A Manual of Moral Philosophy Part 8

But the submission may be querulous and repining; it may be bitter and resentful; it may be stern and rigid. In the last of these types only can there be any semblance of virtue; and this last can be virtuous, only where inevitable events are attributed to Fate, and not to Providence. But if a wise and kind Providence presides over human affairs, its decrees are our directory. The very events which hedge in, mark out our way. The tree which has its upward growth checked spreads its branches; that which is circ.u.mscribed in its lateral expansion attains the greater height. The tendrils of the vine are guided by the very obstacles placed in its way.

Thus, in human life, impa.s.sable barriers in one direction prescribe aims and endeavors in a different direction. The things that we cannot do determine the things that we ought to do. The growth which is impeded must give place to growth of a different type, and to us undoubtedly more wholesome, more congenial with our capacities, more conducive to our true well-being. What seem obstacles may be supports, giving the best possible direction to our active powers, and so training our desires and affections as to lead to higher happiness and more substantial good than could have otherwise been attained.

*Submission*, then, *must be grounded in faith*. The inevitable must be to us the appointment of Omniscient Love. In our childhood the very regimen and discipline that were least to our taste proceeded often from the wisest counsels, and in due time we acquiesced in them as judicious and kind, nor would we in the retrospect have had them otherwise. As little as we then knew what was best for our well-being in the nearer future, we may now know as to what is best for us in a remote future, whether in the present or in a higher state of being. All that remains for us is acquiescence, cheerful and hopeful, in a Wisdom that cannot err, in a Love which can will only the best of which we are capable.

*Submission* is not merely a pa.s.sive, but equally *an active virtue*.

Inevitable events impose imperative duties. In the direction which they indicate there is work for us, of self-culture, of kindness, of charity.

Our characters can be developed, not by yielding, however cheerfully, to what seem misfortunes, but by availing ourselves of the opportunities which they present, in place of those of which they have deprived us. When the way we had first chosen is barred against us, we are not to lie still, but to move onward with added diligence on the way that is thus opened to us. If outward success is arrested and reverted, there is only the more reason for improving the staple of our inward being. If those dearest to us have pa.s.sed beyond the reach of our good offices, there are the more remote that may be brought near, and made ours, by our beneficence. If our earthly life is rendered desolate, the affections, hopes, and aims thus unearthed may by our spiritual industry and thrift be trained heavenward.

All this is included in full submission to the will of the Divine providence; for that will is not our loss, disappointment, or suffering, but our growth, by means of it, in quant.i.ty of mental and spiritual life, in capacity of duty, and in the power of usefulness.

Section III.

Courage.

Patience, as its name imports, is a pa.s.sive quality; Submission blends the pa.s.sive and the active; while *Courage* is preeminently an active virtue.

Patience resigns itself to what must be endured; submission conforms itself to what it gladly would, but cannot reverse; courage resists what it cannot evade, surmounts what it cannot remove, and declines no conflict in which it is honorable to engage. It is obvious that the occasions for these virtues are widely different. Patience has its place where calm and cheerful endurance is the only resource; submission, where there must be voluntary self-adaptation to altered circ.u.mstances; courage, where there is threatened evil which strenuous effort can avert, mitigate, or subdue.

*Courage is a virtue, only when it is a necessity.* There is no merit in seeking danger, in exciting opposition, in courting hostility. Indeed, conduct of this description more frequently proceeds from persons who know themselves cowards and fear to be thought so, than from those who are actually possessed of courage. But there are perils, encounters, enmities, which cannot by any possibility be avoided, and there are others which can be avoided only by the sacrifice of principle, or by the surrender of opportunities for doing good, and which, therefore, to a virtuous man are inevitable.

The *physical courage*, commonly so called, which is prompt and fearless in the presence of imminent danger, or in armed conflict with enemies, may be, or may not be, a virtue. It may proceed from a mind too shallow and frivolous to appreciate the worth of life or the magnitude of the peril that threatens it; it may, as often in the case of veteran soldiers, be the result of discipline without the aid of principle; or it may depend wholly on intense and engrossing excitement, so that he who would march fearlessly at the head of a forlorn hope might quail before a solitary foe. But if one be, in the face of peril, at the same time calm and resolute, self-collected and firm, cautious and bold, fully aware of all that he must encounter and unfalteringly brave in meeting it, such courage is a high moral attainment. Its surest source is trust in the Divine providence,-the fixed conviction that the inevitable cannot be otherwise than of benignant purpose and ministry, though that purpose may be developed and that ministry effected only in a higher state of being. To this faith must be added a strong sense of one's manhood, and of his superiority by virtue of that manhood over all external surroundings and events. We are conscious of a rightful supremacy over the outward world, and deem it unworthy to succ.u.mb, without internecine resistance, to any force by which we may be a.s.sailed, whether that force be a power of nature or a wrongful a.s.sault from a fellow-man. It is the presence of this consciousness that wins our admiration for all genuine heroism, and the absence of it at the moment of need that makes cowardice contemptible.

There is a *moral courage* required in pursuing our legitimate course in life, or in discharging our manifest duty, notwithstanding straitnesses, hindrances, obstacles, to which the feeble and timid could not but yield.

The const.i.tuent elements of this type of courage are precisely the same that are needed in the encounter with physical peril. In both cases it is equally unmanly to succ.u.mb until we have resisted to the utmost. But while physical courage can at best only insure our safety, moral courage contributes essentially to the growth of mind and character; and the larger the opportunity for its exercise, the greater will be the ma.s.s of mind, the quant.i.ty of character, the power of duty and of usefulness.

Straitnesses develop richer resources than they bar. Hindrances nurture hardihood of spirit in the struggle against them, or in the effort to neutralize them. Obstacles, when surmounted, give one a higher position than could be attained on an un.o.bstructed path. The school of difficulty is that in which we have our most efficient training for eminence, whether of capacity or of moral excellence. What are accounted inevitable evils are, when met with courage, only benefits and blessings, inasmuch as they bring into full and vigorous exercise the hardier muscles and sinews of the inner man, to measure strength with them or to rise above them.

Courage is needed in *the profession and maintenance of the true and the right*, when denied, a.s.sailed, or vilipended. Communities never move abreast in the progress of opinion. There are always pioneer minds and consciences; and the men who are in advance of their time must encounter obloquy at least, often persecution, loss, hards.h.i.+p, sometimes legal penalties and disabilities. Under such circ.u.mstances, there are doubtless many more that inwardly acknowledge the unpopular truth or the contested right, than there are who are willing to avow and defend their belief.

Many are frightened into false utterance or deceptive silence. But there must be in such minds a conscious mendacity, fatal to their own self-respect, and in the highest degree detrimental to their moral selfhood. It demands and at the same time nurtures true greatness of soul to withstand the current of general opinion, to defy popular prejudice, to make one's self "of no reputation" in order to preserve his integrity unimpaired. Therefore is it that, in the lapse of time, the very men who have been held in the lowest esteem rise into eminence in the general regard, sometimes while they are still living, oftener with a succeeding generation. Martyrs in their day, they receive the crown of martyrdom when the work which they commenced is consummated. The history of all the great reforms which have been successive eras in the moral progress of Christendom is full of names, once dishonored, now among the foremost of their race.

This type of courage has, in less enlightened ages than our own, been made ill.u.s.trious by *those who have sacrificed life rather than deny or suppress beliefs* which they deemed of vital moment. It can hardly be antic.i.p.ated that the civilized world will recede so far into barbarism as to light again the death-flame of persecution; but it may be questioned whether the chronic sacrifice of all which men most desire in life requires or manifests less of heroism than in earlier times furnished victims for the arena or the stake.

In the moral hierarchy the first rank is probably due to *the courage that inspires and sustains arduous and perilous philanthropic enterprise*. The martyr for opinion suffers or dies rather than stain his soul with the positive guilt of falsehood; while the philanthropist might evade toil and danger without committing any actual sin, or making himself liable to censure or disapproval either from G.o.d or man. In the former case, hards.h.i.+p or danger is rendered inevitable by the felt necessity of self-respect; in the latter, by the urgency of a love for man equal or superior to the love for self. As examples of this highest type of courage, it may suffice to name Howard, whose labors for prison-reform were pursued at the well-known risk and the ultimate cost of his life; Florence Nightingale and the n.o.ble sisterhood inaugurated by her, who have won all the untarnished and undisputed laurels of recent wars on both sides of the Atlantic; and the Christian missionaries to savage tribes and in pestilential climates, who have often gone to their work with as clear a consciousness of deadly peril as if they had been on their way to a battle-field.

Chapter XII.

ORDER; OR DUTIES AS TO OBJECTS UNDER ONE'S OWN CONTROL.

There are many duties that are self-defined and self-limited. Thus, the ordinary acts of justice and many of the charities of daily life include in themselves the designation of time, place, and measure. There are other duties, of equal obligation, which admit of wide variance as to these particulars, but which can be most worthily and efficiently performed only when reference is had to them. There are, also, many acts, in themselves morally indifferent, which acquire their moral character as right or wrong solely from one or more of these particulars. Thus recreations that are innocent and fitting on Sat.u.r.day, may be inconsistent with the proprieties of Sunday; conversation and conduct perfectly befitting the retirement of home may be justly offensive in a place of public concourse; or there may be great guilt in the excessive use of that which used in moderation may be blameless, fitting, and salutary.

Section I.

Time.

*A life-time is none too long for a life's work.* Hence the fitness, and therefore the duty, of a careful economy of time. This economy can be secured only by a systematic arrangement of one's hours of labor, relaxation, and rest, and the a.s.signment to successive portions of the day, week, or year, of their appropriate uses. The amount of time wasted, even by an industrious man who has no method or order in his industry, bears a very large proportion to the time profitably employed. In the needlessly frequent change of occupations, there is at each beginning and ending a loss of the working power, which can neither start on a new career at full speed, nor arrest itself without previous slackening. This waste is made still greater by the suspense or vacillation of purpose of those who not only have no settled plans of industry, but often know not what to do, or are liable, so soon as they are occupied in one way, to feel themselves irresistibly drawn in a different direction.

But in the distribution of time *a man should be the master, not the slave of his system*. The regular work and the actual duty of the moment do not always coincide. Due care for health, the opportunity for earned and needed recreation, the claims of charity, courtesy, and hospitality, in fine, the immediate urgency of any duty selfward, manward, or G.o.dward, should always take precedence of routine-work however wisely planned.

Obstinate adherence to system may lead to more and greater criminal omissions of duty than would be incurred, even in the spasmodic industry which takes its impulse from the pa.s.sing moment. It must be remembered that timeliness is the essential element of right and obligation in many things that ought to be done, especially in all forms of charity, alike in great services, and in those lesser amenities and kindnesses which contribute so largely to the charm of society and the happiness of domestic life. There are many good offices which, performed too late, were better left undone,-courtesies which, postponed, are incivilities,-attentions which, out of season, are needless and wearisome.

*Every day, every waking hour has its own duty*, either its special work, or its due portion of one's normal life-work. Procrastination is, therefore, as unwise as it is immoral, or rather, it is immoral because it is unwise and unfitting. The morrow has its own appropriate duties; and if to-day's work be thrown into it, the ma.s.sing of two days' good work into one exceeds ordinary ability. The consequence is, either that both days'

works are imperfectly performed, or that part of what fitly belongs to the morrow is pushed farther on, and the derangement of duty made chronic.

Thus there are persons who are always in arrears with their engagements and occupations,-in chase, as it were, after duties which they never lose from sight, and never overtake.

*Hardly less grave,* though less common, *is the error of those who antic.i.p.ate duty*, and do to-day what they ought to do to-morrow. The work thus antic.i.p.ated may be superseded, or may be performed under better auspices and with fewer hindrances in its own time; while it can hardly fail to interfere injuriously with the fit employment or due relaxation of the pa.s.sing day. Moreover, the habit of thus performing work before its time at once betokens and intensifies an uneasy, self-distrusting frame of mind, unfavorable to vigorous effort, and still more so to the quiet enjoyment of needed rest and recreation. There are those, who are perpetually haunted by the forecast shadows, not only of fixed, but of contingent obligations and duties,-shadows generally larger than the substance, and often wholly dest.i.tute of substance.

*Punctuality*(17) denotes the most scrupulous precision as to time,-exactness to a moment in the observance of all times that can be designated or agreed upon. In matters with which we alone are concerned, we undoubtedly have of right, and may often very fittingly exercise, the dispensing power. Thus, in the arrangement of our own pursuits, the clock may measure and direct our industry, without binding us by its stroke. It is often of more consequence that we finish what is almost done, than that we change our work because the usual hour for a change has arrived. But where others are concerned, rigid punctuality is an imperative duty. A fixed time for an a.s.sembly, a meeting of a committee or board of trust, or a business interview, is a virtual contract into which each person concerned has entered with every other, and the strict rules that apply to contracts of all kinds are applicable here. Failure in punctuality is dishonesty. It involves the theft of time, which to some men is money's worth, to others is worth more than money. It ought not to surprise us if one wantonly or habitually negligent in this matter should prove himself oblivious of other and even more imperative obligations; for the dullness of conscience and the obscure sense of right, indicated by the frequent breach of virtual contracts as to time, betoken a character too feeble to maintain its integrity against any strong temptation.

Section II.

Place.

The trite maxim, *A place for everything, and everything in its place*, so commends itself to the sense of fitness, as hardly to need exposition or enforcement; yet while no maxim is more generally admitted, scarce any is so frequently violated in practice. In duty, the elements of time and place are intimately blended. Disorder in place generates derangement in time. The object which is out of place can be found only by the waste of time; and the most faithful industry loses a large part of its value when its materials are wanting where they ought to be, and must be sought where they ought not to be.

Apart from considerations of utility, order is an aesthetic duty. It is needed to satisfy the sense of beauty. Its violation offends the eye, insults the taste. The aesthetic nature craves and claims culture. It has abundant provision made for it in external nature; but so large a part of life must be pa.s.sed within doors, at least in a climate like ours, that it is starved and dwarfed, if there be not in interior arrangements some faint semblance of the symmetry and harmony of the universe. To effect this needs neither abundance nor costliness of material. A French man or woman will charm the eye at a cost which in England would be represented by bare and squalid poverty. A Parisian shop-window will make with a few francs' worth of goods an exhibition of artistical beauty which might challenge the most fastidious criticism. These effects are produced solely by prime reference to fitness of place,-to orderly arrangement,-to a symmetry which all can understand, and which any one might copy. Our very capacity of receiving gratification from this source is the measure of our duty in this regard. If with the simplest materials we can give pleasure to the soul through the eye by merely a.s.signing its fit place to every object, order is among the plainest dictates of beneficence.

*Order is essential to domestic comfort and well-being*, and thus to all the virtues which have their earliest and surest nurture in domestic life.

There are homes at once affluent and joyless, groaning with needless waste and barren of needed comfort, in which the idea of repose seems as irrelevant as Solomon's figure of lying down on the top of a mast, and all from a pervading spirit of disorder. In such dwellings there is no love of home. The common house is a mere lodging and feeding place. Society is sought elsewhere, pleasure elsewhere; and for the young and easily impressible there is the strongest inducement to those modes of dissipation in which vice conceals its grossness behind fair exteriors and under attractive forms. On the other hand, the well-ordered house affords to its inmates the repose, comfort, and enjoyment which they crave and need, and for those whose characters are in the process of formation may neutralize allurements to evil which might else be irresistible.

Section III.

Measure.

There are many objects, as to which *the question of duty is a question of more or less*. To this cla.s.s belong not only food and drink, but all forms of luxury, indulgence, recreation, and amus.e.m.e.nt. In all these the choice lies between excess, abstinence, and temperance. The tendency to excess is intensely strong, when not restrained by prudence or principle. This tendency is by no means confined to the appet.i.te for intoxicating liquors, though modern usage has restricted to excess in this particular the term _intemperance_, which properly bears a much more extended signification.

There is reason to believe that there is fully as much intemperance in food as in drink, and with at least equally ruinous consequences as to capacity, character, health, and life,-with this difference only, that gluttony stupefies and stultifies, while drunkenness maddens; and that the glutton is merely a dead weight on the community, while the drunkard is an active instrument of annoyance and peril. There are probably fewer who sink into an absolutely beastly condition by intemperance in food than by intemperance in drink; but of persons who do not expose themselves to open scandal, those whose brains are muddled, whose sensibilities are coa.r.s.ened, and whose working power is impaired by over-eating, are more numerous than those in whom similar effects are produced by over-free indulgence in intoxicating drinks. Intemperance in amus.e.m.e.nts, also, is not uncommon, and would undoubtedly be more prevalent than it is, were not the inevitable necessity of labor imposed on most persons from a very early period. In this matter the limit between temperance and excess is aptly fixed by the term _recreation_, as applied to all the gay and festive portions of life. _Re-creation_ is making over, that is, replacing the waste of tissue, brain-power, and physical and mental energy occasioned by hard work. Temperance permits the most generous indulgence of sport, mirth, and gayety that can be claimed as needful or conducive to this essential use, but excludes all beyond this measure.

*Abstinence* from all forms of luxury and recreation, and from food and drink beyond the lowest demands of subsistence, has, under various cultures, been regarded as a duty, as an appropriate penance for sin, as a means of spiritual growth, as a token of advanced excellence. This notion had its origin in the dualistic philosophy or theology of the East. It was believed that the sovereignty of the universe was divided between the semi-omnipotent principles of good and evil, and that the earth and the human body were created by the evil principle,-by Satan or his a.n.a.logue.