INTRODUCTIONThe welcome offered to the translation of Professor Hilty’s “Happiness” amply justifies the translation of a second series of his essays. The same notes of tranquil reflection and keen observation, which have drawn to the earlier volumes many readers both in Europe and America, are here struck again. Professor Hilty is not a preacher, and his essays are not sermons. He is a professor of Constitutional Law, and the studies of life which these volumes represent are products of his leisure hours, wrought out of his meditation and experience. Sin and sorrow, culture and courage, a just judgment of others, a rational optimism, and a simple Christian faith—these are the “Steps of Life” up which this wise teacher mounts, and which he invites thoughtful readers to climb. Laurence Oliphant is reported to have said that what England in the nineteenth century most needed was “a spiritually minded man of the world”—a man, that is to say, who could live in the world without being subdued to that he worked in, a man who could survey and judge his world with the sanity and insight of the spiritual mind. Professor Hilty in a very exceptional degree meets this test.His vocation is among the institutions of the political world. His last professional treatise dealt with the history of the Referendum in mediæval Switzerland. When in these Essays he approaches the problems of other professions, such as those of theology or Biblical criticism, it is as an amateur, who satisfies himself with conclusions which must appear to many minds untenable. It is, however, precisely this unprofessional character of his reflections which gives them their importance. Here is a learned man, whose business is with other studies, and who has known much both of public honor and of private affliction, who refreshes and consoles himself with the observation and interpretation of life, and surveys the shifting landscape of human experience from the height of a responsive mind and a chastened will. It is the testimony of a spiritually minded man of the world.There are signs enough at the present time that the spirit of the age is dominated by the creed of commercialism and materialism; and there are writers enough who deplore this movement of events and who prophesy social disasters; but something good may be believed of a generation which is so ready to welcomebooks like Professor Hilty’s. It may be true, as has been cleverly said, that many people like to read about the “Simple Life” who have not the least idea of practising it; but the inclination to such literature may be more reasonably traced to a more serious cause. It indicates a survival, beneath the boisterous prosperity of the time, of the instincts of idealism, which still create in great numbers of persons a profound dissatisfaction with the commercial tests of happiness and success. Never was a generation less contented than ours with itself,—less satiated or tranquil in spirit. Increase of wealth has brought with it increase of restlessness; outward prosperity has induced nervous prostration; expansion of opportunity has created expansion of desire. The fundamental problems of sin and sorrow have become all the more baffling and mysterious as the superficial problems of subsistence and livelihood have been solved. At such a time it is not surprising that thoughtful minds turn eagerly to any teacher who speaks with confidence of the realities of idealism, who faces experience with a serene hope, and who points out the “Steps of Life” which lead toward the things which are unseen and eternal. To such readersProfessor Hilty has already brought courage and faith, and they will gladly accept his further guidance.FRANCIS G. PEABODY.Harvard University, December, 1906.
INTRODUCTION
The welcome offered to the translation of Professor Hilty’s “Happiness” amply justifies the translation of a second series of his essays. The same notes of tranquil reflection and keen observation, which have drawn to the earlier volumes many readers both in Europe and America, are here struck again. Professor Hilty is not a preacher, and his essays are not sermons. He is a professor of Constitutional Law, and the studies of life which these volumes represent are products of his leisure hours, wrought out of his meditation and experience. Sin and sorrow, culture and courage, a just judgment of others, a rational optimism, and a simple Christian faith—these are the “Steps of Life” up which this wise teacher mounts, and which he invites thoughtful readers to climb. Laurence Oliphant is reported to have said that what England in the nineteenth century most needed was “a spiritually minded man of the world”—a man, that is to say, who could live in the world without being subdued to that he worked in, a man who could survey and judge his world with the sanity and insight of the spiritual mind. Professor Hilty in a very exceptional degree meets this test.His vocation is among the institutions of the political world. His last professional treatise dealt with the history of the Referendum in mediæval Switzerland. When in these Essays he approaches the problems of other professions, such as those of theology or Biblical criticism, it is as an amateur, who satisfies himself with conclusions which must appear to many minds untenable. It is, however, precisely this unprofessional character of his reflections which gives them their importance. Here is a learned man, whose business is with other studies, and who has known much both of public honor and of private affliction, who refreshes and consoles himself with the observation and interpretation of life, and surveys the shifting landscape of human experience from the height of a responsive mind and a chastened will. It is the testimony of a spiritually minded man of the world.
There are signs enough at the present time that the spirit of the age is dominated by the creed of commercialism and materialism; and there are writers enough who deplore this movement of events and who prophesy social disasters; but something good may be believed of a generation which is so ready to welcomebooks like Professor Hilty’s. It may be true, as has been cleverly said, that many people like to read about the “Simple Life” who have not the least idea of practising it; but the inclination to such literature may be more reasonably traced to a more serious cause. It indicates a survival, beneath the boisterous prosperity of the time, of the instincts of idealism, which still create in great numbers of persons a profound dissatisfaction with the commercial tests of happiness and success. Never was a generation less contented than ours with itself,—less satiated or tranquil in spirit. Increase of wealth has brought with it increase of restlessness; outward prosperity has induced nervous prostration; expansion of opportunity has created expansion of desire. The fundamental problems of sin and sorrow have become all the more baffling and mysterious as the superficial problems of subsistence and livelihood have been solved. At such a time it is not surprising that thoughtful minds turn eagerly to any teacher who speaks with confidence of the realities of idealism, who faces experience with a serene hope, and who points out the “Steps of Life” which lead toward the things which are unseen and eternal. To such readersProfessor Hilty has already brought courage and faith, and they will gladly accept his further guidance.
FRANCIS G. PEABODY.
Harvard University, December, 1906.