Part 9 (1/2)
Hence it was inferred that the evil principle could be abjured and defied, and the good principle propitiated in no way so effectually as by renouncing the world and mortifying the body. Fasting, as a religious observance, originated in this belief. It was imported from the East. The Hebrew fasts were not established by Moses; they were evidently borrowed from Babylon, and seem to have been regarded with no favor by the prophets. The Founder of Christianity prescribed no fast, nor have we any reason to believe that his immediate disciples regarded abstinence as a duty. Christian asceticism in all its forms is, like the Jewish fasts, of Oriental origin, and had its first developments in close connection with those hybrids of Christianity and Oriental philosophy of which the dualism already mentioned forms a prominent feature.
With regard to all objects of appet.i.te, desire, and enjoyment, *temperance* is evidently fitting, and therefore a duty, unless there be specific reasons for abstinence. Temperance demands and implies moral activity. In the temperate man the appet.i.tes, desires, and tastes have their continued existence, and need vigilant and wise control, so that he has always work to do, a warfare to wage; and as conflict with the elements gives vigor to the body, so does conflict with the body add strength continually to the moral nature. The ascetic may have a hard struggle at the outset; but his aim is to extirpate his imagined enemies in the bodily affections, and when these are completely mortified, or put to death, there remains no more for him to do, and moral idleness and lethargy ensue. Simon Stylites, who spent thirty-seven years on pillars of different heights, had probably stupefied his moral faculties and sensibilities as effectually as he had crushed to death the appet.i.tes and cravings of the body. It must not be forgotten that the body no less than the soul is of G.o.d's building, and that in his purpose all the powers and capacities of the body are good in their place and uses, and therefore to be controlled and governed, not destroyed or suppressed. The mediaeval saint, feeding on the offal of the streets, was unwittingly committing sacrilege, by degrading and imbruting an appet.i.te for which G.o.d had provided decent and wholesome nutriment.
Temperance is better than abstinence, also, because *the moderate use of the objects of desire is a source of refining and elevating influences*.
It is not without meaning that, in common speech, the possession or loss of the senses is made synonymous with mental sanity or derangement. By the temperate gratification of the senses the mind is sustained in its freshness, vigor, and serenity; while when they are perverted by excess, impaired by age, or deadened by disease, in that same proportion the mental powers are distracted, enfeebled, or benumbed. Taste, the faculty through which we become conversant with the whole realm of beauty, and than which devotion has no more efficient auxiliary, derives its name from what the ascetic deems the lowest animal enjoyment, which, however, has its range of the very highest ministries. The table is the altar of home-love and of hospitality, and there are cl.u.s.tered around it unnumbered courtesies, kindnesses, and charities that make a large part of the charm and joy of life. So far is thoughtfulness for its graceful and generous service from indicating a low type of character, that there is hardly any surer index of refinement and elegant culture than is furnished by the family meal. Similar remarks apply to the entire range of pleasurable objects and experiences. While there are none of them in which excess is safe, they all, when enjoyed in moderation, stimulate the mental powers, develop and train the aesthetic faculty, and multiply beneficial relations alike with nature and with society.
*Temperance*, rather than abstinence, *is needed on grounds connected with social economy*. Labor for the mere necessaries of life occupies hardly a t.i.the of human industry. A nation of ascetics would be a nation of idlers.
It is the demand for objects of enjoyment, taste, luxury, that floats s.h.i.+ps, dams rivers, stimulates invention, feeds prosperity, and creates the wealth of nations. It is only excess and extravagance that sustain and aggravate social inequalities, wrongs, wants, and burdens; while moderate, yet generous use oils the springs and speeds the wheels of universal industry, progress, comfort, and happiness.
But there are *cases in which abstinence*, rather than temperance, *is a duty*.
*Past excess* may render temperance hardly possible. From the derangement consequent upon excess, an appet.i.te may lose the capacity of healthy exercise. In such a case, as we would amputate a diseased and useless limb, we should suppress the appet.i.te which we can no longer control.
Physiological researches have shown that the excessive use of intoxicating drinks, when long continued, produces an organic condition, in which the slightest indulgence is liable to excite a craving so intense as to transcend the control of the will.
*Inherited proclivities* may, in like manner, render temperance so difficult as to make abstinence a duty. It is conceivable that a nation or a community may, by the prevalence of excess in past generations, be characterized by so strong a tendency to intemperance as to render general abstinence a prerequisite to general temperance.
Abstinence may also become a duty, if to many around us our *example* in what we may enjoy innocently would be ensnaring and perilous. The recreation, harmless in itself, which by long abuse has become a source of corruption, it may be our duty to forego. The indulgence, safe for us, which would be unsafe for our a.s.sociates, it may be inc.u.mbent on us to resign. The food, the drink which would make our table a snare to our guests, we may be bound to refrain from, though for ourselves there be in it no latent evil or lurking danger. This, however, is a matter in which each person must determine his duty for himself alone, and in which no one is authorized to legislate for others. It may seem to a conscientious man a worthy enterprise to vindicate and rescue from its evil a.s.sociations an amus.e.m.e.nt or indulgence in itself not only harmless, but salutary; and there may be an equally strong sense of right on both sides of a question of social morality falling under this head. The joyous side of life must be maintained. The young, sanguine, and happy will at all events have recreations, games, festivities, and of these there is not a single element, material, or feature that has not been abused, perverted, or invested with a.s.sociations offensive to a pure moral taste. To disown and oppose them all in the name of virtue, is to prescribe a degree of abstinence which can have the a.s.sent of those only who have outlived the capacity of enjoyment. The more judicious course is to favor, or at least to tolerate such modes of indulgence as may for the present be the least liable to abuse, or such as may in prospect be the safest in their moral influence, and by sanctioning these to render more emphatic and efficient the disapproval and rejection of such as are intrinsically wrong and evil.
Section IV.
Manners.
The ancients had but one word for *manners and morals*. It might be well if the same were the case with us,-yet with this essential difference, that while they degraded morals to the level of manners, a higher culture would lead us to raise manners to the level of morals. The main characteristics of good manners are comprised in the three preceding Sections. They are the observance, in one's demeanor and conduct toward others, of the fitnesses of time and place, and of the due and graceful mean between overwrought, extravagant, or fantastic manifestations of regard on the one hand, and coldness, superciliousness, or indifference on the other. Courtesies, like more substantial kindnesses, are neutralized by delay, and, when slow, seem forced and reluctant. Attentions, which in their place are gratifying, may, if misplaced, occasion only mortification and embarra.s.sment, as when civilities befitting interior home-life are rehea.r.s.ed for the public eye and ear. Nor is there any department of conduct in which excess or deficiency is more painfully felt,-a redundance of compliments and a.s.siduities tending to silence and abash the recipient, while their undue scanting inflicts a keen sense of slight, neglect, and injury.
*Politeness* must, indeed, in order even to appear genuine, be the expression of sincere kindness. There is no pretence so difficult to maintain as the false show of genial and benevolent feeling. The mask cannot be so fitted to the face as not to betray its seams and sutures.
Yet kindness is not of itself politeness. Its spontaneous expressions may be rude and awkward; or they may take forms not readily understood and appreciated. There are conventional modes of polite demeanor no less than of courteous speech. These modes may have no intrinsic fitness, yet they acquire a fitness from their long and general use; and while the mere repet.i.tion of stereotyped formulas whether in word or deportment is justly offensive, he who would have his politeness recognized and enjoyed must beware lest he depart too widely from the established sign-language of society. There is a _brusquerie_ often underlying hearty kindness and good fellows.h.i.+p, which at the outset pains, wounds, and repels those brought within its sphere, and which the most intimate friends endure and excuse rather than approve.
*Politeness is to be regarded as an indispensable duty.* It is believed that from its neglect or violation more discomfort ensues than from any other single cause, and in some circles and conditions of society more than from all other causes combined. There are neighborhoods and communities that are seldom disturbed by grave offences against the criminal law, but none which can insure itself against the affronts, enmities, wounded sensibilities, rankling grievances, occasioned by incivility and rudeness. Moreover, there are persons entirely free from vice, perhaps ostentatious in the qualities which are the opposites of vices, and not deficient in charitable labors and gifts, who cultivate discourtesy, are acrid or bitter in their very deeds of charity, and carry into every society a certain porcupine selfhood, which makes their mere presence annoying and baneful. Such persons, besides the suffering they inflict on individuals, are of unspeakable injury to their respective circles or communities, by making their very virtues unlovely, and piety, if they profess it, hateful. On the other hand, there is no truer benefactor to society-if the creation of happiness be the measure of benefit-than the genuine gentleman or gentlewoman, who adds grace to virtue, politeness to kindness; who under the guidance of a sincere fellow-feeling, studies the fitnesses of speech and manner, in civility and courtesy endeavors to render to all their due, and in the least details that can affect another's happiness, does carefully and conscientiously all that the most fastidious sensibility could claim or desire.
Section V.
Government.
*The establishment and preservation of order is the prime and essential function of government*; the prevention and punishment of crime, its secondary, incidental, perhaps even temporary use. In a perfect state of society, government would still be necessary; for it would be only by the observance of common and mutual designations of time, place, and measure, that each individual member of society could enjoy the largest liberty and the fullest revenue from objects of desire, compatible with the just claims and rights of others. These benefits can, under no conceivable condition in which finite beings can be placed, be secured except by system, under a central administration, and with the submission of individual wills and judgments to const.i.tuted and established authority. A bad government, then, is better than none; for a bad government can exist only by doing a part of its appropriate work, while in a state of anarchy the whole of that work is left undone and unattempted.
*Obedience to government is*, then, fitting, and therefore a duty, independently of all considerations as to the wisdom, or even the justice of its decrees or statutes. If they are unwise, they yet are rules to which the community can conform itself, and by which its members can make their plans and govern their expectations, while lawlessness is the negation alike of guidance for the present and of confidence in the future. If they are unjust, they yet do less wrong and to fewer persons, than would be done by individual and sporadic attempts to evade or neutralize them. Nay, unwise and inequitable laws, to which the habits and the industrial relations of a people have adjusted themselves, are to be preferred to vacillating legislation, though in a generally right direction. Laws that affect important interests should be improved only with reference to the virtual pledges made by previous legislation, and so as to guard the interests involved against the injurious effects of new and revolutionary measures. The tariff regulations of our own country will ill.u.s.trate the bearing of this principle. It forms no part of our present plan to discuss the mooted questions of free trade and protection. But in the confession of even extreme partisans on either side, the capital and industry of our people could never have suffered so much from any one tariff of duties, however injudicious, as they suffered for a series of years from sudden changes of policy, by which investments that had been invited by the legislation of one Congress were made fruitless by the action of the next, and manufactures stimulated into rapid growth by high protective duties, were arrested and often ruined by their sudden repeal.
The stability of laws is obviously a higher good than their conformity to the theoretical views of the more enlightened citizens. Except under a despotism, laws are virtually an expression of the opinion or will of the majority; and laws which by any combination of favoring circ.u.mstances are enacted in advance of the general opinion, are always liable to speedy repeal, with a double series of the injurious consequences which can hardly fail to ensue immediately on any change.
But are there no *limits to obedience*? Undoubtedly there are. A bad law is to be obeyed for the sake of order; an immoral law is to be disobeyed for the sake of the individual conscience; and of the moral character of a particular law, or of action under it, the individual conscience is the only legitimate judge. Where the law of the land and absolute right are at variance, the citizen is bound, not only to withhold obedience, but to avow his belief, and to give it full expression in every legitimate form and way, by voice and pen, by private influence and through the ballot-box. But in the interest of the public order, it is his duty to confine his opposition to legal and const.i.tutional methods, to refrain from factious and seditious resistance, to avoid, if possible, the emergency in which disobedience would become his duty, and in case his conscience constrains him to disobedience, still to show his respect for the majesty of law by quietly submitting to its penalty. The still recent history of our country furnishes a case in point. By the Fugitive-Slave Law-which the Divine providence, indeed, repealed without waiting for the action of Congress-the private citizen who gave shelter, sustenance, or comfort to a fugitive slave; who, knowing his hiding-place, omitted to divulge it, or who, when called upon to a.s.sist in arresting him, refused his aid, was made liable to a heavy fine and a long imprisonment. Now as to this law, it was obviously the duty of a citizen who regarded the slave as ent.i.tled to the rights of a man, to seek its repeal by all const.i.tutional methods within his power. It was equally his duty to refrain from all violent interference with the functionaries charged with its execution, and to avoid, if possible, all collision with the government. But if, without his seeking, a fugitive slave had been cast upon his humane offices, the question then would have arisen whether he should obey G.o.d or man; and to this question he could have had but one answer. Yet his obedience to G.o.d would have lacked its crowning grace, if he had not meekly yielded to the penalty for his disobedience to the law of the land. It was by this course that the primitive Christians attested their loyalty at once to G.o.d and to ”the powers that be,” which were ”ordained of G.o.d.” They refused obedience to the civil authorities in matters in which their religious duty was compromised; but they neither resisted nor evaded the penalty for their disobedience. Similar was the course of the Quakers in England and America almost down to our own time.
They were quiet and useful citizens, performing the same functions with their fellow-citizens, so far as their consciences permitted, and, where conscience interposed its veto, taking patiently the distraining of their goods, and the imprisonment of their bodies, until, by their blameless lives and their meek endurance, they won from the governments both of the mother country and of the United States, amnesty for their conscientious scruples.