A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and Character

by Newell Dwight Hillis

Henry Clay had a great reputation as a speaker; but when the youth had through years practiced extemporaneous speech in the cornfields of Kentucky, he went on to train himself in language, in thought, in posture, in gesture, until his hand could wield the scepter, or beckon in sweet persuasion, until his eye could look upon his enemies and pierce them, or beam upon his friends and call down upon them all the fruits of peace and success. Nor has there been one great artist, one great poet, one great inventor, one great merchant, nor one great man in any department of life whose supremacy does not, when examined, stand forth as the fruit of long study and careful training. Men are born with hands, but without skill for using them. Men are born with feet and faculties, but only by practice do their steps run swiftly along those beautiful pathways called literature or law or statesmanship. Man's success in mastering other sciences encourages within us the belief that it is possible for men to master the science of getting on smoothly and justly with their fellow men. In importance this knowledge exceeds every other knowledge whatsoever. To know what armor to put on against to-morrow's conflicts; how to attain the ends of commerce and ambition by using men as instruments; how to be used by men, and how to use men, not by injuring them, not by cheating them, not by marring or neglecting them; but how through men to advance both one's self and one's fellows—this is life's task. For skill in getting on with men is the test of perfect manhood.

No other knowledge is comparable to this. It is something to know how to sail a vast ship; it is important to understand the workings of a Corliss engine; man does well to aspire to the mastery of iron and wood, and the use of cotton and wool; most praiseworthy the ambition to master arguments and ideas; but it is a thousand times more important to understand men. To be able to analyze the underlying motives; to attain skill in rebuking the worst impulses in men, and skill in calling forth their best qualities; to distinguish between selfishness and sincerity; to allay strife and promote peace; to maintain equanimity midst all the swirl of passion; to meet those who storm with perfect calm; to meet scowling men with firm gentleness; to meet the harshness of pride with a modest bearing; to be self-sufficing midst all the upheaval and selfishness of life—this is to be a follower of Christ, and He is the only gentleman our world has ever seen. Oh, for some university for teaching the art of right living! Oh, for some college teaching the science of attaining the personal ends of life without marring one's ideals! For life has only one fine art—the art of getting along smoothly with ourselves and our fellows.

Let us confess that man easily masters every other art and science. His discoveries as to stars and stones and shrubs provoke ever fresh surprise. His inventions, who can number? He easily masters winds and rivers. He takes the sting out of the thunderbolt and makes it harmless. Afterward with electric lamps he illumines towns. With invisible sunbeams he paints instantaneous pictures of faces, palaces, mountains, and landscapes. With the dark X-rays he photographs the bone incased in flesh, the coins contained in the purse. With his magnet the scientist throws a rope around the cathode rays and drags them whithersoever he will. In the field the inventor uses an electric hoe to kill the germs of the thistle and deadly nightshade. Strange that he cannot invent an instrument for killing the germs of hatred and envy in his own heart! The gardener easily masters the art of cultivating roses and violets, but breaks down in trying to produce in himself those beauteous growths called love, truth, justice—flowers, these, that are rooted in heaven, but blossom here on earth.

An expert driver will hold the reins over six fiery steeds, or even eight, but he descends from his coach to find that his own passions are steeds of the sun that run away with him, bringing wreckage and ruin. Man has skill for turning poisons into medicines. He changes deadly acids into balms, but he has no skill for taking envy's poisons out of the tongue, or sheathing the keen sword of hatred. As to physical nature, man seems rapidly approaching the time when all the forces of land and sea and sky will yield themselves as willing and obedient servants to do his will. But, having made himself monarch in every other realm, man breaks down utterly in attempting the task of living peaceably with his friends and neighbors. Sublime in his integrity and strength, he is most pitiable in the way he wrecks his own happiness, and ruins the happiness of others. Pestilence in the city, tornado in the country, the fire in the forest—these are but feeble types of man as a destroyer. One science is as yet unmastered by man—the science of right living and the art of getting along smoothly with himself and his fellows.

To-day the new science explains the difficulty of right living, by the largeness of man's endowment. There are few failures in the animal or vegetable world. Instinct guides the beast, while the shrub attains its end by automatic processes. No vine was ever troubled to decide whether it should produce grapes or thorns. No fig tree ever had to go to school to learn how to avoid bearing thistles. The humming bird, flying from shrub to shrub, hears the inner voice called instinct. These instincts serve as guide books. The animal creation that moves through the air or water or the forests experiences but little difficulty in finding out the appointed pathway. But the problem of rose, lark or lion is very simple and easy, compared with the problem of man. If the oak must needs bear acorns, man is like a vine that can at will bring forth any one of a hundred fruits. He is like an animal that can at its option walk or fly, swim or run. The pathway opened before the brute world is narrow and its task therefore is very simple, while the vast number of pathways possible to man often embarrasses his judgment and sometimes works bewilderment.

After thousands of years man is still ignorant whether it is best for him to eat flesh or confine himself only to fruit; whether the juice of the grape is helpful or harmful; whether the finest culture comes from confining one's study to a single language, as did Socrates and Shakespeare, or through learning many languages, as did Cicero and Milton; whether a monarchy or democracy is better suited for securing the people's happiness and prosperity; whether the love of God in front is a motive sufficient to pull a man heavenward, or whether fear and fire kindled in the rear will not lend greater swiftness to his footsteps. It is wonderful how many problems yet remain to be solved.

Nor could it be otherwise. As things increase in size and complexity the difficulty of handling them increases. It is easy to manage a spinning-wheel, but difficult to handle a Jacquard loom having hundreds of delicate parts. It is easy to use a boy's whistle, but hard to master the pipe organ with keys rising bank upon bank. Out of an alphabet numbering six and twenty letters all the sciences and arts can be fashioned; but the alphabet of man's faculties numbers four and forty letters. Who shall measure the divine literatures possible to all these combinations of thought, feeling and aspiration?

The scientist tells us that all of the instruments and excellences distributed among the animals are united in man.

Man has the beaver's instinct for building, the bee's skill for hiving, the lion's stroke is less than man's trip-hammer, the deer's swift flight is slowness to man's electric speed, the eagle itself cannot outrun his flying speech. It is as if all the excellences of the whole animal creation were swept together and compacted in man's tiny body, with the addition of new gifts and faculties; but this concentration of all the gifts distributed to the animal world in man means that the dangers and difficulties that are distributed over all the rest of the animal creation will also be concentrated upon his single person. The increase of his treasure carries with it the increase of danger and difficulty. The vastness of his endowment opens up the possibilities of innumerable blunderings and stumblings and wanderings from the way. By so much, therefore, as he is above the bird and the beast, by that much does the task of carrying aright his faculties increase in magnitude.

Moreover, smooth living with men is difficult because of the continual conflict with evil. Integrity can never be good friends with iniquity, nor liberty with tyranny, nor purity and sweetness with filth and foulness. There is no skill by which John can ever live in peace with Herod. Paul, the author of the ode to love, was always at war with Nero, and at last had his head shorn off. William Tell could not get along smoothly with Gesler, the tyrant who robbed the Swiss of their rights. When doves learn to live peaceably with hawks, and lambs learn how to get along with wolves, good men and true will learn how to live in peace with vice and crime. Wickedness means warfare, not peace.