuries, so to speak, of our minds. We cannot live without food, but we can and do live without art. And yet, do we not eat because the food tastes good? Is not the satisfaction of appetite the prime motive in eating? If dining gave us no pleasure, we should probably soon learn to swallow our food in a highly concentrated form, in capsules, and thus make short work of it. Nature, of course, conceals her own purpose in the pleasure we take in our food, just as she does in the pleasure of the sexes; but of this purpose we take little thought, except in the latter case how to defeat it. We do not have conscious pleasure in breathing; hence our breathing is involuntary. We do have conscious pleasure in food; hence our elaborate and ingenious cookery—often to the detriment of our bodies. Take away the pleasures of life, the innocent natural pleasure, take away the pleasures of art, and few of us would care for either.

Man is a microcosm, an epitome of the universe, and its laws and processes are repeated dimly or plainly in him. Then there are, of course, real analogies and homologies between different parts of nature, as between fluids and gases, and fluids and solids, between the organic and the inorganic, between the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms.

When we strike the great vital currents or laws,—the law of growth, of decay, of health and disease, of reproduction, of evolution,—we strike the region of true analogy. These laws must be continuous throughout nature. All phases of development must be analogous. The mind grows with the body and is under the same law. Exercise is the same to both. Each has its appetites. Each has its tonics and stimulants. All beginnings are the same; that is, from a germ. Language must have begun in the most rudimentary sounds. Art, we know, began in the most rude and simple marks and signs; science in the crudest, simplest facts; religion in childish superstition; and so on through the whole scope of human development. Development is always from the simple to the complex.

There is, no doubt, a deep-seated analogy between the growth of the individual and the growth of the state or nation; between revolutions in history, and storms and convulsions in nature.

We speak of the root of the matter; everything really has its root, its obscure beginning, its hidden underground processes.

There are types and suggestions everywhere—fresh fuel checks the fire; the soft stone cuts the steel the fastest; the first big drops of the shower raise the dust.

The analogy between the development of animal life upon the earth and the growth of organized communities seems complete. In the lower forms of life, there is no specialization, or division of functions. The amœba can move, feel, digest, reproduce in every part of its structure; it is not differentiated or specialized; so in the rudest tribes, there is little division of labor. As animal life develops, each part of the body has a function of its own; and as communities develop, extreme specialization takes place. Organic life goes from the simple to the complex, as does progress in human affairs. This is the law of all growth.

When Schopenhauer says “riches are like sea water; the more you drink the thirstier you become,” the mind is instantly pleased by the force and aptness of the comparison, and for the moment we look upon riches as something to be avoided. But is the analogy entirely true? Sea water is to be avoided altogether, even a single mouthful of it; but even Schopenhauer defends riches and the pursuit of riches. “People are often reproached for wishing for money above all things, and for loving it more than anything else; but it is natural and even inevitable for people to love that which, like an unwearied Proteus, is always ready to turn itself into whatever object their wandering wishes or manifold desires may for the moment fix upon.” Here the comparison will bear a closer scrutiny. Wealth is indeed a Proteus that will take any form your fancy may choose. “Other things are only relatively good,” the great pessimist further says; “money alone is absolutely good, because it is not only a concrete satisfaction of one need in particular; it is an abstract satisfaction of all.” What, then, becomes of its analogy to sea water, which so mocks and inflames our thirst? Even the resemblance in the one particular that Schopenhauer had in mind is not true. To the great majority of people wealth brings a degree of satisfaction; they give over its pursuit and seek the enjoyment of it. When a man enters into the race for wealth, he is unflagging in seeking it as long as his cup of life is full; but when the limits of his powers are reached, he begins to lose interest, and the appetite for gold, as for other things, declines.

When the same philosopher says that to measure a man’s happiness only by what he gets, and not also by what he expects to get, is as futile as to try to express a fraction which shall have a numerator but no denominator, he uses a figure that conveys the truth much more fully. It may be open to the objection of being too technical, but it expresses a real relation for all that. When you increase your expectations, you increase your denominator; and as most men expect or want more than they have, human happiness is nearly always a fraction—rarely is it a whole number. With many it is a very small fraction indeed. Blessed is he who expects little. The man who expects ten and gets but five is more to be envied than he who expects a thousand and gets but fifty. He is nearer the sum of his wishes. Hence the truth of the old saying that it is our wants that make us poor. When a piece of good fortune that he did not expect comes to a man, his happiness or satisfaction is no longer a fraction; it is more than a unit.