Happiness: Essays on the meaning of life
Date: 2022-08-23T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Conduct of life; Happiness

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Title: Happiness: Essays on the meaning of life

Author: Karl Hilty

Translator: Francis Greenwood Peabody

Release date: August 23, 2022 [eBook #68817]
Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Macmillan, 1903

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAPPINESS: ESSAYS ON THE MEANING OF LIFE ***

HAPPINESS: BY CARL HILTY

HAPPINESS
ESSAYS ON THE MEANING
OF LIFE BY CARL HILTY
PROFESSOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW
UNIVERSITY OF BERN. TRANSLATED BY
FRANCIS GREENWOOD PEABODY
PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN MORALS IN
HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1903

COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

Set up and electrotyped January, 1903. Reprinted June,
October, 1903.

Norwood Press:
Berwick & Smith Co., Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.

CONTENTS

ESSAY I | PAGE
THE ART OF WORK | 3
ESSAY II
HOW TO FIGHT THE BATTLES OF LIFE | 25
ESSAY III
GOOD HABITS | 45
ESSAY IV

THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD ARE
WISER THAN THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT

61

ESSAY V
THE ART OF HAVING TIME | 73
ESSAY VI
HAPPINESS | 97
ESSAY VII
THE MEANING OF LIFE | 127
NOTES | 153

PREFACE

Great numbers of thoughtful people are just now much perplexed to know what to make of the facts of life, and are looking about them for some reasonable interpretation of the modern world. They cannot abandon the work of the world, but they are conscious that they have not learned the art of work. They have to fight the battle of life, but they are not sure what weapons are fit for that battle. They are so beset by the cares of living that they have no time for life itself. They observe that happiness often eludes those who most eagerly pursue it; and that the meaning of life is often hidden from those whose way would seem to be most free. To this state of mind—hesitating, restless, and dissatisfied, in the world but not content to be of the world—the reflections of Professor Hilty, as published in Switzerland and Germany, have already brought much reassurance and composure; and their message seems hardly less applicable to English and American life. Here also the fever of commercialism threatens the vitality of idealism, and here also the art of life is lost in the pace of living. Religion to a great many educated people still seems, as Bishop Butler wrote in 1736, “not so much as a subject of inquiry. This seems agreed among persons of discernment”; and a book about religion might still begin with the words which Schleiermacher wrote in 1806: “It may well surprise the wise men of this age that any one should still venture to ask their attention for a subject which they have so wholly abandoned.” And yet, in regions of experience which no one fails sooner or later to enter,—regions of great joy and sorrow, experiences of serious duty and bewildering doubts of the meaning of life,—many a mind that has seemed to itself to have outgrown religion looks about for a religion that is real. Such a mind will not be satisfied with a left-over faith; it will not be tempted by an ecclesiastical omniscience. It demands sanity, reserve, wisdom, and insight, a competent witness of the things of the Spirit. This is the state of mind to which this little book is addressed. The author makes his appeal not to discussion, but to life. He reports the story of a rational experience. He walks with confidence because he knows the way. He accepts the saying of Pico della Mirandola: “Philosophia veritatem quaerit, ... religio possidet.” Let us take life, he says, just as it is and must be, and observe that the doors which lead into its inner meaning open only to the key of a reasonable faith.

It might be fancied that a writer thus described must be a recluse or mystic, remote from the spirit of the modern world and judging experiences which he does not share. Quite the contrary is the fact. The philosophy of life which he teaches is wrought out of large experience, both of academic and political affairs, and that which draws readers to the author is his capacity to maintain in the midst of important duties of public service an unusual detachment of desire and an interior quietness of mind. His short Essays are the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, told in the language of modern life; the Imitation of Christ, expressed with the academic reserve of a modern gentleman.

Some years ago I obtained permission from Professor Hilty to translate for English and American readers a few of these Essays which had found such acceptance in Switzerland and Germany; and the present volume, containing his first series, has been a pleasant occupation of some vacation days. I have found it necessary, however, to use much freedom in dealing with his idiomatic and epigrammatic style, and have perhaps exceeded the legitimate right of a translator in the attempt to reproduce the tone and temper of the author. Nothing, I think, is here which Professor Hilty has not said; but there are many shiftings of phrase and many ruptures of German sentences; and here and there a passage has been omitted which seemed important to Swiss readers only. The Essay on Epictetus, being rather a compilation and review than an illustration of Hilty’s own philosophy of life, is omitted; as are also the copious and discursive footnotes which enrich the original. I trust that these liberties and omissions may not obscure the qualities of Professor Hilty’s mind—its insight, sagacity, humor, and devoutness—which no one who has had the privilege of his personal acquaintance can recall without affection and gratitude.

FRANCIS G. PEABODY.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, October 15, 1902.

NOTE

Carl Hilty was born February 28, 1833, at Chur, Switzerland. He was a student at Göttingen, Heidelberg, London, and Paris; and an advocate at Chur, 1855-1874. In 1874 he was appointed Professor of Constitutional Law (Staats- und Völkerrecht) in the University of Bern, which position he still holds. Since 1890 he has been a member of the Swiss House of Representatives (Nationalrat); and in 1901 he was Rector of the University of Bern. Among his scientific writings may be named the following: Theorists and Idealists of Democracy (Theoristen und Idealisten der Demokratie), Bern, 1868; Ideas and Ideals of Swiss Politics (Ideen und Ideale schweizerischer Politik), Bern, 1875; Lectures on the Swiss Political System (Vorlesungen über die Politik der Eidgenossenschaft), Bern, 1879; On Capital Punishment (Ueber die Wiedereinführung der Todesstrafe), Bern, 1879; The Neutrality of Switzerland (Die Neutralität der Schweiz in ihrer heutigen Auffassung), Bern, 1889 (French translation by Mentha, 1889); The Referendum in Switzerland (Das Referendum im schweizerischen Staatsrecht), Archiv für öffentliches Recht, 1887; The Boer War (Der Burenkrieg), Bern, 1900. He has also been the editor of the Journal of Swiss Jurisprudence (Politisches Jahrbuch der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft) since 1886.

In the midst of this scientific activity Professor Hilty has expressed his inner life through a series of little books issued at intervals during the last ten years, as follows: Happiness (Glück), First Series, 1891, Second Series, 1895, Third Series, 1898; On Reading and Speaking (Lesen und Reden), 1891; For Sleepless Nights (Für schlaflose Nächte) [Brief Readings for each Day of the Year], 1901.

I. THE ART OF WORK

I. THE ART OF WORK

THE most important of all arts is the art of work; for if one could thoroughly understand this art, all other knowledge and conduct would be infinitely simplified. Few people, however, really know how to work, and even in an age when oftener perhaps than ever before we hear of “work” and “workers” one cannot observe that the art of work makes much positive progress. On the contrary, the general inclination seems to be to work as little as possible, or to work for a short time in order to pass the remainder of one’s life in rest.

Work and rest—are they then aims in life which are positively contradictory? This must be our first inquiry; for while every one is ready with praise of work, pleasure in work does not always come with the praising. So long as the disinclination to work is so common an evil, indeed almost a disease of modern civilization, so long as every one as soon as possible endeavors to escape from the work which he thus theoretically praises, there is absolutely no hope for any bettering of our social condition. Indeed, if work and rest were contradictories, our social conditions would be wholly beyond redemption.

For every human heart longs for rest. The humblest and least intellectual know the need of it, and in its highest moods, the soul seeks relief from constant strain. Indeed, the imagination has found no better name for a future and happier existence than a state of eternal rest. If work, then, is necessary, and rest is the cessation of work, then the saying—“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread”—is indeed a bitter curse and this earth is a “vale of tears.” In every generation there are but few who can on such terms be said to lead a worthy or a human life; and even these can do so only by dooming other human beings to the curse of work and by holding these others fast bound in its slavery. It was from this point of view that the ancient authors pictured the hopeless slavery of the many as the condition under which the few might become free citizens of a civilized State; and even in the nineteenth century, a considerable part of the population of one great nation, with Christian preachers, Bible in hand, directing them, maintained on the field of battle the proposition that one race should be from generation to generation condemned to be the slave of another. Culture, it is said, grows only under conditions of wealth, and wealth only through accumulation of capital, and capital only through accumulation of the work of those who are not justly paid; that is to say, through injustice.

Such are the conceptions of society which at once confront us as we approach our subject. The following pages are not, however, to be devoted to any profound consideration either of the relative or of the absolute truth of these conceptions. I suggest, at this point, only the obvious truth, that if, not some people, but all, would work and work faithfully, the “Social Question,” as it is called, would be forthwith solved; and I may add, that by no other means whatever is it likely to be solved. Faithful work, however, is not to be brought about by compulsion. Even if the physical means of universal compulsion were present, no fruitful work would come of it. It is the desire for work which must be kindled in man; and this brings us back again to consider the principles which may be applied to this desire.

The desire for work, we must, first of all, admit, cannot be attained by instruction; or even—as our daily experience sadly testifies—by mere example. It must be reached by reflection and experience; and experience thus reflected on will reveal to any serious inquirer the following facts. Rest, such as is desired, is not to be found in complete inactivity of mind or body, or in as little activity as possible. On the contrary, it is to be found only in well-adapted and well-ordered activity of both body and mind. The whole nature of man is created for activity, and Nature revenges herself bitterly on him who would rashly defy this law. Man is indeed driven out of the paradise of absolute rest, and God gives him the command to work, but with the work comes the consolation that work is essential to happiness.

True rest, therefore, issues from work. Intellectual rest occurs through the perception of fruitful progress in one’s work, and through the solving of one’s problems. Physical rest is found in those natural intermissions which are given by daily sleep and daily food, and the essential and restful pause of Sunday. Such a condition of continuous and wholesome activity, interrupted only by these natural pauses, is the happiest condition on earth, and no man should wish for himself any other outward happiness. Indeed, we may go a step farther and add that it does not very much matter what the nature of this activity may be. Genuine activity, which is not mere sport, has the property of becoming interesting as soon as a man becomes seriously absorbed in it. It is not the kind of activity which ensures happiness to us; it is the joy of action and attainment. The greatest unhappiness which one can experience is to have a life to live without a work to do, and to come to the end of life without its fruit of accomplished work.

It is, therefore, wholly justifiable to speak of the “right to work.” Indeed, it is the most primitive of all human rights. The unemployed are, we must admit, the most unfortunate of people. There are, however, quite as many of these, and perhaps more of them, in what we call the better classes than among what we call the working classes. The latter are driven to work by necessity, while the former, through their mistaken ways of education, their prejudices, and the imperious custom which in certain classes forbids genuine work, find themselves almost absolutely and by heredity condemned to this great unhappiness. Each year we see them turning their steps with spiritual weariness and ennui to the Swiss mountains and health-resorts, from which in vain they anticipate refreshment. Once, the summer was enough to give them at least a temporary restoration from their disease of idleness. Now, they have to add the winter also, and soon the fair valleys which they have converted into hospitals will be open all the year to a restless throng, ever seeking rest and never finding it, because it does not seek rest in work. “Six days shalt thou labor,” not less and not more,—with this prescription most of the nervous diseases of our time would be healed, except so far as they are an inherited curse from idle ancestors. With this prescription most of the physicians in sanitariums and insane asylums would lose their practice. Life is not given to man to enjoy, but, so far as may be, to use effectively. One who does not recognize this has already lost his spiritual health. Indeed, it is not possible for him to retain even his physical health as he might under conditions of natural activity and reasonable ways of living. The days of our age are threescore years and ten, and some are so strong that they come to fourscore years; yet though there be labor and sorrow in these years of work, still they have been precious: thus we read the ancient saying. Perhaps, indeed, this was its original meaning.

We do well, however, to add at once one limitation. Not all work is of equal value, and there is spurious work which is directed to fictitious ends, and work which is itself fictitious in its form. Much, for instance, of the sewing and embroidering done by cultivated women, much of the parading of soldiers, much of what is called art, like the useless drumming on the piano by persons with no musical sense, a considerable part of the sportsman’s life, and, not least, the time devoted to keeping one’s accounts,—all these are occupations of this fictitious nature. A sagacious and wide-awake person must look for something more satisfying than these. Here also is the reason why factory labor, and, in short, all mechanical occupation in which one does but a part of the work, gives meagre satisfaction, and why an artisan who completes his work, or an agricultural laborer, is, as a rule, much more contented than factory operatives, among whom the social discontent of the modern world first uttered itself. The factory workman sees little of the outcome of his work. It is the machine that works, and he is a part of it. He contributes to the making of one little wheel, but he never makes a whole clock, which might be to him his work of art and an achievement worthy of a man. Mechanical work like this fails to satisfy because it offends that natural consciousness of human worth which the humblest human being feels. On the other hand, the happiest workmen are those who can absolutely lose themselves in their work: the artist whose soul must be wholly occupied with his subject, if he hopes to grasp and reproduce it; the scholar who has no eye for anything beyond his special task. Indeed, the same thing is to be said of those people whom we call “one-idea-ed” and who have created their own little world within one narrow sphere. All these have at least the feeling—sometimes, no doubt, without adequate reason—that they are accomplishing real work for the world; a true, useful, necessary work, which is not mere play; and many such persons, by this continuous, strenuous, and sometimes even physically unhealthy activity, attain great old age, while idle and luxurious men and women of society, who are, perhaps, the least useful and least productive class of the modern world, must devote much of their time to the restoration of their health.

The first thing, then, for our modern world to acquire is the conviction and experience that well-directed work is the necessary and universal condition of physical and intellectual health, and for this reason is the way to happiness. From this it necessarily follows that the idle class is to be regarded, not as a superior and favored class, but as that which they are,—spiritually defective and diseased persons who have lost the right principle for the guidance of their lives. As soon as this opinion becomes general and established, then, and only then, will the better era for the world begin. Until that time, the world will suffer from the excessive work of some, balancing the insufficient work of others, and it still remains a question which of these two types is in reality the more unfortunate.

Why is it then that these principles—to which the experience of thousands of years testifies, which any one, whether he works or does not work, can test for himself, and which all the religions and philosophies preach—have not made their just impression? Why is it, for instance, that there are still thousands of women who defend with much passion many passages of Bible-teaching, and yet, with astonishing composure and in opposition to an express command of the Bible, take one day at the most, or perhaps none at all, for work, and six for refined idleness? All this proceeds in large degree from an irrational division and arrangement of work, which thus ill-arranged may indeed become a positive burden.

And this brings me back to the title of my Essay. Instruction in the art of work is possible only for him who is already convinced of my first proposition, that some work is necessary, and who would gladly give himself to work if it were not that, to his surprise, some hindrance confronts him. Yet, work, like every other art, has its ways of dexterity, by means of which one may greatly lessen its laboriousness; and not only the willingness to work, but even the capacity to work, is so difficult to acquire that many persons fail of it altogether.

The first step, then, toward the overcoming of a difficulty is in recognizing the difficulty. And what is the difficulty which chiefly hinders work? It is laziness. Every man is naturally lazy. It always costs one an effort to rise above one’s customary condition of physical indolence. Moral laziness is, in short, our original sin. No one is naturally fond of work; there are only differences of natural and constitutional excitability. Even the most active-minded, if they yielded to their natural disposition, would amuse themselves with other things rather than with work.

Love of work must, therefore, proceed from a motive which is stronger than the motive of physical idleness. And this motive is to be found in either of two ways. It may be a low motive, as, for instance, a passion like ambition or self-seeking, or, indeed, the sense of necessity, as in the preservation of life; or it may be a high motive, like the sense of duty or love, either for the work itself, or for the persons for whom the work is done. The nobler motive has this advantage, that it is the more permanent and is not dependent on the mere success of work. It does not lose its force either through the disheartening effect of failure, or the satisfying effect of success. Thus it happens that ambitious and self-seeking persons are often very diligent workers, but are seldom continuous and evenly progressive workers. They are almost always content with that which looks like work, if it produce favorable conditions for themselves, although it does nothing of this for their neighbors. Much of our mercantile and industrial activity—and, alas! we must add, much of the work of scholars and artists—has this mark of unreality.

If, then, one were to give to a young man entering into life a word of preliminary counsel, it would be this: Do your work from a sense of duty, or for love of what you are doing, or for love of certain definite persons: attach yourself to some great interest of human life—to a national movement for political liberty; to the extension of the Christian religion; to the elevation of the neglected classes; to the abolition of drunkenness; to the restoration of permanent peace among the nations; to social reform; to ballot reform; to prison reform;—there are plenty of such causes inviting us to-day;—and you will soon discover an impulse proceeding from these causes to yourself; and in addition you will have—what at first is a great help—companionship in your work. There should be no young person, man or woman, to-day among civilized nations who is not actively enlisted in some such army of progress. The only means of elevating and strengthening youth, and training it in perseverance, is this: that early in life one is freed from himself, and does not live for himself alone. Selfishness is always enfeebling, and from it proceeds no work that is strong.

I go on to remark that the most effective instrument to overcome one’s laziness in work is the force of habit. Why should we use this mighty force in the service of our physical nature and not put it to use in our higher life as well? As a matter of fact, one can as well accustom himself to work or to self-control, to virtue, or truthfulness, or generosity, as he can to laziness, or self-indulgence, or extravagance, or exaggeration, or stinginess. And this is to be said further—that no virtue is securely possessed until it has become a habit. Thus it is that as a man trains himself to the habit of work, the resistance of idleness constantly diminishes until at last work becomes a necessity. When this happens, one has become free from a very great part of the troubles of life.

There remain a few elementary rules with which one can the more easily find his way to this habit of work. And first among such rules is the knowing how to begin. The resolution to set oneself to work and to fix one’s whole mind on the matter in hand is really the hardest part of working. When one has once taken his pen or his spade in hand, and has made the first stroke, his whole work has already grown easier. There are people who always find something especially hard about beginning their work, and who are always so busy with preparations, behind which lurks their laziness, that they never apply themselves to their work until they are compelled; and then the intellectual and even the physical excitement roused by the sense of insufficient time in which to do one’s work injures the work itself. Other people wait for some special inspiration, which in reality is much more likely to come by means of, or in the midst of, work itself. It is at least my experience that one’s work, while one is doing it, takes on a different look from that which one anticipated, and that one does not reach so many fruitful and new ideas in his times of rest as he does during the work itself. From all this follows the rule, not to postpone work, or lightly to accept the pretext of physical or intellectual indisposition, but to dedicate a definite and well-considered amount of time every day to one’s work. Then, if the “old man,” as St. Paul calls him, is cunning enough to see that he must in any event do some work at a special time and cannot wholly give himself to rest, he may usually be trusted to resolve to do each day that which for each day is most necessary.

Again, there are a great many men, occupied in intellectual work of a productive kind, who waste their time and lose the happiness of work by devoting themselves to the arrangement of their work, or still oftener, to the introduction of their work. As a general rule, no artistic, or profound, or remote introduction to one’s work is desirable. On the contrary, it usually anticipates unsuitably that which should come later. Even if this be doubted, the advice is at any rate good that one’s introduction and one’s title should be written last. Thus composed, they commonly cost no labor. One makes a beginning much more easily when he starts without any preamble, with that chapter of his work with which he is most familiar. For the same reason, when one reads a book, it is well to omit at the first reading the preface and often the first chapter. For my own part, I never read a preface until I have finished a book, and I discover, almost without exception, that when, after reading the book, I turn back for a look at the preface, I have lost nothing by omitting it. Of course, it must be said that there are books of which the preface is the best part. Of these, however, it may also be said that they are not worth reading at all.

And now I may safely take still another step and add, that, with the exception of an introduction to your work or its central treatment, it is best to begin with that part which is easiest to you. The chief thing is to begin. One may indeed advance less directly in his work by doing it unsystematically, but this loss is more than made good by his gain of time. Under this head also should be added two other rules. One is the law: “Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” Man is endowed with the dangerous gift of imagination, and imagination has a much larger realm than that of one’s capacity. Through one’s imagination one sees his whole work lying before him as a task to be achieved all at once, while his capacity, on the other hand, can conquer its task only by degrees, and must constantly renew its strength. Do your work, then, as a rule, for each day. The morrow will come in its own time, and with it will come the strength for the morrow. The second rule is this: In intellectual work one should, indeed, deal with his material thoroughly; but he should not expect to exhaust his material, so that there shall be nothing further left to say or to read. No man’s strength is in these days sufficient for absolute thoroughness. The best principle is to be completely master of a relatively small region of research; and to deal with the larger inquiries only in their essential features. He who tries to do too much usually accomplishes too little.

A further condition of good work is this,—that one should not persist in working when work has lost its freshness and pleasure. I have already said that one may begin without pleasure, for otherwise one, as a rule, would not begin at all. But one should stop as soon as his work itself brings fatigue. This does not mean that one should, for this reason, stop all work, but only that he should stop the special kind of work which is fatiguing him. Change in work is almost as refreshing as complete rest. Indeed, without this characteristic of human nature, we should hardly accomplish anything.

Again, in order to be able to do much work, one must economize one’s force, and the practical means to this is by wasting no time on useless activities. I can hardly make plain how much pleasure and power for work is lost by this form of wastefulness. First of all, among such ways of wasting time should be reckoned the excessive reading of newspapers; and to this should be added the excessive devotion to societies and meetings. An immense number of people, for instance, begin their morning, the best time they have for work, with the newspaper, and end their day quite as regularly in some club or meeting. They read each morning the whole of a paper, or perhaps of several papers, but it would be hard, as a rule, to say what intellectual acquisition remained the next day from such reading. This, at least, is certain, that after one has finished his paper, he experiences a certain disinclination for work, and snatches up another paper, if it happen to be within reach. Any one, therefore, who desires to do much work must carefully avoid all useless occupation of his mind, and, one may even add, of his body. He must reserve his powers for that which it is his business to do.

Finally, and for intellectual work,—with which throughout I am specially concerned,—there is one last and important help. It is the habit of reviewing, and revising, one’s material. Almost every intellectual work is at first grasped only in its general outlines, and then, as one attacks it a second time, its finer aspects reveal themselves, and the appreciation of them becomes more complete. One’s chief endeavor, then, should be, as a famous writer of our day remarks, “not to achieve the constant productiveness which permits itself no pause, but rather to lose oneself in that which one would create. Hence issues the desire to reproduce one’s ideal in visible forms. External industry, the effort to grasp one’s material and promptly master it,—these are, indeed, obvious conditions of authorship, but they are of less value than that higher and spiritual industry which steadily works toward an unattained end.”

The conception of work, thus excellently stated, meets a final difficulty which our discussion has already recognized. For work, under this view, maintains continuity, in spite of and even during one’s necessary rest. Here is the ideal of the highest work. The mind works continuously, when it has once acquired the genuine industry which comes through devotion to one’s task. In fact, it is curious to notice how often, after pauses in one’s work not excessively prolonged, one’s material has unconsciously advanced. Everything has grown spontaneously. Many difficulties seem suddenly disposed of, one’s first supply of ideas is multiplied, assumes picturesqueness, and lends itself to expression; so that the renewal of one’s work occurs with ease, as though it were merely the gathering of fruit which in the interval had ripened without effort of our own.

This, then, is a second reward of work, in addition to that which one commonly recognizes. Only he who works knows what enjoyment and refreshment are. Rest which does not follow work is like eating without appetite. The best, the pleasantest, and the most rewarding—and also the cheapest—way of passing the time is to be busy with one’s work. And as matters stand in the world to-day, it seems reasonable to anticipate that at the end of our century some social revolution will make those who are then at work the ruling class; just as at the beginning of the last century a social revolution gave to industrious citizens their victory over the idle nobility and the idle priests. Wherever any social class sinks into idleness, subsisting like those idlers of the past on incomes created by the work of others, there such non-productive citizens again must yield. The ruling class of the future must be the working class.

II. HOW TO FIGHT THE BATTLES OF LIFE

II. HOW TO FIGHT THE BATTLES OF LIFE

MANY people in our day—even well-intentioned people—have lost their faith in idealism. They regard it as a respectable form of philosophy for the education of the young, but as a creed of little use in later life. Theoretically, they say, and for purposes of education, idealism has much to commend it, but, practically, things turn out to be brutally material. Thus such persons divide life into two parts, in one of which we may indulge ourselves in fine theories and sentiments, and, indeed, are to be encouraged in them; and in the other of which we wake rudely from this dream and deal with reality as best we can. Kant, in one of his briefer writings, dealt a hundred years ago with this state of mind. He examined the phrase which was even then familiar: “That may be well enough in theory, but does not work in practice”; and he showed that it expressed an absurd contradiction unworthy of a thinking being.

The logical realism of our day, however, is not concerned with theoretical propositions. It turns, on the contrary, to the hard fact of the struggle for existence, in which indifference to others and absolute self-interest are not only permissible, but, as one looks at the real conditions of life, seem more or less positively demanded. These modern realists say: “The world we see about us is one where only a few can succeed and where many must fail. There are not good things enough for all. The question is not whether such a state of things is right or just. On the contrary, it must be admitted to be a hard, unreasonable, unjust universe. It is not for the individual, however, set without consent of his own in such a universe, to change it. His only problem is to make it certain that in such a universe he is ‘the hammer, not the anvil.’”

Such is the essence of that worldly wisdom which is the creed of many cultivated people to-day. With it disappears, of course, any need of moral or religious education. Such instruction in schools might as well be abandoned. Indeed, Saint-Just made the original suggestion that instead of such instruction there should be substituted the daily study of the placards posted on the street corners which announce the police regulations of the government as to the conduct of life. Under such a theory of education, young people would grow immensely clever and practical. They would be trained to get and to keep. They would be free from every sentiment of honor which might be a hindrance in their path. Most of them, it must be confessed, would, early in life, lose physical, intellectual, and moral vigor, and others would lament, perhaps too late, that their youth had been sacrificed to that which was not worth their seeking. At the best, they would acquire but uncertain possessions to be defended daily against a thousand competitors, and these possessions would bring bitterness along with them, both to those who have them and to those who have them not. Peace and happiness would be secured to no one. Such seems to be the issue of this view of life which is now so common among us, and which we call the view of the “practical” man.

But what is idealism? It is, as I understand it, a form of faith, an inward conviction. It is absolutely necessary for the permanence of the world; yet it never can be proved true, and indeed for him who has it needs no proof. Further, no one becomes an idealist by being taught about it or by reasoning concerning it. Nor is this so strange as it might seem, for the very trustworthiness of the human reason itself is proved to us only by experience. The very truths of religion remain unproved unless the moral power which issues from them provides their proof. That which has power must have reality. No other proof of reality is final. Even our senses could not convince us, if our experience and the experience of all other men did not assure us that we could—not unconditionally, but under normal conditions—trust them not to deceive. That which brings conviction to one is his experience, and that which rouses in him the desire and the inward disposition to believe in his own experience is the testimony of others who have had that experience themselves.

There is a short treatise, written by one who in his youth was a friend of Goethe’s,—the Russian General von Klinger,—which gives its testimony in a few words concerning this idealism in practical life. It may be found in von Klinger’s rarely opened works, under the title: “How it is possible without deceit, and even in constant conflict with evil, to overcome the world.” Its contents are simply a series of weighty aphorisms, of which I select a few:

“First of all,” says von Klinger, “one who would overcome the world must give up thinking of what people call happiness, and must with all his might, without indirectness, or fear, or self-seeking, simply do his duty. He must, that is to say, be pure in mind and heart, so that none of his actions shall be stained by selfishness. Where justice and right-dealing are called for, there must be in him no distinction of great or small, of significant or insignificant....

“Secondly, for the protection of his own strength and his purity of conduct, he must be free from the desire to shine, free from the shallowness of vanity and the restless search for fame and power. Most human follies proceed from the restlessness of ambition. Ambition demoralizes both those whom it masters and those through whom it accomplishes its ends. The boldest and most candid criticism does not wound so deeply as does the foolish longing for praise....

“Again, one who is thus pure in motive will permit himself to be conspicuous only when and where his duty demands it. For the rest, he will live a life of seclusion in his family, with few friends, among his books, and in the world of the spirit. Thus he avoids that conflict with others about trifles which to many persons are of such absorbing concern. One may be pardoned for eccentricity in such affairs by having no place at all among them. His life does not touch the circle of society, and he asks of society only to let him do his duty, and then to be permitted to live in peace. It may be that he will thus stir others to envy or to hate, but it will be an envy and hate too petty for expression, or at any rate ineffective for harm. He who has thus withdrawn from trifles gets much out of life. Indeed, he gets more than he expects and more than he has intended; for he finally gains that which men in its coarser sense call happiness....

“To all this,” says von Klinger, “I add another point: that one must withhold himself from all ambition to pose as a reformer and from all signs of that desire. He must not enter into controversy about opinions with people who have nothing but opinions. He must speak of himself only to himself and think of himself only in himself.... I have developed,” concludes von Klinger, “my own character and my own inner experience as my power and disposition have permitted; and so far as I have done this seriously and honestly, so far has come to me of itself what men call happiness and prosperity. I have observed myself more deeply than others and dealt with myself more unsparingly than with others. I have never played a part, never felt inclined thereto, and have ever expressed the convictions I have reached without fear, and have held them fast, so that I now no more fear the possibility of being or doing other than my convictions demand. One is safe from the temptations of others only when one can no more tempt himself. I have borne many responsibilities, but at the conclusion of each I have passed the rest of my time in the profoundest solitude and the most complete obscurity.”[1]

The author of these weighty aphorisms was dealing especially with political life. He does not seek for them any philosophical basis. He offers them simply as the result of his stirring and often adventurous career, and as such his testimony is far more valuable than if it had issued from the closet of a philosopher or a theologian who had slight contact with practical affairs. It is not my intention to translate these suggestions into abstract form and make them less real and persuasive. I only desire to annotate them with a few practical comments.

I. Concerning von Klinger’s first proposition, it is to be said that true idealism is not the deceiving of oneself concerning reality, or the intentional ignoring of reality, or the hiding from reality, or the creating for oneself a world of unreality. Idealism, on the contrary, is reached by a deeper interpretation of the world, by victory over it and especially by victory over oneself. For we, too, are an integral part of the world and we cannot conquer the whole unless, first of all, we conquer our own part of it, by strength of principles and force of habit. Hence issues that right judgment of success which von Klinger lays down. One of our own contemporaries, Thiers, a man who had in high degree attained success, and who at certain points in his life pursued it with excessive zeal, once made this striking remark: “Men of principle need not succeed. Success is necessary only to schemers.” In other words, a genuine victory over the world is not to be achieved through that kind of success which the French call succès and which for many men makes the end of effort. He who plays this game of ambition may as well abandon the hope of peace of mind or of peace with others, and in most cases he must forfeit outright his self-respect.

Real success in life, then, the attainment of the highest human perfection and of true and fruitful activity, necessarily and repeatedly involves outward failure. Success, to von Klinger, means an honorable career with victory at its close. The work of life is regarded in its wholeness, as a brave and honorable man should wish and hope it to be. Unbroken success is necessary only for cowards. Indeed, one may go further and say that the secret of the highest success in important affairs often lies in failure. The men who have most completely commanded the admiration of the world, and who are most conspicuous in history, are not those who have reached the goal of life through success alone. Cæsar and Napoleon would have been remembered only as examples of tyranny if it had not been for Brutus, Waterloo and St. Helena. The Maid of Orléans would be recalled as a masterful woman like many others had it not been for her martyrdom. Hannibal would be no noble example if Carthage had conquered. A traitor like Charles I. of England is still held in high honor by many persons who cannot endure the memory of the most heroic character in modern history,—Cromwell. Had Cromwell died on the scaffold and Charles on the throne, this estimate of them would have been reversed. The life of the Emperor Frederick III. is another example and will be a still more impressive one as the better future looks back on it. The greatest example of all, the cross, the gallows of its time, became for all the world a sign of honor and subdued to itself the power of Rome. Looking at Christianity in a wholly human and untheological way, one may believe that its unexampled success would not have been possible if the scholars and scribes of that day had welcomed it. Something of such failure comes with all right ways of life. Without it, life sinks in the rut of commonplace. This kind of failure should not bear the common reproach of misfortune. It is, on the contrary, the crown of thorns which marks the way of the cross, and proves to be the true crown after all.

II. Concerning the second aphorism of von Klinger’s there is this to add: that no self-seeking person ever reaches the end he most desires. It is surprising to see what one may accomplish when he gives his attention and energy wholly to the doing of one thing. Examples of this kind of success meet us at every turn. What these persons at heart desire, however, is not the wealth, or honor, or power, or learning which they reach. They prize these possessions only as the necessary prerequisites for happiness. What is it, then, of which they must first of all be convinced? It is the truth that happiness does not come through these possessions, that, in fact, these possessions are likely to bring unhappiness. When this conviction is attained, then, at last, the self-seeking spirit will perhaps abandon its aim.

Of all self-seekers, the most unfortunate are to be found among the educated. When they stand on the lower rung of the ladder which they wish to climb, they are consumed by envy of those above them; and of all the emotions which degrade a man in his own eyes the most humiliating is envy. When, on the other hand, they have climbed to the top, then they are distressed by the constant fear of those who are climbing toward them and whose thoughts and purposes they well know from their own experience. If they seek safety by surrounding themselves by flatterers, then they are never safe from betrayal; for if they seem likely to fall, no one cares to hold them up. If, finally, they shut their ears to these disturbing voices within their hearts and give themselves to self-indulgence, then they lose the very qualities which are most essential to success.

Besides all this, the chances of success for the self-seeker are slight. Not one in ten attains what he desires, and, even of those whom we call fortunate, few should be so reckoned until they die. It is not necessary to cite examples of such failure. The daily paper reports them to us every morning. Long ago one of the prophets of Israel described this unsatisfying result of life and effort in classic words which we may well repeat: “Ye have sown much, and bring in little; ye eat, but ye have not enough; ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink; ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes.”

Still further, nothing is so exhausting as this self-seeking effort. The passion which it develops is like an access of fever which burns away one’s vitality. The strength of health, on the other hand, renews itself through self-forgetting work; and thrives on unselfish service done for worthy ends. Only in such service are other people sincerely inclined to help. Thus it happens that some people, though they work hard and never retire to the health-resorts, still live to a robust old age, while other people spend half the year or perhaps the whole of it at the baths and remain without rest. The many nervous diseases of our time are for the most part caused by the self-centred life, and their real cure must be through a renewal in health of mind and will.

III. As to von Klinger’s third suggestion, it is to be said that the inclination to solitude is absolutely necessary not only for happiness, but for the tranquil development of one’s spiritual life. The happiness which can really be attained, and which is independent of all changes, is to be found in a life given to great thoughts and in a work peacefully directed toward great ends. Such a life is, however, necessarily withdrawn from fruitless sociability. As Goethe says, “To such a life, all else is vanity and illusion.” It is by such a course of life that one by degrees escapes from the fickleness and moodiness of life. He learns not to take people too seriously. He comes to regard with tranquillity the shifting changes of opinions and inclinations. So far as his inclination goes and his duties permit, he would rather shun popularity than seek it.

IV. As to the last of von Klinger’s paragraphs, it may be said to contain the philosophy of his life. Looking at people as individuals, their lives appear full of contrasts; but taking them all together, their lives are in fact much alike. One section of humanity, of high and of low estate, lives either consciously or unconsciously a merely animal life. Such persons simply follow the path which their physical nature indicates, fulfilling their little span of life, and knowing no other destiny. Another group is ever seeking some escape from this unsatisfying end of life. Dante, in the first canto of his Divine Comedy, very beautifully describes these seekers for the better life; and this search makes in reality the spiritual experience of all great personalities.

The first step in this way of life is taken when one becomes discontented with life as it is and longs for something better. One’s reason seeks an outlet from the labyrinth of the world and at last from sheer weariness resolves, at any cost, to forsake the world’s ways and to seek peace. When one has come to this resolution, then he is on the way to salvation, and experiences that inner happiness which one gains who has found at last the way he ought to go. And, indeed, this man is essentially saved; for he is now open to the unhindered influences of new spiritual forces, against which in his early life his will had set itself.

Yet, as a matter of fact, he is only ready for his second step. It is the long conflict for supremacy between what the Apostle calls “the old and the new man.” Both of them are in him still and his problem is to realize the “new man” and bring it to fulness of life. Many people who are striving for the better life come to this second step and stay there all their days; and this is the reason why so many lives which are rightly directed still give the impression of imperfection, and why they do not seem to contribute much—though often more than we think—to the ennobling of human relationships.

There remains the third step of spiritual growth, which, once fairly taken, leads to the complete interpretation of life. It is the stage of practical activity, the participating in the creation of a spiritual kingdom. Sometimes it has been likened to the taking part in a great work of architecture, sometimes to the enlistment in an active war. Nothing less than this life of unselfish service can bring to the individual true content. So long as one lives for himself and is considering, even in the highest and noblest way, his own self-culture, there lingers in him some taint of his original selfishness, or, at best, he but half sees his way. As Goethe has expressed it: “While one strives, he errs.” This self-directed effort must, at last, cease. Nothing is more untrue, nothing is more fundamentally disheartening, than the maxim of Lessing which so many have admired, according to which endless effort after truth is to be preferred to the possession of the truth. One might as well say that endless thirst, or endless cold, was more acceptable than the finding of a refreshing fountain or the warmth of the quickening sun.

Here then, in this attitude of life, removed from religious or philosophical restlessness, is the path to continuous inward peace and power. It leads, first of all, to humility and to freedom from self-complacency. It is possible to hold to this path through the midst of all natural ills; it is the best way that life has to offer. What the happiness is which one then finds is hard to communicate to another. It comes of ceasing to think first of all of oneself. It has, as Rothe says, “no private business to transact.” It does its work tranquilly, with absolute certainty that, though the issue of its work may be unrecognized, still it is secure. This way of life brings with it courage, and this courage manifests itself, not in feverish excitement, but in an outward habit of composure which testifies to inward and central stability. Such a life trusts its way and its destiny. Outward experiences and the judgments of other men have no power to move it. It is, perhaps, not essential that in the education of youth these truths should be urgently pressed, for they may easily appear visionary and in such a matter all appearance of obscurity and unreality is to be deplored. God permits only high-minded souls, like von Klinger, fully to attain this way of life.

We need not discuss whether all this should be called idealism—a name which would drive many clever people from its acceptance. Whatever it may be named, it is a faith which has brought to those who have confidently given themselves to it greater inward peace than is found in any more familiar creed. It needs but slight observation of life or of history to be convinced of this. And yet, I fear, most of my readers may be more inclined to say with King Agrippa: “Almost thou persuadest me,” little as Agrippa profited by the success he attained.

A German poet sums up the richness of this spiritual peace, which men like von Klinger exhibit, in lines which I thus slightly adapt:

“Outward life is light and shadow,
Mingled wrong and struggling right,
But within the outward trouble
Shines a healing, inward light.

Not to us may come fulfilment,
Not below our struggles cease,
Yet the heavenly vision gives us,
Even here, an inward peace.”

III. GOOD HABITS

III. GOOD HABITS

THE most important experience which, sooner or later, meets every thoughtful person, both in his own intellectual development and in his observation of others, is this,—that every act, and, indeed, every definite thought, leaves behind it an inclination which is like a material influence, and which makes the next similar thought, or act, easier, and the next dissimilar thought, or act, more difficult. This is the curse of evil conduct,—that it ever brings forth more evil conduct; and this too is the sure and chief reward of good conduct,—that it strengthens the tendency to good and makes permanent what has been gained. Here is the solemn and tragic fact which lies behind all human life,—that what we have once done we can never change. There it remains, just as it happened, little as we may be inclined to believe, or to admit, that it is there. And hence it is that history truly written is no entertaining drama, ending in general reconciliation and embrace, but a tragedy which describes the movement of destiny.

If, then, one begins thus to take life seriously, he will soon observe that its main problem does not concern its thought or its faith, still less any outward confession which may leave the soul within quite undisturbed. The real problem of life is simply and solely one of habit, and the end of all education should be to train people to inclinations toward good. To choose discreetly between good and evil is not always practicable, for human passions are sometimes too strong; but what may be developed is a prompt and spontaneous instinct for the good; and the ideal of human life is one in which all that is good has become sheer habit, and all that is bad is so contrary to nature, that it gives one even a physically perceptible and painful shock. Failing this, all that one calls virtue or piety is but a series of those good intentions with which the path to evil, as to good, may be paved.

What, then, are the most important of good habits? I propose to name a few, not in any systematic fashion; for of systems of morals the modern world seems to have had more than enough, and it is much more likely to give some attention to purely practical suggestions based on practical experience.

The first and chief rule seems to be this,—that one should try rather to cultivate good habits than merely negatively to escape from bad ones. It is much easier in the inner life, as in the outer, to attack positively than to repel defensively; for in aggressive conduct every success brings joy, while in mere resistance much of one’s effort seems to have no positive result. The main point to be gained is the habit of prompt resolution, directed immediately toward action. What Voltaire said of the history of nations is in large degree true of human life: “I have noticed that destiny in every case depends upon the act of a moment.”

The second principle of good habits is fearlessness. Perhaps this is not possible to acquire in a high degree without a strong religious faith. This I will not discuss. It is, at any rate, certain that fear is not only the least agreeable of human emotions, so that one should at any cost conquer it, but that it is also the most superfluous. For fear does not prevent the approach of that which is feared; it only exhausts beforehand the strength which one needs to meet the thing he fears. Most of the things which we fear to meet are not in reality so terrible as they appear to be when looked at from afar. When they meet us, they can be borne. The imagination is inclined to picture evils as more permanent and persistent than they are really to be. If, as one’s trouble approached, he should say to himself: “This is likely to last about three days,” one would in many cases be justified by the event, and, at any rate, would proceed to meet the trouble with a better courage. On the whole, the best defence against fear which philosophy can provide is the conviction that every fear is a symptom of some wrong condition in ourselves. If one search for that weakness and rid himself of it, then, for the most part, fear will vanish also.

Beyond this philosophical defence from fear, however, lie certain spiritual conditions of courage. The chief of these is determining for oneself what are the best blessings of life. First of all, one must acquire as soon as possible the habit of preferring the better things to the worse. He must especially abandon the expectation of possessing at the same time different things which are contradictory of each other. Here is the secret of failure in many a career. In my opinion, a man may not only freely choose his aims in life, but he may attain all those aims which he seriously and wholly desires, provided that for the sake of this desire he is ready to surrender all other desires which are inconsistent with it. The best possessions one can have in life, and the things which, with reasonable sagacity, are the easiest to get, are these: firm moral principles, intellectual discipline, love, loyalty, the capacity for work and the enjoyment of it, spiritual and physical health, and very moderate worldly possessions. No other blessings can be compared with these, and some other possessions are inconsistent with these—for instance, great wealth, great worldly honor and power, habitual self-indulgence. These are the things which people commonly most desire, and which they very often attain, but they must always be attained through the surrender of the better things.

One must, therefore, promptly and unhesitatingly determine to surrender the desire for wealth, honor, and luxury, and to take in their place other possessions. Without this determination, there can be no religious or philosophical basis of spiritual education. What seems to be spiritual development ends in unreality, vacillation, at last hypocrisy. It must be confessed that even the best of men are, as a rule, but half-hearted in making this fundamental resolution. They give up under compulsion one or another fragment of their desires. Few are sagacious enough to foresee the choice which sooner or later must be made, and free themselves while they are still young from their prolonged perplexity by one quick and sublime decision.

A further obstacle to any worthy life is the desire for praise, or for pleasure. The man who is dominated by either of these motives is simply a slave of the opinions or tastes of others. Both of these desires must be, without compromise, expelled, and sympathy, which one has always at his command, must take their place. For, if the lower desires have been cast out and no higher impulses enter, then we have simply an unendurable emptiness in life. “When the unclean spirit,” says the Gospel, “is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.... Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

Thus, at any cost, and even for the sake of one’s own soul, one must make it his habit to cultivate love for others, not first of all inquiring whether they deserve that love or not—a question which is often too hard to answer. For without love life is without joy, especially when one has outgrown his youth. Lacking love, we sink into indifference, and indifference passes easily into aversion, and one’s aversions so poison life that life is no better than death.

Further, our dislikes must be directed, not against people, but against things. Good and evil are too much mingled in persons to be justly distinguished, and each unjust judgment reacts upon those who have permitted themselves to be unjust and embitters their lives. Therefore, permit neither your philosophy nor your experience to crowd out of your life the power to love. Dismiss the preliminary question of another’s right to be loved. Love is the only way of keeping one’s inner life in peace, and of maintaining an interest in people and in things. Without it, both people and things become by degrees an annoyance and affront. Thus love is, at the same time, the highest worldly wisdom. One who loves is always, though unconsciously, wiser than one who does not. If you incline to say with the poet:

“This is my creed and this will ever be,

To love and hate as others may treat me!”

live for a while by this creed, and you will learn soon enough how much of hate and how little of love you are likely to receive.

In all the points thus far indicated, and especially in the last, there is no place for half-way conduct. There must be a complete and absolute decision, with no petty and clever computations of consequences. And in addition to these more decisive rules of habit, there are many smaller ones which go to reinforce and make practicable the larger principles. For instance, there is the Gospel command: “Let the dead bury their dead.” The dead are the best people to do this work. If one refrain from controversy about what is past and gone, then one may give himself to tasks of positive construction, and not merely to that destructive work which, even if it be essential, should be subordinate. Many a memorial has been dedicated to those who destroy which should have been reserved for those who fulfil.

And yet, one must not let himself be cheated. He must not even be thought to be easily duped. He must let the would-be clever people know that he reads their thoughts and knows what they are seeking. One may, as I have already said, read such thoughts quite thoroughly if one be no longer blinded by any selfishness of his own.

Apart from this degree of self-defence, which is so far necessary, the better plan in general is to see the good side of people and to take for granted that there is good in them. Then it not only happens that they often make the effort to be good and become actually better through one’s appreciation of them, but it also happens that one is saved from a personal experience of regret or distress. For intercourse with persons whom one recognizes as bad, demoralizes one’s own nature, and in the case of sensitive persons may go so far as to have even a physical effect. What is bad needs no severity of criticism or of reproach. In most cases it needs only to be brought to the light. Then, even if the man protest that he is not bad, his conscience judges him. Therefore, when one must blame others, he should proceed with great calmness, speak of the matter without disguise and without glossing, but simply and without passion. Passionate reproaches seldom do good, and good people who lack sympathy are apt to be very trying. There is a kind of virtuous character not unfamiliar in some Protestant circles which to those who differ from its convictions seems to have no capacity for love. It is especially aggravating to young people, so that they often prefer the company of the vicious to that of moral but cold-blooded friends.

Finally, it may not appear possible for you to be equally friendly with everybody. Well, then, discriminate among people, but always in favor of the humble, the poor, the simple, the uneducated, the children, even the animals and plants. Never, on the other hand, if you desire a quiet mind, seek the favor of important people, and never expect gratitude for condescension to the humble, but count the love they have for you as precious as you do your love for them.

There are many other of these lesser instances of good habits which I might still further mention, and if my reader should recall them, he is not to regard them as unrecognized by me. I only invite him, in the first place, to put to practical use my list as thus far suggested. As he does so, let him notice—as he soon must notice—that it is much more to his purpose to begin practically with one good habit than to begin by making a complete catalogue of all. The real difficulty in this cultivation of good habits—indeed the only difficulty—is in ridding the heart of its natural selfishness. For selfishness is the practical obstacle to good habits, though it may pretend to believe in them. No one who understands himself will deny that there is in every one a curious tendency to moral degeneration. It is often something that literally borders on depravity. Now, this inclination to evil is to be conquered only by a superior force; and the whole problem, both of philosophy and of religion,—a problem as old as the world and yet new with each individual,—is summed up in the question: “Where shall I find this superior force which shall make me inclined to goodness and shall renew that spiritual health which is essential for the right conduct of life?”

To this question, there are still given many different answers. Dante, in the famous twenty-seventh canto of the Purgatorio, says:

“When underneath us was the stairway all
Run o’er, and we were on the highest step,
Virgilius fastened upon me his eyes,
And said:

By intellect and art I here have brought thee.”[2]

By the guidance of reason, then, the traveller has been led to the Holy Mountain, where at last he hears his guide say:

“Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;

Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.”

And yet—and here we notice a marked inconsistency in the great mediæval poet and philosopher—it is an angel who bears these mortal souls across the sea and brings them to the foot of this mountain, and another angel repeatedly restrains them from returning on their way, even when they have passed the Gate of Grace; and by the diamond threshold, beyond which none may pass without his bidding, sits a third angel, to whom one may approach only by a miracle of God’s grace. In all this journey, then, the “intellect and art” which accompany the traveller play, we must confess, a very limited rôle.

This great question, however, of the moral dynamic is, for the moment, not my theme, and its answer is, I doubt not, to be finally reached only by the way of personal experience. Only this is to be said, once more, that one’s self-discipline begins with the discipline of the will. First of all comes the definite resolution to pursue one worthy end of life with singleness of mind and to turn from all that is opposed to it. Given this decision of the will, and there follows the capacity to act. And this search is not in vain, when one determines to make it a universal and an unreserved search, and to recognize the power that is attained as the only possible proof that the right way has been found. Whatever brings with it no sense of supporting, calming, ethical power is not true, and whatever does contribute this power must, at least, have some degree of truth in it. In the future, any philosophy of life which proposes to be more effective than our present philosophy must meet this test. All else leads astray.

“Why is it that we shrink away
When death, our friend, draws near some day?
We see the shadowy presence stand,
But not the gift within the hand!
So shrinks from love the human heart
As though, like death, love came to part,
For where love enters, self must die
And life find love its destiny.
O death of self! Pass like the night,
And waken us from death to light!”

IV. THE CHILDREN OF THIS
WORLD ARE WISER THAN THE
CHILDREN OF LIGHT

IV. THE CHILDREN OF THIS
WORLD ARE WISER THAN THE
CHILDREN OF LIGHT

I  DO not question the truth of this text, but I cannot fail to observe in it the most familiar defence of worldly wisdom against the spirit of idealism. The objection to idealism which we most commonly hear is this, that it is well enough in theory, but that it does not work in practice; and if it be really true that worldly wisdom and idealism are irreconcilable, then most people must hold to the first. They have to live on this earth, and to deal with life as it is; they must accept the inevitable, even though it costs them a moment of deep regret to abandon their idealism. This world calls for worldly wisdom; another world may be blessed with light—on this stone of stumbling many a life which has already overcome the common temptation of selfishness is still wrecked and lost.

The first thing that strikes us, then, in this dangerous text is its high appreciation of what it calls the children of this world. Indeed, these people are never so severely handled by Christ as are the priests and the devout Pharisees of his time. Such sayings as: “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,” are not uttered against the children of this world. The children of this world know what they want and pursue the end they set before themselves with energy and persistence, putting away all that stands between them and it; and this the children of light, at least in their earlier stages of development, seldom do. Still further, the children of this world are not wholly impervious to the higher motives of life. Their hearts are not the rock where the good seed falls in vain. They are merely the soil which is choked by other growth, where the seed takes root but cannot prosper. The children of this world may at any rate claim that it is not they who have built the crosses and scaffolds for the servants of the truth.

We must not then think of the children of this world as absolutely bad or as unappreciative of the excellent. On the contrary, they are generally better than they pretend to be, and among them are many persons who are, as it were, hypocrites reversed; who conceal, that is to say, their best thoughts. What they lack is commonly the courage to be good. They do not have a sufficiently substantial confidence in the moral order of the world to guide them in the struggle for existence. And, in fact, this assurance of the moral order does not at first sight appear to be justified. On the contrary, one who deserts the wisdom of the world must anticipate, first of all, that he will be deserted by the world and that he will not improbably pass the greater part of his life in uncertainty whether he has chosen the better path. Such is the testimony of all who have practically followed this path and have not merely heard of it or preached about it. Thus, the children of this world are simply the people who prefer to travel the common and well-known road. The unfamiliar path may appear to them in theory very beautiful and sublime, but they do not find it a practicable path to follow.

It is still more difficult to say who are the children of light. It is true that the Gospels sometimes mention them, but what is the meaning of the light of which the Gospels speak? Whence comes it, and how does it shine into the life of men? Here we touch at once the greatest of human problems. Whence come we? Whither do we go? What is our destiny? All that can be said in plain words of the children of light is this: that they are seeking that which is beyond reality, and are receptive to the suggestions of the ideal world. The children of light are those who supremely desire something better than to eat and drink and to-morrow die. This is the motive which most stirs their hearts and wills, and out of this desire comes to them by degrees, first, faith, and then conviction.

This way to the light is in a certain degree indicated in the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”; and it is more precisely described in the Gospel of Luke: “If thy whole body be full of light, the whole shall be full of light”—a passage whose exact meaning no one has clearly determined. Beyond such evidence as this one can hardly go; for, if we do, the children of this world, who know nothing of such experiences and regard them as extravagances or worse, will at the best turn away like Felix and the Athenians, saying: “We will hear thee again of this matter”; having no more inclination than Felix to be further drawn into such disturbing and unprofitable discussions. The dreams of the children of light, they will say, lead to nothing and had better be forgotten.

It must be sadly confessed that a great part of religious instruction has been singularly unfruitful. Indeed, religion cannot be imparted by instruction. It assumes not only a faith in that which is beyond the world of knowledge, but also a faith in the teachers of religion. The teachers of religion, therefore, can, at the best, only produce in one a kind of mental disposition. They can free the mind from disinclination to their view or from positive incapacity to share it, and they can fortify conviction by their teaching. This limitation in religious instruction has more than one cause. It sometimes happens because the hearer’s way of life is inconsistent with idealism. It is also, and quite as often, caused by a false definition of religion—the notion that religion is a matter of doctrine, a kind of science which can be taught and learned.

Wherein, then, it will be asked, lies the advantage of the wisdom of the light over the wisdom of this world? Surely, the wisdom of the world is a more obvious possession, and guarantees to us more of the good things of life than the children of light can secure. The advantage of the children of light, I answer, is threefold. It is to be found, first, in the assurance that they are the possessors of truth and are made thereby inwardly and wholly at peace. Lessing, in his well-known words, announced that truth was not a thing which men should desire to possess. Happiness, he conceived, was to be found in the search for truth, not in its possession. But the possession of the truth brings with it the only true happiness—a happiness which is abundant and unspeakable, and which no man who has in any degree obtained it would exchange for all the other good things of earth. For the fundamental question is not of possessing any definite outward thing, but of the inward happiness attained through that possession. Even the selfish, the envious, and the self-indulgent do not regard that which they want to possess as their real aim. It is only in their eyes the essential means to the real end, and that end is their own inward happiness. And this is precisely where they are self-deceived. For there is this solemn fact about the order of the world, which reveals itself to every candid observer,—that such people may attain all that they earnestly desire, yet not attain with it their own peace. Their attainment itself, their very success, becomes their punishment. All this may be perhaps somewhat hard to understand, but for the moment it may be accepted merely as a working hypothesis, and one may later observe in life whether it is not true. It is by using thus a working hypothesis that even natural science most easily reaches the truth.

The second advantage which the spirit of the truth, as we may paraphrase it, has over the wisdom of this world is this: that when brought to the test it is in reality much wiser than worldly wisdom. Nothing but the wisdom of the children of light is in harmony with the real laws of the universe. That is the reason why these seemingly unwise persons still for the most part pass through the experiences of life with less trouble and harm than the wise of this world. The consciences of the children of light are undisturbed, and a troubled conscience embitters the best joys. They pass through life also with much less hurry, worry, and fear, both of people and of events. None of these distresses of life is to be escaped except through this frame of mind. Finally, they live more peacefully—not only in their own hearts, but also with other people—because they live without the passions, hatreds, and jealousies which make life hard to endure. Even those who do not desire for themselves this habit of mind, and are not indeed capable of it, as soon as they are convinced that the children of light mean what they seem, that their attitude is not merely a cloak to cover the wisdom of the world, and that they are not vain and supercilious, grow more attached to these “Idealists” than to people like themselves. The affection which goes out toward such persons is quite beyond parallel. It is the reverence, for instance, felt toward characters like Nicolaus von Flüe, or Francis of Assisi, or Catherine of Siena, or in our own time Gordon Pasha. Thousands, for example, in all lands deeply lamented General Gordon’s death and felt it to be a national disaster, although they had not the least notion of following his life. It is a form of sentiment which the most distinguished and most successful political ruler of our own time does not inspire. Persons like these, just because they have denied themselves what seem to others the good things of life and have abandoned the competition for them, have become the true rulers of their people and the heroes of humanity. Truth, happiness, freedom from fear and care, peace with oneself and with all men, the sincere respect and affection of all,—one would think that these might be recognized as beyond a doubt the good things of life, compared with which the accumulation of wealth, the increase of honor, and the resources of luxury have no weight or significance. Indeed, the blessings of the children of light would outweigh the rewards of worldly wisdom, even if these rewards could be attained with certainty and without the bitterness, anxiety, and rivalry which inevitably accompany them.

Lastly, these ideal possessions have this further advantage,—that when attained, they are secure; and that they are within any one’s power to attain. One need only desire them seriously and wholly, and cease from a hesitating dependence on the wisdom and the successes of this world, and then, as many witnesses will testify from their own experience, the blessings of the children of light are surely attained. It may not be through one effort. Indeed, in most cases, it only happens after one or more crises in one’s life—crises which are in fact not unlike death itself, and in which a man renounces all his early hopes. In such a crisis, however, the worst of the way of light is passed. In everything else it is a much easier and more agreeable way than the worldly way, and one is sure to meet much better company.

Christ has compared his way of life to the bearing of a yoke, and indeed it always is a yoke; but compared with other ways of life, it is a much easier and lighter yoke. That is the testimony of all, without exception, who have ever borne that yoke, and not one single person has ever been found who, at the end of such a life, whatever may have been its outward circumstances, has looked back upon it with regret, or has confessed that the way of the world was better and happier. On the other hand, how many there have been since the days of King Solomon who have come to the end of a life which, to the wisdom of this world, seemed successful and free, and have found it only “vanity of vanities.”

One would think that this single fact of human experience would be decisive. It fails of its effect only, as we know, because the lower wisdom withholds one from that higher wisdom which ventures the larger gain for the higher stake. Yet, I will not reproach those who follow the lower wisdom. I simply leave it to the reader’s own reflection to decide whether, on weighing the case as he best can, and considering the conditions in which human life is ordinarily placed, he will do better to choose the lower or the higher way. For, after all, the most foolish people are beyond question those who follow this pilgrimage of life for seventy or eighty years without ever clearly deciding whether to choose the wisdom of this world or the wisdom of light; and to this class of foolish persons, who, for the most part, accomplish nothing in the world, belong, curiously enough, a very considerable number of what we call the cultivated people of our day.

V. THE ART OF HAVING TIME

V. THE ART OF HAVING TIME

I  HAVE no time,—that is not only the most familiar and convenient excuse for not doing one’s duty; it is also, one must confess, the excuse which has in it the greatest appearance of truth. Is it a good excuse? I must at once admit that within certain limits the excuse is reasonable, but I shall try to show how it is that this lack of time occurs, and how one may, at least in some degree, find the time he needs. Thus my sermon differs from those of the preachers, in having, not three heads, but only two. This I say to propitiate those who may protest that they have no time for reading.

The most immediate reason, then, for lack of time is to be found in the character of the present age. There is just now a prevailing restlessness, and a continuous mood of excitement, from which, unless one make himself a hermit, he cannot wholly escape. One who lives at all in these days must live fast. If one could observe the modern world as a bird might look down upon it, and at the same time could distinguish the details of its life, he would see beneath him a picture like that of a restless and swarming ant-hill, where even the railway trains, as they cross and recross each other by night and day, would be enough to bewilder his brain. Something of this bewilderment is, in fact, felt by almost every one who is involved in the movement of the time. There are a great many people who have not the least idea why they are thus all day long in a hurry. People whose circumstances permit complete leisure are to be seen rushing through the streets, or whirling away in a train, or crowding out of the theatre, as if there were awaiting them at home the most serious tasks. The fact is that they simply yield to the general movement. One might be led to fancy that the most precious and most unusual possession on earth was the possession of time. We say that time is money, yet people who have plenty of money seem to have no time; and even the people who despise money are constantly admonishing us, and our over-worked children, to remember the Apostle’s saying, and “to redeem the time.” Thus the modern world seems pitiless in its exhortation to work. Human beings are driven like horses until they drop. Many lives are ruined by the pace, but there are always more lives ready like horses to be driven.

Yet the results of this restless haste are in the main not convincing. There have been periods in history when people, without the restlessness and fatigue that now prevail, accomplished far more in many forms of human activity than men achieve to-day. Where are we now to find a man like Luther, who could write his incomparable translation of the Bible in an incredibly brief space of time, and yet not break down at the end of the task, or be forced to spend months or years in recreation or vacation? Where are the scholars whose works fill thousands of volumes, or the artists like Michael Angelo and Raphael, who could be at once painters, architects, sculptors and poets? Where shall we find a man like Titian, who at ninety years of age could still do his work without the necessity of retiring each year to a summer resort or sanitarium? The fact is that the nervous haste of our day cannot be wholly explained by assuming that modern men do more work, or better work, than their predecessors. It must be possible to live, if not without perfect rest, still without haste, and yet accomplish something.

The first condition of escape from this ineffective haste is, beyond doubt, the resolution not to be swept away by the prevailing current of the age, as though one had no will of his own. On the contrary, one must oppose this current and determine to live as a free man, and not as a slave either of work or of pleasure. Our present system of the organization of labor makes this resolution far from easy. Indeed, our whole manner of thinking about money-making and our painstaking provision of money for future generations—our capitalist system, in short—increase the difficulty. Here is the solemn background of our present question, with which I do not propose to deal. We may simply notice that the problem of the use of time is closely involved with the problem of that radical change which civilization itself must experience before it reaches a more equitable division of labor and a more equitable distribution of prosperity. So long as there are people, and especially educated people, who work only when they are forced to work and for no other purpose than to free themselves and their children as soon as possible from the burden of work; so long as there are people who proudly say: “Je suis d’une famille où on n’avait pas de plume qu’aux chapeaux,”—so long must there be many people who have too little time simply because a few have too much. All this, however, is of the future. The only practical problem for our own age is to maintain a sort of defensive attitude toward our lack of time, and to seek less radical ways of fortifying ourselves. Let me enumerate some of these ways.

The best way of all to have time is to have the habit of regular work, not to work by fits and starts, but in definite hours of the day,—though not of the night,—and to work six days in the week, not five and not seven. To turn night into day or Sunday into a work-day is the best way to have neither time nor capacity for work. Even a vacation fails of its purpose, if it be given to no occupation whatever. I am not without hope that the time may come when medical science will positively demonstrate that regular work, especially as one grows older, is the best preservative both of physical and intellectual health. I may even add for the sake of women among my readers, that here is the best preservative of beauty also. Idleness is infinitely more wearisome than work, and induces also much more nervousness; for it weakens that power of resistance which is the foundation of health.

Work, it is true, may be excessive, but this is most obviously the case when one cares more for the result of his work than he does for the work itself. Under such conditions, it is peculiarly difficult to exercise moderation, and as an ancient preacher remarks with a sigh: “Work is given to every man according to his power, but his heart cannot abide by it.” In such cases, however, Nature herself has given us a monitor in that physical fatigue which work itself produces. One need only take account of such fatigue, and not cheat it by stimulants, and then, even without much philosophizing, he will not lack self-control.

The habit of regular work is further greatly encouraged by having a definite vocation which involves positive tasks and obligations. Thus the socialistic romances which draw a picture of the future of the world are quite justified when they describe the universal organization of industry under the form of an army, for an army represents that way of life in which order and duty in one’s work are most emphasized. Every Swiss citizen knows that, with the exception of occasional excessive demands, he has never been in better health than when serving his term in the army. Every hour in the day then had its regular and sufficient task, and no one was called to consider whether he desired to do things or not to do them, while no one had time to anticipate the tasks of the following day. Here is the misfortune of many rich people in our day,—that they have no definite vocation. As the common saying has it, “There is no ‘must’ for them.” For many such persons, a specific business would be a redemption from the dilettantism which now threatens their peace of mind. They might well follow the example of that Bavarian prince who has undertaken the profession of an oculist. I am even inclined to believe that part of the movement toward the higher education which is so conspicuous among women in our day is simply the response to this demand of human nature for some definite vocation.

Another question much discussed in our time concerns the division of one’s working day. In great cities with their vast distances, in the case of unmarried persons engaged in more or less mechanical tasks, and in the case of all people who regard their work as a burden to be thrown off as soon as possible, there is some advantage in working continuously and without interruption. This is what we are in the habit of calling the English method. It is never possible, however, to accomplish in this way so much intellectual work of a productive character as may be done under the Swiss custom of a pause at midday. No one can continuously, or even with momentary pauses, devote himself for six or eight hours to work of an intellectual character. Even if he allow himself an hour’s interval, the sense of strain remains, together with an abbreviation of time for work in the afternoon. On the other hand, under the Swiss custom, it is perfectly easy to work for ten or eleven hours a day,—four in the morning, four in the afternoon, and two or three in the evening, and few of us could accomplish our work in that eight-hour day of which we hear so much, although we have not the honor of being reckoned as of the class known as “working-people.”

The next essential point is not to have too much fussiness about one’s work, or, in other words, not to permit oneself elaborate preparations as to time, place, surroundings, inclination, or mood. The inclination to work comes of itself when one has begun his work, and it is even true that a kind of fatigue with which one often begins—unless, indeed, it has some positive or physical cause—disappears as one seriously attacks his work, and does not simply, as it were, defend himself from it.

“Begin with cheerfulness thy task
Nor ask how it may end,
Farther than all that thou couldst ask
Its issues surely tend.”

In short, if one permit himself habitually to stop and ask that indolent part of him which the Apostle Paul calls “the old man” what he would like to do, or would prefer not to do, “the old man” is most unlikely to vote for serious work, but betakes himself to excellent religious or moral advice. The bad part of one must be forced to the habit of obeying, without grumbling, the “categorical imperative” of the better part. When one has achieved this amount of soldierly discipline in himself, then he is on the right path, and until he has reached this point, he has not found his way. Here he first learns whether his life is saved or lost. Sometimes a man proposes to himself to collect his thoughts before he begins, or to meditate on the work he is going to do. In most cases, this is merely an excuse for doing nothing, and it is most obviously such an excuse, when, to encourage this preliminary reflection, a man lights his cigar. In short, one’s best ideas come while he is working, and often, indeed, while he is working on a wholly different topic. A distinguished modern preacher has remarked with originality, though not with strict accuracy, that there is not a single case mentioned in the Bible in which an angel appeared to a man who was not at work.

In close connection with this point should be mentioned the habit of using fragments of time. Many people have no time because they always want to have a large amount of uninterrupted time before they set themselves to work. In such a plan they are doubly deceived. On the one hand, in many circumstances of life these prolonged periods are difficult to secure, and, on the other hand, the power of work which one possesses is not so unlimited that it can continuously utilize long stretches of time. This is peculiarly true of such intellectual work as is devoted to productive effort. Of such work it may be said without exaggeration that the first hour, or even the first half-hour, is the most fruitful. Dismissing, however, these large intellectual undertakings, there are to be found in connection with every piece of work a great number of subordinate tasks of preparation or arrangement which are of a mechanical nature, and for each of which a quarter of an hour or so is sufficient. These minor matters, if not disposed of in small fragments of time which would otherwise be wasted, will absorb the time and power which should be devoted to one’s important task. It might, indeed, be reasonably maintained that the use of these fragments of time, together with the complete dismissal of the thought, “It is not worth while to begin to-day,” accounts for half of the intellectual results which one attains.

Another important means for saving time is the habit of changing the kind of work in which one is engaged. Change is almost as restful as complete rest, and if one acquire a certain degree of skill in his ways of change,—a skill which comes from experience rather than from theorizing,—one may carry on his work for almost the entire day. Moreover, so far as my experience goes, it is a mistake to plan that one piece of work shall be finished before another is begun. The judicious course, on the contrary, is that which prevails among artists, who are often engaged on a whole series of sketches, and turn, according to the momentary inclination which overmasters them, first to one piece of work and then to another. Here, too, it may be remarked is an excellent way of maintaining one’s self-control. The old Adam in us often persuades the better nature that he is not really lazy, but is simply not in the mood for a certain piece of work. In this state of things, one should forthwith say to himself: “Well, if you do not feel inclined to this piece of work, take up with another.” Then one will discover whether the difficulty is a disinclination to a special form of work, to which one might yield, or a disinclination to do any work at all. In short, one must not permit oneself to deceive oneself.

Another point to be considered is the habit of working quickly, not giving too much care to outward form, but devoting one’s efforts to the content of the task. The experience of most workers will bear me out when I say that the most profitable and effective tasks are those which have been done quickly. I am well aware that Horace advises one to take nine years for the perfecting of verses; but such scrupulousness presupposes an excessive notion of the quality of one’s work. Thoroughness is a very beautiful and necessary trait, in so far as it concerns truth, for truth cannot be too thoroughly explored; but there is a spurious thoroughness which absorbs itself in all manner of details and subordinate questions which are not worth investigating, or which cannot be wholly known. Thoroughness of this kind is never satisfied with itself. It is sometimes mistaken for great learning; for to many people learning is profound only when wholly detached from practical usefulness, or when an author, for a whole lifetime, has brooded over one book.

Truth, wherever it may be sought, is, as a rule, so simple that it often does not look learned enough. People feel as if they must add to it something which is not essential to the nature of truth, in order to give to truth a respectable and academic look. Among learned people, it is often the case that one must first earn his reputation by some piece of work which is of no use to himself or to any one else, and in which he heaps together the hitherto undiscovered rubbish of some remote century. Lassalle was able to write his famous work on Herakleitos without forfeiting his interest in the affairs of modern life, but there are few authors with this capacity for practical concerns. On the contrary, many authors in their maiden venture of learned work not only have their eyesight ruined by their researches, but lose their inward vision, which is a matter of much more consequence. They reach the goal of their ambition and become of no further use.

A further way of saving a deal of time is to do one’s work and be done with it; not to deal with it, that is to say, in a provisional or preparatory manner. This kind of immediate thoroughness is in our day extremely rare, and in my opinion much of the blame should be laid to the newspapers, which accustom people to superficial surveys of truth. The editorial writer says, at the close of his article, “We shall return to this subject later”; but in fact he never returns. So it is with the modern reader. If he wants to make use of what he has read, he has to begin the reading of it afresh. His skimming of the subject—as the phrase is—has had no result, and so the time that he has given to skimming has been lost. This is the reason why people have so little thorough knowledge in our day, and why, though they have studied a subject ten times, on the eleventh occasion when they need it, they must study it again. Indeed, there are people who would be extremely glad if they could remember even the works of which they themselves were the authors.

With this point is obviously connected the need of orderliness and of the reading of original authorities. The habit of orderliness saves one from the need of hunting for material, and this search for material is not only, as we all know, a great waste of time, but tempts us also to lose pleasure in our work. Further, orderliness permits us to allow one subject to be forgotten, while we apply ourselves to the next. The reading of original sources, on the other hand, gives one the advantage of being sure of his material, and of having his own judgment about it. There is this further advantage, that the original sources are in most cases not only much briefer, but much more interesting and much easier to remember than the books that have been written about them. Second-hand knowledge never gives the courage and self-confidence which one gets from acquaintance with original sources. One of the great mistakes of modern scholarship, as distinguished from that of the classic world, is—as Winkelmann has pointed out—that our learning in so many cases consists in knowing only what other people have known.

But, after all, we have not yet named the chief element in the art of having time. It consists in banishing from one’s life all superfluities. Much which modern civilization regards as essential, is, in reality, superfluous, and while I shall indicate several things which appear to me unnecessary, I shall be quite content to have my reader supplement them by his own impressions. For instance, one superfluity is beer. It is superfluous at any time of the day and especially when drunk in the morning, after the fashion made popular by Prince Bismarck. Perhaps the greatest contributors to waste of time in this century are the brewers, and the time will come when people may regard the excessive drinking of beer as they now regard the excessive use of alcohol in other forms.

I may name as a second superfluity the excessive reading of newspapers. There are in our day people who regard themselves as educated, and who yet read nothing but newspapers. Their houses are built and furnished in all possible—and impossible—styles, and yet you will find in them hardly a dozen good books. They get their whole supply of ideas out of the newspapers and magazines, and these publications are more and more designed to meet the needs of such people. This excessive, or even exclusive, reading of newspapers is often excused on account of our political interests; but one has only to notice what it is in the newspapers which people are most anxious to read to arrive at a judgment whether this excuse is sound. I may add that the time of day dedicated to the newspaper is by no means unimportant. People, for instance, who devote their first hour in the morning to the reading of one or two newspapers lose thereby the freshest interest in their day’s work.

Another superfluity is the excessive going to meetings. A man who is much devoted to such gatherings can scarcely find time for serious work. Indeed, it is not necessary for him to do independent work; for he has substituted for his own judgment the judgment of the crowd, and the crowd carries him on its shoulders. A great waste of time occurs, further, among one class of people at the present time, through a pretended devotion to art. I do not refer to art practised by oneself, but to art as passively accepted; and I should perhaps make exception in what I say, of the art of music. In other forms of art many persons permit those impulses which should have stirred them to idealism, and to responsiveness toward the beautiful, to evaporate in æsthetic satisfactions. Many women, to speak frankly, are educated to acquire mere artistic appreciation; and they cannot, without severe struggles and against great hindrances, find the way back from this mood to any profitable and spiritually satisfying work.

Another superfluity is the devotion to social duties and the whole purposeless system of making “calls.” These habits are the mere shadows of genuine friendship, and of the intellectual stimulus through personal intercourse which they were originally intended to express. I need not speak of superfluous amusements. The theatre, for instance, to accomplish its legitimate aim needs so fundamental a reform that there would be really nothing left of its present methods. Finally, and of quite another category among the elements of culture in our time, I may name as superfluous the superficial and popular products of materialism, and with these the debasing French novels and dramas of the day. People of the educated class in our time, and especially people of the academic circle, ought to have the courage to say of such literature: “We know nothing about it.” Then perhaps one might have time to read something each day which was serious and educative; something that tended to strengthen the mind and to bring one into real contact with the intellectual movement of the age.

And now, lest there should be complaint of time wasted on such reading as this, I shall add but two other points. One of these, stated by Rothe, is the advice that it is most desirable not to take up one’s time with the details of one’s business affairs. Even if this is not altogether possible, one may, if he wish it, greatly reduce the care of details of administration, and live in a world of larger and happier thoughts. The other point, which has even more practical significance, is this: Limit yourself to that which you really know and which has been especially committed to your care. For your special task you will almost always have time enough. An Old Testament saying states it even more plainly: “He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.” As to the things which do not concern one’s special calling, but which have a certain significance in the world and a certain importance for culture, it may be necessary for one, once in his life, to acquire a superficial survey of them by a glance at the best original sources. One should thereafter leave these matters alone and not concern himself with them further.

Finally, in this enumeration of the things which waste one’s time, I may add that one must not permit himself to be overburdened with superfluous tasks. There are in our day an infinite number of these,—correspondence, committees, reports, and not the least, lectures. All of them take time, and it is extremely probable that nothing will come of them. When the Apostle Paul was addressing the Athenians, he remarked that they did nothing else than to hear some new thing. It was not the serious part of his address, or its spiritual quickening, to which they gave their attention, it was its novelty; and the outcome of his sermon was simply that some mocked, and the most friendly said with patronizing kindness: “We will hear thee again of this matter.” Indeed, the reporter of the incident finds it necessary to mention expressly, that one member of the Athenian City-Council and one woman in the audience received some lasting good from the Apostle’s address. How is it, let me ask you, with yourselves? Have the lectures which you have heard been to you in any way positive influences of insight and decision, or have they been merely the evidences of the speaker’s erudition?

Such are the ways which in our present social conditions are open to any one to use for saving time. I must add, however, that if one tries to use these ways of saving time, he will make another discovery. For one of the most essential elements of such happiness as we can reach on earth lies in not having too much time. The vastly greater proportion of human happiness consists in continuous and progressive work, with the blessing which is given to work and which in the end makes work itself a pleasure. The spirit of man is never more cheerful than when it has discovered its proper work. Make this discovery, first of all, if you wish to be happy. Most of the wrecks of human life are caused by having either no work, or too little work, or uncongenial work; and the human heart, which is so easily agitated, never beats more peacefully than in the natural activity of vigorous, yet satisfying, work. Only one must guard against making of work an idol, instead of serving God through one’s work. Those who forget this last distinction find themselves in later life doomed to intellectual or physical prostration.

There are, then, but two possessions which may be attained by persons of every condition, which never desert one through life, and are a constant consolation in misfortune. These are work and love. Those who shut these blessings out of life commit a greater sin than suicide. They do not even know what it is that they throw away. Rest without work is a thing which in this life one cannot endure. The best blessing which can be promised is that last blessing of Moses for Asher: “Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy strength be.” Better than this one should not desire, and if one has this he should be thankful. Yet, it must be added, this contentedness in continuous work is possible only when one abandons ambition; for ambition is always most deeply anxious not to do work, but as soon as possible to get the result of work, even if that result is illusive. Ambition is the Moloch of our time, to whom we feel bound to sacrifice even our own children, and who, more than all other foes, destroys the bodies and the souls of youth.

If, still further, one commit himself, as is so often the case, to that philosophy of materialism in which this brief life is the end of opportunity, so that but a few years are ours for the accomplishment of all which the pitiless and endless struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest permit, then there is an end of all restfulness and blessedness in work. Under such a view, time is indeed too short, and every art is indeed too long. The true spirit of work, which has no time for superfluities, but time enough for what is right and true, grows best in the soil of that philosophy which sees one’s work extending into the infinite world, and one’s life on earth as but one part of life itself. Then one gets strength to do his highest tasks, and patience among the grave difficulties and hindrances which confront him both within himself and in the times in which he lives. One is calmly indifferent to much which in the sight of this world alone may seem important, but which, seen in the light of eternity, loses significance. This is the meaning of that beautiful saying of the philosopher of Görlitz, which brings to our troubled time its message of comfort:

“He who, while here, lives the eternal life

Is through eternity set free from strife.”[3]

VI. HAPPINESS

VI. HAPPINESS

WHATEVER the philosophers may say, it remains true that, from the first hour of man’s waking consciousness until that consciousness ceases, his most ardent desire is to be happy, and that the moment of his profoundest regret is when he becomes convinced that on this earth perfect happiness cannot be found. Here is the problem which gives to the various ages of human history their special characters. Blithe are those ages when young and progressive nations still hope for happiness, or when men believe that in some new formula of philosophy, or of religion, or perhaps in some new industrial programme, the secret of human happiness has at last been found. Gloomy are those ages in which, as in our time, great masses of people are burdened with the conviction that all these familiar formulas have been illusions, and when persons of the keenest insight say—as they are now saying—that the very word happiness has in it a note of melancholy. No sooner, we are told, does one speak of happiness than it flees from him. In its very nature it lies beyond the sphere of practical realization.

I do not share this opinion. I believe that happiness can be found. If I thought otherwise, I should be silent and not make unhappiness the more bitter by discussing it. It is, indeed, true that those who talk of happiness utter therewith a sigh, as if there were doubt whether happiness could be attained. It is still further true that irrational views of happiness seem to be for the present forced upon us. Only through these imperfect views can individuals or communities approach that degree of spiritual and material development which is the necessary foundation for real happiness.

And here our question seems to involve a serious contradiction. For we have, first of all, to learn from our own experience much that does not bring us happiness. Each in his own way must pass, with the greatest of all poets, through the “forest dark” to the “city dolent,” and climb the steep path of the “Holy Mountain,” before he may learn how

“That apple sweet, which through so many branches

The care of mortals goeth in pursuit of,

To-day shall put in peace thy hungerings.”[4]

All this is to be attained, not through instruction, but through experience. It is a path, and especially the latter part of it, which each must walk alone. No visible help is on any side, and as one meets each of those obstacles which in his own strength perhaps he could not overcome, he is upborne by that

“... eagle in the sky, with plumes of gold,

With wings wide open, and intent to stoop,

Then wheeling somewhat more, it seemed to me,
Terrible as the lightning he descended,
And snatched me upward even to the fire.”[5]

Thus the suggestions which now follow concern themselves merely with the many misleading ways which purport to lead toward happiness, and in which each new generation in its restless longing is tempted to go astray.

The paths by which people journey toward happiness lie in part through the world about them and in part through the experience of their souls. On the one hand, there is the happiness which comes from wealth, honor, the enjoyment of life, from health, culture, science, or art; and, on the other hand, there is the happiness which is to be found in a good conscience, in virtue, work, philanthropy, religion, devotion to great ideas and great deeds.

The outward ways to happiness are, however, all, in one respect, disappointing. They are not paths which are possible for every one to follow, and therefore, for many cannot lead to happiness. Still further, the possession of good things which others do not possess cannot but bring with it to any noble soul some twinge of conscience. One who enjoys these outward blessings, and recalls the millions of human beings by his side who are perishing for lack of them, must be either thoroughly selfish or profoundly unhappy. It is of such persons that Jesus is thinking when he speaks of the “unrighteous Mammon,” and even goes on to say: “How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom.” No man, that is to say, can attain to Christian happiness who attains distinction at the cost of others. “One that is proud in heart,” says the Book of Proverbs, “is an abomination to the Lord.”

Thus it was that Francis of Assisi, and many a saint before and after him, resolved, at any price, to break the chains of worldly possessions. It was a logical resolution. Wealth is the gravest of obstacles to the spiritual life, and few men are wholly free from its solicitations or slavery. The possession and administration of a large property, and, indeed, every position of exceptional honor and power, induce with almost absolute certainty a hardening of the disposition which is the very opposite of happiness. One shudders as he observes how dull life seems to that spiritless throng which in ever-increasing numbers visits each year the Swiss mountains to escape the emptiness of their prosperous lives.

Such is the result of these external ways of seeking happiness. But we do not fare much better when we turn to that form of happiness which lays claim to a nobler and a spiritual source,—the happiness of the æsthetic life. For the boundaries between this form of happiness and that of mere materialism are by no means easy to define. Æsthetic enjoyment often passes over into mere sensualism, as Goethe, the great model of æsthetic interest, has proved to us both in his poetry—as in the case of Faust—and in his own life. Indeed, the new school of æstheticism runs grave risk of interpreting much in terms of art which is in fact mere materialism. Those who thus seek happiness should recall the saying of their illustrious predecessor, who possessed in an extraordinary degree the capacity to attain whatever happiness in life æstheticism had to offer. “When all is said,” remarks Goethe, “my life has been nothing but care and work. I can even say that in my seventy-five years, I have not had four weeks of real happiness. It has been a continuous rolling up hill of a stone which must ever be pushed again from the bottom.” Four weeks of happiness in seventy-five years! This man of art declares that in his view life is nothing else than misery! There is hardly an honest day-laborer who at the end of his life, full as it may have been of genuine troubles, could give so poor an account of himself.

The fact is, then, that human nature seems obviously not intended for this kind of happiness. Life is made for activity; and this kind of receptive enjoyment, even in its highest forms, is designed merely to give flavor and change to life, and to be sparingly used; so that those who give themselves too confidently to such enjoyment bitterly deceive themselves. Genuine happiness cannot be arbitrarily produced. It issues from obedience to a genuine demand of human nature, and from intelligent activity naturally employed. Here is the rational basis of that faith in human equality and that contentment with the simple joys of life, in which people to-day believe much too little, and which awhile ago people praised with perhaps exaggerated sentiment.

Still further, as regards such æsthetic enjoyment, it is to be observed that the level of æsthetic judgments in literature and art is now so visibly sinking that these resources cannot long satisfy minds that can be called educated, or nations that can be called progressive. The time may soon come when people will weary of this “efflorescence” of science, literature, and art; and may even wish to exchange it for a taste of healthy barbarism. The Austrian poet Rosegger has thus described a not impossible future: “We already see each year a great migration of people passing from the cities to the country and the mountains, and not until the leaves are touched with autumn color returning to the city walls. The time will come, however, when prosperous city-folk will betake themselves permanently to country life; and when the work-people of the city will migrate to the wilderness and subdue it. They will abandon the search for book-knowledge, they will find their pleasure and renewal in physical work, they will make laws under which an independent and self-respecting livelihood will be ensured to country-dwellers; and the notion of an ignorant peasantry will disappear.” However this may be, it is at least certain that we are approaching a period marked by a return to nature, and by a taste for simplicity, such as existed at the end of the last century, when Marie Antoinette played shepherdess with her courtiers at the Trianon. It is a simplicity which is caricatured by the luxurious folk who parade each summer through Switzerland in mountain dresses and spiked shoes, and attempt an intimacy with the life of nature. Even these folk, strange as is their attire and laughable as is their mimicry of the life of peasants and mountaineers, find themselves as happy as their conventional lives permit.

One other external notion of happiness may be dealt with in a word. It is the happiness which is sought in freedom from care. Such happiness is an ideal for those only who have never had the experience of such freedom. For the fact is that through our cares, when not excessive, and through our victory over cares, comes the most essential part of human happiness. Cares of a reasonable nature do not constitute what we call care. Many a life of the widest experience would testify that the most unendurable experience is to be found, not in a series of stormy days, but in a series of cloudless ones.

I pass, then, from those who seek for happiness in material and outward conditions to those more rational inquirers who seek it in the spiritual life. These persons expect that happiness will be secured in the doing of their duty, in a good conscience, in personal work of public good, in patriotism, or charity, or some form of philanthropy, or perhaps in conformity to the teachings of their Church. And yet, a very considerable part of the drift to pessimism which one observes in our day comes of the experience that no one of these ways leads surely to happiness, or, at least, that one does not get in such ways the happiness for which he hoped. Indeed, it is perhaps still further true that a great part of the reckless “Realism,” now so prevalent among us, comes not of the conviction that it will make one happy, but only of the despair of finding any other way of happiness. For if it be true that neither our work, nor what we call our virtues, can bring peace to the soul; if outward activity, and charity, and patriotism, are but a mockery of happiness; if religion is for the most part only a form or a phrase, without objective certainty; if all is thus but vanity of vanities, then indeed: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”

I do not join in the condemnation with which the moralists usually meet this view of life. I deny only the conclusions which are drawn from such a view. I recognize the honest purpose of these modern philosophers. They represent, at least, a sincere love of truth; they are hostile to all mere phrases. The spirit of the modern world looks for a happiness which is not mere philosophical composure, but which has objective results. It demands a kind of contentment in which every human being may have a share. In all this, the spirit of the age is wholly right, and this demand for objective happiness which it utters is a note which has not been heard for two thousand years. I, too, desire happiness; but I know that one who would find the way to happiness must, first of all, and without hesitation, throw overboard all the false idols which have tempted him to worship them. As he dismisses the prejudices which birth, or circumstances, or habits, have created, he takes one step after another toward true happiness. As the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico, one of the least fortunate persons of our day, rightly said: “The abandoning of an untruth, or of a prejudice, brings with it forthwith a sensation of joy.” Here, then, is our guide along this darkened road, which without some such guidance we could not find at all.

“The happy life lies straight before our eyes,—

We see it, but we know not how to prize.”

First of all, then, we must admit that happiness does not consist in the sense of virtue alone. This idol of the incorruptible Robespierre will not serve us. For virtue in its completeness dwells in no human heart. One must have but a meagre conception of virtue, or else a very limited intellectual capacity, who finds himself always self-contented. Even the vainest of men are not in reality contented; their vanity itself is in large degree only a sense of uncertainty about their worth, so that they need the constant endorsement of others to satisfy them. The maxim says that a good conscience makes a soft pillow, and he who has this unfailing sense of duty done no doubt has happiness; but I have not, as yet, fallen in with such a man. My impression is that there is not one of us who has ever, even for a single day, done his whole duty. Beyond this, I need not go. If one of my readers says to me: “I am the man who has thus done his duty,”—well, he may be quite right, but I do not care for that man’s nearer acquaintance. The farther a man advances in the doing of his duty, so much the more his conscience and perception grow refined. The circle of his duties widens continually before him, so that he understands the Apostle Paul, when, with perfect sincerity, and without false humility, he speaks of himself as the “chief of sinners.”

Are, then, I ask again, philanthropy and the good deeds—public and private—which it suggests, the secret of happiness? Love is a great word, and the Apostle is altogether justified when in the familiar passage of his letters he says that among the many things which perish, love abides. But when in the same passage he says that it is possible to speak with the tongues of angels, and give all one’s goods to feed the poor, and even give one’s body to be burned, and yet not have love,—then we comprehend without further explanation what he means by love. For love is a part of God’s own being, which does not originate in the hearts of men. One who possesses it knows well enough that it is not his own. Even the pale human reflection of this Divine love brings happiness, but it is a temporary happiness; and always with the perilous uncertainty of a love which anticipates return, so that the happiness depends upon the will of others. He, then, who yields his heart absolutely to others, and stakes his happiness on their affection, may some day find the terrible words of the Jewish prophet true: “Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord.” All this may be one day a spiritual experience, which may convert his love into hate. That apotheosis of hate which marks the talk of many a social agitator in our day is but the evidence of those bitter disillusions of affection which millions have been called to feel.

Is, then, happiness to be found in work? Work is certainly one great factor of human happiness—indeed, in one sense, the greatest; for without work all happiness which is not mere intoxication is absolutely denied. In order to get the capacity for happiness, one must obey the commands: “Six days shalt thou labor,” and “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Of all seekers for happiness, the most foolish are those who evade these two conditions. Without work no man can be happy. In this negative statement the saying is absolutely true. And yet, it is a greater error to suppose that work is in itself happiness, or to believe that every work leads to happiness. It is not alone our imagination that pictures another ideal, so that one can hardly imagine a heaven, or an earthly paradise, as devoted to unremitting work; it is also true—and it is much more to be remembered—that only a fool can be wholly contented with the work that he does. One might even say that the wisest see most clearly the incompleteness of their work, so that not one of them has been able, at the end of his day’s work, to say of it: “Behold, it is very good.” This mere praise of work, then, is, for the most part, only a sort of a spur, or whip, with which one urges himself, or others, to the tasks of life; so that even those who take pride in describing themselves as “working-people” are much concerned to reduce as far as possible their working day. If work were essentially the same as happiness, these people would be seeking to prolong as much as possible the hours of work.

Of all seekers for happiness, however, the most extraordinary are those who look for it in the philosophy of pessimism; yet of these there are not a few, and by no means of the baser sort. There is, however, almost always associated with the creed of pessimism a certain false impression of one’s own importance. It has an appearance of magnanimity to throw overboard all one’s hopes, and to believe that everything, oneself included, is bad. For this, at least, is true, that if all are bad, he who sees that it is so, and admits it, is, after all, the least bad; and if he is sincerely contented that others should regard him as bad, he may be not far from the way to something better. Yet, pessimism as a permanent habit of mind is, for the most part, only a mantle of philosophy through which, when it is thrown back, there looks out the face of vanity;—a vanity which is never satisfied and which withholds one forever from a contented mind.

Finally, of all people who seek for happiness, the most unhappy are those who seek it in mere conformity to religious creeds. There are many such people in our day, and they find themselves in the end bitterly disappointed. For all church organizations are inclined to promise more than they can assure, and are like nets to catch all manner of fish. In a passage from the works of the late Professor Gelzer, he remarks that, for most church-going people, worship is nothing more than “appearing at Court once a week to present one’s respects to the throne.” He adds that there is the same formal service of man also; for one sometimes does this service, or, as the Bible says, “Hath wrought a good work upon me,” only for the better maintenance in the future of one’s own self-esteem.

I shall not contradict what so distinguished a man out of his rich experience has said on this subject. Yet, for my own part, I must still believe that if a human soul worships God even in the most irrational way, and recognizes its dependence on Him, God will not forsake that soul. I must believe, still further, that the feeblest and most superstitious expressions of religion bring to one who, even with occasional sincerity, persists in them, more happiness than the most brilliant philosophy of atheism can offer. Yet this blessing bestowed upon simple souls by the patience of God is not to be attained in its fulness by those who are capable of larger insight. Such persons have the duty laid on them to free the Christian Religion from the lukewarmness which for two thousand years has afflicted it. Theirs is the duty of dissatisfaction with the forms and formulas of the Church. No mere science of religion should content them; for such a science alone never brought happiness to man, and still offers to a people who do not really understand its teachings, stones instead of bread. So long as people seek contentment in these ways, their path to happiness must abound in disappointments; and these disappointments become the harder to bear because people, as a rule, do not dare to confess either to themselves, or to others, that they are thus disappointed. They must pretend to themselves that they are satisfied because they see no path which may lead them back to happiness and peace.

Such, then, are some of the ways by which, with slight modifications and combinations, the human race through all its history has sought for happiness; and if we do not recognize these ways in history, we may find them all with more or less distinctness in our own experience. And yet by no one of these ways has the race found the happiness it seeks. What, then, I ask once more, is the path to this end?

The first and the most essential condition of true happiness, I answer, is a firm faith in the moral order of the world. If one lack this, if it be held that the world is governed by chance or by those changeless laws of nature which in their dealings with the weak are merciless, or if, finally, one imagine the world controlled by the cunning and power of man,—then there is no hope of personal happiness. In such an order of the world, there is nothing left for the individual but to rule, or to be ruled; to be either the anvil or the hammer; and it is hard to say which of the two would be to an honorable man the more unworthy lot.

In national life especially, this view of the world leads to constant war and preparation for war, and the text-book of politics becomes The Prince of Machiavelli. From such a condition of war the only possible, though partial, deliverance would be through some vast governmental control, ruling with iron force and comprehending in itself all civilized peoples. Such a State would, at least, make war between States impossible, as it was impossible in the Roman Empire of the Cæsars, and as Napoleon I. dreamed that it might be impossible in Europe. Every right-minded man must inwardly protest against a view which thus robs man in his person of his will and in his politics of his freedom; and history also teaches, in many incidents, the emptiness and folly of such a view. There are some persons who believe that they are forced to accept this social creed, because the conception of the world as a moral order does not seem to them sufficiently proved. To such persons, I can only repeat that which is written above the entrance to Dante’s hell:

“Through me the way is to the city dolent;
Through me the way is to eternal dole;
Through me the way among the people lost.

All hope abandon, ye who enter in!”[6]

I go on to say, however, that formal proof of this moral order of the world is impossible. The ancient Hebrews believed that one could not look upon the face of God and live, and Christianity, in its turn, offers us no formal proof of the character of God. The only path that leads to the proof of God is that which is followed in the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Here is a proof which any one may test whose heart is pure; while from those who merely reason about God’s order of the world He hides Himself, and no man may rend by force the veil that covers Him.

If, then, one begins simply to live as in a moral world, his path to happiness lies plainly before him. The door is open and no man can shut it. Within his heart there is a certain stability, rest, and assurance, which endure and even gather strength amid all outward storms. His heart becomes, as the Psalmist says, not froward or fearful, but “fixed.” The only peril from which he now has to guard himself is the peril of regarding too seriously the changeful impressions and events of each day. His desire must be to live resolutely in one even mood, and to look for his daily share of conscious happiness not in his emotions, but in his activity. Then for the first time he learns what work really is. It is no more to him a fetish, to be served with anxious fear; it is no longer an idol through which he worships himself; it is simply the natural and healthy way of life, which frees him not only from the many spiritual evils which are produced by idleness, but also from numberless physical evils which have the same source. Happy work is the healthiest of human conditions. Honest sweat on the brow is the source of permanent and self-renewing power and of light-heartedness; and these together make one really happy. Indeed, the later discoveries of medical science are teaching us that physical health is secured only by a high degree of power of resistance against enemies which life cannot avoid. But this power of resistance—as one may soon discover—is not a merely physical capacity; it is quite as much a moral quality and in large part the product of moral effort. Here, then, are two secrets of happiness which are fundamentally inseparable: Life directed by faith in the permanent moral order of the world, and Work done in that same faith. Beyond these two, and one other which I shall mention later, all other ways of happiness are secondary, and indeed all else comes of its own accord, according to one’s special needs, if only one holds firmly to these primary sources of spiritual power.

I go on to mention a few of these subordinate rules for happiness which may be deduced from the experience of life. They are mere maxims of conduct to which many others might be added.

We need, for instance, to be at the same time both brave and humble. That is the meaning of the strange word of the Apostle: “When I am weak, then am I strong.” Either quality alone does more harm than good.

Again, one must not make pleasure an end, for pleasure comes of its own accord in the right way of life, and the simplest, the cheapest, and the most inevitable pleasures are the best.

Again, one can bear all troubles, except two: worry and sin.

Further, all that is really excellent has a small beginning. The good does not show its best at once.

Finally, all paths which it is best to follow, are entered by open doors.

There are, it must be added, some difficulties and problems which thoughtful people should take into account in their intercourse with others. One must not hate other people, or, on the other hand, idolize them, or take their opinions, demands, and judgments too seriously. One must not sit in judgment on others, or, on the other hand, submit himself to their judgment. One must not court the society of those who think much of themselves. Indeed, I may say in general that, except in certain callings, one should not cultivate acquaintance with great people, or fine people, with the rich, or the fashionable, but so far as possible, without repelling them, should avoid their company. Among the best sources of happiness is the enjoyment found in small things and among humble people; and many a bitter experience is avoided by the habit of an unassuming life. The best way to have permanent peace with the world is not to expect much of it; not to be afraid of it; so far as one can without self-deception see the good in it; and to regard the evil as something powerless and temporary which will soon defeat itself.

In short, I may in conclusion say, that one must not take this life too seriously. As soon as we live above it, much of it becomes unimportant, and if the essentials are secure we must not care too much for the subordinate. Many of the best people suffer from this magnifying of trifles, and especially from their dependence on other people’s opinions; and this lack of proportion makes for such people each day’s work much more difficult than it would otherwise be.

I have said that these practical rules might be indefinitely multiplied. But they are all, as I have also said, in reality superfluous. For if the soil of the heart is fertilized, as I have already described, then these fruits of life grow out of it spontaneously, and serve the special needs of the individual. The essential question concerns the soil itself, without which not one of these practical fruits can grow. Thus I may say in general that I take no great interest in what people call systems of morals, or in the rules of conduct which they prescribe. A system of morals either issues spontaneously from a habit of mind, which in its turn issues from a view of life, attained even through the death of one’s old self; or else such a system is nothing but a series of beautiful maxims, pleasant to hear, good to record in diaries and calendars, but incapable of converting the human heart.

I do not care to multiply the material for these collections of maxims. I shall only add one last and solemn truth. It is this,—that under the conditions of human life unhappiness also is necessary. Indeed, if one cared to state it in a paradox, he might say that unhappiness is essential to happiness. In the first place, as the experience of life plainly shows, unhappiness is inevitable, and one must in one way or another reconcile himself to it. The most to which one can attain in this human lot is perfect adjustment to one’s destiny; that inward and permanent peace which, as Isaiah says, is like an “overflowing stream.” It is this peace and this alone which Christ promises to his disciples, and it is this, and no outward satisfaction, which the Apostle Paul expects for his fellow-Christians, when, at the end of his unpeaceful life, he prays that “the peace of Christ may rule” in their hearts.

Thus, for real happiness the outward issue of events may come to have no high importance. Stoicism endeavored to solve the problem of happiness by developing insensibility to pain, but its endeavor was vain. The problem of happiness is to be solved in quite another way. One must accept his suffering and unhappiness, and adjust himself to them. And to this end one is, first of all, helped by considering what unhappiness implies, and by living consistently above the sway of momentary feeling. For unhappiness does us good in no less than three ways,—ways which are cumulative in their effect. It is, in the first place, a punishment, the natural consequence of our deeds. It is, thus considered, a part of those deeds themselves, and therefore must follow them as surely as a logical consequence follows its premise. Unhappiness is, secondly, a cleansing process, waking us to greater seriousness and greater receptivity to truth. Thirdly, unhappiness recalls us to self-examination and fortifies us by disclosing what is our own strength, and what is God’s strength. By no other experience does one attain that spiritual courage which is far removed from self-confidence and very near to humility. In a word, it must be said that the deeper life of man and that noble bearing which we remark in some people, and which no one, whatever be his station, can falsely assume, are attained only through faithful endurance of misfortune. That word of the Apostle Paul, “We glory in tribulations,” is, like many of his sayings, absolutely unintelligible to any one who has not experienced what renewal of power and what profound happiness may be discovered through misfortune itself. It is a form of happiness which one never forgets if he has once really experienced it.

This, then, is the riddle of life which perplexes many a man and turns him from the right way,—that good people do not get the good things which might seem to them their due.

“The prophet host, the martyr throng,
Reckoned, the world as dross,
Despised the shame, endured the wrong,
Counting their gain, their loss;
And He, to whom they sang their song,
Was nailed upon the cross.”

Suffering, then, lies on the road to life, and one must expect to meet it if he would be happy. Many a person, when he sees this lion in his path, turns about and contents himself with something less than happiness. And yet it is also true, as experience teaches, that in our misfortunes, as in our enjoyments, imagination greatly outruns reality. Our pain is seldom as great as our imagination pictures it. Sorrow is often the gate which opens into great happiness. Thus the true life calls for a certain severity of dealing, as if one should say to himself: “You may like to do this thing, or you may not like to do it, but you must do it”; and true education rests on these two foundation stones,—love of truth and courage for the right. Without them, education is worthless. It is like the kingdom of God which is to be taken by violence, “And the violent take it with force.” And thus, of all the human qualities which lead to happiness, certainly the most essential is courage.

We look back, then, finally, over what has been said, and repeat what a gifted authoress of our time, Gisela Grimm, has said in her drama of Old Scotland: “Happiness is communion with God, and the central spiritual quality which attains this communion is courage.” Other happiness than this is not to be found on earth, and if there were happiness without these traits, it would not be the happiness we should desire. And this kind of happiness is real. It is not, like every other dream of happiness, an illusion from which sooner or later one must wake. It does not issue from our achievements or our compulsions. On the contrary, when we have once accepted and made our own the view of life which I have described, and have ceased to look about us for some other view, then happiness comes to us by the way. It is a stream of inward peace; broadening as we grow older, first enriching our own souls and then pouring itself forth to bless other lives.

This is the goal to which our life must attain, if it hope for happiness, and to this goal it can attain. Indeed, if once the first decision be made, and the first steps taken, then, as Dante says:

... “This mount is such, that ever

At the beginning down below ’tis tiresome,

And aye the more one climbs, the less it hurts.

Therefore, when it shall seem so pleasant to thee,

That going up shall be to thee as easy

As going down the current in a boat,

Then at this pathway’s ending thou wilt be.”[7]

Below at the foot of the mountain the fixed decision is demanded. There one must absolutely determine to pay any price which shall be asked for the happiness which is real. No further step can be taken without this first resolution, and by no easier path has any one attained the happiness he sought. Goethe, the teacher of those who sought happiness in other ways, admitted—as I have said—that in seventy-five years of life he had had four weeks of content, and no one who has followed him can, at the end of life, when asked what his conscience testifies, make better reply. We, on the other hand, should be able, at the last, to say: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and though we be so strong as to come to fourscore years, and though there has been much labor and sorrow, still it has been a life of happiness.”

VII. THE MEANING OF LIFE

VII. THE MEANING OF LIFE

THIS is the question of questions. A man must be wholly superficial or wholly animal who does not at some time in his life ask what is the meaning of his life. Yet, sad to say, most men end their lives without finding an answer. Some repeat, in their darker moods, the melancholy confession of a mediæval philosopher: “I live, but know not how long; I die, but know not when; I depart, but know not whither. How is it possible for me to fancy myself happy!” Others drive from their minds these morbid reflections which, as they say, “lead to nothing,” and repeat: “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.”

Even among what we call cultivated people, where education has made a profounder view accessible, the number of those who find the meaning of life is by no means large. After some vain and superficial attempts to save themselves they yield at last, and often far too soon, to the pitiful programme of self-indulgence. And what is their next step? It is to pursue consistently this programme. But there is not long left the health which is necessary for this life of eating and drinking, and then in throngs they make their pilgrimages, the women at the front, to Pastor Kneipp, or Dr. Metzger, or some other infallible healer, hoping for a quick restoration and a second chance to waste their lives.

Still others there are who have not the means to adopt this plan of life. Many of these seek a substitute for it in some form of social scrambling; or if this fails, commit themselves to the new doctrine of economics, according to which the only real problem of life is the “stomach problem,” and which teaches that in satisfying the stomach the social ideals of the race will be also satisfied.

Still others there are who are more subtle and more critical. They have come to see how impracticable are all these schemes to redeem life from its troubles. Thus, after they have tried many half-way measures, they come at last to the confession of the wisest of kings: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” They commit themselves to scepticism concerning any meaning in life and to the worship of non-existence. To them the end of life is to be Nirvana, annihilation, the forgetfulness of that which life has been; and they fancy that they have attained a very noble attitude toward life when, after many years of sharp contention with their healthy human nature, which steadily protests against these subtle negations, they are able at last to repeat the words of the Hindoo sage:

“Through birth and rebirth’s endless round

I ran and sought, but never found

Who framed and built this house of clay.

What misery!—birth for ay and ay!

O builder! thee at last I see!

Ne’er shalt thou build again for me.

Thy rafters all are broken now,

Demolished lies thy ridgepole, low.

My heart, demolished too, I ween,

An end of all desire hath seen.”[8]

Such is the final word of their philosophy. Neither light nor hope is left for human life. He does the best who earliest recognizes the hopelessness of life and hastens to its end.

Human nature, however, is so abounding in life and so eager for life that except in those transitory and morbid conditions which we have come to describe as fin de siècle moods, it is never long content to interpret experience in terms of universal bankruptcy. On the contrary, it insists that the problem of philosophy must be in the future, as it has been in the past, the shedding of light on the meaning of life. It is a problem which philosophy has often answered with mere phrases, which have brought no meaning or comfort to the troubled heart of man, and it is not surprising that since the climax of this hollow formalism was reached in Hegel, there has been a natural distrust of philosophy.

And what is it in this speculative philosophy which creates this distrust? It is its attempt to regard the universe as self-explanatory. Here, even at the present time, is one of the fundamental propositions of most philosophizing, against which no argument may be permitted. It seems an essential assumption of philosophy; since if other ways of explanation of the universe were superadded, philosophy as an independent science would seem to be superfluous. Is it certain, however, that the subordination of philosophy thus apprehended would be, after all, a great misfortune? What the human mind is concerned about is not the perpetuation of philosophy as a science, but the discovery of some meaning in life itself, its destiny, its past and its future; and one is quite justified in losing interest in any science which does not in the end contribute to the interpretation and amelioration of human life. We have a right to demand of philosophy that she contribute to this end, and that she shall speak also with some degree of simplicity of language, dismissing the attempt to satisfy with empty and unintelligible phrases the hunger of the soul for fundamental truth.

And yet, from the time of Plato to that of Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, the making of phrases has been the special business of philosophy. It has created a language of its own, which separates it as by an impenetrable hedge from the region of men’s common talk; and when one translates such language into the familiar speech of his own time, where words have a definite meaning, it is as though he withdrew from a veiled goddess the disguise which gave her all her power and dignity. The fact is that abstract philosophy has never explained to any satisfaction either the existence or the development of the world; still less has philosophy brought into unity these two conceptions, and interpreted them through a single cause. On the contrary, the history of philosophy has been a history of words, conveying no real interpretation, and it would seem as if in the thousands of years of philosophic speculation either some interpretation should have been attained or that there should at last be heard the confession that philosophy can throw no further light on these fundamental facts. Here, it would seem, we should reach the end of philosophy, and should assume that the first cause of things is unknowable.

Philosophy, however, has seldom consented to this confession of impotence. On the contrary, it has repeatedly reverted to some absolute assumption of an adequate cause which lies behind the possibility of proof. Sometimes it is the assumption of a vital Substance, one and unchangeable; sometimes it is the assumption of an infinite concourse of atoms. Yet such conceptions are in the highest degree elusive, and force us to inquire whence such substance, be it simple or infinitely divided, comes, how it becomes quickened with life, and how it imparts the life it has. The transition from such mere movements of atoms to phenomena of feeling or thought or will, makes a leap in nature which no man has in the remotest degree proposed to explain. On the contrary, instead of bridging such a chasm the most famous inquirers simply record the melancholy confession: “Ignoramus, ignorabimus.”

Sometimes, again, philosophy has taught, with many and large words, that the meaning of the world resides in an opposition between Being and Not-being. This is no new doctrine and it is at least intelligent and intelligible. Yet what we really need to know concerns Being alone. It is the world that lies before our eyes that interests us. How has this world come to be, we ask, or is it perhaps a mere illusion, the mirage of our own thought, with no reality but that which our own minds assign, as people in their despair have sometimes believed it to be? As for Non-existence, what rational interest has this for us? Is it even an intelligible conception? Does it not rather set before us a contradiction which we may conceive, but can never verify, and which has for life itself no significance at all?

Still other philosophers invite us to turn from the outward world whose final cause thus eludes us, and to consider our own self-conscious nature, the Ego, concerning which no one can doubt and which no philosophy is needed to prove. Yet no sooner does this poor Ego issue from its own self-consciousness and, as it were, take a step into the outward world, as though to interpret through itself the meaning of life, than it becomes aware that some further and external cause is necessary to explain even the Ego to itself.

Finally, philosophy, in its search for the meaning of life, bows to the authority of natural science and proposes to interpret experience through some doctrine of development, or evolution, or heredity, or natural selection. All that exists, it announces, comes of some primitive protoplasm, or even of some single primitive cell. Yet still there presses the ancient question how such cells may have been made and how there has been imparted to them their infinite capacity for life and growth. It is the question which the keen and practical Napoleon asked as he stood a century ago under the mystery of the stars in Egypt. Turning to the scholar Monge, he said: “Qui a fait tout cela?” To such a question neither abstract philosophy nor natural science has as yet given and, so far as we can judge, will ever give any answer.

To interpret the world, then, by itself or through itself is impossible, for there is in the world itself no final cause. If the mind of man is the final interpreter of the world, then it becomes itself the God it seeks, and the philosophers become the object of a kind of worship. Here, indeed, is the outcome of much philosophy to-day. If, however, the philosophers have any power of observation, they soon discover one positive barrier to this excessive self-importance. It is the humbling consciousness of limitation in their own powers and in their own hold on life itself; the inevitable impression, which no human praise can remove, of their own defects; the impossibility of finding a meaning even for their own lives within those lives themselves.

Here is the weakness of that pantheism which, from the time of Spinoza, has so largely controlled speculative thought, and, from the time of Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Goethe, has been the prevailing creed of cultivated people, so far as they concern themselves with philosophy. No form of philosophy is so demoralizing in its ethical consequences as this. It breeds contempt of moral activity; it forfeits the right of the will to oppose what is evil and to create what is good. Sooner or later the corollary of such a faith appears in some form of superstition, crude but compelling,—like hypnotism or spiritualism, or the vulgar and noisy substitutes for religion which are now so conspicuous. Thus the cycle of philosophical speculation fulfils itself, and returns after centuries to the same point at which it began. The final form of truth may come to be, not the systems of abstract philosophy or of speculative theology, which have proved so misleading and unsatisfying, but simply a summing-up of the experience of mankind, as it has affected human destiny through the history of the world; and in this experience we have a philosophy better than abstractions, and always within one’s reach.

And where do we find this philosophy which discovers the meaning of life not through speculative reasoning but through the interpretation of experience, and which observes in experience a spiritual power creating and maintaining both the world and the individual? This is the view of life which had its origin in Israel and was fulfilled in Christianity. It cannot indeed be called in the technical sense a philosophy, for philosophy would feel itself called upon to explain still further that Cause which it thus reached. Theology as a positive science meets the same fate as philosophy. It cannot prove its God, as philosophy cannot interpret the world or human life in or through themselves. What people call ontology, or the proofs of the being of God, is no real science, and convinces none but him who is already pledged. It is in the nature of God to be beyond our interpretations. A god who could be explained would not be God, and a man who could explain God would not be man. The legitimate aim of life is not to see God as He is, but to see the affairs of this world and of human life somewhat as God might see them. It is, therefore, no new thing to question whether theology can be fairly called a science at all. On this point, for instance, the evidence of Christ is in the negative, and the theological speculations of Christians are, in fact, not derived from him. They proceed, on the contrary, from the Apostle Paul, who applied to the proving of Christianity the subtlety of theological training which he had received under Judaism; and even in his case it must be remembered that his teaching was directed to convince those who had been, like him, trained in the theology of Israel.

It must not be imagined, therefore, that the final Cause of the world which we call God, can be philosophically proved. Faith in God is first of all a personal experience. Nothing should disguise this proposition, though it is the stone of offence where many stumble who are seeking an adequate meaning of life. Nothing can be done to help those who refuse this experience. No argument can convince them. There is no philosophical refutation of a determined atheism.

Here is an admission which must gravely affect not only our religious and philosophical relations with others, but even our practical and political life. Here is the fundamental difference between people of the same nation, or condition, or time, or even family. In other differences of opinion there may be found some common ground, but between faith and denial there is no common ground, because we are dealing with a question of the will and because the human will is free. The saying of Tertullian, that the human soul is naturally Christian, is in a literal sense quite untrue. Every man who reflects on his responsibilities recognizes that he is not naturally Christian. He is, at the most, only possibly Christian, as Tertullian perhaps meant to say. He is capable of becoming Christian through the experience of life. Atheism and Christianity are equally accessible to the nature of man.

Faith in God, then, is a form of experience, not a form of proof. If experience were as unfruitful as proof, then faith in God would be nothing more than a nervous condition, and the answer of Festus—“Paul, thou art beside thyself!”—would be the just estimate of a faith like that of Paul. Each period of history has in fact produced many a Festus, sedulously guarding his reason and conscience against all that cannot be proved. Other faith, however, than that which proceeds from experience is not expected by God from any man; while to every man, in his own experience and in the witness of history, this faith is abundantly offered. There is, therefore, in the refusal of faith a confession, not merely of intellectual error, but of moral neglect; and many a man who has surrendered his faith would be slow to confess to others how well aware he is that the fault is his own.

Here, then, is the first step toward the discovery of the meaning of life. It is an act of will, a moral venture, a listening to experience. No man can omit this initial step, and no man can teach another the lesson which lies in his own experience. The prophets of the Old Testament found an accurate expression for this act of will when they described it as a “turning,” and they went on to assure their people of the perfect inward peace and the sense of confidence which followed from this act. “Look unto me, and be ye saved,” says Isaiah; “Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live.” From that time to this, thousands of those who have thus changed the direction of their wills have entered into the same sense of peace; while no man who has thus given his will to God has ever felt himself permanently bewildered or forsaken.

Here, also, in this free act of the will, is attained that sense of liberty which in both the Old and New Testaments is described as “righteousness.” It is a sense of initiative and power, as though one were not wholly the subject of arbitrary grace, but had a certain positive companionship with God. It is what the Old Testament calls a “covenant,” involving mutual rights and obligations. No man, however, who accepts this relation is inclined to urge overmuch his own rights, knowing as he well does that his part in the covenant falls ever short and is even then made possible only through his steady confidence in God. Grace, unearned and undeserved, he still knows that he needs; yet behind this grace lies ever the initiative of personal “turning,” and the free assertion of the will as the first step toward complete redemption. To say with Paul that a man is “justified by faith,” or to emphasize as Luther does, even more strongly, the province of grace, is to run some risk of forgetting the constant demand for an initial step of one’s own.

This step once taken, both the world in which one lives and one’s own personal life get a clear and intelligible meaning. On the one hand stands the free will of God, creating and directing the world, not restricted by the so-called laws of nature, yet a God of order, whose desires are not arbitrary or lawless. On the other hand is the free will of man, with the free choice before it of obedience or refusal;—a will, therefore, which may choose the wrong though it may not thereby thwart the Divine purpose. The evil-doer, if impenitent, must suffer, but his evil is converted into good. In such a philosophy what is a wisely adjusted human life? It is a life of free obedience to the eternal and unchangeable laws of God; a life, therefore, which attains through self-discipline successive steps of spiritual power. Life on other terms brings on a progressive decline of spiritual power and with this a sense of self-condemnation. What is the happy life? It is a life of conscious harmony with this Divine order of the world, a sense, that is to say, of God’s companionship. And wherein is the profoundest unhappiness? It is in the sense of remoteness from God, issuing into incurable restlessness of heart, and finally into incapacity to make one’s life fruitful or effective.

If, then, we are at times tempted to fancy that all this undemonstrable experience is unreal, or metaphysical, or purposeless, or imaginary, it is best to deal with such returning scepticism much as we deal with the selfish or mean thoughts which we are trying to outgrow. Let all these hindrances to the higher life be quietly but firmly repelled. The better world we enter is indeed entered by faith and not by sight; but this faith grows more confident and more supporting, until it is like an inward faculty of sight itself. To substitute for this a world of the outward senses is to find no meaning in life which can convey confidence and peace. It is but to embitter every noble and thoughtful nature with restless doubts from which there is no escape.

Such was religion as it disclosed itself to the early Hebrews. Soon, indeed, that religion was overgrown by the formalism which converted its practical teaching into mere prohibitions or mere mechanism; but behind these abuses of later history lay the primitive simplicity of spiritual liberty and life. Such also was the historical beginning of the Christian religion. The mission of Christ, like that of each genuine reformer, was to recall men to their original consciousness of God; and it is perhaps the greatest tragedy of history, while at the same time the best proof of the free will of man, that the Hebrew people, to whom Christ announced that he was expressly sent, could not, as a whole, bring themselves to obey his call. They were held in bondage by their accumulated formalism, as many a man has been ever since. They could not rise to the thought of a worship which was in spirit and in truth. Had they, with their extraordinary gifts, been able to hear Christ’s message, they would have become the dominant nation of the world.

And what is to be said of those Gentile peoples who listened more willingly to the message of Christ, those “wild olive trees,” as St. Paul calls them, which were grafted on the “broken branches”? They also have had the same history. They also, in their own way, have become enslaved by the same formalism; and they also must regain their liberty through the return of individual souls to a personal experience of the method of Christ.

Here is the evidence of the indestructible truth and the extraordinary vitality of the Christian religion. To subdue its opponents was but a slight achievement; for every positive truth must in the end prevail. Its real conflict has been with the forces of accumulated opinion, of superfluous learning, of sickly fancies among its friends, and with the intellectual slavery to which these influences have led. Through these obstructions the light and power of genuine Christianity have broken like sunshine through a mist; and with such Christianity have appeared in history the political liberty on which the permanence of civilization rests, the philosophical truth which solves the problems of human life, and the present comfort for the human heart, beyond the power of misfortune to disturb.

We reach, then, a philosophy of life which is not speculative or fanciful, but rests on the facts of history. This is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Better is it for one if he finds this “way” without too many companions or professional guides, for many a religious teaching, designed to show the way, has repelled young lives from following it. As one follows the way, he gains, first of all, courage, so that he dares to go on in his search. He goes still further, and the way opens into the assurance that life, with all its mystery, is not lived in vain. He pushes on, and the way issues into health, not only of the soul but even of the body; for bodily health is more dependent on spiritual condition than spiritual condition on bodily health; and modern medicine can never restore and assure health to the body if it limit its problem to physical relief alone. Nor is even this the end of the “way” of Christ. It leads not only to personal health, but to social health as well; not by continually inciting the masses to some social programme, but by strengthening the individuals of which the masses are made. Here alone is positive social redemption; while the hopes that turn to other ways of social reform are for the most part deceptive dreams.

Finally, the way is sure to lead every life which follows it, and is willing to pay the price for the possession of truth, into the region of spiritual peace. No other way of life permits this comprehensive sense of peace and assurance. Apart from it we have but the unremitting and bitter struggle for existence, the enforcement of national self-seeking, the temporary victory of the strong, the hell of the weak and the poor; yet, at the same time, no peace even for the strong, who have their little day of power, but live in daily fear that this power will fail and leave them at the mercy of the wolves, their neighbors. Meantime, on every page of the world’s history, and in the experience of daily life, God writes the opposite teaching, that out of the midst of evil issues at last the mastery of the good; and that, in modern as in ancient time, the meek both inherit and control the earth. History is not a record of despotic control like that of a Roman Cæsar, effective and intelligent, but necessarily involving a progressive degeneration of his subjects; it is a story of progressive amelioration in moral standards and achievements; and this fact of moral progress is the most convincing proof of the being of God.

Thus it happens that to one who loves liberty and who reads history, the logic of thought leads to faith in God. Without such faith it is difficult to believe in human progress through freedom, or to view the movement of the modern world with hope. Without such faith the popular agitations of the time are disquieting and alarming, and the only refuge of the spirit is in submission to some human authority either of Church or of State. Without such faith it would be increasingly impossible to maintain a democratic republic like Switzerland in the midst of the autocratic monarchies of Europe. With profound truthfulness the Swiss Parliament at Aarau opened its session with these simple words: “Our help is in the Lord our God, who hath made heaven and earth.” And, finally, without political liberty there would be but a brief survival of religious liberty itself, and it too would be supplanted by a condition of servitude. A State-Church is a self-contradictory expression. State and Church alike need self-government for self-development. A free Church and a free State are not only most representative of Christianity, but are beyond doubt the forms of Christian citizenship which are to survive. Not compulsion, nor any form of authority, will in the end dominate the world, but freedom, in all its forms and its effects. The end of social evolution is to be the free obedience of men and nations to the moral order of the world.

And yet, we must repeat, the secret of true progress is not to be found in an achievement of philosophy, or a process of thought; but in a historical process, a living experience. To each man’s will is offered the choice of this way which leads to personal recognition of the truth and personal experience of happiness. To each nation the same choice is presented. No philosophy or religion has real significance which does not lead this way. No man can rightly call it mere misfortune, or confess his unbelief with sentimental regret, when he misses the way and forfeits his peace of mind. His pessimism is not, as he fondly thinks, a mark of distinction; it is, on the contrary, as a rule, an evidence of moral defect or weakness, and should stir in him a positive moral scorn.

What is it, then, which makes one unable to find the way of Jesus? It is, for the most part, either unwillingness to make a serious effort to find it, or disinclination to accept the consequences of the choice. To take up with some philosophical novelty, involving no demand upon the will; to surrender oneself to the pleasures of life; to attach oneself, with superficial and unreflecting devotion, to some form of Church or sect;—how much easier is any one of these refuges of the mind than serious meditation on the great problems of life and the growth of a personal conviction! And yet, how unmistakable have been the joy, and the strength to live and to die, and the peace of mind and sense of right adjustment to the Universe, which those have found who have followed with patience the way I have described! In the testimony of such souls there is complete accord. Consciously or unconsciously, every heart desires the satisfactions which this way of life can give, and without these satisfactions of the spirit no other possessions or pleasures can insure spiritual peace.

What infinite pains are taken by people in the modern world for the sake of their health of body or the welfare of their souls! For health of body they go barefoot in the daytime or sleep in wet sheets at night; for the good of their souls they go on pilgrimages and into retreats, or submit themselves to other forms of spiritual exercise. They go even farther in their pious credulity. There is not a hardship or a folly, or a risk of body or soul, or any form of martyrdom, which is not accepted by thousands in the hope that it will save their souls. And all the time the simple way to the meaning of life lies straight before their feet,—a way, however, let us last of all remember, which it is not enough to know, but which is given us to follow. This is the truth which a scholar of the time of Luther teaches, though he himself had not fully attained the truth. Not, he writes, by knowing the way but by going it, is the meaning of life to be found. He put into the mouth of Christ his lesson:

“Why art thou then so faint of heart,

O man of little faith?

Have I not strength to do My part

As God’s word promiseth?

Why wilt thou not return to Me

Whose pity will receive?

Why seek not Him whose grace can free

And every fault forgive?

Why was it hard the way to find,

Which straight before thee ran?

Why dost thou wander as though blind?

’Tis thine own choice, O man!”

NOTES

NOTES

NOTE 1

“Friedrich Max von Klinger,” says Professor Hilty, “was born in 1752, at Frankfort. His family were poor, and after he had with difficulty pursued his studies at the University of Giessen, he became at first a play-writer for a travelling company. He then served during the Bavarian War of Succession in a corps of volunteers. Later he became reader and travelling companion to the Czarevitch Paul of Russia, afterwards the Emperor. He was made Director of the corps of cadets of the nobility, as well as of the Emperor’s pages, and of the girls’ school for the nobility. Under Alexander I. he was also made Curator of the University of Dorpat. In all these relations of life, which were as difficult as can be imagined, in his contact with actors, crown-princes, Czars, noble pages and women of the court, diplomats and professors—who, taken together, are certainly not of the classes most easy to deal with—and living at a court thoroughly degraded and beset by self-seekers of the lowest kind as was the court of Catherine II., von Klinger preserved his candid character and moral courage and gained the high respect of his contemporaries. In Goethe’s Wahrheit und Dichtung, he mentions von Klinger as follows: ‘This maintenance of a sterling character is the more creditable when it occurs in the midst of worldly and business life and when a way of conduct which might appear to many curt and abrupt, being judiciously followed, accomplishes its ends. Such was his character. Without subservience (which, indeed, has never been a quality of the natives of Frankfort) he attained to the most important positions, was able to maintain himself there and to continue his services with the highest approval and gratitude of his noble patrons. Through all this, he never forgot either his old friends or the paths which he had come.’ In the later years of his life, Goethe renewed the study of von Klinger’s writings, ‘which recalled to me his unwearied activity and his remarkable character.’”

NOTE 2

Dante, Purgatorio, xxvii, 126, 131.

NOTE 3

Jakob Böhme, from a supplement to his works (Historische Uebersicht).

NOTE 4

Dante, Purgatorio, xxvii, 115.

NOTE 5

Dante, Purgatorio, ix, 19.

NOTE 6

Dante, Inferno, iii, 1, 9.

NOTE 7

Dante, Purgatorio, iv, 88.

NOTE 8

Dhammapada, transl. Charles R. Lanman, in Hymns of the Faith, A. J. Edmunds, Chicago, 1902, page 38.

THE QUEST OF HAPPINESS

A STUDY OF VICTORY OVER LIFE’S TROUBLES

By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS

Pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn; author of “The
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THE PLEASURES OF LIFE

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[Lord Avebury]

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THE USE OF LIFE

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Inspired by a wholesome optimism, sound common sense, and a reverent recognition of the higher truths of existence. Just the volume that needed to be written on a subject full of vital interest to every thoughtful man and woman. The Bookman.

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Table of Contents

- HAPPINESS: BY CARL HILTY
- CONTENTS
- PREFACE
- NOTE
- I. THE ART OF WORK
- II. HOW TO FIGHT THE BATTLES OF LIFE
- III. GOOD HABITS

- IV. THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD ARE WISER THAN THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT

- V. THE ART OF HAVING TIME
- VI. HAPPINESS
- VII. THE MEANING OF LIFE
- NOTES
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE