Wisdom and Destiny

by Maurice Maeterlinck

Let us beware lest we act as he did in the fable, who stood watch in the lighthouse, and gave to the poor in the cabins about him the oil of the mighty lanterns that served to illumine the sea. Every soul in its sphere has charge of a lighthouse, for which there is more or less need. The humblest mother who allows her whole life to be crushed, to be saddened, absorbed, by the less important of her motherly duties, is giving her oil to the poor; and her children will suffer, the whole of their life, from there not having been, in the soul of their mother, the radiance it might have acquired. The immaterial force that shines in our heart must shine, first of all, for itself; for on this condition alone shall it shine for the others as well; but see that you give not away the oil of your lamp, though your lamp be never so small; let your gift be the flame, its crown.

70. In the soul that is noble altruism must, without doubt, be always the centre of gravity; but the weak soul is apt to lose itself in others, whereas it is in others that the strong soul discovers itself. Here we have the essential distinction. There is a thing that is loftier still than to love our neighbour as we love ourselves; it is to love ourselves in our neighbour. Some souls there are whom goodness walks before, as there are others that goodness follows. Let us never forget that, in communion of soul, the most generous by no means are they who believe they are constantly giving. A strenuous soul never ceases to take, though it be from the poorest; a weak soul always is giving, even to those that have most; but there is a manner of giving which truly is only the gesture of powerless greed; and we should find, it may be, if reckoning were kept by a God, that in taking from others we give, and in giving we take away. Often indeed will it so come about that the very first ray of enlightenment will descend on the commonplace soul the day it has met with another which took all that it had to give.

71. Why not admit that it is not our paramount duty to weep with all those who are weeping, to suffer with all who are sad, to expose our heart to the passer-by for him to caress or stab? Tears and suffering and wounds are helpful to us only when they do not discourage our life. Let us never forget that whatever our mission may be in this world, whatever the aim of our efforts and hopes, and the result of our joys and our sorrows, we are, above all, the blind custodians of life. Absolutely, wholly certain is that one thing only; it is there that we find the only fixed point of human morality. Life has been given us—for a reason we know not—but surely not for us to enfeeble it, or carelessly fling it away. For it is a particular form of life that we represent on this planet—the life of feeling and thought; whence it follows perhaps that all that inclines to weaken the ardour of feeling and thought is, in its essence, immoral. Our task let it be then to foster this ardour, to enhance and embellish it; let us constantly strive to acquire deeper faith in the greatness of man, in his strength and his destiny; or, we might equally say, in his bitterness, weakness, and wretchedness; for to be loftily wretched is no less soul-quickening than it is to be loftily happy. After all, it matters but little whether it be man or the universe that we admire, so long as something appear truly admirable to us, and exalt our sense of the infinite. Every new star that is found in the sky will lend of its rays to the passions, and thoughts, and the courage, of man. Whatever of beauty we see in all that surrounds us, within us already is beautiful; whatever we find in ourselves that is great and adorable, that do we find too in others. If my soul, on awaking this morning, was cheered, as it dwelt on its love, by a thought that drew near to a God—a God, we have said, who is doubtless no more than the loveliest desire of our soul—then shall I behold this same thought astir in the beggar who passes my window the moment thereafter; and I shall love him the more for that I understand him the better. And let us not think that love of this kind can be useless; for indeed, if one day we shall know the thing that has to be done, it will only be thanks to the few who love in this fashion, with an ever-deepening love. From the conscious and infinite love must the true morality spring, nor can there be greater charity than the effort to ennoble our fellows. But I cannot ennoble you if I have not become noble myself; I have no admiration to give you if there be naught in myself I admire. If the deed I have done be heroic, its truest reward will be my conviction that of an equal deed you are capable too; this conviction ever will tend to become more spontaneous within me, and more unconquerable. Every thought that quickens my heart brings quickening, too, to the love and respect that I have for mankind. As I rise aloft, you rise with me. But if, the better to love you, I deem it my duty to tear off the wings from my love, your love being wingless as yet; then shall I have added in vain to the plaints and the tears in the valley, but brought my own love thereby not one whit nearer the mountain. Our love should always be lodged on the highest peak we can attain. Let our love not spring from pity when it can be born of love; let us not forgive for charity's sake when justice offers forgiveness; nor let us try to console there where we can respect. Let our one never-ceasing care be to better the love that we offer our fellows. One cup of this love that is drawn from the spring on the mountain is worth a hundred taken from the stagnant well of ordinary charity. And if there be one whom you no longer can love because of the pity you feel, or the tears that he sheds; and if he ignore to the end that you love him because you ennobled him at the same time you ennobled yourself, it matters but little after all; for you have done what you held to be best, and the best is not always most useful. Should we not invariably act in this life as though the God whom our heart desires with its highest desire were watching our every action?

72. In a terrible catastrophe that took place but a short time ago,[Footnote: The fire at the Bazar de la Charite in Paris.] destiny afforded yet another, and perhaps the most startling instance of what it pleases men to term her injustice, her blindness, or her irresponsibility. She seemed to have singled out for especial chastisement the solitary external virtue that reason has left us—our love for our fellow-man. There must have been some moderately righteous men amongst the victims, and it seems almost certain that there was at least one whose virtue was wholly disinterested and sincere. It is the presence of this one truly good man that warrants our asking, in all its simplicity, the terrible question that rises to our lips. Had he not been there we might have tried to believe that this act of seemingly monstrous injustice was in reality composed of particles of sovereign justice. We might have whispered to ourselves that what they termed charity, out yonder, was perhaps only the arrogant flower of permanent injustice.

We seem unwilling to recognise the blindness of the external forces, such as air, fire, water, the laws of gravity and others, with which we must deal and do battle. The need is heavy upon us to find excuses for fate; and even when blaming her, we seem to be endeavouring still to explain the causes of her past and her future action, conscious the while of a feeling of pained surprise, as though a man we valued highly had done some dreadful deed. We love to idealise destiny, and are wont to credit her with a sense of justice loftier far than our own; and however great the injustice whereof she may have been guilty, our confidence will soon flow back to her, the first feeling of dismay over; for in our heart we plead that she must have reasons we cannot fathom, that there must be laws we cannot divine. The gloom of the world would crush us were we to dissociate morality from fate. To doubt the existence of this high, protecting justice and virtue, would seem to us to be denying the existence of all justice and of all virtue.

We are no longer able to accept the narrow morality of positive religion, which entices with reward and threatens with punishment; and yet we are apt to forget that, were fate possessed of the most rudimentary sense of justice, our conception of a lofty, disinterested morality would fade into thin air. What merit in being just ourselves if we be not convinced of the absolute injustice of fate? We no longer believe in the ideals once held by saints, and we are confident that a wise God will hold of as little account the duty done through hope of recompense, as the evil done for sake of gain; and this even though the recompense hoped for be nothing but the self-ensuing peace of mind. We say that God, who must be at least as high as the highest thoughts He has implanted in the best of men, will withhold His smile from those who have desired but to please Him; and that they only who have done good for the sake of good and as though He existed not, they only who have loved virtue more than they loved God Himself, shall be allowed to stand by His side. And yet, and for all this, no sooner does the event confront us, than we discover that we still are guided by the "moral maxims" of our childhood. Of more avail would be a "List of chastised virtues." The soul that is quick with life would find its profit therein; the cause of virtue would gain in vigour and in majesty. Let us not forget that it is from the very nonmorality of destiny that a nobler morality must spring into life; for here, as everywhere, man is never so strong with his own native strength as when he realises that he stands entirely alone. As we consider the crowning injustice of fate, it is the negation of high moral law that disturbs us; but from this negation there at once arises a moral law that is higher still. He who no longer believes in reward or punishment must do good for the sake of good. Even though a moral law seem on the eve of disappearing, we need have no cause for disquiet; its place will be speedily filled by a law that is greater still. To attribute morality to fate is but to lessen the purity of our ideal; to admit the injustice of fate is to throw open before us the ever-widening fields of a still loftier morality. Let us not think virtue will crumble, though God Himself seem unjust. Where shall the virtue of man find more everlasting foundation than in the seeming injustice of God?

73. Let us not cavil, therefore, at nature's indifference to the sage. It is only because we are not yet wise enough that this indifference seems strange; for the first duty of wisdom is to throw into light the humbleness of the place in the universe that is filled by man.

Within his sphere he seems of importance, as the bee in its cell of honey; but it were idle to suppose that a single flower the more will blossom in the fields because the queen bee has proved herself a heroine in the hive. We need not fear that we depreciate ourselves when we extol the universe. Whether it be ourselves or the entire world that we consider great, still will there quicken within our soul the sense of the infinite, which is of the life-blood of virtue. What is an act of virtue that we should expect such mighty reward? It is within ourselves that reward must be found, for the law of gravitation will not swerve. They only who know not what goodness is are ever clamouring for the wage of goodness. Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is of itself always an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it. The upright man who perished in the catastrophe I mentioned was there because his soul had found a peace and strength in virtue that not happiness, love, or glory could have given him. Were the flames to retreat before such men, were the waters to open and death to hesitate, what were righteousness or heroism then? Would not the true happiness of virtue be destroyed? virtue that is happy because it is noble and pure, that is noble and pure because it desires no reward? There may be human joy in doing good with definite purpose, but they who do good expecting nothing in return know a joy that is divine. Where we do evil our reasons mostly are known to us, but our good deed becomes the purer for our ignorance of its motive. Would we know how to value the righteous man, we have but to question him as to the motives of his righteousness. He will probably be the most truly righteous who is least ready with his answer. Some may suppose that as intellect widens many a motive for heroism will be lost to the soul; but it should be borne in mind that the wider intellect brings with it an ideal of heroism loftier and more disinterested still. And this much at least is certain: he who thinks that virtue stands in need of the approval of destiny or of worlds, has not yet within him the veritable sense of virtue. Truly to act well we must do good because of our craving for good, a more intimate knowledge of goodness being all we expect in return. "With no witness save his heart alone," said St. Just. In the eyes of a God there must surely be marked distinction between the soul of the man who believes that the rays of a virtuous deed shall shine through furthest space, and the soul of the other who knows they illumine his heart alone. There may be greater momentary strength in the overambitious truth, but the strength that is brought by the humble human truth is far more earnest and patient. Is it wiser to be as the soldier who imagines that each blow he strikes brings victory nearer, or as the other who knows his little account in the combat but still fights sturdily on? The upright man would scorn to deceive his neighbour, but is ever unduly inclined to regard some measure of self-deception as inseparable from his ideal.

If there were profit in virtue, then would the noblest of men be compelled to seek happiness elsewhere; and God would destroy their main object in life were He to reward them often. Nothing is indispensable, perhaps, or even necessary; and it may be that if the joy of doing good for sake of good were taken from the soul, it would find other, purer joys; but in the meantime, it is the most beautiful joy we know, therefore let us respect it. Let us not resent the misfortunes that sometimes befall virtue, lest we at the same time disturb the limpid essence of its happiness. The soul that has this happiness dreams no more of reward, than others expect punishment because of their wickedness. They only are ever clamouring for justice who know it not in their lives.

74. There is wisdom in the Hindu saying: "Work as they work, who are ambitious. Respect life, as they respect it who desire it. Be happy, as they are happy who live for happiness alone."