Wisdom and Destiny

by Maurice Maeterlinck

62. But we find ourselves here far away from the noble Antigone and the eternal problem of unproductive virtue. It is certain that destiny—understood in the ordinary sense of the word as meaning the road that leads only to death—is wholly disregardful of virtue. This is the gulf, to which all systems of morality must come, as to a central reservoir, to be purified or troubled for ever; and here must each man decide whether he will justify fate or condemn it. Antigone's sacrifice may well be regarded as the type of all such as are made in the cause of duty. Do we not all of us know of heroic deeds whose reward has been only misfortune? A friend of my own, one day, as he lay on the bed he was never to leave save for that other one only which is eternal, pointed out to me, one after the other, the different stratagems fate had contrived to lure him to the distant city, where the draught of poisonous water awaited him that he was to swallow, wherefrom he must die. Strangely clear were the countless webs that destiny had spun round this life; and the most trivial event seemed endowed with marvellous malice and forethought. Yet had my friend journeyed forth to that city in fulfilment of one of those duties that only the saint, or the hero, the sage, detects on the horizon of conscience. What can we say? But let us leave this point for the moment, to return to it later. My friend, had he lived, would on the morrow have gone to another city, called thither by another duty; nor would he have paused to inquire whether it was indeed duty that summoned him. There are beings who do thus obey the commands that their heart whispers low. They fret not at fortune's injustice; they care not though virtue be thankless; theirs it is only to fight the injustice of men, which is the only injustice whereof they, as yet, seem aware.

Ought we never to hesitate, then? and is our duty most faithfully done when we ourselves are wholly unconscious that this thing that we do is a duty? Is it most essential of all that we should attain a height whence duty no longer is looked on as the choice of our noblest feelings, but as the silent necessity of all the nature within us?

63. There are some who wait and question themselves, who ponder, consider, and then at length decide. They too are right, for it matters but little whether the duty fulfilled be result of instinct or intellect. The gestures of instinct will often recall the delicate, naive and vague, unexpected beauty that clings to the child's least movement, and touches us deeply; but the gestures of matured resolve have a beauty, too, of their own, more earnest and statelier, stronger. It is given to very few hearts to be naively perfect, nor should we go seek in them for the laws of duty. And besides, there is many a sober-hued duty that instinct will fail to perceive, that yet will be clearly espied by mature resolution, bereft though this be of illusion; and man's moral value is doubtless established by the number of duties he sees and sets forth to accomplish.

It is well that the bulk of mankind should listen to the instinct that prompts them to sacrifice self on the altar of duty, and that without too close self-questioning; for long must the questioning be ere consciousness will give forth the same answer as instinct. And those who do thus close their eyes, and in all meekness follow their instinct, are in truth following the light that is borne at their head, though they know it not, see it not, by the best of their ancestors. But still this is not the ideal; and he who gives up the least thing of all for the sake of his brother, well knowing what it is he gives up and wherefore he does it, stands higher by far in the scale of morality than the other, who flings away life without throwing one glance behind.

64. In this world there are thousands of weak, noble creatures who fancy that sacrifice always must be the last word of duty; thousands of beautiful souls that know not what should be done, and seek only to yield up their life, holding that to be virtue supreme. They are wrong; supreme virtue consists in the knowledge of what should be done, in the power to decide for ourselves whereto we should offer our life. The duty each holds to be his is by no means his permanent duty. The paramount duty of all is to throw our conception of duty into clearest possible light. The word duty itself will often contain far more error and moral indifference than virtue. Clytemnestra devoted her life to revenge—she murdered her husband for that he had slain Iphigenia; Orestes sacrificed his life in avenging Agamemnon's death on Clytemnestra. And yet it has only needed a sage to pass by, saying, "pardon your enemies," for all duties of vengeance to be banished for ever from the conscience of man. And so may it one day suffice that another sage shall pass by for many a duty of sacrifice too to be exiled. But in the meanwhile there are certain ideas that prevail on renouncement, resignation, and sacrifice, that are far more destructive to the most beautiful moral forces of man than great vices, or even than crimes.

65. There are some occasions in life, inevitable and of general bearing, that demand resignation, which is necessary then, and good; but there are many occasions when we still are able to fight; and at such times resignation is no more than veiled helplessness, idleness, ignorance. So is it with sacrifice too, which indeed is most often the withered arm resignation still shakes in the void. There is beauty in simple self-sacrifice when its hour has come unsought, when its motive is happiness of others; but it cannot be wise, or of use to mankind, to make sacrifice the aim of one's life, or to regard its achievement as the magnificent triumph of the spirit over the body. (And here let us add that infinitely too great importance is generally ascribed to the triumph of spirit over body, these pretended triumphs being most often the total defeat of life.) Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue will pluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue set forth on its travels. It is a grave, error to think that the beauty of soul is most clearly revealed by the eager desire for sacrifice; for the soul's fertile beauty resides in its consciousness, in the elevation and power of its life. There are some, it is true, that awake from their sleep at the call of sacrifice only; but these lack the strength and the courage to seek other forms of moral existence. It is, as a rule, far easier to sacrifice self—to give up, that is, our moral existence to the first one who chooses to take it—than to fulfil our spiritual destiny, to accomplish, right to the end, the task for which we were created. It is easier far, as a rule, to die morally, nay, even physically, for others, than to learn how best we should live for them. There are too many beings who thus lull to sleep all initiative, personal life, and absorb themselves wholly in the idea that they are prepared and ready for sacrifice. The consciousness that never succeeds in travelling beyond this idea, that is satisfied ever to seek an occasion for giving all that which it has, is a consciousness whose eyes are sealed, and that crouches be-numbed at the foot of the mountain. There is beauty in the giving of self, and indeed it is only by giving oneself that we do, at the end, begin to possess ourselves somewhat; but if all that we some day shall give to our brethren is the desire to give them ourselves, then are we surely preparing a gift of most slender value. Before giving, let us try to acquire; for this last is a duty where from we are not relieved by the fact of our giving. Let us wait till the hour of sacrifice sounds; till then, each man to his work. The hour will sound at last; but let us not waste all our time in seeking it on the dial of life.

66. There are many ways of sacrifice; and I speak not here of the self-sacrifice of the strong, who know, as Antigone knew, how to yield themselves up when destiny, taking the form of their brothers' manifest happiness, calls upon them to abandon their own happiness and their life. I speak of the sacrifice here that is made by the feeble; that leans for support, with childish content, on the staff of its own inanity—that is as an old blind nurse, who would rock us in the palsied arms of renouncement and useless suffering. On this point let us note what John Ruskin says, one of the best thinkers of our time: "The will of God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's happiness and life; not by each other's misery or death. A child may have to die for its parents; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for them; that not by sacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength; and as the arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right relations. Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not intended to slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such . . . that they accept pain and defeat as if these were their appointed portion; never understanding that their defeat is not the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies than to them."

67. You are told you should love your neighbour as yourself; but if you love yourself meanly, childishly, timidly, even so shall you love your neighbour. Learn therefore to love yourself with a love that is wise and healthy, that is large and complete. This is less easy than it would seem. There is more active charity in the egoism of a strenuous clairvoyant soul than in all the devotion of the soul that is helpless and blind. Before you exist for others it behoves you to exist for yourself; before giving, you first must acquire. Be sure that, if deeply considered, more value attaches to the particle of consciousness gained than to the gift of your entire unconsciousness. Nearly all the great things of this world have been done by men who concerned themselves not at all with ideas of self-sacrifice. Plato's thoughts flew on—he paused not to let his tears fall with the tears of the mourners in Athens; Newton pursued his experiments calmly, nor left them to search for objects of pity or sorrow; and Marcus Aurelius above all (for here we touch on the most frequent and dangerous form of self-sacrifice) Marcus Aurelius essayed not to dim the brightness of his own soul that he might confer happiness on the inferior soul of Faustina. And if this was right in the lives of these men, of Plato and Newton and Marcus Aurelius, it is equally right in the life of every soul; for each soul has, in its sphere, the same obligations to self as the soul of the greatest. We should tell ourselves, once and for all, that it is the first duty of the soul to become as happy, complete, independent, and great as lies in its power.' Herein is no egoism, or pride. To become effectually generous and sincerely humble there must be within us a confident, tranquil, and clear comprehension of all that we owe to ourselves. To this end we may sacrifice even the passion for sacrifice; for sacrifice never should be the means of ennoblement, but only the sign of our being ennobled.

68. Let us be ready to offer, when necessity beckons, our wealth, and our time, and our life, to our less fortunate brethren, making them thus an exceptional gift of a few exceptional hours; but the sage is not bound to neglect his happiness, and all that environs his life, in sole preparation for these few exceptional hours of greater or lesser devotion. The truest morality tells us to cling, above all, to the duties that return every day, to acts of inexhaustible brotherly kindness. And, thus considered, we find that in the everyday walk of life the solitary thing we can ever distribute among those who march by our side, be they joyful or sad, is the confidence, strength, the freedom and peace, of our soul. Let the humblest of men, therefore, never cease to cherish and lift up his soul, even as though he were fully convinced that this soul of his should one day be called to console or gladden a God. When we think of preparing our soul, the preparation should never be other than befits a mission divine. In this domain only, and on this condition, can man truly give himself, can there be pre-eminent sacrifice. And think you that when the hour sounds the gift of a Socrates or Marcus Aurelius—who lived many lives, for many a time had they compassed their whole life around—do you think such a gift is not worth a thousand times more than what would be given by him who had never stepped over the threshold of consciousness? And if God there be, will He value sacrifice only by the weight of the blood in our body; and the blood of the heart—its virtue, its knowledge of self, its moral existence—do you think this will all go for nothing?

69. It is not by self-sacrifice that loftiness comes to the soul; but as the soul becomes loftier, sacrifice fades out of sight, as the flowers in the valley disappear from the vision of him who toils up the mountain. Sacrifice is a beautiful token of unrest; but unrest should not be nurtured within us for sake of itself. To the soul that is slowly awakening all appears sacrifice; but few things indeed are so called by the soul that at last lives the life whereof self-denial, pity, devotion, are no longer indispensable roots, but only invisible flowers. For in truth too many do thus feel the need of destroying—though it be without cause—a happiness, love, or a hope that is theirs, thereby to obtain clearer vision of self in the light of the consuming flame. It is as though they held in their hand a lamp of whose use they know nothing; as though, when the darkness comes on, and they are eager for light, they scatter its substance abroad on the fire of the stranger.