Part 11 (1/2)
He compares, for example, Christianity as an ideal with Christianity as an actual achievement. He places in parallel columns the maxims of Jesus, and the policies of Christian nations and the actual state of Christian churches. The discrepancy is obvious enough. But it does not prove that Christianity is a failure; it only proves that its work is unfinished.
A political party may adopt a platform filled with excellent proposals which if thoroughly carried out would bring in the millennium. But it is too much to expect that it would all be accomplished in four years. At the end of that period we should not be surprised if the reformers should ask for a further extension of time.
The spoiled children of civilization eliminate from their problem the one element which is constant and significant--human effort. They forget that from the beginning human life has been a tremendous struggle against great odds. Nothing has come without labor, no advance has been without daring leaders.h.i.+p. New fortunes have always had their hazards.
Forgetting all this, and accepting whatever comforts may have come to them as their right, they are depressed and discouraged by their vision of the future with its dangers and its difficulties. They habitually talk of the civilized world as on the brink of some great catastrophe which it is impossible to avoid. This gloomy foreboding is looked upon as an indication of wisdom.
It should be dismissed, I think, as an indication of childish unreason, unworthy of any one who faces realities. It is still true that ”the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
The notion that coming events cast shadows before is a superst.i.tion. How can they? A shadow must be the shadow of something. The only events that can cast a shadow are those which have already taken place. Behind them is the light of experience, s.h.i.+ning upon actualities which intercept its rays.
The shadows which affright us are of our own making. They are projections into the future of our own experiences. They are sharply denned silhouettes, rather than vague omens. When we look at them closely we can recognize familiar features. We are dealing with cause and effect. What is done foreshadows what remains to be done. Every act implies some further acts as its results. When a principle is recognized its practical applications must follow. When men begin to reason from new premises they are bound to come to new conclusions.
It is evident that in the last half-century enough discoveries have been made to keep us busy for a long time. Every scientific advance upsets some custom and interferes with some vested interest. You cannot discover the truth about tuberculosis without causing a great deal of trouble to the owners of unsanitary dwellings. Some of them are widows whose little all is invested in this kind of property. The health inspectors make life more difficult for them.
Scholarly research among ancient ma.n.u.scripts is the cause of destructive criticism. The scholar with the most peaceable intentions in the world disturbs some one's faith. His discovery perhaps involves the reconstruction of a whole system of philosophy.
A law is pa.s.sed. The people are pleased with it, and then forget all about it. But by and by a conscientious executive comes into office who thinks it his duty to enforce the law. Such accidents are liable to happen in the most good-humored democracy. When he tries to enforce it there is a burst of angry surprise. He is treated as a revolutionist who is attacking the established order. And yet to the moderately philosophic observer the making of the law and its enforcement belong to the same process. The difficulty is that though united logically they are often widely separated chronologically.
The adjustment to a new theory involves changes in practice. But the practical man who has usually little interest in new theories is surprised and angry when the changes come. He looks upon them as arbitrary interferences with his rights.
Even when it is admitted that when considered in a large way the change is for the better, the question arises, Who is to pay for it? The discussion on this point is bound to be acrimonious, as we are not saints and n.o.body wants to pay more than his share of the costs of progress. Even the price of liberty is something which we grumble over.
You have noticed how it is when a new boulevard is laid in any part of the city. There is always a dispute between the munic.i.p.ality and the ab.u.t.ters. Should the ab.u.t.ters be a.s.sessed for betterments or should they sue for damages? Usually both actions are inst.i.tuted. The cost of such litigation should be included in the price which the community pays for the improvement.
If people always knew what was good for them and acted accordingly, this would be a very different world, though not nearly so interesting. But we do not know what is good for us till we try; and human life is spent in a series of experiments. The experiments are costly, but there is no other way of getting results. All that we can say to a person who refuses to interest himself in these experiments, or who looks upon all experiments as futile which do not turn out as he wished, is that his att.i.tude is childish. The great commandment to the worker or thinker is,--Thou shalt not sulk.
Sulking is no more admirable in those of great reputation than it is in the nursery. Thackeray declared that, in his opinion, ”love is a higher intellectual exercise than hate.” And looked at as an exercise of mental power courage must always be greater than the most highly intellectualized form of fear or despair.
I cannot take with perfect seriousness Matthew Arnold's oft-quoted lines:--
”Achilles ponders in his tent, The kings of modern thought are dumb.
Silent they are, though not content, And wait to see the future come.
They have the grief men had of yore, But they contend and cry no more.”
If that is ever the att.i.tude of the best minds, it is only a momentary one of which they are quickly ashamed. Achilles sulked in his tent when he was pondering not a big problem, but a small grievance. The kings of modern thought who are described seem like kings out of a job. We are inclined to turn from them to the intellectual monarchs _de facto_. They are the ones who take up the hard job which the representatives of the old regime give up as hopeless. For when the king has abdicated and contends no more--Long live the King!
The real thinkers of any age do not remain long in a blue funk. They always find something important to think about. They always point out something worth doing. They cannot pa.s.sively wait to see the future come. They are too busy making it.
Matthew Arnold struck a truer note in Rugby Chapel. The true leaders of mankind can never be mere intellectualists. There must be a union of intellectual and moral energy like that which he recognized in his father. To the fainting, dispirited race,--
”Ye like angels appear, Radiant with ardour divine, Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart, Weakness is not in your word, Weariness not on your brow; Ye alight in our van: at your voice Panic, despair, flee away.”
When those whom we have looked upon as our intellectual leaders grow disheartened, we must remember that a lost leader does not necessarily mean a lost cause. When those whom we had called the kings of modern thought are dumb, we can find new leaders.h.i.+p. ”Change kings with us,”
replied an Irish officer after the panic of the Boyne; ”change kings with us, and we will fight you again.”