{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39065/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39065","id":"gutenberg_39065","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39065","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Ethics","Philosophy, Ancient"],"text":"Produced by Christina Blust, Juliet Sutherland and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n THE\n FIVE GREAT PHILOSOPHIES\n OF LIFE\n\n\n BY\n WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE\n PRESIDENT OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE\n\n\n New York\n THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n 1924\n\n _All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\n PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1904,\n BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.\n\n Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1904. Reprinted\n January, 1905; January, 1906; January, 1908; June, 1910.\n\n\n COPYRIGHT, 1911,\n BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.\n\n Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1911. Reprinted\n May, 1912; May, 1913; May, 1914; July, 1915; January, November,\n 1917; August, 1919; February, October, 1920; June, November,\n 1921; September, 1922; June, 1923; September, 1924.\n\n\n Norwood Press\n J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.\n Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION\n\n\nWhen asked why some men with moderate talents and meagre technical\nequipment succeed, where others with greater ability and better\npreparation fail; why some women with plain features and few\naccomplishments charm, while others with all the advantages of beauty\nand cultivation repel, we are wont to conceal our ignorance behind the\nvague term _personality_. Undoubtedly the deeper springs of personality\nare below the threshold of consciousness, in hereditary traits and early\ntraining. Still some of the higher elements of personality rise above\nthis threshold, are reducible to philosophical principles, and amenable\nto rational control.\n\nThe five centuries from the birth of Socrates to the death of Jesus\nproduced five such principles: the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure, genial\nbut ungenerous; the Stoic law of self-control, strenuous but forbidding;\nthe Platonic plan of subordination, sublime but ascetic; the\nAristotelian sense of proportion, practical but uninspiring; and the\nChristian Spirit of Love, broadest and deepest of them all.\n\nThe purpose of this book is to let the masters of these sane and\nwholesome principles of personality talk to us in their own words; with\njust enough of comment and interpretation to bring us to their points of\nview, and make us welcome their friendly assistance in the philosophical\nguidance of life.\n\nWhy a new edition under a new title? Because \"From Epicurus to Christ\"\nhad an antiquarian flavor; while the book presents those answers to the\nproblem of life, which, though offered first by the ancients, are still\nso broad, deep, and true that all our modern answers are mere varieties\nof these five great types. Because the former title suggested that the\nhistorical aspect was a finality; whereas it is here used merely as the\nmost effective approach to present-day solutions of the fundamental\nproblems of life.\n\n\"Why rewrite the last chapter?\" Because, while the faith of the world\nhas found in Jesus much more than a philosophy of life, in its quest for\ngreater things it has almost overlooked that. Yet Jesus' Spirit of Love\nis the final philosophy of life.\n\nTo the question in its Jewish form, \"What is the great commandment?\"\nJesus answers, \"The first is Love to God; and the second, just like it,\nLove to man.\" Translated into modern, ethical terms his philosophy of\nlife is a grateful and helpful appreciation; first of the whole system\nof relations, physical, mental, social, and spiritual, as Personal like\nourselves, but Infinite, seeking perfection, caring for each lowliest\nmember as an essential and precious part of the whole; and, second, of\nother finite and imperfect persons, whose aims, interests, and\naffections are just as real, and therefore to be held just as sacred, as\nour own.\n\nTo love, to dwell in this grateful and helpful appreciation of the\nFather and our brothers,--this is life: and all that falls short of it\nis intellectually the illusion of selfishness; spiritually the death\npenalty of sin.\n\nFrom this central point of view every phase of Jesus' teaching, his\ndemocracy, compassion, courage, humility, earnestness, charitableness,\nsacrifice, can be shown to flow straight and clear.\n\nOf course such a limitation to his philosophy of life leaves out of\naccount all supernatural and eschatological considerations. We here\nconsider only the truth and worth of the teaching; not who the Teacher\nis, nor what may happen to us hereafter if we obey or disobey.\n\nYet even from this limited point of view we may get a glimpse, more real\nand convincing than any to be gained by the traditional, dogmatic\napproach, of the divine and eternal quality of both Teacher and\nteaching--we may see that beyond Love truth cannot go; above Love life\ncannot rise; that he who loves is one with God; that out of Love all is\nhell, whether here or hereafter; and that in Love lies heaven, both now\nand forevermore.\n\n WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE.\n\n BOWDOIN COLLEGE,\n BRUNSWICK, MAINE,\n July 25, 1911.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n CHAPTER I\n THE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE PAGE\n\n I. Selections from the Epicurean Scriptures 1\n II. The Epicurean View of Work and Play 20\n III. The Epicurean Price of Happiness 29\n IV. The Defects of Epicureanism 36\n V. An Example of Epicurean Character 46\n VI. The Confessions of an Epicurean Heretic 53\n\n CHAPTER II\n STOIC SELF-CONTROL BY LAW\n\n I. The Psychological Law of Apperception 66\n II. Selections from the Stoic Scriptures 71\n III. The Stoic Reverence for Universal Law 82\n IV. The Stoic Solution of the Problem of Evil 87\n V. The Stoic Paradoxes 90\n VI. The Religious Aspect of Stoicism 95\n VII. The Permanent Value of Stoicism 101\n VIII. The Defects of Stoicism 106\n\n CHAPTER III\n THE PLATONIC SUBORDINATION OF LOWER TO HIGHER\n\n I. The Nature of Virtue 110\n II. Righteousness writ Large 116\n III. The Cardinal Virtues 123\n IV. Plato's Scheme of Education 131\n V. Righteousness the Comprehensive Virtue 138\n VI. The Stages of Degeneration 143\n VII. The Intrinsic Superiority of Righteousness 153\n VIII. Truth and Error in Platonism 159\n\n CHAPTER IV\n THE ARISTOTELIAN SENSE OF PROPORTION\n\n I. Aristotle's Objections to Previous Systems 169\n II. The Social Nature of Man 176\n III. Right and Wrong determined by the End 179\n IV. The Need of Instruments 191\n V. The Happy Mean 194\n VI. The Aristotelian Virtues and their Acquisition 199\n VII. Aristotelian Friendship 209\n VIII. Criticism and Summary of Aristotle's Teaching 212\n\n CHAPTER V\n THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF LOVE\n\n I. The Teaching of Love 215\n II. The Fulfilment of Law through Love 219\n III. The Counterfeits of Love 239\n IV. The Whole-heartedness of Love 247\n V. The Cultivation of Love 257\n VI. The Blessedness of Love 264\n VII. The Supremacy of Love 277\n\n INDEX 293\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIVE GREAT PHILOSOPHIES\n\nOF LIFE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE\n\n\nI\n\nSELECTIONS FROM THE EPICUREAN SCRIPTURES\n\nEpicureanism is so simple a philosophy of life that it scarcely needs\ninterpretation. In fact, as the following citations show, it was\noriginally little more than a set of directions for living \"the simple\nlife,\" with pleasure as the simplifying principle. The more subtle\nteaching of the other philosophies will require to be introduced by\nexplanatory statement, or else accompanied by a running commentary as it\nproceeds. The best way to understand Epicureanism, however, is to let\nEpicurus and his disciples speak for themselves. Accordingly, as in\nreligious services the sermon is preceded by reading of the Scriptures\nand singing of hymns, we will open our study of the Epicurean philosophy\nof life by selections from their scriptures and hymns. First the master,\nthough unfortunately he is not so good a master of style as many of his\ndisciples, shall speak. The gist of Epicurus's teaching is contained in\nthe following passages.\n\n\"The end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear; and when\nonce we have attained this, all the tempest of the soul is laid, seeing\nthat the living creature has not to go to find something that is\nwanting, or to seek something else by which the good of the soul and of\nthe body will be fulfilled.\" \"Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and\nomega of a blessed life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. From it\nis the commencement of every choice and every aversion, and to it we\ncome back, and make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good\nthing.\" \"When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not\nmean the pleasures of the prodigal, or the pleasures of sensuality, as\nwe are understood by some who are either ignorant and prejudiced for\nother views, or inclined to misinterpret our statements. By pleasure we\nmean the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the soul. It is not\nan unbroken succession of drinking feasts and of revelry, not the\nenjoyments of the fish and other delicacies of a splendid table, which\nproduce a pleasant life: it is sober reasoning, searching out the\nreasons for every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs\nthrough which great tumults take possession of the soul.\" \"Nothing is so\nproductive of cheerfulness as to abstain from meddling, and not to\nengage in difficult undertakings, nor force yourself to do something\nbeyond your power. For all this involves your nature in tumults.\" \"The\nmain part of happiness is the disposition which is under our own\ncontrol. Service in the field is hard work, and others hold command.\nPublic speaking abounds in heart-throbs and in anxiety whether you can\ncarry conviction. Why then pursue an object like this, which is at the\ndisposal of others?\" \"Wealth beyond the requirements of nature is no\nmore benefit to men than water to a vessel which is full. Both alike\noverflow. We can look upon another's goods without perturbation and can\nenjoy purer pleasure than they, for we are free from their arduous\nstruggle.\"\n\n\"Thou must also keep in mind that of desires some are natural, and some\nare groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as\nnatural, and some are natural only. And of the necessary desires, some\nare necessary if we are to be happy, and some if the body is to remain\nunperturbed, and some if we are even to live. By the clear and certain\nunderstanding of these things we learn to make every preference and\naversion, so that the body may have health and the soul tranquillity,\nseeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life.\" \"Cheerful\npoverty is an honourable thing.\" \"Great wealth is but poverty when\nmatched with the law of nature.\" \"If any one thinks his own not to be\nmost ample, he may become lord of the whole world, and will yet be\nwretched.\" \"Fortune but slightly crosses the wise man's path.\" \"If thou\nwilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches, but take away from his\ndesires.\"\n\n\"And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do\nnot choose every pleasure whatsoever, but oftentimes pass over many\npleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And oftentimes we\nconsider pains superior to pleasures, and submit to the pain for a long\ntime, when it is attended for us with a greater pleasure. All pleasure,\ntherefore, because of its kinship with our nature, is a good, but it is\nnot in all cases our choice, even as every pain is an evil, though pain\nis not always, and in every case, to be shunned.\"\n\n\"It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the\nconveniences and inconveniences, that all these things must be judged.\nSometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary,\nas a good; and we regard independence of outward goods as a great good,\nnot so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with\nlittle, if we have not much, being thoroughly persuaded that they have\nthe sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that\nwhatever is natural is easily procured, and only the vain and worthless\nhard to win. Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when\nonce the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water confer the\nhighest pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate\nself, therefore, to plain and inexpensive diet gives all that is needed\nfor health, and enables a man to meet the necessary requirements of life\nwithout shrinking, and it places us in a better frame when we approach\nat intervals a costly fare, and renders us fearless of fortune.\"\n\n\"Riches according to nature are of limited extent, and can be easily\nprocured; but the wealth craved after by vain fancies knows neither end\nnor limit. He who has understood the limits of life knows how easy it is\nto get all that takes away the pain of want, and all that is required to\nmake our life perfect at every point. In this way he has no need of\nanything which involves a contest.\" \"The beginning and the greatest good\nis prudence. Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than\nphilosophy: from it grow all the other virtues, for it teaches that we\ncannot lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence,\nhonour, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honour, and justice,\nwhich is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into\none with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.\"\n\n\"Of all the things which wisdom procures for the happiness of life as a\nwhole, by far the greatest is the acquisition of friendship.\"\n\n\"We ought to look round for people to eat and drink with, before we look\nfor something to eat and drink: to feed without a friend is the life of\na lion and a wolf.\" \"Do everything as if Epicurus had his eye upon you.\nRetire into yourself chiefly at that time when you are compelled to be\nin a crowd.\" \"We ought to select some good man and keep him ever before\nour eyes, so that we may, as it were, live under his eye, and do\neverything in his sight.\" \"No one loves another except for his own\ninterest.\" \"Among the other ills which attend folly is this: it is\nalways beginning to live.\" \"A foolish life is restless and disagreeable:\nit is wholly engrossed with the future.\" \"We are born once: twice we\ncannot be born, and for everlasting we must be non-existent. But thou,\nwho art not master of the morrow, puttest off the right time.\nProcrastination is the ruin of life for all; and, therefore, each of us\nis hurried and unprepared at death.\" \"Learn betimes to die, or if it\nplease thee better to pass over to the gods.\" \"He who is least in need\nof the morrow will meet the morrow most pleasantly.\" \"Injustice is not\nin itself a bad thing: but only in the fear, arising from anxiety on the\npart of the wrong-doer, that he will not escape punishment.\" \"A wise man\nwill not enter political life unless something extraordinary should\noccur.\" \"The free man will take his free laugh over those who are fain\nto be reckoned in the list with Lycurgus and Solon.\"\n\n\"The first duty of salvation is to preserve our vigour and to guard\nagainst the defiling of our life in consequence of maddening desires.\"\n\"Accustom thyself in the belief that death is nothing to us, for good\nand evil are only where they are felt, and death is the absence of all\nfeeling: therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us\nmakes enjoyable the mortality of life, not by adding to years an\nillimitable time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For\nin life there can be nothing to fear, to him who has thoroughly\napprehended that there is nothing to cause fear in what time we are not\nalive. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not\nbecause it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the\nprospect. Whatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present causes only\na groundless pain by the expectation thereof. Death, therefore, the most\nawful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that when we are, death is not\nyet, and when death comes, then we are not. It is nothing then, either\nto the living or the dead, for it is not found with the living, and the\ndead exist no longer.\"\n\nThese words of the master, given with no attempt to reconcile their\napparent inconsistencies, convey very fairly the substance of his\nteaching, including both its excellences and its deep defects. The\nexalted esteem in which his doctrines were held, leading his disciples\nto commit them to memory as sacred and verbally inspired; the personal\nreverence for his character; and the extravagant expectations as to what\nhis philosophy was to do for the world, together with a glimpse into the\nEpicurean idea of heaven, are well illustrated by the following\nsentences at the opening of the third book of Lucretius, addressed to\nEpicurus:--\n\n\"Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so\nbright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I\nfollow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed\nin thy imprinted marks, not so much from a desire to rival thee as that\nfrom the love I bear thee I yearn to imitate thee. Thou, father, art\ndiscoverer of things, thou furnishest us with fatherly precepts, and\nlike as bees sip of all things in the flowery lawns, we, O glorious\nbeing, in like manner, feed from out thy pages upon all the golden\nmaxims, golden I say, most worthy ever of endless life. For soon as thy\nphilosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice to\nproclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled,\nthe walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation\nthroughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed, and\ntheir tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake, nor clouds drench\nwith rains nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall: an\never cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed\nlargely round. Nature too supplies all their wants, and nothing ever\nimpairs their peace of mind.\"\n\nHorace is so saturated with Epicureanism that it is hard to select any\none of his odes as more expressive of it than another. His ode on the\n\"Philosophy of Life\" perhaps presents it in as short compass as any. He\nasks what he shall pray for? Not crops, and ivory, and gold gained by\nlaborious and risky enterprise; but healthy, solid contentment with the\nsimple, universal pleasures near at hand.\n\n \"Why to Apollo's shrine repair\n New hallowed? Why present with prayer\n Libation? Not those crops to gain,\n Which fill Sardinia's teeming plain,\n\n \"Herds from Calabria's sunny fields,\n Nor ivory that India yields,\n Nor gold, nor tracts where Liris glides\n So noiseless down its drowsy sides.\n\n \"Blest owners of Calenian vines,\n Crop them; ye merchants, drain the wines,\n That cargoes brought from Syria buy,\n In cups of gold. For ye, who try\n\n \"The broad Atlantic thrice a year\n And never drown, must sure be dear\n To gods in heaven. Me--small my need--\n Light mallows, olives, chiccory, feed.\n\n \"Give me then health, Apollo; give\n Sound mind; on gotten goods to live\n Contented; and let song engage\n An honoured, not a base, old age.\"\n\nFor a lesson from the new Epicurean testament we cannot do better than\nturn to the sensible pages of Herbert Spencer's \"Data of Ethics.\"\n\n\"The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by\nsocial conditions is the first requisite to the attainment of the\ngreatest general happiness. To see this it needs but to contrast one\nwhose self-regard has maintained bodily well-being with one whose\nregardlessness of self has brought its natural results; and then to ask\nwhat must be the contrast between two societies formed of two such kinds\nof individuals.\n\n\"Bounding out of bed after an unbroken sleep, singing or whistling as he\ndresses, coming down with beaming face ready to laugh on the smallest\nprovocation, the healthy man of high powers, conscious of past successes\nand, by his energy, quickness, resource, made confident of the future,\nenters on the day's business not with repugnance but with gladness; and\nfrom hour to hour experiencing satisfactions from work effectually done,\ncomes home with an abundant surplus of energy remaining for hours of\nrelaxation. Far otherwise is it with one who is enfeebled by great\nneglect of self. Already deficient, his energies are made more deficient\nby constant endeavours to execute tasks that prove beyond his strength,\nand by the resulting discouragement. Hours of leisure which, rightly\npassed, bring pleasures that raise the tide of life and renew the powers\nof work, cannot be utilized: there is not vigour enough for enjoyments\ninvolving action, and lack of spirits prevents passive enjoyments from\nbeing entered upon with zest. In brief, life becomes a burden. Now if,\nas must be admitted, in a community composed of individuals like the\nfirst the happiness will be relatively great, while in one composed of\nindividuals like the last there will be relatively little happiness, or\nrather much misery; it must be admitted that conduct causing the one\nresult is good and conduct causing the other is bad.\n\n\"He who carries self-regard far enough to keep himself in good health\nand high spirits, in the first place thereby becomes an immediate source\nof happiness to those around, and in the second place maintains the\nability to increase their happiness by altruistic actions. But one whose\nbodily vigour and mental health are undermined by self-sacrifice carried\ntoo far, in the first place becomes to those around a cause of\ndepression, and in the second place renders himself incapable, or less\ncapable, of actively furthering their welfare.\n\n\"Full of vivacity, the one is ever welcome. For his wife he has smiles\nand jocose speeches; for his children stores of fun and play; for his\nfriends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that come\nfrom buoyancy. Contrariwise, the other is shunned. The irritability\nresulting now from ailments, now from failures caused by feebleness,\nhis family has daily to bear. Lacking adequate energy for joining in\nthem, he has at best but a tepid interest in the amusements of his\nchildren; and he is called a wet blanket by his friends. Little account\nas our ethical reasonings take note of it, yet is the fact obvious that\nsince happiness and misery are infectious, such regard for self as\nconduces to health and high spirits is a benefaction to others, and such\ndisregard of self as brings on suffering, bodily or mental, is a\nmalefaction to others.\n\n\"The adequately egoistic individual retains those powers which make\naltruistic activities possible. The individual who is inadequately\negoistic loses more or less of his ability to be altruistic. The truth\nof the one proposition is self-evident; and the truth of the other is\ndaily forced on us by examples. Note a few of them. Here is a mother\nwho, brought up in the insane fashion usual among the cultivated, has a\nphysique not strong enough for suckling her infant, but who, knowing\nthat its natural food is the best, and anxious for its welfare,\ncontinues to give milk for a longer time than her system will bear.\nEventually the accumulating reaction tells. There comes exhaustion\nrunning, it may be, into illness caused by depletion; occasionally\nending in death, and often entailing chronic weakness. She becomes,\nperhaps for a time, perhaps permanently, incapable of carrying on\nhousehold affairs; her other children suffer from the loss of maternal\nattention; and where the income is small, payments for nurse and doctor\ntell injuriously on the whole family. Instance, again, what not\nunfrequently happens with the father. Similarly prompted by a high sense\nof obligation, and misled by current moral theories into the notion that\nself-denial may rightly be carried to any extent, he daily continues his\noffice work for long hours regardless of hot head and cold feet; and\ndebars himself from social pleasures, for which he thinks he can afford\nneither time nor money. What comes of this entirely unegoistic course?\nEventually a sudden collapse, sleeplessness, inability to work. That\nrest which he would not give himself when his sensations prompted he has\nnow to take in long measure. The extra earnings laid by for the benefit\nof his family are quickly swept away by costly journeys in aid of\nrecovery and by the many expenses which illness entails. Instead of\nincreased ability to do his duty by his offspring there comes now\ninability. Lifelong evils on them replace hoped-for goods. And so is it,\ntoo, with the social effects of inadequate egoism. All grades furnish\nexamples of the mischiefs, positive and negative, inflicted on society\nby excessive neglect of self. Now the case is that of a labourer who,\nconscientiously continuing his work under a broiling sun, spite of\nviolent protests from his feelings, dies of sunstroke; and leaves his\nfamily a burden to the parish. Now the case is that of a clerk whose\neyes permanently fail from overstraining, or who, daily writing for\nhours after his fingers are painfully cramped, is attacked with\n'scrivener's palsy,' and, unable to write at all, sinks with aged\nparents into poverty which friends are called on to mitigate.\n\n\"And now the case is that of a man devoted to public ends who,\nshattering his health by ceaseless application, fails to achieve all he\nmight have achieved by a more reasonable apportionment of his time\nbetween labour on behalf of others, and ministration to his own needs.\"\n\nAfter this lengthy prose extract, let us turn to the modern Epicurean\npoets.\n\nAt once the best and the worst rendering of Epicureanism into verse is\nFitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam. It is the best because of the\nfrankness with which it draws out to its logical conclusion, in a\ncynical despair of everything nobler than the pleasure of the moment,\nthe consequences of identifying the self with mere pleasure-seeking. It\nis the worst because, instead of presenting Epicureanism mixed with\nnobler elements, as Walt Whitman and Stevenson do, it gives us the pure\nand undiluted article as a final gospel of life. The fact that it has\nproved such a fad during the past few years is striking evidence of the\nhusky fare on which our modern prodigals can be content to feed.\n\n \"Come fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring\n Your Winter-garment of repentance fling:\n The bird of Time has but a little way\n To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.\n\n \"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,\n A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou\n Beside me singing in the Wilderness--\n Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow.\n\n \"Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears\n _To-day_ of past Regrets and future Fears:\n _To-morrow!_--Why, To-morrow I may be\n Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.\n\n \"I sent my soul through the Invisible,\n Some letter of that After-life to spell:\n And by and by my Soul return'd to me,\n And answer'd, \"I myself am Heav'n and Hell:\n\n \"Heav'n but the vision of fulfill'd Desire,\n And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on Fire,\n Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,\n So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.\"\n\nFrom this melancholy attempt to offer us Epicureanism as a complete\naccount of life, overshadowed as it is by the gloom of the Infinite\nwhich the man who stakes his all on momentary pleasure feels doomed to\nforego, it is a relief to turn to men who strike cheerfully and firmly\nthe Epicurean note; but pass instantly on to blend it with sterner notes\nand larger views of life, in which it plays its essential, yet strictly\nsubordinate part.\n\nOf all the men who thus strike scattered Epicurean notes, without\nattempting the impossible task of making a harmonious and satisfactory\ntune out of them, our American Pagan, Walt Whitman, is the best example.\n\n \"What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,\n Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,\n Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,\n Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,\n Scattering it freely forever.\n\n \"O the joy of manly self-hood!\n To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known\n or unknown,\n To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic,\n To look with calm gaze or with flashing eye,\n To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest,\n To confront with your personality all the other personalities of\n the earth.\n\n \"O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave,\n To meet life as a powerful conqueror,\n No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms,\n To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving\n my interior soul impregnable,\n And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.\n\n \"For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating--the joy of death!\n The beautiful touch of death, soothing and benumbing a few moments,\n for reasons,\n Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd\n to powder, or buried,\n My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres,\n My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications,\n further offices, eternal uses of the earth.\n\n \"O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!\n To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!\n To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports,\n A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys.\"\n\nWhitman, with this wild ecstasy, to be sure is an Epicurean and\nsomething more. Indeed, pure Epicureanism, unmixed with better elements,\nis rather hard to find in modern literature. One other hymn, by Robert\nLouis Stevenson, likewise adds to pure Epicureanism a note of strenuous\nintensity in the great task of happiness which was foreign to the more\neasy-going form of the ancient doctrine. In Stevenson Epicureanism is\nonly a flavour to more substantial viands.\n\nTHE CELESTIAL SURGEON\n\n \"If I have faltered more or less\n In my great task of happiness;\n If I have moved among my race\n And shown no glorious morning face;\n If beams from happy human eyes\n Have moved me not; if morning skies,\n Books, and my food, and summer rain\n Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:--\n Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take\n And stab my spirit broad awake!\n Or, Lord, if too obdurate I,\n Choose thou, before that spirit die,\n A piercing pain, a killing sin,\n And to my dead heart run them in.\"\n\nWhile we are with Stevenson, we may as well conclude our selections from\nthe Epicurean scriptures in these words from his Christmas Sermon:\n\"Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality: they are\nthe perfect duties. If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they\nare wrong. I do not say, 'give them up,' for they may be all you have;\nbut conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better\nmen.\"\n\n\nII\n\nTHE EPICUREAN VIEW OF WORK AND PLAY\n\nPleasure is our great task, \"the gist of life, the end of ends.\" To be\nhappy ourselves and radiating centres of happiness to choice circles of\ncongenial friends,--this is the Epicurean ideal. The world is a vast\nreservoir of potential pleasures. Our problem is to scoop out for\nourselves and our friends full measure of these pleasures as they go\nfloating by. We did not make the world. It made itself by a fortuitous\nconcourse of atoms. It would be foolish for us to try to alter it. Our\nonly concern is to get out of it all the pleasure we can; without\ntroubling ourselves to put anything valuable back into it. Since it is\naccidental, impersonal, we owe it nothing. We simply owe ourselves as\nbig a share of pleasure as we can grasp and hold.\n\nThis, however, is a task in which it is easy to make mistakes. We need\nprudence to avoid cheating ourselves with short-lived pleasures that\ncost too much; wisdom to choose the simpler pleasures that cost less and\nlast longer. Such shrewd calculation of the relative cost and worth of\ndifferent pleasures is the sum and substance of the Epicurean\nphilosophy. He who is shrewd to discern and prompt to snatch the most\npleasure at least cost, as it is offered on the bargain counter of\nlife,--he is the Epicurean sage.\n\nWe might work this out into a great variety of applications: but one or\ntwo spheres must suffice. Eating and drinking, as the most elemental\nrelations of life, are the ones commonly chosen as applications of the\nEpicurean principle. These applications, however, the selections from\nEpicurus and Horace have already made clear.\n\nThe Epicurean will regulate his diet, not by the immediate, trivial,\nshort-lived pleasures of taste, though these he will by no means\ndespise, but mainly by their permanent effects upon health. Wholesome\nfood, and enough of it, daintily prepared and served, he will do his\nbest to obtain. But elaborate and ostentatious feasting he will avoid,\nas involving too much expense and trouble, and too heavy penalties of\ndisease and discomfort. He will find out by practical experience the\nquantity, quality, and variety of simple food that keeps him in perfect\ncondition; and no enticements of sweetmeats or stimulants will divert\nhim from the simplicity in which the most permanent pleasure is found.\nTo eat cake and candy between meals, to sip tea at all hours, no less\nthan to drink whiskey to the point of intoxication, are sins against\nthe simplicity of the true Epicurean regimen.\n\nThe Epicurean will not lose an hour of needed sleep nor tolerate such an\nabomination as an alarm clock in his house. If he permits himself to be\nawakened in the morning, it will be as Thomas B. Reed used to when, as a\nstudent at Bowdoin College, he was obliged to be in chapel at six\no'clock. He had the janitor call him at half-past four, in order that he\nmight have the luxury of feeling that he had another whole hour in which\nto sleep, and then call him again at the last moment which would permit\nhim to dress in time for chapel.\n\nThese things, however, we may for the most part take for granted. We do\nnot require a philosopher to regulate our diet for us; or to put us to\nbed at night, and tuck us in, and hear us say our prayers. Those\nelementary lessons were doubtless needed in the childhood of the race.\nThe selection from Spencer on work and play strikes closer to the\nproblem of the modern man; and it is at this point that we all sorely\nneed to go to school to Epicurus. Perhaps we are inclined to look down\non Epicurus's ideal as a low one. Well, if it is a low ideal, it is all\nthe more disgraceful to fall below it. And most of us do fall below it\nevery day of our tense and restless lives. Let us test ourselves by this\nideal, and answer honestly the questions it puts to us.\n\nHow many of us are slaving all day and late into the night to add\nartificial superfluities to the simple necessities? How many of us know\nhow to stop working when it begins to encroach upon our health; and to\ncut off anxiety and worry altogether? How many of us measure the amount\nand intensity of our toil by our physical strength; doing what we can do\nhealthfully, cheerfully, joyously, and leaving the rest undone, instead\nof straining up to the highest notch of nervous tension during early\nmanhood and womanhood, only to break down when the life forces begin to\nturn against us? Every man in any position of responsibility and\ninfluence has opportunity to do the work of twenty men. How many of us\nin such circumstances choose the one thing we can do best, and leave the\nother nineteen for other people to do, or else to remain undone? How\nmany of us have ever seriously stopped to think where the limit of\nhealthful effort and endurance lies, unless insomnia or dyspepsia or\nnervous prostration have laid their heavy hands upon us and compelled us\nto pause? Every breakdown from avoidable causes, every stroke of work\nwe do after the border-land of exhaustion and nervous strain is crossed,\nis a crime against the teaching of Epicurus; and these diseases that\nbeset our modern business life are the penalties with which nature\nvisits us in vindication of the wisdom of his teachings. Every day that\nwe work beyond our strength; every hour that we spend in consequent\nexhaustion and depression; every minute that we give over to worrying\nabout things beyond our immediate control, we either fall below, or else\nrise above, Epicurus's level.\n\nIf we rise above him, to serve higher ideals, conscious of the sacrifice\nwe make, and clear about the superior ends we gain thereby, then we may\nbe forgiven. What some of those higher ideals are we shall have occasion\nto consider later. But to work ourselves into depression, disease, and\npain, for no better reason than to get high mark in some rank-book or\nother, to gratify somebody's false vanity, to get together a little more\ngold than we can spend wisely or our children can inherit without\nenervation, to live in a bigger house than our neighbour has or we can\nafford to take care of--to work for such ends as these beyond the point\nwhere work is healthy and happy, is to commit a sin which neither\nEpicurus nor Nature will forgive. With the people who have risen above\nEpicurus, and are deliberately sacrificing to some extent the Epicurean\nto one of the higher ideals, as I have said, we have no quarrel; for\nthem we have only hearty commendation. We do not ask the mother whose\nchild is dangerously sick, the statesman in a political crisis, the\nartist when the conception of his great work comes over him, to heed for\nthe time being the limits of strength and the conditions of completest\nhealth. All we ask of them is that later on, when the child has\nrecovered, when the crisis is past, when the picture is painted, they\nshall reverently and humbly pay to Epicurus, or to Nature whom he\nrepresents, the penalty for their sin, by a corresponding period of\ncomplete rest and relaxation. We must bear strain at times; and Nature\nwill forgive us if we do not take it too often. But we must not bunch\nour strains. We must not pass from one strain to another, and another,\nwithout periods of relaxation between. We must not let the attitude of\nstrain become chronic, and develop into a moral tetanus, which keeps us\nforever on the rack of exertion from sheer restless inability to sit\ndown and enjoy ourselves.\n\nWhat we take from excessive work Epicurus would bid us add to needed\nplay. Play is an arrangement by which we get artificially, in highly\nconcentrated form, the pleasure which in ordinary life is diffused over\nlong periods, and attainable only in attenuated form. Play puts the\ngreat fundamental pleasures of the race at the disposal of the\nindividual.\n\nFoot-ball, for instance, gives the student of to-day the essential joy\nin combat of his barbarian ancestors, with the modern field-marshal's\ndelight in subtle tragedy thrown in. Base-ball gives the intense zest\nthat comes of speed, accuracy, and cunning exercised in emergencies.\nGolf, in milder form, gives us the pleasure that comes of accuracy of\naim and calculation of conditions in good company and in the open air.\nBilliards give to the clerk cramped all day over his desk the joy of a\ndelicate touch which otherwise would be the exclusive property of his\nartisan brother. The various games of cards give the mechanic and the\nhousewife a taste at evening of the eager interests that fill the\nbanker's and the broker's days. Checkers and chess give to the humblest\nin their homes some touch of the pleasures of the general and admiral.\nDancing carries to the limit of orderly expression that delight in the\nperson and presence of the opposite sex which otherwise would have to be\npostponed until youth was able to assume the more serious\nresponsibilities of permanent relationships. Sailing, tramping, camping\nout, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, are all devices for bringing\ninto the lives of studious, strenuous, city people the elemental\npleasures which otherwise would be the monopoly of sailors, fishermen,\nforesters, and explorers. Swimming, skating, bicycle riding, driving a\nhorse or an automobile, all give the keen joy that comes of the mastery\nof graceful and forceful motion.\n\nThe theatre, which embodies so distinctively the peculiar essence of\nplay that its performances have appropriated the name, takes us in a\ncouple of hours through the epitomised experience of many persons\nextending over many years in circumstances far removed from our\nindividual lives. Poetry, novels, biographies, histories, painting,\nmusic, and all the forms of art perform for us this same function. They\ntake us out of our local and temporal situation, and let us live in\nother days and other lands, in other customs and costumes; and so\nenormously widen the world of experience we imaginatively make our own.\nBesides in all the forms of play and art the ends are made artificially\nsimple, the means are made supernaturally accessible; so that instead of\ntoiling for years in doubt of results as in actual work, we experience\nin play, and witness in artistic representation, the whole process of\nselecting materials and moulding them to a successful issue in a few\nminutes, or a few hours at most. All this reacts upon our power to\nprosecute with confidence the remoter ends, and marshal the more\nobdurate means of real work. It expands and limbers our capacity to\nsubordinate means to ends and find delight in the process as well as in\nthe outcome. Hence a man who goes a year without a considerable period\ngiven over to play, or a week without at least one or two solid periods\nof it, or lets many days go by without any play whatever, is selling his\nbirthright of personality for a mess of pottage. Psychology and pedagogy\nare recognising the important function of play in the development of\npersonality as never before. Professor Baldwin, in his \"Social and\nEthical Interpretations,\" sums up the functions of play in these words:\n\"In the education of the individual for his life-work in a network of\nsocial relationships play is a most important form of organic\nexercise,--a most important method of realisation of the social\ninstincts; gives flexibility of mind and body with self-control; gives\nconstant opportunity for imitative learning and invention, and is the\nexperimental verification of the benefits and pleasures of united\naction.\"\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE EPICUREAN PRICE OF HAPPINESS\n\nWhoever contracts his work and expands his play, on Epicurean\nprinciples, will of course have common sense enough to cut off hurry and\nworry altogether. Both are sheer waste and wantonness,--the most foolish\nand wicked things in the whole list of forbidden sins. The Epicurean\nwill live his life in care-tight, worry-proof compartments; working with\nall his might while he works; and then cutting it off short; never\nletting the cares of work intrude on the precious precincts of\nwell-earned leisure, or permitting the strain of remembered or\nanticipated toil to mar the hours sacred to rest and recreation. Some\nthings are bound to go wrong in every life. That is our misfortune. But\nthere is no need of brooding over them in gratuitous grief after they\nhave gone, or dreading them in gloomy anticipation before they come. If\neither in anticipation or in retrospect these evils are permitted to\ndarken the hours when they are physically absent, that is not our\nmisfortune; it is our folly and our fault.\n\nWe hear a great deal in these days about mind cures, and rest cures, and\nfaith cures, and cures by hypnotism, and cures by patent medicines. If\nanybody needs these cures, of course he is welcome to them; though there\nis much to be said for the stalwart conservative who refused proffered\naid of this sort with the remark that he would rather die in the hands\nof a skilful physician than be cured by a quack. Strict obedience to the\nplain, homely doctrine of Epicurus would prevent ninety-nine one\nhundredths of the physical and mental ailments which these various\nsystems of healing profess to cure. In almost every such case work, or\nthe square of work which is hurry, or the cube of work which is worry,\ncarried beyond the sane limits which Epicurus prescribes, is at the root\nof trouble. Where it is not work and worry, it is their passive\ncounterparts, grief nursed long after its occasion has gone by, or fear\nharboured long before its appropriate object has arrived. Cut these off\nand all the use you will have for either healers or physicians will be\non such comparatively rare occasions as birth, death, contagious\ndiseases, and unavoidable accident. You will not be the chronic patient\nof any doctor regular or irregular; or the consumer of any medicine,\npatented or prescribed.\n\nNeither useless regrets for the past nor profitless forebodings for the\nfuture should ever cast their shadows over the present, which taken in\nitself is always endurable, and may generally be made positively happy.\nMemory should be purged of all its unpleasantness before its pictures\nare permitted to appear before the footlights of reflection; and the\nsearchlight of expectation should always be turned toward the pleasures\nthat are still in store for us. Past and future are mainly in our power,\nso far as the quality of things we remember and anticipate are\nconcerned. And even the brief and fleeting present is mainly filled by\nreminiscence and anticipation, so that it too is largely what we please\nto make it.\n\n \"The world is so full of a number of things,\n I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.\"\n\nIf any one of us is not happy all the time, except at the rare instants\nwhen toothache, or the news of a friend's illness or death, or a bad\nturn in our investments takes us by surprise--if happiness is not the\ndominant tone of our ordinary life, it is simply because we do not want\nit, in that thoughtful, enterprising, insistent way in which the\nscholar wants knowledge, or the business man wants money, or the\npolitician wants votes. Whoever is willing to pay the price in prudent\nplanning of his daily pleasures, in relentless exclusion of the\nenterprises and indulgences that cost more pain than they can return in\npleasure; whoever will cut out remorselessly the things in his past life\non which he cannot dwell with pleasure, and lop off the considerations\nwhich give rise to dread; whoever is willing to pay this Epicurean price\nfor happiness can have it just as soon and just as often as he pays down\nthe cash of a faithful and consistent application of these principles.\nIf any man goes about the world in a chronic unhappiness, it is\nninety-nine per cent the fault, not of his circumstances, but of\nhimself. There is not a reader of this book whose circumstances are so\nblack that another person, in those same circumstances, would not find a\nway to be supremely and dominantly, if not exclusively and continuously,\nhappy. There is not a reader of this book so rich, so blessed with\nfamily and friends, so occupied and diverted, but that another person in\nthose same circumstances would be miserable himself, and a source of\nmisery to everybody with whom he came in contact. Epicurus is right,\nthat happiness is up at auction all the time, and sold in lots to suit\nthe purchaser whenever he bids high enough. And the price is not\nexorbitant: prudence to plan for the simple pleasures that can be had\nfor the asking; resolution to cut off the pleasures that come too high;\ndetermination to amputate our reflections the instant they develop\nmorbid symptoms, and to take an anti-toxine against fret and worry, the\nmoment we feel the approach of their contagious atmosphere;\nconcentration, to live in a self-chosen present from which profitless\nregret and unprofitable anxieties, projected from the past or borrowed\nfrom the future, are absolutely banished.\n\nIt is high time to treat melancholy, depression, gloom, fretfulness,\nunhappiness, not merely as diseases, but as the inexcusable follies, the\nintolerable vices, the unpardonable sins which a sane and wholesome\nEpicureanism pronounces them to be.\n\nThe Epicurean principle, then, forbids us to go whining, whimpering, and\nweeping through this glorious and otherwise cheery world, making\nourselves a burden and nuisance to our friends; and tells us frankly\nthat if we are so much as tempted to such melancholy living, it is\nbecause we are too improvident, too slothful, too stupid to cast out\nthese devils, which a little plain fare, hard work, outdoor exercise,\nvigorous play, and unworried rest would exorcise forever. It bids us put\nin place of these banished sighs and groans and tears, the laughter,\nsong, and shout that \"spin the great wheel of earth about.\" We may sum\nit all up in the picture of a worthy Epicurean's day.\n\nAfter a night of sleep too sound to harbour an unpleasant dream, he\ngreets the hour of rising with a shout and bound, plunges into the bath,\nmeets with gusto the shock it gives, and rejoices in the glow of\nexhilaration a vigorous rubbing brings; greets the household \"with\nmorning face and morning heart,\" eager to share with the family the\nmeal, the news, the outlook on the day, resolved like Pippa to \"waste no\nwavelet of his twelve-hours' treasure\"; then, whether work calls him\nforth immediately or not, takes a few minutes of brisk walking and deep\nbreathing in the open air until he feels the great forces of earth, air,\nand sunshine pulsing in his veins; then greets the work of kitchen or\nfactory, office or field, schoolroom or counter, bench or desk with an\ninward cheer, as something to put forth his surplus energy upon; and\nthrough the swift, precious forenoon hours delights in the mastery over\ndifficulty his stored-up power imparts; takes the noon-day meal gayly\nand leisurely with congenial people; through the early afternoon hours\ndoes the lighter portion of the day's work if he must; gets out for an\nhour or two in the open air if he may, with horse, or wheel, or\nautomobile, or boat, or racket, or golf clubs, or skates, or rod, or\ngun, or at least a friend and two stout walking shoes; comes to the\nevening meal in the family circle widened to include a few welcome\nguests, or at the home of some hospitable host, in garments from which\nall trace of stain or hint of strain has been removed, to share the best\nthings market and purse afford, served in such wise as to prolong the\nopportunity for the interchange of wit and banter, cursory discussion\nand kindly compliment; spends the evening in quiet reading or public\nentertainment, games with his children or visiting with friends; and\nthen returns again to sleep with such a sense of gratitude for the dear\njoys of the day as sends an echo of \"All's well\" down through even the\nshadowy substance of his unconscious dreams. Surely there are some\nfeatures of this Epicurean day which we, in our bustling, restless,\noverelaborated lives, might introduce with great profit to ourselves,\nand great advantage to the people with whom we are intimately thrown. A\nseries of such days, varied by even happier holidays and Sundays, broken\nonce or twice a year at least by considerable vacations, added together,\nwill make a life which Epicurus says a man may live with satisfaction,\nand after which he may pass away content.\n\nIf there be no other life, let us by all means make the most of this.\nAnd if, both here and hereafter, there be a larger life than that\nperceivable by sense,--as, on deeper grounds than the Epicurean\npsychology recognises, most of us believe there is,--this healthy,\nhearty, wholesome determination to live intensely and exclusively in the\npresent is a much more sincere and effective way to develop it than the\nfoolish attempt of a false other-worldliness to anticipate or discount\nthe future, by a half-hearted, far-away affectation of superiority to\nthe simple homely pleasures of to-day.\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE DEFECTS OF EPICUREANISM\n\nThus far we have pointed out certain valuable elements of truth which\nEpicureanism contains. Only incidentally have we encountered certain\ndeep defects. Epicurus's \"free laugh\" at those who attempt to fulfil\ntheir political duties, his quiet ignoring of all interests that lie\noutside his little circle, or reach beyond the grave, his naive remark\nabout the intrinsic harmlessness of wrong-doing, provided only the\nwrong-doer could escape the fear of being caught, must have made us\naware that there are heights of nobleness, depths of devotion, lengths\nof endurance, breadths of sympathy altogether foreign to this\neasy-going, pleasure-seeking view of life. Justice requires us to dwell\nmore explicitly on these Epicurean shortcomings. Much that has been\ncharged against the school in the form of swinish sensuality is the\ngrossest slander. Still there are defects in this view of life which are\nboth logically deducible from its premises, and practically visible in\nthe lives of its consistent disciples.\n\nThe fundamental defect of Epicureanism is its false definition of\npersonality. According to Epicurus the person is merely a bundle of\nappetites and passions; and the gratification of these is made\nsynonymous with the satisfaction of himself. But gratifications are\nshort; while appetites are long. The result is that which Schopenhauer\nhas so conclusively pointed out. During the long periods when desire\nburns unsatisfied, the balance of pleasure is against us. In the\ncomparatively brief and rare intervals when passions are in process of\ngratification, the balance can never be more than even. Therefore our\naccount with the world at the end of any period, whether a week or a\nyear or a lifetime, is bound to stand as follows: credit, a few rare,\nbrief moments--moments, too, which have long since vanished into\nnothingness--when appetites and passions were in process of\nsatisfaction. Debit, the vast majority of moments, amounting in the\naggregate to almost the total period considered, when appetites and\npassions were clamouring for a satisfaction that was not forthcoming.\nThe obvious conclusion from the frequent examination of the Epicurean\naccount-book is that which Schopenhauer so triumphantly\ndemonstrates,--pessimism. The sooner we cease doing business on those\nterms, the less will be the balance of pain, or unsatisfied desire,\nagainst us. To be entirely frank, the devotees of Omar Khayyam would\nhave to confess that it is this note of pessimism, despair, and\nself-pity, at the sorry contrast of the vast unattainable and the petty\nattained, which is the secret of his unquestionably fascinating lines.\nHere the blase amusement-seeker finds consolation in the fact that a\nhost of other people are also yielding to the temptation to bury the\nunwelcome consciousness of a self they cannot satisfy in wine, or any\nother momentary sensuous titillation that will conceal the sense of\ntheir spiritual failure--a failure, however, which they are glad to be\nassured is shared by so many that the sense of it has been dignified by\nthe name of a philosophy and sung by a poet.\n\nPleasure cannot be sought directly with success; for pleasure comes\nindirectly as the effect of causes far higher and deeper and wider than\nany that are recognised in the Epicurean philosophy. Pleasure comes\nunsought to those who lose themselves in large intellectual, artistic,\nsocial, and spiritual interests. But such noble losing of self without\nthought of gain is explicitly excluded from the consistent Epicurean\ncreed.\n\nIn the picture of the Epicurean life already drawn, while domestic and\npolitical life have been presupposed as a background, nothing has been\nsaid about the sacrifice which one is called upon to make in the support\nand defence of a pure home and a free country. That was expressly\nexcluded by Epicurus. Whatever attractiveness there was in the picture\nof the Epicurean life previously presented was largely due to this\nbackground of presupposition that this happy life was lived in a\nwell-ordered and stable family, and in a free and just municipal and\nnational life. In fact it is only as a parasite on these great\ndomestic, social, and political institutions which it does nothing to\ncreate or maintain, and much to weaken and destroy, that Epicureanism is\neven a tolerable account of life. If we now paint our picture of the\nEpicurean man and woman with this background of domestic and civic life\nwithdrawn, the ugliness and meanness of this parasitic Epicureanism will\nstare us in the face; and while we ought not to forget the valuable\nlessons it has to teach us, we shall shrink from the completed picture\nas a thing of deformity and degradation.\n\nWho then is the consistent Epicurean man? He is the club man, who lives\nin easy luxury and fares sumptuously every day. Everything is done for\nhim. Servants wait on him. He serves nobody, and is responsible for no\none's welfare. He has a congenial set of cronies, loosely attached to be\nsure; and constantly changing, as matrimony, financial reverses,\nbusiness engagements, professional responsibilities call one or another\nof his circle away to a more strenuous life. He is a good fellow,\ngenial, free-handed with his set, indifferent to all who are outside. He\ngenerally hires some woman to serve for a few months as the instrument\nof his passions; only to cast her off to be hired by another and\nanother until in due time she dies, he cares not when or how.\n\nAs business men these Epicureans are apt to be easy-going, and therefore\nfailures. As debtors, they are the hardest people in the world from whom\nto collect a bill. As creditors or landlords they are the most merciless\nin their exactions. Their devotion to the state is generally confined to\nbetting on the elections; the returns of which they watch with the same\ninterest as the results of a horse-race. Their religion is confined to\npoking fun at the people who are foolish enough to be going to church\nwhile they are at their Sunday morning breakfast.\n\nWe all know these Epicureans; we do business with them; we meet them\nsocially; we treat them decently; but it is to be hoped that underneath\nthe smooth exterior we all detect their selfish heartlessness. They have\ntaken a doctrine, which, as applied to the good things which are made to\nminister to our appetites is sound and true, and have perverted it into\na moral monstrosity by daring to treat human hearts and social\ninstitutions as mere things, mere instruments of their selfish\npleasures.\n\nEpicurean women, likewise, abound in every wealthy community. They\nspend the winter in Florida, New York, or Washington; dividing the rest\nof the year between the sea-shore, the mountains, and the lakes, with\noccasional visits to what they call their homes. They must have the best\nof everything, and assume no responsibility beyond running up bills for\ntheir husbands to pay, or to remain unpaid. Their special paradise is\nforeign travel, and no pension or hotel along the beaten highways of\nEurope is without its quota of these precious daughters of Epicurus.\nThey flit hither and thither where least ennui and most diversion\nallures. Two or three years of this irresponsible existence is\nsufficient to disqualify them for usefulness either in Europe or\nAmerica, either here or hereafter. When they return, if they ever do, to\ntheir native town or city, the drudgery of housekeeping has become\nintolerable, the responsibilities of social life unendurable, and their\npoor husbands are glad enough when the restless fit seizes them again\nand they can be packed off to Egypt, or Russia, or whatever remote\ncorner of the earth remains for their idle hands and restless feet,\ntheir empty minds and hollow hearts, to invade with their unearned gold.\n\nThere is no guarantee that the Epicurean will be the chaste husband of\none wife, or a faithful mother, or a good provider for the family, or a\ndevoted citizen of the republic, or a strenuous servant of art or\nscience, or a heroic martyr in the cause of progress and reform. If all\nmen were Epicureans, the world would speedily retrograde into the\nbarbarism and animalism whence it has slowly and painfully emerged. The\ngreat interests of the family, the state, society, and civilisation are\nnot accurately reflected in the feelings of the individual; and if the\nindividual has no guide but feeling, he will prove a traitor to such of\nthese higher interests as may have the misfortune to be intrusted to his\npleasure-loving, self-indulgent, unheroic hands.\n\nThere are hard things to do and to endure; and if we are to meet them\nbravely, we shall have to call the Stoic to our aid. There are sordid\nand trivial things to put up with, or to rise above, and there we may\nneed at times the Platonist and the mystic to show us the eternal\nreality underneath the temporal appearance. There are problems of\nconduct to be solved; conflicting claims to be adjusted; and for this\nthe Aristotelian sense of proportion must be developed in our souls.\nFinally there are other persons to be considered, and one great Personal\nSpirit living and working in the world; and for our proper attitude\ntoward these persons, human and divine, we must look to the Christian\nprinciple. To meet these higher relationships with no better equipment\nthan Epicureanism offers, would be as foolish as to try to run barefoot\nacross a continent, or swim naked across the sea. Naked, barefoot\nEpicureanism has its place on the sandy beaches and in the sheltered\ncoves of life; but has no business on the mountain tops or in the depths\nof human experience.\n\nIt will not make a man an efficient workman, or a thorough scholar, or a\nbrave soldier, or a public-spirited citizen. It spoils completely every\nwoman whom it gets hold of, unless at the same time she has firm hold on\nsomething better; unless she has a husband and children whom she loves,\nor work in which she delights for its own sake, or friends and interests\ndearer than life itself. Epicureanism will not lift either man or woman\nfar toward heaven, or save them in the hour when the pains of hell get\nhold of them. No home can be reared on it. The divorce court is the\nlogical outcome of every marriage between a man and a woman who are both\nEpicureans. For it is the very essence of Epicureanism to treat others\nas means; while no marriage is tolerable unless at least one of the two\nparties is large and unselfish enough to treat the other as an end. No\nEpicurean state or city could endure longer than it would take for the\nmen who are in politics for their pockets to plunder the people who are\nout of politics for the same reason. An Epicurean heaven, a place where\neternally each should get his fill of pleasure at the expense of\neverybody else, would be insufferably insipid, incomparably unendurable.\nIt is fortunate for the fame of Epicurus and the permanence of his\nphilosophy that he evaded the necessity of thinking out the conditions\nof immortal blessedness by his specious dilemma in which he thought to\nprove that death ends all. As a temporary parasite upon a political and\nmoral order already established, Epicureanism might thrive and flourish;\nbut as a principle on which to rest a decent society here or a hope of\nheaven hereafter, Epicureanism is utterly lacking. If there were nothing\nbetter than Epicureanism in store for us through the long eternities, we\nall might well pray to be excused, as Epicurus happily believed we\nshould be. For any ultimate delight in life must be rooted in something\ndeeper than self-centred pleasure: it must love persons and seek ends\nfor their own sake; and find its joy, not in the satisfaction of the man\nas he is, but in the development of that which his thought and love\nenable him to become.\n\n\nV\n\nAN EXAMPLE OF EPICUREAN CHARACTER\n\nThe clearest example of the shortcomings of Epicureanism is the\ncharacter of Tito Melema in George Eliot's \"Romola.\" Pleasure and the\navoidance of pain are this young Greek's only principles. He is \"of so\neasy a conscience that he would make a stepping-stone of his father's\ncorpse.\" \"He has a lithe sleekness about him that seems marvellously\nfitted for slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on.\" \"He had an\nunconquerable aversion to any thing unpleasant, even when an object very\nmuch loved and admired was on the other side of it.\" According to his\nthinking \"any maxims that required a man to fling away the good that was\nneeded to make existence sweet, were only the lining of human\nselfishness turned outward; they were made by men who wanted others to\nsacrifice themselves for their sake.\" \"He would rather that Baldassarre\nshould not suffer; he liked no one to suffer; but could any philosophy\nprove to him that he was bound to care for another's suffering more than\nfor his own? To do so, he must have loved Baldassarre devotedly, and he\ndid not love him: was that his own fault? Gratitude! seen closely, it\nmade no valid claim; his father's life would have been dreary without\nhim; are we convicted of a debt to men for the pleasure they give\nthemselves?\" \"He had simply chosen to make life easy to himself--to\ncarry his human lot if possible in such a way that it should pinch him\nnowhere; but the choice had at various times landed him in unexpected\npositions.\" \"Tito could not arrange life at all to his mind without a\nconsiderable sum of money, and that problem of arranging life to his\nmind had been the source of all his misdoing.\" \"He would have been equal\nto any sacrifice that was not unpleasant.\" \"Of other goods than pleasure\nhe can form no conception.\" As Romola says in her reproaches: \"You talk\nof substantial good, Tito! Are faithfulness, and love, and sweet\ngrateful memories no good? Is it no good that we should keep our silent\npromises on which others build because they believe in our love and\ntruth? Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured? Or, is\nit good that we should harden our hearts against all the wants and hopes\nof those who have depended on us? What good can belong to men who have\nsuch souls? To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches for\nthemselves, and live and die with their base selves as their best\ncompanions.\"\n\nThis pleasure-loving Tito Melema, \"when he was only seven years old,\nBaldassarre had rescued from blows, had taken to a home that seemed like\nopened paradise, where there was sweet food and soothing caresses, all\nhad on Baldassarre's knee; and from that time till the hour they had\nparted, Tito had been the one centre of Baldassarre's fatherly cares.\"\nInstead of finding and rescuing this man who, long years ago, had\nrescued Tito when a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel\nwrong, had reared him tenderly and been to him as a father, Tito sold\nthe jewels which belonged to his father and would have been sufficient\nto ransom him from slavery, and finally, when found by Baldassarre in\nFlorence, denied him and pronounced him a madman. He betrayed an\ninnocent, trusting young girl into a mock marriage, at the same time\nruining her and proving false to his lawful wife. He sold the library\nwhich it was Romola's father's dying wish to have kept in Florence as a\ndistinct memorial to his life and work. He entered into selfish\nintrigues in the politics of the city, ready to betray his associates\nand friends whenever his own safety required it.\n\nWhat wonder that Romola came to have \"her new scorn of that thing called\npleasure which made men base--that dexterous contrivance for selfish\nease, that shrinking from endurance and strain, when others were bowing\nbeneath burdens too heavy for them, which now made one image with her\nhusband.\" In her own distress she learns from Savonarola that there is a\nhigher law than individual pleasure. \"She felt that the sanctity\nattached to all close relations, and therefore preeminently to the\nclosest, was but the expression in outward law, of that result toward\nwhich all human goodness and nobleness must spontaneously tend; that the\nlight abandonment of ties, whether inherited or voluntary, because they\nhad ceased to be pleasant, was the uprooting of social and personal\nvirtue. What else had Tito's crime toward Baldassarre been but that\nabandonment working itself out to the most hideous extreme of falsity\nand ingratitude? To her, as to him, there had come one of those moments\nin life when the soul must dare to act on its own warrant, not only\nwithout external law to appeal to, but in the face of a law which is not\nunarmed with Divine lightnings--lightnings that may yet fall if the\nwarrant has been false.\" The whole teaching of the book is summed up in\nthe Epilogue. In the conversation between Romola and Tito's illegitimate\nson Lillo, Lillo says, \"I should like to be something that would make\nme a great man, and very happy besides--something that would not hinder\nme from having a good deal of pleasure.\"\n\n\"That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of happiness that\ncould ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures. We\ncan only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a\ngreat man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the\nworld as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so\nmuch pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what\nwe would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is\ngood. There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no\nman can be great--he can hardly keep himself from wickedness--unless he\ngives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to\nendure what is hard and painful. My father had the greatness that\nbelongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than\nfalsehood. And there was Fra Girolamo--you know why I keep to-morrow\nsacred; he had the greatness which belongs to a life spent in struggling\nagainst powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the highest deeds\nthey are capable of. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and\nseek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, you must\nlearn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you\nbecause of it. And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and\nmake it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure, and escape from\nwhat is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be\ncalamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that\nhas no balm in it, and that may well make a man say, 'It would have been\nbetter for me if I had never been born.'\"\n\nThe trouble with Epicureanism is its assumption that the self is a\nbundle of natural appetites and passions, and that the end of life is\ntheir gratification. Experience shows, as in the case of Tito, that such\na policy consistently pursued, brings not pleasure but pain--pain first\nof all to others, and then pain to the individual through their\ncontempt, indignation, and vengeance. The truest pleasure must come\nthrough the development within one of generous emotions, kind\nsympathies, and large social interests. The man must be made over before\nthe pleasures of the new man can be rightly sought and successfully\nfound. This making over of man is no consistent part of the logical\nEpicurean programme, and consequently pure Epicureanism is sure to land\none in the narrowness, selfishness, and heartlessness of a Tito Melema,\nand to bring upon one essentially the same condemnation and disaster.\n\nStill, not in criticism or unkindness would we take leave of the serene\nand genial Epicurus. We may frankly recognise his fundamental\nlimitations, and yet gratefully accept the good counsel he has to give.\nParasite as it is,--a thing that can only live by sucking its life out\nof ideals and principles higher and hardier than itself, it is yet a\ngraceful and ornamental parasite, which will beautify and shield the\nhard outlines of our more strenuous principles. There are dreary wastes\nin all our lives, into which we can profitably turn those streams of\nsimple pleasure he commends. There are points of undue strain and\ntension where Epicurean prudence would bid us forego the slight fancied\ngain to save the ruinous expense to health and happiness. Let us fill up\nthese gaps with hearty indulgence of healthy appetite, with vigorous\nexercise of dormant powers, with the eager joys of new-learned\nrecreations. Let us tone down the strain and tension of our anxious,\nworried, worn, and weary lives by the rigid elimination of the\nsuperfluous, the strict concentration on the perpetual present, the\nresolute banishment from it of all past or future springs of depression\nand discouragement. Before we are through we shall see far nobler ideals\nthan this; but we must not despise the day of small things. Though the\nlowest and least of them all, the Epicurean is one of the historical\nideals of life. It has its claims which none of us may with impunity\nignore. To serve him faithfully in the lower spheres of life is a\nwholesome preparation for the intelligent and reasonable service of\nStoic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Christian ideals which rule the\nhigher realms. He who is false to the humble, homely demands of Epicurus\ncan never be quite at his best in the grander service of Zeno and Plato,\nAristotle and Jesus.\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE CONFESSIONS OF AN EPICUREAN HERETIC\n\nA heretic is a man who, while professing to hold the tenets of the sect\nto which he adheres, and sincerely believing that he is in substantial\nagreement with his more orthodox brethren, yet in his desire to be\nhonest and reasonable, so modifies these tenets as to empty them of all\nthat is distinctive of the sect in question, and thus unintentionally\ngives aid and comfort to its enemies. Every vigorous and vital school of\nthought soon or late develops this species of _enfant terrible_. Like\nthe Christian church, the Epicurean school has been blessed with\nnumerous progeny of this disturbing sort. The one among them all who\nmost stoutly professes the fundamental principles of Epicureanism, and\nthen proceeds to admit pretty much everything its opponents advance\nagainst it, is John Stuart Mill. His \"Utilitarianism\" is a fort manned\nwith the most approved idealistic guns, yet with the Epicurean flag\nfloating bravely over the whole. He \"holds that actions are right in\nproportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to\nproduce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and\nthe absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.\nPleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends;\nand all desirable things are desirable either for the pleasure inherent\nin themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the\nprevention of pain.\" A more square and uncompromising statement of\nEpicureanism than this it would be impossible to make.\n\nHaving thus squarely identified himself with the Epicurean school, Mr.\nMill proceeds to add to this doctrine in turn the doctrines of each one\nof the four schools which we are to consider later. First he introduces\na distinction in the kind of pleasure, \"assigning to the pleasures of\nthe intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral\nsentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere\nsensation.\" When asked what he means by difference of quality in\npleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely\nas a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, although he tells us\nthere is but one possible answer, he gives us two or three. First he\nappeals to the verdict of competent judges. \"Of two pleasures, if there\nbe one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a\ndecided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to\nprefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure. If one of the two is, by\nthose who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the\nother that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a\ngreater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity\nof the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified\nin ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so\nfar outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small\naccount.\"\n\nThis appeal to competent judges, or, in other words, to authority,\ninvolves no philosophical principle at all unless we may call the\ndoctrine of papal infallibility, to which this appeal of Mill is\nessentially akin, a principle. If these judges are competent, there must\nbe a reason for the preference they give. In the next paragraph Mill\ntells us what that principle is; but in doing so introduces the\nprinciple of the subordination of lower to higher faculties, which we\nshall see later is the distinguishing principle of Plato. On this point\nMill is as clear as Plato himself. \"Now it is an unquestionable fact\nthat those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of\nappreciating and enjoying both, do give a most marked preference to the\nmanner of existence which employs their higher faculties. Few human\ncreatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for\na promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no\nintelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person\nwould be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be\nselfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool,\nthe dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are\nwith theirs. They would not resign what they possess more than he, for\nthe most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in\ncommon with him. If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of\nunhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their\nlot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes. A being\nof higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably\nof more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more\npoints, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities,\nhe can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade\nof existence.\" This appeal to quality rather than quantity of pleasure\nputs Mill, in spite of himself, squarely on Platonic ground and abandons\nconsistent Epicureanism. An illustration will make this clear. A man\nprofesses that money is his supreme end, the only thing he cares for in\nthe world; he tells us that whatever he does is done for money, and\nwhenever he refrains from doing anything it is to avoid losing money. So\nfar he puts his conduct on a consistently mercenary basis. Suppose,\nhowever, that in the next sentence he tells us that he prizes certain\nkinds of money. If we ask him what is the basis of the distinction, he\nreplies that he prizes money honestly earned and despises money\ndishonestly acquired. Should we not at once recognise, that in spite of\nhis original declaration, he is not the consistently mercenary being he\nprofessed himself to be? The fact that he prefers honest to dishonest\nmoney shows that honesty, not money, is his real principle; and, in\nspite of his original profession, this distinction lifts him out of the\nclass of mercenary money lovers into the class of men whose real\nprinciple is not money but honesty. Precisely so Mill's confession that\nhe cares for the height and dignity of the faculties employed rather\nthan the quantity of pleasure gained lifts him out of the Epicurean\nschool to which he professes adherence and makes him an idealist.\n\nWhen asked for an explanation of his preference of higher to lower, Mill\nat once shifts to Stoic ground in the following sentences: \"We may give\nwhat explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to\npride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to\nsome of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable; we\nmay refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an\nappeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for\nthe inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of\nexcitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it; but\nits most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human\nbeings possess in one form or another, and in some, though by no means\nin exact, proportion to their highest faculties, and which is so\nessential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that\nnothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an\nobject of desire to them. Whoever supposes that this preference takes\nplace at a sacrifice of happiness--that the superior being, in anything\nlike equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior--confounds\nthe two very different ideas of happiness and content. It is\nindisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has\nthe greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed\nbeing will always feel that any happiness which we can look for, as the\nworld is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its\nimperfections if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him\nenvy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only\nbecause he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify.\nIt is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied;\nbetter to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the\nfool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only\nknow their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison\nknows both sides.\"\n\nWhen pressed for a sanction of motive Mill appeals to the Aristotelian\nprinciple that the individual can only realise his conception of himself\nthrough union with his fellows in society: to the social nature of man\nand his inability to find himself in any smaller sphere, or through\ndevotion to any lesser end. \"This firm foundation is that of the social\nfeelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our\nfellow-creatures, which is already a powerful principle in human nature,\nand happily one of those which tend to become stronger, even without\nexpress inculcation, from the influences of advancing civilisation. The\nsocial state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to\nman, that, except in some unusual circumstances or by an effort of\nvoluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself otherwise than as a\nmember of a body; and this association is riveted more and more, as\nmankind are farther removed from the state of savage independence. Any\ncondition, therefore, which is essential to a state of society, becomes\nmore and more an inseparable part of every person's conception of the\nstate of things which he is born into, and which is the destiny of a\nhuman being. In this way people grow up unable to conceive as possible\nto them a state of total disregard of other people's interests. They are\nunder a necessity of conceiving themselves as at least abstaining from\nall the grosser injuries, and (if only for their own protection) living\nin a state of constant protest against them. They are also familiar with\nthe fact of cooeperating with others, and proposing to themselves a\ncollective, not an individual, interest, as the aim (at least for the\ntime being) of their actions. So long as they are cooeperating, their\nends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary\nfeeling that the interests of others are their own interests. Not only\ndoes all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of\nsociety, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in\npractically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to\nidentify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an\never greater degree of practical consideration for it. He comes, as\nthough instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of\ncourse pays regard to others. The good of others becomes to him a thing\nnaturally and necessarily to be attended to. This mode of conceiving\nourselves and human life, as civilisation goes on, is felt to be more\nand more natural. Every step in political improvement renders it more so\nby removing the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those\ninequalities of legal privilege between individuals or classes, owing to\nwhich there are large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still\npracticable to disregard. In an improving state of the human mind, the\ninfluences are constantly on the increase, which tend to generate in\neach individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which feeling, if\nperfect, would make him never think of, or desire, any beneficial\ncondition for himself, in the benefits of which they are not included.\nThe deeply rooted conception which every individual even now has of\nhimself as a social being tends to make him feel it one of his natural\nwants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and\nthose of his fellow-creatures. It does not present itself to their minds\nas a superstition of education, or a law despotically imposed by the\npower of society, but as an attribute which it would not be well for\nthem to be without.\"\n\nLastly Mill introduces the Christian ideal. \"As between his own\nhappiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as\nstrictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. In the\ngolden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the\nethics of utility. To do as one would be done by, and to love one's\nneighbour as one's self, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian\nmorality.\" In his attempt to prove the Christian obligation on an\nEpicurean basis the inconsistency between his Epicurean principle and\nhis Christian preaching and practice becomes evident. Master of logic as\nMill was, an author of a standard text-book on the subject, yet so\ndesperate was the plight in which his attempt to stretch Epicureanism to\nChristian dimensions placed him, that he was compelled to resort to the\nfollowing fallacy of composition, the fallaciousness of which every\nstudent of logic recognises at a glance. \"Happiness is a good; each\nperson's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness,\ntherefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons.\" As Carlyle has\npointed out, this is equivalent to saying, since each pig wants all the\nswill in the trough for itself, a litter of pigs in the aggregate will\ndesire each member of the litter to have its share of the whole,--a\nfallacy which a single experience in feeding pigs will sufficiently\nrefute. It requires something deeper and higher than Epicurean\nprinciples to lift men to a plane where Christian altruism is the\nnatural and inevitable conduct which Mill rightly says it ought to be.\n\nThese confessions of an Epicurean heretic, wrung from a man who had been\nrigidly trained by a stern father in Epicurean principles, yet whose\nsurpassing candour compelled him to make these admissions, so fatal to\nthe system, so ennobling to the man and to the doctrine he proclaimed,\nserve as an admirable preparation for the succeeding chapters, where\nthese same principles, which Mill introduces as supplements, and\nmodifications, and amendments to Epicureanism, will be presented as the\nfoundation-stones of larger and deeper views of life. Mill starts with a\njack-knife which he publicly proclaims to be in every part of the handle\nand in every blade through and through Epicurean; then gets a new handle\nfrom the Stoics; borrows one blade from Plato, and another from\nAristotle; unconsciously steals the biggest blade of all from\nChristianity; makes one of the best knives to be found on the moral\nmarket: yet still, in loyalty to early parental training, insists on\ncalling the finished product by the same name as that with which he\nstarted out. The result is a splendid knife to cut with; but a\ndifficult one to classify. Our quest for the principles of personality\nwill not bring us anything much better, for practical purposes, than the\nlofty teaching of Mill's \"Utilitarianism,\" and its companion in\ninconsistency, Herbert Spencer's \"Principles of Ethics.\" All our five\nprinciples are present in these so-called hedonistic treatises. But it\nis a great theoretical advantage, and ultimately carries with it\nconsiderable practical gain, to give credit where credit is due, and to\ncall things by their right names. Thanks to the candour of these\nheretics, though the names we encounter hereafter will be new, we shall\ngreet most of the principles we discover under these new names as old\nfriends to whom the Epicurean heretics gave us our first introduction.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nSTOIC SELF-CONTROL BY LAW\n\n\nI\n\nTHE PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF APPERCEPTION\n\nThe shortest way to understand the Stoic principle is through the\npsychological doctrine of apperception. According to this now\nuniversally accepted doctrine, the mind is not an empty cabinet into\nwhich ready-made impressions of external things are dumped. The mind is\nan active process; and the meaning and value of any sensation presented\nfrom without is determined by the reaction upon it of the ideas and aims\nthat are dominant within. This doctrine has revolutionised psychology\nand pedagogy, and when rightly introduced into the personal life proves\neven more revolutionary there. Stoicism works this doctrine for all that\nit is worth. Christian Science and kindred popular cults of the present\nday are perhaps working it for rather more than it is worth.\n\nTranslated into simple everyday terms, this doctrine in its application\nto the personal life means that the value of any external fact or\npossession or experience depends on the way in which we take it. Take\nriches, for example. Stocks and bonds, real estate and mortgages, money\nand bank accounts, in themselves do not make a man either rich or poor.\nThey may enrich or they may impoverish his personality. It is not until\nthey are taken up into the mind, thought over, related to one's general\nscheme of conduct, made the basis of one's purposes and plans, that they\nbecome a factor in the personal life. Obviously the same amount of\nmoney, a hundred thousand dollars, may be worked over into personal life\nin a great variety of ways. One man is made proud by it. Another is made\nlazy. Another is made hard-hearted. Another is made avaricious for more.\nAnother is fired with the desire to speculate. Another is filled with\nanxiety lest he may lose it. All these are obviously impoverished by the\nso-called wealth which they possess. To rich men's wives and children,\nwhose wealth comes without the strenuous exertion and close human\ncontact involved in earning it, it generally works their personal\nimpoverishment in one or more of these fatal ways. For wealth, in an\nindolent, self-indulgent, vain, conceited, ostentatious, unsympathetic\nmind, takes on the colour of these odious qualities, and becomes a\ncurse to its possessor; just because he or she is cursed with these evil\npropensities already, and the wealth simply adds fuel to the\npreexistent, though perhaps latent and smouldering flames.\n\nOn the other hand one man is made grateful for the wealth he has been\nable to accumulate. Another is made more sympathetic. Another is made\ngenerous. Another is urged into the larger public service his\nindependent means makes possible. Another is lifted up into a sense of\nresponsibility for its right use. On the whole the men and women who\nearn their money honestly are usually affected in one or more of these\nbeneficial ways, and their wealth becomes an enrichment of their\npersonality.\n\nNow it is impossible that this hundred thousand dollars should get into\nany man's mind, and become a mental state, without its being mixed with\none or other of these mental, emotional, and volitional accompaniments.\nThe mental state, in other words, is a compound, of which the external\nfact, in this case the hundred thousand dollars, is the least important\ningredient. It is so unimportant a factor that the Stoics pronounced it\nindifferent. The tone and temper in which we accept our riches, the ends\nto which we devote them, the spirit in which we hold them, the way in\nwhich we spend them, are so vastly more important than the mere fact of\nhaving them, that by comparison, the fact itself seems indifferent. Like\nall strong statements, this is doubtless an exaggeration. You cannot\nhave just the same mental state without riches that you can have with\nthem. The external fact is a factor, though a relatively small one, in\nthe composite mental state. The virtues of a rich man are not precisely\nthe same as the virtues of a poor man. Yet the Stoic paradox is very\nmuch nearer the truth than the statement of the average man, that\nexternal things are the whole, or even the most important part of our\nmental states.\n\nThe same thing is true of health and sickness. Health often makes one\ncareless, insensitive, negligent of duty; while sickness often makes one\nconscientious, considerate, faithful, and thus more useful and efficient\nthan his healthy brother. Popularity often puffs up with pride; while\npersecution, by humbling, prepares the heart for truer blessedness.\nHence whether an external fact is good or evil, depends on how we take\nit, what we make of it, the state of mind and heart and will into which\nit enters as a factor; and that in turn depends, the Stoic tells us, on\nourselves, and is under our control Stoicism is fundamentally this\npsychological doctrine of apperception, carried over and applied in the\nfield of the personal life,--the doctrine, namely, that no external\nthing alone can affect us for good or evil, until we have woven it into\nthe texture of our mental life, painted it with the colour of our\ndominant mood and temper, and stamped it with the approval of our will.\nThus everything except a slight residuum is through and through mental,\nour own product, the expression of what we are and desire to be. The\nonly difference between Stoicism and Christian Science at this point is\nthat Stoicism recognises the material element; though it does so only to\nminimise it, and pronounce it indifferent. Christian Science denies that\nthere is any physical fact, or even the raw material out of which to\nmake one. All is merely mental, says the consistent Christian Scientist\nwith the toothache. There is no matter there to ache. The Stoic, truer\nto the facts, and in not less but more heroic spirit declares: \"There is\nmatter, but it doesn't matter if there is.\" The toothache can be taken\nas a spur to greater fortitude and equanimity than the man whose teeth\nare all sound has had opportunity to practically exemplify; and so the\ntotal mental state, toothache-borne-with-fortitude, may be positively\ngood.\n\nThis doctrine that external things never in themselves constitute a\nmental state; that they are consequently indifferent; that the\nall-important contribution is made by the mind itself; that this\ncontribution from the mind is what gives the tone and determines the\nworth of the total mental state; and that this contribution is\nexclusively our own affair and may be brought entirely under our own\ncontrol;--this is the first and most fundamental Stoic principle. If we\nhave grasped this principle, we are prepared to read intelligently and\nsympathetically the otherwise startling and paradoxical deliverances of\nthe Stoic masters.\n\n\nII\n\nSELECTIONS FROM THE STOIC SCRIPTURES\n\nFirst let us listen to Epictetus, the slave, the Stoic of the cottage as\nhe has been called:--\n\n\"Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by\nwhich it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold on the\naffair by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be borne;\nbut rather by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought\nup with you, and thus you will lay hold on it as it is to be borne.\"\nHere the handle is a homely but effective figure for the mass of mental\nassociation into which the external fact of a brother who acts unjustly\nis introduced before he actually enters our mental state, and determines\nhow we shall feel and act.\n\n\"If a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would\ncertainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your mind\nto any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?\" The reviling does\nnot become a determining factor in my own mental state unless I choose\nto let it. If I feel humiliated and stung by it, it is because I am weak\nand foolish enough to stake my estimate of myself, and my consequent\nhappiness, upon what somebody who does not know me says about me, rather\nthan on what I, who know myself better than anybody else, actually\nthink. A boy at Phillips Andover Academy once drew this distinction very\nadroitly for another boy. There had been a free fight among the boys\ncausing a great deal of disturbance, and Principal Bancroft had traced\nthe beginning of it to an insulting remark on the part of the boy in\nquestion. Dr. Bancroft accused him of beginning the trouble. \"No, sir,\"\nsaid the boy, \"I did not begin it. The other fellow began it.\" \"Well,\"\nsaid Principal Bancroft, \"you tell me precisely what took place, and I\nwill decide who began it.\" \"Oh,\" replied the boy, \"I simply called him a\n'darned' fool, and he took offence.\" Now if the other boy had been a\nStoic, he would not have taken offence, and the first boy might have\ncalled him a fool with impunity. Imputing Stoicism to that extent to\nother people, however, is very dangerous business. Stoicism is a\ndoctrine to be strictly applied to ourselves, but never imputed to other\npeople, least of all to the people we wish to abuse and revile.\n\nEpictetus again states his doctrine most explicitly on the subject of\nterrors. \"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they\ntake of things. Thus death is nothing terrible else it would have\nappeared so to Socrates. But the terror consists in our notion of death,\nthat it is terrible. When, therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed, or\ngrieved, let us never impute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to\nour views.\"\n\nAgain he makes a sharp distinction between what is in our power,--that\nis, what we think about things; and what are not in our power,--that is\nexternal facts. \"There are things which are within our power, and there\nare things which are beyond our power. Within our power are opinion,\naim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own.\nBeyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one\nword, whatever are not properly our own affairs.\"\n\n\"Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted,\nunhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted,\nalien. Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature\ndependent, and seek for your own that which is really controlled by\nothers, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed,\nyou will find fault both with gods and men. But if you take for your own\nonly that which is your own, and view what belongs to others just as it\nreally is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you;\nyou will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do\nnothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an\nenemy, nor will you suffer any harm.\"\n\nAll this is simply carrying out the principle that we need not concern\nourselves about purely external things, for those things pure and simple\ncan never get into our minds, or affect us one way or the other. The\nonly things that enter into us are things as we think about them, facts\nas we feel about them, forces as we react upon them, and these thoughts,\nfeelings, and reactions are our own affairs; and if we do not think\nserenely, feel tranquilly, and act freely with reference to them, it is\nnot the fault of external things, but of ourselves.\n\nIn his discourse on tranquillity Epictetus gives us the same counsel.\n\"Consider, you who are about to undergo trial, what you wish to\npreserve, and in what to succeed. For if you wish to preserve a mind in\nharmony with nature, you are entirely safe; everything goes well; you\nhave no trouble on your hands. While you wish to preserve that freedom\nwhich belongs to you, and are contented with that, for what have you\nlonger to be anxious? For who is the master of things like these? Who\ncan take them away? If you wish to be a man of modesty and fidelity, who\nshall prevent you? If you wish not to be restrained or compelled, who\nshall compel you to desires contrary to your principles? to aversions\ncontrary to your opinion? The judge, perhaps, will pass a sentence\nagainst you which he thinks formidable; but can he likewise make you\nreceive it with shrinking? Since, then, desire and aversion are in your\npower, for what have you to be anxious?\"\n\nEpictetus bids us meet difficulties in the same way. \"Difficulties are\nthings that show what men are. For the future, in case of any\ndifficulty, remember that God, like a gymnastic trainer, has pitted you\nagainst a rough antagonist. For what end? That you may be an Olympic\nconqueror; and this cannot be without toil. No man, in my opinion, has a\nmore profitable difficulty on his hands than you have, provided you but\nuse it as an athletic champion uses his antagonist.\"\n\nEpictetus does not shrink from the logic of his teaching in its\napplication to the sorrows of others, though here it is tempered by a\nconcession to the weakness of ordinary mortals. \"When you see a person\nweeping in sorrow, either when a child goes abroad, or when he is dead,\nor when the man has lost his property, take care that the appearance do\nnot hurry you away with it as if he were suffering in external things.\nBut straightway make a distinction in your mind, and be in readiness to\nsay, it is not that which has happened that afflicts this man, for it\ndoes not afflict another, but it is the opinion about this thing which\nafflicts the man. So far as words, then, do not be unwilling to show him\nsympathy, and even if it happens so, to lament with him. But take care\nthat you do not lament internally also.\" At this point, if not before,\nwe feel that Stoicism is doing violence to the nobler feelings of our\nnature, and are prepared to break with it. Stoicism is too hard and cold\nand individualistic to teach us our duty, or even to leave us free to\nact out our best inclinations, toward our neighbour. We may be as\nStoical as we please in our own troubles and afflictions; but let us\nbeware how we carry over its icy distinctions into our interpretation of\nour neighbour's suffering.\n\nI have drawn most of my illustrations from Epictetus, because this\nresignation comes with rather better grace from a poor, lame man, who\nhas been a slave, and who lives on the barest necessities of life, than\nfrom the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the wealthy courtier Seneca. Yet\nthe most distinctive utterances of these men teach the same lesson.\nSeneca attributes it to his pilot in the famous prayer, \"Oh, Neptune,\nyou may save me if you will; you may sink me if you will; but whatever\nhappens, I shall keep my rudder true.\" Marcus Aurelius says: \"Let the\npart of thy soul which leads and governs be undisturbed by the movements\nin the flesh, whether of pleasure or pain; and let it not unite itself\nwith them, but let it circumscribe itself, and limit those effects to\ntheir parts.\" \"Let it make no difference to thee whether thou art cold\nor warm, if thou art doing thy duty, and whether dying or doing\nsomething else. For it is one of the acts of life,--this act by which we\ndie; it is sufficient then in this act also to do well what we have in\nhand.\" \"External things touch not the soul, not in the least degree.\"\n\"Remember on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this\nprinciple: that this is not a misfortune, but to bear it nobly is good\nfortune.\"\n\nThe most recent prophet of Stoicism is Maurice Maeterlinck. In \"Wisdom\nand Destiny,\" he says:--\n\n\"The event itself is pure water that flows from the pitcher of fate, and\nseldom has it either savour or perfume or colour. But even as the soul\nmay be wherein it seeks shelter, so will the event become joyous or sad,\nbecome tender or hateful, become deadly or quick with life. To those\nround about us there happen incessant and countless adventures, whereof\nevery one, it would seem, contains a germ of heroism; but the adventure\npasses away, and heroic deed there is none. But when Jesus Christ met\nthe Samaritan, met a few children, an adulterous woman, then did\nhumanity rise three times in succession to the level of God.\"\n\n\"It might almost be said that there happens to men only that they\ndesire. It is true that on certain external events our influence is of\nthe feeblest, but we have all-powerful action on that which these events\nshall become in ourselves--in other words, on their spiritual part. The\nlife of most men will be saddened or lightened by the thing that may\nchance to befall them,--in the men whom I speak of, whatever may happen\nis lit up by their inward life. If you have been deceived, it is not the\ndeception that matters, but the forgiveness whereto it gave birth in\nyour soul, and the loftiness, wisdom, completeness of this\nforgiveness,--by these shall your eyes see more clearly than if all men\nhad ever been faithful. But if, by this act of deceit, there have come\nnot more simpleness, loftier faith, wider range to your love, then have\nyou been deceived in vain, and may truly say nothing has happened.\"\n\n\"Let us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of the\nnature of ourselves. There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the\nshape of our everyday thoughts; and deeds of heroism are but offered to\nthose who, for many long years, have been heroes in obscurity and\nsilence. And whether you climb up the mountain or go down the hill to\nthe valley, whether you journey to the end of the world or merely walk\nround your house, none but yourself shall you meet on the highway of\nfate. If Judas go forth to-night, it is toward Judas his steps will\ntend, nor will chance for betrayal be lacking; but let Socrates open his\ndoor,--he shall find Socrates asleep on the threshold before him, and\nthere will be occasion for wisdom. We become that which we discover in\nthe sorrows and joys that befall us; and the least expected caprices of\nfate soon mould themselves to our thought. It is in our past that\nDestiny finds all her weapons, her vestments, her jewels. A sorrow your\nsoul has changed into sweetness, to indulgence or patient smiles, is a\nsorrow that shall never return without spiritual ornament; and a fault\nor defect you have looked in the face can harm you no more. All that has\nthus been transformed can belong no more to the hostile powers. Real\nfatality exists only in certain external disasters--as disease,\naccident, the sudden death of those we love; but inner fatality there is\nnone. Wisdom has will power sufficient to rectify all that does not deal\ndeath to the body; it will even at times invade the narrow domain of\nexternal fatality. Even when the deed has been done, the misfortune has\nhappened, it still rests with ourselves to deny her the least influence\non that which shall come to pass in our soul. She may strike at the\nheart that is eager for good, but still is she helpless to keep back the\nlight that shall stream to this heart from the error acknowledged, the\npain undergone. It is not in her power to prevent the soul from\ntransforming each single affliction into thoughts, into feelings, and\ntreasure she dare not profane. Be her empire never so great over all\nthings external, she always must halt when she finds on the threshold a\nsilent guardian of the inner life. For even as triumph of dictators and\nconsuls could be celebrated only in Rome, so can the true triumph of\nFate take place nowhere save in our soul.\"\n\nIt would be easy to cite passage after passage in which the great\nmasters of Stoicism ring the changes on this idea, that the external\nthing, whether it be good or evil, cannot get into the fortified citadel\nof my mind, and therefore cannot touch me. Before it can touch me it\nmust first be incorporated into my mind. In the very act of\nincorporation it undergoes a transformation, which in the perverse man\nmay change the best external things into poison and bitterness; and in\nthe sage is able to convert the worst of external facts into virtue,\nglory, and honour. Out of indifferent external matter, thinking makes\nthe world in which we live; and if it is not a good world, the fault is,\nnot with the indifferent external matters,--such as, to take Epictetus's\nenumeration of them, \"wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, and pain,\nwhich lie between the virtues and the vices,\"--but in our weak and\nerroneous thinking.\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE STOIC REVERENCE FOR UNIVERSAL LAW\n\nThe first half of the Stoic doctrine is that we give our world the\ncolour of our thoughts. The second half of Stoicism is concerned with\nwhat these thoughts of ours shall be. The first half of the doctrine\nalone would leave us in crude fantastic Cynicism,--the doctrine out of\nwhich the broader and deeper Stoic teaching took its rise. The Cynic\npaints the world in the flaring colours of his undisciplined, individual\ncaprice. Modern apostles of the essential Stoic principle incline to\npaint the world in the roseate hues of a merely optional optimism. They\nwant to be well, and happy, and serene, and self-satisfied; they think\nthey are; and thinking makes them so. If Stoicism had been as\nsuperficial as that, as capricious, and temperamental, and\nindividualistic, it would not have lasted as it has for more than two\nthousand years. The Stoic thought had substance, content, objective\nreality, as unfortunately most of the current phases of popular\nphilosophy have not. This objective and universal principle the Stoic\nfound in law. We must think things, not as we would like to have them,\nwhich is the optimism of the fabled ostrich, with its head in the sand;\nnot in some vague, general phrases which mean nothing, which is the\noptimism of mysticism: but in the hard, rigid terms of universal law.\nEverything that happens is part of the one great whole. The law of the\nwhole determines the nature and worth of the part. Seen from the point\nof view of the whole, every part is necessary, and therefore\ngood,--everything except, as Cleanthes says in his hymn, \"what the\nwicked do in their foolishness.\" The typical evils of life can all be\nbrought under the Stoic formula, under some beneficial law; all, that\nis, except sin. That particular form of evil was not satisfactorily\ndealt with until the advent of Christianity.\n\nTake evils of accident to begin with. An aged man slips on the ice,\nfalls, breaks a bone, and is left, like Epictetus, lame for life. The\nparticular application of the law of gravitation in this case has\nunfortunate results for the individual. But the law is good. We should\nnot know how to get along in the world without this beneficent law.\nShall we repine and complain against the law that holds the stars and\nplanets in their courses, shapes the mountains, sways the tides, brings\ndown the rain, and draws the rivers to the sea, turning ten thousand\nmill-wheels of industry as it goes rejoicing on its way; shall we\ncomplain against this law because in one instance in a thousand million\nit chances to throw down an individual, which happens to be me, and\nbreaks a bone or two of mine, and leaves me for the brief span of my\nremaining pilgrimage with a limping gait? If Epictetus could say to his\ncruel master under torture, \"You will break my leg if you keep on,\" and\nthen when it broke could smilingly add, \"I told you so,\"--cannot we\nendure with fortitude, and even grateful joy, the incidental inflictions\nwhich so beneficent a master as the great law of gravitation in its\nmagnificent impartiality may see fit to mete out to us?\n\nA current of electricity, seeking its way from sky to earth, finds on\nsome particular occasion the body of a beloved husband, a dear son, an\nhonoured father of dependent children, the best conductor between the\nair and the earth, and kills the person through whose body it takes its\nswift and fatal course. Yet this law has no malevolence in its impartial\nheart. On the contrary the beneficent potency of the laws of electricity\nis so great that our largest hopes for the improvement of our economic\ncondition rest on its unexplored resources.\n\nA group of bacteria, ever alert to find matter not already appropriated\nand held in place by vital forces stronger than their own, find their\nfood and breeding place within a human body, and subject our friend or\nour child to weeks of fever, and perchance to death. Yet we cannot call\nevil the great biological law that each organism shall seek its meat\nfrom God wherever it can find it. Indeed were it not for these\nmicro-organisms, and their alertness to seize upon and transform into\ntheir own living substance everything morbid and unwholesome, the whole\nearth would be nothing but a vast charnel house reeking with the\nintolerable stench of the undisintegrated and unburied dead.\n\nThe most uncompromising exponent of this second half of the Stoic\ndoctrine in the modern world is Immanuel Kant. According to him the\nwhole worth and dignity of life turns not on external fortune, nor even\non good natural endowments, but on our internal reaction, the reverence\nof our will for universal law. \"Nothing can possibly be conceived in the\nworld, or even out of it, which can be called good without\nqualification, except a Good Will. Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the\nother _talents_ of the mind, however they may be named, or courage,\nresolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly\ngood and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also\nbecome extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of\nthem, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is\nnot good. It is the same with the gifts of fortune. Power, riches,\nhonour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with\none's condition which is called happiness, inspire pride and often\npresumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of\nthese on the mind.\"\n\n\"Everything in nature works according to laws. Rational beings alone\nhave the faculty of acting according to the conception of laws, that is,\naccording to principles; _i.e._ have a will.\"\n\n\"Consequently the only good action is that which is done out of pure\nreverence for universal law. This categorical imperative of duty is\nexpressed as follows: 'Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become\nby thy will a Universal Law of Nature.' And since every other rational\nbeing must conduct himself on the same rational principle that holds for\nme, I am bound to respect him as I do myself. Hence the second practical\nimperative is: 'So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person\nor in that of any other, in every case as an end, never as means only.'\"\n\nIn Kant Stoicism reaches its climax. Law and the will are everything:\npossessions, even graces are nothing.\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE STOIC SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL\n\nThe problem of evil was the great problem of the Stoic, as the problem\nof pleasure was the problem of the Epicurean. To this problem the Stoic\ngives substantially four answers, with all of which we are already\nsomewhat familiar:--\n\nFirst: Only that is evil which we choose to regard as such. To quote\nMarcus Aurelius once more on this fundamental point: \"Consider that\neverything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power. Take away then, when\nthou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner who has doubled the\npromontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.\"\n\"Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint: I\nhave been harmed. Take away the complaint: I have been harmed, and the\nharm is done away.\"\n\nSecond: Since virtue or integrity is the only good, nothing but the loss\nof that can be a real evil. When this is present, nothing of real value\ncan be lacking. A Stoic then says, \"Virtue suffers no vacancy in the\nplace she inhabits; she fills the whole soul, takes away the\nsensibility of any loss, and is herself sufficient.\" \"As the stars hide\ntheir diminished heads before the brightness of the sun, so pains,\nafflictions, and injuries are all crushed and dissipated by the\ngreatness of virtue; whenever she shines, everything but what borrows\nits splendour from her disappears, and all manner of annoyances have no\nmore effect upon her than a shower of rain upon the sea.\" \"It does not\nmatter what you bear, but how you bear it.\" \"Where a man can live at\nall, he can live well.\" \"I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must\ngo into exile. Does any man hinder me from going with smiles and\ncheerfulness and contentment?\" \"Life itself is neither good nor evil,\nbut only a place for good and evil.\" \"It is the edge and temper of the\nblade that make a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard; and so\nit is not money and possessions that make a man considerable, but his\nvirtue.\" \"They are amusing fellows who are proud of things which are not\nin our power. A man says: I am better than you for I possess much land,\nand you are wasting with hunger. Another says: I am of consular rank;\nanother: I have curly hair. But a horse does not say to a horse: I am\nsuperior to you, for I possess much fodder and much barley, and my bits\nare of gold, and my harness is embroidered; but he says: I am swifter\nthan you. And every animal is better or worse from his own merit or his\nown badness. Is there then no virtue in man only, and must we look to\nour hair, and our clothes, and to our ancestors?\" \"Let our riches\nconsist in coveting nothing, and our peace in fearing nothing.\"\n\nThird: What seems evil to the individual is good for the whole: and\nsince we are members of the whole is good for us. \"Must my leg be\nlamed?\" the Stoic asks. \"Wretch, do you then on account of one poor leg\nfind fault with the world? Wilt thou not willingly surrender it for the\nwhole? Know you not how small a part you are compared with the whole?\"\n\n\"If a good man had foreknowledge of what would happen, he would\ncooeperate toward his own sickness and death and mutilation, since he\nknows that these things are assigned to him according to the universal\narrangement, and that the whole is superior to the part.\"\n\nFourth: Trial brings out our best qualities, is \"stuff to try the soul's\nstrength on,\" and \"educe the man,\" as Browning puts it. This\ninterpretation of evil as a means of bringing out the higher moral\nqualities, though not peculiar to Stoicism, was very congenial to their\nsystem, and appears frequently in their writings. \"Just as we must\nunderstand when it is said that AEsculapius prescribed to this man horse\nexercise, or bathing in cold water, or going without shoes, so we must\nunderstand it when it is said that the nature of the universe prescribed\nto this man disease, or mutilation, or loss of anything of the kind.\"\n\"Calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind, that resolves to live and\ndie master of itself. Adversity is the better for us all, for it is\nGod's mercy to show the world their errors, and that the things they\nfear and covet are neither good nor evil, being the common and\npromiscuous lot of good men and bad.\"\n\n\nV\n\nTHE STOIC PARADOXES\n\nA good test of one's appreciation of the Stoic position is whether or\nnot one can see the measure of truth their paradoxes contain.\n\nThe first paradox is that there are no degrees in vice. In the words of\nthe Stoic, \"The man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man\nwho is only one, are both equally not in Canopus.\"\n\nOne of the few bits of moral counsel which I remember from the infant\nclass in the Sunday-school runs as follows:--\n\n \"It is a sin\n To steal a pin:\n Much more to steal\n A greater thing.\"\n\nThis, in spite of its exquisite lyrical expression, the Stoic would\nflatly deny. The theft of a pin, and the defalcation of a bank cashier\nfor a hundred thousand dollars; a cross word to a dog, and a course of\nconduct which breaks a woman's heart, are from the Stoic standpoint\nprecisely on a level. For it is not the consequences but the form of our\naction that is the important thing. It is not how we make other people\nfeel as a result of our act, but how we ourselves think of it, as we\npropose to do it, or after it is done, that determines its goodness or\nbadness. If I steal a pin, I violate the universal law just as clearly\nand absolutely as though I stole the hundred thousand dollars. I can no\nmore look with deliberate approval on the cross word to a dog, than on\nthe breaking of a woman's heart. There are things that do not admit of\ndegrees. We must either fire our gun off or not fire it. We cannot fire\npart of the charge. We want either an absolutely good egg for breakfast,\nor no egg at all. One that is partially good, or on the line between\ngoodness and badness, we send back as altogether bad. If there is a\nlittle round hole in a pane of glass, cut by a bullet, we reject the\nwhole pane as imperfect, just as though a big jagged hole had been made\nin it by a brickbat. We get an echo of this paradox in the statement of\nSt. James, \"For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in\none point, he is guilty of all.\"\n\nThis paradox becomes plain, self-evident truth, the moment we admit the\nStoic position that not external things, and their appeal to our\nsensibility, but our internal attitudes toward universal law, are the\npoints on which our virtue hangs. Either we intend to obey the universal\nlaw of nature or we do not; and between the intention of obedience and\nthe intention of disobedience there is no middle ground.\n\nSecond: The wise man, the Stoic sage, is absolutely perfect, the\ncomplete master of himself, and rightfully the ruler of the world. If\neverything depends on our thought, and our thought is in tune with the\nuniversal law, then obviously we are perfect. Beyond such complete inner\nresponse to the universal law it is impossible for man to advance.\n\nCuriously enough, the religious doctrine of perfectionism, which often\narises in Methodist circles, and in such holiness movements as have\ntaken their rise from the influence of Methodism, shows this same root\nin the conception of law. Wesley's definition of sin is \"the violation\nof a known law.\" If that be all there is of sin, then any of us who is\nordinarily decent and conscientious, may boast of perfection. You can\nnumber perfectionists by tens of thousands on such abstract terms as\nthese. But if sin be not merely deliberate violation of abstract law; if\nit be failure to fulfil to the highest degree the infinitely delicate\npersonal, domestic, civic, and social relations in which we stand; then\nthe very notion of perfection is preposterous, and the profession of it\nlittle less than blasphemy. But like the modern religious\nperfectionists, the Stoics had little concern for the concrete,\nindividual, personal ties which bind men and women together in families,\nsocieties, and states. Perfection was an easy thing, because they had\ndefined it in such abstract terms. Still, though not by any means the\nwhole of virtue as deeper schools have apprehended it, it is something\nto have our inner motive absolutely right, when measured by the standard\nof universal law. That at least the Stoic professed to have attained.\n\nThird: The Stoic is a citizen of the whole world. Local, domestic,\nnational ties bind him not. But this is a cheap way of gaining\nuniversality,--this skipping the particulars of which the universal is\ncomposed. To be as much interested in the politics of Rio Janeiro or\nHong Kong as you are in those of the ward of your own city does not mean\nmuch until we know how much you are interested in the politics of your\nown ward. And in the case of the Stoic this interest was very\nattenuated. As is usually the case, extension of interest to the ends of\nthe earth was purchased at the cost of defective intensity close at\nhome, where charity ought to begin. As a matter of fact the Stoics were\nvery defective in their standards of citizenship. Still, what the law of\njustice demanded, that they were disposed to render to every man; and\nthus, though on a very superficial basis, the Stoics laid the broad\nfoundation of an international democracy which knows no limits of\ncolour, race, or stage of development. Though Stoicism falls far short\nof the warmth and devotion of modern Christian missions, yet the early\nstage of the missionary movement, in which people were interested, not\nin the concrete welfare of specific peoples, but in vast aggregates of\n\"souls,\" represented on maps, and in diagrams, bears a close\nresemblance to the Stoic cosmopolitanism. We have all seen people who\nwould give and work to save the souls of the heathen, who would never\nunder any circumstances think of calling on the neighbour on the same\nstreet who chanced to be a little below their own social circle. The\nsoul of a heathen is a very abstract conception; the lowly neighbour a\nvery concrete affair. The Stoics are not the only people who have\ndeceived themselves with vast abstractions.\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF STOICISM\n\nThe Stoics had a genuine religion. The Epicureans, too, had their gods,\nbut they never took them very seriously. In a world made up of atoms\naccidentally grouped in transient relations, of which countless\naccidental groupings I happen to be one, there is no room for a real\nreligious relationship. Consequently the Epicurean, though he amused\nhimself with poetic pictures of gods who led lives of undisturbed\nserenity, unconcerned about the affairs of men, had no consciousness of\na great spiritual whole of which he was a part, or of an Infinite Person\nto whom he was personally related.\n\nTo the Stoic, on the contrary, the round world is part of a single\nuniverse, which holds all its parts in the grasp and guidance of one\nuniversal law, determining each particular event. By making that law of\nthe universe his own, the individual man at once worships the\nall-controlling Providence, and achieves his own freedom. For the law to\nwhich he yields is at once the law of the whole universe, and the law of\nhis own nature as a part of the universe. \"We are born subjects,\"\nexclaims the Stoic, \"but to obey God is perfect liberty.\" \"Everything,\"\nsays Marcus Aurelius, \"harmonises with me which is harmonious to thee, O\nuniverse. Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time\nfor thee.\"\n\nA characteristic prayer and meditation and hymn will show us, far better\nthan description, what this Stoic religion meant to those who devoutly\nheld it. Epictetus gives us this prayer of the dying Cynic: \"I stretch\nout my hands to God and say: The means which I have received from thee\nfor seeing thy administration of the world and following it I have not\nneglected: I have not dishonoured thee by my acts: see how I have used\nmy perceptions: have I ever blamed thee? have I been discontented with\nanything that happens or wished it to be otherwise? Have I wished to\ntransgress the relations of things? That thou hast given me life, I\nthank thee for what thou hast given: so long as I have used the things\nwhich are thine I am content; take them back and place them wherever\nthou mayest choose; for thine were all things,--thou gavest them to me.\nIs it not enough to depart in this state of mind, and what life is\nbetter and more becoming than that of a man who is in this state of\nmind, and what end is more happy?\"\n\nHe also offers us this meditation on the inevitable losses of life, by\nwhich he consoles himself with the thought that all he has is a loan\nfrom God, which these seeming losses but restore to their rightful\nowner, who had lent them to us for a while.\n\n\"Never say about anything, I have lost it; but say, I have restored it.\nIs your child dead? It has been restored. Is your wife dead? She has\nbeen restored. Has your estate been taken from you? Has not this been\nalso restored? 'But he who has taken it from me is a bad man.' But what\nis it to you by whose hands the giver demanded it back? So long as he\nmay allow you, take care of it as a thing which belongs to another, as\ntravellers do with their inn.\"\n\nThe grandest expression of the Stoic religion, however, is found in the\nhymn of Cleanthes. Elsewhere there is too evident a disposition to\ncondescend to use God's aid in keeping up the Stoic temper; with little\nof outgoing adoration for the greatness and glory which are in God\nhimself. But in this grand hymn we have genuine reverence, devotion,\nworship, praise, self-surrender,--in short, that confession of the glory\nof the Infinite by the conscious weakness of the finite in which the\nheart of true religion everywhere consists. Nowhere outside of the\nHebrew and Christian Scriptures has adoration breathed itself in more\nexalted and fervent strains. The hymn is addressed to Zeus, as the\nStoics freely used the names of the popular gods to express their own\ndeeper meanings.\n\nHYMN TO ZEUS\n\n\"Thee it is lawful for all mortals to address. For we are Thy offspring,\nand alone of living creatures possess a voice which is the image of\nreason. Therefore I will forever sing Thee and celebrate Thy power. All\nthis universe rolling round the earth obeys Thee, and follows willingly\nat Thy command. Such a minister hast Thou in Thy invincible hands, the\ntwo-edged, flaming, vivid thunderbolt. O King, most High, nothing is\ndone without Thee, neither in heaven or on earth, nor in the sea, except\nwhat the wicked do in their foolishness. Thou makest order out of\ndisorder, and what is worthless becomes precious in Thy sight; for Thou\nhast fitted together good and evil into one, and hast established one\nlaw that exists forever. But the wicked fly from Thy law, unhappy ones,\nand though they desire to possess what is good, yet they see not,\nneither do they hear the universal law of God. If they would follow it\nwith understanding, they might have a good life. But they go astray,\neach after his own devices,--some vainly striving after reputation,\nothers turning aside after gain excessively, others after riotous living\nand wantonness. Nay, but, O Zeus, Giver of all things, who dwellest in\ndark clouds and rulest over the thunder, deliver men from their\nfoolishness. Scatter it from their souls, and grant them to obtain\nwisdom, for by wisdom Thou dost rightly govern all things; that being\nhonoured we may repay Thee with honour, singing Thy works without\nceasing, as it is right for us to do. For there is no greater thing than\nthis, either for mortal men or for the gods, to sing rightly the\nuniversal law.\"\n\nModern literature of the nobler sort has many a Stoic note; and we ought\nto be able to recognise it in its modern as well as in its ancient\ndress. The very best brief expression of the Stoic creed is found in\nHenley's Lines to R. T. H. B.:--\n\n \"Out of the night that covers me,\n Black as the Pit from pole to pole,\n I thank whatever gods may be\n For my unconquerable soul.\n\n \"In the fell clutch of circumstance\n I have not winced nor cried aloud.\n Under the bludgeonings of chance\n My head is bloody, but unbowed.\n\n \"Beyond this place of wrath and tears\n Looms but the Horror of the shade,\n And yet the menace of the years\n Finds, and shall find me unafraid.\n\n \"It matters not how strait the gate,\n How charged with punishments the scroll,\n I am the master of my fate:\n I am the captain of my soul.\"\n\nThe chief modern type of Stoicism, however, is Matthew Arnold. His great\nremedy for the ills of which life is so full is stated in the concluding\nlines of \"The Youth of Man\":--\n\n \"While the locks are yet brown on thy head,\n While the soul still looks through thine eyes,\n While the heart still pours\n The mantling blood to thy cheek,\n Sink, O youth, in thy soul!\n Yearn to the greatness of Nature;\n Rally the good in the depths of thyself!\"\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE PERMANENT VALUE OF STOICISM\n\nIf now we know the two fundamental principles of Stoicism, the\nindifference of external circumstance as compared with the reaction of\nour own thought upon it, and the sanctification of our thought by\nself-surrender to the universal law; and if we have learned to recognise\nthese Stoic notes alike in ancient and modern prose and poetry, we are\nready to discriminate between the good in it which we wish to cherish,\nand the shortcomings of the system which it is well for us to avoid.\n\nWe can all reduce enormously our troubles and vexations by bringing to\nbear upon them the two Stoic formulas. Toward material things, toward\nimpersonal events at least, we may all with profit put on the Stoic\narmour, or to use the figure of the turtle, which is most expressive of\nthe Stoic attitude, we can all draw the soft sensitive flesh of our\nfeelings inside the hard shell of resolute thoughts. There is a way of\nlooking at our poverty, our plainness of feature, our lack of mental\nbrilliancy, our humble social estate, our unpopularity, our physical\nailments, which, instead of making us miserable, will make us modest,\ncontented, cheerful, serene. The mistakes that we make, the foolish\nwords we say, the unfortunate investments into which we get drawn, the\nfailures we experience, all may be transformed by the Stoic formula into\nspurs to greater effort and stimulus to wiser deeds in days to come.\nSimply to shift the emphasis from the dead external fact beyond our\ncontrol, to the live option which always presents itself within; and to\nknow that the circumstance that can make us miserable simply does not\nexist, unless it exists by our consent within our own minds;--this is a\nlesson well worth spending an hour with the Stoics to learn once for\nall.\n\nAnd the other aspect of their doctrine, its quasi-religious side, though\nnot by any means the last word about religion, is a valuable first\nlesson in the reality of religion. To know that the universal law is\neverywhere, and that its will may in every circumstance be done; to\nmeasure the petty perturbations of our little lives by the vast orbits\nof natural forces moving according to beneficent and unchanging law;\nwhen we come out of the exciting political meeting, or the roar of the\nstock-exchange, to look up at the calm stars and the tranquil skies and\nhear them say to us, \"So hot, my little man\";--this elevation of our\nindividual lives by the reverent contemplation of the universe and its\nunswerving laws, is something which we may all learn with profit from\nthe old Stoic masters. Business, house-keeping, school-teaching,\nprofessional life, politics, society, would all be more noble and\ndignified if we could bring to them every now and then a touch of this\nStoic strength and calm.\n\nCriticism, complaint, fault-finding, malicious scandal, unpopularity,\nand all the shafts of the censorious are impotent to slay or even wound\nthe spirit of the Stoic. If these criticisms are true, they are welcomed\nas aids in the discovery of faults which are to be frankly faced, and\nstrenuously overcome. If they are false, unfounded, due to the\nquerulousness or jealousy of the critic rather than to any fault of the\nStoic, then he feels only contempt for the criticisms and pity for the\npoor misguided critic. The true Stoic can be the serene husband of a\nscolding shrew of a wife; the complacent representative of dissatisfied\nand enraged constituents; maintain unruffled equanimity when cut by his\naristocratic acquaintances and excluded from the most select social\ncircles: for he carries the only valid standard of social measurement\nunder his own hat, and needs not the adoration of his wife, the cheers\nof his constituents, the cards and invitations, the nods and smiles of\nthe four hundred to assure him of his dignity and worth. If he is an\nauthor, it does not trouble him that his books are unsold, unread,\nuncut. If the many could appreciate him, he would have to be one of\nthemselves, and then there would be no use in his trying to instruct\nthem. His book is what the universal law gave him to say, and decreed\nthat it should be; and whether there be many or few to whom the\nuniversal law has revealed the same truth, and granted power to\nappreciate it, is the concern of the universal, not of himself, the\nindividual author. Again, if he is in poor health, weary, exhausted, if\neach stroke of work must be wrought in agony and pain,--that, too, is\ndecreed for him by those just laws which he or his ancestors have\nblindly violated; and he will accept even this dictate of the universal\nlaw as just and good: he will not suffer these trifling incidental pains\nand aches to diminish by one jot the output of his hand or brain. When\ndisillusion and disappointment overtake him; when the things his youth\nhad sighed for finally take themselves forever out of his reach; when he\nsees clearly that only a few more years remain to him, and those must be\ncomposed of the same monotonous round of humdrum details, duties that\nhave lost the charm of novelty, functions that have long since been\nrelegated to the unconsciousness of habit, vexations that have been\nendured a thousand times, petty pleasures that have long since lost\ntheir zest: even then the Stoic says that this, too, is part of the\nuniversal programme, and must be accepted resignedly. If there is little\nthat nature has left to give him for which he cares, yet he can return\nto her the tribute of an obedient will and a contented mind: if he can\nexpect little from the world, he can contribute something to it; and so\nto the last he maintains,--\n\n \"One equal temper of heroic hearts,\n Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will\n To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.\"\n\nWhen there is hard work to be done, to which there is no pleasure, no\nhonour, no emolument attached; when there are evils to be rebuked which\nwill bring down the wrath and vengeance of the powers that be on him who\nexposes the wrong; when there are poor relatives to be supported, and\nslights to be endured, and injustice to be borne, it is well for us all\nto know this Stoic formula, and fortify our souls behind its\nimpenetrable walls. To consider not what happens to us, but how we react\nupon it; to measure good in terms not of sensuous pleasure, but of\nmental attitude; to know that if we are for the universal law, it\nmatters not how many things may be against us; to rest assured that\nthere can be no circumstance or condition in which this law cannot be\ndone by us, and therefore no situation of which we cannot be more than\nmaster, through implicit obedience to the great law that governs\nall,--this is the stern consolation of Stoicism; and there are few of us\nso happily situated in all respects that there do not come to us times\nwhen such a conviction is a defence and refuge for our souls. Beyond and\nabove Stoicism we shall try to climb in later chapters. But below\nStoicism one may not suffer his life to fall, if he would escape the\nfearful hells of depression, despair, and melancholia. As we lightly\nsend back across the centuries our thanks to Epicurus for teaching us to\nprize at their true worth health and the good things of life, so let us\nreverently bow before the Stoic sages, who taught us the secret of that\nhardy virtue which bears with fortitude life's inevitable ills.\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE DEFECTS OF STOICISM\n\nWhy we cannot rest in Stoicism as our final guide to life, the mere\nstatement of their doctrine must have made clear to every one; and in\ncalling attention to its limitations I shall only be saying for the\nreader what he has been saying to himself all through the chapter. It\nmay be well enough to treat things as indifferent, and work them over\ninto such mental combinations as best serve our rational interests. To\ntreat persons in that way, however, to make them mere pawns in the game\nwhich reason plays, is heartless, monstrous. The affections are as\nessential to man as his reason. It is a poor substitute for the warm,\nsweet, tender ties that bind together husband and wife, parent and\nchild, friend and friend,--this freezing of people together through\ntheir common relation to the universal law. I suppose that is why, in\nall the history of Stoicism, though college girls usually have a period\nof flirting with the Stoic melancholy of Matthew Arnold, no woman was\never known to be a consistent and steadfast Stoic. Indeed a Stoic woman\nis a contradiction in terms. One might as well talk of a warm iceberg,\nor soft granite, or sweet vinegar. Stoicism is something of which men,\nunmarried or badly married men at that, have an absolute monopoly.\n\nAgain if its disregard of particulars and individuals is cold and hard,\nits attempted substitute of abstract, vague universality is a bit\nabsurd. Sometimes the lighter mood of caricature best brings out the\nweaknesses that are concealed in grave systems when taken too seriously.\nMr. W. S. Gilbert has put the dash of absurdity there is in the Stoic\ndoctrines so convincingly that his lines may serve the purpose of\nillustrating the inherent weakness of the Stoic position better than\nmore formal criticism. They are addressed\n\nTO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE\n\n \"Roll on, thou ball, roll on;\n Through pathless realms of space\n Roll on.\n What though I'm in a sorry case?\n What though I cannot pay my bills?\n What though I suffer toothache's ills?\n What though I swallow countless pills?\n Never you mind!\n Roll on.\n\n \"Roll on, thou ball, roll on;\n Through seas of inky air\n Roll on.\n It's true I've got no shirts to wear;\n It's true my butcher's bills are due;\n It's true my prospects all look blue--\n But don't let that unsettle you--\n Never you mind!\n Roll on.\n (It rolls on.)\"\n\nThe incompleteness of the Stoic position is precisely this tendency to\nslight and ignore the external conditions out of which life is made.\nIts God is fate. Instead of a living, loving will, manifest in the\nstruggle with present conditions, Stoicism sees only an impersonal law,\nrigid, fixed, fatal, unalterable, unimprovable, uncompanionable. Man's\nonly freedom lies in unconditional surrender to what was long ago\ndecreed. Of glad and original cooeperation with its beneficent designs,\nthus helping to make the world happier and better than it could have\nbeen had not the universal will found and chosen just this individual\nme, to work freely for its improvement, Stoicism knows nothing. Its\nsatisfaction is staked on a dead law to be obeyed, not a live will to be\nloved. Its ideal is a monotonous identity of law-abiding agents who\ndiffer from each other chiefly in the names by which they chance to be\ndesignated. It has no place for the development of rich and varied\nindividuality in each through intense, passionate devotion to other\nindividuals as widely different as age, sex, training, and temperament\ncan make them. Before we find the perfect guidance of life we must look\nbeyond the Stoic as well as the Epicurean, to Plato, to Aristotle, and,\nabove all, to Jesus.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE PLATONIC SUBORDINATION OF LOWER TO HIGHER\n\n\nI\n\nTHE NATURE OF VIRTUE\n\nEpicureanism tells us how to gain pleasure; Stoicism tells us how to\nbear pain. But life is not so simple as these systems assume. It is not\nmerely the problem of getting all the pleasure we can; nor of taking\npain in such wise that it does not hurt. It is a question of the worth\nof the things in which we find our pleasure, and the relative values of\nthe things we suffer for. Plato squarely attacks that larger problem. He\nsays that the Epicurean is like a musician who tunes his violin as much\nas he can without breaking the strings. The wise musician, on the\ncontrary, recognises that the tuning is merely incidental to the music;\nand that when you have tuned it up to a certain point, it is worse than\nuseless to go on tuning it any more. Just as the tuning is for the sake\nof the music, and when you have reached a point where the instrument\ngives perfect music, you must stop the tuning and begin to play; so when\nyou have brought any particular pleasure, say that of eating, up to a\ncertain point, you must stop eating, and begin to live the life for the\nsake of which you eat. To the Stoic Plato gives a similar answer. The\nStoic, he says, is like a physician who gives his patient all the\nmedicine he can, and prides himself on being a better physician than\nothers because he gives his patients bigger doses, and more of them. The\nwise physician gives medicine up to a certain point, and then stops.\nThat point is determined by the health, which the medicine is given to\npromote. Precisely so, it is foolish to bear all the pain we can, and\nboast ourselves of our ability to swallow big doses of tribulation and\npronounce it good. The wise man will bear pain up to a certain point;\nand when he reaches that limit, he will stop. What is the point? Where\nis the limit? Virtue is the point up to which the bearing of pain is\ngood, the limit beyond which the bearing of pain becomes an evil.\nVirtue, then, is the supreme good, and makes everything that furthers\nit, whether pleasurable or painful, good. Virtue makes everything that\nhinders it, whether pleasurable or painful, bad. What, then, is virtue?\nIn what does this priceless pearl consist? We have our two analogies.\nVirtue is to pleasure what the music is to the tuning of the instrument.\nJust as the perfection of the music proves the excellence of the tuning,\nso the perfection of virtue justifies the particular pleasures we enjoy.\nVirtue stands related to the endurance of pain, as health stands related\nto the taking of medicine. The perfection of health proves that, however\ndistasteful the medicine may be, it is nevertheless good; and any\nimperfection of health that may result from either too much or too\nlittle medicine shows that in the quantity taken the medicine was bad\nfor us. Precisely so pain is good for us up to the point where virtue\nrequires it. Below or above that point, pain becomes an evil.\n\nPlato spared no pains to disentangle the question of virtue from its\ncomplications with rewards and penalties, pleasures and pains. As the\nvirtue of a violin is not in its carving or polish, but in the music it\nproduces; as the virtue of medicine is not in its sweetness or its\nabsence of bitterness, so the virtue of man has primarily nothing to do\nwith rewards and penalties, pleasures or pains. In our study of virtue,\nhe says, we must strip it naked of all rewards, honours, and emoluments;\nindeed we must go farther and even dress it up in the outer habiliments\nof vice; we must make the virtuous man poor, persecuted, forsaken,\nunpopular, distrusted, reviled, and condemned. Then we may be able to\nsee what there is in virtue which, in every conceivable circumstance,\nmakes it superior to vice. He makes one of his characters in the\nRepublic complain that: \"No one has ever adequately described either in\nverse or prose the true essential nature of either righteousness or\nunrighteousness immanent in the soul, and invisible to any human or\ndivine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has\nwithin him, righteousness is the greatest good, and unrighteousness the\ngreatest evil. Therefore I say, not only prove to us that righteousness\nis better than unrighteousness, but show what either of them do to the\npossessors of them, which makes the one to be good and the other evil,\nwhether seen or unseen by gods and men.\" Accordingly he attributes to\nthe unrighteous man skill to win a reputation for righteousness, even\nwhile acting most unrighteously. He clothes him with power and glory,\nand fame, and family, and influence; fills his life with delights;\nsurrounds him with friends; cushions him in ease and security. Over\nagainst this man who is really unrighteous, but has all the advantages\nthat come from being supposed to be righteous, he sets the man who is\nreally righteous, and clothes him with all the disabilities which come\nfrom being supposed to be unrighteous. \"Let him be scourged and racked;\nlet him have his eyes burnt out, and finally, after suffering every kind\nof evil, let him be impaled.\" Then, says Plato, when both have reached\nthe uttermost extreme, the one of righteousness treated shamefully and\ncruelly, the other of unrighteousness treated honourably and\nobsequiously, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the\ntwo. Translating the language of the \"Gorgias\" and the \"Republic\" into\nmodern equivalents: Who would we rather be, a man who by successful\nmanipulation of dishonest financial schemes had come to be a\nmillionnaire, the mayor of his city, the pillar of the church, the\nornament of the best society, the Senator from his state, or the\nAmbassador of his country at a European Court; or a man who in\nconsequence of his integrity had won the enmity of evil men in power,\nand been sent in disgrace to State prison; a man whom no one would speak\nto; whom his best friends had deserted, whose own children were being\nbrought up to reproach him? Which of the two men would we rather be? And\nwe must not introduce any consideration of reversals hereafter.\nSupposing that death ends all, and that there is no God to reverse the\ndecisions of men; suppose these two men were to die as they lived,\nwithout hope of resurrection; which of the two would we rather be for\nthe next forty years of our lives, assuming that after that there is\nnothing?\n\nPlato in a myth puts the case even more strongly than this. Gyges, a\nshepherd and servant of the king of Lydia, found a gold ring which had\nthe remarkable property of making its wearer visible when he turned the\ncollet one way, and invisible when he turned it the other way. Being\nastonished at this, he made several trials of the ring, always with the\nsame result; when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when\noutwards he reappeared. Perceiving this he immediately contrived to be\nchosen messenger to the court, where he no sooner arrived than he\nseduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew\nhim, and took the kingdom. Plato asks us what we should do if we had\nsuch a ring. We could do anything we pleased and no one would be the\nwiser. We could become invisible, out of the reach of external\nconsequences, the instant our deed was done. Would we, with such a ring\non our finger, stand fast in righteousness? Could we trust ourselves to\nwear that ring night and day? Would we feel safe if we knew that our\nnext-door neighbour, even our most intimate friend, had such a ring, and\ncould do just what he pleased to us, and yet never get caught? Can we\ntell why a man with such a ring on his finger should not do any unjust,\nunkind, impure, or dishonourable deed?\n\n\nII\n\nRIGHTEOUSNESS WRIT LARGE\n\nThe Republic is Plato's answer to this question. Why, you may ask,\nshould he give us a treatise on politics in answer to a question of\npersonal character? Because the state is simply the individual writ\nlarge, and as we can read large letters more easily than small letters,\nwe shall get at the principle of righteousness more readily if we first\nconsider what it is in the large letters of the state. In presenting\nthis analogy of the state I shall freely translate Plato's teachings\ninto their modern equivalent. What, then, is the difference between a\nrighteous and unrighteous state?\n\nAn unrighteous state is one in which the working-men in each industry\nare organised into a union which uses its power to force the wages of\nits members up to an exorbitant level, and uses intimidation and\nviolence to prevent any one else from working for less or producing more\nthan the standards fixed by the union; it is a state in which the owners\nof capital, in each line of industry, combine into overcapitalised\ntrusts for the purpose of making the small sums which they put into the\nbusiness, and the larger sums which they do not put in at all, except on\npaper, earn exorbitant dividends at the expense of the public; it is a\nstate in which the politicians are in politics for their pockets, using\nthe opportunities for advantageous contracts which offices afford, and\nthe opportunities for legislation in favour of private schemes, to\nenrich themselves out of the public purse; it is a state in which the\npolice intimidate the other citizens, and sell permission to commit\ncrime to the highest bidder; it is a state in which the scholars concern\nthemselves exclusively about their own special and technical interests,\nand as long as the institutions with which they are connected are\nsupported by the gifts of rich men, care little how the poor are\noppressed and the many are made to suffer by the corrupt use of wealth\nand the selfish misuse of power. Such is the unrighteous state. And\nwherein does its unrighteousness consist? Obviously in the fact that\neach of the great classes in the state--working-men, capitalists,\npolice, politicians, scholars--are living exclusively for themselves and\nare ready to sacrifice the interests of the community as a whole to\ntheir private interests. Now a state which should be completely\nunrighteous, in which everybody should succeed in carrying out his own\nselfish interests at the expense of everybody else, would be\nintolerable. United action would be impossible. No one would wish to\nlive in such a state. There must be honour even among thieves; otherwise\nstealing could not be successful on any considerable scale. The trouble\nwith it is that each part is arrayed in antagonism against every other\npart, and the whole is sacrificed to the supposed interests of its\nconstituent members.\n\nWhat, then, in contrast to this would be a righteous state? It would be\na state in which each of these classes fulfils its part well, with a\nview to the good of the whole. It would be a state where labour would be\norganised into unions, which would not insist on having the greatest\npossible wages for the least possible work, but which would maintain a\nhigh standard of efficiency, and intelligence, and character in the\nmembers, with a view to doing the best possible work in their trade, at\nsuch wages as the resources and needs of the community, as indicated by\nthe normal action of demand and supply, would warrant. It would be a\nstate in which the capitalists would organise their business in such a\nway that they might invite public inspection of the relation between the\ncapital, enterprise, skill, economy, and industry expended, and the\nprices they charge for commodities furnished and services rendered. It\nwould be a state in which the police would maintain that order and law\nwhich is the equal interest of the rich and poor alike. It would be a\nstate in which the men in political offices would use their official\npositions and influence for the protection of the lives and promotion of\nthe interests of the whole people whom they represent and profess to\nserve. It would be a state in which the colleges and universities would\nbe intensely alive to economic, social, and public questions, and devote\ntheir learning to the maintenance of healthful material conditions, just\ndistribution of wealth, sound morals, and wise determination of public\npolicy.\n\nWherein, then, does the difference between an unrighteous and a\nrighteous state consist? Simply in this--that in the unrighteous state\neach class in the community is playing for its own hand and regarding\nthe community as a mere means to its own selfish interests as the\nsupreme end,--while a righteous state on the contrary is one in which\neach class in the community is doing its own work as economically and\nefficiently as possible, with a view to the interests of the community\nas a whole. In the unrighteous state the whole is subordinated to each\nseparate part; in the righteous state each part is subordinated to the\ncommon interests of the whole. If, then, we ask as did Adeimantus in the\nRepublic, \"Where, then, is righteousness, and in which particular part\nof the state is it to be found,\" our answer will be that given by\nSocrates, \"that each individual man shall be put to that use for which\nnature designs him, and every man will do his own business so that the\nwhole city will be not many but one.\" Righteousness, then, in the state\nconsists in having each class mind its own business with a view to the\ngood of the whole. On this, which is Plato's fundamental principle, we\ncan all agree.\n\nAs to the method by which the righteous state is to be brought about\nprobably we should all profoundly differ from him. His method for\nsecuring the subordination of what he calls the lower class of society\nto what he calls the higher class is that of repression, force, and\nfraud. The obedience of the working-men is to be secured by\nintimidation; the devotion of the higher classes is to be secured partly\nby suppression of natural instincts and interests, partly by an\nelaborate and prolonged education. The rulers are to have no property\nand no wives and families that they can call their own. He attempts to\nget devotion to the whole by suppressing those more individual and\nspecial forms of devotion which spring from private property and family\naffection. In all these details of his scheme we must frankly recognise\nthat Plato was profoundly wrong. The working classes cannot and ought\nnot to be driven like dumb cattle to their tasks by a force external to\nthemselves. The ruling class, the scholars and statesmen, can never be\nsuccessfully trained for disinterested public life by taking away from\nthem those fundamental interests and affections out of which, in the\nlong run, all public spirit takes its rise and draws its inspiration. In\nopposition to this communism based on repression and suppression by\nforce and fraud, the modern democracy sets a community of interest and a\ndevotion of personal resources, be they great or small, to the common\ngood on the part of every citizen of every class. The utter inadequacy\nand impracticability of the details of Plato's communistic schemes\nabout the wives and property of his ruling class should not blind us to\nthe profound truth of his essential definition of righteousness in a\nstate: That each class shall \"do the work for which they draw the wage\"\nwith a view to the effect it will have, not on themselves alone, but\nprimarily on the welfare of the whole state, of which each class is a\nserving and contributing member. This essential truth of Plato our\nmodern democracy has taken up. The difference is that, while Plato\nproposed to have intelligence and authority in one, and obedience and\nmanual labour in another class, the problem of modern democracy is to\ngive an intelligent and public-spirited outlook to the working-man, and\na spirit of honest work to the scholar and the statesman.\n\nThe defect of Plato lies in the external arrangements by which he\nproposed to secure the right relation of parts to the whole. His\nmeasures for securing this subordination were partly material and\nphysical, partly visionary and unnatural, where ours must be natural,\nsocial, intellectual, and spiritual. But he did lay down for all time\nthe great principle that the due subordination of the parts to the\nwhole, of the members to the organism, of the classes to society, of\nindividuals to the state is the essence of righteousness in a state,\nand an indispensable condition of political well-being.\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE CARDINAL VIRTUES\n\nRighteousness in a state then consists in each class minding its own\nbusiness, and performing its specific function for the good of the state\nas a whole. Righteousness in the individual is precisely the same thing.\nThere are three grand departments of each man's life: his appetites, his\nspirit, and his reason. Neither of these is good or bad in itself.\nNeither of them should be permitted to set up housekeeping on its own\naccount. Any one of them is bad if it acts for itself alone, regardless\nof the interests of the self as a whole. Let us take up these\ndepartments in order, and see wherein the vice and the virtue of each\nconsists. First the appetites, which in the individual correspond to the\nworking class in the state.\n\nLet us take eating as a specimen, remembering, however, that everything\nwe say about the appetite for food is equally true of all the other\nelementary appetites, such as those that deal with drink, sex, dress,\nproperty, amusement, and the like. The Epicurean said they are all good\nif they do not clash and contradict each other. The Stoic implied that\nthey are all, if not positively bad, at least so low and unimportant\nthat the wise man will not pay much attention to them. Plato says they\nare all good in their place, and that they are all bad out of their\nplace. What, then, is their place? It is one of subordination and\nservice to the self as a whole. Which is the better breakfast: a half\npound of beefsteak, with fried potatoes, an omelette, some griddle cakes\nand maple syrup, with a doughnut or two, and a generous piece of mince\npie? or a little fruit and a cereal, a roll, and a couple of eggs?\n\nIntrinsically the first breakfast is, if anything, better than the\nsecond. There is more of it. It offers greater variety. It takes longer\nto eat it. It will stay by you longer. If you are at a hotel conducted\non the American plan, you are getting more for your money.\n\nRighteousness, however, is concerned with none of these considerations.\nWhat makes one breakfast better than the other is the way it fits into\none's life as a whole. Which breakfast will enable you to do the best\nforenoon's work? Which one will give you acute headache and chronic\ndyspepsia? Immediate appetite cannot answer these questions. Reason is\nthe only one of our three departments that can tell us what is good for\nthe self as a whole. Now for most people in ordinary circumstances,\nreason prescribes the second breakfast, or something like it. The second\nbreakfast fits into one's permanent plan of life. The work to be done in\nthe forenoon, the feelings one will have in the afternoon, the general\nefficiency which we desire to maintain from day to day and year to year,\nall point to the second breakfast as the more adapted to promote the\nwelfare of the self as a whole throughout the entire life history. If we\neat the first breakfast, appetite rules and reason is thrust into\nsubjection. The lower has conquered the higher; the part has domineered\nthe whole. To eat such a breakfast, for ninety-nine men out of every\nhundred, would be gluttony. Yet, though eating it is vicious, the fault\nis not in the breakfast, not in the hunger for it; but in the fact that\nthe appetite had its own way, regardless of the permanent interests of\nthe self as a whole; and that so far forth reason was dethroned, and\nappetite set up as ruler in its place. Indeed there are circumstances in\nwhich the first breakfast would be the right one to choose. If one were\non the borders of civilisation, setting out for a long tramp through the\nwilderness, where every ounce of food must be carried on his back, and\nno more fresh meat and home cooking could be expected for several days,\neven reason herself might prescribe the first breakfast as more\nbeneficial to the whole man than the second. Precisely the same\nbreakfast which is good in one set of circumstances becomes bad in\nanother. The raw appetite of hunger is obviously neither good nor bad.\nThe rule of appetite over reason and the whole self, however, is bad\nalways, everywhere, and for everybody. It is in this rising up of the\nlower part of the self against the higher, and its sacrifice of the self\nas a whole to a particular gratification that all vice consists.\n\nOn the other hand, the rule of reason over appetite, the gratification\nor the restraint of appetite according as the interests of the total\nself require, is always and everywhere and for everybody good. This is\nthe essence of virtue; and the particular form of virtue that results\nfrom this control of the appetites by reason in the interest of the\npermanent and total self is temperance--the first and most fundamental\nof Plato's cardinal virtues.\n\nThe second element of human nature, spirit, must be dealt with in the\nsame way. By spirit Plato means the fighting element in us, that which\nprompts us to defend ourselves, the faculty of indignation, anger, and\nvengeance. To make it concrete, let us take a case. Suppose the cook in\nour kitchen has times of being careless, cross, saucy, wilful, and\ndisobedient. The spirit within prompts us to upbraid her, quarrel with\nher, and when she grows in turn more insolent and impertinent, to\ndischarge her. Is such an exercise of spirit a virtuous act? It may be\nvirtuous, or it may be vicious. In this element, considered in itself,\nthere is no more virtue or vice than in appetite considered in itself.\nIt is again a question of how this particular act of this particular\nside of our nature stands related to the self as a whole. What does\nreason say?\n\nIf I send this cook away, shall I be a long while without any; and after\nmuch vexation probably put up with another not half so good? Will my\nhousehold be thrown into confusion? Will hospitality be made impossible?\nWill the working power of the members of my household be impaired by\nlack of well-prepared, promptly served food? In the present state of\nthis servant problem, all these things and worse are quite likely to\nhappen. Consequently reason declares in unmistakable terms that the\ninterests of the self as a whole demand the retention of the cook. But\nit galls and frets our spirit to keep this impertinent, disobedient\nservant, and hear her irritating words, and see her aggravating\nbehaviour. Never mind, reason says to the spirited element in us. The\nspirit is not put into us in order that it may have a good time all by\nitself on its own account. It is put into us to protect and promote the\ninterests of the self as a whole. You must bear patiently with the\nincidental failings of your cook, and return soft answers to her harsh\nwords; because in that way you will best serve that whole self which\nyour spirit is given you to defend. In ninety-nine cases out of a\nhundred a quarrel with a cook, on such grounds, in present conditions,\nwould be prejudicial to the interests of the self as a whole. It is the\nsacrifice of the whole to the part; which as we saw in the case of\nappetite is the essence of all vice. Only in this case the vice would\nbe, not intemperance, but cowardice, inability to bear a transient,\ntrifling pain patiently and bravely for the sake of the self as a whole.\n\nStill, there might be aggravated cases in which the sharp reproof, the\nquarrel, and the prompt discharge might be the brave and right thing to\ndo. If one felt it a contribution one was required to make to the whole\nservant problem, and after considering all the inconvenience it would\ncost, still felt that life as a whole was worth more with this\nparticular servant out of the house than in it, then precisely the same\nact, which ordinarily would be wrong, in this exceptional case would be\nright. It is not what you do, but how you do it, that determines whether\nan outburst of anger is virtuous or vicious. If the whole self is in it,\nif all interests have been fully weighed by the reason, if, in short,\nyou are all there when you do it, then the act is a virtuous act, and\nthe special name of this virtue of the spirit is courage or fortitude.\nAnger and indignation going off on its own account is always vicious.\nAnger and indignation properly controlled by reason in the interest of\nthe total self is always good. Precisely the same outward act done by\none man in one set of circumstances is bad, and shows the man to be\nvicious, cowardly, and weak; while, if done by another man in other\ncircumstances, it shows him to be strong, brave, and manly. Virtue and\nvice are questions of the subordination or insubordination of the lower\nto the higher elements of our nature; of the parts of our selves to the\nwhole. The subordination of appetite to reason has given us the first of\nthe four virtues. The subordination of spirit to reason has given us\nfortitude, the second.\n\nWisdom, the third of Plato's cardinal virtues, consists in the supremacy\nof reason over spirit and appetite; just as temperance and courage\nconsisted in the subordination of appetite and spirit to reason. Wisdom,\nthen, is much the same thing as temperance and courage, only in more\npositive and comprehensive form. Wisdom is the vision of the good, the\ntrue end of man, for the sake of which the lower elements must be\nsubordinated. What, then, is the good, according to Plato? The good is\nthe principle of order, proportion, and harmony that binds the many\nparts of an object into the effective unity of an organic whole. The\ngood of a watch is that perfect working together of all its springs and\nwheels and hands, which makes it keep time. The good of a thing is the\nthing's proper and distinctive function; and the condition of its\nperforming its function is the subordination of its parts to the\ninterest of the whole.\n\nThe good of a horse is strength and speed; but this in turn involves the\ncooerdination of its parts in graceful, free movement. The good of a\nstate is the cooeperation of all its citizens, according to their several\ncapacities, for the happiness and welfare of the whole community. Wisdom\nin the statesman is the power to see such an ideal relation of the\ncitizens to each other, and the means by which it can be attained and\nconserved. The good of the individual man, likewise, is the harmonious\nworking together of all the elements in him, so as to produce a\nsatisfactory life; and wisdom is the vision of such a truly satisfactory\nlife, and of the conditions of its attainment. Since man lives in a\nworld full of natural objects, and of works of art; since he is\nsurrounded by other men and is a member of a state; and since his\nwelfare depends on his fulfilling his relations to these objects and\npersons, it follows that wisdom to see his own true good will involve a\nknowledge of these objects, persons, and institutions around him. Hence\nrather more than half the Republic is occupied with the problem of\neducation; or the training of men in that wisdom which consists in the\nknowledge of the good.\n\n\nIV\n\nPLATO'S SCHEME OF EDUCATION\n\nEducation, therefore, in Plato's ideal Republic, was a lifelong affair,\nand from first to last practical. For the guardians, the men who were to\nbe rulers or, as we should say, leaders of their fellows, he prescribed\nthe following course: From early childhood until the age of\nseventeen,--that is, through our elementary and high school periods,--he\nwould give chief attention to what he calls music; that is, to\nliterature, music, and the plastic arts, with popular descriptive\nscience, or, as we call it nowadays, nature study. This, with elementary\nmathematics and gymnastics as incidental, constituted the curriculum for\nthe first ten or twelve years. The chief stress through all these years\nhe lays on good literature,--good both in substance and in form; for\nchildren at this age are intensely imitative. Plato practically\nanticipated the latest results of child study, which tell us that the\nchild builds up the whole substance of his conception of himself out of\nmaterials borrowed from others and incorporated in himself by imitative\nreproduction; and then in turn interprets and understands others only in\nso far as he can eject this borrowed material into other persons. Hence\nPlato says it is of supreme importance that the children shall learn to\nadmire and love good literature. That teachers should be able to teach\nthe children to read and write and cipher and draw he would take for\ngranted. The prime qualification, however, would be the ability to so\ninterpret the best literature as to make the children admire and imitate\nand incorporate the noble qualities this literature embodies. Into the\nliterature thus inspiringly taught in the school, only that which\npraised noble deeds in noble language should be admitted. Plato's\ndescription of good literature for schools will bear repeating: \"Any\ndeeds of endurance which are acted or told by famous men, these the\nchildren ought to see and hear. If they imitate at all, they should\nimitate the temperate, holy, free, courageous, and the like; but they\nshould not depict or be able to imitate any kind of illiberality or\nother baseness, lest from imitation they come to be what they imitate.\nDid you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth, at last\nsink into the constitution and become a second nature of body, voice,\nand mind?\" \"Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one\nwarlike, which will sound the word or note which a brave man utters in\nthe hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing and\nhe is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and\nat every such crisis meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and\nanother which may be used by him in times of peace and freedom of\naction, when there is no pressure of necessity--expressive of entreaty,\nor persuasion, or prayer to God, or instruction of man, or again of\nwillingness to listen to persuasion or entreaty or advice; and which\nrepresents him when he has accomplished his aim, not carried away by\nsuccess, but acting moderately and wisely, and acquiescing in the\nevent. These two harmonies I ask you to leave: the strain of necessity\nand the strain of freedom, the strain of courage, and the strain of\ntemperance. We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral\ndeformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon\nmany a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they\nsilently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own souls. Let\nour artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of\nbeauty and grace; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid\nfair sights and sounds; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will\nmeet the sense like a breeze, and insensibly draw the soul, even in\nchildhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason. Rhythm and harmony\nfind their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they\nmightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making the soul\ngraceful of him who is rightly educated, or ungraceful if ill educated;\nand also because he who has received this true education of the inner\nbeing will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art or nature,\nand with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives\ninto his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly\nblame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is\nable to know the reason of the thing; and when reason comes, he will\nrecognise and salute her as a friend with whom his education has made\nhim long familiar.\"\n\nThus, according to Plato, the important thing for a youth to secure by\nthe time he is seventeen is the admiration of noble deeds, and noble\nwords, and noble character. The love of good literature is the backbone\nof this elementary education. Manual training and nature study, as a\nmeans to the appreciation of beautiful works of art and beautiful\nobjects in nature, he would also approve. On the whole Plato is an\nadvocate of those very reforms which are now being introduced into the\nelementary and secondary schools in the name of the New Education. What\none loves is of more importance than what one knows; what one wants to\ndo, and is interested in trying to do, is of more consequence at this\nstage than what one has done. Early education should be an introduction\nto the true, the beautiful, and the good in the form of great men, brave\ndeeds, beautiful objects, and beneficent laws. The development of taste\nis more than the acquisition of information; the inspiration of\nliterature, history, art, and descriptive science is far more valuable\nthan drill beyond the essentials in grammar, geography, and arithmetic.\n\nPlato's programme for the years from seventeen to twenty, three of our\nfour college years, is even more startling and heretical; and quite in\nline with certain tendencies in our own day. He would set apart the\nthree years from seventeen to twenty for gymnastic exercises, including\nin such exercises, however, military drill. Plato appreciated both the\nadvantage and disadvantage of intense athletic exercises. \"The period,\nwhether of two or three years, which passes in this sort of training is\nuseless for any other purpose,--for sleep and exercise are unpropitious\nto learning; and the trial is one of the most important tests to which\nthey are subjected.\"\n\nAt the age of twenty he would select the most promising youths and give\nthem a ten years' course in severe study of science. This systematic\nstudy corresponds to the graduate and professional period in modern\neducation, only he extends it over ten years, where we confine it to\nthree or four. Again at thirty there is another selection of those who\nare most steadfast in their learning and most faithful in their military\nand public duties, and these are given a five years' course in dialectic\nor philosophy. They are trained to see the relation of the special\nsciences to each other and how each department of truth is related to\nthe whole. At the age of thirty-five they must be appointed to military\nand other offices. \"In this way they will get their experience of life,\nand there will be an opportunity to try whether, when they are drawn all\nmanner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or stir at all.\" And\nwhen they have reached the age of fifty, after fifteen years of this\nlaboratory work in actual public service, holding subordinate offices\nand learning to discriminate good and evil, not as we find them done up\nin packages and labelled in the study, but as they are interwoven in the\ncomplicated texture of real life, \"those who still survive and have\ndistinguished themselves in every deed and in all knowledge, come at\nlast to their graduation; the time has now arrived at which they must\nraise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all\nthings and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according\nto which they are to order the state and the lives of individuals and\nthe remainder of their own lives also, making philosophy their chief\npursuit; but when their turn comes, also toiling at politics and ruling\nfor the public good.\"\n\nThe wisdom which comes of this prolonged and elaborate education is the\nthird of Plato's four cardinal virtues. In the state it is the ruling\nprinciple, and its agents are the philosophers. As Plato says in a\nfamous passage: \"Until then philosophers are kings, or the kings and\nprinces of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and\npolitical greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures\nwho follow either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand\naside, cities will never cease from ill,--no, nor the human race, as I\nbelieve,--and then only will this our state have a possibility of life\nand behold the light of day.\" Precisely so, no individual will attain\nhis true estate until this philosophic principle, which sees the good,\nthrough training has been so developed that it can bring both appetite\nand spirit into subjection to it, as a charioteer controls his\nheadstrong horses.\n\n\nV\n\nRIGHTEOUSNESS THE COMPREHENSIVE VIRTUE\n\nWe now have three of the cardinal virtues: temperance, the subjection of\nappetite to reason; fortitude, the control of the spirit by reason; and\nwisdom, won through education, the assertion of the dictates of reason\nover the clamour of both appetite and spirit. But where, amid all this,\nPlato asks, is righteousness? In reply he remarks, \"that when we first\nbegan our inquiry, ages ago, there lay righteousness rolling at our\nfeet, and we, fools that we were, failed to see her, like people who go\nabout looking for what they have in their hands. Righteousness is the\ncomprehensive aspect of the three virtues already considered in detail.\nIt is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them.\nRighteousness in a state consists in each citizen doing the thing to\nwhich his nature is most perfectly adapted: in minding one's own\nbusiness, in other words, with a view to the good of the whole.\nRighteousness in an individual, then, consists in having each part of\none's nature devoted to its specific function: in having the appetites\nobey, in having the spirit steadfast in difficulty and danger, and in\nhaving the reason rule supreme. Thus righteousness, that subordination\nand coordination of all the parts of the soul in the service of the soul\nas a whole, includes each of the other three virtues and comprehends\nthem all in the unity of the soul's organic life.\n\n\"For the righteous man does not permit the several elements within him\nto meddle with one another, but he sets in order his own inner life, and\nis his own master, and at peace with himself; when he has bound\ntogether the three principles within him, and is no longer many, but has\nbecome one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he\nwill begin to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or\nin the treatment of the body, or in some affairs of politics or of\nprivate business; in all which cases he will think and call just and\ngood action, that which preserves and cooeperates with this condition,\nand the knowledge which presides over this wisdom.\"\n\nUnrighteousness, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of this. \"Then\nassuming the threefold division of the soul, must not unrighteousness be\na kind of quarrel between these three--a meddlesomeness and\ninterference, a rising up of a part of the soul against the whole soul,\nan assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious\nsubject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal--this is\nthe sort of thing; the confusion and error of these parts or elements in\nunrighteousness and intemperance, cowardice, and ignorance, and in\ngeneral all vice.\" In other words, righteousness and unrighteousness\n\"are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and\nhealth are in the body.\" \"Then virtue is the health and beauty and\nwell-being of the soul, vice is the disease and weakness and deformity\nof the soul.\" From this point of view our old question of the\ncomparative advantage of righteousness and unrighteousness answers\nitself. Indeed, the question whether it is more profitable to be\nrighteous and do righteously and practice virtue, whether seen or unseen\nof gods and men, or to be unrighteous and act unrighteously if only\nunpunished, becomes, Plato says, ridiculous. \"If when the bodily\nconstitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with\nevery sort of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power,\nshall we be told that life is worth having when the very essence of the\nvital principle is undermined and corrupted, even though a man be\nallowed to do whatever he pleases, if at the same time he is forbidden\nto escape from vice and unrighteousness, or attain righteousness and\nvirtue, seeing that we now know the true nature of each?\"\n\nRighteousness, according to Plato, is the condition of the soul's health\nand life. To part with righteousness for any external advantage is to\ncommit the supreme folly of selling our own souls. Righteousness is the\norganising principle of the soul; unrighteousness is the disorganising\nprinciple. Health and life rest on organisation. Disorganisation and\nvice are synonymous with disease and death. Therefore, all seeming gains\nthat one may win in the paths of unrighteousness really involve the\ngreatest possible loss.\n\nWe have now seen what righteousness is, whether in a state or in an\nindividual. It is the health, harmony, beauty, excellence of the whole\nstate or the whole man, secured by having each member attend strictly to\nits own distinctive work, with a view to the good of the whole state or\nthe whole man. Thus defined it is something so obviously desirable and\nessential, that nothing else is worthy to be compared with it. Whoever\nparts with it even in exchange for the greatest outward honours,\nemoluments, comforts, or pleasures, is bound to get the worst of the\nbargain. Yet men do part with it; states do part with it. And the eighth\nand ninth books of the Republic are devoted to a description of the four\nstages of degeneration through which states and individuals pass on the\ndownward road from righteousness and virtue to unrighteousness and vice.\nThe breaking up of a thing often reveals its nature as effectually as\nthe putting it together; and as we have traced the four virtues by which\neither the state or the soul is constructed, it will throw added light\nupon the problem to trace in conclusion the four stages through which\nmen and states go down to destruction.\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE STAGES OF DEGENERATION\n\nThe first step down is where, instead of the good, men seek personal\nhonour and distinction. At first the deterioration, whether in state or\nindividual, is hardly noticeable. An ambitious statesman, on the whole,\nwill advocate, if he is shrewd and far-sighted, much the same measures\nas the statesman who is intent on the welfare of the state. For he knows\nthat by promoting the public welfare he will most effectively gain the\nreputation and distinction he desires. Yet there is a marked difference\nin the attitude of mind, and in the long run that difference will\nexpress itself in action. When it comes to a close and hard decision,\nwhere the real interest of the state lies in one direction, and the\nwaves of popular enthusiasm are running in an opposite direction, the\nman who cares for the real welfare of the state will stand fast, while\nthe man who cares supremely for honour and distinction will be more\nlikely to give way. Besides, contention and strife will arise, since the\nambitious man is more anxious to do something himself than he is to have\nthe best thing done by some one else. Hence the state where the\nstatesmen love power, office, and honour will be less well off than the\nstate where they are disinterestedly devoted to the public good.\n\nJust so the man who is supremely covetous of power and honour will be\nweaker than the man who loves the good and follows the guidance of\nreason as supreme, in both these respects. He will be prone to follow\nthe clamour of the multitude when he knows it is not the voice of\nreason; and he will try to have his own way, even when he knows that the\nway of another man is better than his. As Plato says, \"He gives up the\nkingdom that is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness\nand passion, and becomes proud and ambitious.\" Here, then, are the two\ntests by which each man may judge for himself whether he is a degenerate\nof the first grade or not. First: Will you do what reason shows you to\nbe right every time, at all costs, no matter if all the honours and\nemoluments are attached to doing something a shade or two off from this\nabsolutely right and reasonable course? Second: Would you rather have\nwhat is best done by somebody else, and let him have the credit of it,\nrather than get all the credit yourself by doing something not quite so\ngood? The man of pride and ambition can never be quite disinterested in\nhis service of the good, although incidentally most of the things he\ndoes will be good things. As Plato puts it, \"He is not single-minded\ntoward virtue, having lost his best guardian.\" He has neglected \"the one\nthing that can preserve a man's goodness through his life--reason\nblended with music.\"\n\nIt is a short and easy step, in state and individual, from the love of\nhonour down to the love of money as the guiding principle of life. The\nappetitive side of life is always present, even in the most upright of\nmen. It may be asleep, but it is never dead. And when there is nothing\nmore deep and vital than the love of honour to hold it in restraint, it\nis sure to wake up and prowl about. Rivalry for honour soon reveals the\nfact that directly or indirectly honour and office can be bought. Then\ncomes the state of things where only rich men can get office, or can\nafford to hold it if it comes to them. That in the state is what Plato\ncalls an oligarchy. The deterioration of a state under this condition is\nvery rapid, for, as he says, \"When riches and virtue are placed together\nin the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.\nAnd so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become\nlovers of trade and of money, and they honour and reverence the rich man\nand make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man.\" The evils of this\noligarchical rule, he says, are illustrated by considering the nature of\nthe qualification for office and influence. \"Just think what would\nhappen if the pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and\na poor man refused permission to steer, even though he were the better\npilot?\" The other defect is \"the inevitable division; such a state is\nnot one but two states, the one of poor men, the other of rich men, who\nare living on the same spot and ever conspiring against one another.\"\n\nThe avaricious man is like the state which is governed by rich men. \"Is\nnot this man likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous elements on\nthe vacant throne? And when he has made the reasoning and passionate\nfaculties sit on the ground obediently on either side, and taught them\nto know their place, he compels the one to think only of the method by\nwhich lesser sums may be converted into larger ones, and schools the\nother into the worship and admiration of riches and rich men. Of all\nconversions there is none so speedy or so sure as when the ambitious\nyouth changes into the avaricious one.\"\n\nNowhere is Plato more keen or more fair than in his judgment of the\nmoney-maker. He says that he will generally do the right thing; he will\nbe eminently respectable; he will not sink to very low or disreputable\ncourses. All his goodness, however, will be of a forced, constrained,\nartificial, and at bottom unreal character. He will be good because he\nhas to, in order to maintain that standing in the community on which his\nwealth depends. In Plato's own words: \"He coerces his bad passions by an\neffort of virtue; not that he convinces them of evil, or exerts over\nthem the gentle influence of reason, but he acts upon them by necessity\nand fear, and because he trembles for his possessions. This sort of man\nwill be at war with himself: he will be two men, not one; but, in\ngeneral, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior\nones. For these reasons such an one will be more decent than many are;\nyet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will be far out\nof his reach.\"\n\nThe next step down for the state is what Plato calls democracy. Of the\ndemocracy of intelligence and self-control diffused throughout the body\nof self-respecting citizens Plato had formed and could form no\nconception. By democracy he meant the state of things where each man\ndoes that which is right in his own eyes. \"In the first place the\ncitizens are free. The city is full of freedom and frankness--there a\nman may do as he likes. They have a complete assortment of\nconstitutions; and if a man has a mind to establish a state, he must go\nto a democracy as he would go to a bazaar, where they sell them, and\npick out one that suits him. Democracy is a most accommodating and\ncharming form of government, full of variety and diversity, and (this,\nperhaps, is the keenest of all Plato's keen thrusts) _dispensing\nequality to equals and unequals alike_.\"\n\nThe man corresponding to democracy in the state, is the man whose life\nis given over to the undiscriminating enjoyment of all sorts of\npleasures. \"In this way the young man passes out of his original nature\nwhich was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and\nlibertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures, putting the government\nof himself into the hands of the one of his pleasures that offers and\nwins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands\nof another, and is very impartial in his encouragement of them all.\nNeither does he receive or admit into the fortress any true word of\nadvice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions\nof good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he\nought to use and honour some and curtail and reduce others--whenever\nthis is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all\nalike, and that one is as honourable as another. He lives through the\nday, indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in\ndrink and strains of the flute; then he is for total abstinence, and\ntries to get thin; then again, he is at gymnastics; sometimes idling and\nneglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher;\noften he is at politics, and starts to his feet and says and does\nanything that may turn up; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a\nwarrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more\nin that. His life has neither order nor law; and this is the way of\nhim,--this he terms joy and freedom and happiness. There is liberty,\nequality, and fraternity enough in him.\"\n\nThe life of chance desire, unregulated by any subordinating principle,\nthen, is the third stage of the descent and degradation of the soul.\n\nIn the state democracy speedily and inevitably passes over into tyranny.\nAll appetite is insatiable. In a state where each citizen does what he\npleases \"all things are just ready to burst with liberty; excess of\nliberty, whether in states or individuals, seems only to pass into\nexcess of slavery. Then tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.\" He\nthen proceeds, with prophetic pen, to trace the evolution of the modern\npolitical boss. First there develops a class of drones who get their\nliving as professional politicians. Second, \"there is the richest class,\nwhich, in a nation of traders, is generally the most orderly; they are\nthe most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the\ndrones; this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.\nThere is also a third class, consisting of working-men who are not\npoliticians and have little to live upon; these, when assembled, are the\nlargest and most powerful class in a democracy; but then, the multitude\nis seldom willing to meet unless they get a little honey. Their leaders\ntake the estates of the rich and give to the people as much of them as\nthey can consistently with keeping the greater part themselves. The\npeople have always some one as a champion whom they raise into\ngreatness. This is the very root from which a tyrant (that is, as we\nshould say, a boss) comes. When he first appears above ground, he is a\nprotector. At first, in the early days of his power, he smiles upon\nevery one and salutes every one; he, to be called a tyrant who is making\npromises in public and also in private, and wanting to be kind and good\nto every one! Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes\ninto the harshest and bitterest form of slavery.\" The worst form of\ngovernment, according to Plato, is that which we know too well to-day in\nour great cities: the government of the professional politician who\nmaintains himself by buying the votes of the poor with the money he has\nsqueezed out of the rich. All pretence of administering the government\nin the interest of the community is frankly abandoned. The boss, or\ntyrant, as Plato calls him, frankly and unblushingly avows that he is in\npolitics for what he can get out of it.\n\nThe true statesman, the philosopher king, in Plato's phrase, sees and\nserves the public good. Such a government Plato calls an aristocracy, or\nthe government of the best for the good of all. First below that comes\ntimocracy, or the government of those who are ambitious for power and\nplace. Next comes oligarchy, the government of the rich for the\nprotection of the interests of the moneyed class. Next below that, and\nas a logical consequence, comes populism, which is our word for what\nPlato calls democracy; a government which aims to satisfy the immediate\nwants of everybody, regardless of moral, legal, or constitutional\nrestraints. Last, and lowest of all, comes the rule of the professional\npolitician who has thrown all pretence of regard for the public good,\nall consideration of honour, all loyalty to the rich and genuine\nsympathy for the poor to the winds, and is simply manipulating the forms\nof government, getting and distributing offices, collecting assessments\nand distributing bribes, all in the interests of his own private pocket.\nBetween disinterested service of the public good and such unblushing\npursuit of private gain, Plato says that there is no stopping place.\nLogically Plato is right; historically, too, he was right at the time\nwhen he was writing. Modern democracy, however, is a very different\nthing from the populistic democracy with which Plato was familiar and\nwhich our large cities know too well. A democracy, resting on\nintelligence and public spirit, diffused through rich and poor alike,\nwas beyond Plato's profoundest dreams. That great experiment the\nAmerican people, with their public-school system, and their principle of\nthe equality of all before the law, are now trying on a gigantic scale.\n\nCorresponding to the tyrannical state comes the tyrannical man. \"The\nwild beast in our nature gets the upper hand and the man becomes\ndrunken, lustful, passionate, the best elements in him are enslaved;\nand there is a small ruling part which is also the worst and the\nmaddest. He has the soul of the slave, and the tyrannical soul must\nalways be poor and insatiable. He is by far the most miserable of all\nmen.\" \"He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real\nservant and is obliged to practice the greatest adulation and servility\nand be the flatterer of mankind; he has desires which he is truly unable\nto satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor if you\nknow how to inspect the soul of him. All his life long he is beset with\nfear and is full of convulsions and distractions. Even as the state\nwhich he resembles, he grows worse from having power; he becomes of\nnecessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more impious; he\nentertains and nurtures every evil sentiment, and the consequence is\nthat he is supremely miserable and thus he makes everybody else equally\nmiserable.\"\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE INTRINSIC SUPERIORITY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS\n\nPlato first constructs the ideal character and shows that it consists in\nthe righteous rule of the intelligent principle in man over the spirit\nand the appetites. A soul thus in harmony with itself, under the rule\nof reason, is at once healthy, happy, beautiful, and good. Later,\nreversing the process, he shows how the good, beautiful, true, healthy\ncondition of the soul may be destroyed through the successive steps of\npride, avarice, lawless liberty, ending at last in the tyrannous rule of\nsome single appetite or passion which has dethroned reason and set\nitself up as supreme. The consequence of it all is that \"the most\nrighteous man is also the happiest, and this is he who is the most royal\nmaster of himself; the worst and most unrighteous man is also the most\nmiserable; this is he who is also the greatest tyrant of himself and the\nmost complete slave.\"\n\nThe reason why the life of a righteous man is happier than the life of\nan unrighteous man is that it has \"a greater share in pure existence as\na more real being.\" \"If there be a pleasure in being filled with that\nwhich agrees with nature; that which is more really filled with more\nreal being will have more real and true joy and pleasure; whereas, that\nwhich participates in less real being will be less truly and surely\nsatisfied and will participate in a less true and real pleasure. Those,\nthen, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony\nand sensuality, never pass into the true upper world; neither are they\ntruly filled with true being, nor do they taste of true and abiding\npleasure. Like brute animals, with their eyes down and bodies bent to\nthe earth, or leaning on the dining table, they fatten and feed and\nbreed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and\nbutt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; they\nkill one another by reason of their insatiable lust; for they fill\nthemselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of\nthemselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent.\" \"Thus\nwhen the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no\ndivision, the several parts, each of them, do their own business and are\nrighteous, and each of them enjoy their own best and truest pleasures.\nBut when either of the other principles prevails, it fails in attaining\nits own pleasure and compels the others to pursue after a shadow of\npleasure which is not theirs.\"\n\nHaving reached this point Plato introduces a figure, which carries the\nwhole point of his argument. \"Do you now model the form of a\nmultitudinous, polycephalous beast, having a head of all manner of\nbeasts, tame and wild, making a second form as of a lion, and a third of\na man; the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than\nthe second; then join them and let the three grow into one. Now fashion\nthe outside into a single image as of a man, so that he who is not able\nto look within may believe the beast to be a single human creature. Now\nunrighteousness consists in feasting the monster and strengthening the\nlion in one in such wise as to weaken and starve the man; while\nrighteousness consists in so strengthening the man within him that he\nmay govern the many-headed monster.\" \"Righteousness subjects the beast\nto the man, or rather to the god in man, and unrighteousness is that\nwhich subjects the man to the beast.\"\n\nFinally Plato sums up the discussion by anticipating the question which\nJesus asked four centuries later. \"How would a man profit if he receive\ngold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part\nof him to the worst? Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or\ndaughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the\nhands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however much might be\nthe sum which he received? And will any one say that he is not a\nmiserable caitiff who sells his own divine being to that which is most\ngodless and detestable and has no pity? Eriphyle took the necklace as\nthe price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to\ncompass a worse ruin.\" He even pushes the question a step further and\nasks, \"What shall a man be profited by unrighteousness even if his\nunrighteousness be undetected? For he who is undetected only gets worse;\nwhereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his\nnature silenced and humanised; the gentler element in him is liberated\nand his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of\nrighteousness and temperance and wisdom. The man of understanding will\nconcentrate himself on this as the work of life. In the first place he\nwill honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will\ndisregard others. In the next place he will keep under his body and will\nbe far from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, and he will be\nalways desirous of preserving the harmony of the body for the sake of\nthe concord of the soul. He will not allow himself to be dazzled by the\nopinion of the world and heap up riches to his own infinite harm. He\nwill look at the city which is within him, and he will duly regulate his\nacquisition and expense, in so far as he is able, and for the same\nreason he will accept such honours as he deems likely to make him a\nbetter man. He will look at the nature of the soul, and, from the\nconsideration of this, he will determine which is the better and which\nis the worst life and make his choice, giving the name of evil to the\nlife which will make his soul more unrighteous, and good to the life\nwhich will make his soul more righteous; for this is the best\nchoice,--best for this life and after death. Wherefore my counsel is,\nthat we hold fast to the heavenly way and follow after righteousness and\nvirtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure\nevery sort of good and every sort of evil; then shall we live dear to\none another and the gods, both while remaining here and when, like\nconquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our\nreward.\"\n\nWith this magnificent tribute to the intrinsic superiority of\nrighteousness over unrighteousness Plato concludes his greatest work.\nThe question why a man should do right, even if he wore the ring of\nGyges which would exempt him from all external consequences of his\nmisdeeds, has been answered by a thoroughgoing analysis of the nature of\nthe soul, and the demonstration that righteousness is that organisation\nof the elements of the soul into an active and harmonious unity, wherein\nits health and beauty and life and happiness consist. In conclusion let\nus borrow from another of Plato's dialogues the prayer which he ascribes\nto Socrates,--a brief and simple prayer, yet one which, in the light of\nour study of the Republic, I trust we shall recognise as summing up the\nspirit of his teaching as a whole. \"Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who\nhaunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward\nand inward man be at one. May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy; and\nmay I have such a quantity of gold as none but the temperate can carry.\nAnything more? That prayer, I think, is enough for me.\"\n\n\nVIII\n\nTRUTH AND ERROR IN PLATONISM\n\nObviously this Platonic principle is vastly deeper and truer than\nanything we have had before. The personality at which both Stoic and\nEpicurean aimed was highly abstract,--something to be gained by getting\naway from the tangle and complexity of life rather than by conquering\nand transforming the conditions of existence into expressions of\nourselves. Epicurus makes a few sallies from his cosey comfortable camp,\nto forage for provender. The Stoic draws into the citadel of his own\nself-sufficiency; and from this fortified position defies attack. Plato\ncomes out into the open field, and squarely gives battle to the hosts\nof appetite, passion, temptation, and corruption, of which the world\noutside, and our hearts inside are full. In this he is true to the moral\nexperience of the race: and his trumpet-call to the higher departments\nof our nature to enter the \"great combat of righteousness\"; his demand\nof instantaneous and absolute surrender which he presents to everything\nlow and sensual within us, are clear, strong notes which it is good for\nevery one of us to hear and heed. To him as to Carlyle, \"Life is not a\nMay-game, but a battle and a march, a warfare with principalities and\npowers. No idle promenade through fragrant orange-groves and green\nflowery spaces waited on by the choral muses and the rosy hours; it is a\nstern pilgrimage through the rough, burning sandy solitudes, through\nregions of thick-ribbed ice. He walks among men, loves men with\ninexpressible soft pity, as they _cannot_ love him; but his soul dwells\nin solitude, in the uttermost parts of creation. All Heaven, all\nPandemonium are his escort. The stars, keen glancing, from the\nimmensities, send tidings to him; the graves, silent with their dead,\nfrom the eternities. Deep calls for him unto deep.\n\n\"Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man? None of\nthy promotions is necessary for him. His place is with the stars of\nHeaven; to thee it may be momentous, to thee it may be life or death; to\nhim it is indifferent, whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or\nforty feet higher at the top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on\nEarth. He wants none of thy rewards; behold also he fears none of thy\npenalties. Thou canst not hire him by thy guineas; nor by thy gibbets\nand law-penalties restrain him. Thou canst not forward him; thou canst\nnot hinder him. Thy penalties, thy poverties, neglects,\ncontumelies,--behold all these are good for him. To this man death is\nnot a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnest and awful, and\nbeautiful and terrible as death.\"\n\nThis is a note which appeals forcibly to every noble youth. It has been\nstruck by the Hebrew Prophets and the Christian Apostles: by Savonarola\nand Fichte, and a host of heroic souls; but by no one more clearly and\nconstrainingly than by Plato. It is the note of earnest and aggressive\nrighteousness; without which no personality can be either sound or\nstrong. The man who has never heard this summons to go forth and conquer\nthe evils of the world without and of his own heart within him, in the\nname of a righteousness high above both his own attainment and the\nattainment of the world about him as the heavens are higher than the\nearth, is still in the nursery stage of personal development.\n\nOn the other hand, there is danger in the very sharpness of the\nantithesis which Platonism makes between the higher and the lower. For\nthe most part this danger is latent in Plato himself; though even in him\nit came out in his tendency to regard family life and private property\nas detrimental rather than serviceable to that development of character\non which the larger devotion to the state, and the ideal order, must\nultimately rest.\n\nIn Neoplatonism, in the many forms of mysticism, in certain aspects of\nChristian asceticism, and notably in the numerous phases of what calls\nitself \"New Thought\" to-day, what was for the most part latent in Plato,\nbecomes frankly explicit. In general it is a loosening of the ties that\nhold us to drudgery and homely duty; a weakening of the bonds that bind\nus to the men and women by our side, in order to gaze more serenely on\nthe ineffable beyond the clouds. This developed Platonism admits that we\nmust live after a fashion in this very imperfect world; but says our\nreal conversation all the time must be in heaven. Individual people are\nbut faulty, imperfect copies of the pattern of the perfect good laid up\non high. We must buy and sell, work and play, laugh and cry, love and\nhate down here among the shadows; but we must all the time feed our\nsouls on the good, the true, the beautiful, which these distorted human\nshadows only serve to hide. These Platonic lovers of something better\nthan their husbands or wives, or associates or friends, go through the\nworld with a serene smile, and an air of other-worldliness which, if we\ndo not inquire too closely into their domestic life and business\nefficiency, we cannot but admire. They undoubtedly exert a\ntranquillising influence in their way, especially on those who are so\nfortunate as to behold them from a little distance. But they are not the\nmost comfortable people to live with, as husband or wife, colleague or\nbusiness partner. Louisa Alcott had this Platonic type in mind when she\ndefined a philosopher as a man up in a balloon, with his family and\nfriends having hold of the ropes, trying to pull him down to earth.\n\nA good deal that passes for religion is this Neoplatonism masquerading\nin Christian dress. All such hymns as \"The Sweet By and By,\" \"Oh,\nParadise, Oh, Paradise,\" and the like, which set heaven and eternity in\nsharp antithesis against earth and time, are simply Neoplatonism\nbaptized into Christian phraseology; and the baptism is by sprinkling\nrather than immersion.\n\nThomas a Kempis's \"Imitation of Christ,\" and indeed all the mystical\nbooks of devotion--Tauler, Fenelon, \"The Theologia Germanica\"--are\nsaturated with this Platonic or Neoplatonic spirit. \"Thou shalt\nlamentably fall away, if thou set a value upon any worldly thing.\" \"Let\ntherefore nothing which thou doest seem to thee great; let nothing be\ngrand, nothing of value or beauty, nothing worthy of honour save what is\neternal.\" \"Man approacheth so much the nearer unto God, the farther he\ndeparteth from all earthly comfort.\" These words from the \"Imitation of\nChrist\" sound orthodox enough in our ears. But we ought to understand\nonce for all that it is Neoplatonic mysticism, not essential\nChristianity, that breathes through them.\n\nThis type of personality reduces the world to two mutually exclusive\nelements, God and self; and permits no reconciliation or mediation\nbetween them. Fenelon puts this dualism in the form of a dilemma. \"There\nis no middle course; we must refer everything either to God or to self;\nif to self, we have no other God than self; if to God, we are then\nwithout selfish interests, and we enter into self-abandonment.\"\nUndoubtedly for evangelistic purposes the sharp antithesis has great\npractical advantages. It is an easy way to reach heaven--this of\nscorning earth; an easy definition of the infinite to pronounce it the\nnegation of the finite.\n\nAs Carlyle has represented for us the stronger side of Platonism, his\nfriend Emerson shall serve to illustrate the weakness that lurks half\nhidden in all this way of thinking. It is so concealed that we shall\nhardly detect it unless we are sharply on the watch for this tendency to\nexalt the Infinite at the expense of the finite; the Universal at the\nexpense of the particular; God at the expense of our neighbour.\n\n \"Higher far into the pure realm,\n Over sun and star,\n Over the flickering Daemon film,\n Thou must mount for love;\n Into vision where all form\n In one only form dissolves;\n Where unlike things are like;\n Where good and ill,\n And joy and moan,\n Melt into one.\"\n\n\"Thus we are put in training for a love which knows not sex, nor person,\nnor partiality. We are made to feel that our affections are but tents of\na night. There are moments when the affections rule and absorb the man,\nand make his happiness depend on a person or persons. But the warm loves\nand fears that swept over us as clouds must lose their finite character,\nand blend with God, to attain their own perfection.\" \"Before that heaven\nwhich our presentiments foreshow us, we cannot easily praise any form of\nlife we have seen or read of. Pressed on our attention, the saints and\ndemigods whom history worships fatigue and invade. The soul gives\nitself, alone, original, and pure, to the Lonely, Original, and Pure,\nwho on that condition gladly inhabits it.\" \"The higher the style we\ndemand of friendship, of course the less easy to establish it with flesh\nand blood. We walk alone in the world. Friends such as we desire are\ndreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart,\nthat elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now\nacting, enduring, daring, which can love us and which we can love.\"\n\n\"I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them\nwhere I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on\nour own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I cannot\nafford to speak much with my friend. Then, though I prize my friends, I\ncannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my\nown. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty\nseeking, this spiritual astronomy or search of stars, and come down to\nwarm sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the\nvanishing of my mighty gods.\" \"True love transcends the unworthy object\nand dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask\ncrumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its\nindependency the surer.\"\n\nHere you have Plato and Thomas a Kempis in the elegant garb of a\nheretical transcendentalist. But you get the same dualism of finite and\ninfinite, perfect and imperfect; unworthy, crumbling earth-mask to be\ngotten rid of here on earth, and the stars to be sought out and gazed at\nup in heaven.\n\nThe combat of the higher against the lower is one in which we must all\nengage; and no doubt in order to win we must at times keep the lower\nsolicitations at arm's-length. If, however, what appeals to us in the\nname of the highest counsels any relaxing of definite obligation, any\nalienation from the man or woman whom social institutions have placed\nclosest by our side; any disloyalty to the plain companions and humble\nassociates whom society or business places in our way; any breaking of\nsocial bonds which generations of self-sacrifice and self-control have\nlaboriously woven, and centuries of experience have approved as\nbeneficent; then it is time to abandon Plato, or rather those who have\nassumed to wear his mantle, and look for personal guidance to those\ngreater masters who have transcended the antithesis of higher and lower,\nwhich it was Plato's great mission to make so sharp and clear. The\nprinciple of such a reconciliation we shall find in Aristotle; its\ncomplete accomplishment we shall find in Jesus.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE ARISTOTELIAN SENSE OF PROPORTION\n\n\nI\n\nARISTOTLE'S OBJECTIONS TO PREVIOUS SYSTEMS\n\nOur principles of personality thus far, though increasingly complex,\nhave all been comparatively simple. To get the maximum of pleasure; to\nkeep the universal law; to subordinate lower impulses to higher\naccording to some fixed scale of value, are all principles which are\neasy to grasp and by no means difficult to apply. The fundamental\ntrouble with them all is that they are too easy. Life is not the\ncut-and-dried affair which they presuppose. A man might have a lot of\npleasure, and yet be contemptible. He might keep all the commandments,\nand yet be no better than a Pharisee. Even Plato's principle in actual\npractice has not always escaped the awful abyss of asceticism.\n\nIn opposition to Epicurus Aristotle says, \"Pleasure is not the good and\nall pleasures are not desirable. No one would choose to live on\ncondition of having no more intellect than a child all his life, even\nthough he were to enjoy to the full the pleasures of a child. With\nregard to the pleasures which all admit to be base, we must deny that\nthey are pleasures at all, except to those whose nature is corrupt. What\nthe good man thinks is pleasure will be pleasure; what he delights in\nwill be truly pleasant. Those pleasures which perfect the activity of\nthe perfect and truly happy man may be called in the truest sense the\npleasures of a man. The pleasure which is proper to a good activity is\ntherefore good; that attached to a bad one is bad. As, then, activities\ndiffer, so do the pleasures which accompany them.\"\n\nIn our discussion of Epicureanism we saw that the principle of pleasure\nconsistently carried out produced bad results, and, as in the case of\nTito Melema, developed the most contemptible character. Aristotle shows\nconclusively why this must be so. Pleasure is the sign and seal of\nhealthful exercise of function. A life which has all its powers in\neffective and well-proportioned exercise will, indeed, be a life crowned\nwith pleasure. You cannot, however, reverse this proposition, as the\nEpicurean attempts to do, and say that a life which seeks the maximum of\npleasure will inevitably have the healthy and proportionate exercise of\nfunction as its consequent. According to Aristotle healthy exercise of\nfunction in a well-proportioned life in devotion to wide social ends and\npermanent personal interests, is the cause of which happiness is the\nappropriate and inevitable effect. Seek the cause and you will get the\neffect. Seek directly the effect, and you will miss both the cause you\nneglect and the effect which only the cause can bring. The criticism\nwhich we quoted from George Eliot on the career of Melema is the\nquintessence of the Aristotelian doctrine. To put it in a figure: Build\na good fire and warm your room, and the mercury in the thermometer will\nrise. The cause produces the effect. But it does not follow that because\nyou raise the mercury in the thermometer by breathing on the bulb, or\nholding it in your hand, that the fire will burn, or the room will be\nwarmed. The Epicureans and hedonists are people who go about with the\nclinical thermometer of pleasure under their tongues all the time, and\nexpect to see the world lighted with benevolence and warmed with love in\nconsequence. Aristotle bids them take their clinical thermometers out of\ntheir mouths; stop fingering their emotional pulse; go to work about\nsome useful business; pursue some large and generous end; and then, not\notherwise, in case from time to time they have occasion to feel their\npulse and take their temperature, they will as a matter of fact find\nthat they are normal. But it isn't taking the temperature and feeling\nthe pulse that makes them morally sound; it is doing their proper work\nand keeping in vigorous exercise that gives them the healthy pulse and\nnormal temperature.\n\nThere are, however, two apparently contradictory teachings about\npleasure in Aristotle, and it is a good test of our grasp of his\ndoctrine to see whether we can reconcile them. First he says, \"In all\ncases we must be especially on our guard against pleasant things, and\nagainst pleasure; for we can scarce judge her impartially. And so, in\nour behaviour toward her, we should imitate the behaviour of the old\ncounsellors toward Helen, and in all cases repeat their saying: If we\ndismiss her, we shall be less likely to go wrong.\" \"It is pleasure that\nmoves us to do what is base, and pain that moves us to refrain from what\nis noble.\"\n\nOn the other hand he says: \"The pleasure or pain that accompanies the\nacts must be taken as a test of character. He who faces danger with\npleasure, or, at any rate, without pain, is courageous, but he to whom\nthis is painful is a coward. Indeed we all more or less make pleasure\nour test in judging actions.\"\n\nCan we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory statements?\nPerfectly. On the one hand if we do an act simply for the pleasure it\nwill give, without first asking how the proposed act will fit into our\npermanent plan of life, we are pretty sure to go astray. For pleasure\nregisters the goodness of the isolated act; not the goodness of the act\nas related to the whole plan of life. Thus if I drink strong coffee at\neleven o'clock at night, the taste is pleasant and the immediate effect\nis stimulating. But if it keeps me awake half the night and unfits me\nfor the duties of the next day, in spite of the pleasure gained, the act\nis wrong. And it is wrong, not fundamentally because of the pains of\nwakefulness it brings; it is wrong because it takes out of my life as a\nwhole, and my contribution to the life of the world, something for which\nthe petty transient pleasure I gained at the moment of indulgence is no\ncompensation whatsoever. Is not Aristotle right? Do we not pity as a\nmiserable weakling, hardly fit to have been graduated from the nursery,\nany man or woman who will let the mere physical sensation of a few\nmoments at the end of an evening count so much as the dust in the\nbalance against the efficiency of the coming forenoon's life and work?\n\nIf we see this half of Aristotle's truth, we see that the other is not\nits contradiction but its complement. If we are sorely and grievously\ntempted by the coffee, if we give it up with pain, if saying \"No, I\nthank you,\" comes fearfully hard, if we cannot forego it cheerfully\nwithout so much as seriously considering the drinking of it as possible\nfor us, why then it reveals how little we care for the life and work of\nthe morrow; and since life and work are but a succession of to-morrows,\nhow little we care for our life and work anyway. If we had great aims\nburning in our minds and hearts, wide interests to which body and soul\nwere devoted, it would not be a pain, it would be a pleasure, to give up\nfor the sake of them ten thousand times as big a thing as a cup of\ncoffee, if it stood in the way of their accomplishment. Yes; Aristotle\nis right on both points. Pleasure isolated from our plan of life and\nfollowed as an end will lead us into weakness and wickedness every time\nwe yield to its insidious solicitation. On the other hand, the resolute\nand consistent prosecution of large ends and generous interests will\nmake a positive pleasure of everything we either endure or do to promote\nthose ends and interests. Pleasure directly pursued is the utter\ndemoralisation of life. Ends and interests, pursued for their own sakes,\ninevitably carry with them a host of noble pleasures, and the power to\nconquer and transform what to the aimless life would be intolerable\npains.\n\nAristotle rejects the Epicurean principle of pleasure; because, though a\nproof that isolated tendencies are satisfied, it is no adequate\ncriterion of the satisfaction of the self as a whole. He rejects the\nStoic principle of conformity to law; because it fails to recognise the\nsupreme worth of individuality. He rejects the Platonic principle of\nsubordination of appetites and passions to a supreme good which is above\nthem; because he dreads above all things the blight of asceticism, and\nstrives for a good which is concrete and practical.\n\nWhat, then, is this good, which is neither a sum of pleasures, nor\nconformity to law; nor yet superiority to appetite and passion? What is\nthis principle which can at once enjoy pleasure to the full, and at the\nsame time forego it gladly; which can make laws for itself more severe\nthan any lawgiver ever dared to lay down; and yet is not afraid to break\nany law which its own conception of good requires it to break; which\nhonours all our elemental appetites and passions, uses money and honour\nand power as the servants of its own ends, without ever being enslaved\nby them? Evidently we are now on the track of a principle infinitely\nmore subtle and complex than anything the pleasure-loving Epicurean, or\nthe formal Stoic, or the transcendental Platonist has ever dreamed of.\nWe are entering the presence of the world's master moralist; and if we\nhave ever for a moment supposed that either of these previous systems\nwas satisfactory or final, it behooves us now to take the shoes from off\nour feet, and reverently listen to a voice as much profounder and more\nreasonable than them all, as they are superior to the senseless\nappetites and blind passions of the mob. For if we have a little\npatience with his subtlety, and can endure the temporary shock of his\napparent laxity, he will admit us to the very holy of holies of\npersonality.\n\n\nII\n\nTHE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN\n\nBefore coming to Aristotle's positive doctrine we must consider one\nfundamental axiom. Man is by nature a social being. Whatever a man seeks\nhas a necessary and inevitable reference to the judgment of other men,\nand the interest of society as a whole. Strip a man of his relations and\nyou have no man left. The man who is neither son, brother, husband,\nfather, citizen, neighbour or workman, is inconceivable. The good which\na man seeks, therefore, will express itself consciously or unconsciously\nin terms of other men's approval, and the furtherance of interests which\nhe inevitably shares with them. The Greek word for private, peculiar to\nmyself, unrelated to the thought or interest of anybody else, is our\nword for idiot. The New Testament uses this word to describe the place\nto which Judas went; a place which just suited such a man as he, and was\nfit for nobody else. Now a man who tries to be his own scientist, or his\nown lawgiver, or his own statesman, or his own business manager, or his\nown poet, or his own architect, without reference to the standards and\nexpectations of his fellow-men, is just an idiot; or, as we say, a\n\"crank.\" A wise man may defy these standards. The reformer often must do\nso. But if he is really wise, if he is a true reformer, he must reckon\nwith them; he must understand them; he must appeal to the actual or\npossible judgment and interest of his fellows for the confirmation of\nwhat he says and the justification of what he does. This social\nreference of all our thoughts and actions, which Aristotle grasped by\nintuition, psychology in our day is laboriously and analytically\nseeking to confirm. Aristotle lays it down as an axiom, that a man who\ndoes not devote himself to some section of the social and spiritual\nworld, if such a being were conceivable, would be no man at all. Family,\nor friends, or reputation, or country, or God are there in the\nbackground, secretly summoned to justify our every thought and word and\ndeed.\n\nBecause man's nature is social, his end must be social also. It will\nprevent misunderstanding later, if we put the question squarely here,\nDoes the end justify the means? As popularly understood, most\nemphatically No. The support of a school is a good end. Does it justify\nthe raising of money by a lottery? Certainly not. The support of one's\nfamily is a good end. Does it justify drawing a salary for which no\nadequate services are rendered? Certainly not.\n\nYet if we push the question farther, and ask why these particular ends\ndo not justify these particular means, we discover that it is because\nthese means employed are destructive of an end vastly higher and greater\nthan the particular ends they are employed to serve. They break down the\nstructure and undermine the foundations of the industrial and social\norder; an end infinitely more important than the maintenance of any\nparticular school, or the support of any individual family. Hence these\nmeans are not to be judged by their promotion of certain specific ends,\nbut by their failure to promote the greatest and best end of all; the\ncomprehensive welfare of society as a whole, of which all institutions\nand families and individuals are but subordinate members.\n\nThroughout our discussion of Aristotle we must understand that the word\n\"end\" always has this large social reference, and includes the highest\nsocial service of which the man is capable. If we attempt to apply to\nparticular private ends of our own what Aristotle applies to the\nuniversal end at which all men ought to aim, we shall make his teaching\na pretext for the grossest crimes, and reduce it to little more than\nsophisticated selfishness. With this understanding of his terms, we may\nventure to plunge boldly into his system and state it in its most\nparadoxical and startling form.\n\n\nIII\n\nRIGHT AND WRONG DETERMINED BY THE END\n\nWe are not either good or bad at the start. Pleasure in itself is\nneither good nor bad. Laws in themselves are neither good nor bad. It is\nimpossible to say with Plato that some faculties are so high that they\nalways ought to be exercised, and others are so low that as a rule they\nought to be suppressed. The right and wrong of eating and drinking, of\nwork and play, of sex and society, of property and politics, lie not in\nthe elemental acts involved. All of these things are right for one man\nin one set of circumstances, wrong for another man in another set of\ncircumstances. We cannot say that a man who takes a vow of poverty is\neither a better or a worse man than a multi-millionnaire. We cannot say\nthat the monk who takes a vow of celibacy is a purer man than one who\ndoes not. For the very fact that one is compelled to take a vow of\npoverty or celibacy is a sign that these elemental impulses are not\neffectively and satisfactorily related to the normal ends they are\nnaturally intended to subserve. All attempts to put virginity above\nmotherhood, to put poverty above riches, to put obscurity above fame\nare, from the Aristotelian point of view, essentially immoral. For they\nall assume that there can be badness in external things, wrong in\nisolated actions, vice in elemental appetites, and sin in natural\npassions; whereas Aristotle lays down the fundamental principle that the\nonly place where either badness or wrong or vice or sin can reside is in\nthe relation in which these external things and particular actions\nstand to the clearly conceived and deliberately cherished end which the\nman is seeking to promote. A simpler way of saying the same thing, but a\nway so simple and familiar as to be in danger of missing the whole\npoint, is to say that virtue and vice reside exclusively in the wills of\nfree agents. That, every one will admit. But will is the pursuit of\nends. A will that seeks no ends is a will that wills nothing; in other\nwords, no will at all. Whether an act is wrong or right, then, depends\non the whole plan of life of which it is a part; on the relation in\nwhich it stands to one's permanent interests. For these many years I\nhave defied class after class of college students to bring in a single\nexample of any elemental appetite or passion which is intrinsically bad;\nwhich in all circumstances and relations is evil. And never yet has any\nstudent brought me one such case. If brandy will tide the weak heart\nover the crisis that follows a surgical operation, then that glass of\nbrandy is just as good and precious as the dear life it saves. The\nproposition that sexual love is intrinsically evil, and those who take\nvows of celibacy are intrinsically superior, is true only on condition\nthat racial suicide is the greatest good, and all the sweet ties of\nhome and family and parenthood and brotherly love are evils which it is\nour duty to combat. To deny that wealth is good is only possible to him\nwho is prepared to go farther and denounce civilisation as a calamity.\nHe who brands ambition as intrinsically evil must be prepared to herd\nwith swine, and share contentedly their fare of husks.\n\nThe foundation of personality, therefore, is the power to clearly grasp\nan imaginary condition of ourselves which is preferable to any practical\nalternative; and then translate that potential picture into an\naccomplished fact. Whoever lives at a lower level than this constant\ntranslation of pictured potency into energetic reality: whoever, seeing\nthe picture of the self he wants to be, suffers aught less noble and\nless imperative than that to determine his action misses the mark of\npersonality. Whoever sees the picture, and holds it before his mind so\nclearly that all external things which favour it are chosen for its\nsake, and all proposed actions which would hinder it are remorselessly\nrejected in its holy name and by its mighty power;--he rises to the\nlevel of personality, and his personality is of that clear, strong,\njoyous, compelling, conquering, triumphant sort which alone is worthy of\nthe name.\n\nHow much deeper this goes than anything we have had before! A man comes\nup for judgment. If Epicurus chances to be seated on the throne, he asks\nthe candidate, \"Have you had a good time?\" If he has, he opens the gates\nof Paradise; if he has not, he bids him be off to the place of torment\nwhere people who don't know how to enjoy themselves ought to go.\n\nThe Stoic asks him whether he has kept all the commandments. If he has,\nthen he may be promoted to serve the great Commander in other\ndepartments of the cosmic order. If he has broken the least of them, no\nmatter on what pretext, or under what temptation, he is irrevocably\ndoomed. Plato asks him how well he has managed to keep under his\nappetites and passions. If the man has risen above them, Plato will\npromote him to seats nearer the perfect goodness of the gods. If he has\nslipped or failed, then he must return for longer probation in the\nprison-house of sense.\n\nAristotle's judgment seat is a very different place. A man comes to him\nwho has had a very sorry time: who has broken many commandments; who has\nyielded time and again to sensuous desires; yet who is a good husband, a\nkind father, an honest workman, a loyal citizen, a disinterested\nscientist or artist, a lover of his fellows, a worshipper of God's\nbeauty and beneficence; and in spite of the sad time he has had, in\nspite of the laws he has broken, in spite of the appetites which have\nproved too strong for him, Aristotle gives him his hand, and bids him go\nup higher. For that man stands in genuine relations to some aspects of\nthe great social end to which he devotes himself. And because some\nportion of the real world has been made better by the conception of it\nhe has cherished, and the fidelity with which he has translated his\nconception into fact, therefore a share in the great glory of the\nsplendid whole belongs of right to him. Good honest work, after an ideal\nplan, to the full measure of his powers, with wise selection of\nappropriate means, gives each individual his place and rank in the vast\nworkshop wherein the eternal thoughts of God, revealed to men as their\nseveral ideals, are wrought out into the actuality of the social,\neconomic, political, aesthetic and spiritual order of the world.\n\nOn the other hand, the man of scattered and unfruitful pleasures, the\nman of merely clear conscience, pure life, unstained reputation, with\nhis boast of rites observed, and ceremonies performed, and laws\nunbroken, \"faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,\" is the\nman above all others whom Aristotle cannot endure.\n\nDo you wish, then, to know precisely where you stand in the scale of\npersonality? Here is the test. How large a section of this world do you\ncare for, in such a vital, responsible way, that you are thinking about\nits welfare, forming schemes for its improvement, bending your energies\ntoward its advancement? Do you care for your profession in that way? Do\nyou care for your family like that? Do you love your country with such\njealous solicitude for its honour and prosperity? Can you honestly say\nthat your neighbour gets represented in your mind in this imaginative,\nsympathetic, helpful way? Do you think of God's great universe as\nsomething in the goodness of which you rejoice, and for the welfare of\nwhich you are earnestly enlisted? Begin down at the bottom, with your\nstomach, your pocket-book, your calling list, and go up the scale until\nyou come to these wider interests, and mark the point where you cease to\nthink how these things might be better than they are and to work to make\nthem so, and that point where your imagination and your service stops,\nand your indifference and irresponsibility begins, will show you\nprecisely how you stand on the rank-book of God. The magnitude of the\nends you see and serve is the measure of your personality. Personality\nis not an entity we carry around in our spiritual pockets. It is an\nenergy, which is no whit larger or smaller than the ends it aims at and\nthe work it does. If you are not doing anything or caring for anybody,\nor devoted to any end, you will not be called up at some future time and\nformally punished for your negligence. Plato might flatter your\nself-importance with that notion, but not Aristotle. Aristotle tells\nyou, not that your soul will be punished hereafter, but that it is lost\nalready.\n\nGoodness does not consist in doing or refraining from doing this or that\nparticular thing. It depends on the whole aim and purpose of the man who\ndoes it, or refrains from doing it. Anything which a good man does as\npart of the best plan of life is made thereby a good act. And anything\nthat a bad man does, as part of a bad plan of life, becomes thereby an\nevil act. Precisely the same external act is good for one man and bad\nfor another. An example or two will make this clear.\n\nTwo men seek political office. For one man it is the gate of heaven; to\nthe other it is the door to hell. One man has established himself in a\nbusiness or profession in which he can earn an honest living and support\nhis family. He has acquired sufficient standing in his business so that\nhe can turn it over temporarily to his partners or subordinates. He has\nsolved his own problem; and he has strength, time, energy, capacity,\nmoney, which he can give to solving the problems of the public. Were he\nto shirk public office, or evade it, or fail to take all legitimate\nmeans to secure it, he would be a coward, a traitor, a parasite on the\nbody politic. For there is good work to be done, which he is able to do,\nand can afford to do, without unreasonable sacrifice of himself or his\nfamily. Hence public office is for this man the gateway of heaven.\n\nThe other man has not mastered any business or profession; he has not\nmade himself indispensable to any employer or firm; he has no permanent\nmeans of supporting himself and his family. He sees a political office\nin which he can get a little more salary for doing a good deal less work\nthan is possible in his present position. He seeks the office, as a\nmeans of getting his living out of the public. From that day forth he\njoins the horde of mere office-seekers, aiming to get out of the public\na living he is too lazy, or too incompetent, or too proud to earn in\nprivate employment. Thus the very same external act, which was the\nother man's strait, narrow gateway to heaven, is for this man the broad,\neasy descent into hell.\n\nTwo women join the same woman's club, and take part in the same\nprogramme. One of them has her heart in her home; has fulfilled all the\nsweet charities of daughter, sister, wife, or mother; and in order to\nbring back to these loved ones at home wider interests, larger\nfriendships, and a richer and more varied interest in life, has gone out\ninto the work and life of the club. No angel in heaven is better\nemployed than she in the preparation and delivery of her papers and her\nattendance on committee meetings and afternoon teas.\n\nThe other woman finds home life dull and monotonous. She likes to get\naway from her children. She craves excitement, flattery, fame, social\nimportance. She is restless, irritable, out of sorts, censorious,\ncomplaining at home; animated, gracious, affable, complaisant abroad.\nFor drudgery and duty she has no strength, taste, or talent; and the\nthought of these things are enough to give her dyspepsia, insomnia, and\nnervous prostration. But for all sorts of public functions, for the\npreparation of reports, and the organisation of new charitable and\nphilanthropic and social schemes, she has all the energy of a\nsteam-engine, the power of a dynamo. When this woman joins a new club,\nor writes a new paper, or gets a new office, though she does not a\nsingle thing more than her angel sister who sits by her side, she is\nplaying the part of a devil.\n\nIt is not what one does; it is the whole purpose of life consciously or\nunconsciously expressed in the doing that measures the worth of the man\nor woman who does it. At the family table, at the bench in the shop, at\nthe desk in the office, in the seats at the theatre, in the ranks of the\narmy, in the pews of the church, saint and sinner sit side by side; and\noften the keenest outward observer cannot detect the slightest\ndifference in the particular things that they do. The good man is he\nwho, in each act he does or refrains from doing, is seeking the good of\nall the persons who are affected by his action. The bad man is the man\nwho, whatever he does or refrains from doing, leaves out of account the\ninterests of some of the people whom his action is sure to affect. Is\nthere any sphere of human welfare to which you are indifferent? Are\nthere any people in the world whose interests you deliberately\ndisregard? Then, no matter how many acts of charity and philanthropy,\nand industry and public spirit you perform--acts which would be good if\na good man did them--in spite of them all, you are to that extent an\nevil man.\n\nWe have, then, clearly in mind Aristotle's first great concept. The end\nof life, which he calls happiness, he defines as the identification of\none's self with some large social or intellectual object, and the\ndevotion of all one's powers to its disinterested service. So far forth\nit is Carlyle's gospel of the blessedness of work in a worthy cause.\n\"Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.\nHe has a work, a life purpose; he has found it, and will follow it. The\nonly happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about\nwas happiness enough to get his work done. Whatsoever of morality and of\nintelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness of method,\ninsight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of strength the man\nhad in him will lie written in the work he does. To work: why, it is to\ntry himself against Nature and her everlasting unerring laws; these will\ntell a true verdict as to the man.\"\n\nWhen we read Carlyle, we are apt to think such words merely exaggerated\nrhetoric. Now Aristotle says the same thing in the cold, calculated\nterms of precise philosophy. A man is what he does. He can do nothing\nexcept what he first sees as an unaccomplished idea, and then bends all\nhis energies to accomplish. In working out his ideas and making them\nreal, he at the same time works out his own powers, and becomes a living\nforce, a working will in the world. And since the soul is just this\nworking will, the man has so much soul, no more, no less, than he\nregisters in manual or mental work performed. To be able to point to\nsome sphere of external reality, a bushel of corn, a web of cloth, a\nprinted page, a healthful tenement, an educated youth, a moral\ncommunity, and say that these things would not have been there in the\noutward world, if they had not first been in your mind as an idea\ncontrolling your thought and action;--this is to point to the external\nand visible counterpart and measure of the invisible and internal energy\nwhich is your life, your soul, your self, your personality.\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE NEED OF INSTRUMENTS\n\nAristotle's first doctrine, then, is that we must work for worthy ends.\nThe second follows directly from it. We must have tools to work with;\nmeans by which to gain our ends. General Gordon, who was something of a\nPlatonist, remarked to Cecil Rhodes, who was a good deal of an\nAristotelian, that he once had a whole room full of gold offered him,\nand declined to take it. \"I should have taken it,\" replied Mr. Rhodes.\n\"What is the use of having great schemes if you haven't the means to\ncarry them out?\" As Aristotle says: \"Happiness plainly requires external\ngoods; for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to act nobly without\nsome furniture of fortune. There are many things that can be done only\nthrough instruments, so to speak, such as friends and wealth and\npolitical influence; and there are some things whose absence takes the\nbloom off our happiness, as good birth, the blessing of children,\npersonal beauty. Happiness, then, seems to stand in need of this kind of\nprosperity.\"\n\nHow different this from all our previous teachings! The Epicurean wants\nlittle wealth, no family, no official station; because all these things\ninvolve so much care and bother. The Stoic barely tolerates them as\nindifferent. Plato took especial pains to deprive his guardians of most\nof these very things. Aristotle on this point is perfectly sane. He says\nyou want them; because, to the fullest life and the largest work, they\nare well-nigh indispensable. The editor of a metropolitan newspaper, the\npresident of a railroad, the corporation attorney cannot live their\nlives and do their work effectively without comfortable homes, enjoyable\nvacations, social connections, educational opportunities, which cost a\ngreat deal of money. For them to despise money would be to despise the\nconditions of their own effective living, to pour contempt on their own\nsouls.\n\nIs Aristotle, then, a gross materialist, a mere money-getter,\npleasure-lover, office-seeker? Far from it. These things are not the end\nof a noble life, but means by which to serve ends far worthier than\nthemselves. To make these things the ends of life, he explicitly says is\nshameful and unnatural. The good, the true end, is \"something which is a\nman's own, and cannot be taken away from him.\"\n\nNow we have two fundamental Aristotelian doctrines. We must have an end,\nsome section of the world which we undertake to mould according to a\npattern clearly seen and firmly grasped in our own minds.\n\nSecond, we must have instruments, tools, furniture of fortune in the\nshape of health, wealth, influence, power, friends, business and social\nand political connections with which to carry out our ends. And the\nlarger and nobler our ends, the more of these instruments shall we\nrequire. If, like Cecil Rhodes, we undertake for instance to paint the\nmap of Africa British red, we shall want a monopoly of the product of\nthe Kimberley and adjacent diamond mines.\n\n\nV\n\nTHE HAPPY MEAN\n\nThe third great Aristotelian principle follows directly from these two.\nIf we are to use instruments for some great end, then the amount of the\ninstruments we want, and the extent to which we shall use them, will\nobviously be determined by the end at which we aim. We must take just so\nmuch of them as will best promote that end. This is Aristotle's much\nmisunderstood but most characteristic doctrine of the mean. Approached\nfrom the point of view which we have already gained, this doctrine of\nthe mean is perfectly intelligible, and altogether reasonable. For\ninstance, if you are an athlete, and the winning of a foot-ball game is\nyour end, and you have an invitation to a ball the evening before the\ngame, what is the right and reasonable thing to do? Dancing in itself is\ngood. You enjoy it. You would like to go. You need recreation after the\nlong period of training. But if you are wise, you will decline. Why?\nBecause the excitement of the ball, the late hours, the physical effort,\nthe nervous expenditure will use up more energy than can be recovered\nbefore the game comes off upon the morrow. You decline, not because the\nball is an intrinsic evil, or dancing is intrinsically bad, or\nrecreation is inherently injurious, but because too much of these\nthings, in the precise circumstances in which you are placed, with the\nspecific end you have in view, would be disastrous. On the other hand,\nwill you have no recreation the evening before the game; but simply sit\nin your room and mope? That would be even worse than going to the ball.\nFor nature abhors a vacuum in the mind no less than in the world of\nmatter. If you sit alone in your room, you will begin to worry about the\ngame, and very likely lose your night's sleep, and be utterly unfitted\nwhen the time arrives. Too little recreation in these circumstances is\nas fatal as too much. What you want is just enough to keep your mind\npleasantly diverted, without effort or exertion on your part. If the\nglee club can be brought around to sing some jolly songs, if a funny man\ncan be found to tell amusing stories, you have the happy mean; that is,\njust enough recreation to put you in condition for a night's sound\nsleep, and bring you to the contest on the morrow in prime physical and\nmental condition.\n\nAristotle, in his doctrine of the mean, is simply telling us that this\nproblem of the athlete on the night before the contest is the personal\nproblem of us all every day of our lives.\n\nHow late shall the student study at night? Shall he keep on until past\nmidnight year after year? If he does, he will undermine his health, lose\ncontact with society, and defeat those ends of social usefulness which\nought to be part of every worthy scholar's cherished end. On the other\nhand, shall he fritter away all his evenings with convivial fellows, and\nthe society butterflies? Too much of that sort of thing would soon put\nan end to scholarship altogether. His problem is to find that amount of\nstudy which will keep him sensitively alive to the latest problems of\nhis chosen subject; and yet not make all his acquisitions comparatively\nworthless either through broken health, or social estrangement from his\nfellow-men. How rare and precious that mean is, those of us who have to\nfind college professors are well aware. It is easy to find scores of men\nwho know their subject so well that they know nothing and nobody else\naright. It is easy to find jolly, easy-going fellows who would not\nobject to positions as college professors. But the man who has enough\ngood fellowship and physical vigour to make his scholarship attractive\nand effective, and enough scholarship to make his vigour and good\nfellowship intellectually powerful and personally stimulating,--he is\nthe man who has hit the Aristotelian mean; he is the man we are all\nafter; he is the man whom we would any of us give a year's salary to\nfind.\n\nThe mean is not midway between zero and the maximum attainable. As\nAristotle says, \"By the mean relatively to us I understand that which is\nneither too much nor too little for us; and that is not one and the same\nfor all. For instance, if ten be too large and two be too small, if we\ntake six, we take the mean relatively to the thing itself, or the\narithmetical mean. But the mean relatively to us cannot be found in this\nway. If ten pounds of food is too much for a given man to eat, and two\npounds too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order him\nsix pounds; for that also may perhaps be too much for the man in\nquestion, or too little; too little for Milo, too much for the beginner.\nAnd so we may say generally that a master in any art avoids what is too\nmuch and what is too little, and seeks for the mean and chooses it--not\nthe absolute but the relative mean. So that people are wont to say of a\ngood work, that nothing could be taken from it or added to it, implying\nthat excellence is destroyed by excess or deficiency, but secured by\nobserving the mean.\"\n\nThe Aristotelian principle, of judging a situation on its merits, and\nsubordinating means to the supreme end, was never more clearly stated\nthan in Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley: \"I would save the Union. If\nthere be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the\nsame time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who\nwould not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy\nslavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle\nis to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.\nIf I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and\nif I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I\ncould save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that.\nWhat I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it\nhelps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not\nbelieve it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I\nbelieve what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when I\nshall believe doing more will help the cause.\"\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUES AND THEIR ACQUISITION\n\nThe special forms that the one great virtue of seeking the relative mean\ntakes in actual life bear a close correspondence to the cardinal virtues\nof Plato; yet with a difference which marks a positive advance in\ninsight. Aristotle, to begin with, distinguishes wisdom from prudence.\nWisdom is the theoretic knowledge of things as they are, irrespective of\ntheir serviceableness to our practical interests. In modern terms it is\ndevotion to pure science. This corresponds to Plato's contemplation of\nthe Good. According to Aristotle this devotion to knowledge for its own\nsake underlies all virtue; for only he who knows how things stand\nrelated to each other in the actual world, will be able to grasp aright\nthat relation of means to ends on which the success of the practical\nlife depends. Just as the engineer cannot build a bridge across the\nMississippi unless he knows those laws of pure mathematics and physics\nwhich underlie the stability of all structures, so the man who is\nignorant of economics, politics, sociology, psychology, and ethics is\nsure to make a botch of any attempts he may make to build bridges\nacross the gulf which separates one man from another man; one group of\ncitizens from another group. Pure science is at the basis of all art,\nconsciously or unconsciously; and therefore wisdom is the fundamental\nform of virtue.\n\nPrudence comes next; the power to see, not the theoretical relations of\nmen and things to each other, but the practical relationships of men and\nthings to our self-chosen ends. Wisdom knows the laws which govern the\nstrength of materials. Prudence knows how strong a structure is\nnecessary to support the particular strain we wish to place upon it.\nWisdom knows sociology. Prudence tells us whether in a given case it is\nbetter to give a beggar a quarter of a dollar, an order on a central\nbureau, a scolding, or a kick. The most essential, and yet the rarest\nkind of prudence is that considerateness which sensitively appreciates\nthe point of view of the people with whom we deal, and takes proper\naccount of those subtle and complex sentiments, prejudices, traditions,\nand ways of thinking, which taken together constitute the social\nsituation.\n\nTemperance, again, is not the repression of lower impulses in the\ninterest of those abstractly higher, as it came to be in the popular\ninterpretations of Platonism, and as it was in Stoicism. With Aristotle\nit is the stern and remorseless exclusion of whatever cannot be brought\ninto subjection to my chosen ends, whatever they may be. As Stevenson\nsays in true Aristotelian spirit, \"We are not damned for doing wrong: we\nare damned for not doing right.\" For temperance lies not in the external\nthing done or left undone; but in that relation of means to worthy ends\nwhich either the doing or the not doing of certain things may most\neffectively express. We shall never get any common basis of\nunderstanding on what we call the temperance question of to-day until we\nlearn to recognise this internal and moral, as distinct from the\nexternal and physical, definition of what true temperance is. Temperance\nisn't abstinence. Temperance isn't indulgence. Neither is it moderation\nin the ordinary sense of that term. True temperance is the using of just\nso much of a thing,--no more, no less, but just so much,--as best\npromotes the ends one has at heart. To discover whether a man is\ntemperate or not in anything, you must first know the ends at which he\naims; and then the strictness with which he uses the means that best\nfurther those ends, and foregoes the things that would hinder them.\n\nTemperance of this kind looks at first sight like license. So it is if\none's aims be not broad and high. In the matter of sexual morality,\nAristotle's doctrine as applied in his day was notoriously loose.\nWhatever did not interfere with one's duties as citizen and soldier was\nheld to be permissible. Yet as Green and Muirhead, and all the\ncommentators on Aristotle have pointed out, it is a deeper grasp of this\nvery principle of Aristotle, a widening of the conception of the true\nsocial end, which is destined to put chastity on its eternal rock\nfoundation, and make of sexual immorality the transparently weak and\nwanton, cruel and unpardonable vice it is. To do this, to be sure, there\nmust be grafted on to it the Christian principle of democracy,--a regard\nfor the rights and interests of persons as persons. The beauty of the\nAristotelian principle is that it furnishes so stout and sturdy a stock\nto graft this principle on to. When Christianity is unsupported by some\nsuch solid trunk of rationality, it easily drops into a sentimental\nasceticism. Take, for example, this very matter of sexual morality.\nDivorced from some such great social end as Aristotelianism requires,\nthe only defence you have against the floods of sensuality is the vague,\nsentimental, ascetic notion that in some way or other these things are\nnaughty, and good people ought not to do them. How utterly ineffective\nsuch a barrier is, everybody who has had much dealing with young men\nknows perfectly well. And yet that is pretty much all the opposition\ncurrent and conventional morality is offering at the present time. The\nAristotelian doctrine, with the Christian principle grafted on, puts two\nplain questions to every man. Do you include the sanctity of the home,\nthe peace and purity of family life, the dignity and welfare of every\nman and woman, the honest birthright of every child, as part of the\nsocial end at which you aim? If you do, you are a noble and honourable\nman. If you do not, then you are a disgrace to the mother who bore you,\nand the home where you were reared. So much for the question of the end.\nThe second question is concerned with the means. Do you honestly believe\nthat loose and promiscuous sexual relations conduce to that sanctity of\nthe home, that peace and purity of family life, that dignity and welfare\nof every man and woman, that honest birthright of every child, which as\nan honourable man you must admit to be the proper end at which to aim?\nIf you think these means are conducive to these ends, then you are\ncertainly an egregious fool. Temperance in these matters, then, or to\nuse its specific name, chastity, is simply the refusal to ignore the\ngreat social end which every decent man must recognise as reasonable and\nright; and the resolute determination not to admit into his own life, or\ninflict on the lives of others, anything that is destructive of that\nsocial end. Chastity is neither celibacy nor licentiousness. It is far\ndeeper than either, and far nobler than them both. It is devotion to the\ngreat ends of family integrity, personal dignity, and social stability.\nIt is including the welfare of society, and of every man, woman, and\nchild involved, in the comprehensive end for which we live; and holding\nall appetites and passions in strict relation to that reasonable and\nrighteous end.\n\nAristotelian courage is simply the other side of temperance. Temperance\nremorselessly cuts off whatever hinders the ends at which we aim.\nCourage, on the other hand, resolutely takes on whatever dangers and\nlosses, whatever pains and penalties are incidental to the effective\nprosecution of these ends. To hold consistently an end, is to endure\ncheerfully whatever means the service of that end demands. Aristotelian\ncourage, rightly conceived, leads us to the very threshold of Christian\nsacrifice. He who comes to Christian sacrifice by this approach of\nAristotelian courage, will be perfectly clear about the reasonableness\nof it, and will escape that abyss of sentimentalism into which too\nlargely our Christian doctrine of sacrifice has been allowed to drop.\n\nCourage does not depend on whether you save your life, or risk your\nlife, or lose your life. A brave man may save his life in situations\nwhere a coward would lose it and a fool would risk it. The brave man is\nhe who is so clear and firm in his grasp of some worthy end that he will\nlive if he can best serve it by living; that he will die if he can best\nserve it by dying; and he will take his chances of life or death if\ntaking those chances is the best way to serve this end.\n\nThe brave man does not like criticism, unpopularity, defeat, hostility,\nany better than anybody else. He does not pretend to like them. He does\nnot court them. He does not pose as a martyr every chance that he can\nget. He simply takes these pains and ills as under the circumstances the\nbest means of furthering the ends he has at heart. For their sake he\nswallows criticism and calls it good; invites opposition and glories in\novercoming it, or being overcome by it, as the fates may decree; accepts\npersecution and rejoices to be counted worthy to suffer in so good a\ncause.\n\nIt is all a question here as everywhere in Aristotle of the ends at\nwhich one aims, and the sense of proportion with which he chooses his\nmeans. In his own words: \"The man, then, who governs his fear and\nlikewise his confidence aright, facing dangers it is right to face, and\nfor the right cause, in the right manner, and at the right time, is\ncourageous. For the courageous man regulates both his feelings and his\nactions with due regard to the circumstances and as reason and\nproportion suggest. The courageous man, therefore, faces danger and does\nthe courageous thing because it is a fine thing to do.\" As Muirhead sums\nup Aristotle's teaching on this point: \"True courage must be for a noble\nobject. Here, as in all excellence, action and object, consequence and\nmotive, are inseparable. Unless the action is inspired by a noble\nmotive, and permeated throughout its whole structure by a noble\ncharacter, it has no claim to the name of courage.\"\n\nThe virtues cannot be learned out of a book, or picked up ready-made.\nThey must be acquired, by practice, as is the case with the arts; and\nthey are not really ours until they have become so habitual as to be\npractically automatic. The sign and seal of the complete acquisition of\nany virtue is the pleasure we take in it. Such pleasure once gained\nbecomes one's lasting and inalienable possession.\n\nIn Aristotle's words: \"We acquire the virtues by doing the acts, as is\nthe case with the arts too. We learn an art by doing that which we wish\nto do when we have learned it; we become builders by building, and\nharpers by playing on the harp. And so by doing just acts we become\njust, and by doing acts of temperance and courage we become temperate\nand courageous. It is by our conduct in our intercourse with other men\nthat we become just or unjust, and by acting in circumstances of danger,\nand training ourselves to feel fear or confidence, that we become\ncourageous or cowardly.\" \"The happy man, then, as we define him, will\nhave the property of permanence, and all through life will preserve his\ncharacter; for he will be occupied continually, or with the least\npossible interruption, in excellent deeds and excellent speculations;\nand whatever his fortune may be, he will take it in the noblest fashion,\nand bear himself always and in all things suitably. And if it is what\nman does that determines the character of his life, then no happy man\nwill become miserable, for he will never do what is hateful and base.\nFor we hold that the man who is truly good and wise will bear with\ndignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his\ncircumstances, as a good general will turn the forces at his command to\nthe best account.\"\n\nThis doctrine that virtue, like skill in any game or craft, is gained by\npractice, deserves a word of comment. It seems to say, \"You must do the\nthing before you know how, in order to know how after you have done it.\"\nParadox or no paradox, that is precisely the fact. The swimmer learns to\nswim by floundering and splashing around in the water; and if he is\nunwilling to do the floundering and splashing before he can swim, he\nwill never become a swimmer. The ball-player must do a lot of muffing\nand wild throwing before he can become a sure catcher and a straight\nthrower. If he is ashamed to go out on the diamond and make these\nerrors, he may as well give up at once all idea of ever becoming a\nball-player. For it is by the progressive elimination of errors that the\nperfect player is developed. The only place where no errors are made,\nwhether in base-ball or in life, is on the grand stand. The courage to\ntry to do a thing before you know how, and the patience to keep on\ntrying after you have found out that you don't know how, and the\nperseverance to renew the trial as many times as necessary until you do\nknow how, are the three conditions of the acquisition of physical skill,\nmental power, moral virtue, or personal excellence.\n\n\nVII\n\nARISTOTELIAN FRIENDSHIP\n\nWe are now prepared to see why Aristotle regards friendship as the crown\nand consummation of a virtuous life. No one has praised friendship more\nhighly, or written of it more profoundly than he.\n\nFriendship he defines as \"unanimity on questions of the public advantage\nand on all that touches life.\" This unanimity, however, is very\ndifferent from agreement in opinion. It is seeing things from the same\npoint of view; or, more accurately, it is the appreciation of each\nother's interests and aims. The whole tendency of Aristotle thus far has\nbeen to develop individuality; to make each man different from every\nother man. Conventional people are all alike. But the people who have\ncherished ends of their own, and who make all their choices with\nreference to these inwardly cherished ends, become highly\ndifferentiated. The more individual your life becomes, the fewer people\nthere are who can understand you. The man who has ends of his own is\nbound to be unintelligible to the man who has no such ends, and is\nmerely drifting with the crowd. Now friendship is the bringing together\nof these intensely individual, highly differentiated persons on a basis\nof mutual sympathy and common understanding. Friendship is the\nrecognition and respect of individuality in others by persons who are\nhighly individualised themselves. That is why Aristotle says true\nfriendship is possible only between the good; between people, that is,\nwho are in earnest about ends that are large and generous and\npublic-spirited enough to permit of being shared. \"The bad,\" he says,\n\"desire the company of others, but avoid their own. And because they\navoid their own company, there is no real basis for union of aims and\ninterests with their fellows.\" \"Having nothing lovable about them, they\nhave no friendly feelings toward themselves. If such a condition is\nconsummately miserable, the moral is to shun vice, and strive after\nvirtue with all one's might. For in this way we shall at once have\nfriendly feelings toward ourselves and become the friends of others. A\ngood man stands in the same relation to his friend as to himself, seeing\nthat his friend is a second self.\" \"The conclusion, therefore, is that\nif a man is to be happy, he will require good friends.\"\n\nFriendship has as many planes as human life and human association. The\nmen with whom we play golf and tennis, billiards and whist, are friends\non the lowest plane--that of common pleasures. Our professional and\nbusiness associates are friends upon a little higher plane--that of the\ninterests we share. The men who have the same social customs and\nintellectual tastes; the men with whom we read our favourite authors,\nand talk over our favourite topics, are friends upon a still higher\nplane--that of identity of aesthetic and intellectual pursuits. The\nhighest plane, the best friends, are those with whom we consciously\nshare the spiritual purpose of our lives. This highest friendship is as\nprecious as it is rare. With such friends we drop at once into a\nmatter-of-course intimacy and communion. Nothing is held back, nothing\nis concealed; our aims are expressed with the assurance of sympathy;\neven our shortcomings are confessed with the certainty that they will be\nforgiven. Such friendship lasts as long as the virtue which is its\ncommon bond. Jealousy cannot come in to break it up. Absolute sincerity,\nabsolute loyalty,--these are the high terms on which such friendship\nmust be held. A person may have many such friends on one condition: that\nhe shall not talk to any one friend about what his friendship permits\nhim to know of another friend. Each such relation must be complete\nwithin itself; and hermetically sealed, so far as permitting any one\nelse to come inside the sacred circle of its mutual confidence. In such\nfriendship, differences, as of age, sex, station in life, divide not,\nbut rather enhance, the sweetness and tenderness of the relationship. In\nAristotle's words: \"The friendship of the good, and of those who have\nthe same virtues, is perfect friendship. Such friendship, therefore,\nendures so long as each retains his character, and virtue is a lasting\nthing.\"\n\n\nVIII\n\nCRITICISM AND SUMMARY OF ARISTOTLE'S TEACHING\n\nIf finally we ask what are the limitations of Aristotle, we find none\nsave the limitations of the age and city in which he lived. He lived in\na city-state where thirty thousand full male citizens, with some seventy\nthousand women and children dependent upon them, were supported by the\nlabour of some hundred thousand slaves. The rights of man as such,\nwhether native or alien, male or female, free or slave, had not yet been\naffirmed. That crowning proclamation of universal emancipation was\nreserved for Christianity three centuries and a half later. Without\nthis Christian element no principle of personality is complete. Not\nuntil the city-state of Plato and Aristotle is widened to include the\nhumblest man, the lowliest woman, the most defenceless little child,\ndoes their doctrine become final and universal. Yet with this single\nlimitation of its range, the form of Aristotle's teaching is complete\nand ultimate. Deeper, saner, stronger, wiser statement of the principles\nof personality the world has never heard.\n\nHis teaching may be summed up in the following:--\n\nTEN ARISTOTELIAN COMMANDMENTS\n\nThou shalt devote thy utmost powers to some section of our common social\nwelfare.\n\nThou shalt hold this end above all lesser goods, such as pleasure,\nmoney, honour.\n\nThou shalt hold the instruments essential to the service of this end\nsecond only to the end itself.\n\nThou shalt ponder and revere the universal laws that bind ends and means\ntogether in the ordered universe.\n\nThou shalt master and obey the specific laws that govern the relation of\nmeans to thy chosen end.\n\nThou shalt use just so much of the materials and tools of life as the\nservice of thy end requires.\n\nThou shalt exclude from thy life all that exceeds or falls below this\nmean, reckless of pleasure lost.\n\nThou shalt endure whatever hardship and privation the maintenance of\nthis mean in the service of thy end requires, heedless of pain involved.\n\nThou shalt remain steadfast in this service until habit shall have made\nit a second nature, and custom shall have transformed it into joy.\n\nThou shalt find and hold a few like-minded friends, to share with thee\nthis lifelong devotion to that common social welfare which is the task\nand goal of man.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF LOVE\n\n\nI\n\nTHE TEACHING OF LOVE\n\nJesus taught His philosophy of life in three ways: the personal, by\nexample; the artistic, by parable; and the scientific, by propositions.\n\nThe first, though most vital and effective of all, is expensive and\nwasteful. For in life principles are so embedded in \"muddy particulars,\"\ntrivial and sordid details, that they are liable to get lost. The Master\nmay be a long time with His disciples, and yet not really be known. Even\nthe disciples themselves, after months of such teaching, like James and\nJohn may not know what manner of spirit they are of. Indeed it may\nbecome expedient for them that the Master go away, that His Spirit may\nbe more clearly revealed.\n\nThe artistic method, too, has drawbacks. For though it gives the\nprinciples a new artificial setting, with carefully selected details to\ncatch the crowd, yet the crowd catch simply the story. Only the\ninitiated are instructed; those who do not already know the principles\nlearn nothing, but \"seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not\nunderstand,\" as Jesus, past master of this art though He was, so often\nlamented.\n\nThe third or scientific method is dry and prosaic. It observes what\nqualities go together, or refuse to go together, in the swift stream of\nlife; pulls them out of the stream; fixes them in concepts; marks them\nby names; and states propositions about them. It may go one short step\nfarther: it may arrange its propositions in syllogisms, and deduce\ngeneral conclusions, or laws. It may take, for instance, as its major\npremise, Love is the divine secret of blessedness. Then for its minor\npremise it may take some plain observed fact, Humility is essential to\nLove. Then the conclusion or law will be, The humble share the divine\nlife and all the blessings it brings. Blessed are the poor in spirit,\nfor theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.\n\nOf course no one but a pedant draws out his teaching in this laboured\nlogical form. The syllogism is condensed; the major, and perhaps even\nthe minor, premise is omitted, and often only the conclusion appears.\n\nAt its best this method is hard and dry; yet this is the method employed\nin such sayings as those handed down in the summary called the Sermon on\nthe Mount. Perhaps that is why the teaching of the \"Sermon,\" in spite of\nits clear-cut form, is much less studied and understood than the\nteaching of Jesus' life and parables. To recover this largely lost\nteaching one must warm and moisten the cold, dry terms; supply, when\nnecessary, omitted premises; use some one word rather than many for the\noften suppressed middle term; and so draw out the latent logic that\nunderlies these laws.\n\nThe middle term of all this argument is Love. For that old-fashioned\nword, in spite of its sentimental associations, much better than its\nmodern scientific synonyms, such as the socialising of the self,\nexpresses that outgoing of the self into the lives of others, which,\naccording to Jesus, is the actual nature of God, the potential nature of\nman, the secret of individual blessedness and the promise of social\nsalvation.\n\nIn the two or three cases where the logic of His principle, applied to\nour complex modern life, points clearly to a modification of His literal\nprecepts, as in the management of wealth and the bestowal of charity, I\nshall not hesitate to put the logic of the teaching in place of the\nletter of the precept, citing the latter afterward for comparison.\n\nA logical commentary like this will be most helpful if it reverses the\norder usual in commentaries of mere erudition, and introduces the steps\nof the argument before rather than after the passage they seek to make\nclear.\n\nIn whichever of the three ways it is taught, Love shines by its own\nlight and speaks with its own authority to all who have eyes to see and\nears to hear.\n\nA person who loves carries with him a generous light-heartedness, a\ngenial optimism, which show all his friends that he has found some\nsecret which it is worth their while to learn.\n\nEvery well-told parable or fable, every artistically constructed novel\nor play, makes us take sides with the large-hearted hero against the\nmean, selfish villain.\n\nIn the same way Love's formulated laws, showing on what conditions it\ndepends and to what results it leads, convince every one who has the\nexperience by which to interpret them (and only to him who hath\nexperience is interpretation given) that Love is the supreme law of\nlife, and its requirements the right and reasonable conditions of\nindividual and social well-being.\n\n\nII\n\nTHE FULFILMENT OF LAW THROUGH LOVE\n\nJesus was born in a nation which had developed law to the utmost nicety\nof detail, and recognised all laws as expressions of the good will of\nGod seeking the welfare of men. Prolonged experiments in living had\nproved certain kinds of conduct disastrous, and the states of mind\ncorresponding to them, despicable. Law had prohibited this disastrous\nconduct, and the prophets had denounced these despicable traits.\n\nOf course latent in the prohibitions of law was the constitution of the\nblessed Kingdom that would result if the law were observed; and dimly\nforeshadowed in the figurative expressions of the prophets was the\nvision of the glorified human society that would emerge when the\ndespicable traits should be extirpated and the better order introduced.\nThis negative and latent implication of law Jesus developed into Love as\nthe positive and explicit principle of life; and this figuratively\nforeshadowed prophet's vision He translated into the actual fact of a\ncommunity united in Love. He fulfilled the law by putting Love in the\nheart, and fulfilled the prophets by establishing a community based on\nLove. Jesus taught us to make every human interest we touch as precious\nas our own, and to treat all persons with whom we deal as members of\nthat beneficent system of mutual good-will which is the Kingdom of\nHeaven. But the moment we begin to do that, law as law becomes\nsuperfluous; for what the law requires is the very thing we most desire\nto do: prophecy as prophecy is fulfilled; for the best man's heart can\ndream has come to pass.\n\nIn the ideal home, between well-married husband and wife, child and\nparent, brother and sister, this sweet law prevails. In choice circles\nof intimate friends it is found. Jesus extended this interpretation of\nothers in terms of ourselves, and of both others and self in terms of\nthe system of relations in which both self and others inhere, so as to\ninclude all the dealing of official and citizen, teacher and pupil,\ndealer and customer, employer and employee, man and man.\n\nJesus does not judge us by the formal test of whether we have kept or\nbroken this or that specific commandment, but by the deeper and more\nsearching requirement that our lives shall detract nothing from and add\nsomething to the glory of God and the welfare of man.\n\nIs the world a happier, holier, better world because we are here in it,\nhelping on God's good-will for men? If that be the grand, comprehensive\npurpose of our lives, honestly cherished, frankly avowed, systematically\ncultivated, then, no matter how far below perfection we may fall, that\nsingle purpose, in spite of failure, defeat, and repented sin, pulls us\nthrough. If we have this Spirit of Love in our hearts, and if with\nChrist's help we are trying to do something to make it real in our lives\nand effective in the world, our eternal salvation is assured. On the\nother hand, is there a single point on which we deliberately are working\nevil? Is the lot of any poor man harder, or the life of any unhappy\nwoman more sad and bitter, for aught that we have done or left undone?\nIs any good institution the weaker, or any bad custom more prevalent,\nfor aught that we are deliberately and persistently withholding of help\nor contributing of harm? If so, if in any one point we are consciously\nand unrepentingly arrayed against God's righteous purpose, and the human\nwelfare which is dear to God; if there is a single point on which we are\ndeliberately setting aside His righteous will, and doing intentional\nevil to the humblest of His children; then, notwithstanding our high\nrank on other matters, our lack of the right purpose, at even a single\npoint, makes us guilty of the whole; we are unfit for His kingdom.\n\nJesus' principle of Love, though for clearness and incisiveness often\nstated in terms of mere altruism, or regard for others, yet taken in its\ntotal context, in the light of His never absent reference to the\nFather's will and the Kingdom of Heaven, is much deeper and broader than\nthat. It gives each man his place and function in the total beneficent\nsystem which is the coming Kingdom of God, and then treats him not\nmerely as he may wish to be treated, or we may wish to treat him, but as\nhis place and function in that system require.\n\nMere altruism is often weakly kind, making others feebly dependent on\nour benefactions instead of sturdily self-supporting; making others\nunconsciously egotistic as the result of our superfluous ministrations\nor uncritical indulgence; and even fostering a subtle egotism in\nourselves, as the result of the fatal habit of doing the easy, kind\nthing rather than the hard, severe thing that is needed to lift them to\ntheir highest attainment. A true mother is never half as sentimentally\naltruistic toward her child as a grandmother or an aunt; she does not\nhesitate to reprove and correct, when that is what the child needs to\nsuppress the low and lazy, and rouse the higher and stronger self. The\njust administrator discharges the incompetent and exposes the dishonest\nemployee, not merely because the good of the whole requires it; but\nbecause even for the person discharged or exposed, that is better than\nit would be to allow him to drag out an unprofitable and cumbersome life\nin tolerated uselessness or countenanced graft.\n\n\"Treat both others and yourself as their place and yours in God's coming\nKingdom require;\" that is the Golden Rule in its complete form. \"All\nthings, therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you\"\n(remembering that both you and they have places and functions in the\nFather's Kingdom of Love); \"even so do ye also unto them: for this is\nthe law and the prophets.\"\n\nThis fulfilment of law is a very different thing from selfishly breaking\nthe law. That such a reformer as Jesus ever took the conservative side\nof any question seems at first sight so preposterous that most candid\ncritics believe that He never said the words attributed to Him about\nbreaking one of the least of these commandments, or else that He said\nthem in a lost context which would greatly alter their meaning. That,\nhowever, is not quite sure. For Love at its best is never rudely\niconoclastic. Every good law in its original intent is aimed to lift\nmen out of their sensuality and selfishness into at least an outward\nconformity to the requirements of social well-being. And however\ngrotesque, fantastic, and superfluous such a law under changed\nconditions may become, its original intent will always keep it sacred\nand precious, even after its purpose can be accomplished better without\nit. To fulfil is not to destroy, or to take delight in destruction.\n\"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to\ndestroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth\nshall pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from\nthe law, till all things be accomplished.\"\n\nAt the same time Love is always changing and superseding laws and\ninstitutions by pressure of adjustment to the changing demands of\nindividual and social well-being. Laws and institutions are made for\nmen, rather than men for institutions and laws; and the instant an old\nlaw ceases to serve a new need in the best possible way, Love erects the\nbetter service into a new law or institution, superseding the old. Any\nlaw that fails to promote the physical, mental, social, and spiritual\ngood of the persons and the community concerned, thereby loses Love's\nsanction and becomes obsolete. Law for law's sake, rather than for the\nsake of man and society, is the flat denial of Love. To exalt any\ntradition, institution, custom, or prohibition above the human and\nsocial good it has ceased to serve, is to sink to the level of the\nscribe and Pharisee--the deadliest enemies of Jesus, and all for which\nHe stood. \"For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall\nexceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no\nwise enter into the kingdom of heaven.\"\n\nIn Love's eyes all anger, contempt, and quarrelsomeness are as bad as\nmurder--indeed are incipient murder, stopped short of overt crime\nthrough fear. The look, or word, or deed of unkindness, the thought, or\nwish, or hope that evil may befall another, even the attitude of cold\nindifference, is murder in the heart. And it is only because we lack the\ncourage to translate wish into will that in such cases we do not do the\nthing which, if done without our responsibility, by accident or nature,\nwe should rejoice to see accomplished.\n\nFrom a strange and unexpected source there has come the confirmation of\nthis New Testament conception of the prevalence, not to say the\nuniversality, of murder. A brilliant but grossly perverse English man of\nletters was sentenced to imprisonment a few years ago for the foulest\ncrime. From the gaol in which he was confined there came a most\nrealistic description of the last days and final execution within its\nwalls of a lieutenant in the British army, who was condemned for killing\na woman whom he loved.\n\nThe poem has the exaggeration of a perverted and embittered nature; but\nbeneath the exaggeration there is the original truth, which underlies\nJesus' identification of murder and hate. After describing the last days\nof the condemned man, his execution and his burial, the poem concludes\nas follows:--\n\n \"In Reading Gaol by Reading town\n There is a pit of shame,\n And in it lies a wretched man\n Eaten by teeth of flame,\n In a burning winding sheet he lies\n And his grave has got no name.\n\n \"And there, till Christ call forth the dead,\n In silence let him lie:\n No need to waste the foolish tear,\n Or heave the windy sigh:\n The man had killed the thing he loved,\n And so he had to die.\n\n \"And all men kill the thing they love,\n By all let this be heard,\n Some do it with a bitter look,\n Some with a flattering word:\n The coward does it with a kiss,\n The brave man with a sword.\"\n\nCharge up against ourselves as murder the bitter looks, the hateful\nwords, the unkind thoughts, the selfish actions, which have lessened the\nvitality, diminished the joy, wounded the heart, and murdered the\nhappiness of those whom we ought to love, whom perhaps at times we think\nwe do love, and who can profess to be guiltless?\n\nThe harboured grudge, the unrepented injury, the offence for which we\nhave not begged pardon, the employer's refusal to \"recognise\" his\nemployees or their representatives, and treat with them on fair and\nequal terms, the workman's cultivated attitude of hostility to his\nemployer, are all such flagrant violations of Love that acts of formal\npiety or public worship on the part of a person who harbours such\nfeelings are an affront.\n\nControversies, lawsuits, industrial or political warfare in mere pride\nof opinion, class prejudice, or greed of gain, without first making\nevery effort to respect the rights and protect the interests of the\nother party and so bring about a reconciliation, are all violations of\nLove and doom the person who is guilty of them to dwell in the narrow\nprison-house of a hard and hateful secularity, where the last farthing\nof exacted penalty must be paid, and hate is lord of life. \"Ye have\nheard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and\nwhosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto\nyou, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of\nthe judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in\ndanger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in\ndanger of the hell of fire. If, therefore, thou art offering thy gift at\nthe altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against\nthee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way, first be\nreconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with\nthine adversary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way; lest haply\nthe adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to\nthe officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou\nshalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the last\nfarthing.\"\n\nMarriage to the Christian is an infinitely higher and holier estate than\nit could have been to any of the earlier schools. It is an opportunity\nto share with another person the creative prerogative of God. It brings\nopportunity for Love enhanced by the highest of complementary\ndifferences, under circumstances of tenderest intimacy, with the\nrequirement of lifelong constancy.\n\nFrom Love's point of view any lack of tender reverence for the person\nof another, whether in or out of marriage sinks man to the plane of the\nbrute. Not that the normal exercise of any appetite or passion is base\nor evil in itself. All are holy, pure, divine, when Love through them\nassumes the lifelong responsibilities they involve. All that falls short\nof such tender reverence and permanent responsibility is lust. Jesus\nestablished chastity on the broad, rational basis of respect for the\ndignity of woman and the sanctity of sex. The logic of His teaching on\nthis point is to place chastity on the eternal rock foundation of\ntreating another only as Love and a true regard for the other's\npermanent welfare will warrant. In other words, Jesus permits no man to\neven wish to treat any woman as he would be unwilling another man should\ntreat his own mother, sister, wife, or daughter. For, from His\nstandpoint, all women are our sisters, daughters of the most high God.\nThis standard is searching and severe, no doubt; but it is reasonable\nand right. There is not a particle of asceticism about it. And the man\nwho violates it is not merely departing a little from the beaten path of\napproved conventionalities. He is doing a cruel, wanton wrong. He is\ndoing to another what he would bitterly resent if done to one whom he\nheld dear. And what right has any man to hold any woman cheap, a mere\nmeans of his selfish gratification, and not an object of his protection,\nand reverence, and chivalrous regard? The worst mark of uneliminated\nbrutality and barbarism which the civilised world is carrying over into\nthe twentieth century, to curse and blacken and pollute and embitter\nhuman life for a few generations more, is this indifference to the\nSpirit of Love, as it applies at this crucial point.\n\nTo destroy a wife's health, to purchase a moment's pleasure at the cost\nof a woman's lasting degradation, or to participate in practices which\ndoom a whole class of wretched women to short-lived disease and shame,\nand early and dishonoured death (a recent reliable report estimates the\ncost of lives from this cause alone in a single city as 5000 a year) is\nso gross and wanton a perversion of manhood, that in comparison it would\nbe better not to be a man at all.\n\nAll the devices for gratifying sexual passions without the assumption of\npermanent responsibilities, such as seduction, prostitution, and the\nkeeping of mistresses, Christianity brands as the desecration of God's\nholiest temple, the human body, and the wanton wounding of His most\nsensitive creation,--woman's heart. The Greeks placed little restriction\non man's passions beyond such as was necessary to maintain sufficient\nphysical health and mental vigour to perform his duties as a citizen in\npeace and in war. If the individual is complete in himself, with no God\nabove who cares, no Christ who would be grieved, no Spirit of Love to\nreproach, no rights of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to be\nsensitively respected and chivalrously maintained, then indeed it is\nimpossible to make out a valid claim for severer control in these\nmatters than Plato and Aristotle advocate. If there are persons in the\nworld who are practically slaves, persons who have no claim on our\nconsideration, then licentiousness and prostitution are logical and\nlegitimate expressions of human nature and inevitable accompaniments of\nhuman society. Christianity, however, has freed the slave in a deeper\nand higher sense than the world has yet realised. Christianity does not\npermit any one who calls himself a Christian to leave any man or woman\noutside the pale of that consideration which makes this other person's\ndignity, and interest, and welfare as precious and sacred to him as his\nown. Obviously all loose and temporary sexual connections involve such\ndegradation, shame, and sorrow to the woman involved, that no one who\nholds her character, and happiness, and lasting welfare dear to him can\nwill for her these woful consequences. One cannot at the same time be a\nfriend of the kindly, generous, sympathetic Christ and treat a woman in\nthat way. It is for this reason, not on cold, ascetic grounds, that\nChristianity limits sexual relations to the monogamous family; for there\nonly are the consequences to all concerned such as one can choose for\nanother whom he really loves. If Christianity, at these and other vital\npoints, asks man to give up things which Plato and Aristotle permit, it\nis not that the Christian is narrower or more ascetic than they; it is\nbecause Christianity has introduced a Love so much higher, and deeper,\nand broader than anything of which the profoundest Greeks had dreamed,\nthat it has made what was permissible to their hard hearts forever\nimpossible for all the more sensitive souls in whom the Love of Christ\nhas come to dwell.\n\n\"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I\nsay unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her\nhath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right\neye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it\nis profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not\nthy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand causeth thee to\nstumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for\nthee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go\ninto hell.\"\n\nDivorce is a confession of failure in Love's supreme undertaking. No two\nChristians, who have caught and kept alive the Spirit of Love in the\nmarried state, ever were or ever will be, ever wished to be or ever can\nbe, divorced. No one Christian who has the true Christian Spirit of Love\ntoward husband or wife will ever seek divorce unless it be under such\ncircumstances of infidelity or brutality, neglect or cruelty, as render\nthe continuance of the relation a fruitless casting of the pearls of\naffection before the swinishness of sensuality. The determination of the\ngrounds on which divorce shall be granted belongs to the sphere of the\nstate, and is a problem of social self-protection. The Christian church\nmakes a serious mistake when it spends its energies in trying to build\nup legal barriers against divorce. Its real mission at this point is to\nbuild up in the hearts of its adherents the Spirit of Love which will\nmake marriage so sweet and sacred that those who once enter it will\nfind, as all true Christians do find, divorce intolerable between two\nChristians; and tolerable even for one Christian only as a last resort\nagainst hopeless and useless degradation. To translate Christ's Spirit\ninto the life of the family is a much more Christian thing to do than to\nattempt to enact this or that somewhat general and enigmatical answer of\nHis into civil law. It is generally a mistake, a departure from the\nSpirit of the Master, when the Christian community as such turns from\nits specific task of positive upbuilding of personality to the legal\nprohibition of the things that are contrary to the Christian Spirit.\nLaws and prohibitions, statutes and penalties against drunkenness,\nSabbath-breaking, theft, murder, gambling, and divorce, we must have.\nBut those laws and penalties are best devised and enforced by the state,\nas the representative of the average sentiment of the community as a\nwhole, rather than by the distinctively Christian element in the\ncommunity, which in the nature of things is very far above the average\nsentiment. Undoubtedly the Christian Spirit is the only force strong\nenough to save the family from degeneration and dissolution in this\nintensely individualistic, independent, materialistic, luxurious age.\nBut we must rely mainly on the Spirit working within, not on a law\nimposed from without; on the healing touch of the gentle Master, not on\nthe hasty sword of the impetuous Peter.\n\n\"It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a\nwriting of divorcement; but I say unto you, that every one that putteth\naway his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an\nadulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away\ncommitteth adultery.\"\n\nLove fulfils at once the law of truth-telling and the law against\nswearing; for words spoken in Love need no adventitious support. The\nappeal to anything outside one's self, and one's simple statement, is\nclear evidence that there is no Love, and therefore no truth within.\nLove has no desire to deceive, and hence no fear of being disbelieved.\nTo back up one's words with an oath is to confess one's own lack of\nconfidence in what one is saying, and to invite lack of confidence in\nothers. Anything more than a plain statement of fact or feeling comes\nout of an insincere or unloving heart. Of course here, as in the case of\ndivorce, what is the obvious and only law for the disciple of Jesus may\nor may not be wise for the civil authorities to enact into law and\nimpose upon all. If the state and the courts think an oath helpful, the\nsensible Christian usually will conform to public custom and\nrequirement; even though for him the practice is superfluous and\nmeaningless.\n\n\"Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt\nnot forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; but I\nsay unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the heaven, for it is the\nthrone of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet;\nnor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Neither shalt\nthou swear by thy head, for thou canst not make one hair white or black.\nBut let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; and whatsoever is more than\nthese is of the evil one.\"\n\nLove is slow to take offence, and quick to overlook. Selfishness is\nsensitive to slights, resentful at wrongs; for it sees others only as\ntheir acts affect us. Love seeks out the whole man behind the harsh word\nor bad deed, takes his point of view, and tries to discover some clue to\nhis concealed better self.\n\nWhether he does well or ill, Love lets us appeal to nothing less than\nhis best self, and do nothing less than what on the whole is best for\nhim and for the community to which he and we both belong. Hence, whether\nwe give or withhold what he specifically asks (and Love enlightened by\nmodern sociology tells us we usually must withhold from beggars and\ntramps what they ask), in either case we shall not consult merely our\npersonal convenience and impulse, but do what we should wish to have\ndone to us, for the sake of society and for our own good as members of\nsociety, if we were in his unfortunate plight. \"Ye have heard that it\nwas said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto\nyou, Resist not him that is evil, but whosoever smiteth thee on thy\nright cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would go to law\nwith thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And\nwhosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain. Give to\nhim that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not\nthou away.\"\n\nLove is kind to the evil and vicious, and magnanimous to the hostile and\nhateful. Kindness in return for favours received or in hope of favours\nto come; kindness to those whose conduct and character we admire, is all\nvery well in its way, but is no sign whatever that he who is kind on\nthese easy terms is a true child of Love. To share the great Love of God\none must go out freely to all, regardless of return or desert,--be\nimpartial as sunshine and shower.\n\nWhen our enemy is plotting to harm us, to break down our good name, to\ninjure those whom we love, even while we defend ourselves and our dear\nones against his malice and meanness, we must be secretly watching our\nchances to do him a good turn, and win him from hatred to Love. Nothing\nless than this complete identification with the interests of all the\npersons we in any way touch, however bad some of their acts, however\nunworthy some of their traits, can make us sharers and receivers, agents\nand bestowers of that perfect Love which is at once the nature of God,\nthe capacity of man, the fulfilment of law, and the condition of social\nwell-being.\n\n\"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate\nthy enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that\npersecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven;\nfor he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain\non the just and the unjust. For if ye love them that love you, what\nreward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute\nyour brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the\nGentiles the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly\nFather is perfect.\"\n\n\nIII\n\nTHE COUNTERFEITS OF LOVE\n\nJust because Love is so costly, it has a host of counterfeits. These\ncounterfeits are chiefly devices for gaining the rewards and honours of\nLove, without the effort and sacrifice of loving. One of the most\nobvious rewards of Love is being thought kind, generous, good. But this\ncan be secured, apparently, by professing religion, joining the church,\nrepeating the creed, giving money to the poor, subscribing large sums to\ngood causes,--all of which are much cheaper and easier than being kind,\nand true, and faithful, and considerate in the home, on the farm, in the\nfactory, in the store. Yet Jesus tells us that unless we have Love in\nthe close and intimate relations of our domestic, economic, social, and\npolitical life, all symbols of its presence elsewhere, all \"services\"\ndirected otherwise, become intolerable nuisances, whose places would be\nbetter filled, and whose work better done, if they were once well out of\nthe way and decently buried. All this, however, is not to deny, but by\ncontrast to affirm, the great indispensable uses of symbols, officers,\nand institutions that are genuinely and effectively devoted to the\ncultivation and propagation of Love.\n\nThe pure gold of the Spirit is most conveniently and effectually\ncirculated when mixed with the alloy of rites, ceremonies, creeds,\nofficers, and organisations. Though no essential part of the pure\nGospel, yet these forms and observances, these bishops and clergy, these\ncovenants and confessions, are as practically useful for the maintenance\nand spread of the Christian Spirit as courts and constitutions,\ngovernors and judges, are for the orderly conduct of the state. Their\nauthority is founded on their practical utility. When their utility\nceases, when they come to obscure rather than reveal the Spirit they are\nintended to express, then schism and reformation serve the same\nbeneficent purpose in the church that declarations of independence and\nrevolution have so often achieved in the state. That form of church\ngovernment is best which in any given age and society works best; and\nthis may well be concentrated personal authority in one set of\ncircumstances, and democratic representative administration in another.\nEach has its advantages and its disadvantages.\n\nModes of worship rest on the same practical basis. Spontaneous prayer or\nelaborate ritual, much or little participation by the people, long or\nshort sermons, prayer-meetings or no prayer-meetings,--all are to be\ndetermined by the test of practical experience. It is absurd to profess\nto draw hard and fast rules about these matters from the precept or\npractice of Jesus and His Apostles, or the early church fathers, working\nas they did under conditions so widely different from our own. Probably\ncentralised authority and elaborate ritual are most effective when\nbishops and priests can be found who will not abuse their power for\ntheir own aggrandisement. Until then, more democratic forms of worship\nand of government are doubtless more expedient. The friendly competition\nof the two systems side by side helps to keep sacerdotalism modest and\nmake independency effective.\n\nCreeds likewise have their practical usefulness, especially in times of\ntheological ferment and transition, serving the purposes of party\nplatforms in a political campaign. But it is the grossest perversion of\ntheir function to make assent to them obligatory on all who wish to\nenjoy the most intimate Christian fellowship, or to test Christian\ncharacter by their formulas. One might as well refuse citizenship to\nevery person who could not assent to every word in some party platform\nor other. The creed is an intellectual formulation of the results of\nChristian experience, interpreting the Christian revelation; and it\nwill vary from age to age with ripening experience, and maturer views of\nthe content of the revelation. No creed was altogether false at the time\nof its formulation. No creed in Christendom is such as every intelligent\nChristian can honestly assent to. The attempt to make creed subscription\na test of church membership, or even a condition of ministerial\nstanding, is sure to confuse intellectual and spiritual things to the\nserious disadvantage of both. The most sensitively honest men will more\nand more decline to enter the service of the church, until subscription\nto antiquated formulas, long since become incredible to the majority of\nwell-trained scholars, ceases to be required either literally or \"for\nsubstance of doctrine.\" It is sufficient that each candidate for the\nministry be asked to make his own statement, either in his own words or\nin the words of any creed he finds acceptable, leaving it for his\nbrethren to decide whether or not such intellectual statement is\nconsistent with that spiritual service which is to be his chief concern.\nUnless Christianity, in the persons of its leaders as well as of its\nlaity, can breathe as free an intellectual atmosphere as that of Stoic\nor Epicurean, Plato or Aristotle, it will at this point prove itself\ntheir inferior. Infinitely superior as it is in every other respect, it\nis a burning shame that its timid and conservative modern adherents\nshould endeavour, at this point of absolute intellectual openness and\nintegrity, to place it at a disadvantage with the least noble of its\nancient competitors. The pure Spirit of Love will win the devotion of\nall honest hearts and candid minds. But the insistence on these\nantiquated formulas is sure to repel an increasing number of the most\nthoughtful and enlightened from organised Christian fellowship. The only\nserious reason for preferring the independent to the hierarchical forms\nof church organisation at the present time is the tendency of the latter\nto keep up these forms of intellectual imposition and imposture. Until\nthe church as a whole shall rise to the standards of intellectual\nhonesty now universally prevalent in the world of secular science, the\nmission of the independent protest will remain but partially fulfilled.\n\"Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savour,\nwherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to\nbe cast out and trodden under foot of men.\"\n\nAny thought of the reputation or respectability or honour a right act\nwill bring, just because it puts something else in place of Love,\ndestroys the rightness of the act and the righteousness of the doer.\nRighteousness will always remain a dry, dreary, forbidding, impossible\nthing until we welcome right as the service of those whom we love, and\nthe promotion of interests we share with them; and shrink from wrong as\nwhat harms them and defeats our common ends. Without Love, righteousness\neither dries up into a cold, hard asceticism, or evaporates into a\nhollow, formal respectability; and in one way or the other misses the\nspontaneity and expansion of soul which is Love's crown and joy. \"Take\nheed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of them:\nelse ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.\"\n\nLove is too intent on its objects to be aware of itself or call\nattention to its own operations. The air of doing a favour takes all the\nLove out of an act; for Love gives so simply and quietly that it seems\nto ask rather than bestow the favour. In this way both giver and\nreceiver together share Love's distinctive reward of two lives bound\ntogether as one in the common Love of the Father.\n\n\"When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the\nhypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have\nglory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward.\nBut when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right\nhand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father which seeth\nin secret shall recompense thee.\"\n\nProfessed Love, if unfruitful or pernicious, is false. If we make no one\nhappier; help no one over hard places; bind no wounds; comfort no\nsorrows; serve no just cause; do no good work; still worse, if we make\nany one's lot harder; add to his burden or sorrow; corrupt public\nofficials; break down beneficent institutions; plunder the poor, even if\nwithin technical legal forms; drive the weak to the wall; and connive in\nthe perversion of justice,--then the absence of good fruits, or the\npresence of bad ones, is proof positive that we have never seen or known\nLove, that our profession of Love is a lie, our proper place is with\nLove's foes, and our destiny with the doers of evil.\n\n\"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but\ninwardly are ravening wolves. By their fruits ye shall know them. Do men\ngather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree\nbringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil\nfruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt\ntree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good\nfruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Therefore by their fruits ye\nshall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall\nenter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my\nFather which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord,\ndid we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by\nthy name do many mighty works? And then will I profess unto them, I\nnever knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity.\"\n\nNeither eloquent speech nor elegant writing, neither ornate ceremonial\nnor orthodox symbol, nor anything short of actual toil to serve human\nneed and help human joy can translate Love into life. Though the most\nbeautiful idea in the world, the mere idea of Love is of no more value\nthan any other mere idea. If it fails of expression in hard, costly\ndeeds, its ritualistic or verbal profession is a sham. In Love's\nservice, so far as things done are concerned, there is no high or low,\nfirst or last. To preach sermons and conduct religious services, to\nteach science in the university, or make laws in Congress, is no better\nand no worse than to make shoes in the shoeshop or cook food in the\nkitchen. All work done in Love counts, stands, endures. All work done in\nvanity and self-seeking, all work shirked with pretence of religion, or\nexcuse of wealth, or pride of social station, leaves the soul hard,\nhollow, unreal, and fails to stand Love's searching test.\n\n\"Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them,\nshall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock; and\nthe rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat\nupon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock. And\nevery one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be\nlikened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand; and the\nrain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon\nthat house, and it fell; and great was the fall thereof.\"\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS OF LOVE\n\nLove asks for the whole heart or nothing; and all the heart has, be it\nlittle or much, must go with it. The pursuit or possession of wealth, as\nan end in itself, or a means to mere selfish ends, will drive Love out\nof the soul.\n\nAll the wealth we can give to Love's service is most useful and welcome;\nbut the retention of any for miserly pride, or vain ostentation, or\nindolent uselessness for ourselves or our children, fills the heart so\nfull of self that Love can find there no room. Not that giving away all\none has is essential or desirable; but that every dollar one gives,\nspends, keeps, invests, or controls be held subject to the orders of\nLove.\n\nWealth is not so essential to the Christian as it was to Epicurus and\nAristotle, for God can be glorified and man can be served with very\nlittle furniture of fortune; and therefore the Christian is able, in\nwhatsoever material state he is, therewith to be content. On the other\nhand, the Christian cares more for money than either the Stoic or Plato;\nfor there are ranges in God's universe of beauty, truth, and goodness\nwhich cannot be aesthetically appreciated and artistically and\nscientifically appropriated without large expenditure of labour and the\nwealth by which labour is supported; and there are wide spheres of\nbusiness enterprise and social service essential to human welfare which\nonly the rich man or nation can effectively promote. Divine and human\nservice is possible in poverty; it is more effective and at the same\ntime more difficult in wealth. The Christian rich and the Christian poor\nserve the same Lord, and have the same Spirit; but the accomplishment of\nthe Christian rich man can be so much greater than that of the\nChristian widow with her mite, that the Christian who is strong enough\nto stand it is in duty bound to treat money as a talent which in all\njust ways he ought to multiply. On the contrary, the moment it begins to\nmake him less sympathetic, less generous, less thankful, less\nresponsible, he must give it away as the only alternative to the loss of\nhis soul, the deterioration of his personality.\n\n\"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust\ndoth consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for\nyourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume,\nand where thieves do not break through nor steal, for where thy treasure\nis, there will thy heart be also.\"\n\nToward science and art, business and politics, the application of the\nChristian Spirit is different from anything we have met before. The\nChristian will not shirk these things, like the Epicurean and the Stoic;\nbecause they are ways of serving that truth, beauty, welfare, and order\nwhich are included in the Father's will for all His human children. In\nall these things we are co-workers with God for the good of man.\nDiligence and enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice in one or more of\nthese directions is the imperative duty, the inestimable privilege of\nevery one who would be a grateful and obedient son of God, a helpful and\nefficient brother to his fellow-men.\n\nYet in all his devotion to science or art, in all the energy with which\nhe gives himself to business or politics, the Christian can never forget\nthat God is greater than any one of these points at which we come in\ncontact with Him; and that, when we have done our utmost in one or\nanother of these lines, we are still comparatively unprofitable servants\nin His vast household. As God is more than the thing at which we work,\nso the Christian, through relation to Him, is always more than his work.\nHe never lets his personality become absorbed and evaporated in the work\nhe does; but ever renews his personal life at the fountain which is\nbehind the special work he undertakes to do. Thus the true Christian is\nnever without some useful social work to do; and he never lets himself\nget lost in doing it. To keep this balance of energy in the task and\nelevation above it, which enables one to take success without elation\nand bear failure without depression, is perhaps the crowning achievement\nof practical Christianity.\n\n\"The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy\nwhole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole\nbody shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee\nbe darkness, how great is the darkness! No man can serve two masters;\nfor either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will\nhold to one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.\"\n\nHe who heartily loves and serves others will trust Love in God and his\nfellows to take proper care of himself. One who really loves others will\ntake reasonable care not to be a burden to them, and to the world, and\nwill avail himself of the insurance company, the savings bank, and the\nbond market as the devices of a complex modern society to distribute\nlosses and conserve gains to the common advantage of all. Love does not\nmake the individual or his family a parasite on the economy and industry\nof society. Love makes a man bear his own permanent burden as a\npreliminary to being of much use and no harm to his family, his friends,\nand his community. Such prudent provision of the means of Love's\nindependence and service is consistent with entire absence of worry\nabout one's personal fortunes. The essential question which Love, and\nJesus as the Lord and Master of Love, puts to a man is not \"How much\nmoney have you?\" but \"What use do you intend to make of whatever you\nhave, be that little or much?\" If that aim is selfish, and the money is\neither saved or spent in sordid, worried selfishness, that low aim makes\nthe money a curse. If held subject to whatever drafts Love may make upon\nit,--whether gifts to the poor, or support of good causes, or employment\nof honest workmen, or development of industrial enterprises, be the form\nLove's drafts take,--then all wealth so held is a blessing to the world\nand an honour to its owner, a glory to God and a service to man.\n\n\"Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall\neat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put\non. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?\nBehold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap,\nnor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye\nof much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add\none cubit unto his stature? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment?\nConsider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither\ndo they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was\nnot arrayed like one of these. But if God doth so clothe the grass of\nthe field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall\nhe not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not therefore\nanxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,\nWherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the\nGentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all\nthese things.\"\n\nThough material means sought as ends are fatal to Love, Love's ends kept\nin view insure needed means. To worry about to-morrow is to fail in\ndevotion to the tasks of to-day, and so spoil both days. To do our best\nwork to-day is to gain power for to-morrow. Competition complicates, but\ndoes not render insoluble, the problem of making all that we have and\nall that we do express Love to all whom our action affects. To be sure,\nthere are city slums, uninsured accidents and sickness, unsanitary\ntenements, unjust conditions of labour, where even the service of Love\ndoes not bring to the worker appropriate means and rewards; but it is\nbecause Love has not quite kept pace at these points with swift-moving\nmodern conditions. But public spirit, political progress, economic\nreform, are more sensitive to these violations of its laws than ever\nbefore, and eagerly bent on finding and applying the remedy,--more Love\nof all for each, and each for all.\n\n\"But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these\nthings shall be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow,\nfor the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is\nthe evil thereof.\"\n\nLove throws off all that hampers its action, as a runner his coat for a\nrace. Love requires the sound body, the clear mind, the strong will, the\nsensitive heart, and foregoes all indulgences that impair these things,\nthough in themselves innocent as eating and drinking. Yet Love makes no\nfuss about its sacrifices, takes them as a simple matter of course, not\nworth mentioning; for what Love gives up in mere sensuous indulgence is\nas nothing to the widened affections and enlarged interests gained. To\nbe solemn or sad over what we give up, to proclaim or parade one's\nself-denials, would be an insult to Love; it would show that the persons\nwe love and the causes we serve are not really as dear to our hearts as\nthe pitiful things we forego for their sake--would show that our Love\nwas a sham.\n\nAll pleasure that comes from healthy exercise of body, rational exercise\nof mind, sympathetic expansion of the affections, strenuous effort of\nthe will, in just and generous living, is at the same time a glorifying\nof God and an enrichment of ourselves. All pleasure which sacrifices the\nvigour of the body to the indulgence of some separate appetite, all\npleasure which enslaves or degrades or embitters the persons from whom\nit is procured, all pleasure which breaks down the sacred institutions\non which society is founded,--is shameful and debasing, a sin against\nGod, and a wrong to our own souls. The Christian will forego many\npleasures which Epicurus and even Aristotle would permit, because he is\ninfinitely more sensitive than they to the effect his pleasures have on\npoor men and unprotected women whose welfare these earlier teachers did\nnot take into account. On the other hand, the Christian will enter\nheartily into the joys of pure domestic life, and the delights of\nstruggle with untoward social and political conditions, from which Plato\nand the Stoics thought it honourable to withdraw. Where God can be\nglorified and men can be served, there the Christian will either find\nhis pleasure, or with optimistic art, create a pleasure that he does not\nfind.\n\n\"Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance;\nfor they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen of men to fast.\nVerily I say unto you, They have received their reward. But thou, when\nthou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou be not seen\nof men to fast, but of thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father,\nwhich seeth in secret, shall recompense thee.\"\n\nJust because Love includes the interests of all the persons we deal\nwith, it excludes all mean, selfish traits from our hearts. There can be\nno pride and guile, no lust and cruelty, no avarice and hypocrisy, no\nmalice and censoriousness, in a heart which welcomes to its interest and\naffection, and serves and loves as its own, the aims and needs of its\nfellows. That is why Love's true disciples are few, and the slaves of\nselfishness many. Ask how many,--not entirely succeed, for none do,--but\nhow many make it the constant aim of their lives to treat others as more\nwidely extended aspects of themselves, and, in order to do that,\nendeavour to keep out all the greed, hate, lust, pride, envy, jealousy,\nthat would draw lines between self and others, and we see the answer:\nthat the way must be narrow, a way few find, and still fewer follow when\nfound.\n\n\"Enter ye in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the\nway, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in\nthereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth\nunto life, and few be they that find it.\"\n\n\nV\n\nTHE CULTIVATION OF LOVE\n\nLove is so akin to our nature, so eager to enter our souls, that to want\nis to get it; to seek is to find it; to open our hearts to its presence\nis to discover it already there. Whoever knows what true prayer is--the\nintense, eager yearning for good of insistent, importunate hearts--knows\nthat there never was and never can be one unanswered prayer. No man who\nhas longed to have Love the law of his life, and struggled for it as a\nmiser struggles for money, or a politician strives to win votes, ever\nfailed to get what he wanted. For every person we meet gives occasion\nfor Love, and every situation in life affords a chance to express it.\nThe difficulty is not to get all we want, but to want all we can have\nfor the asking.\n\n\"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it\nshall be opened unto you, for every one that asketh receiveth; and he\nthat seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or\nwhat man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf,\nwill give him a stone, or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a\nserpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your\nchildren, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good\nthings to them that ask him?\"\n\nLove will not grow in our hearts without deep, unseen communion with the\nSpirit of Love, who is God. To dwell reverently on the Infinite Love; to\nkeep in one's heart a sacred place where His holy name is adored; to\neagerly seek for Love's coming in our own hearts, in the hearts of all\nmen, and in all the affairs of the world; to gratefully receive all\nmaterial blessings as gifts for use in Love's service; to beseech for\nourselves and bestow on others that forgiveness which is Love's attitude\ntoward our human frailties and failings; to fortify ourselves in advance\nagainst the allurements of sense, and the base desire to gain good for\nourselves at cost of evil to others; to remember that all right rule,\nall true strength, all worthy honour inhere in and flow from Love, and\nLove's Father, God,--to do this day by day sincerely and simply without\nformality or ostentation,--this is to pray, and to insure prayer's\ninevitable answer--a life through which Love freely flows to bless both\nthe world and ourselves.\n\n\"And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to\nstand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that\nthey may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their\nreward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and\nhaving shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy\nFather which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And in praying use\nnot vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they shall\nbe heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them; for\nyour Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.\nAfter this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven,\nHallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven,\nso on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts,\nas we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation,\nbut deliver us from the evil one.\"\n\nOur only ground of assurance that Love forgives us is our loving\nforgiveness of others. In the light of that fact of experience it is\neasy and obvious to believe that the Father whose children we are, is\nnot less loving and forgiving than we. If we restore to our esteem and\nfriendship those who have wronged us, then we are sure that Love at the\nheart of the Universe, Love in the Father, Love in all the Father's true\nchildren, fully and freely forgives us. If we have this experience of\nour own forgiveness of our fellows, we know that Love would not be Love,\nbut hate, God would not be God, but a devil, if any sincerely repented\nwrong or shortcoming of which we have been guilty could remain\nunforgiven.\n\n\"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also\nforgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will\nyour Father forgive your trespasses.\"\n\nTo judge harshly another man's failings, however bad they may be, shows\nthat we are less loving than he. For he may have failed through strength\nof appetite, or heat of passion,--failings that are still consistent\nwith Love; but harsh judgment has no such excuse, and is therefore a\ndeadly--that is, loveless--sin. We would never think of proclaiming to\nthe idly curious or the coldly critical the failings of one whom we\nlove; hence proclamations of any one's failings is a sure sign that we\nhave no Love for him, and as long as there are any whom we do not love\nand protect, we have no part or lot in the great Love of God. Yet such\ncharitableness does not forbid our practical judgment of the difference\nbetween sheep and wolves, good men and bad, when important issues are\ninvolved. That Love requires. What it forbids is the rolling as a sweet\nmorsel under our tongue, and the gleeful recital to others, of the\nmistake or the sin of another, as something in which we take mean\ndelight because we think it makes him inferior to ourselves.\n\n\"Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge, ye\nshall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured\nunto you. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,\nbut considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou\nsay to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye, and lo,\nthe beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam\nout of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the\nmote out of thy brother's eye.\"\n\nLove will waste no time trying to explain itself to the selfish. If Love\ndoes not commend itself by its own light and warmth to a man, no forms\nof words can make him understand it. The sensual, the greedy, the hard,\nand the cruel Love will treat as gently and kindly as circumstances\npermit; yet expect as a matter of course that they will interpret Love's\njustice as hardness, kindness as weakness, temperance as asceticism,\nforbearance as cowardice, sacrifice as stupidity. Those who love will\nnot mind being misunderstood by those who do not; knowing that any\nattempted explanation would only increase their conceit and hardness of\nheart, and so make a bad matter worse.\n\n\"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls\nbefore the swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and\nturn and rend you.\"\n\nSince Love is \"the greatest thing in the world,\" we are bound to stand\nready with girt loins, and trimmed, burning lamps, to shed its light far\nand wide. To cover it up would be to deprive ourselves and our fellows\nof the one sight in all the world best worth seeing, and so to hinder\nits spread. False modesty that would keep Love's good works out of sight\nis as bad as false pride that would thrust oneself forward. Though works\ndone merely to be seen are not good at all, yet good works genuinely\ndone for Love's sake gain added influence and lustre when frankly and\nfreely allowed to be seen as the beautiful things that they are. The\nChristian is under spiritual compulsion to be a missionary. Other\nsystems draw their little circles of disciples about them, as Jesus\ndrew His twelve. One cannot hold what he believes to be a true and\nhelpful view of life without wishing to communicate it to others. Yet\nthis tendency, which is natural to every principle, is characteristic of\nChristianity in a unique degree. For the Christian Spirit consists in\nLove, the desire to give to others the best one has. And what can be so\ngood, so desirable to impart, as this very Spirit of Love, which is\nChristianity itself? That is why the Christian must, in some form or\nother,--by journeying to foreign lands, by contribution to missionary\nwork at home, by gifts to Christian education, by support of settlement\nwork, or perhaps best of all by the silent diffusion of a Christian\nexample in the neighbourhood, or the unnoticed expression of the\nChristian Spirit in the home,--be a propagator of the Spirit of Love he\nhas himself received.\n\n\"Ye are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid.\nNeither do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but on the\nstand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house. Even so let your\nlight shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify\nyour Father which is in heaven.\"\n\n\nVI\n\nTHE BLESSEDNESS OF LOVE\n\nDoes virtue bring happiness? is a question every philosophy of life must\nmeet. Yet before it can be rightly answered it must be rightly put.\n\nFor if by virtue you mean something negative, conventional,--not lying,\nnot cheating, not swearing, not drinking; and if by happiness you mean\nsomething passive, external,--riches, offices, entertainments, and\nhonours; then virtue and happiness do not necessarily go together in\nlife, and no philosophy can show that they should.\n\nIf a man were to persuade himself that they do go together, and should\nseek this sort of happiness by cultivating this sort of virtue, he would\nmiss true virtue and true happiness. For both virtue and happiness are\npositive, active; so interrelated that the happiness must be found in\nthat furtherance of our common social interests in which the exercise of\nvirtue consists.\n\nJesus bids us take an active, devoted interest in the interests of\nothers and of society. Now whoever shares and serves a wide range of\ninterests has an interested, and therefore an interesting, life. But the\ninteresting life is the happy life. Love, whether it has much or little\nwealth and station, always has interests and aims; always finds or\nmakes friends to share them,--in other words, is always happy.\n\nThe beatitudes are illustrations of this deep identity between interest\ntaken and happiness found; statements of the truth that Love going out\nto serve and share the interests and aims of others, and blessedness\nflowing in to fill the heart thereby enlarged for its reception, are the\noutside and inside of the same spiritual experience.\n\nTo think little of self is the key to the joy that goes with much\nthought for others.\n\nLove is so going out to others as to make them as real as self. But that\nis what no man puffed up with self-importance can do. Where self is much\nin the foreground others are pushed to the rear. Self-importance and\nLove cannot dwell together in the same house of clay. As one goes up in\nthe scales of the balance the other goes down. To be rich in the shared\nlives of others one must be poor in his own self-esteem. The two are in\ninverse proportion. Modesty is impossible of direct cultivation. It\nisn't safe to talk or even think about it much. As Pascal remarks, \"Few\npeople talk of humility humbly.\" Like Love it is the manifestation of\nsomething deeper than itself. Unless one is in intimate personal\nrelations with one whom he reveres as greater, stronger, better than\nhimself, it is obviously impossible for him to be modest. If he is in\nsuch relations, it is equally impossible for him not to be modest.\nHence, as Love is the inmost quality of the Christian, the inevitable\nmanifestation to his fellow-men of what the Father is to him, so modesty\nis the surest outward sign of this inward grace. Conceit is a public\nproclamation of the poverty of one's personal relations. For if this\nconceited fellow, this vain woman, really had the honour of the intimate\nacquaintance of some one better and greater than their petty, miserable\nselves, they could not possibly be the vain, conceited creatures that\nthey are. Every one who lives in the presence of the great Father, and\nwalks in the company of His glorious Son, is sure to find modesty and\nhumility the natural and spontaneous expression of his side of these\ngreat relationships. \"Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the\nkingdom of heaven.\"\n\nOur shortcomings frankly confessed prepare us for Love's consolation.\n\nWe all fall short of that patient consideration, that courteous\nkindliness, which makes the feelings and interests of others as precious\nas our own. Some of us fail in one way, some in another. But we all are\nunprofitable servants of the Love that would make our lives one with all\nthe lives that we touch. To forget or deny that we fail is to lose sight\nof Love altogether. He who thinks he succeeds thereby shows that he\nfails; he who knows and laments that he fails comes as near as man can\nto the goal.\n\nLove neither asks nor expects a clean record; else it would have no\ndisciples. Love fully and freely forgives, at the eleventh hour welcomes\nthe idler, and offers its fulness of joy to all who, whatever their\nrepented past may have been, make service and kindness to others their\neager present concern. For no sin frankly confessed, no wrong deed\nsincerely repented, no loss squarely met, no bereavement bravely\nendured, can shut out from Love's consolation those who serve with the\nbest there is in them the persons who still need their aid. \"Blessed are\nthey that mourn; for they shall be comforted.\"\n\nTo meet criticism with kindness, crossness with geniality, insult with\ncourtesy, and injury with charity is the way to conquer the world.\n\nBy nature we are creatures of suggestion. A hateful look, an ugly word,\na spiteful sneer, a cruel blow, make us hateful and ugly and spiteful\nand cruel in turn. For the empty heart flashes back in resentment\nwhatever attitude another's act suggests.\n\nMeekness greets as a friend the just critic, and for unjust and unkind\ntreatment makes allowance as due to the blindness or hardness or\nweakness of the pitiful person who has nothing better to give. Meekness\nmakes the soft answer that turns away wrath, and treats one who wrongs\nus all the more gently. Thus the meekness of Love gives both power to\npossess our own souls in patience under all provocation, and power, not\nindeed to coerce the bodies of others, but to win the consent of their\nsouls. \"Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.\"\n\nRighteousness is something of which we can have no more and no less than\nwe wish.\n\nHe who is good enough is not good at all, and never will be any better.\nFor righteousness is right relation to others; and so long as there are\nthings we can do to help others, its infinite task is unfinished. Yet\nthough the goal ever advances and never comes within reach, aspiration\nis achievement; progress is attainment. If we could come to the end of\nour journey; if we could see the world's claims on us met, the deeds of\nwhich we are capable done, that moment would mark the death of our\nsouls. Just because Love grows by loving and serving, and makes ever\ngreater and greater demands, it prophesies there shall be forever and\never things to do that will make life worth while. \"Blessed are they\nthat hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.\"\n\nThe depth of our sympathy for those below us in secular service and\nstation measures our worth in the eyes of those spiritually higher than\nwe.\n\nLove is like a tree; if it is not to be scorched in the blaze of\nambition and withered in the heat of competition, its roots of sympathy\nmust go down as deep into the soil of the obscure and lowly lives on\nwhose humble toil we depend as its branches spread into the upper air of\nsocial distinction and station.\n\nUnless we have much sympathy for those who toil on the farm and on the\nsea, in the factory and the mine, behind the counter and the desk, in\nthe kitchen and laundry, what we call courtesy in the drawing room, or\ncharity on the platform, is hollow mockery and Pharisaic sham. \"Blessed\nare the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.\"\n\nIn order for Love to shine through them there must be nothing else in\nour hearts.\n\nLove demands everything or nothing. It refuses to dwell in quarters or\nhalves of our souls. The least flaw of pride, greed, or lust is enough\nto make them opaque. Greed, lust, pride, hate, so blind our eyes to the\nreal selves of others that we cannot see or treat them as they really\nare; that is, cannot love them. It reduces them to mere means and tools\nof our passions and pleasures; and one who so regards persons can never\nlove either them or any person aright. Only the pure can see Love; for\nonly the pure can experience that union of one's whole self with the\nwhole self of others in which Love consists. \"Blessed are the pure in\nheart; for they shall see God.\"\n\nJust so sure as we love two or more persons we shall do all in our power\nto keep them from hating each other.\n\nWe wish everyone to love those whom we love. If anybody hates one we\nlove, it hurts us as much as it does the one hated, even more than it\nwould to be hated ourselves. And if anyone whom we love is hating\nanother, we are even more sorry for him than we are for the person he\nhates, and make all haste to deliver him from this most dreadful\ncondition. The more we love our fellows, the more we hate to see\nmisunderstanding, ill-will, strife, between them.\n\nNot that the Christian is unwilling or afraid to fight. Where deliberate\nwrong is arrayed against the rights of men, where fraud is practised on\nthe unprotected, where hypocrisy imposes on the credulous, where vice\nbetrays the innocent, where inefficiency sacrifices precious human\ninterests, where avarice oppresses the poor, where tyranny tramples on\nthe weak, there the man who shares the Father's Love for His maltreated\nchildren, the man who walks daily in the companionship of the Christ who\nowns all the downtrodden as His brothers, will be the most fearless and\nuncompromising foe of every form of injustice and oppression. Property,\nreputation, position, time, strength, influence, health, life itself if\nneed be, will be thrown unreservedly into the fight against vice and\nsin. He cannot keep in with the Father and with Christ and not come out\nin opposition to everything that wrongs and injures the humblest man,\nthe lowliest woman, the most defenceless little child.\n\nFighting, however, is not altogether uncongenial to the descendants of\nour brute progenitors. To fight our own battles, and occasionally a few\nfor our neighbours, comes all too naturally to most of us. Fighting\nGod's battles on principle is a very different thing. To feel entirely\ntranquil in the midst of the combat; to know that we are not alone on\nthe side of the right; to have the real interests of our opponents at\nheart all the time; to be ever ready to forgive them, and to ask their\nforgiveness for any excess of zeal we may have shown; to have the peace\nof God in our hearts, and no trace of malice, in deed, or word, or\nthought, or feeling,--this is not altogether natural, and the man who\ndoes his fighting on that basis gives pretty good assurance of dwelling\nin the Christian Spirit. No other adequate provision for maintaining\npeace in the midst of effective warfare, and making peace for others as\nwell as for ourselves the instant the need for war is over, has ever\nbeen devised. The peacemakers of this fearless, earnest, strenuous type\nhave the unmistakable right to be called the children of God. \"Blessed\nare the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.\"\n\nAll who love must expect to be hated by the foes of those whom they\nlove.\n\nBecause Jesus loved the common people and sought to deliver them from\ntheir fears and errors, the men who traded on those fears and errors put\nHim to an ignominious death. If we love and serve the despised, the\nabused, the plundered, those who despise and abuse and plunder them will\ndo to us the worst they dare. The road of Love is marked at every turn\nby a cross. Whoever in business, society, or politics makes as real as\nhis own the interests and the wrongs of all whom he can reach and touch,\nwill be disliked, criticised, misrepresented, vilified, condemned. He\nwill pay Love's price of persecution.\n\nChristian sacrifice closely resembles Greek temperance and courage.\nThere is, however, this essential distinction. The Christian takes on\nnot merely the pains and privations which are essential to his personal\nwelfare, or the welfare of his community or state; he takes on whatever\nsuffering the Father's Love for all His children calls him to undergo;\ngives up whatever indulgences the service of Christ requires him to\ndispense with; adopts whatever mingling of hardship and self-denial will\nkeep him in most effective and sympathetic fellowship with those who\nhave discovered the same great spiritual secret as himself. Thus, though\nto the uninitiated outsider much of his life looks hard and severe, on\nthe inside it is easy and light; for the companionship with the Father,\nwith Christ, and with Christian people is so much greater and dearer\nthan the material and sensuous delights it may incidentally take away,\nthat on the inside it does not wear the aspect of loss and sacrifice at\nall, but rather that of a glory and a gain. Still, since this element\nof pleasant things foregone, and hard things endured, is ever present,\nand since it has to be judged by people on the outside as well as by\nthose on the inside of the experience, in recognition of this truth\nChristianity has made its symbol before the uninitiated world the cross.\nAs in the life of the Master, so in the life of every faithful disciple,\nthe cross must be borne, the perpetual sacrifice must be made, as the\nprice of Love's presence in a world of selfishness and hate; but the\ncross is transfigured into a crown of rejoicing, the sacrifice is\ntransformed into privilege and pleasure by those precious personal\nrelationships which are the supreme glory and gladness of the soul, and\nwhich could be maintained on no cheaper terms. The sacrifice that the\nChristian makes to get his Father's will, his Master's mission,\naccomplished in the world which so sorely needs it, is like the\nsacrifice a mother makes for her sick and suffering child,--the dearest\nand sweetest experience of life. The cross thus gladly borne, the yoke\nof sacrifice thus unostentatiously assumed, is the supreme expression of\nthe Christian Spirit.\n\nLike all high-cost things, sacrifice for Love's sake carries a high\npremium. It admits, as nothing else does, to the inner circle of the\nimmortal lovers of their fellows, to the intimate fellowship of the\nLord of Love, Jesus Christ.\n\nJoy follows incidentally and inevitably from the maintenance of these\ngreat Christian relationships. A gloomy, depressed, despondent tone and\ntemper, unless it be demonstrably pathological, is public proclamation\nthat the deep mines of these Christian relationships, with their\ninexhaustible resources, are either undeveloped or unworked. For no man\nwho looks through sunshine and shower, through food and raiment, through\nfamily and friendship, through society and the moral order of the world,\nup into the face of the Giver of them all as his Father; who knows how\nto summon to his side the gentle and gracious companionship of Christ,\nalike in the pressure of perplexity and in the quiet of solitude; who\nknows how to unlock the treasures of Christian literature, to\nappropriate the meaning of Christian worship, and to avail himself of\nthe comfort and support that is always latent in the hearts of his\nChristian friends,--no man in whom these vast personal resources are\ndeveloped and employed can ever long remain disconsolate.\n\nEven in prosperity, popularity, and outward success it takes\nconsiderable mixture of these deeper elements to keep the tone of life\nconstantly on the high level of joy. But adversity is the real test.\nThen the man without these interior resources gives way, breaks down,\nbecomes querulous, fretful, irritable, sour. On the other hand, the man\nwho can make mistakes, and take the criticism they bring, and go on as\ncheerfully as if no blunder had been made and no vote of censure had\nbeen passed; the man who can be hated for the good things he tries to\ndo, and condemned for bad things he never did and never meant to do; the\nman who can work hard, and contentedly take poverty for pay; the man who\ncan serve devotedly people who revile and betray him in return; the man\nwho can discount in advance the unpopularity, misrepresentation, and\ndefeat a right course will cost, and then resolutely set about it; the\nman who takes persecution and treachery as serenely as other men take\nhonours and emoluments,--this man, we may be sure, has dug deep an\ninvested heavily in the field where the priceless Christian treasure\nlies concealed.\n\n\"Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake; for\ntheirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall reproach\nyou, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely,\nfor my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward\nin heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.\"\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE SUPREMACY OF LOVE\n\nJesus' Spirit of Love is capable of absorbing into itself whatever we\nhave found valuable in the four previous systems.\n\nThe Epicurean's varied and spontaneous joy in life is not diminished,\nbut enhanced, by the Christian Spirit, which multiplies this joy as many\ntimes as there are persons whom one knows and loves. The Epicurean lives\nin the little world of himself, and a few equally self-centred\ncompanions. The Christian lives in the great world of God, and shares\nits joys with all God's human children. It is the absence of this larger\nworld, the exclusive concern for his own narrow pleasures, that makes\nthe consistent Epicurean, with all his polish and charm, the essentially\nmean and despicable creature we found him to be.\n\nTo be sure, Mill, Spencer, and others have endeavoured to graft the\naltruistic fruits of Christianity on to the old Epicurean stock. There\nis this great difference, however, between such Christianised\nEpicureanism as that of Mill and Spencer, and Christianity itself.\nThese systems have no logical bridge, no emotional bond by which to pass\nfrom the pleasures of self to the pleasures of others. They can and do\npoint out the incompleteness of merely egoistic Epicureanism; they\nexhort us to care for the pleasures of others as we do for our own. But\nthe logical nexus, the moral dynamic, the spiritual motive, is lacking\nin these systems; and consequently these systems fail to work, except\nwith the few highly altruistic souls who need no spiritual physician.\n\nThis logical bond, this moral dynamic, this spiritual motive which\nimpels toward altruistic conduct, the Christian finds in Christ. He\ncertainly did love all men, and care for their happiness as dearly as He\ncared for His own. But this same Christ is the Christian's Lord and\nMaster and Friend. Yet friendship for Him, the acceptance of Him as Lord\nand Master, is a contradiction in terms, unless one is at the same time\nwilling to cultivate His Spirit, which is the Spirit of service, the\nSpirit which holds the happiness and welfare of others just as sacred\nand precious as one's own. He that hath not this Spirit of Christ is\nnone of His. Hence what men like Mill and Spencer preach as a duty, and\nsupport by what their critics have found to be very inadequate and\nfallacious logical processes, Christianity proclaims as a fact in the\nnature of God, as embodied in Christ, and a condition of the divine life\nfor everyone who desires to be a child of God, a follower and friend of\nJesus Christ. Christianity, therefore, includes everything of value in\nEpicureanism, and infinitely more. It has the Epicurean gladness without\nits exclusiveness, its joy without its selfishness, its naturalness\nwithout its baseness, its geniality without its heartlessness.\n\nIn like manner Christianity takes up all that is true in the Stoic\nteaching, without falling into its hardness and narrowness. The truth of\nthe Stoic teaching consisted in its power to transform into an\nexpression of the man himself, and of the beneficent laws of Nature,\nwhatever outward circumstance might befall him, Now put in place of the\nabstract self the love of the perfect Christ, and instead of universal\nlaw the loving will of the Father for all His children, and you have a\ndeepened, sweetened, softened Stoicism which is identical with a sturdy,\nstrenuous, and virile Christianity.\n\nIf a man has in his heart the earnest desire to be like Christ, and to\ndo the things that help to carry out Christ's Spirit in the world, it is\nabsolutely impossible that he should ever find himself in a situation\nwhere what he most desires to do cannot be done. Now a man who in every\nconceivable situation can do what he most desires to do is as completely\n\"master of his fate\" and \"captain of his soul\" as the most strenuous\nStoic ever prayed to be. And yet he is saved from the coldness and\nhardness and repulsiveness of the mere Stoic, because the object of his\ndevotion, the aim of his assertion, is not his own barren, frigid,\nformal self, but the kindly, sympathetic, loving Christ, whom he has\nchosen to be his better self. Like the Stoic, he brings every thought\ninto captivity; but it is not the captivity of a prison, the empty\nchamber of his individual soul, swept and garnished; it is captivity to\nthe most gracious and gentle and generous person the world has ever\nknown,--it is captivity to Christ.\n\nWhen misfortune and calamity overtakes him, he transforms it into a\nblessing and a discipline, not like the mere Stoic through passive\nresignation to an impersonal law, as of gravitation, or electricity, or\nbacteriology, but through active devotion to that glory of God which is\nto be furthered mainly by kindness and sympathy and service to our\nfellow-men. The man who has this love of Christ in his heart, and who is\ndevoted to the doing of the Father's loving will, can exclaim in every\nuntoward circumstance, \"I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth\nme.\" He can shout with more than Stoic defiance: \"O death, where is thy\nsting? O grave, where is thy victory?\" In all the literature of Stoic\nexultation in the face of frowning danger and impending doom, there is\nnothing that can match the splendid outburst of the great Apostle: \"Who\nshall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or\nanguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?\nNay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that\nloved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,\nnor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,\nnor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate\nus from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.\"\n\nEverything that we found noble, and strong, and brave in Stoicism we\nfind also here; the power to transform external evil into internal good,\nand to hold so tightly to our self-chosen good that no power in earth or\nheaven can ever wrest it from us,--a good so universal that the\ncircumstance is inconceivable in which it would fail to work. Yet with\nall this tenacious, world-conquering strength, there is, drawn from the\ndivine Source of this affection a gentleness, and sympathy, and\ntenderness, and humble human helpfulness, which the Stoic in his\nboastfulness, and hardness, and self-sufficiency could never know.\n\nThe Christian abhors lying and stealing, scolding and slandering,\nslavery and prostitution, meanness and murder, not less but far more\nthan the Stoic. But he refrains from these things, not under constraint\nof abstract law, but because he cares so deeply and sensitively for the\npeople whom these things affect that he cannot endure the thought that\nany word or deed of his should bring them pain or loss or shame or\ndegradation. Thus he gets the Stoic strength without its hardness, the\nStoic universality without its barrenness, the Stoic exaltation without\nits pride, the Stoic integrity without its formalism, the Stoic calm\nwithout its impassiveness.\n\nChristianity is as lofty as Platonism; but it gets its elevation by a\ndifferent process. Instead of rising above drudgery and details, it\nlifts them up into a clearer atmosphere, where nothing is servile or\nmenial which can glorify God or serve a fellow-man.\n\nThe great truth which Plato taught was the subordination of the lower\nelements in human nature to the higher. In the application of this\ntruth, as we saw, Plato went far astray. His highest was not attainable\nby every man; and he proposed to enforce the dictates of reason by fraud\nand intimidation on those incapable of comprehending their\nreasonableness. Thus he was led into that fallacy of the abstract\nuniversal which is common to all socialistic schemes. Christianity takes\nthe Platonic principle of subordination of lower to higher; but it adds\na new definition to what the higher or rather the highest is; and it\nintroduces a new appeal for the lowliest to become willing servants and\nfriends of the highest, instead of mere constrained serfs and slaves.\nThis highest principle is, of course, Love of the God who loves all His\nhuman children, friendship to the Christ who is the friend of every man.\nConsequently there are no humble working-men to be coerced and no\nunfortunate women to be maltreated; no deformed and ill-begotten\nchildren to be exposed to early death, as in Plato's exclusive scheme.\nTo the Christian every child is a child of God, every woman a sister of\nChrist, every man a son of the Father, and consequently no one of them\ncan be disregarded in our plans of fellowship and sympathy and service;\nfor whoever should dare to leave them out of his own sympathy and love\nwould thereby exclude himself from the Love of God, likeness to Christ,\nand participation in the Christian Spirit.\n\nThus Christianity gives us all that was wise and just in the Platonic\nprinciple of the subordination of the lower elements in our nature to\nthe higher; but its higher is so much above the highest dream of Plato\nthat it guards certain forms of social good at points where, even in\nPlato's ideal Republic, they were ruthlessly betrayed.\n\nChristianity finally gathers up into itself whatever is good in the\nprinciple of Aristotle. The Aristotelian principle was the devotion of\nlife to a worthy end and the selection of efficient means for its\naccomplishment. On that general formula it is impossible to improve. \"To\nthis end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world,\" is\nJesus' justification of His mission, when questioned by Pontius Pilate.\n\"One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching\nforward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto\nthe prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,\" is Paul's\nmagnificent apology for his way of life. The concentration of one's\nwhole energy upon a worthy end, and the willing acceptance of pains,\nprivations, and penalties which may be incidental to the effective\nprosecution of that end, is the comprehensive formula of every brave\nand heroic life, whether it be the life of Jew or Gentile, Greek or\nChristian. It is not because it sets forth something different from this\nwise and brave prosecution of a noble end that Christianity is an\nimprovement on the teaching of Aristotle; it is because the end at which\nthe Christian aims is so much higher, and the fortitude demanded by it\nis so much deeper, that Christianity has superseded and deserves to\nsupersede the noblest teaching of the greatest Greeks. What was the end\nwhich Aristotle set before himself and his disciples? Citizenship in a\ncity state half free and half enslaved, with leisure for the philosophic\ncontemplation of the learned few, bought by the constrained toil of the\nignorant, degraded many; the refined companionship of choice congenial\nspirits for which it was expected that the multitude would be forever\nincapacitated and from which they would be forcibly excluded. Over\nagainst this aristocracy of birth, opportunity, leisure, training, and\nintelligence Jesus sets the wide democracy of virtue, service, Love.\nWhoever is capable of doing the humblest deed in Love to God and service\nto man becomes thereby a member of the kingdom of the choicest spirits\nto be found in earth or heaven, and entitled to the same courteous and\ndelicate consideration which the disciple would show to his Master. The\nbuilding up of such a kingdom and the extension of its membership to\ninclude all the nations of the earth and all classes and conditions of\nmen within its happy fellowship, and in its noble service, is the great\nend which Jesus set before himself and which He invites each disciple to\nshare.\n\nWhatever hardship and toil, whatever pain and persecution, whatever\nreviling and contumely, whatever privation and poverty may be necessary\nto the accomplishment of this great end the Master himself gladly bore,\nand He asks His followers to do the same. In a world full of hypocrisy\nand corruption, pride and pretence, avarice and greed, cruelty and lust,\nmalice and hate, selfishness and sin, there are bound to be many trials\nto be borne, much hard work to be done, many blows to be received, much\nsuffering to be endured. All that is inevitable, whatever view one takes\nof life. Christ, however, shows us the way to do and bear these things\ncheerfully and bravely as part of His great work of redeeming the world\nfrom the bondage and misery of these powers of evil, and establishing\nHis kingdom of Love. To keep the clear vision of that great end before\nour eyes, to keep the sense of His companionship warm and glowing\nwithin our hearty never to lose the sense of the great liberation and\nblessing this kingdom will bring to our downtrodden, maltreated brothers\nand sisters in the humbler walks of life, Jesus tells us is the secret\nof that sanity and sacrifice which is able to make the yoke of useful\ntoil easy, and the burden of social service light; and to transform the\ncross of suffering into a crown of joy.\n\nEach of these four previous principles is valuable and essential; and\nthe fact that Christianity is higher than them all, no more warrants the\nChristian in dispensing with the lower elements, than the supremacy of\nthe roof enables it to dispense with the foundation and the intervening\nstories. Both for ourselves, and for the world in which we live, we need\nto make our ideal of personality broad and comprehensive. We need to\ncombine in harmonious and graceful unity the happy Epicurean disposition\nto take fresh from the hand of nature all the pleasures she innocently\noffers; the strong Stoic temper that takes complacently whatever\nincidental pains and ills the path of duty may have in store for us; the\noccasional Platonic mood which from time to time shall lift us out of\nthe details of drudgery when they threaten to obscure the larger outlook\nof the soul; the shrewd Aristotelian insight which weighs the worth of\ntransient impulses and passing pleasures in the impartial scales of\nintellectual and social ends; and then, not as a thing apart, but rather\nas the crown and consummation of all these other elements, the generous\nChristian Spirit, which makes the joys and sorrows, the aims and\ninterests, of others as precious as one's own, and sets the Will of God\nwhich includes the good of all His creatures high above all lesser aims,\nas the bond that binds them all together in the unity of a personal life\nwhich is in principle perfect with some faint approximation to the\ndivine perfection.\n\nThe omission of any truth for which the other ancient systems stood\nmutilates and impoverishes the Christian view of life. Ascetic\nPuritanism, for instance, is Christianity minus the truth taught by\nEpicurus. Sentimental liberalism is Christianity without the Stoic note.\nDogmatic orthodoxy is Christianity sadly in need of Plato's search-light\nof sincerity. Sacerdotal ecclesiasticism is Christianity that has lost\nthe Aristotelian disinterestedness of devotion to intellectual and\nsocial ends higher and wider than its own institutional aggrandisement.\n\nThe time is ripe for a Christianity which shall have room for all the\ninnocent joys of sense and flesh, of mind and heart, which Epicurus\ntaught us to prize aright, yet shall have the Stoic strength to make\nwhatever sacrifice of them the universal good requires; which shall\npurge the heart of pride and pretence by questionings of motive as\nsearching as those of Plato, and at the same time shall hold life to as\nstrict accountability for practical usefulness and social progress as\nAristotle's doctrines of the end and the mean require. It is by some\nsuch world-wide, historical approach, and the inclusion of whatever\nelements of truth and worth other systems have separately emphasised,\nthat we shall reach a Christianity that is really catholic.\n\nTo take the duties and trials, the practical problems and personal\nrelationships of life up into the atmosphere of Love, so that what we do\nand how we treat people becomes the resultant, not of the outward\nsituation and our natural appetites and passions, but of the outward\nsituation and Love within our hearts,--this is what it means to live in\nthe Christian Spirit; this is the essence of Christianity. Strengthened\ncharacter and straightened conduct are sure to follow the maintenance of\nthis spiritual relationship. Not that it will transform one's hereditary\ntraits and acquired habits all at once, or save one from many a slip\nand flaw. Even the Christian Spirit of Love takes time to work its moral\ntransformation. The tendency of it, however, is steady and strong in the\nright direction; and in due time it will conquer the heart and control\nthe action of any man who, whether verbally or silently, whether\nformally or informally, maintains this conscious relationship to that\nLove at the heart of things which most of us call God. Jesus and all who\nhave shared His spiritual insight tell us that the maintenance of this\nrelationship, close, warm, and quick, is the pearl of great price, the\none thing needful, the potency of righteousness, the secret of\nblessedness; and that there is more hope of a man with a bad record and\nmany besetting sins who honestly tries to keep this relationship alive\nwithin his breast, than there is of the self-righteous man who boasts\nthat he can keep himself outwardly immaculate without these inward aids.\n\nChristianity of this simple, vital sort is the world's salvation.\nCriticised by enemies and caricatured by friends; fossilised in the\nminds of the aged, and forced on the tongues of the immature; mingled\nwith all manner of exploded superstition, false philosophy, science that\nis not so, and history that never happened; obscured under absurd\nrites; buried in incredible creeds; professed by hypocrites;\ndiscredited by sentimentalists; evaporated by mystics; stereotyped by\nliteralists; monopolised by sacerdotalists; it has lived in spite of all\nthe grave-clothes its unbelieving disciples have tried to wrap around\nit, and holds the keys of eternal life.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n Accident, Stoic explanation of, 83-85.\n\n Adversity, test of Christian character, 276.\n\n Altruism, 10-15, 222.\n\n Ambition, 143-144, 182.\n\n Amputation of morbid reflections, 33.\n\n Apperception, 66-70.\n\n Aristotle--\n Limitations of, 212-213.\n Summary of, 213-214.\n On--\n Celibacy, 180-181.\n Chastity, 202-204.\n Courage, 204-206.\n Friendship, 209-212.\n Need of instruments, 191-194.\n Pleasure, 160-175.\n Prudence, 200.\n Social nature of man, 176-179.\n Temperance, 201.\n Test of character, 184.\n The end, 179-191.\n The mean, 194-198.\n The virtues, 199-208.\n Wealth, 192.\n Wisdom, 199.\n Completed in Christianity, 284-287.\n\n Arnold, Matthew, 100, 107.\n\n Avarice, 146-147.\n\n\n Bacteria, on the whole beneficent, 84-85.\n\n Beatitudes, 265.\n\n Blessedness of Love, 264-277.\n\n Boss, political, evolution of, 150-151.\n\n\n Carlyle, 160-161, 190.\n\n Celestial Surgeon, 19.\n\n Celibacy, 180-181.\n\n Chastity, 202-204, 229-232.\n\n Cheerfulness, 19.\n\n Christian--\n Church government, 240.\n Forgiveness, 259-260.\n Joy, 275.\n Modesty, 265.\n Peace, 270-272.\n Sacrifice, 254-256, 273-274.\n Use and misuse of creeds, 241-243.\n Worship, 240.\n Interpretation of--\n Art, 249-251.\n Business, 249-251.\n Divorce, 233-235.\n Marriage, 228.\n Murder, 225-228.\n Pleasure, 255.\n Politics, 249-251.\n Profanity, 235.\n Science, 249-251.\n Wealth, 248-252.\n\n Christianity--\n The completion of--\n Aristotle, 284-287.\n Epicureanism, 277-279.\n Plato, 282-284.\n Stoicism, 279-282.\n Missionary character of, 262-263.\n In need of intellectual honesty, 241-243.\n Supremacy of, 277-291.\n\n Christmas Sermon, Stevenson's, 19.\n\n Circumstances alter acts, 129.\n\n Cleanthes' hymn, 97-99.\n\n Clubs, women's, 188-189.\n\n Commandments, Aristotelian, 213.\n\n Cosmopolitanism, Stoic, 94-95.\n\n Courage, 204-206.\n\n Cowardice, 128.\n\n Creeds, 241-243.\n\n Cynicism, 82.\n\n Cynic's prayer, 96-97.\n\n\n Death, Christian triumph over, 281.\n Epicurean disposition of, 7, 8, 45.\n Stoic view of, 73, 77.\n Whitman on, 18.\n\n Degeneration, Plato's stages of, 143-153.\n\n Democracy, ancient and modern, 122.\n Plato on, 147-149.\n\n Depression, 32-33.\n\n Diet, 5, 21-22, 124-126.\n\n Difficulty, Stoic attitude toward, 75-76.\n\n Divorce, logical outcome of Epicureanism, 44.\n Christian attitude toward, 233-235.\n\n\n Education, Plato's scheme of, 131-138.\n\n Egoism, duty of adequate, 10-15.\n\n Electricity, beneficent, 84.\n\n Eliot, George, 46-51.\n\n Emerson, 165-167.\n\n End, not justification of means, 178-179.\n\n Epictetus, 71-77, 81, 84, 87, 88, 89, 96, 97.\n\n Epicurean--\n Day, 34-35.\n Definition of personality, 37, 51.\n Gods, 9, 95.\n Heaven, 45.\n Man, 40-41.\n Woman, 42-44.\n\n Epicureanism, defects of, 36-45, 110, 159, 169-172.\n Merits of, 23-25, 52-53.\n Parasitic character of, 40, 44-45, 52.\n\n Epicurus, 1-9.\n\n Equality, Plato on, 148.\n\n Evil, Stoic solution of, 87-90.\n\n Eye of good man upon us, 6.\n\n\n Fighting, a Christian duty, 270-272.\n\n Fitzgerald, 15-16.\n\n Forgiveness, 79, 259-260.\n\n Fortitude, 126-129.\n\n Friendship, 6, 166-167, 209-212.\n\n\n Gentleness before all morality, 19.\n\n Gilbert, W.S., To the Terrestrial Globe, 108.\n\n Gluttony, 125.\n\n Golden Rule, 223.\n\n Good, the, according to Plato, 130.\n\n Gravitation, beneficent, 83-84.\n\n Gyges' ring, 115-116.\n\n\n Handles, two to everything, 71.\n\n Happiness and Virtue, 264.\n\n Harmony, effect of, in education, 134.\n\n Health, 10-13, 69.\n\n Henley, To R. T. H. B., 100.\n\n Heretic, definition of, 53-54.\n\n Honesty, intellectual, 241-243.\n\n Horace, Ode on Philosophy of Life, 10.\n\n Humility, 265.\n\n Hurry, 29-30.\n\n\n Imaginary presence of good man, 6.\n\n Independence of outward goods, 4, 74.\n\n Indifference to external things, 71, 77-78, 81.\n\n Intellectual honesty, 241-243.\n\n\n Jesus' three ways of teaching, 215-218.\n\n Joy, 275.\n\n Judas meets himself, 79.\n\n Judging others, 260.\n\n Judgment, Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic, and Aristotelian, 183.\n Christian, 220-221.\n\n\n Kant, categorical imperative, 86.\n Good-will only real good, 85-86.\n Uncompromising modern Stoic, 85.\n\n\n Law, Jewish, transcended by Christianity, 219-238.\n Stoic reverence for, 82-86.\n\n Liberty, excess of, leads to slavery, 149.\n\n Lincoln's letter to Greeley, 198.\n\n Literature in education, 132-135.\n\n Love, Christian, 215-291.\n\n Lucretius, 8-9.\n\n\n Marcus Aurelius, 77, 96.\n\n Marriage, 228.\n\n Mean, Aristotle's doctrine of the, 194-198.\n\n Meekness, 268.\n\n Melancholy, 33-34.\n\n Mental healing, 30, 66, 70.\n\n Mercy, 269.\n\n Mill, Christian elements in his doctrine, 63.\n Definition of happiness, 54.\n Distinction in quality of happiness, 55-57.\n Incompleteness of doctrine, 277-278.\n Inconsistency of, 57-58, 63-65.\n On social nature of man, 60-62.\n\n Missionary character of Christianity, 262-263.\n\n Modesty, 265.\n\n Morrow, how meet most pleasantly, 7.\n\n Murder, Christian definition of, 225-228.\n\n Mysticism, 164.\n\n\n Narrow way, 256.\n\n Natural desires, 3.\n\n Neoplatonism, 161-164.\n\n \"New Thought,\" 162.\n\n\n Oaths, 235.\n\n Obligation not to be relaxed, 167-168.\n\n Office, good for one, bad for another, 186-187.\n\n Omar Khayyam, 15-17, 38.\n\n Opinion in our power, 74-75, 87.\n\n Optimism, superficiality of modern, 82.\n\n Otherworldliness, 36.\n\n\n Pain, 2, 4.\n\n Parasitic character of Epicureanism, 40, 44-45.\n\n Patience, 128.\n\n Penitence, 267.\n\n Perfectionism, 92-93.\n\n Persecution, 272-276.\n\n Pessimism, 37-38.\n\n Philosophers, as kings, 138.\n\n Plato--\n Defects of, 120-122, 162-168.\n Merits of, 159-162, 278.\n On--\n Athletics, 136.\n Cardinal virtues, 123-131.\n Democracy, 147-149.\n Education, 131-138.\n Literature in education, 132-135.\n Philosophers as kings, 138.\n Riches and rich men, 145-147.\n Righteousness, 113-223, 138-142, 153-159.\n The good, 130, 137.\n Completed in Christianity, 282-284.\n\n Play, 26-28.\n\n Pleasure, 2-4, 20, 39, 30-65, 110-111, 169-175, 255.\n\n Politician, 117-119, 150-152.\n\n Poverty, 4.\n\n Power, things in our, 74.\n\n Prayer, 257-258, 268.\n\n Present, the time to live, 6, 36.\n\n Procrastination, 6-7.\n\n Prudence, 5-6, 20, 251.\n\n Purity, 270.\n\n\n Reading Gaol, 226.\n\n Religion of Stoics, 95-100.\n\n Reverence, 215.\n\n Rewards and penalties not essential to virtue, 112-115.\n\n Riches, 4-5, 67-69, 89, 145-147, 248-252.\n\n Righteousness, 113-123, 138-142, 153-159.\n\n Romola, 46-51.\n\n\n Sacrifice, 254-256, 273-274.\n\n Self-regard and excessive self-sacrifice, 10-15.\n\n Seneca's pilot, 77.\n\n Sexual morality, 202-204, 270.\n\n Sin, 93.\n\n Sleep, 22.\n\n Social nature of man, 60-62, 176-179.\n\n Socrates' prayer, 159.\n\n Sorrow, Stoic attitude toward, 76-77.\n\n Spencer, 10-15, 277-278.\n\n Spirit, one of three elements in our nature, 126-128.\n\n Stevenson, 18, 19, 201.\n\n Stoic--\n Acceptance of criticism, 103.\n Attitude toward sorrow, 76-77, 78, 80, 101-102.\n Cosmopolitanism, 94-95.\n Doctrine of no degrees in vice, 90-92.\n Equanimity, 103-105.\n Fortitude, 105-106.\n Indifference, 71-81.\n Paradoxes, 90-95.\n Perfection of the sage, 93-93.\n Religion, 95-103.\n Resignation, 97, 104-105.\n Reverence for law, 82-86.\n Solution of problem of evil, 87-90.\n\n Stoicism, coldness of, 107-109.\n Completed in Christianity, 279-282.\n Defects of, 106-109, 159.\n Permanent value of, 101-106, 279-282.\n Two principles of, 101.\n\n\n Temperance, 200-204.\n\n Theatre, 27.\n\n Tito Melema, 46-51.\n\n Tranquillity, 75.\n\n Travel, foreign, the paradise of Epicurean women, 42.\n\n Trial, Stoic endurance of, 75,89-90.\n\n Tyranny, Plato on, 149-153.\n\n Tyrant, most miserable of men, 153.\n\n\n Unrighteousness the greatest evil, 140-141, 154-157.\n\n\n Vexation, Stoic formula for, 78.\n\n Virtue, 87-88, 110-116, 199-208.\n\n\n Wealth, 4-5, 67-69, 145-148, 182, 248-252.\n\n Whitman, Walt, 17, 18.\n\n Wisdom, 129-131, 199.\n\n Work, excessive, 10-15, 23-25.\n\n Worry, folly of, 24, 29-30, 33, 252-253.\n\n\nPrinted in the United States of America.","title":"The Five Great Philosophies of Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":65426}