In this age of bustle and hurry, the nervous system is operated at a very high tension, and as a result often refuses to do the work demanded of it. As a consequence, artificial stimulants are resorted to, with the most baneful effects upon our citizen body. Caffine, thermo-bromine, nicotine, narcine, alcohol, and, frequently, chloral, cocaine, morphine, and hyoscine, are used in some quantity, and often under several forms, for this purpose by over seventy-five per cent. of our population; and we have seen the statement that over ninety per cent. of the males, over the age of twenty-one, are addicted to some narcotic habit in this country. As a result of this, the vitality of the individual, suffering from these habits, is eventually lowered, owing to the effect which such stimulants have upon the involuntary muscular fibre; while the over-wrought nervous system, sooner or later, collapses, and we become, both mentally and physically, human wrecks. Particularly is the taking of the weaker stimulants, such as are more commonly used, harmful to children, inasmuch as, at this period of development, nature has about all that she can well care for, without interference from the outside, and abnormal activity of the imagination at this time is not to be desired; since, under these circumstances with the majority of human beings, the imaginative impulse runs more to sensual than to æsthetic things.
The demands of our present civilization upon the individual, especially if he belongs to the coterie constituting the so-called social set, is so great for both time and effort, that the use of narcotic stimulants with this class is even greater than with the majority. Hence, it happens in America, where wealth is often acquired very quickly, that instead of bringing with it leisure, health, education, and refinement, as it should, we see very frequently the opposite result. On this account, in our country, we have no aristocracy, in any real sense of the word, and, in general we are forced to believe that real culture and refinement are becoming all the time more rare. The late Mark Twain has well illustrated this tendency in his trite character sketch, “The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg.” If our age tends toward degeneration ethically from this cause, it does so even more from a physiological point of view. It is becoming more imperative all the while that we ascertain, for certain, that those with whom we must enter upon intimate relationship, should be able to show a clean bill of health, not only in a strictly physical sense, but in a moral sense as well. To-day, luxury and vice in our centers of population are corrupting and ruining a far larger proportion of our young and middle-aged men than ever before. Since all branches of our Government are influenced by plutocratic power, we are at a loss immediately to rectify these evils by closing up the dens of vice, and raising the age of consent, to stem the tide of infamy.
Any system of ethics is valuable as a guide for conduct just to that extent to which our interest is aroused. Inasmuch as with us all, self is always the paramount consideration, the safest and surest basis upon which we can build an ethical system is self-interest. Every human being of intelligence must sooner or later realize that he is on earth primarily by no choice of his own, and, since he is here, it is of the first importance to him that he should know, early in life, in just what way he will be able to secure the most out of his terrestrial existence. Now, as we take it, happiness, in its broadest and best sense, is alone the desideratum which is per se worth the individual’s effort, and, in the aggregate, is worth the pains, both as an end to be attained, and through the effects of the struggle of obtaining it upon others. By happiness, we mean that feeling of contentment and satisfaction which should, at all times, be with the conscientious and sincere being, whether he is expecting to live a few more decades, or if he has arrived at that inevitable hour which must sometime come to all. In other words, let his end come when it will, if he has happiness, in our sense, he feels and knows that he has had all that he could get out of life, and, if he had to live it over again, he would wish to operate upon only those principles which he had used to guide his existence. In this sense, then, should happiness be the purpose of life, we will now attempt to show what conditions must, of necessity, be fulfilled in order to attain it.
Happiness, for the individual, is but slightly dependent upon circumstances outside of his control, and, in general, is the result of living up to the highest moral possibility, which means the development of self in the highest conception. Since any environment can be made to serve the purpose, we are always so conditioned that some degree of happiness may be ours. The presence of the objects of our affection, in the form of human beings, is perhaps an actual necessary detail of our environment, without which we cannot experience that feeling of satisfaction and contentment which we call “happiness.”
The matter of the greatest importance is so ordering your life that, in all your actions, you may be equitable in the most amplified sense of the word. This has, at all times, been understood by those teachers of humanity who have been reformers or saviors, from the priests of Osiris in Egypt and Zoroaster in Bactria, more than five thousand years ago, to Abbas Effendi in Palestine, within the last century. And, strange as it may seem, the world has advanced perhaps less in the understanding and practice of this, than in any of the truths of lesser importance. The exposition of the Decalogue of the Pentateuch is less refined and more constricted in meaning and application than the Negative Confession in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or the Vedantic philosophy, as given in the older Hindoo writings, or in the more modern Upanishads. From this point of view, the ethics of the Zend or of the Chinese sages are infinitely beyond the best modern practice of a majority of the people in any part of the earth. But all conscientious and fearless thinkers, regardless of the date or locality in which they existed, have realized that in every sense the “Golden Rule” is the only safe guide for conduct, if contentment and real happiness were the end sought. And if we once get thoroughly fixed in the individual’s mind that this is certain, and that, no matter what the intention, if our acts are not ordered in accordance with this fundamental principle of equity, we cannot be happy; we can rest assured that the individual would no sooner pursue a line of action which he absolutely knows will end in his own misery, than he would wilfully take a dose of poison. It is the putting of ethical matters upon a plain commonsense basis that will greatly assist, socially and morally, in revolutionizing the world. We have too long deformed and twisted facts to fit our fancies and prejudices, and we, as well as the rest of the human race, have paid “a pretty penny” for our delusion. The prevalence in all of the Western countries since Constantine raised Christianity to the prominence of a State religion, of a belief in a scheme of vicarious atonement, has worked inestimable harm to the human race. Certainly, in one particular, the doctrine taught by the gospel of Gautama Buddha is immeasurably further advanced ethically than that of his subsequent rival, Jesus of Nazareth, if we accept their gospels as correct reports of their teachings. Our blood, to-day, is tainted with venereal diseases, and our minds with a predisposition to infamy, because our ancestors were not taught, and did not know, that from the consequence of their actions, both physically and mentally, they could not escape. How many men would work day and night to accumulate wealth, at the expense of their fellows, through unfair advantage and unjust means, if they only knew that this could not, on account of immutable law, add one iota to their happiness after they had secured possession of their so much coveted gold? How many women, for the consideration of a home of leisure and luxury, would rush into a marriage “of convenience” with a man for whom they knew they had no semblance of an affection, if they felt, with certainty, that nature does not discriminate, even for a marriage license and a religious ceremony, between prostitution within the bonds of wedlock, and without, and that the horrors of remorse and disappointment are just as frightful in one case as in the other? How many young men would go out into the world with a Satanic sneer upon their faces, a cigarette between their lips, and a glass of champagne in their hands, to sow their wild oats under the tutelage of their older degenerate friends, if they fully realized that, in this one act, they were forever incapacitating themselves for the highest pleasure of life, and that no matter what their lives might be thereafter, that nature would ruthlessly hold them to the strictest accountability for their actions, and that ignorance would be no plea for mercy before her bar? This inexorable impartiality of nature is at once the saddest and the sublimest matter of contemplation, depending entirely upon whether we are considering the awful weight of her penalties or the magnificence of her rewards. The old axiom of prudery that “knowledge often comes hard,” is, in the cold light of fact and reason, a most palpable absurdity. It is to-day, the man and woman who knows; not necessarily from his or her own experience, but from the authentic records of the results of the actions of others, whose motives of narration cannot be questioned, who are well-equipped to fight the battles of life, and get from terrestrial existence all the real pleasure which is to be obtained. It is from such simple yet grand souls that we have inspirations, and fortunate is that individual who can call himself a friend to a man or woman whose life has, from the earliest childhood, been so ordered that purity and sincerity have been kept inviolate, and all of the fundamental conditions of equity, as applicable to our fellow human beings, have been observed. A friendship with this character of human being is one of the few unalloyed pleasures of life, inasmuch as their company, when present, or their memory, when absent, is equally delightful. But to get the highest enjoyment from such a person, we must not only strive to reach his or her level, but, just in proportion as we do attain their moral altitude, we will have our capacity for enjoyment augmented.
Perhaps in nothing more than in our moments of relaxation and amusement should we be careful that we make our actions accord with this law of equity. How many a careless thing we do without thinking what the result will be upon someone else! While the indulging in some amusements, such as a game of chance, for an insignificant stake, in order to maintain the interest, may be done with impunity by parties whose financial condition is such that the counters involved are of no moment to them, and the stability of their temperament is sedate enough so that the excitement of the game will not fascinate them with a snake’s charm; yet are these particular participants sure that this is true of all of the company at such times? If not—and in no gathering of this kind can we be sure—there is a possibility of great harm being done. The same is also true of an occasional glass of stimulant, so much in vogue on all social occasions; of the occasional cigar or cigarette; of a little gossip or scandalous small-talk, which we all enjoy so much; and of a thousand and one other things which, in themselves, are almost positively not so harmful when properly conditioned, but which may, and frequently do, become the means of a fellow mortal’s ruin. It is the lack of discerning and realizing our responsibility in these matters of conduct that causes almost all of the misery of the world. It is not, however, enough that we act equitably only toward our friends and strangers, but we must, within reasonable limits, follow the injunction which the Chinese philosopher has so well enunciated twenty-five hundred years ago: “Requite hatred with goodness.” In this particular instance, Lao-Tse’s philosophy is more sensible than Christ’s, who commanded us to turn the other cheek. It is not the part of good judgment that we should throw ourselves open to the ravages of our enemies, but it is essential that we do not wilfully harm or wrong even the least of human beings. It has been the most unfortunate thing for the Occidental world that those in high authority in the Christian movement should have so belittled their physical self in comparison with their spiritual natures, that anything pertaining to the flesh was thought unclean and worthy of no consideration. Everything which tends toward real beauty and sincerity, and helps to make us learned, just, and charitable, must necessarily be worth striving for; and the possession of this should be counted above all other things. At the same time, we must appreciate the awfulness of our responsibility, and continually test our actions in the light of their equity toward others, if we would be following the safe line of conduct. On the other hand, we should not be blind to the evil in others, and we should be willing to go to any reasonable self-sacrifice to better terrestrial conditions.
The philosophy, as enunciated in the foregoing, is not at all altruistic; it is, on the contrary, very selfish, and as such it has its chief value. If we teach our children that they must be good, not for the sake of doing the right thing, but for the purpose of increasing their happiness, it would seem but reasonable that such incentive in the latter case would be more potent than that given in the former one. Above all, the idea of vicarious atonement must be abhorred as a false conceit, and human beings should be taught that, in the moral as in the physical world, consequences are always absolutely true to their antecedents. As Orlando J. Smith so forcefully and tritely says, “Know that the consequences of your every act and thought are registered instantly in your character. This day, this hour, this moment, is your time of judgment. He who deceives, betrays, kills—he who entertains malice, treachery, or other vileness, secretly in his heart—takes the penalty instantly in the debasement of his character. And so, also, for every good thought or act, be it open or secret, he shall receive an instant reward in the improvement of his character.
“Every night as you lie down to sleep, you are a little better or a little worse, a little richer or a little poorer, than you were in the morning. You have nothing that is substantial, nothing that is truly your own, but your character. You shall lose your money and your property; your home shall be your home no longer; the scenes which know you now shall know you no more; your flesh shall be food for worms; the earth upon which you tread shall be cinders and cosmic dust. Your character alone shall stay with you, surviving all wreckage, decay, and death; your character is you, it shall be you forever. Your character is the perfect register of your progress or of your degradation, of your victory or of your defeat; it shall be your glory or your shame, your blessing or your curse, your heaven or your hell.”
Truly has Plato said: “Character is man’s destiny.” “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”