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.