STUDENTS' COLUMN.
CONDUCTED BY J. H. FUSSELL.
Does Universal Brotherhood imply condoning the faults of others, or, on the other hand, condemning them?
"No one can intelligently pursue the path of Brotherhood without frequent and heavy condemnation of acts, and of persons as revealed in their acts."
"Judge no man."
"Judge the act, not the person."
Is there a reconciliation between the three policies thus indicated? In trying to follow the path of Brotherhood and promote the best interests of our fellows, we make a series of critical judgments. Seeing a cause about to come into operation, we make a judgment as to whether its effects will promote Brotherhood. The usual "causes" are the acts of persons; we judge whether their effects will be satisfactory; deciding No, we condemn such acts, saying, "I regard Smith as acting against the interests of Brotherhood." That is not to say "The motive of Smith in those acts is self-interest." The chief point to be observed in my attitude is that I shall not injure Smith's evolution. Our final judgment concerning most things is compound, and the factors that enter into it are two. These are (1) MY self-originated judgment, (2) the judgment of others, expressed in words, or, more potently, silently, and in the last case subtly infusing itself into my mind and blending with my own proper judgment. The resultant of these two factors is my final judgment. The judgment that Smith arrives at respecting his acts is, therefore, a blend of his opinion and of my opinion respecting their tendency, and it is none the less true even if after consideration of my opinion he rejects it and leaves his own, as he thinks, unmodified. But suppose I strongly think that Smith acts from motives of self-interest. I have made a judgment respecting Smith as well as his acts. Am I wrong? Not necessarily. My mind will become a mirror wherein Smith may see himself and reform. It will induce a self-examination that must be beneficial in tendency. But if my judgment to that effect respecting Smith is consciously or unconsciously colored with personal feeling, that is, if I consciously or unconsciously feel that Smith's self-interestedly based actions may interfere with my personal interests or comfort, then that feeling of potential or actual anger or irritation will tend, not only to darken my judgment but that of Smith, and to excite similar detrimental emotions in him.
No human being can avoid making such judgments as to another. The right counsel of perfection would be, not to avoid them, for the higher we go the more numerous are the people we have to help, and, therefore, preliminarily to judge that intelligent help may be given; but to aim at the exclusion of the personal self from the judgment, making it as lofty as possible. To judge should be to sympathize, that is, to feel like. To judge Smith is to understand him, that is, for a moment to feel as he feels. To compare what I have thus sympathetically ascertained to be his feeling with my ideal of the highest feeling of a judgment on Smith.
Let us throw away fear; learn to know ourselves and others, and unhesitatingly compare with an ideal. That men act wrongly is always from ignorance of even their own real welfare. No judgment should, therefore, contain anger, irritation, or any similar feeling. Bearing that in mind as an ideal, criticism and judgment become duties.