{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_5078/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_5078","id":"gutenberg_5078","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5078","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Conduct of life"],"text":"[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nWhen a Man Comes to Himself\n\nby Woodrow Wilson\nPh.D., Litt.D., LL.D.\n\nPresident of the United States\n\n1901.\n\n\nContents\n\n I.\n II.\n III.\n IV.\n V.\n VI.\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nIt is a very wholesome and regenerating change which a man undergoes\nwhen he \u201ccomes to himself.\u201d It is not only after periods of\nrecklessness or infatuation, when he has played the spendthrift or the\nfool, that a man comes to himself. He comes to himself after\nexperiences of which he alone may be aware: when he has left off being\nwholly preoccupied with his own powers and interests and with every\npetty plan that centers in himself; when he has cleared his eyes to see\nthe world as it is, and his own true place and function in it.\n\nIt is a process of disillusionment. The scales have fallen away. He\nsees himself soberly, and knows under what conditions his powers must\nact, as well as what his powers are. He has got rid of earlier\nprepossessions about the world of men and affairs, both those which\nwere too favorable and those which were too unfavorable\u2014both those of\nthe nursery and those of a young man\u2019s reading. He has learned his own\npaces, or, at any rate, is in a fair way to learn them; has found his\nfooting and the true nature of the \u201cgoing\u201d he must look for in the\nworld; over what sorts of roads he must expect to make his running, and\nat what expenditure of effort; whither his goal lies, and what cheer he\nmay expect by the way. It is a process of disillusionment, but it\ndisheartens no soundly made man. It brings him into a light which\nguides instead of deceiving him; a light which does not make the way\nlook cold to any man whose eyes are fit for use in the open, but which\nshines wholesomely, rather upon the obvious path, like the honest rays\nof the frank sun, and makes traveling both safe and cheerful.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nThere is no fixed time in a man\u2019s life at which he comes to himself,\nand some men never come to themselves at all. It is a change reserved\nfor the thoroughly sane and healthy, and for those who can detach\nthemselves from tasks and drudgery long and often enough to get, at any\nrate once and again, a view of the proportions of life and of the stage\nand plot of its action. We speak often with amusement, sometimes with\ndistaste and uneasiness, of men who \u201chave no sense of humor,\u201d who take\nthemselves too seriously, who are intense, self-absorbed,\nover-confident in matters of opinion, or else go plumed with conceit,\nproud of we cannot tell what, enjoying, appreciating, thinking of\nnothing so much as themselves. These are men who have not suffered that\nwholesome change. They have not come to themselves. If they be serious\nmen, and real forces in the world, we may conclude that they have been\ntoo much and too long absorbed; that their tasks and responsibilities\nlong ago rose about them like a flood, and have kept them swimming with\nsturdy stroke the years through, their eyes level with the troubled\nsurface\u2014no horizon in sight, no passing fleets, no comrades but those\nwho struggled in the flood like themselves. If they be frivolous,\nlight-headed men without purpose or achievement, we may conjecture, if\nwe do not know, that they were born so, or spoiled by fortune, or\nbefuddled by self-indulgence. It is no great matter what we think of\nthem.\n\nIt is enough to know that there are some laws which govern a man\u2019s\nawakening to know himself and the right part to play. A man _is_ the\npart he plays among his fellows. He is not isolated; he cannot be. His\nlife is made up of the relations he bears to others\u2014is made or marred\nby those relations, guided by them, judged by them, expressed in them.\nThere is nothing else upon which he can spend his spirit\u2014nothing else\nthat we can see. It is by these he gets his spiritual growth; it is by\nthese we see his character revealed, his purpose and his gifts. Some\nplay with a certain natural passion, an unstudied directness, without\ngrace, without modulation, with no study of the masters or\nconsciousness of the pervading spirit of the plot; others give all\ntheir thought to their costume and think only of the audience; a few\nact as those who have mastered the secrets of a serious art, with\ndeliberate subordination of themselves to the great end and motive of\nthe play, spending themselves like good servants, indulging no\nwilfulness, obtruding no eccentricity, lending heart and tone and\ngesture to the perfect progress of the action. These have \u201cfound\nthemselves,\u201d and have all the ease of a perfect adjustment.\n\nAdjustment is exactly what a man gains when he comes to himself. Some\nmen gain it late, some early; some get it all at once, as if by one\ndistinct act of deliberate accommodation; others get it by degrees and\nquite imperceptibly. No doubt to most men it comes by slow processes of\nexperience\u2014at each stage of life a little. A college man feels the\nfirst shock of it at graduation, when the boy\u2019s life has been lived out\nand the man\u2019s life suddenly begins. He has measured himself with boys;\nhe knows their code and feels the spur of their ideals of achievement.\nBut what the world expects of him he has yet to find out, and it works,\nwhen he has discovered, a veritable revolution in his ways both of\nthought and of action. He finds a new sort of fitness demanded of him,\nexecutive, thorough-going, careful of details, full of drudgery and\nobedience to orders. Everybody is ahead of him. Just now he was a\nsenior, at the top of the world he knows and reigned in, a finished\nproduct and pattern of good form. Of a sudden he is a novice again, as\ngreen as in his first school year, studying a thing that seems to have\nno rules\u2014at sea amid crosswinds, and a bit seasick withal. Presently,\nif he be made of stuff that will shake into shape and fitness, he\nsettles to his tasks and is comfortable. He has come to himself:\nunderstands what capacity is, and what it is meant for; sees that his\ntraining was not for ornament or personal gratification, but to teach\nhim how to use himself and develop faculties worth using. Henceforth\nthere is a zest in action, and he loves to see his strokes tell.\n\nThe same thing happens to the lad come from the farm into the city, a\nbig and novel field, where crowds rush and jostle, and a rustic boy\nmust stand puzzled for a little how to use his placid and unjaded\nstrength. It happens, too, though in a deeper and more subtle way, to\nthe man who marries for love, if the love be true and fit for foul\nweather. Mr. Bagehot used to say that a bachelor was \u201can amateur at\nlife,\u201d and wit and wisdom are married in the jest. A man who lives only\nfor himself has not begun to live\u2014has yet to learn his use, and his\nreal pleasure, too, in the world. It is not necessary he should marry\nto find himself out, but it is necessary he should love. Men have come\nto themselves serving their mothers with an unselfish devotion, or\ntheir sisters, or a cause for whose sake they forsook ease and left off\nthinking of themselves. It is unselfish action, growing slowly into the\nhigh habit of devotion, and at last, it may be, into a sort of\nconsecration, that teaches a man the wide meaning of his life, and\nmakes of him a steady professional in living, if the motive be not\nnecessity, but love. Necessity may make a mere drudge of a man, and no\nmere drudge ever made a professional of himself; that demands a higher\nspirit and a finer incentive than his.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nSurely a man has come to himself only when he has found the best that\nis in him, and has satisfied his heart with the highest achievement he\nis fit for. It is only then that he knows of what he is capable and\nwhat his heart demands. And, assuredly, no thoughtful man ever came to\nthe end of his life, and had time and a little space of calm from which\nto look back upon it, who did not know and acknowledge that it was what\nhe had done unselfishly and for others, and nothing else, that\nsatisfied him in the retrospect, and made him feel that he had played\nthe man. That alone seems to him the real measure of himself, the real\nstandard of his manhood. And so men grow by having responsibility laid\nupon them, the burden of other people\u2019s business. Their powers are put\nout at interest, and they get usury in kind. They are like men\nmultiplied. Each counts manifold. Men who live with an eye only upon\nwhat is their own are dwarfed beside them\u2014seem fractions while they are\nintegers. The trustworthiness of men trusted seems often to grow with\nthe trust.\n\nIt is for this reason that men are in love with power and greatness: it\naffords them so pleasurable an expansion of faculty, so large a run for\ntheir minds, an exercise of spirit so various and refreshing; they have\nthe freedom of so wide a tract of the world of affairs. But if they use\npower only for their own ends, if there be no unselfish service in it,\nif its object be only their personal aggrandizement, their love to see\nother men tools in their hands, they go out of the world small,\ndisquieted, beggared, no enlargement of soul vouchsafed them, no usury\nof satisfaction. They have added nothing to themselves. Mental and\nphysical powers alike grow by use, as every one knows; but labor for\noneself is like exercise in a gymnasium. No healthy man can remain\nsatisfied with it, or regard it as anything but a preparation for tasks\nin the open, amid the affairs of the world\u2014not sport, but\nbusiness\u2014where there is no orderly apparatus, and every man must devise\nthe means by which he is to make the most of himself. To make the most\nof himself means the multiplication of his activities, and he must turn\naway from himself for that. He looks about him, studies the facts of\nbusiness or of affairs, catches some intimation of their larger\nobjects, is guided by the intimation, and presently finds himself part\nof the motive force of communities or of nations. It makes no\ndifference how small a part, how insignificant, how unnoticed. When his\npowers begin to play outward, and he loves the task at hand, not\nbecause it gains him a livelihood, but because it makes him a life, he\nhas come to himself.\n\nNecessity is no mother to enthusiasm. Necessity carries a whip. Its\nmethod is compulsion, not love. It has no thought to make itself\nattractive; it is content to drive. Enthusiasm comes with the\nrevelation of true and satisfying objects of devotion; and it is\nenthusiasm that sets the powers free. It is a sort of enlightenment. It\nshines straight upon ideals, and for those who see it the race and\nstruggle are henceforth toward these. An instance will point the\nmeaning. One of the most distinguished and most justly honored of our\ngreat philanthropists spent the major part of his life absolutely\nabsorbed in the making of money\u2014so it seemed to those who did not know\nhim. In fact, he had very early passed the stage at which he looked\nupon his business as a means of support or of material comfort.\nBusiness had become for him an intellectual pursuit, a study in\nenterprise and increment. The field of commerce lay before him like a\nchess-board; the moves interested him like the manoeuvers of a game.\nMore money was more power, a great advantage in the game, the means of\nshaping men and events and markets to his own ends and uses. It was his\nwill that set fleets afloat and determined the havens they were bound\nfor; it was his foresight that brought goods to market at the right\ntime; it was his suggestion that made the industry of unthinking men\nefficacious; his sagacity saw itself justified at home not only, but at\nthe ends of the earth. And as the money poured in, his government and\nmastery increased, and his mind was the more satisfied. It is so that\nmen make little kingdoms for themselves, and an international power\nundarkened by diplomacy, undirected by parliaments.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nIt is a mistake to suppose that the great captains of industry, the\ngreat organizers and directors of manufacture and commerce and monetary\nexchange, are engrossed in a vulgar pursuit of wealth. Too often they\nsuffer the vulgarity of wealth to display itself in the idleness and\nostentation of their wives and children, who \u201cdevote themselves,\u201d it\nmay be, \u201cto expense regardless of pleasure\u201d; but we ought not to\nmisunderstand even that, or condemn it unjustly. The masters of\nindustry are often too busy with their own sober and momentous calling\nto have time or spare thought enough to govern their own households. A\nking may be too faithful a statesman to be a watchful father. These men\nare not fascinated by the glitter of gold: the appetite for power has\ngot hold upon them. They are in love with the exercise of their\nfaculties upon a great scale; they are organizing and overseeing a\ngreat part of the life of the world. No wonder they are captivated.\nBusiness is more interesting than pleasure, as Mr. Bagehot said, and\nwhen once the mind has caught its zest, there\u2019s no disengaging it. The\nworld has reason to be grateful for the fact.\n\nIt was this fascination that had got hold upon the faculties of the man\nwhom the world was afterward to know, not as a prince among\nmerchants\u2014for the world forgets merchant princes\u2014but as a prince among\nbenefactors; for beneficence breeds gratitude, gratitude admiration,\nadmiration fame, and the world remembers its benefactors. Business, and\nbusiness alone, interested him, or seemed to him worthwhile. The first\ntime he was asked to subscribe money for a benevolent object he\ndeclined. Why _should_ he subscribe? What affair would be set forward,\nwhat increase of efficiency would the money buy, what return would it\nbring in? Was good money to be simply given away, like water poured on\na barren soil, to be sucked up and yield nothing? It was not until men\nwho understood benevolence on its sensible, systematic, practical, and\nreally helpful side explained it to him as an investment that his mind\ntook hold of it and turned to it for satisfaction. He began to see that\neducation was a thing of infinite usury; that money devoted to it would\nyield a singular increase to which there was no calculable end, an\nincrease in perpetuity\u2014increase of knowledge, and therefore of\nintelligence and efficiency, touching generation after generation with\nnew impulses, adding to the sum total of the world\u2019s fitness for\naffairs\u2014an invisible but intensely real spiritual usury beyond\nreckoning, because compounded in an unknown ratio from age to age.\nHenceforward beneficence was as interesting to him as business\u2014was,\nindeed, a sort of sublimated business in which money moved new forces\nin a commerce which no man could bind or limit.\n\nHe had come to himself\u2014to the full realization of his powers, the true\nand clear perception of what it was his mind demanded for its\nsatisfaction. His faculties were consciously stretched to their right\nmeasure, were at last exercised at their best. He felt the keen zest,\nnot of success merely, but also of honor, and was raised to a sort of\nmajesty among his fellow-men, who attended him in death like a dead\nsovereign. He had died dwarfed had he not broken the bonds of mere\nmoney-getting; would never have known himself had he not learned how to\nspend it; and ambition itself could not have shown him a straighter\nroad to fame.\n\nThis is the positive side of a man\u2019s discovery of the way in which his\nfaculties are to be made to fit into the world\u2019s affairs, and released\nfor effort in a way that will bring real satisfaction. There is a\nnegative side also. Men come to themselves by discovering their\nlimitations no less than by discovering their deeper endowments and the\nmastery that will make them happy. It is the discovery of what they can\n_not_ do, and ought not to attempt, that transforms reformers into\nstatesmen; and great should be the joy of the world over every reformer\nwho comes to himself. The spectacle is not rare; the method is not\nhidden. The practicability of every reform is determined absolutely and\nalways by \u201cthe circumstances of the case,\u201d and only those who put\nthemselves into the midst of affairs, either by action or by\nobservation, can know what those circumstances are or perceive what\nthey signify. No statesman dreams of doing whatever he pleases; he\nknows that it does not follow that because a point of morals or of\npolicy is obvious to him it will be obvious to the nation, or even to\nhis own friends; and it is the strength of a democratic polity that\nthere are so many minds to be consulted and brought to agreement, and\nthat nothing can be wisely done for which the thought, and a good deal\nmore than the thought, of the country, its sentiment and its purpose,\nhave not been prepared. Social reform is a matter of cooperation, and\nif it be of a novel kind, requires an infinite deal of converting to\nbring the efficient majority to believe in it and support it. Without\ntheir agreement and support it is impossible.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nIt is this that the more imaginative and impatient reformers find out\nwhen they come to themselves, if that calming change ever comes to\nthem. Oftentimes the most immediate and drastic means of bringing them\nto themselves is to elect them to legislative or executive office. That\nwill reduce over-sanguine persons to their simplest terms. Not because\nthey find their fellow-legislators or officials incapable of high\npurpose or indifferent to the betterment of the communities which they\nrepresent. Only cynics hold that to be the chief reason why we approach\nthe millennium so slowly, and cynics are usually very ill-informed\npersons. Nor is it because under our modern democratic arrangements we\nso subdivide power and balance parts in government that no one man can\ntell for much or turn affairs to his will. One of the most instructive\nstudies a politician could undertake would be a study of the infinite\nlimitations laid upon the power of the Russian Czar, notwithstanding\nthe despotic theory of the Russian constitution\u2014limitations of social\nhabit, of official prejudice, of race jealousies, of religious\npredilections, of administrative machinery even, and the inconvenience\nof being himself only one man, caught amidst a rush of duties and\nresponsibilities which never halt or pause. He can do only what can be\ndone with the Russian people. He cannot change them at will. He is\nhimself of their own stuff, and immersed in the life which forms them,\nas it forms him. He is simply the leader of the Russians.\n\nAn English or American statesman is better off. He leads a thinking\nnation, not a race of peasants topped by a class of revolutionists and\na caste of nobles and officials. He can explain new things to men able\nto understand, persuade men willing and accustomed to make independent\nand intelligent choices of their own. An English statesman has an even\nbetter opportunity to lead than an American statesman, because in\nEngland executive power and legislative initiative are both intrusted\nto the same grand committee, the ministry of the day. The ministers\nboth propose what shall be law and determine how it shall be enforced\nwhen enacted. And yet English reformers, like American, have found\noffice a veritable cold-water bath for their ardor for change. Many a\nman who has made his place in affairs as the spokesman of those who see\nabuses and demand their reformation has passed from denunciation to\ncalm and moderate advice when he got into Parliament, and has turned\nveritable conservative when made a minister of the crown. Mr. Bright\nwas a notable example. Slow and careful men had looked upon him as\nlittle better than a revolutionist so long as his voice rang free and\nimperious from the platforms of public meetings. They greatly feared\nthe influence he should exercise in Parliament, and would have deemed\nthe constitution itself unsafe could they have foreseen that he would\nsome day be invited to take office and a hand of direction in affairs.\nBut it turned out that there was nothing to fear. Mr. Bright lived to\nsee almost every reform he had urged accepted and embodied in\nlegislation; but he assisted at the process of their realization with\ngreater and greater temperateness and wise deliberation as his part in\naffairs became more and more prominent and responsible, and was at the\nlast as little like an agitator as any man that served the queen.\n\nIt is not that such men lose courage when they find themselves charged\nwith the actual direction of the affairs concerning which they have\nheld and uttered such strong, unhesitating, drastic opinions. They have\nonly learned discretion. For the first time they see in its entirety\nwhat it was that they were attempting. They are at last at close\nquarters with the world. Men of every interest and variety crowd about\nthem; new impressions throng them; in the midst of affairs the former\nspecial objects of their zeal fall into new environments, a better and\ntruer perspective; seem no longer so susceptible to separate and\nradical change. The real nature of the complex stuff of life they were\nseeking to work in is revealed to them\u2014its intricate and delicate\nfiber, and the subtle, secret interrelationship of its parts\u2014and they\nwork circumspectly, lest they should mar more than they mend. Moral\nenthusiasm is not, uninstructed and of itself, a suitable guide to\npracticable and lasting reformation; and if the reform sought be the\nreformation of others as well as of himself, the reformer should look\nto it that he knows the true relation of his will to the wills of those\nhe would change and guide. When he has discovered that relation, he has\ncome to himself: has discovered his real use and planning part in the\ngeneral world of men; has come to the full command and satisfying\nemployment of his faculties. Otherwise he is doomed to live for ever in\na fool\u2019s paradise, and can be said to have come to himself only on the\nsupposition that he is a fool.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nEvery man\u2014if I may adopt and paraphrase a passage from Dr. South\u2014every\nman hath both an absolute and a relative capacity: an absolute in that\nhe hath been endued with such a nature and such parts and faculties;\nand a relative in that he is part of the universal community of men,\nand so stands in such a relation to the whole. When we say that a man\nhas come to himself, it is not of his absolute capacity that we are\nthinking, but of his relative. He has begun to realize that he is part\nof a whole, and to know _what_ part, suitable for what service and\nachievement.\n\nIt was once fashionable\u2014and that not a very long time ago\u2014to speak of\npolitical society with a certain distaste, as a necessary evil, an\nirritating but inevitable restriction upon the \u201cnatural\u201d sovereignty\nand entire self-government of the individual. That was the dream of the\negotist. It was a theory in which men were seen to strut in the proud\nconsciousness of their several and \u201cabsolute\u201d capacities. It would be\nas instructive as it would be difficult to count the errors it has bred\nin political thinking. As a matter of fact, men have never dreamed of\nwishing to do without the \u201ctrammels\u201d of organized society, for the very\ngood reason that those trammels are in reality but no trammels at all,\nbut indispensable aids and spurs to the attainment of the highest and\nmost enjoyable things man is capable of. Political society, the life of\nmen in states, is an abiding natural relationship. It is neither a mere\nconvenience nor a mere necessity. It is not a mere voluntary\nassociation, not a mere corporation. It is nothing deliberate or\nartificial, devised for a special purpose. It is in real truth the\neternal and natural expression and embodiment of a form of life higher\nthan that of the individual\u2014that common life of mutual helpfulness,\nstimulation, and contest which gives leave and opportunity to the\nindividual life, makes it possible, makes it full and complete.\n\nIt is in such a scene that man looks about to discover his own place\nand force. In the midst of men organized, infinitely cross-related,\nbound by ties of interest, hope, affection, subject to authorities, to\nopinion, to passion, to visions and desires which no man can reckon, he\ncasts eagerly about to find where he may enter in with the rest and be\na man among his fellows. In making his place he finds, if he seek\nintelligently and with eyes that see, more than ease of spirit and\nscope for his mind. He finds himself\u2014as if mists had cleared away about\nhim and he knew at last his neighborhood among men and tasks.\n\nWhat every man seeks is satisfaction. He deceives himself so long as he\nimagines it to lie in self-indulgence, so long as he deems himself the\ncenter and object of effort. His mind is spent in vain upon itself. Not\nin action itself, not in \u201cpleasure,\u201d shall it find its desires\nsatisfied, but in consciousness of right, of powers greatly and nobly\nspent. It comes to know itself in the motives which satisfy it, in the\nzest and power of rectitude. Christianity has liberated the world, not\nas a system of ethics, not as a philosophy of altruism, but by its\nrevelation of the power of pure and unselfish love. Its vital principle\nis not its code, but its motive. Love, clear-sighted, loyal, personal,\nis its breath and immortality. Christ came, not to save Himself,\nassuredly, but to save the world. His motive, His example, are every\nman\u2019s key to his own gifts and happiness. The ethical code he taught\nmay no doubt be matched, here a piece and there a piece, out of other\nreligions, other teachings and philosophies. Every thoughtful man born\nwith a conscience must know a code of right and of pity to which he\nought to conform; but without the motive of Christianity, without love,\nhe may be the purest altruist and yet be as sad and as unsatisfied as\nMarcus Aurelius.\n\nChristianity gave us, in the fullness of time, the perfect image of\nright living, the secret of social and of individual well-being; for\nthe two are not separable, and the man who receives and verifies that\nsecret in his own living has discovered not only the best and only way\nto serve the world, but also the one happy way to satisfy himself.\nThen, indeed, has he come to himself. Henceforth he knows what his\npowers mean, what spiritual air they breathe, what ardors of service\nclear them of lethargy, relieve them of all sense of effort, put them\nat their best. After this fretfulness passes away, experience mellows\nand strengthens and makes more fit, and old age brings, not senility,\nnot satiety, not regret, but higher hope and serene maturity.\n\nTHE END","title":"When a Man Comes to Himself","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":4673}