A Man's Value to Society (20 page)

Searching out for some reason why scientists have discussed friendship, reform, or patriotism, but have passed by the science of right living, we shall find the adequate explanation in the fact that this is the largest subject that can possibly be handled. It concerns the right carriage of the whole man, the handling of the body, and the maintenance of perfect health; the control of the temperament, with its special talent or weakness; the use of reason, its development and culture; the control of judgment, with the correction of its aberrations; it involves such a mastery of the emotions as men have over winds and rivers; it concerns conscience and conversation, friendship and commerce, and all the elements affectional and social, civic and moral.

For man stands, as it were, in the center of many concentric circles. About himself, as a center, sweeps the home circle; his immediate neighborhood relations describe a wider circle; his business career describes one larger still; then come his relations to the community in general, while beyond the horizon is a circle of influence that includes the world at large. When the tiny spider standing at the center of its wide-stretching and intricate web, woven for destruction, chances to touch any thread of the web, immediately that thread vibrates to the uttermost extremity. And man stands at the center of a vast web of wide-reaching influence, woven not for blighting, but for blessing, and every one of these out-running lines, whether related to friends near by or to citizens afar off, thrills and vibrates with secret influences; and there is no creature in God's universe so taxed as man, having a thousand dangers to avoid, and fulfilling ten thousand duties. He who would adequately discuss the science of right living must propose a method that will enable man to carry his faculties midst all the conditions of poverty or riches, of sickness or health, of the friendship of men or their enmity.

Discerning the largeness of this theme, many question whether right living can be reduced to a science, and, if so, whether it ever can be acquired as an art. We know that there is a science of government, a science of wealth, a science of war, and mastery in each department seems possible. Moreover, long practice has lent men skill in the arts. Even Paganini was born under the necessity of obtaining excellence in his art through practice. Titian also was a tireless student in color, and Macaulay himself toiled hard over his alphabet. Printers tell us that practice expels stiffness from the fingers and makes type-setting an automatic process. Daniel Webster was counted the greatest orator of his time; but there never lived a man who drilled himself in solitude more scrupulously, and his excellence, he says, was the fruit of long study.

Henry Clay had a great reputation as a speaker; but when the youth had through years practiced extemporaneous speech in the cornfields of Kentucky, he went on to train himself in language, in thought, in posture, in gesture, until his hand could wield the scepter, or beckon in sweet persuasion, until his eye could look upon his enemies and pierce them, or beam upon his friends and call down upon them all the fruits of peace and success. Nor has there been one great artist, one great poet, one great inventor, one great merchant, nor one great man in any department of life whose supremacy does not, when examined, stand forth as the fruit of long study and careful training. Men are born with hands, but without skill for using them. Men are born with feet and faculties, but only by practice do their steps run swiftly along those beautiful pathways called literature or law or statesmanship. Man's success in mastering other sciences encourages within us the belief that it is possible for men to master the science of getting on smoothly and justly with their fellow men. In importance this knowledge exceeds every other knowledge whatsoever. To know what armor to put on against to-morrow's conflicts; how to attain the ends of commerce and ambition by using men as instruments; how to be used by men, and how to use men, not by injuring them, not by cheating them, not by marring or neglecting them; but how through men to advance both one's self and one's fellows--this is life's task. For skill in getting on with men is the test of perfect manhood.

No other knowledge is comparable to this. It is something to know how to sail a vast ship; it is important to understand the workings of a Corliss engine; man does well to aspire to the mastery of iron and wood, and the use of cotton and wool; most praiseworthy the ambition to master arguments and ideas; but it is a thousand times more important to understand men. To be able to analyze the underlying motives; to attain skill in rebuking the worst impulses in men, and skill in calling forth their best qualities; to distinguish between selfishness and sincerity; to allay strife and promote peace; to maintain equanimity midst all the swirl of passion; to meet those who storm with perfect calm; to meet scowling men with firm gentleness; to meet the harshness of pride with a modest bearing; to be self-sufficing midst all the upheaval and selfishness of life--this is to be a follower of Christ, and He is the only gentleman our world has ever seen. Oh, for some university for teaching the art of right living! Oh, for some college teaching the science of attaining the personal ends of life without marring one's ideals! For life has only one fine art--the art of getting along smoothly with ourselves and our fellows.

Let us confess that man easily masters every other art and science. His discoveries as to stars and stones and shrubs provoke ever fresh surprise. His inventions, who can number? He easily masters winds and rivers. He takes the sting out of the thunderbolt and makes it harmless. Afterward with electric lamps he illumines towns. With invisible sunbeams he paints instantaneous pictures of faces, palaces, mountains, and landscapes. With the dark X-rays he photographs the bone incased in flesh, the coins contained in the purse. With his magnet the scientist throws a rope around the cathode rays and drags them whithersoever he will. In the field the inventor uses an electric hoe to kill the germs of the thistle and deadly nightshade. Strange that he cannot invent an instrument for killing the germs of hatred and envy in his own heart! The gardener easily masters the art of cultivating roses and violets, but breaks down in trying to produce in himself those beauteous growths called love, truth, justice--flowers, these, that are rooted in heaven, but blossom here on earth.

An expert driver will hold the reins over six fiery steeds, or even eight, but he descends from his coach to find that his own passions are steeds of the sun that run away with him, bringing wreckage and ruin. Man has skill for turning poisons into medicines. He changes deadly acids into balms, but he has no skill for taking envy's poisons out of the tongue, or sheathing the keen sword of hatred. As to physical nature, man seems rapidly approaching the time when all the forces of land and sea and sky will yield themselves as willing and obedient servants to do his will. But, having made himself monarch in every other realm, man breaks down utterly in attempting the task of living peaceably with his friends and neighbors. Sublime in his integrity and strength, he is most pitiable in the way he wrecks his own happiness, and ruins the happiness of others. Pestilence in the city, tornado in the country, the fire in the forest--these are but feeble types of man as a destroyer. One science is as yet unmastered by man--the science of right living and the art of getting along smoothly with himself and his fellows.

To-day the new science explains the difficulty of right living, by the largeness of man's endowment. There are few failures in the animal or vegetable world. Instinct guides the beast, while the shrub attains its end by automatic processes. No vine was ever troubled to decide whether it should produce grapes or thorns. No fig tree ever had to go to school to learn how to avoid bearing thistles. The humming bird, flying from shrub to shrub, hears the inner voice called instinct. These instincts serve as guide books. The animal creation that moves through the air or water or the forests experiences but little difficulty in finding out the appointed pathway. But the problem of rose, lark or lion is very simple and easy, compared with the problem of man. If the oak must needs bear acorns, man is like a vine that can at will bring forth any one of a hundred fruits. He is like an animal that can at its option walk or fly, swim or run. The pathway opened before the brute world is narrow and its task therefore is very simple, while the vast number of pathways possible to man often embarrasses his judgment and sometimes works bewilderment.

After thousands of years man is still ignorant whether it is best for him to eat flesh or confine himself only to fruit; whether the juice of the grape is helpful or harmful; whether the finest culture comes from confining one's study to a single language, as did Socrates and Shakespeare, or through learning many languages, as did Cicero and Milton; whether a monarchy or democracy is better suited for securing the people's happiness and prosperity; whether the love of God in front is a motive sufficient to pull a man heavenward, or whether fear and fire kindled in the rear will not lend greater swiftness to his footsteps. It is wonderful how many problems yet remain to be solved.

Nor could it be otherwise. As things increase in size and complexity the difficulty of handling them increases. It is easy to manage a spinning-wheel, but difficult to handle a Jacquard loom having hundreds of delicate parts. It is easy to use a boy's whistle, but hard to master the pipe organ with keys rising bank upon bank. Out of an alphabet numbering six and twenty letters all the sciences and arts can be fashioned; but the alphabet of man's faculties numbers four and forty letters. Who shall measure the divine literatures possible to all these combinations of thought, feeling and aspiration?

The scientist tells us that all of the instruments and excellences distributed among the animals are united in man.

Man has the beaver's instinct for building, the bee's skill for hiving, the lion's stroke is less than man's trip-hammer, the deer's swift flight is slowness to man's electric speed, the eagle itself cannot outrun his flying speech. It is as if all the excellences of the whole animal creation were swept together and compacted in man's tiny body, with the addition of new gifts and faculties; but this concentration of all the gifts distributed to the animal world in man means that the dangers and difficulties that are distributed over all the rest of the animal creation will also be concentrated upon his single person. The increase of his treasure carries with it the increase of danger and difficulty. The vastness of his endowment opens up the possibilities of innumerable blunderings and stumblings and wanderings from the way. By so much, therefore, as he is above the bird and the beast, by that much does the task of carrying aright his faculties increase in magnitude.

Moreover, smooth living with men is difficult because of the continual conflict with evil. Integrity can never be good friends with iniquity, nor liberty with tyranny, nor purity and sweetness with filth and foulness. There is no skill by which John can ever live in peace with Herod. Paul, the author of the ode to love, was always at war with Nero, and at last had his head shorn off. William Tell could not get along smoothly with Gesler, the tyrant who robbed the Swiss of their rights. When doves learn to live peaceably with hawks, and lambs learn how to get along with wolves, good men and true will learn how to live in peace with vice and crime. Wickedness means warfare, not peace.

Deviltry cannot be overcome by diplomacy. Not embassies, but regiments, overcome intrenched oppression. Men of integrity and refinement can have but one attitude toward corruption, drunkenness, parasitism, gilded iniquity--the attitude of uncompromising hostility. Languorous, emasculated manhood may silently endure great wrongs for the sake of peace and quiet; but robust manhood never. One of the dangers of our age and nation is a tendency to conciliate wrong and smooth over wickedness through a spurious sense of charity. Genius gilds vice, and wit and brilliancy transform evil into an angel of light. Only expel dullness and make evil artistic, and it is condoned; but vice attired in the garb of a queen is as truly vice as when clothed in rags and living in squalor. To become accustomed to evil, to garnish sin, to dim and deaden sensibility to what is right and beautiful, is to extirpate manhood and become a mere lump of flesh. No man has a right to be good friends with iniquity. In a wicked world the only people who are justified in peaceable living are the people in graveyards. In an age and land like ours only men of mush and moonshine can be friends with everybody.

In view of the crime, poverty and ignorance of our age, for a man to live so that his friends can truthfully write on his tombstone, "He never had an enemy," is for him to be eternally disgraced. Such a man should never be guilty of showing his face in heaven, for he will find that the angels, at least, are his enemies. Looking toward integrity, Christ came to bring peace. Looking toward iniquity, Christ came to bring the sword. Not until every wrong has been turned to right, not until every storm has been stilled into peace, not until the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man have been incarnated in institutions, will conflict cease and smooth living toward all men become an actuality.

Ambition and the clashing of interests also mitigate against smooth living. Perhaps no age has offered more powerful stimulants to ambition. The field is open to all, and the rewards are great. Therefore Emerson's phrase, "infinite aspiration and infinitesimal performance." Contentment is the exception, aspiration is universal. Indeed, the national temptation is ambition. An American merchant lives more in a year than an Oriental in eighty years; more in an hour than an Indian merchant in twenty-four. So powerful are the provocatives to thinking and planning that cerebral excitement is well-nigh continuous. Moving forward, the youth finds every pathway open and is told that every honor and position are possible achievements; the result is that the individual finds himself competing with all the rest of the nation. How fierce the strife! What intense rivalries! What battles between opponents! What conflicts in business!