A ruddy drop of manly bloodThe surging sea outweighs;The world uncertain comes and goes,The lover rooted stays.I fancied he was fled,And, after many a year,Glowed unexhausted kindlinessLike daily sunrise there.My careful heart was free again,—Oh, friend, my bosom said,Through thee alone the sky is arched,Through thee the rose is red,All things through thee take nobler formAnd look beyond the earth,The mill-round of our fate appearsA sun-path in thy worth.Me too thy nobleness has taughtTo master my despair;The fountains of my hidden lifeAre through thy friendship fair.
A ruddy drop of manly bloodThe surging sea outweighs;The world uncertain comes and goes,The lover rooted stays.I fancied he was fled,And, after many a year,Glowed unexhausted kindlinessLike daily sunrise there.My careful heart was free again,—Oh, friend, my bosom said,Through thee alone the sky is arched,Through thee the rose is red,All things through thee take nobler formAnd look beyond the earth,The mill-round of our fate appearsA sun-path in thy worth.Me too thy nobleness has taughtTo master my despair;The fountains of my hidden lifeAre through thy friendship fair.
THE TEMPTATION.
A relation so intimate as that of friendship offers constant opportunity for betrayal.—Friends understand each other perfectly. Friend utters to friend many things which he would not for all the world let others know. And more than that, the intimate association of friendship cannot fail to give the friend an opportunity to perceive the deep secrets of the other's heart which he would not speak even to a friend, and which he has scarcely dared to acknowledge even to himself.
This intimate knowledge of another appeals strangely to our vanity and pride; and we are often tempted to show it off by disclosing some of these secrets which have been revealed to us in the confidence of friendship. This is the meanest thing one person can do to another. The person who yields to this basest of temptations is utterly unworthy ever again to have a friend. Betrayal of friends is the unpardonable social sin.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
We cannot find people who in every respect are exactly to our liking.—And, what is more to the point, we never can make ourselves exactly what we should like to have other people intimately know and understand. Friendship calls for courage enough to show ourselves in spite of our frailties and imperfections; and to take others in spite of the possible shortcomings which close acquaintance may reveal in them. Friendship requires a readinessto give and take, for better or for worse; and that exclusiveness which shrinks from the risks involved is simply a combination of selfishness and cowardice. Refusal to make friends is a sure sign that a man either is ashamed of himself, or else lacks faith in his fellow-men. And these two states of mind are not so different as they might at first appear. For we judge others chiefly by ourselves. And the man who distrusts his fellow-men, generally bases his distrust of them on the consciousness that he himself is not worthy of the trust of others. So that the real root of exclusiveness is the dread of letting other people get near to us, for fear of what they might discover. Exclusiveness puts on the airs of pride. But pride is only a game of bluff, by which a man who is ashamed to have other people get near enough to see him as he is pretends that he is terribly afraid of getting near enough to others to see what they are.
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
Effusiveness.—Some people can keep nothing to themselves. As soon as they get an experience, or feel an emotion, or have an ache or pain, they must straightway run and pour it into the ear of some sympathetic listener. The result is that experiences do not gain sufficient hold upon the nature to make any deep and lasting impression. No independence, no self-reliance, no strength of character is developed. Such people are superficial and unreal. They ask everything and have nothing to give. The stream is so large and constant that there isnothing left in the reservoir. Friendship must rest on solid foundations of independence and mutual respect. With great clearness and force Emerson proclaims this law in his Essay on Friendship: "We must be our own before we can be another's. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that the not mine is mine. I hate where I looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. There must be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity, which, beneath these disparities, unites them."
THE PENALTY.
If we refuse to go in company there is nothing left for us but to trudge along the dreary way alone.—If we will not bear one another's burdens, we must bear our own when they are heaviest in our unaided strength; and fall beneath their weight. Here as everywhere penalty is simply the inevitable consequence of conduct. The loveless heart is doomed to drag out its term of years in the cheerless isolation of a life from which the light of love has been withdrawn.
Thus far we have considered our fellow-men as units, with whom it is our privilege and duty to come into external relations. These external relations after all do not reach the deepest center of our lives. They indeed bind man to man in bonds of helpfulness and service. But the two who are thus united remain two separate selves after all. Even friendship leaves unsatisfied yearnings, undeveloped possibilities in human hearts. However subtle and tender the bond may be, it remains to the last physical rather than chemical; mechanical rather than vital; the outward attachment of mutually exclusive wholes, rather than the inner blending of complemental elements which lose their separate selfhood in the unity of a new and higher life. The beginning of this true spiritual life, in which the individual loses his separate self to find a larger and nobler self in a common good in which each individual shares, and which none may monopolize;—the birthplace of the soul as of the body is in the family. The nursery of virtue, the inspirer of devotion, the teacher of self-sacrifice, the institutor of love, the family is the foundation of all those higherand nobler qualities of mind and heart which lift man above the level of sagacious brutes.
THE DUTY.
The family a common good.—Membership in the family involves the recognition that the true life of the individual is to be found only in union with other members; in regard for their rights; in deference to their wishes; and in devotion to that common interest in which each member shares. Each member must live for the sake of the whole family. Children owe to their parents obedience, and such service as they are able to render. Parents, on the other hand, owe to children support, training, and an education sufficient to give them a fair start in life. Brothers and sisters owe to each other mutual helpfulness and protection. All joys and sorrows, all hopes and fears, all plans and purposes should be talked over, and carried out in common. No parent should have a plan or ambition or enthusiasm into which he does not invite the confidence and sympathy of his child. No child should cherish a thought or purpose or imagination which he cannot share with father or mother. It is the duty of the parent to enter sympathetically into the sports and recreations and studies and curiosities of the child. It is the duty of the child to interest himself in whatever the father and mother are doing to support the family and promote its welfare. Between parent and child, brother and sister, there should be no secrets; no ground onwhich one member lives in selfish isolation from the rest.
The basis of right marriage.—These relations come by nature, and we grow into them so gradually that we are scarcely conscious of their existence, unless we stop on purpose to think of them. Marriage, or the foundation of a new family, however, is a step which we take for ourselves, once for all, in the maturity of our conscious powers. To know in advance the true from the false, the real from the artificial, the genuine from the counterfeit, the blessed from the wretched basis of marriage is the most important piece of information a young man or woman can acquire. The test is simple but searching. Do you find in another, one to whose well-being you can devote your life; one to whom you can confide the deepest interests of your mind and heart; one whose principles and purposes you can appreciate and respect: one in whose image you wish your children to be born, and on the model of whose character you wish their characters to be formed; one whose love will be the best part of whatever prosperity, and the sufficient shield against whatever adversity may be your common lot? Then, provided this other soul sees a like worth in you, and cherishes a like devotion for what you are and aim to be, marriage is not merely a duty: it is the open door into the purest and noblest life possible to man and woman. Complete identification and devotion, entire surrender of each to each in mutual affection is the condition of true marriage. As"John Halifax" says in refusing the hand of a nobleman for his daughter, "In marriage there must be unity—one aim, one faith, one love—or the marriage is imperfect, unholy, a mere civil contract, and no more." This necessity of complete, undivided devotion of each to each is, as Hegel points out, the spiritual necessity on which monogamy rests. There can be but one complete and perfect and supreme merging of one's whole self in the life and love of another. Marriage with two would be of necessity marriage with none. If we apprehend the spiritual essence of marriage we see that marriage with more than one is a contradiction in terms. It is possible to cut one's self up into fragments, and bestow a part here and a part there; but that is not marriage; it is mere alliance. It brings not love and joy and peace, but hate and wretchedness and strife.
A true marriage never can be dissolved.—If love be present at the beginning it will grow stronger and richer with every added year of wedded life. How far a loveless marriage should be enforced upon unwilling parties by the state for the benefit of society is a question which it is foreign to our present purpose to discuss. The duty of the individual who finds himself or herself in this dreadful condition is, however, clear. There is generally a good deal of self-seeking on both sides at the basis of such marriages. Getting rather than giving was the real though often unsuspected hope that brought them together. If either husband or wife willresolutely strive to correct the fault that is in him or her, ceasing to demand and beginning to give unselfish affection and genuine devotion, in almost every case, where the man is not a brute or a sot, and the woman is not a fashion-plate or a fiend, the life of mutual love may be awakened, and a true marriage may supersede the empty form. Not until faithful and prolonged efforts to establish a true marriage within the legal bonds have proved unavailing; and only where adultery, desertion, habitual drunkenness, or gross brutality and cruelty demonstrate the utterimpossibilityof a true marriage, is husband or wife justified in seeking to escape the bond, and to revert to the lower, individualistic type of life.
THE VIRTUE.
In the family we are members one of another.—The parent shows his loyalty to the child by protecting him when he gets into trouble. The loyal brother defends his brothers and sisters against all attacks and insults. The loyal child refuses to do anything contrary to the known wishes of father and mother, or anything that will reflect discredit upon them. The loyal child cares for his parents and kindred in misfortune and old age; ministering tenderly to their wants, and bearing patiently their infirmities of body and of mind which are incidental to declining powers. The loyal husband and wife trust each other implicitly in everything; and refuse to have any confidences with others more intimatethan they have with each other. Not that the family is narrow and exclusive. Husband and wife should each have their outside interests, friendships, and enthusiasms. Each should rejoice in everything which broadens, deepens, and sweetens the life of the other. Jealousy of each other is the most deadly poison that can be introduced into a home. It is sure and instant death to the peace and joy of married life.
Other relations should always be secondary and external to the primary and inner relation of husband and wife to each other.—It should be the married self; the self which includes in its inmost love and confidence husband or wife; not a detached and independent self, which goes out to form connections and attachments in the outer world. Where this mutual trust and confidence are loyally maintained there can be the greatest social freedom toward other men and women and at the same time perfect trust and devotion to each other. This, however, is a nice adjustment, which nothing short of perfect love can make. Love makes it easily, and as a matter of course. Loyalty is love exposed to strain, and overcoming strain and temptation by the power which love alone can give.
THE REWARD.
Loyalty to the family preserves and perpetuates the home.—Home is a place where we can rest; where we can breathe freely; where we can have perfect trust in one another; where we can beperfectly simple, perfectly natural, perfectly frank; where we can be ourselves; where peace and love are supreme. "This," says John Ruskin, "is the true nature of home—it is the place of peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of the outer world which you have roofed over and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by household gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love,—so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light,—shade as of a rock in a weary land, and light as of a Pharos on a stormy sea; so far it vindicates the name and fulfills the praise of home."
THE TEMPTATION.
The individual must drop his extreme individualism when he crosses the threshold of the home.—The years between youth and marriage are years of comparative independence. The young man and woman learn in these years to take their affairs into their own hands; to direct their own course, to do what seems right in their own eyes, and take the consequences of wisdom or folly upon their own shoulders. This periodof independence is a valuable discipline. It develops strength and self-reliance; it compels the youth to face the stern realities of life, and to measure himself against the world. It helps him to appreciate what his parents have done for him in the past, and prepares him to appreciate a home of his own when he comes to have one. The man and woman who have never known what it is to make their own way in the world can never be fully confident of their own powers, and are seldom able to appreciate fully what is done for them.
Many an exacting husband and complaining wife would have had their querulousness and ingratitude taken out of them once for all if they could have had a year or two of single-handed conflict with real hardship. Independence and self-reliance are the basis of self-respect and self-control.
At the same time this habit of independence, especially if it is ingrained by years of single life, tends to perpetuate itself in ways that are injurious to the highest domestic and family life. Independence is a magnificent foundation for marriage; to carry it up above the foundation, and build the main structure out of it, is fatal. The insistence on rights, the urging of claims, the enforcement of private whims and fancies, are the death of love and the destruction of the family. Unless one is ready to give everything, asking nothing save what love gives freely in return, marriage will prove a fountain of bitterness rather than of sweetness; a region of storm and tempest rather than a haven of repose.Within a bond so close and all-embracing there is no room for the independent life of separated selves. Each must lose self in the other; both must merge themselves in devotion to a common good; or the bond becomes a fetter, and the home a prison. Unless one is prepared to give all to the object of his love, duty to self, to the object of his affections, and to the blessed state of marriage demands that he should offer nothing, and remain outside a relation which his whole self cannot enter. Independence outside of marriage is respectable and honorable. Independence and self-assertion in marriage toward husband or wife is mean and cruel. It is the attempt to partake of that in which we refuse to participate; to claim the advantages of an organism in which we refuse to comply with the conditions of membership. Not admiration, nor fascination, nor sentimentality, nor flattered vanity can bind two hearts together in life-long married happiness. For these are all forms of self-seeking in disguise. Love alone, love that loses self in its object; love that accepts service with gladness and transmutes sacrifice into a joy; simple, honest, self-forgetful love must be the light and life of marriage, or else it will speedily go out in darkness and expire in death.
Of the deliberate seeking of external ends in marriage, such as money, position, family connections, and the like, it ought not to be necessary to say a word to any thoughtful person. It is the basest act of which man or woman is capable. It is an insult to marriage; it is a mockery of love; it is treacheryand falsehood and robbery toward the person married. It subordinates the lifelong welfare of a person to the acquisition of material things. It introduces fraud and injustice into the inmost center of one's life, and makes respect of self, happiness in marriage, faith in human nature forever impossible. The deliberate formation of a loveless marriage is a blasphemy against God, a crime against society, a wrong to a fellow being, and a bitter and lasting curse to one's own soul.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
Self-sufficiency fatal to the family.—The shortcoming which most frequently keeps individuals outside of the family, and keeps them incomplete and imperfect members of the family after they enter it, is the self-sufficiency which is induced by a life of protracted independence. Marriage is from one point of view a sacrifice, a giving-up. The bachelor can spend more money on himself than can the married man who must provide for wife and children. The single woman can give to study and music and travel an amount of time and attention which is impossible to the wife and mother. Such a view of marriage is supremely mean and selfish. Only a very little and sordid soul could entertain it. There are often the best and noblest of reasons why man or woman should remain single. It is a duty to do so rather than to marry from any motive save purest love. Marriage, however, should be regarded as the ideal state for every man andwoman. To refuse to marry for merely selfish reasons; or to carry over into marriage the selfish individualistic temper, which clings so tenaciously to the little individual self that it can never attain the larger self which comes from real union and devotion to another—this is to sin against human nature, and to prove one's self unworthy of membership in society's most fundamental and sacred institution.
The child who sets his own will against his parent's, the mother who thrusts her child out of her presence in order to pursue pleasures more congenial than the nurture of her own offspring, the man who leaves his family night after night to spend his evenings in the club or the saloon, the woman who spends on dress and society the money that is needed to relieve her husband from overwork and anxiety, and to bring up her children in health and intelligence, do an irreparable wrong to the family, and deal a death blow to the home.
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
Self-obliteration robs the family of the best we have to give it.—The man who makes himself a slave; goes beyond his strength; denies himself needed rest and recreation; grows prematurely old, cuts himself off from intercourse with his fellow-men in order to secure for his family a position or a fortune: the woman who works early and late; forgets her music, and forsakes her favorite books; gives up friends and society; grows anxious and careworn inorder to give her sons and daughters a better start in life than she had, are making a fatal mistake. In the effort to provide their children with material things and intellectual advantages they are depriving them of what even to the children is of far more consequence—healthy, happy, cheerful, interesting, enthusiastic parents. To their children as well as to themselves parents owe it to be the brightest, cheeriest, heartiest, wisest, completest persons that they are capable of being. Children also when they have reached maturity, although they owe to their parents a reverent regard for all reasonable desires and wishes, ought not to sacrifice opportunities for gaining a desired education or an advantageous start in business, merely to gratify a capricious whim or groundless foreboding of an arbitrary and unreasoning parent. Devotion to the family does not imply withdrawal from the world outside. The larger and fuller one's relations to the world without, the deeper and richer ought to be one's contribution to the family of which he is a member.
THE PENALTY.
To have no one for whom we supremely care, and no one who cares much for us; to have no place where we can shield ourselves from outward opposition and inward despair; to have no larger life in which we can merge the littleness of our solitary selves; to touch other lives only on the surface, and to take no one to our heart;—this is the sad estate of the man orwoman who refuses to enter with whole-souled devotion into union with another in the building of a family and a home.—The sense that this loneliness is chosen in fidelity to duty makes it endurable for multitudes of noble men and women. But for the man or woman who chooses such a life in proud self-sufficiency, for the sake of fancied freedom and independence, it is hard to conceive what consolation can be found. Thomas Carlyle, speaking of the joys of living in close union with those who love us, and whom we love, says: "It is beautiful; it is human! Man lives not otherwise, nor can live contented, anywhere or anywhen. Isolation is the sum-total of wretchedness to man. To be cut off, to be left solitary; to have a world alien, not your world; all a hostile camp for you; not a home at all, of hearts and faces who are yours, whose you are! It is the frightfullest enchantment; too truly a work of the Evil One. To have neither superior, nor inferior, nor equal, united manlike to you. Without father, without child, without brother. Man knows no sadder destiny."
Out of the family grew the state. The primitive state was an enlarged family, of which the father was the head. Citizenship meant kinship, real or fictitious. The house or gens was a composite family. Houses united into tribes, and the authority of the chieftain over his fellow-tribesmen was still based on the fact that they were, either by birthright or adoption, his children. The ancient state was the union of tribes under one priest and king who was regarded as the father of the whole people.
Disputes about the right of succession, and the disadvantage and danger of having a tyrant or a weakling rule, just because he happened to be the son of the previous ruler, led men to elect their rulers. There are to-day states like Russia where the hereditary monarch is the ruler: states like the United States where all rulers are elected by the people; and states like England where the nominal ruler is an hereditary monarch, and the real rulers are chosen by the people.
THE DUTY.
The function of the state is the organization of the life of the people.—Men can live together inpeace and happiness only on condition that they assert for themselves and respect in others certain rights to life, liberty, property, reputation, and opinion. My right it is my neighbor's duty to observe. His right it is my duty to respect. These mutual rights and duties are grounded in the nature of things and the constitution of man. They are the conditions which must be observed if man is to live in unity with his fellow-men. It is the business of the state to define, declare, and enforce these rights and duties. And as citizens it is our duty to the state to do all in our power to frame just laws; to see that they are impartially and effectively administered; to obey these laws ourselves; to contribute our share of the funds necessary to maintain the government; and to render military service when force is needed to protect the government from overthrow. To law and government we owe all that makes life endurable or even possible: the security of property; the sanctity of home; the opportunity of education; the stability of institutions; the blessings of peace; protection against violence and bloodshed. Since the state and its laws are essential to the well-being of all men, and consequently of ourselves; we owe to it the devotion of our time, our knowledge, our influence, yes, our life itself if need be. If it comes to a choice between living but a brief time, and that nobly, in devotion to country, and living a long time basely, in betrayal of our country's good, no true, brave man will hesitate to choose the former. In times of war and revolution that choicehas been presented to men in every age and country: and men have always been found ready to choose the better part; death for country, rather than life apart from her. So deep was the conviction in the mind of Socrates that the laws of the state should be obeyed at all costs, that when he had been sentenced to death unjustly, and had an opportunity to escape the penalty by running away, he refused to do it on the ground that it was his duty to obey those laws which had made him what he was and whose protection he had enjoyed so many years. To the friend who tried to induce him to escape he replied that he seemed to hear the laws saying to him, "Our country is more to be valued and higher and holier far than father or mother. And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she sends us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just; and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may he do violence to his country." To do and bear whatever is necessary to maintain that organization of life which the state represents is the imperative duty of every citizen. This duty to serve the country is correlative to the right to be a citizen. No man can be in truth and spirit a citizen on any other terms. And not to be a citizenis not to be, in any true and worthy meaning of the term, a man.
THE VIRTUE.
Love of country, or patriotism, like all love places the object loved first and self second.—In all public action the patriot asks not, "What is best for me?" but, "What is best for my country?" Patriotism assumes as many forms as there are circumstances and ways in which the welfare of the country may be promoted. In time of war the patriot shoulders his gun and marches to fight the enemy. In time of election he goes to the caucus and the polls, and expresses his opinion and casts his vote for what he believes to be just measures and honest men. When taxes are to be levied, he gives the assessor a full account of his property, and pays his fair share of the expense of government. When one party proposes measures and nominates men whom he considers better than those of the opposite party, he votes with that party, whether it is for his private interest to do so or not. The patriot will not stand apart from all parties, because none is good enough for him. He will choose the best, knowing that no political party is perfect. He will act with that party as long as it continues to seem to him the best; for he must recognize that one man standing alone can accomplish no practical political result. The moment he is convinced that the party with which he has been acting has become more corrupt, and less faithful to the interests ofthe country than the opposite party, he will change his vote. Self first, personal friends second, party third, and country fourth, is the order of considerations in the mind of the office-seeker, the wire-puller, the corrupt politician. Country first, party second, personal friends third, and self last is the order in the mind of the true citizen, the courageous statesman, the unselfish patriot.
THE REWARD.
In return for serving our country we receive a country to serve.—The state makes possible for us all those pursuits, interests, aims, and aspirations which lift our lives above the level of the brutes. Through the institutions which the state maintains, schools, almshouses, courts, prisons, roads, bridges, harbors, laws, armies, police, there is secured to the individual the right and opportunity to acquire property, engage in business, travel wherever he pleases, share in the products of the whole earth, read the books of all nations, reap the fruits of scholarly investigation in all countries, take an interest in the welfare and progress of mankind. This power of the individual to live a universal life, this participation of each in a common and world-wide good, is the product of civilization. And civilization is impossible without that subordination of each to the just claims of all, which law requires and which it is the business of the state to enforce.
THE TEMPTATION.
Organization involves a multitude of offices and public servants. Many of these offices are less onerous and more lucrative than the average man can find elsewhere. Many offices give a man an opportunity to acquire dishonest gains.—Hence arises the great political temptation which is to seek office, not as a means of rendering useful and honorable service to the country, but as a means to getting an easy living out of the country, and at the public expense. The "spoils system," which consists in rewarding service to party by opportunity to plunder the country: which pays public servants first for their service to party, and secondly for service to the country: which makes usefulness to party rather than serviceableness to the country the basis of appointment and promotion, is the worst evil of our political life. "Public office is a public trust." Men who so regard it are the only men fit for it. Office so held is one of the most honorable forms of service which a man can render to his fellow-men. Office secured and held by the methods of the spoils system is a disgrace to the nation that is corrupt enough to permit it, and to the man who is base enough to profit by it.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
Betrayal of one's country and disregard of its interests is treason.—In time of war and revolution treason consists in giving information to theenemy, surrendering forts, ships, arms, or ammunition into his hands; or fighting in such a half-hearted way as to invite defeat. Treason under such circumstances is the unpardonable sin against country. The traitor is the most despicable person in the state; for he takes advantage of the protection the state gives to him and the confidence it places in him to stab and murder his benefactor and protector.
The essential quality of treason is manifested in many forms in time of peace. Whoever sacrifices the known interests of his country to the interests of himself, or of his friends, or of his party, is therein guilty of the essential crime of treason. Whoever votes for an appropriation in order to secure for another man lucrative employment or a profitable contract; whoever gives or takes money for a vote; whoever increases or diminishes a tax with a view to the business interests, not of the country as a whole, but of a few interested parties; whoever accepts or bestows a public office on any grounds other than the efficiency of service which the office-holder is to render to the country; whoever evades his just taxes; whoever suffers bad men to be elected and bad measures to become laws through his own negligence to vote himself and to influence others to vote for better men and better measures, is guilty of treason. For in these, which are the only ways possible to him, he has sacrificed the good of his country to the personal and private interests of himself and of his friends.
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
True and false ambition.—The service of the country in public office is one of the most interesting and most honorable pursuits in which a man can engage. Ambition to serve is always noble. Desire for the honors and emoluments of public office, however, may crowd out the desire to render public service. Such a substitution of selfish for patriotic considerations, such an inversion of the proper order of interests in a man's mind, is the vice of political ambition. The ambitious politician seeks office, not because he seeks to promote measures which he believes to be for the public good; not because he believes he can promote those interests more effectively than any other available candidate: but just because an office makes him feel big; or because he likes the excitement of political life; or because he can make money directly or indirectly out of it. Such political ambition is as hollow and empty an aim as can possess the mind of man. And yet it deceives and betrays great as well as little men. It is our old foe of sentimentality, dressed in a new garb, and displaying itself on a new stage. It is the substitution of one's own personal feelings, for a direct regard for the object which makes those feelings possible. It is a very subtle vice: and the only safeguard against it is a deep and genuine devotion to country for country's sake.
THE PENALTY.
A state in which laws were broken, taxes evaded, and corrupt men placed in authority could not endure.—With the downfall of the state would arise the brigand, the thief, the murderer, and the reign of dishonesty, violence, and terror.
The individual, it is true, may sin against the state and escape the full measure of this penalty himself. In that case, however, the penalty is distributed over the vast multitude of honest citizens, who bear the common injury which the traitor inflicts upon the state. The man who betrays his country, may continue to have a country still; but it is no thanks to him. It is because he reaps the reward of the loyalty and devotion of citizens nobler than himself.
Yet even then the country is not in the deepest sense really his. He cannot enjoy its deepest blessings. He cannot feel in his inmost heart, "This country is mine. To it I have given myself. Of it I am a true citizen and loyal member." He knows he is unworthy of his country. He knows that if his country could find him out, and separate him from the great mass of his fellow-citizens, she would repudiate him as unworthy to be called her son. The traitor may continue to receive the gifts of his country; he may appropriate the blessings she bestows with impartial hand on the good and on the evil. But the sense that this glorious and righteous order of which the state is the embodiment and of whichour country is the preserver and protector belongs to him; that it is an expression of his thought, his will and his affection;—this spiritual participation in the life and spirit of the state, this supreme devotion to a beloved country, remains for such an one forever impossible. In his soul, in his real nature, he is an outcast, an alien, and an enemy.
Regard for others, merely as individuals, does not satisfy the deepest yearnings of our social nature. The family is so much more to us than the closest of ties which we can form on lines of business, charity, or even friendship; because in place of an aggregate of individuals, each with his separate interests, the family presents a life in which each member shares in a good which is common to all.
The state makes possible a common good on a much wider scale. Still, on a strict construction of its functions, the state merely insures the outward form of this wider, common life. The state declares what man shall not do, rather than what man shall do, in his relations to his fellow-men. To prevent the violation of mutual rights rather than to secure the performance of mutual duties, is the fundamental function of the state. Of course these two sides cannot be kept entirely apart. There is a strong tendency at the present time to enlarge the province of the state, and to intrust it with the enforcement of positive duties which man owes to his fellow-men, and which class owes to class. Whether this tendency is good or bad, whether it is desirable to enforce social duties, or to trust themto the unfettered social conscience of mankind, is a theoretical question which, for our practical purposes, we need not here discuss.
No man liveth unto himself. No man ought to be satisfied with a good which is peculiar to himself, from which mankind as a whole are excluded. No man can be so satisfied. Ignorance, prejudice, selfishness, pride, custom, blind men to this common good, and prevent them from making the efforts and sacrifices necessary to realize it. But the man who could deliberately prefer to see the world in which he lives going to destruction would be a monster rather than a man.
This common life of humanity in which each individual partakes is society. Society is the larger self of each individual. Its interests and ours are fundamentally one and the same.—If the society in which we live is elevated and pure and noble we share its nobleness and are elevated by it. If society is low, corrupt, and degraded, we share its corruption, and its baseness drags us down. So vital and intimate is this bond between society and ourselves that it is impossible when dealing with moral matters to keep them apart. To be a better man, without at the same time being a better neighbor, citizen, workman, soldier, scholar, or business man, is a contradiction in terms. For life consists in these social relations to our fellows. And the better we are, the better these social duties will be fulfilled.
Society includes all the objects hithertoconsidered. Society is the organic life of man, in which the particular objects and relations of our individual lives are elements and members. Hence in this chapter, and throughout the remainder of the book, we shall not be concerned with new materials, but with the materials with which we are already familiar, viewed in their broader and more comprehensive relationships.
THE DUTY.
In each act we should think not merely "How will this act affect me?" but "How will this act affect all parties concerned, and society as a whole?"—The interests of all men are my own, by virtue of that common society of which they and I are equal members. What is good for others is good for me, because, in that broader view of my own nature which society embodies, my good cannot be complete unless, to the extent of my ability, their good is included in my own. Hence we have the maxims laid down by Kant: "Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature." "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of another, in every case as an end, never as a means only." Or as Professor Royce puts the same thought; "Act as a being would act who included thy will and thy neighbor's will in the unity of one life, and who had therefore to suffer the consequences for the aims of both that will follow from the act of either." "In so far as in thee lies, act as if thouwert at once thy neighbor and thyself. Treat these two lives as one."
The realization of the good of all in and through the act of each is the social ideal.—In everyday matters this can be brought about by simply taking account of all the interests of others which will be affected by our act. In the relations between employer and employee, for instance, profit sharing is the most practical form of realizing this community of interest. Such action involves a co-operation of interests as the motives of the individual act.
The larger social ends, such as education, philanthropy, reform, public improvements, require the co-operation of many individuals in the same enterprise. The readiness to contribute a fair share of our time, money, and influence to these larger public interests, which no individual can undertake alone, is an important part of our social duty. Every beneficent cause, every effort to rouse public sentiment against a wrong, or to make it effective in the enforcement of a right; every endeavor to unite men in social intercourse; every plan to extend the opportunities for education; every measure for the relief of the deserving poor, and the protection of homeless children; every wise movement for the prevention of vice, crime, and intemperance, is entitled to receive from each one of us the same intelligent attention, the same keenness of interest, the same energy of devotion, the same sacrifice of inclination and convenience, the same resolutenessand courage of action that we give to our private affairs.
Co-operation, then, is of two kinds, inward and outward: co-operation between the interests of others and of ourselves in the motive to our individual action; and co-operation of our action with the action of others to accomplish objects too vast for private undertaking.—Both forms of co-operation are in principle the same; they strengthen and support each other. The man who is in the habit of considering the interests of others in his individual acts will be more ready to unite with others in the promotion of public beneficence. And on the other hand the man who is accustomed to act with others in large public movements will be more inclined to act for others in his personal affairs. The reformer and philanthropist is simply the man of private generosity and good-will acting out his nature on a larger stage.
THE VIRTUE.
Public spirit is the life of the community in the heart of the individual.—This recognition that we belong to society, and that society belongs to us, that its interests are our interests, that its wrongs are ours to redress, its rights are ours to maintain, its losses are ours to bear, its blessings are ours to enjoy, is public spirit.
A generous regard for the public welfare, a willingness to lend a hand in any movement for the improvement of social conditions, a readiness withwork and influence and time and money to relieve suffering, improve sanitary conditions, promote education and morality, remove temptation from the weak, open reading-rooms and places of harmless resort for the unoccupied in their evening hours, to bind together persons of similar tastes and pursuits—these are the marks of public spirit; these are the manifestations of social virtue.
Politeness is love in little things.—Toward individuals whom we meet in social ways this recognition of our common nature and mutual rights takes the form of politeness and courtesy. Politeness is proper respect for human personality. Rudeness results from thinking exclusively about ourselves, and caring nothing for the feelings of anybody else. The sincere and generous desire to bring the greatest pleasure and the least pain to everyone we meet will go a long way toward making our manners polite and courteous.
Still, society has agreed upon certain more or less arbitrary ways for facilitating social intercourse; it has established rules for conduct on social occasions, and to a certain extent prescribed the forms of words that shall be used, the modes of salutation that shall be employed, the style of dress that shall be worn, and the like. A due respect for society, and for the persons whom we meet socially, demands that we shall acquaint ourselves with these rules of etiquette, and observe them in our social intercourse. Like all forms, social formalities are easily carried to excess, and frequently kill the spirit theyare intended to express. As a basis, however, for the formation of acquaintances, and for large social gatherings, a good deal of formality is necessary.
THE REWARD.
The complete expression and outgo of our nature is freedom.—Since man is by nature social, since sympathy, friendship, co-operation and affection are essential attributes of man, it follows that the exercise of these social virtues is itself the satisfaction of what is essentially ourselves.
The man who fulfills his social duties is free, for he finds an open field and an unfettered career for the most essential faculties of his nature. The social man always has friends whom he loves; work which he feels to be worth doing; interests which occupy his highest powers; causes which appeal to his deepest sympathies. Such a life of rounded activity, of arduous endeavor, of full, free self-expression is in itself the highest possible reward. It is the only form of satisfaction worthy of man. It is in the deepest sense of the word success. For as Lowell says: