Part 12

Were I to seek an epic for its power to influence, I would go to real history and choose the life of William the Silent. For thirty years this Prince of Orange stood for civil and religious liberty in the Netherlands, in an age when men little understood the meaning of liberty. He sacrificed wealth and honors for his country. In spite of reverses, of the cowardice and disloyalty of his followers, of ignorance of the very motives of his action, he persevered. Throughout the long struggle he was hopeful, cheerful, and courageous. When the celebrated ban appeared, barring him from food, water, fire, shelter, and human companionship, setting a price on his head, in reply he painted in vivid colors a terrible picture of the oppressors of his people and held it up to the view of the civilized world. The motives which sustained him were faith in God, a strong sense of duty, and a deep feeling of patriotism. His biographer says: “As long as he lived he was the guiding-star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.”

Heine, the poet and philosopher, was dying in an obscure attic in Paris. He was wasted to a skeleton and was enduring the extremity of human suffering. He could see only dimly, as through a screen. As he himself said, there was nothing left of him except his voice. Under these almost impossible conditions, he was still laboriously writing, that he might leave a competence to his wife. A friend of his earlier days visited him, and through a long conversation his words sparkled with wit, humor, poetry, and philosophy. Surely the active spirit is more than the body! There was a feudal knight who went about saying to all despondent wayfarers, “Courage, friend; the devil is dead!” and he always spoke with such cheerful confidence that his listeners accepted the announcement as good news, and gained fresh hope.

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In this Philosophy of Work is there no place for romance? Shall there be no thrilling adventure, nothing but dull duty and drudgery? Shall we have only dead monotony—no color, light, or shadow? Shall Carlyle’s “splendors high as Heaven” and “terrors deep as Hell” no longer give a zest to life? Stevenson’s “Lantern Bearers” has an answer for this natural and ever recurrent question. In a little village in England, along the sands by the sea, some schoolboys were accustomed to spend their autumn holidays. At the end of the season, when the September nights were black, the boys would purchase tin bull’s-eye lanterns. These they wore buckled to their waists and concealed under topcoats. In the cold and darkness of the night, in the wind and under the rain, they would gather in a hollow of the lonely sand drifts, and, disclosing their lanterns, would engage in inconsequential talk. In his words: “The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night; the slide shut, the topcoat buttoned; not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public: a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool’s heart, to know that you had a bull’s-eye at your belt, and to exult and sing over the knowledge.... Justice is not done to the versatility and the unplumbed childishness of man’s imagination. His life from without may seem but a rude mound of mud; there will be some golden chamber at the heart of it, in which he dwells delighted; and for as dark as his pathway seems to the observer, he will have some kind of a bull’s-eye at his belt.... The ground of a man’s joy is often hard to hit. The observer (poor soul, with his documents!) is all abroad. For to look at the man is but to court deception. We shall see the trunk from which he draws his nourishment; but he himself is above and abroad in the green dome of foliage, hummed through by winds and nested in by nightingales. And the true realism were that of the poets, to climb up after him like a squirrel, and catch some glimpse of the heaven for which he lives. And the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all. In the joy of the actors lies the sense of any action, that is the explanation, that the excuse. To one who has not the secret of the lanterns, the scene upon the links is meaningless. And hence the haunting and truly spectral unreality of realistic books.” This quotation needs no excuse. The mould of human nature from which this copy was taken is forever broken, and can never be reproduced.

To be a lantern-bearer on the lonely heath, to rejoice in work and struggle—this is the romance, real, attainable, and apt for the world as it is and for the work we must do. If irrational pastime, attended with endurance, may be a joy, surely rational effort toward some desired result may have its poetry. Sacrifice and heroism are found in humble homes; commonplace labor has its dangers and its victories; and many a man at his work, in knowledge of the light concealed, the interest he makes of his vocation, his romance, exults and sings.

The world is as we regard it. Many look at the world as Doctor Holmes’ squint-brained member of the tea-table views the plant kingdom. He makes the underground, downward-probing life of the tree the real life. The spreading roots are a great octopus, searching beneath instinctively for food, while the branches and leaves are mere terminal appendages swaying in the air. It is a horrible conception, and we are pained at standing on our heads. The tree roots itself to the earth and draws its nourishment therefrom that it may spring heavenward, and bear rich fruit and be a thing of beauty, a lesson and a promise. Man is rooted to the earth, but his real life springs into the free air and bathes in the glad sunlight.

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The purpose of our labor determines its qualities of truth and healthfulness. Satisfaction must be sought by employing our faculties in the useful arts and in the search for truth. Perfection of self is the ultimate good for each individual, but this is attained, not in isolation, but in social life with its mutual obligations. The lesson of civil and religious liberty, taught by the great reformers, has been only partly learned. Individualism, rightly understood, is the true political doctrine, but the selfishness of individual freedom is the first quality to develop. Concerning great public questions often the attitude is as expressed in Balzac’s words: “What is that to me? Each for himself! Let each man mind his own business!” Democracy is the way of social and political progress, but we have not yet reached the height of clear vision. We are struggling up the difficult and dangerous path, looking hopefully upward, thinking we see the summit, only to find at each stage that the ultimate heights are still beyond. When kings are dethroned, the hope of democracy is to enthrone public conscience. Here is a picture of a condition occasionally possible in any state of America to-day. We will say there is some great public interest, not a party problem, involving the financial prosperity and the essential welfare of the state, and affecting its credit, honor, and reputation abroad. And—with some noble exceptions—perhaps not a minister in his pulpit, not an orator on his platform, not a newspaper with its great opportunity for enlightening the people and exerting influence, not an educator, not a college graduate, not a high-school graduate, not a business man, not a politician arises and says: Here is a common good imperilled, and I for one will give of my time, my energy, and, if need be, according to my ability, of my money in its support. So long as such a state of apathy concerning public questions may exist, there is something still to be desired for the ideals of democracy and for our methods of education.

The Platonic philosophy has largely inspired educational work, and must still furnish its best ideals. But emphasizing the worth of the individual to himself has created a false conception of social obligation. Culture for culture’s sake has been the maxim, but I have come to believe that a culture which does not in some way reach out to benefit others is not of much value to the individual himself. Some one has aptly illustrated this view: probably the drone in the bee-hive, when he is about to be destroyed, would say, “I would like to live for life’s sake, and would like to buzz a while longer for buzz’s sake.”

I would see young men and women go out into the world with a true democratic spirit, with a ready sympathy for all classes of people, and with a helpful attitude toward all problems of state and society. The work of any public institution of higher learning is a failure in so far as its graduates fail to honor the state’s claim on them as citizens. The great principle of evolution is the struggle for life; there is another equally important principle, namely, the struggle for the life of others. Altruism, dimly disclosed away down on the scale of being, finally shines forth in the family and home in all of those social sentiments that make human character beautiful and noble. Society is the mirror in which each one sees himself reflected, by which each attains self-consciousness, and becomes a human being. From coöperation spring industries, commerce, science, literature, art—all that makes life worth living. If the individual owes everything to society, he should be willing in some small ways to repay part of the debt.

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The great Bismarck, that man of iron and blood, not given to sentimentality, in fireside conversation repeatedly proclaimed that during his long and arduous struggle for the unification of Germany he was sustained by a sense of duty and faith in God. “If I did not believe in a Divine Providence which has ordained this German nation to something good and great, I would at once give up my trade as a statesman. If I had not the wonderful basis of religion, I should have turned my back to the whole court.” Some one has said that the essence of pessimism is disbelief in God and man. Fear is a kind of atheism. Heine once said: “God was always the beginning and end of my thought. When I hear His existence questioned I feel a ghastly forlornness in a mad world.” The inspiration of labor is faith in God, faith in man, faith in the moral order of the world, faith in progress. The religious man should have a sane view of life, should have convictions, and the courage of his convictions. He should believe that his work all counts toward some great purpose.

The impulse to reverence and prayer is an essential fact, as real as the inborn tendency to physical and mental action. Its development is necessary to the complete man. The religious nature obeys the great law of power through effort, and increases strength by use. He who by scientific analysis comes to doubt the value of his ethical feeling has not learned the essential truth of philosophy, namely, that a thing’s origin must not be mistaken for its character.

Some tendencies of the best scientific thought of to-day, seen here and there, confirm this view of man’s nature. Here are some fragments, expressed, not literally, but in substance: It is the business of science to analyze the entire content of human consciousness into atomic sensations, but there its work ends. The man of history, of freedom and responsibility, whose deeds we approve or disapprove, is the real man, a being of transcendent worth, aspiring toward perfect ideals; and the teacher must carry this conception of the child’s nature into the work of education. It is a scientific fact that prayer is for the health of the soul. It is useless to theorize on the subject—men pray because it is their nature; they can not help it. Even if prayer does not change the will of God, at least it does change the will of man, which may be the object of prayer. The Christian experience shows that prayer is a communion of man’s spirit with God, the Spirit. John Fiske affirms the reality of religion. He argues that the progress of life has been achieved through adjustment to external realities; that the religious idea has played a dominant part in history; that all the analogies of evolution show that man’s religious nature cannot be an adjustment to an external non-reality. He says: “Of all the implications of the doctrine of evolution with regard to Man, I believe the very deepest and strongest to be that which asserts the Everlasting Reality of Religion.”

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In this message to students we have emphasized a particular ideal, namely, normal activity, because one’s own effort and experience count most for growth and power.

“It was better youth Should strive, through acts uncouth, Toward making, than repose on aught found made.”

Students are at an age when to them the roses nod and the stars seem to wink. Their mental landscape is filled with budding flowers, singing birds, and rosy dawns. Every one has a right to consider his own perfection and enjoyment, his own emotions. One is better for his healthful recreations, his aspirations and ideals, his perceptions of beauty and his divine communings—the sweetness and light of the soul. We can only ask that the main purpose and trend of life may be laborious and useful, even strenuous and successful.

Lowell wrote of the pioneers who settled New England that they were men

“Who pitched a state as other men pitch tents, And led the march of time to great events.”

The pioneers of this Commonwealth were men who here pitched a state as other men pitch tents, and are leading the march of time to great events. The age, America, offer great opportunities to educated young men and women. Use them with courage. King Henry IV. of France once gained a great victory at Arques. After the battle, as he was leading his troops toward Paris, he met one of his generals coming up late with a detachment of the army, and thus greeted him, “Go hang yourself, brave Crillon! We fought at Arques and you were not there,” as though the greatest privilege in life were an opportunity to contend and win for one’s self a victory.

A few years ago I went to Ayr, the birthplace of Burns. I visited the poet’s cottage, walked by the Alloway Kirk where Tam o’ Shanter beheld the witch dance, crossed the Auld Brig and wandered by the banks and braes o’ bonny Doon—and it is a beautiful stream. I found myself repeating lines from “Tam o’ Shanter,” “Bonny Doon,” “Scots Wha Hae wi’ Wallace Bled,” and from some of the sweeter and nobler songs of Burns. And I thought of the mission of the poet. The scenery in and about Ayr is beautiful, but there is many another region equally attractive. The people with whom Burns dwelt, his neighbors and friends, were commonplace men and women, knowing the hardships, the drudgery, the pettiness of life. And yet he so sang of these scenes and these people, so touched every chord of the human heart, that annually thirty thousand travellers visit Ayr to pay their homage at the poet’s shrine. The poetic view of life is the right one. The poet sees the reality in the commonplace. Our surroundings are filled with wonderful and varied beauty when we open our eyes to the truth. Our friends and companions are splendid men and women when we see them at their worth. For happiness as well as success add poetry to heroism.

“The Inscrutable who set this orb awhirl Gave power to strength that effort might attain; Gave power to wit that knowledge might direct; And so with penalties, incentives, gains, Limits, and compensations intricate, He dowered this earth, that man should never rest Save as his Maker’s will be carried out.

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There is no easy, unearned joy on earth Save what God gives—the lustiness of youth, And love’s dear pangs. All other joys we gain By striving, and so qualified we are That effort’s zest our need as much consoles As effort’s gain. Both issues are our due.

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Better when work is past Back into dust dissolve and help a seed Climb upward, than with strength still full Deny to God His claim and thwart His wish.”

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FAITH.

Mark Twain quotes a schoolboy as saying: “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.” This definition is turned from humor into seriousness by some modern thinkers when they charge immorality against all whose beliefs are not scientifically established on sufficient evidence. They look upon what they consider unwarranted beliefs as a species of lying to one’s self, demoralizing to intellect and character. If no element of faith may anywhere be tolerated, these same thinkers should reëxamine their own foundations. The only thorough agnostic in history or literature, agnostic even toward his own agnosticism, is Charles Kingsley’s Raphael Aben-Ezra. Let us listen to him. “Here am I, at last! fairly and safely landed at the very bottom of the bottomless.... No man, angel or demon can this day cast it in my teeth that I am weak enough to believe or disbelieve any phenomenon or theory in or concerning heaven or earth; or even that any such heaven, earth, phenomena or theories exist—or otherwise.”

In a last analysis our very foundation principles rest on a ground of faith, and a clear knowledge of this fact may make us more humble in the presence of other claims on our belief. Whenever the adventurous philosophic mind gazes over the dizzy edge at the “bottomless,” it draws back and gains a firm footing on the reality of conscious ideas. To abandon this is annihilation.

Years ago an old friend of mine, very worthy, but somewhat self-opinioned and truculent, in a discussion on religious thought exclaimed: “What! believe in anything I can’t see, touch, hear, smell, taste? No, sir!” He represented the uneducated instinctive belief in the reality of the outer world as revealed through the senses; and he would have violently affirmed the reliability of the senses and the existence of material things. But philosophy shows these also to be of faith.

Had he been asked whether he had a knowledge of space and time and of certain indisputable facts concerning them, and whether he could see or hear these entities and intuitive truths, he would have paused to think. The axioms of mathematics would have been a veritable Socratic poser to him, and he would have withdrawn from his position—would have acknowledged some truths as more certain, by the nature and need of the mind, than the existence of matter.

The modern scientist for practical purposes postulates the existence of conscious ideas, of the outer material world, of space and time. He accepts axiomatic truths. He goes farther; he postulates the uniformity of nature, and the validity of his reasoning processes. He discovers natural laws, and propounds theories concerning them. He investigates the physical correlates of mental processes. He has his favorite hypotheses concerning phenomena that defy his powers of analysis. He shows the process of the world as a whole to be evolution.

So far we have no controversy and should have none, did not some eminent investigators in the field of natural science claim to have covered the entire realm of legitimate inquiry, and deny the right to raise further questions or entertain beliefs, however strongly they may be prompted by our very constitution, concerning the origin and end of things, the meaning of the world, and man’s place in it. To the well-rounded nature, faith is not necessarily limited to the physical world, and the credulity implied in unwarranted denial is at least as unscientific as positive faith.

Human nature rebels against conclusions wholly discordant with its best instincts, and, in the light of the most recent data and speculation, begins anew a discussion as old as philosophy. The subject is all the more important, because the uneducated mind, misled by superficial catch phrases of materialism, fails to know the reverent spirit of true science.

Here is an illustration relating to the general theme. A prominent biologist puts this statement before the reading public: “There is no _ego_ except that which arises from the coördination of the nerve cells.” I might take the contrary of the proposition and reply: “There is an _ego_ not adequately described by your ‘colonial consciousness’ theory.” Regarding each position as dogmatic, perhaps mine is as good as the biologist’s. As to evidence, he founds his belief on the general fact of evolution and specifically upon the functions, partly known, partly conjectured, of nerve cells in the brain. He has no knowledge that a unit-being called the _ego_ does not exist. His is the faith of denial of something which from his standpoint he can neither prove nor disprove. I also accept the facts of evolution and of the mechanism of the brain. I base my belief in the _ego_ on certain views of other biologists, and on data of consciousness, morality, and religion, and the insight of all subjective philosophy. My faith is one of assent to something not admitting demonstrative proof. Have I sufficient reason for my faith in passing beyond the inductions of material science?

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We present some latest views of eminent biologists. While evolution must be accepted as a fact, there is great uncertainty as to the factors that produce changes in the organic world. To-day there is small evidence that variations are produced by direct influence of environment. In the germ is the “whole machinery and the mystery of heredity.” Since the microscope fails to reveal the causes, either of normal development or of variations, some are forced to accept, as the simplest and most rational hypothesis, the existence of a psychic principle in the germ. The facts appear to support the doctrine of purpose in evolution. So earnest and able a thinker as Professor LeConte frankly affirms: “With the appearance of Man another factor was introduced, namely, _conscious coöperation in his own evolution, striving to attain an ideal_.”

Professor Muensterberg is of high authority in experimental psychology and besides has a keen philosophic mind. His paper entitled “Psychology and the Real Life” is instructive and significant. He shows that it is the business of psychology to analyze the ideas and emotions, the whole content of consciousness, into sensations, to investigate the whole psychological mechanism, but that the primary reality is not a possible object of psychology and natural science. By his view it takes an act of free will to declare the will unfree; there can be no science, thought, or doubt that is not the child of duties; even skeptical denial demands to be regarded as absolute truth; there is a truth, a beauty, a morality independent of psychological conditions; psychology is the last word of a materialistic century, it may become the introductory word of an idealistic century. His views are maintained with force and power of conviction.

But these references are only incidental to the purpose of this discussion. They may serve to show (1) that science has no real proof against the dictum, “Evolution is God’s way of doing things;” (2) that on the contrary it may support the spiritual view of the world; (3) that there are grounds of faith with which science properly has no business.

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