'MsmBSSBICMEBi LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Shelf. ...Il'^l UNITED STATES OF AMERICA RIO THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. A SYSTEM OF ETHICS FOE SOCIETY AND SCHOOLS. M AUSTIN BIERBOWER, Author of "The Morals of Christ." 77 ' CHICAGO: GEORGE SHERWOOD & CO. 1888. ^ \0^ COPYBI&HTED 1888 BY GEORGE SHERWOOD & CO., CHICAGO. R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS, PRINTERS, CHICAGO. PREFACE. This treatise, while intended for the general reader, and emphasizing those virtues which have a par- ticular interest at this time, is especially adapted for moral training in the public schools and higher institutions of learning. Moral instruction is often excluded from public schools on account of the differ- ent religions represented, and the want of text books acceptable to them all. This exclusion has led to serious attacks on our public -school system, threat- ening its existence. In presenting systematically that morality which is common to all civilized peoples, the Author has had no occasion to take notice of religious differences. Catholics, Protestants, Jews and unbe- lievers may use this book with equal approval. Chicago, June 1, 1888. CONTENTS. INTEODUOTOKT. Page. 1.— The Ground and Rule of Right... 17 2. — Classification of Duties __ 19 PAET FIEST. DUTIES REGARDING OTHERS CHIEFLY. CHAPTEE FIEST. KINDNESS 23 I. — In General __ ..'. 23 1. Preliminary __ 23 2. Love. 26 3. Sympathy 29 4. Unselfishness 32 II.— Special Loves 35 1. Family Love _ 35 2. Friendship 38 3. Sexual Love. _ 39 III. — Faithfulness 41 IV. — Accommodation 42 1. Deference. _"._ 42 2. Politeness 44 3. Respect 46 V. — Beneficence 50 1. Generosity _. 50 2. Charity 53 VI. — Forgiveness _ 56 YII. — Regard for Feelings 58 9 10 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Page. VIII. — Opposite Feelings 61 1. Insolence 61 2. Conceit 62 3. Disputatiousness _ 64 4. Fault-finding 66 IX. — Cheerfulness _ 70 X.— Speaking Kindly of Others 75 XI. — Thinking Kindly op Others _ 79 1. In General 79 2. Confidence 80 3. Gratitude 80 XII. — Vices Antagonistic _ 82 1. Hate 82 2. Envy 84 3. Anger 86 4. Cruelty. 88 (1). In General 88* (2). PracticalJoking 89 (3). Hazing 90 (4). Dueling 91 (5). Murder 94 (6). Cruelty to Animals 95 a. In General 95 b. Sport 97 CHAPTEK SECOND. Page. TRUTH 100 I.— Veracity 100 II.— Candor 105 III. — Prejudice 107 IV.— Bigotry 110 V.— Hypocrisy Ill VI.— Perjury 112 VII.— Bribery 114 CONTEXTS. 11 CHAPTER THIRD. Page. HONESTY 115 I.— In General 115 II.— Theft.... ___ 117 III.— Cheating 118 IY. — Employee, and Employe 121 V.— Promises 123 VI.— Gambling _. 126 1. In General 126 2. Raffling ._.. _. 127 3. Parlor Games 128 4. Betting 130 5. Speculation 131 VII.— Blackmail 132 VIIL— Reparation 133 CHAPTER FOURTH. FAMILY DUTIES ... 135 CHAPTER FIFTH. PUBLIC DUTIES 137 I.— Principles 137 1. In General 137 2. Equality __ 138 3. Liberty. 140 (1). In General 140 (2). Tolerance 143 (3). Persecution _ _. 145 (4). Strikes..... - 146 (5). Anarchism 147 (6). Socialism 149 II. —Patriotism _ _ 151 12 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Page. III.— Special Duties _ . 153 1. Taxes 153 2. Jury Duty 154 3. Military Duty 155 4. Public Education 157 5. Voting.. _ 159* (1). In General __ 159 (2). Party 161 (3). Election Frauds 162 (4). Intimidation... 164 6. Submission to Authority 165 7. Rioting 166 IV. — Cosmopolitanism _ 167 V.— Care foe Posterity _ 169 PAET SECOND. DUTIES REGARDING SELF CHIEFLY. CHAPTEE SIXTH. Page. SELF DEVELOPMENT 173 I.— Education 173 1. In General... 173 2. Physical Training 177 3. Health Keeping 179 II. — Courage ._ _ 181 III. — Independence 185 IV. — Large-Mindedness ___ 186 V.— Ideality . 188 CHAPTEE SEVENTH. INDUSTRY 190 I.— Energy ..„ 190 II. — Perseverance _ ___ 195 III.— Decision 200 IV.— Earnestness _ 204 CHAPTEE EIGHTH. SELF SUPPORT _ 206 13 14 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. CHAPTEE NINTH. Page. SELF CONTROL 209 I.— Will Tower .. 209 II. — Prudence 212 III. — Self Restraint.. _ 215 1. Moderation _ _ 215 (1). In General .. 215 (2). Gluttony 217 (3). Amusements 220 (4). Cupidity 222 (5). Self Sacrifice 224 2. Patience _ _ 226 3. Modesty 228 4. Demeanor _ 229 IV. — Selecting Thoughts 232 1. In General 232 2. Reading _ 235 V.— Habit Making 237 CHAPTEK TENTH. TEMPERANCE _ 240 I. — In General 240 II.— Moderate Drinking 243 III. — Teaching to Drink 246 IV. — Prohibition _ 248 V. — Opium, Cocaine, Etc 250 VI. —Tobacco 251 CHAPTEE ELEVENTH. SEfcF RESPECT 253 I.— Honor.... 253 II.— CnrvALRY 255 CONTENTS. 15 Page. III.— Dignity 257 IV.— Pride 258 Y. — Neatness 259 VI. — Cleanliness _ 260 VII. — Vices Antagonistic 262 1. Meanness 262 2. Cowardice 266 3. Jealousy 269 4. Vulgarity , 272 (1). Coarseness _._ 272 (2). Profanity _ 273 (3). Slang 275 5. Morbidness _• 276 CHAPTEE TWELFTH. PURITY.. 278 CHAPTEE THIETEENTH. CONSCIENTIOUSNESS 283 I.— In General 283 II.— Integrity 286 III.— Scrupulousness 288 IV. — Artificial Duties 290 V.— Conflicting Duties 292 INTRODUCTORY. l.—THE GEOUND AND EULE OF EIGHT. Ethics, Moral Philosophy, or the Science of Duty, contemplates that course which we call right and deem best. It reaches to all conduct; since there is a best way of doing everything, and it is wrong to act differ- ently. Some cases of right and wrong, however, are so generally recognized as to be specially known as virtues and vices, and with these the science of Morals has chiefly to do. "We recognize right by our judgment of what is best, and by a feeling — -conscience — which indicates, as the result of many impressions, what we ought to do, and impels us thereto. As to what constitutes right, thinkers differ; some maintaining it to be a course in harmony with the necessary order of things; others, the will of God, as revealed in Eevelation or Nature; others, utility, hap- piness, or the general good of mankind. This ques- tion leads into Speculative Philosophy, which we shall not here enter. It is enough now to observe that, whatever men's opinions touching the ground of right, 2 17 18 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. they all deem those things right which are thought best for men, and consider that course morality which will bring them most happiness. Accordingly, when people are asked to do right, they are asked simply to do what is best for them- selves. Duty never conflicts with interest, if rightly understood; but it must be the interest of all, and not of self only, and one's whole interest, and not a part only. One man's welfare rarely conflicts with an- other's, if his entire welfare is taken into account, and not a present advantage only, or narrow view of advan- tage. All our interests, when taken together, harmo- nize with the like interests of our fellows, and the conduct which conduces to this general advantage is the subject of Ethics. It will appear from these discussions that every special virtue secures some good to the individual practicing it, as well as to others; so that morality is simply good living, or conduct in harmony with the laws which conduce to the advantage of society. Each man's conduct, to be moral, must be for the good of all, of which he himself is one. As most of one's advantages come from society, his interest, like that of others, requires society to be well conducted, so that his duties to others reflect back in advantages to self. Though we often fail to see the advantage of virtue to self, or even to others, a wider view, or deeper INTRODUCTORY. 19 insight, discloses the fact that no virtue is without its advantage, and no vice without its punishment;,^ and, though we can not ordinarily have in mind the reason of morality, but must act from the general rules of virtue, or from conscience, the reason is always to be had when sought. As every virtue stands on a foun- dation of reason, as well as of advantage, the impulses of Conscience have all a ground in our intelligence. At least the virtues here discussed (which are univers- ally recognized as duties) will be seen to have a suffi- cient reason in some advantage to the parties con- cerned. 2.— CLASSIFICATION OF DUTIES. We will here divide duties into two general classes : I. Duties Eegarding Others Chiefly. II. Duties Eegarding Self Chiefly. As the duties to others, however, have, as just intimated, an advantage also to self, and those to self have an advantage also to others, the classes here made are for convenience of discussion, and are not strictly exclusive. The same is true of the smaller subdivisions. The virtues so overlap, and run into one another, as to make up one morality, instead of separate and independent virtues. Any one of them, if followed to its remotest connections, will be found to involve all the rest, and, 20 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. if fully set forth, to exhibit the whole; for the laws by which they are regulated are universal. The dissec- tion of morality into its members would destroy its life, did we not recognize the division to be only mental, and so preserve its unity. In the first class, however, are placed those duties which more immediately contemplate others, and in the second those which chiefly affect self. PART FIRST. DUTIES EEGAEDING OTHEES CHIEFLT. CHAPTER FIRST, KINDNESS. I. IN GENEEAL. l.-PRELIMINARY. There are some general conditions of thought and feeling which lie at the foundation of all morals, and constitute what may be called moral states, as kind- ness, love and sympathy — terms nearly synonymous, which express the feeling with which we should regard our fellow men. We shall treat, in the first chapter, of this general state of good feeling under the head of Kindness, which embraces, in its widest sense, all the rest. It has, however, like the other terms, its special meaning, distinguishing it from them, which we shall also note. First, then, of kindness, or heart-tenderness, as a general state. Kindness, or love, which is the sum of all the vir- tues, is the feeling of benevolence which the good man has toward all men, desiring their welfare and sorrow- ing for their misfortune. Underlying virtue generally, 23 24 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and itself the chief special virtue, it tends, in its wide results, toward all moral ends. Dominated by it, one can do no wrong, since every wrong can be resolved into some unkindness, and will tend to all good, since every good is kind. As good-will to men it would end war, oppression, dishonesty, deceit and impurity, and, instead, would make men feel like brothers, with a common interest and mutual preference. Revolting from every wrong as repulsive, it tends to every virtue as inclination ; so that it would suffice, as already said, to exhaust the whole subject of this treatise, if ade- quately presented. The kind man, being good at heart, does good spontaneously, impelled thereto by his nature, with little need of consideration or effort. Good by im- pulse, he has but to see pain to want to relieve it, to know wrong to want to right it, and, in general, to see an opportunity for good to want to embrace it. Instead of waiting to be convinced in order to have a benevolent purpose, he unerringly flies to the right on feeling, which is quicker than thought. The chief characteristic of kindness is a participa- tion in others' pleasures and pains — rejoicing in their happiness and suffering in their sorrows. As if feeling with others' hearts, the kind man has a life in common with many, being actuated by the sentiment which makes mankind one. Appreciating all life as KINDNESS. 25 his own, he is in unity with nature, and, feeling what is remote, he enlarges himself by bringing the world within his grasp; so that the kind man is deemed one of "great soul" — big-hearted and liberal-minded — incapable of anything mean on which vice can take hold. This being so, it becomes the object of Ethics to engender this kindly feeling as the most general guar- antee of morality, and so to pursue our good intentions with the force of good feeling. This may be done by [concentrating the will unswervingly upon it, and keep- ing the resolution to be continually kind. Kindness greatly multiplies our enjoyments, as one thereby not only enjoys his own pleasures, but those of others, and so is practically rich, since what belongs to all is also his ; for in the only sense that one can f really have anything — in enjoying it — he has air things ; whereas, one who can enjoy only what is his own is poor, as no man's possessions are alone enough for happiness. Kindness in itself is also a pleasurable feeling. We can not love others without being ourselves happy, it being the nature of love to be happy. For, though love is of others, the feeling is in us, so that while we think of them we enjoy the feeling ourselves ; as the flame in the lantern, which lights the outside, also, at the same time, heats the lantern. 26 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. 2— LOVE. Kindness is nearly synonymous with love, so that love, in its widest sense, has already been discussed. But kindness takes many forms, like water, which may be snow, or dew, or clouds. Under love we speak specially of warmth of feeling for others. Kindness may be cold or hot ; it may take on the form of tender- ness or concern; it may show itself as sweetness, politeness or charity ; but when it is on fire we call it love. Love, being thus of many varieties and degrees, can appear as an enthusiastic sympathy for any class — for parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends, lovers, or for the world. The loving nature has a warm feeling for whoever is thought about, and good will may be as extensive as thought. For love is the most perfect sympathy with man, and though we may love special ones when we think of them, we should love all when all are contemplated. As the sun warms whatever it shines on, we should send out our warmth of feeling to all of whom we think, making compassion ever accompany attention. For, we need no more be indifferent to any than hate them, and we would not, if we understood their thoughts and feelings, which would, instead, call for sympathy. The demands for self are not sufficient to exclude thought for the race. Men have always LOVE. 27 time to love, which is the only duty that goes to all, and which Christ characterized as all duty. The spirit of love is to be always in a condition to feel warmly toward others, so that when they are brought to our attention our affections will embrace them. Action, moreover, should flow from love as its most general source, and be the expression of a desire to do good to somebody — family, friends, country or the world — which embraces nearly all the virtues. Everybody, then, should love, and in that love should not confine himself to one person or one kind of love. One can, without much virtue, love a lover, or attractive person of the opposite sex, but if love go no farther, it is only passion. He should love with warmth his relatives, friends, country and, if he has a soul great enough, the world. The true lover is a lover of many. One can not love one well who loves one only, his affections not having exercise enough to be strong or pure. We should love especially those who need our love, and not merely those who can command it. If one has no great love for men, or concern for their welfare, he should cultivate it by thinking of them more, and understanding them better. For one can not know another well without loving him. The word " acquaintance " is nearly synonymous with " friend." All we know we are interested in, and the more inti- 28 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. mate we become the more friendly we are. Cynics and Pessimists, who love least, are mostly recluses, who see men through reports, instead of face to face. Nobcdy can be unkind to one whom he well knows, most vices being, as Plato says, the result of igno- rance. It is our duty, therefore, to know men well enough to love them. After we thoroughly love a few, we find ourselves gradually loving all, or enlarging our inter- est in mankind ; for nothing grows faster than love, or spreads wider, its exercise driving out hate and break- ing down barriers of separation. Love will generally keep pace with knowledge, being a harmony with na- ture as much as is truth. Love, moreover, has its own enjoyment, like kindness generally. While it does most for others, it self -enjoys. Its feeling is the pleasantest in our na- ture, and the greatest good known. It goes farthest to make happiness, and is itself the most unmixed happiness ; for love can not coexist with misery, but expels pain as it does hate. It is synonymous with "feeling good," and is the most lasting and least wearing of pleasures. Enjoyment in eating can be had but three times a day, and then but a little while. The pleasures of drunkenness are only occasional, and are followed by pain, like the pleasures contained in all the vices. Love's pleasures, however, are intense SYMPATHY. 29 without being exhausting, and reach from childhood to age. Endless in variety, too, they can coexist without jealousy or mutual limitation. For love of wife, child, brother, friend, countryman, race and an- imals can all be felt at once. To build up a loving nature, therefore, is a sure way to happiness, as well as to virtue, as one then carries most of the conditions of happiness with him. Others are worth more to him if he loves, and he is worth more to himself. He is also more apt to be loved, since a loving nature, expressing itself in the face and conduct, is pleasing to others, so that love is reflected back as love. 3.— SYMPATHY. Sympathy is another synonym for kindness, cover- ing nearly the same ground. We use it here specially to emphasize that feature of kindness which enters into others' feelings and enjoys or suffers their states, rejoicing with the happy and suffering with the sad, as if one's feelings were not all in himself, but his nerves ran outside of him to report back to his heart the pains and pleasures of others. Sympathy is sensitiveness to the consciousness that is in the world, or a flowing of our souls into all life, by which a oneness of feeling is realized. It takes on others' moods, feels the pleasures and pains in others' 30 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. bodies, makes us larger than ourselves — a part of humanity — and, reminding us that we are not, as individuals, entirely separate, renders us sensitive, as well as conscious, of the oneness of the race. A sympathetic man can not see another smile with- out smiling, the expressions of the face being catching. One's readiness to follow 'others' feelings, and be at one with them, is the great reconciler of the race. There is a natural tendency in men to feel together, as well to co-operate together, feeling uniting them as much as opinion divides them; so that the charities make men brothers when their differences would make them enemies. Forijt is easier to make one of your feeling than of your mind, more being persuaded by senti- ment than by argument. A leader has but to show feeling to have followers, a heart disclosed causing other hearts to cluster about it. It is of the first importance, then, to have a lively sense for others, and to enter strongly into their feel- ings. Did we thoroughly feel with men we should rarely be displeased with them, as contact with feel- ings begets approval, instead of antagonism. Two minds coming together as naturally love as two elec- tric currents make light, and to enter into close rela- tions with other minds is the greatest guarantee of morality, as of love. Learn, then, to live in others, feeling as they do, SYMPATHY. 31 and so to possess their means of happiness as well as your own. One who carries others' burdens carries also their pleasures, and gets strength enough from their joys not to feel grievously their misfortunes. The sympathetic man takes to others something to make pleasure for himself, for, in rejoicing with them, and for them, the joy, which is in himself, is pleasure to him, notwithstanding the object of it is without. To enjoy others enlarges the sphere of one's enjoy- ment, carrying him out over more life, and making more of the world sensitive to him. ^A great man has thus great pleasures, as well as great thoughts, sym- pathy being the principal source of the enlargement of \ pleasure. He who feels most takes most of nature up into himself, and thus enlarges himself by additions from the outside world. One is as large as the space which his sympathy covers, appropriating as much as he loves.^ Where indifference or hate commences his limitations begin, and beyond that he is not. Sympathy, moreover, begets sympathy, starting its kind wherever it goes. We naturally return love for love, as the mirror reflects light, so that the sympa- thetic ones are the loved ones. To awaken an interest you must show an interest. Love, like a telegraphic current, flows two ways. Sympathy, going in circles, alights wherever there is something sympathetic to 32 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. conduct it; so that it is important for morals, as for happiness, to be in the current of others' feelings, and feel along with the race. 4. -UNSELFISHNESS. Sympathy runs naturally into unselfishness, which is but another synonym for kindness. It is the nature of all love to be self -forgetful, and under this negative form we shall consider it. Unselfishness does not consist in neglecting self, but in thinking much of others, and, though to give attention to others is, to that extent, to withdraw it from self, this alone is not the virtue meant, but may be simply inconsiderateness. The spirit of unselfish- ness is to be ever ready to consider others and bene- fit them without thought of self. Unselfishness is not necessarily self-sacrifice, but, as it is to our advantage to be unselfish, the unselfish man enjoys his own life more than does fhe selfish one. For, to be quick to think of others, and to seek their relief before we have time to think of self, is not only a great virtue, but great delight. With this self-unconsciousness one finds it easier to relieve another than to see him suffer. Instead of shutting himself up to appetite or avarice, and deem- ing it enjoyment, he wants to get out of himself to do for others. He who lives in and for himself is like UNSELFISHNESS. 33 one dwelling in a tomb, who had better, for that pur- pose, be dead. All life seeks something external, and the greatest lives extend farthest from self, and take in most of the world. ^ In society, especially, should one not think of self, thus appropriating feelings due to others for his own advantage. Some can hardly think of self without thinking of others, just as some can hardly think of others without thinking of self. A generous man is more unselfish in his own business than a selfish one is in helping others. When doing our duty to others we should not regret it as wasted time, but do it as eagerly as when working for self. We owe love to our disinterested deeds, and should perform our duties to others as pleasures. To grudge what is not for self is to suffer others' pleasures, instead of enjoy them, and so to reverse the order of virtue. For, as the unselfish man is the hap- piest of men, because he enjoys others' joys, the self- ish man is the unhappiest, because he suffers from so many things that are not his own. Envying others for what they have is one form of suffering their enjoyments, instead of enjoying them. The envious man suffers from a disease which he has not. He -not only takes on the ills of life, but makes torments out of the pleasures. Since few of the many things in the world are ours, it is important to learn to enjoy what 34 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. is others', and not to suffer from all else but our own. While our feeling is all in us, so that we alone enjoy it, the selfishness consists in thinking of our own enjoyment at such times, and not of the person calling out the feeling. "While all love is a feeling in us, it is accompanied by thoughts of another (the one loved). And while this feeling is enjoyable in the person having it, Jhe who loves for this pleasurable sensation in himself, and not for the object thought of, is selfish in his love, which is then but lust. He loves himself, instead of the other, enjoying the tick- ling sensation felt in his body when thinking of an admired object, which is about as meritorious as the pleasure of being drunk. In all forms of benevolence we may do good to others unselfishly or selfishly. We may relieve the poor and at the same time think lovingly of them, or relieve them and think of some return in reputation, gratitude, or relief from importunity. The unselfish man wants no compensation for his beneficence, find- ing satisfaction enough for his deeds in the happiness of the ones benefited. SPECIAL LOVES. 35 II. SPECIAL LOYES. 1.— FAMILY LOVE. We have thus far spoken of love in general. There are also special loves, or love for particular persons, according to their relation to us. While we can love all men with that general feeling of kindness or sym- pathy which should go out to the race, and which we may call humanity, we must love those more* with whom we come more in contact, whose merits, wants? and sufferings we specially know. We thus love parents, brothers, sisters, and other relatives; also neighbors, friends, and countrymen. We have a dif- ferent kind of love for different classes and characters — for the good, the congenial, the benefactors, the suffering, the poor, and the absent. This is not necessarily selfish love. Though the loved ones are nearer us in some respects, the love may be just as generous as the love for the remote. We can love only what is brought to our attention, and those mentioned are simply better known to us, or more in our minds. Members of our family are with us daily, and for most of our lives ; our intercourse with them is intimate ; we know their feelings and wants, and we have seen many of their acts of love. We love them more, therefore, because we see in them more to love, 36 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and we love them oftener because we oftener think of them. "We also return their love, or love them out of gratitude ; for among the many causes of love is good- ness, and no goodness is better known than goodness to us. Thus we have special reasons and opportunities to love parents. Our life is due to them; they have cared for us through the years when we could not care for ourselves — usually a third of life ; they are the first known to us, and the first whose love we know; our interests are united, and, being of one flesh, we consider ourselves in great part one. Hence parents and children specially love each other, which love becomes the strength of family and the source of further enjoyments. The noblest persons think most highly of parents, deeming their fathers the noblest of men and their mothers the tenderest of women — a judgment not necessarily prejudiced, since children know their parents better than they know others, and better than others know them, so that they see more good in them. If others are nobler, these are yet noble enough for all their appreciation, so that more nobil- ity could hardly call out more. One seldom has occasion to consider whether his parents have faults, because he is never done appre- ciating their virtues, so that the time does not come FAMILY LOVE. 37 for criticism. If one does not think highly of his parents, it is not because they are unworthy, but because he is, few characters being so defective as an ungrateful or undutiful child. One who does not love his parents can not well take on any virtue, there being a disorder in his faculties themselves; whereas one who, with constancy, is true to his parents, always inspires hope for the other virtues. The love of brothers and sisters is much the same as the love of parent and child. Growing up around the family hearth, it is the offspring of intimate asso- ciation and oneness of blood and interest. This fam- ily-loving is the training-school for world- loving in after years, the family being the world in general for people in early life, where all the virtues are started in embryo. Commencing with love of parents, brothers and sisters, one naturally extends his love to relatives more remote, from the same cause. They are simi- larly connected by blood, and similarly associated with him in early life, though in varying degrees of intimacy. We love all near relatives, and especially those who are much with us — uncles, aunts, cousins, grand-children, etc. — love being naturally the result of association as of thought. Our family, however, soon shades off into Strang- 38 THE VIETUES AND THEIR REASONS. ers; blood becomes thin, and after a few degrees are passed we drop them as relatives, to love them as neighbors, friends, or simply as part of mankind. We are all in some degree related, but the ties are too numerous to follow, with either our feeling or thought, except for a few degrees. 2.— FRIENDSHIP. Among those not related to us, or only remotely so, we select congenial characters for friends; although friendship is often the result of accidental association. We have said that two persons can hardly know each other intimately without loving; and, since every per- son must know some, everybody has some friends. Persons thrown much together, besides knowing each other well, and mutually sympathizing, have much in common. They engage, like brothers and sisters, in the same sports, have the same acquaintances, know one another's secrets, take one another's advice, and in many other ways identify their life. Friendship is an artificial relationship, where circumstances make brothers of people. We like to be with those who appreciate us, and understand us, to whom we can con- fide and apply for help, and who are interested in what we are interested. And these we often find outside of our relatives. Our associates in business, our neigh- SEXUAL LOVE. 39 bors, and those having like tastes usually make up this class, so that a special love springs up between them and us. This is not in derogation of any other love; for, as we have said, love does not diminish by being divided, but strengthens with its exercise toward many ; so that we can love our family more by having others to love. Nor is friendship necessarily selfish, since it is a love simply for those who are most known, and shuts out the love of no others. For he who loves special ones most, loves the world most. 3.— SEXUAL LOVE. The most intense of the special loves is the love between the sexes, which, beginning in courtship, ripens in conjugal love. So prominent is this affection that it is preeminently known as love ; so that to many the word love suggests no other meaning. All-absorbing, it is the greatest motive in life, feeding the ambition of youth and mould- ing its ideals. Starting most fancies, it is the subject of nearly all romances, plays and poems. It does most to sweeten life, and, if perverted, does most to embit- ter it. In this affection one most completely lives in an- other's life, losing himself in her welfare and making common cause with her. It is the intensest of all feel- 40 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ings, and the most lasting, giving the greatest happi-, ness and the most continuous happiness. Strengthening men for the virtues to which it exalts them, it is the affection which every one should feel at least once in life, if only to know the full range of virtue. In ideal- izing its object one sees how great human worth may be, and tends toward it. Yet its intensity makes it, like dynamite, most dan- gerous. Overrunning its borders like a flood, it, like a flood, does measureless damage. Yitiated, it makes the most deadly corruption; misdirected, it commits the most irretrievable blunders. Important as it is to love, it is equally important to love right — with purity, con- stancy and judgment. The noble lover is the noblest of men, the silly lover the silliest, and the depraved lover the beastliest. For love is a fire that may warm or consume. As a virtue it preserves, as a vice it de- stroys, as a folly it caricatures. It is one of the first duties of youth, then, to love wisely ; not too hastily, lest it be broken off with pain ; and not too passionately, lest it rush to ruin. Youth need rarely be exhorted to love, as the impulse is strong enough by nature; so that the duties of love are largely those of restraint, instead of encouragement. This is a matter in which to show one's self-control, or power of will and capacity for government. Love should minister to one's welfare, and not his woes. FAITHFULNESS. 41 With the many vices which it may feed, it may drain the virtues, instead of supply them, and be a source of weakness instead of strength. While men should direct all their powers they should specially guide this, since without sense love has the effect of vice instead of virtue. III. FAITHFULNESS. The most common virtue exercised, and required, in the special loves is* faithfulness, which is being true to yourself and to your friends. In all the relations just mentioned men confide in one another, and trust to them interests — telling them their secrets, and placing them- selves in each other's power. To keep faithfully such trust is the duty of friend- ship; to abuse it is the vice of treachery. Honor, pride, manliness, all require, as well as does kindness, that we be true to our friends. For while we should be true to all, we are under special obligations to serve those whose interests and feelings are confided to us. The welfare of society depends largely on confidence. Men can do little as individuals, and so must co-operate much, and the bond of this co-operation is confidence, — the giving to each 42 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. of a part to do with reliance by the rest that he will do if. To betray this trust is to attack the basis of society. The confidences of friendship are among the first and most frequent in life, and in them we get our schooling for business and political confidences. One who confides in us creates for us a duty by surrender- ing something of which he would himself have other- wise kept the care. One sins against much, therefore, who is not faithful to his undertakings. In fact faith- fulness, in its widest sense, embraces all the virtues, since duty in its entirety is but faithfulness in what- ever is imposed upon us, and to all who impose it. IV. ACCOMMODATION. 1.— DEFERENCE. One of the most natural manifestations of kind- ness, is the adjustment of self to others. We must all do this in society, each giving up many of his prefer- ences that all may get along better together. Ac- commodation is the sacrifice made by one for the benefit of all. It is no less, however, for his own benefit, since like sacrifices are made for him, which DEFERENCE. 43 mutual sacrifices bring many advantages to society as a whole. One should be careful, therefore, to yield all that he may yield with honor, and effect others' convenience whenever it may be done safely. We should cultivate a love for others' satisfaction. We thus not only get along well with them, and make them love us, but obtain the pleasures of politeness, hospitality and refinement of feeling. In preferring one another we often prefer our own interests, which lie partly in others, and depend on their like deference to us. There is, therefore, often more pleasure in giving up than in having our own way, it being a great delight to see others enjoy themselves, and recognize that we are the source of their happiness. No enjoyment is greater to the hospitable man than his guest's. He enjoys more giving a dinner than he would eating it, and takes more pleasure in showing his garden than in looking at it. All worthy pride is founded on the satisfaction which our character and possesions give to others. One who can not gracefully defer, not only makes himself unpopular, but knows nothing of a large part of life's enjoyments. Successful public and business men invariably have this grace; — they love to please the people and do not feel inconvenienced in deferring to them. This deference is commonly in small matters, and, 44 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. as is usual in small matters, the graces please excess- ively, while the vices offend excessively. One who neglects such courtesies is disliked as mean. Few get more respect than those who yield in trifles. While courage consists in asserting yourself when principles, or great interests, are involved, gentlemanliness consists in yielding at other times. One who can make more by giving up than by retaining, is foolish not to give up; and to learn how to yield is as important as to learn how to hold on. While we should often, indeed, for the good of others, defer in great matters also — which is beneficence — we should never fail to do so in indiffer- ent ones, which is politeness. The amenities are a great interest in life, although, like the components of the shore, they are singly but trifles. Trifles we should triflingly yield, rather than, heroically maintain, and learn to defer without discom- fort. There are so many crossings of small interests that we should acquire a positive pleasure in yielding them, in order to avoid attrition. Our antagonism should be reserved for great occasions — for evils and not annoy- ances. Those who fight over little things are quar- relsome, whereas those who engage in great contests are champions. A pugnacious man can not be a great general, who, first of all, must be generous. POLITENESS. 45 2.— POLITENESS. Politeness naturally grows out of deference, and is a virtue, which, though important, may be had cheap. It costs little to be courteous, since it is simply deference in small matters. We yield nothing, and yet are always yielding. To bow, smile, or speak kindly, is not difficult, and with practice becomes as natural as to breathe. And yet these attentions please and make friends — always imparting more in pleasure than they cost in effort. First impressions are dependent mainly on them; and, as many are met only once, or for a short time, our politeness gives them the only im- pression they ever get of us. As a smile calls out a smile, and kindness is reflected back in kindness, politeness does much to make happiness among occa- sional acquaintances. For meeting, such persons, we say they are delightful, and parting we say we have enjoyed ourselves. To wear a smile is to have a great power in society, making often all the difference between a popular and unpopular person. The smiling one is much in de- mand. The polite man only is considered a gentleman, and politeness and good breeding are synonymous terms. To be polite is to appear elegant and digni- fied, and finally to become so; for one can not long, or habitually, appear honorable without developing a 46 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. sincerity in it, and so really becoming what he seems ; and, in turn, honor, most constantly feeds politeness, and uniformly guarantees it. None but the sincere man can be unfailingly polite ; so that politeness, if it is not itself a great virtue, implies one. The genuinely polite are polite to all; not to the great alone, which is sycophancy, or to the beautiful, which is gallantry (and may be selfishness), but to the poor and the stranger, from whom no advantage can come. The true gentleman is a gentleman to his servant, and you need meet him but once to know it. Politeness is easy enough in polite society, where it is often the only object of meeting, and the vulgar may be polite there ; but in every day life, with all kinds of men, and under every circumstance of irritation, to be polite is to be a gentleman with power. 3.— RESPECT. Respect is a kind and manly appreciation and treatment of others. In this feeling we let down our selfishness, and pay due deference to the merits of others. To be thoroughly respectful, we must put ourselves in others' places, and see them as they see themselves. It is easy to have respect for one's self, and to enter into such self-respect of another is our generous privilege. To respect another as ourselves, as well as to love another as ourselves, is our KESPECT. 47 duty. Nearly all hate and antagonism come from not understanding others from their own standpoint. If we knew how they see things, they would not seem so foolish or wrong to us. We should give all men credit for sense and good intention, and should act on that credit until we learn differently. Everyone is entitled from us to what we think we are entitled to from him. Our conduct toward another should be based on the supposition that he is as good as we are. If it is not true, he likely thinks it is true, and we are under no obligation to remind him of his mistake. And whatever may be our own importance, it is not for us to show it or enforce it on society. 7 Justice, of which respect is the mental expression, is founded on the equality of men, and that equality should be borne in mind when we deal with our neighbor. / The poorer or weaker one is, the more is our respect worth to him, and to be respectful to the lowly and suffering comes nearest a virtue. To respect the great is easy enough, but to give equal respect to the unfortunate, who can make no return, has something of manly generosity. In this spirit we should treat others' opinions with respect. When we disagree with men, we should remember that they have minds like ourselves, and may be equally convinced of their views. Respect for 48 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. another's opinions is no unfaithfulness to our own. Except when arguing with him, we need not treat his views as wrong. Much strife comes from an injudi- cious or premature clashing of opinions. Opinions should not be made to clash, except in the battle of argument. They are not a subject on which to attack character. And in arguing against others' views, the discussion should be impersonal and with good humor. Opinions are not usually held except upon some good reason, or what seems such; and when they are founded on prejudice or ignorance they are least of all a subject for attack, since their owners are not in a condition to hear arguments as good as ours. Just as in polite society (as at a banquet) we do not discuss our antagonistic interests as guests, so in ordinary intercourse we should not bring our thoughts into battle. There is a place for the clashing of minds as for the clashing of interests, and at other times we should not let men know that we deem their views worse than ours. Antagonize a man only when you have an opportunity to show him he is wrong, and do not scatter your strife all through life. Every man is apt to think he is more nearly right than any- body else, and you will get along better by not reminding him of his mistake. Though Ave should never yield the right to think or argue, we should dispute only at the right time. RESPECT. 49 By respecting others you will get their respect, and you will have many friends among those who do not know how little you think of them. If you treat oth- ers as if you appreciated them as much as they do themselves, they will conceive a high opinion of your judgment, and return a like respect to you as due to great intelligence. And all this can be done without hypocrisy, since the mere negative tributes of respect are commonly received as the homage of admiration. To get along well with men, we must treat them at least as equals, for' then we will never know how badly they may think of us. We should remember, too, that we are not perhaps ourselves as important as we think, and that others are quite as apt to be as great as they think they are, as we are to be as great as we think we are. For excessive self-esteem may be in us as well as in oth- ers. It is no little acquisition to learn the greatness that is outside of us, and to appreciate in others what we have not in ourselves. For on this our respect should be founded — the value of others — and should be an expression of that universal love which appreci- ates and enters into the feelings of all mankind. 50 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. V. BENEFICENCE. 1.— GENEROSITY. It is not enough, however, to show our regard for men in minor matters; but love should go beyond respect and trivial accommodation to practical aid, and, if need be, to sacrifice for their material benefit. Born for mutual helpfulness, we should give of our substance when that is needed. Beneficence, or good- doing, has always been deemed a comprehensive virtue. And though all our conduct should be for somebody's good — our own or others' — there are special calls upon us to relieve misfortune. When others can not help themselves, it is our duty to help them. The help needed should be forth- coming as the duty of the strong to the weakness of the race. Half of mankind must thus help the other half along, if they are to be got along, and everyone should consider whether he is doing his share in keeping up the unfortunates in the journey of life. Weakness calls loud to strength for help, and he who has no ear for this call had better have none for music or gayety. To be sensitive to the cry of dis- tress is a necessary qualification for refinement as well as for virtue. Men have what they have only as part owners. GENEKOSITY. 51 Everybody in need has a claim on it until satisfied ; and from the possessions of the race the wants should be supplied. All property is the result of men's com- bined work; and everybody is entitled to it to the extent of a living. / No man earns all of what he pos- sesses. Thousands have contributed to his store, and some claims remain over on it. Besides the claims of the whole, in the form of taxes and assessments, there are many undefined and indefinable claims which can be enforced only through conscience/ 'All property is held subject to many rights of others — to be taken for public uses, to support the poor, to maintain asylums, and other benevolences. But, in addition to this, many co-laborers, who have never received their reward in society, have some just claims which we should privately recognize — some who have done well, and yet remain poor, or who have earned their share and lost it in the general scramble for labor's products ; and these claims upon our property should be paid as dues, and not as charity/^ We all have the duty of generosity, — to help along in many ways those who are not so low as to be the re- cipients of alms. A father thus helps his sons through life ; brothers help one another as long as any of them have means ; friends help one another by loans, and by procuring them work. This spirit of helpfulness we should always feel, and not be satisfied with our own 52 THE VIBTUES AND THEIE EEASONS. competency merely. We need such help ourselves at times, and men are all beneficiaries on one another. The richest need the help of others as patronage, which is often bestowed as a favor, as much as is the aid of the great. One should feel specially bound to help those who are out of employment — to lend them something for their necessities, and to do this without security, or expectation of its return. The duties of lending are extensive ; and he who never lends is about as mean as he who is always borrowing. We should try to always have something on hand for loans, and never be so hard up as to have nothing with which to help a friend. What men may thus do for one another — in helping them to opportunities — is more important than what they give in charity. If people were helped more they would not have to be fed so much. By keeping our fellows up in respectable work we can keep the number of beggars down. The greatest charity is that which keeps men above the need of charity. Generosity should prevent the necessity of alms. Unless one is generous he does not repay the aid which has been given him ; for no one has reached his present position unaided. Each one stands on the shoulders of many, and should be willing to bear others up in turn. The wealthy or fortunate should show their gratitude by making others fortunate. Aid-giv- CHARITY. 53 ing should be a recognized virtue — the assistance by the fortunate of others that they also may be fortunate. It is not enough to help men in their misery; we should help them out of their misery. By giving them such alms as will leave them mendicants we do a less service than by giving them chances that will put them to the side of helpers instead of helped. The aim of society should be to give all an equal chance, so that there shall not be such differences in men, and so but little need of alms-giving. "We want to reduce the unfortunate classes by making men more fortunate as a whole ; and for this a generous system of helps is required. As we can never help ourselves suffi- ciently, we should never help ourselves only. 2.— CHARITY. There are, however, some who will always remain poor, unable to keep up in the march of life. These must be aided in their misery ; and we should feel it a privilege to relieve their wants. He who feeds the poor eats with many mouths ; and we should be glad that others have appetites when we are sated, so that our meals may be enjoyed beyond our capacity to en- joy them. As long as there are men who can not be anything but beggars, there should be a compassion in men that can not be satisfied except by alms-giving. Nor should we inquire too closely whether the suf- 54 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. f erers are deserving. Anybody in misery is deserving of aid, and we should be charitable in our opinions as well as in our gifts. Few can find begging so agree- able as to take to it from choice. It is generally men's last resort, and some great sorrow lies behind every appeal for alms. Hence if you can not give, be kind; and never be rude to the poor until you know that they have no rea- son to beg. While we should preferably help the needy to work, we have no right, when we are not do- ing so, to aggrieve them in their present mode of get- ting a living. Begging should be discouraged chiefly by aid to something better, and not by making the way of the beggar harder. The well-to-do will never know the suffering of the assisted classes; and while some can not get along because of lack of energy, most fail because of lack of ability. We should be tenderly careful of the feelings, as well as the wants of the poor, since many are in need after heroic efforts to keep up in life. A word may now crush them, as all their strength has been exhausted before they have given up to be recipients of charity. Those who are called upon for charity should be thankful, first, that they are not themselves subjects of charity, and again that they can do something to relieve misery. Whoever has more than he needs has CHAEITY. 55 enough for charity, and out of his superabundance somebody should be supplied. As one knows not how all of his property has been amassed, he may, in giving alms, be only paying his dues ; since many a beggar has helped build up the wealth of the millionaire. Where by the intricacies of business, thousands have contributed to our store, thousands have claims on it if in need. For the laborer never releases all his rights to the possessions of others, but retains a lien for his livelihood, which the wealthy should always rec- ognize and honor. We should look upon charity as a duty rather than a merit, and often as a business obli- gation rather than a gratuity. We are all made partly out of the work which has reduced others to want. By getting so much for ourselves we have not left enough to go round ; and when the unfortunate comes back for a share of this we should not begrudge him his pittance. Especially if we are not sure that our gains have been honest ^should we be careful about refusing to others in need. ' Every rich man who has wronged others should see in the poor his creditors. If we owned absolutely, and by just title, our pos- sessions, our charity would be pure generosity, where- as it is now partly a reparation ; since in the present con- dition of society many do not deserve what they have. Instead of inquiring whether the needy are deserving poor, we should ask whether we are deserving rich. 56 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. VI FOKGIVENESS. The impulse of kindness is to forgive, and not hold unkind feelings against those who have wronged us. To be resentful is more painful to the unf orgiving than to the unforgiven; and the happy can not afford it. The generous man does not care long for an injury done him. The injury should be repaired, and the injur er forgiven. The only precaution we can take is against his having an opportunity to injure us again; but it never helps an injury to be revengeful toward the person committing it ; whereas forgiveness is often the best guarantee against its repetition. One can not easily wrong a forgiving disposition, which tends to create justice in the unjust. To forgive an injury is often the quickest way to get rid of it, for when it is out of the mind it is usually out of power. To revolve an injury in our thoughts is to multiply it, since it increases by as much as it is felt. We have no right to remember a wrong longer than to right it, or a wrong-doer longer than to pro- vide against further wrong. Beyond the remembrance that is necessary to profit by experience we should keep no evil in mind, but learn to think only of the good and be happy. To avenge a wrong is no remedy FOEGIVENESS. 57 for it; and dwelling upon it only puts us more in the power of the wrong-doer. Hence forgiveness has always been deemed a virtue, and the forgiving man one of superiority. To rise above our wrongs is a great achievement in charac- ter, and is often the best way to triumph over our enemies ; for we thereby make ourselves impregnable against them. He who can be injured by every insult is a frail man, exposed to the mercy of his inferiors ; whereas one who can keep a noble mind amid bad men's doings is immeasurably removed from their power. Mercy has always been esteemed in the great, — to have power to avenge and not to use it. When a loss is suffered we should remedy it, or dismiss it from the mind, and not prolong it by memory. Those who injure us rarely intend to, but do so without much thought, most injuries being accidental. When men understand us they rarely antagonize us, nearly every quarrel being the result of misunder- standing. Did the injuring one know our situation, he would likely sympathize with us; and did we understand his purpose, we would see in it a rational aim instead of an unkind wish. It is important to be well informed before we avenge ; and vengeance, like war, should never follow except on the heels of ear- nest efforts for an understanding. If we let the wrong-doer alone he will soon punish himself, whereas 58 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. if we hasten to punish him we will take his punish- ment on our own heads. It is a frequent saying of Plato's that it is better to suffer a wrong than to com- mit it, the punishment of wrong-doing being surer than the profit of it. The injured one is soon over the injury, whereas the injur er gets a wound by the reaction which sticks permanently to his character. One can not do wrong long without becoming a wronged man, as wrongs nearly always revert upon the wrong-doer. The bad man is always looking in a glass which reflects what he does, so that injury is usually self -avenging. He who takes up arms against another commonly wounds himself, and the avenger should remember the words of Napoleon, " Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mis- take." VII. EEGAED FOE FEELINGS. One of the most important manifestations of kind- ness is a regard for the feelings of others, or cau- tion against giving them internal wounds. The feelings are the most sensitive part of man, trans- cending in delicacy the nerves, so that they need special protection. We can often say what will REGARD FOR FEELINGS. 59 give deeper pain than anything we can do. Un- kindness spoken goes more directly to the heart than unMndness acted (as meaning is more subtile and penetrating than violence). We should, therefore, be as cautious of our words as of our blows. One who will not strike a woman may hurt her more with a slap from the tongue, cruelty being now generally in the form of a coarse treatment of people's fine feelings. The sins of the tongue have, accordingly, been always signaled as most dangerous. Much of our bad conduct is in speech, as well as of our good. The tongue is the most used implement in war as in industry. It is habitually going, and, if normally used, always carries a meaning ; and its words may be poison or balm. To strike with the tongue may, like the viper's, be the deadliest blow we can give. As a weapon it should be used sparingly, and only as a tool be left loose. Nothing is gained by harshness that can not be gained by gentleness, a little thought always finding kind expressions that are powerful ; so that coarseness, being without reason, is a folly as well as a vice. It defeats its purpose, moreover, in bringing back more bad words, instead of eliciting good deeds. Words, like animals, breed according to their kind. An unkind word begets a litter of brawl- 60 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ing, whereas pleasant words call out a profusion of sweetness. Genuine kindness, however, looks beyond words to the feelings ; and we should see in dealing with others that their feelings are made pleasant. We can offend by apparently soft speech which contains concealed stings ; so that we should consider how our words will affect the heart and not the ear. "When bitterness is conveyed by politeness, it is the most exasperating. True politeness looks beyond the appearance to the feeling produced by our conduct. As some men, and especially some women, are highly sensitive, we should, when we must deny or antagonize them, do so tenderly. A request refused is often welcome if the refusal be gentle. If we can not grant a favor we can give kind words ; and if we do not show our sympathy we should, at least, not display our harshness, but conceal a defect when we can not exhibit a virtue. Employers in particular should be kind to their employes, avoiding overbearing language and conduct ; since the real gentleman is a gentleman to his subor- dinates. One who shows his superiority with inso- lence thereby proves himself unfit to be a superior. No man has a right to more power than he can use with kindness. He who does not respect the feelings of those under him is too little for his position. Inso- INSOLENCE. 61 lence always marks incompetence in office. Men love those with whom their feelings are safe — who do not bring tears or mortification, but may be approached with confidence. VIII. OPPOSITE FEELINGS. 1 .—INSOLENCE. I shall consider next the vices resulting from want of kindness, or antagonism to it. I have just spoken of insolence as the opposite of a regard for the feelings of others. It has, however, still further demerits. If not one of the greatest vices, it is one of the most offensive. It shows lack of sympathy or appreciation, and is founded on self- conceit — another disagreeable vice. To feel your importance is to acknowledge a weakness to yourself, while to show it is to confess such weakness to others. Insolence never evokes the esteem it would, draw from others ; but calls upon itself the contempt it would impart. It never makes a friend, or has any desired effect. If you are graceless enough to think you are superior to others, do not shamelessly show it ; for you will generally prove thereby that you are not. 62 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. People like modest men, and consideration for others goes farther than imperiousness over them. Insolence has no authority, but generally begets revolt. In employers it causes strikes, in the army it excites insubordination, and in every position it takes away confidence in one's leadership. To control men we must attract and not repel ; whereas insolence is a repellant force, the forerunner of division. For what can not hold men's good opinion has no power to keep them together ; and they who would have influ- ence must not begin by making themselves disagree- able. To show that you feel above those about you is a signal for everybody else to think differently ; for none think well of those who think ill of them, opinion being mutual as well as love. The insolent man gets unpopularity cheap, and self is insolence's only admirer. 2.-C0NCEIT. We have said that insolence is founded on conceit, which is a high opinion of self, as insolence is a low opinion of others. Men do not like to see one think too highly of himself, any more than they like to see him think too lowly of them. Self-conceit is the posi- tive form of insolence, and implies contempt for others by way of comparison with self. To dwell much on our own importance is as offensive to others as it is pleas- CONCEIT. 63 ing to us. Like insolence, it is essential selfishness, being usually at the expense of kindly thought about our fellows. The noblest characters are so interested in other men and things, and particularly in great matters, that they have not time to dwell much on self; and their ideals are too high to be much pleased with themselves when they do. A conceited man must have a low standard to think that he fills it; and from others he gets the credit of littleness. Men like the generous man, who hardly knows, or cares, what kind of man he is. The greatest virtues are not developed by entertaining yourself with yourself, but by doing good without much thought of self. Conceit is the opposite of that self-forgetfulness which is so admired in the lover. He who loves self has a poor lover, and poor loved one. He has also a poor love. It is a kind of illicit love ; for love is nat- urally for others, and when turned to self is a sort of unnatural affection. To be in love with self is a spe- cies of self -abuse; and about the only advantage such lover has is, that he has no rivals, and neither feels nor excites jealousy. Self-conceit is pride in virtues which one has not, and so is a vanity founded on an error. One loves himself for what he is not, and having a monopoly of that love is without sympathy; for self-conceit never 64: THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. yet atti acted an adhiirer. Whatever may be one's opinion of self, he should not show it. The world is not interested to know; and, besides, it thinks it knows better than he does. One should never have selfish- ness enough to dwell complacently on his own merits, which is poor food for satisfaction, and is about as profitable as to feed on one's appetite. 3.— DISPUTATIOUSNESS. One of the most disagreeable of the unkind habits is the tendency to cavil. In times when men disagree so much, it is important to learn not to obtrude our differences. We should disagree in silence, as well as in love, and not be punctilious about little errors. In conversation especially, where accuracy is not required, it is hypercritical to persist in setting men right. We should look at the substance of what is said, and agree with the spirit of men's remarks, rather than contest their utterances. Most that is said is intended for our entertainment; and to criticise it is like examining too closely a gift. We should school ourselves to look through much inaccuracy of expression to the meaning of the speaker, and to agree with him in mind when we can not in language. Many disputes arise from mistaking the sense by looking too carefully at the words of the speaker. Fighting over words — " logomachy " — has DISPUTATIOUSNESS. 65 always been deemed ungracious. Help the short-com- ings of a friend's rhetoric by your own superior logic, and learn to see meaning when it is not accurately expressed, and to recognize agreements in language that expresses differences. Minds should commune, and not tongues ; and we should be able to look through the language to the thought. Since we know most that others tell us, we should supply what is lacking in their statements out of our own knowledge. Quarrels between husbands and wives, between brothers and sisters, and between near friends, who are supposed to know each others' thoughts, should all be avoided by this liberal method of interpretation. If others persist in being mistaken, it is not our province to correct them; and, as men who make mis- takes like to adhere to them, a correction avails little to one who already knows he is wrong. Men do not reason candidly when they want an error to prevail ; and we should not have the folly to dispute with such. Successful conversationalists are able to see truth through false statements, and to agree with facts inac- curately expressed, and so to be complacent amid great differences of opinion. The good humor of the aver- age talker is worth more than the amount of truth he has, and an error should be no cause for strife. We should be willing to see others mistaken, and be a little more careful about ourselves. 5 66 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. If our own utterances are disputed we should, out of charity for the disputant, express ourselves again; aud if we are still misunderstood, we should practice the grace of being misunderstood with patience. If we tell the truth as accurately as we can, we are not responsible for the deception if others do not see it; and our pride should not take offense at their stu- pidity. Say plainly what you mean, and leave your words to their fate. It is not your duty to follow after your statements to compel respect for them. The wise man must learn to be complacently disagreed with; and his equanimity should not be disturbed by misap- prehension, whether it be because of another's or of his own incapacity to be right. 4.— FAULT-FINDING. Of a like character with disputatiousness is the vice of fault-finding, except that it is more general. As the first is a fault-finding touching what men say, the latter extends also to what they do. Being out with the world, some men can not be pleased, which is a fault of their nature, rather than a merit of their understanding. For fault-finding comes less from see- ing what is faulty than from failing to see the good in it. It results from lack of sympathy, and is rather an expression of hate than of indignation. In a world where good and evil are so plentifully FAULT-FINDING. 67 mixed, it is unfortunate to have an eye only for the evil, which, like the buzzards looking for carrion, misses more sights than it sees. The good may be contemplated as easily as the bad, and usually is, except by morbid dispositions, just as men who may eat either fruit or leaves, do not generally eat leaves. "We should dwell on faults enough to correct them, especially in ourselves; but beyond this we should ignore them, like other disagreeable things, especially in others. To dwell on faults is to develop a tendency to be displeased. Evils are not generally instructive facts, any more than they are enjoyable ones, and so may, without loss, be forgotten, or left unlearned. The faults of friends especially may be overlooked, without loss to us or them. In a world with so many objects of contemplation, the most desirable only should be selected. For while one may, with equal facility, appreciate the good or bewail the evil of life, and while it is a matter of choice with which he will occupy his mind, there is this difference, that the thought of the good makes him happy, and of the evil miserable ; and since consideration of the evil is no more advantageous to others, we are not justified, except in rare cases of great wrong or misfortune, in especially considering them. Pessimism, or inclination to dwell on evil, is a mat- 68 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ter mainly of disposition, and results not from a juster estimate of evil, but from turning the eyes specially toward it. The optimist might see the same if he looked for it ; but the wisdom of knowledge lies in the choice of subjects, as well as in their consideration. While we should see truth when we can, we should also look for it, as for gold, in paying quantities. The knowledge that is not worth knowing is a great item in life, as well as the deeds that are not worth doing. For there are two objects in learning, — one to get knowledge, and the other to be made happy by it — and knowledge that is worthless is like anything else worthless, to be rejected. We need not know all that is in the sewers and family closets, or regale others with it. Evils untold do not grow by their silence, though evils repeated multiply by their circulation. The fault-finder is unkind, both in dwelling on the faults of others and in aggravating them by exposure, thereby often creating the faults which he tells. His information being rarely new, either to the hearer or person spoken of, is not so much a discovery of the faults of others as a disclosure of his own. And, for the same reason, it does not produce as much dislike for the one found fault with as for the fault-finder. For, one who states disagreeable things, is himself disagreeable. Not only do men like those bearing good news, and, to that extent, dislike the carriers of FAULT-FINDING. 69 evil news, but he whose mind is full of amenities acquires a pleasing look from the habit of his thought, while he who habitually thinks of the unpleasant, gets an unpleasant look, — the expression and manner being nourished by what they feed on. Displeasure passes by habit into displeasingness, so that one who is much displeased soon displeases. We should, accordingly, instead of showing need- less displeasure when things are not to our liking, pre- serve a kindly satisfaction, learning to see faults without being much troubled by them, and especially without troubling others with them. For faults may be known without being felt; and they should pass lightly through the mind when we can accomplish nothing by entertaining them. Learn, therefore, to bear with little defects, rather than feel enough annoyed to speak of them, always considering whether their mention will cause less pain to others lhan their cure will bring advantage to self. And learn, instead of finding fault, to praise freely, and to suggest changes for improvement rather than defects for complaint. People will do more for you if encouraged to do better than if scolded for not doing well, the best cure for an evil being to point out a better way, instead of bewailing what is. To be pleased when things are not to your liking, is to gracefully triumph over inconvenience, and is often 70 THE VIETUES AND THEIR REASONS. the best way to make them satisfactory. When peo- ple see that you do not complain, they try to please yon, whereas for the scold they wonld rather make more trouble than relieve what exists. Lead, instead of drive, as people do not willingly antagonize kindly forbearance. IX. CHEEBFULNESS. The sum of the graces is cheerfulness, which con- duces as much to the happiness of others as of self. It is being in harmony with things, and at peace with human nature. It comes not only from looking at the good, which is mixed with all evil (as well as found pure in great quantities), but from appreciating it when we have it. Cheerfulness is largely in our own power ; for, though some are by nature more inclined to cheerful- ness than others, this disposition may be developed by habit, until cheerfulness becomes natural to any per- son. One oan determine to let nothing unduly dis- turb him ; and when both a pleasant and a painful aspect of a subject are possible, he can persist in look- ing at the pleasant, which should always be done, CHEEEFULNESS. 71 as we have seen, when there is no remedy for the other. For when evil can not be remedied, the next best thing is to make it ineffective — that is, to keep it out of our feeling, so that, like untasted gall, it shall not be bitter. For there is much cause of sorrow that need not have its effect. The bad eggs need not all be smelt. If so much happiness is going to waste, some unhappiness should also be wasted. Like a phy- sician who can go through an epidemic, and not catch the disease, we should learn to go through trouble and not take it. There is such a thing as quarantining ourselves against unhappiness. Thinking of a remedy, when things are not to our liking, is the best prescription for cheerfulness. The hope which this gives prevents most of the pain, and our absorption in the task cures the remainder. Be- lieving an evil is a form of happiness, as well as of util- ity ; and after success we feel better than if the evil had not been. If the evil is incurable, we should dis- miss it from thought, as we do the dead from our eyes, and think of something good. There are subjects of thought within our reach that will always make us happy, and also of conduct; so that being happy is a duty as well as a privilege. What we shall feel, as well as what we shall do, is subject to the will ; and one thing that all should provide for themselves is a 72 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. cheerful disposition, or permanent possibility of hap- piness. He whose happiness can not be upset is the most secure of men; for he holds fate in his own hands. To have by nature that which all are striving for, is a short way to the goal of life. As we are all seeking happiness, we should know that it is within us, and only needs to be brought out into appre- ciation. There are many cheerful people who can take pleasure out of anything, or even out of nothing ; whose eyes and ears are always open for something to smile at, and to whom laughter is as natural as breath- ing. Their faces are bright, their voices are sweet, their manner is pleasing. If sorrow touch them, it remains but a short time, when their joy returns. They find pleasure everywhere lying loose, and pick it up as quickly as a miner does gold. Alert to discover humor, they find something to amuse in nearly every- thing. Their senses are all alive to the pleasing, and pleasures flow in through them as their natural chan- nel. Nearly all sights to them are beautiful, nearly all sounds are musical, and what is ugly is apt to be funny, and so to please as wit when it can not as art. The painful is viewed as a kind of joke (on Nature or on somebody), and a keen sense of the ridiculous filters some enjoyment from it. Such a disposition is worth a fortune; for it is that which a fortune is meant to CHEERFULNESS. 73 bring — happiness — so that if we already have the happiness by nature, the means are less important. A cheerful disposition is, indeed, largely the result of health and pleasant circumstances ; but if obtained without these, it dispenses with their need ; for he who is happy thereby defeats the ill-fortune of nature; so that it is more important to be happy than to be wealthy, healthy, handsome, or anything else whose only purpose is to make men happy. Cheerfulness is a short road to happiness. It is a race which you win by being at the goal when you start. We have said that cheerfulness is a duty. It is a duty not only to self, but to others. For others enjoy the cheerful man as much as he enjoys himself. Smiles, delight, humor, all are contagious ; and a cheerful man, like leaven, raises the spirits of the whole company. Happiness is catching, as well as goodness, and one can be happy for many. Man can not easily smile alone. Any one who starts a wave of joy makes it vibrate to the farther est limits of his company ; and as no duty is greater than to make men happy, cheerfulness is a summary way of doing many duties at once. A smile is a message of good will to others. It touches the electric key which sets a whole circle to being pleased. Cheerfulness makes cheerful, and multiplies our happiness in others. It is the pleasantest way of making others happy, as well as 74 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. the most effective. Begot of sympathy it begets more sympathy than anything else. It is an exhorta- tion to happiness by showing an example. Much of our need of company is that we may exchange pleas- ures. Two persons can borrow of each other more cheerfulness than either of them has. In fact two men can hardly look each other in the face without laughing. The cheerful man has a great power in society. As an orator he gets attention by his quick sympathy ; his good fellowship makes him desired as a com- panion ; men like to trade with him, and women are more apt to love him. We naturally like those who make us feel good, and demand their company as a part of our pleasure. A happy-making man is a public benefit; and to have one around is a cheap way of getting enjoyment. There is a great demand for some one to turn our surroundings into pleasures. Cheerfulness, then, as a duty to others, is a large part of Ethics. To make them happy by our own happiness is better than to make them so by what costs us pain. Enjoying for the sake of others is better than working for the sake of others. We too commonly regard duties to others as sacrifices, instead of pleasures. They may be profitable to us as well as to them, and naturally are so in a well ordered society. SPEAKING KINDLY OF OTHEES. 75 The duty of cheerfulness ought thus to be a grate- ful one, and it is strange that it is ever neglected. Nothing is pleasanter than setting an example in hap- piness ; and if one is such an abortion of nature as to find it too irksome to be happy, he should not have been born alive. Like all other virtues cheerfulness is a type of the general principle of morality, that what is good for others is best for ourselves. SPEAKING KINDLY OF OTHEES. An important form of kindness is kindly speaking ; and, important as it is to speak kindly to others, it is nearly as important to speak kindly of others. Men are often more sensitive about what is said of them than about what is said to them, since unkind- ness spoken in their presence may be resented or cor- rected, whereas if spoken in their absence it remains unrepaired. Hence, the back-biter is meaner than the brow-beater. He is also deemed cowardly, since the inference is that not having the courage to speak evil to one's face he takes his absence for it. As we should mention defects only to remedy them, there 70 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. is no excuse for disclosing them when the person to be benefitted is not present to take advantage of it. Criticism, if fair, is, indeed, allowable, but only for a good purpose, and then only in kindness. To habitually criticise, or to criticise for the love of the fault, and not of the person, is a low vice ; since faults, as we have seen, are not very profitable inform- ation, being private and of no wide application. We should not try to make others good off our neighbors' vices, but, when inclined to speak unkindly, should consider how the one spoken of would like it, who is most concerned, and determine whether our criticism will benefit others more than it will harm him. Men love their reputation next to their lives, and the slan- derer is near akin to the murderer. That a disagreeable thing is true is no justification of its utterance, any more than that a poison is genuine justifies a murder committed with it. There is an old law maxim that the greater the truth the greater the libel; and morals should be more sensi- tive than jurisprudence in discriminating against unkindness. There are truths which need not be known. Men's private affairs should be as much their own as their money ; and to give away their secrets is as bad as to give away their clothes. Men have prop- erty in truth, when it concerns them only. We all want others to think well of us, for which we spend SPEAKING KINDLY OF OTHERS. 77 our money and make our displays — dress, build, beautify, entertain, and do whatever calls for admira- tion. When men speak ill of us they attack all this, especially if they speak it to our acquaintances, as they commonly do. Many would rather be attacked by a highwayman than by a slanderer ; for the robber would destroy less, and would run greater risk in his attack. Before saying anything about others, con- sider whether you would say it to their faces, or whether they would care to have it said. Men can be particularly unkind in saying mortify- ing things. It is not necessary, in order to wound one's feelings, to say what is bad. It is enough to reveal what is private. Each family has its household matters that should be deemed sacredly its own. The tattler who scatters these in the street is as unkind as such a mean person can be ; and his low gossip should be avoided as beneath manliness. Eespect one's privacy, and be more careful not to talk than to tell the truth about secrets. We do not owe the world anybody else's secrets. No grace is more admired than that which speaks well of others. Besides averting endless difficulties it makes many friends. We readily conclude that he who speaks kindly of others will speak kindly of us, and so easily give our secrets to those who never reveal secrets to us; whereas one whom we know to be 78 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. false to another we can never trust ourselves, as we are aware of the important fact that he can be false. We can not but reflect, when one speaks ill of an absent one, that we will be the absent ones when he next talks. Trueness is no respecter of persons, but an absolute grace, and will be true to all. We need not expect one to be truer behind our back than he is to another to our face. One always leaves a better impression by speaking well of others, than by speak- ing ill, even if the ill be interesting gossip. We can usually see the unkindness of one who injures another as readily as if he injured us ; and we give him no more credit for goodness than his worst act entitles him to. Unkindness spoken of another is a confes- sion by the speaker, and he will be judged by the hearer as if it were spoken about him instead of to him. THINKING KINDLY OF OTHERS. 79 XI. THINKING KINDLY OF OTHEES. 1.— IN GENERAL. To think kindly of others is scarcely less grateful to them than to speak kindly, or act kindly. Men do much for our good opinion, and to withhold it is to defeat their work. More persons care to have us think well of them than to have us do well to them; for, while beneficence is limited to a few, benevolence may be to all. The least we owe any man is a good opin- ion, and we fail in a great duty if we depreciate him without cause. The obligation of good thoughts is imposed by mankind as a whole, and arises from the very condi- tions of society, as will appear in the next section. If we think badly of men, it is more the result of a bad heart than of a good judgment. It shows faulty lack of knowledge ; since men, if known, seem not as bad as when unknown ; and we owe to everybody knowledge enough not to think ill of him. "We should make it a habit of judgment to think well of everybody until we learn the contrary, and, when one fault is proven against him, to allow him the remaining virtues until they likewise are disproven. We think well of our 80 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. friends ; and everybody should be deemed friendly til. known otherwise. 2.— CONFIDENCE. We should, therefore, have confidence in mankind. Much confidence is required for the purposes of society ; and to be mistrustful disqualifies for life. One will lose more opportunities by want of confidence than he will save by uniform security. Caution is indeed necessary when risks are taken; but to have so much caution as to take no risks, is to lose all, instead of imperil a part. "Where not interested we should especially be slow to doubt men. Give every one the credit of good intentions, and assume that he will do his best. By extending to him your confidence, you will get his confidence, and know him well enough for your pur- poses. We should understand men before impeaching them, and not be so much on guard against human nature as never to learn it sufficiently for our ad- vantage. 3. — GRATITUDE. All such forms of kindness as gratitude we should freely accord, since every man has received much. A thankful heart doubles the favor, as well as qualifies us to cheerfully return it. The pleasures of gratitude GRATITUDE. 81 are among the great values of society; and to hold men kindly in our hearts is to smooth the way of life. Were we as thankful for what we have received as the favors of society deserve, we should think more kindly of men generally, since nearly everything comes from some source unknown. Our ancestors, our prede- cessors and our contemporaries have all done some- thing for us, which we can return only in gratitude to the race. A thankful heart is always worthy of more, whereas the ungrateful are not entitled to what they have. One who thinks badly of his kind does not appreciate what has been done for him, or adequately return thanks therefor. When we have received all from others, we can not, without ingratitude, think badly of all but ourselves. Thankfulness is little to give, but much to deny. One who withholds it is not richer thereby, but he keeps it to his own impoverishment. Gratitude en- riches the heart, while its absence alienates respect. That which nobody wants, nobody is willing to see another withhold. To enrich self, gratitude must be imparted to others. The expression of thanks is a a great part of life's sweetness, conveying as much pleasure to others as the feeling of them does to self. The thankless person knows not some of the greatest pleasures of life, just as he imparts them not. 6 82 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. XII. VICES ANTAGONISTIC. 1.— HATE Of the vices which stand opposed to the kindly virtues we have already spoken incidentally. It remains to speak of a few specially, and first of hate. For hate there is no place in life, and no excuse. It is not the proper feeling to have for anything. What we can not love we should pity — pity being the appropriate affection for all wrong-doers. As we should not avenge, but prevent their wrongs, so we should feel toward them not enmity but caution. Hate has no utility. It gives no pleasure, fur- nishes no protection, reforms no depravity. It is sim- ply a disagreeable sensation which undermines our own character. One can not feel good and hate, but as love implies pleasure, hate implies pain ; so that if one has simply his own happiness in view, he should avoid hate as unprofitable. One can not have great dislike for another and at the same time feel satisfac- tion with himself. Nor is there any corresponding action for hate that is at all useful. Its impulse is to kill, wound, insult or otherwise injure, which are all acts to be shunned ; and when they are necessary, as in war, HATE. 83 there are other feelings to impel us to what should be done, as the instinct of self-protection or care for society. We should never injure another except for his good, or that of the public, and then only from a sense of duty, and not ill-will, as a surgeon amputates a limb, or an officer restrains a burglar — always as a less evil. And as this should be done for the safety of society, we should act from love of the society, and not hate of the offender. We hang a criminal not for committing murder, but that murder may not be com- mitted, and the penalties for wrong-doing should all be imposed for the benefit of the people, "and not for vengeance on the criminal. The sufferings of the wrong-doer are no compensation to the wronged. Did less severe measures deter from crime we should not punish at all. Pain must be justified by its necessity. And so, too, while private offenders against our interests may be punished, and also children and pupils for violating commands, it should be to reap the advantages of correction, and not to avenge the wrong : and the punishment should be without hate, and. if not with actual love, at least with a sense of utility. Toward the offender, however bad, we should have only regret or solicitude, as for a beast not responsible for his offense. For wrong-doers are partly impelled by forces outside of them to wrong, being largely the instruments of their surroundings 84 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and of inherited impulses. While we should hold men to their responsibility it should be to insure their integrity, and not to gratify our vindictiyeness. Enmity, or ill-will, is pure sin. To wish mis- fortune to others, or take delight in their sorrow, is without a redeeming feature. To be a hater of happiness is to be as bad as one can be. Desiring one's defeat when he intends wrong, and resisting him, even to death, may be justified. But the motive must intend some good. We should never wish or act for pain on its own account. Jesus so disapproved of hate that he called it murder ; and in all religions the term is applied to Satan, or the principle of evil. Indifference to others is bad enough, being wholly without merit ; but hate goes farther, and adds vicious- ness to worthlessness. Christ forbade enmity even toward enemies, and asked love for them even when injuring us. Hatred contains nothing to which one can make a generous appeal ; and, being simply desire for evil, the action to correspond must be bad. If anything should be hated without any admixture of love, it is hate. 2. -ENVY. Envy is a form of hate, and has no legitimate place whatever. Feeling bad at another's success is pure malevolence. For, bad as it is to hate others for ENYY. 85 doing bad, it is immeasurably worse to hate them for doing good. While, however, envy is a wishing of evil, it commonly takes the negative form of regretting good. Congratulation, and not grudge, should be our feeling at others' prosperity. Want of sympathy is bad enough ; but positive displeasure at men's happiness is pure iniquity. If the success of another wrongfully interferes with our own, or with the general good, we may of course regret it, which is not envy but prefer- ence. But to be displeased because he is a rival, or because we have failed, is such a low vice that one never acknowledges it, being ashamed of his own meanness. We should not only never act from envy, but never feel it. Generosity toward a rival is a manly senti- ment, and to wish well to another at our own expense the loftiest grace. It is better, however, not to think of self in contemplating others' enjoyment (and least of all to assume that it will conflict with ours), but to be pleased with it because it is enjoyment. The envi- ous man is necessarily unhappy, because continually aware of something above him; for, being too little to accomplish much himself, such a one must habitually see himself outdistanced. Envy is, moreover, in itself, a disagreeable feeling — a compound of hate and jealousy, which are both 86 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. disagreeable. It is a union of two vices, and appears as an abortion of mingled pain and shame. 3. — ANGER. Anger is likewise a useless and dangerous vice. It rarely serves a good purpose, but injures both self and others. If men were meant for strife, it might be beneficial; but since fighting has almost disappeared from civilization, it has now no legitimate outlet in action. Like a wooden stove, which consumes only itself, it is a mind in conflagration, self -destroying its power. Anger is usually hate on fire, and is the stimulating of a feeling that should have no existence at all. If it is wrong to hate, it is worse to inflame that hatred. One may, indeed, be angry at wrong, or from a sense of indignation; but anger usually rages against persons, and not things; and as a feeling against wrong - doers it is neither agreeable nor profitable. One has more satisfaction who is calm, and has the further advantage of seeing better how to prevent or remedy the wrong. Anger is simply losing one's pres- ence of mind at a time when a mind is most needed, and passes for a fit of insanity (for to be" angry "and " mad" are, in common parlance, identical). Anger gets little respect from either friend or foe, and usually falls into the power of its antagonist, instead of gets ANGEE. 87 him in its power. It is a weakness which uses up one's strength, rather than a power employing it; so that what is clone in anger is usually regretted as failure. It is the common cause of quarrels, injuries, and even murders, and not of heroic achievements or great victories. The general is rarely angry, the leader must keep cool, the diplomat must conceal his feelings. Even as indignation, anger is not the proper feel- ing for wroncr "but regret, with consideration for a remedy. To expend your force on antagonistic feel- ing leaves you little opportunity to remedy the wrong ; for wrongs should be remedied, and not avenged ; and hence cool judgment and deliberate action should take the place of impulse. Anger has too much the char- acter of a vice to be an avenger of virtue. It carries too much hate to be a messenger of love. It disquali- fies for action, instead of prepares. One should not turn himself into a madman to act where deliberation is required. It is giving up your control to circum- stances, so that it is only chance if you accomplish your purpose. If anger is less guilty than hate, it is- only because it is insane hatred, instead of deliberate,, the hatred of a fool being less responsible than of a sane man, though not less injurious. 88 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. 4. — CRUELTY. (1) — In General. Cruelty, or the infliction of pain, is the most direct conflict with kindness. It is unkind enough to wish pain; to cause it is the extreme of unkindness. Cru- elty is hatred put in action, and adds to a bad wish a bad will. Deliberate cruelty is short of murder only in degree ; enough of it will produce death. Practiced on a wife, child, or other person dependent on, or trusting in, you, it is the vilest wrong, and punishable as crime. It is always the beginning of death, and may be physical or mental. By harsh words, threats, or the withholding of comforts, the same work of destruction may be done as by blows. Many are killed a lingering death by unkindness, the slowness of the torture adding to the greatness of the murder. Every one should, accordingly, take early in life, a resolution to never be cruel, particularly to the help- less or tender, who have no defense against it. If one is 'stronger than another he should feel his greater strength as an obligation to protect. The strong should help, and not distress, the weak. The ruler and warrior who have the lives and health of most in their power, have the greatest responsibility here. To pain those who are subject to us, or not to protect them against pain, is to do the murder which they PEACTICAL JOKING. 89 suffer in consequence. None are more despised than those who take advantage of weakness to injure it. Weakness should be to us a pledge of care, as sorrow should be of relief. Cruelty is the sum of all vices, as kindness is of all virtues. Most cruelty is, perhaps, the result of thoughtless- ness, especially in the young, who have not yet learned the distress it produces. But on no subject more than this should we early expend thought. When our sympathies are once developed we can not be thought- lessly cruel ; for we will then ourselves first feel the pain we are about to inflict, and, being unable, without full consciousness of it, to inflict it, will generally be deterred. As the cruelty of thoughtlessness, however, is as disastrous as that of deliberation, the thought- lessness becomes a crime when its results have once been brought to our attention. (2)— P)'actical Joking. It is unfortunate that several kinds of cruelty have passed into amusements, and are now justified as fun. They undermine the character for kindness, and should be discouraged as brutalizing. Practical jok- ing, in which we produce, and then laugh at, others' discomfort, is coarse unkindness and poor wit. When there are so many pleasant ways of having amusement there is no excuse for taking it out of torment. 90 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. To feed the inclination to joke is to develop an unlovely character. Formerly men were more cruel than now, in their amusements as in their pursuits ; as when gladiators fought with soldiers or wild beasts for the pleasure of the spectators. But, though this has ceased, men still get pleasure out of others' pain by teasing and like efforts to distress them, the pleasure consisting in the anger or discomfiture of the ones "joked." A still worse "pleasure" is to make sport of others' misfortunes, as by laughing at the deformed, or mocking the disabled. It is mean to beat a cripple with his own crutch, or in any way to make one feel worse over his misfortune by calling his attention to it, or the attention of others. And yet such is the character of most practical joking. Some trouble or weakness of a supposed inferior is taken for the subject of the sport, and so the misfortune of nature aggravated by the unkindness of society. Such "fun" should be proscribed by good breeding as coarse, as well as by good morals as unkind. (3) — Hazing. Hazing is a senseless as well as cruel sport — the torture of a weak or strange boy in school or company before he has had a chance to take precaution for his defense. It is betraying one at a time when he is DUELING. 91 entitled to our hospitality. The stranger and the defenseless should always be secure from offense. If men must annoy anybody, it would be less unmanly to take one who can whip his annoyers. To select the weaker for our sport is cowardly, and shows meanness in ourselves as well as cruelty to others. Better pleasures may be had without inflicting pain; and all youth, and especially students, should be educated to proper sport as well as proper work. It is unkind enough to laugh at such sports; it is meanly cruel to practice them. In students they are often excused on the ground of youth. But they who are aspiring to superior wisdom should be the last to plead excessive folly. It is a bad beginning for edu- cation when our first lessons are in cruelty. The enmities engendered in these sports often last through life. One rarely knows how deeply such unkindness wounds a youth, particularly such sensitive ones as are commonly taken for the sport. (4) — Dueling. Dueling is a little less cruel, and a little more senseless, than hazing. It adds some fairness in giving the other party an equal chance to gash the hazer; but it inflicts more damage for less cause. A young man at the age when students' duels are fought knows not the value of a whole face ; and the scars 92 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and loss of a nose are regretted for a life-time, though they are the result of an hour's folly. Young men should not be given a chance to ruin themselves before they get their sense, and the immorality of the practice is largely in the custom which sanctions it. Having come from a more barbarous age, it should not be tolerated now ; and he who takes sport out of a duel as a looker-on, is a participant in the wrong. It is incipient murder to attempt to take so much of life ; and it is no mitigation that it is for so little cause. The folly of a wrong does not take away its crimi- nality; but one can be a fool and a murderer at the same time. Of those duels which are fought by men, and where the object is to take life, as in France, the folly and the criminality are greater because of the maturity of the offenders and the seriousness of the results. Where we should expect more sense we find less, and in the " code " vice has reached the hight of stupidity. "When such a folly is the fashion the community are criminals, for if public sentiment incites to death men's thoughts are murderous. A duel decides nothing, and accomplishes nothing. Originating in a time when it was thought that the worse would be killed, it has no reason for surviving when the superstition is gone. The innocent one is just as apt to be killed as the guilty, and so the wrong DUELING. 93 doubled instead of righted. The " code " is radically wrong in nearly every feature, being a series of para- doxes. Because one has insulted you, you must give him a chance to also kill you, and so run the risk of death in order to avenge an insult. If an offender should be killed for his insult it is hardly consistent to give him a chance to do the killing instead of the dying, and so for the criminal to exchange places with the executioner. That the wrong-doer should have two chances to the other's one to injure seems far from equality ; since his first injury is sure, and he has an equal chance to do another. To kill in a duel is murder, and to fight a duel is to attempt murder ; and it is no less murder because you expose yourself to danger in committing it, which the highwayman also does. It is no excuse for one crime to commit another, and the offense of murder is not wiped out by the addition of suicide. The duelist commits a double crime, since he risks two lives. It is no justification in killing a man that you give him a chance to be a murderer as well as a victim. To make a fool of yourself does not save you from mak- ing a criminal of yourself ; but folly and criminality, which usually go together, are most completely recon- ciled in the duel. 94 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. (5) — Murder, Murder is the consummation of all crime, and the extreme reach of cruelty, doing all against another that can be done. It wipes him out entirely, so that all he has, or may be, becomes nothing to him. Destroying the whole world as to his victim, the mur- derer creates death instead of life. We naturally think murder the greatest crime, and punish it with the severest penalty — the same obliteratim. As it is all that can be done against the spirit of kindness, it is the acme of wrong. It kills as much, moreover, in the murderer as in the victim — the kindness which is the life of all goodness — so that, like a duel in which both are killed, it is a double murder. Murder is rarely committed, however, for the sake of murder, this crime having no fascination. Like nearly all crimes it is done for some other end — money, ven- geance or ambition ; and in guarding against the crime, we must guard against the inducements to it. The greatest crime may be committed for a very good or very small end, or as simply the impulse of folly, as in the duel. Our sufficient protection is in that con- sideration of others that will allow us to attempt nothing for ourselves at their expense, but require us to be perfectly just, and, in all things, kind. The departure from kindness is in the direction of all CEUELTY TO ANIMALS. 95 crimes, and, if followed far enough, will end in mur- der, its natural extreme. (6) — Cruelty to Animals. a. In General. — Our kindness should extend be- yond man to all life. Wherever there may be pain there is the duty to avoid it. We owe a love to the dog and the fish; and our sympathy should go as far as feeling, and relief as far as suffering. Hence kindness to animals is as obligatory as kind- ness to men. That they are inferior, and more in our power, is but another reason for being more kind to them, as to children and sick ones ; and that they can not compel it as a reason for specially compelling our- selves to it. While there might not be so much rea- son to be kind to a tiger in the jungles, who can take care of himself, we have no right to torment a caged or domesticated beast which has laid off his strength. What is at our mercy should receive our mercy. The driver of a horse, or owner of a dog, is bound to impose no cruel task on his charge, and to withhold no food or shelter needed for its comfort. One's self- interest, indeed, requires this ; but, beyond this feel- ing, he should have a farther concern, since self-inter- est is not sufficiently appreciated in its relations outside of us. He who has power over inferiors is responsible for 96 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. their comfort, and undue pain suffered by them is chargeable to him. The claims of beasts on men have never been adequately considered; and because their mouths are dumb, so that they can not plead their cause, we should voluntarily give such consideration to them. Only recently have inferiors among men received their dues from superiors ; and now this kind consideration is being extended to the lower orders. Whereas men once thought that their duties were only to men and God, so that they might treat beasts as they pleased, now duty is recognized as extending to all the living, and cruelty to animals is punished as crime. Since our love, and consequent duty, is thus to all life, the ordinary terms of morality which were hitherto considered so comprehensive, have become too narrow (etymologically) to express modern benev- olence, and need an extension in the direction of animals. Thus the word " humanity," once deemed so broad as to be identical with kindness, falls short as includ- ing only what is " human." " Good will to beasts," as well as " good will to men," is necessary. So the word " philanthropy," which expresses literally only love of man, needs extension to something like " philzoophy," or " love of the living." " Love of the race," likewise, once deemed broad enough for all good- ness, is now narrow, because many objects of universal CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 97 love lie beyond and beneath our race. " Universal brotherhood," even, which extends beyond self, and country, and sect, to all men, is not broad enough, unless we take in the dog and lobster as brothers. Love of all that may think or feel, and kindness for all that may suffer, should be our limit. b. Sport. — Much cruelty to animals is practiced as sport. It seems paradoxical that men should take their pleasures out of the pains of animals, enjoying their sufferings and torturing them to stimulate that enjoy- ment. This taste should be reformed and refined, es- pecially as it is needless. More pleasure can be derived from pleasure than from pain ; and the very fact that we can enjoy pain is reason enough for abolishing amusements which furnish it. It being as degrading to man as it is painful to the brutes, we should get rid of our capacity for such pleasure, as well as its indul- gence. When men not only fail to sympathize with animal suffering, but actually enjoy it, and when this appetite for pain is so great as to incur vast ex- pense and trouble to supply pain-amusements, it speaks worse for the men than for the beasts. For whereas wild beasts kill animals to eat them, we kill them for the pleasure of their death, the hunting man being a grade lower in savagery than the hunting wolf. 7 98 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. The animals thus hunted, moreover, are mostly weak and innocent (as birds and deer), which are more fit for pets than victims. One who has had a tame deer, and knows how affectionate such animals .•are, can never go on a deer hunt. To shoot what appeals so strongly for our pity, and with no object but the enjoyment of its discomfiture, is a heartless cruci- fixion of our tenderness. When game or fish must be slain for food it should be done with the least pain pos- sible to them, and the least pleasure possible to us. All butchery should be instantaneous and unen joy able. Such sports as bull-fights, dog-fights and cock- fights, are cruel to the animals and degrading to the men. Fighting ought not to give pleasure to anybody, with its necessary production of pain. To see the exercise of passions in animals which are vices in us, and to promote them for our enjoyment, is a discipline in immorality. It hardens one into unsympathy, and gives him a fond- ness for war and quarreling among men. Such per- sons unconsciously take beasts for their models, and follow them as ideals. Horse-racing, whose principal vice is the betting, of which we shall speak in the sec- tion on Gambling, is cruel when the horses are goaded or over-strained for speed, as is usually done ; and we should not delight in it when pain is inevitable. It is as important to be refined in our amusements CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 99 as in our work; and we should not, by the cruelty of our pastime, neutralize the kindness of our occupation. Our pleasures should, of all things, not be cruel; for while we may, through cupidity, be tempted to take our interest out of pain, it is pure malevolence that can take enjoyment out of pain. When we want to have pleasure we should not start out to produce the opposite. If we can not feel the pain of other crea- tures and sympathize with it, we at least should not, in thinking of it, enjoy it. Sympathy for brutes is as obligatory as kindness to them; and we ought not to be anything else than unhappy when they are suffering. We have thus far spoken of Kindness and the spe- cial virtues resulting from it — those which pre-sup- pose a good heart. We shall speak next of the more intellectual virtues of Truth, which pre-supposes also a good mind. CHAPTER SECOND. TRUTH. I. VEEACITY. Truth, in the widest sense, is a most comprehen- sive virtue, as it is an adjustment, in mind and speech, to whatever is, or a living, internally and externally, according to nature. Truth is faithfulness to fact; for one may be faithful to things, as well as to persons ; and, to so love the world — its laws and its individual objects — as to never deny any part of it, but always recognize and acknowledge it as it is, is a most important virtue. To have a true character is to be reliable, like the laws of nature, so that when one knows the facts he can infer what such a person will think and say. One who stands so close to nature that he is ever its reflection, and so sympa- thizes with it that he never prefers the unreal, either to think or to utter, is the highest type of man. To have a fondness for fact, so as to want to see it, and make others see it, is to possess the spirit of truth. To lie is to betray knowledge, or deny Nature, as VERACITY. 101 Judas betrayed Christ. We owe every one a tran- script of our thoughts when we speak; and as true as Nature is to us in giving us her image, we should be to man in giving him a reflection. We should, like a mirror, be a faithful reporter of what is given us, and not, like a disturbed surface, reflect an uncertain and varying image. Society depends largely on veracity, since we must use one another's knowledge as well as their produc- tions ; and to give false information is, like giving false coin, to be guilty of counterfeiting. We owe every- body the knowledge he asks for, and can not pay it in any currency but truth. Fact is a commodity as much as cheese; and because it is not paid for, it is no less the subject of cheating. He who lies gives a rotten egg for a good one, and breaks one of the laws of trade. Needing your information to conduct my busi- ness, as much as I need your grain, I am robbed if you give me anything else; so that the liar is a kind of thief. To take from one the facts that he needs to know is often as damaging as to take his money or his food ; and the obligation to truth should be felt to be as great as to honesty. In fact, lying is a part of almost every dishonesty, since few wrongs travel alone, and deception is the most congenial companion for them all. Without veracity we could not live in society at 102 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. all ; for we are as dependent on the words of others as on their help. In fact, men usually help one another with words ; and giving a falsehood for a truth is like giving a blow for a lift. Veracity is the means of communication in all co-operation; and it does not require many falsehoods to destroy the machinery of society, just as it does not require many breaks in the gearing to stop a whole factory. Truth must be habitual to be of value, and must be known to be habitual. When there is not enough for reliance, men are resolved again into individuals, as if society were not organized, and can do no more than what each can do of himself. Co-operation requires confidence. A liar is worth no more to society than an idler, since he can not be fitted into his place. He is like a broken link in a chain, which renders worthless the whole chain. When we are supported on one another, if one gives way all support is gone. Hence truth is sought in all employes and public officers. No trait has more commercial value than veracity. When one is known to be unflinchingly true, so that in every circumstance he can be relied on, and especially in the greatest temptation, he be- comes a man much sought after, because there are numberless trusts for which no others are fitted, and because truthfulness carries nearly all other virtues VERACITY. 103 with it (for he is not apt to commit offenses who is truthful in speaking of them ) . Truth must be habitual, as we have said, to be of any value. If one lies occasionally, he can not be relied on; for one requiring assurance can not know whether one of his lies may not come just when truth is most needed. One should habituate himself never to lie, but make truth a matter of principle. One who lies at all is a liar, and the fact that he can lie is a fatal defect. The only men who are very valuable for their truth are those who are known not to lie under any circumstances. If employes, clients, customers, children, or readers, believe that when one says any- thing it is true, there is an assurance of great value, and that man is much needed. When his utterance is taken as the last word, so that men are ready to act upon it, business can proceed confidently, and the great waste of suspicion and timidity is spared. One has much who can be certain in his business ; and cer- tain he can be only when he has truthful men to depend on. To be true, and to have a reputation for truth, is thus a large capital for the average man. One given to lying may lie when he does not aim to; for liars lie as much by mistake as by design. One accustomed to lie learns not to see the truth, and is unreliable even when he intends to be true. To always tell the truth is a quick way to learn the truth. 104 HE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. For he who is always anxious to tell the truth is anxious always to have the truth to tell; so that truth and intelligence generally go together; whereas many are liars because they do not know the truth. The truth likes to be well treated, and will not make acquaintance with one who does not confess it. One can not lie much without being known as a liar. It is as hard to conceal a lie as a noise; it gets out as easily as a sound gets through a key-hole. Truth is all related, so that a lie is self-detective, like a mistake in book-keeping. He who would lie much, and preserve a reputation for truth, will find his task harder than to tell the truth uniformly, and in the end less successful. The disadvantages of lying are obvious. One known to lie is not believed, whether he lies or speaks the truth. His lie becomes worthless, and he can not use the truth to advantage. He has simply lost his power in society. To have any influence he must go among strangers, and even they will generally find him out before they confide in him enough for his ad- vantage. A course of lying is short-lived, since after a quick discovery it dies from its own worthless- ness; so that the liar is commonly an insignificant person. It requires much power of truth to make an influential man. The liar has not hold of the forces of nature, like the true man, who lives according to CANDOR. 105 nature; but he presents the pitiable spectacle of one who can not get his truth believed; for he who will- fully deceives loses in time the power to instruct. II. CANDOR One may acquire the habit not only of telling the truth, but of looking it. It is possible to become so permeated with the truth that, like the measles, it will show itself in the life, — . working out in the appear- ance and manner. It is important to let truth have this natural expression, so that people may read it in us; for nothing pleases more than the appearance of truth, which, like kindness, furnishes a sort of beauty. For many subtle graces grow out of a thorough recon- ciliation with the truth, whose natural expression is candor. Men become thereby easy, unaffected and affable, with an open countenance and unrestrained voice; because they have nothing which they want to conceal, or make appear otherwise than it is. They elicit confidence, as they impart pleasure, and wield an influence as the very power of truth's expression. Living the truth, is, therefore, as important as tell- ing the truth; for men can act the truth as easily as 106 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. they can act a lie, the tongue not being the only mem- ber used in truth-telling any more than in lying. As the eye, the arms and the whole body can lie, and even silence can do so, so can they speak the truth, and normally do so; so that we have as many ways of instructing as we have of deceiving, and are re- sponsible for the impressions men get from us, no matter how we give them. Conduct has its natural language, as well as words, and is often more power- ful and accurate in utterance. When we assume an unusual conduct to express ourselves, we not only are liable for the error imparted, but become weak through exhibiting a contradiction between our thought and manner. We also disclose, as a rule, the intended de- ception through the awkwardness of an inexperienced role. Men judge of truth, as of other things, by its fruits; and truth acted does not give error imparted. Our life, accordingly, should be truth displayed, or an illustrated edition of truth. As the offspring of light truth should always appear illuminated. PEEJUDICE. 107 III. PEEJUDICE. We should always tell the truth to ourselves. Many lie so habitually that they do not observe that it is not another that they are lying to, and they actually expect themselves to believe their own lies. Sometimes they are the only persons who will do so. A liar, as we have said, soon comes not to recognize the truth. An uncandid person forgets how to use evidence, and holds opinions without reason. Dealing unfairly with others, he learns unconsciously to deal unfairly with himself, holding views which he knows to be not true, or would know if he allowed himself to think. Many want to believe particular things to be true, and by trying to make others believe them, come to try to make themselves believe them. There is much of this persuading of one's self ; and often one finds himself his own easiest dupe. He soon gets to believe his own lies, and then for the first time tells them to others for truth. For men's errors of opinion are generally of their own making ; so that it is our duty to know the truth, as well as to want it. We should, accordingly, recognize the importance of mental honesty, and be true to our own minds. Most errors result from our own desires, rather than 108 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. from others' deceptions. Mistakes will not tarry long if they are not hospitably received. We have generally the means of knowing the truth where the truth is important to us, so that error is more the result of prejudice than of impotence. As it is wrong to tell a lie to others, it is wrong to believe one of our own lies. It is as immoral gener- ally to believe a thing when we know it is false, as to tell it under such circumstances. There would not be so many liars if there were not so many believers of lies, the supply, as in other things, being regulated by the demand; and to encourage lying by credulity, and especially to be both liar and dupe of the same false- hood, is a vicious imbecility. To take untruth into our minds is as bad as to send it out of our mouths. It is obligatory, therefore, to resort to all means to learn the truth — to keep open the eyes, to discrimi- nate in what we think we remember, and to reason impartially. It is wrong to believe or disbelieve against the evidence, or on insufficient evidence, or with more certainty than the evidence warrants. Fidelity to truth requires a candid estimate of the probabilities in doubtful matters, and a recognition, acceptance and acknowledgement of what seems proven. To deny to evidence its natural force is faithlessness to nature, and you thereby become a liar to yourself. There is such a thing as the morals of mental conduct, PREJUDICE. 109 or the right and wrong of forming opinions. Error is guilt when it is avoidable, and we should recognize the virtue of having right opinions. Prejudice is the enemy of all this, or the opposite vice. One who will not let himself think, lest he learn what he wants not to be true, or who forces himself to assent to what he knows is false, is guilty of his own errors, and an essentially false man. To accept what you know is untrue is to tell a lie to yourself, and so to make yourself a liar generally; for after you have accepted it yourself, you will be telling it as true to others, For nobody can be more truthful to others than he is to himself. The prejudiced man is neces- sarily a liar; for, having made up his own information out of lies, he has, of course, only lies to tell to others. And what is admitted to your own mind as a known lie you are not likely to give out as an unwitting lie; but dishonesty will accompany all you have to do with that opinion. He who lies to himself, therefore, lies indirectly to many. 110 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. IV. BIGOTEY. Hence bigotry, which is the offspring of prejudice, is a degraded and offensive vice. It is a zeal founded on insincerity. For the bigot does not propagate his views because he believes them true, but because he fears they may be false, so that he is solicitous about getting for them an acceptance through favor. His means are usually dishonest — craft, misrepre- sentation, and especially over- statement. He is unjust to others and their views, and is mean and unsympa- thetic besides, being one of the most unlovely charac- ters known to either religion, politics, or society. His utterances are colored by the requirements of his sect, party, or interest. He is hard to reason with, as truth does not take effect on his unwilling mind. Desirous of seeing only what confirms his prejudice, he looks not for truth but for persuasives, and, being timid without caution, disputes without arguing. The soul of insincerity, the bigot can not be a true man, any more than he can be a loving one. When one recognizes no good but the interest of his own sect or party, he can not love much beyond the same limits, and so has none of the broader feelings of the benevolent man. His narrowness unfits him for HYPOCEISY. Ill nearly all that is good in life, and so belittles him that what good he does do is trivial. Bigotry gives neither reason, feeling nor conduct a chance. Y. HYPOCEISY. From bigotry it is only a step to hypocrisy. As bigotry is an insincere opinion, hypocrisy is an insin- cere expression of it. Many, having opinions which they do not like, and can not disown to themselves, misrepresent them to others. Because they are un- profitable they do not want them to prevail, and so live a life contrary to them. Hypocrisy embraces many kinds of lying, as well as some other vices. It is a contradiction between man's outer and inner life, taking on other people's opinions for show, and trying to act as if we had their motives. It is a mean vice, inasmuch as it has no confidence in self, and, like bigotry, is afraid to trust truth. It goes beyond prejudice, which usually believes a lie, by giving itself up to be controlled by a lie; and it is all the meaner because it surrenders to what it not only knows is not true, but does not even respect as false- hood. 112 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. The hypocrite is easily detected, because, having many ways of lying, he has many ways of disclosing his lies. For it is harder to keep a life of falsehood concealed than to keep a single falsehood concealed. Lying continually, therefore, and by his whole con- duct, he is always liable to discover his real opinions to others ; so that he who begins by deceiving all, ends by being the only one that is deceived; and by the time he believes he is sincere nobody else does. For what the hypocrite gains in sincerity, others lose in confidence. For, though one may, by much tamper- ing with truth, actually believe his own lies, it is not usually until he has destroyed all belief in them by others; for the self -deceiver soon knows not how to deceive so as to make other believe. VI. PEKJUBY. Perjury is deemed more criminal than lying, be- cause it intends some wrong. Men swear only in legal proceedings, where property is commonly in- volved ; so that he who lies under oath lies away another's rights. Falsehood is here practiced for a PEKJURY. 113 purpose, and, the purpose being bad, adds injustice to the lying, so that perjury is a double wrong. This crime is committed, too, when the swearer's attention is specially called to the truth of his state- ment, and when, by extra formalities, he engages to specially tell the truth. He can not perjure himself thoughtlessly, as he may thoughtlessly lie; but his perjury is with full knowledge both that the truth is expected and that it is important. Everything is done, too, by concentration on the subject, to refresh the memory, and, by examination and cross-examination, to elicit accuracy of expression ; so that perjury is always willful, and has no excuse in impotence, forget- fulness or inattention. One tells the double lie of say- ing he is about to tell the truth, and then telling the falsehood, thus both lying and declaring his lie not a lie. And, furthermore, he calls God to witness his truthfulness, and punish him if it is not genuine. Perjury is, accordingly, punished as a crime; be- cause the damage suffered by the loss of a suit is largely caused by the liar. While the plain liar is left to the natural laws of conscience and society for his punishment, the perjurer's offence takes on so much of dishonesty, that it is treated as something more than lying. 114 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. VII. BKIBEKY. Bribery, for the same reason, is a double crime, and punished as a gross form of injustice. It involves two sins : first, lying ; and, secondly, getting another to lie. It is lying for a purpose, too, like perjury, and so wrongs one beyond the mere withholding of the truth. The briber enters into lying as a business, and employs an assistant; and his crime multiplies as it proceeds ; for it is a wrong to himself, an attack on another's character (in inducing him to wrong), and an attack on a third party (to get something from him by falsehood). It* is making crimes join hands for injury, and confederating men against men's rights. One who bribes, or is bribed, is always known as vile, and so, with his co-conspirators at least, is committed to crime, and not likely to be reclaimed. CHAPTER THIRD. HONESTY. I. IN GENERAL. Honesty, or justice, is a comprehensive virtue, em- bracing, like kindness and truth, all others, if followed throughout its connections. Giving to others their dues, while retaining for self its rights, is the sum of morality; and one can not do a wrong that does not antagonize this principle. The virtue of honesty, therefore, like the other virtues, illustrates, in its com- prehensiveness, the general fact, already explained, of the unity of morality, and its relation to all good. In honesty we recognize specially the rights of others, and particularly their property rights. This virtue consists in doing nothing to injure such rights, as kindness consists in doing nothing to injure their personal rights. A man's property is almost as closely connected with his happiness as is his body, espe- cially in a complicated social state, where we must so much use others and their work. For our property represents our interest in what 115 116 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. others produce, and is the means of using them. By it we get their labor, attentions, accumulated products, and whatever they have that we want. And to make this transfer well, so as to preserve our rights and theirs, is what we call honesty, or justice. There are endless opportunities, and temptations, to get more than we are entitled to, or to withhold something that we owe ; and most of the contentions o£ life concern property. These give rise to law- suits, which are private wars, and to the artifices of trade and industry. The aim of justice is to make men's affairs go smoothly amid their conflicting inter- ests — to fix and recognize the rights and duties of each, so that, keeping within their respective limits, men shall not come in conflict. For this we should recognize others' rights as our own, and get a keen sense of them, as in kindness we get a keen sense of their feelings, whereby their suffer- ings become ours. Their wrongs should, likewise, become ours ; and we should not only do nothing against their rights, but do what we can to procure them. Men are happy only as the rights of all are secured, a good state existing when there is com- plete justice. For this we must have many virtues, as the expres- sion of honesty — fairness, moderation, helpfulness, and all others, which have been mentioned as applica- THEFT. 117 ble to persons, extended now also to their possessions ; so that we do not try to get what is justly theirs, or retain more than is jnstly ours. To this end we must, restraining our cupidity, keep our wants within our rights, and our desires within our needs; since, by getting more than we should have, somebody must suffer by getting less than he needs. Property should be held with reference to the whole, since, as already explained, we own our pos- sessions subject to the rights of others in them. While all are entitled to what is necessary, none are entitled to that without which others can not have enough. II. THEFT. The most familiar form of dishonesty is stealing; and, while all kinds of injustice may be deemed theft, in its most general sense, there is a special crime which consists in getting others' property without compensation, and generally without their knowledge. The thief is an enemy of society, like the wolf, or earthquake, and to be treated as such. In early times he was deemed unfit to live, and was executed for the 118 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. smallest offense. Now lie is simply removed from the society in which he is disqualified to live, and shut up where he can not practice his vice, and where he may be reformed and again fitted for the liberty which he has forfeited. III. CHEATING. Stealing, however, is only one form of dishonesty, and, in civilized countries, the least common. Prop- erty is so secured that the plain thief has few chances. Criminals do their robbing by getting the owner's con- fidence, and then betraying it, — by misrepresentation, false pretenses, defalcation, and other treacherous methods. Instead of breaking into a safe the thief now gets the key, stealing being by persuasion instead of force. A criminal once said that he had thirty-six ways of getting other people's money, the most honest of which was sly theft. Where so much confidence is required as in modern society, dishonesty is practiced by corresponding forms of abuse of confidence — by the frauds of employes, trustees, attorneys, and managers of corporations. Everybody relies on many who may be possible CHEATING. 119 rogues ; and the chances to take his property are as numerous as to take his life. Over-charging, under- serving, and false weighing, are among the many kinds of cheating. We can cheat men before their eyes without their knowing it, and almost without knowing it ourselves. There are as many ways of cheating as of being unkind. Orphans, servants, tenants, the public, all may be victims, there being as many crimes as there are relations to distinguish them. We need a delicate sense of justice to discern, and guard against, the varied forms of dishonesty. There is hardly a transaction in which there may not be a wrong; and the perfectly just man, whom Plato re- garded as the highest type of humanity, is one who in all these possible transactions gives to others their rights. For the thoroughly honest man, as for the thoroughly truthful one, there is a great demand. In the many places requiring confidence there are more occasions for honesty than there are people to fill them. One widely known to be honest need never want employment. The greatest need of business is men to trust, — to trust in large and small affairs, out of sight and in temptation, with money and with power, with secrets and with missions — men who will do what is required, and do it faithfully, Honesty, like truthful- 120 THE VIRTUES AND THEIE REASONS. ness, has great commercial value, the demand being always larger than the supply, and the better the quality the greater the demand for it. A thoroughly lionest man doubles the value of his employer; for lie can be put where the employer would otherwise have to be, so that he who has many such multiplies him- self and enlarges his business. The difficulty of getting honest men lies in the fact that it takes much time to develop one, and much to find him out. While a rogue can be discovered by one act, an honest man must be tried often. For while a rogue can sometimes be honest, an honest man can never be a rogue. He must, accordingly, be tried in many places, with a variety of trusts, and under manifold circumstances of temptation, to be fully tested, or fully known as honest. For, if in all these experiences he makes one slip, showing dishonesty, he is thrown aside like a broken glass, because he is known as not honest. One example proves as well as a hundred, that he can be dishonest, which disqualifies him for the requirements of a trust. On the other hand if he is thoroughly known, even by one man, as honest, this opinion spreads into a general reputation. Any one, therefore, thinking to lead a business life, should, first of all, provide himself with a character and reputation for honesty — or, rather, provide him- self with the character, when society will furnish the EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYE. 121 reputation ; for honesty can no more conceal itself than dishonesty, and even slander can not long defeat it. IV. EMPLOYEE AND EMPLOYE. Between employer and employe* there are special demands for honesty, as each is much in the other's power, the employer having some of his business, and the employe all of his wages, dependent on the other. For, though we are all in this mutual relation of aid, which constitutes society, the employer and employe* have most completely given themselves to each other. There is, accordingly, a great chance here for oppres- sion on one side, and treachery on the other ; and one can, in the long run, cause about as much damage as the other. The employer's duty is fairness, consideration for comfort, prompt and liberal payment, increase of wages with advance of profits, and the respect due an equal. The employe's duty is faithfulness, in which he makes his employer's interest his own, and serves it as zealously as would the master himself, working his full time and full strength, and accounting for every penny entrusted to him. 122 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. One should not injure his employer by quitting work without notice, or striking without cause. Be- fore demanding more compensation he should consider whether he is worth it, and when he can not get enough, he should peaceably go elsewhere. One ought not to injure another by either working for him or leaving him, but deal as fairly as he would be dealt fey- If a man makes himself necessary to his employer, he will be retained and promoted ; and when known to be thoroughly reliable he becomes necessary. One re- luctantly parts with a faithful man, and the greater his fidelity the higher his promotion — the most honest men being required at the top. We should in honesty, as in love, put our fellow in our place, and act toward him as if we had his desires, learning as an employe" to do what another wants, and substituting his will in work for ours. There should be much kindness in business. In- stead of considering our employer an antagonist, or competitor, we should regard him as a friend, and avoid all antagonism between labor and capital as mutually injurious. One can not enjoy his employ- ment without a love for it, and for his employer's interest, just as he can not enjoy anything if acting from selfishness or antagonism. The lover of his work, and of its success, does his work well, and does PROMISES. 123 much of it ; so that he generally gets promotion as well as enjoyment ; for services are measured, like everything else, by success. We should, therefore, see that our employer has success, as far as we can effect it, and keep ourselves in harmony with the spirit of mutual aid, which un- derlies society. We may ourselves soon be the em- ployers, and want the advantage of this faithfulness; for the faithful employe* generally becomes an employer, — a partner, manager or holder of some re- sponsibility — no one's position in business, any more than in society, being permanent. V. PEOMISES. A promise may be valuable as well as a service, es- pecially when given for a promise, which is a contract. Men make all their combinations in promises before they complete them in co-operation. We must rely a one another for the future, as well as for the present, so that keeping a promise should be deemed as sacred as telling the truth. For a promise is an assertion which we have the power to make true ; and when we say that anything shall be done, we should feel the obligation so 124 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. strongly that we can say it is done. When, by proof of our faithfulness, others can thus feel assured, we will be much in demand for employers, customers, at- torneys and for all places where reliance is required. When a promise is made, there is usually some reliance placed upon it, so that to break it is to betray a trust. If we do not perform our engagement, an- other suffers, so that the violation of a promise is a form of dishonesty. To change our opinion is no justification of default ; since along with the promise should go the provision for its execution. One has no right to promise what he can not do; and consideration should precede a promise rather than follow it. After making an en- gagement we should consider, not its wisdom, but its execution. Our duties that lie in the future are an important part of ethics, and should be promptly done when they are reached. Others should be able to trust us for the future as well as the present, and believe that what we promise will be true, as well as that what we say is true. The bringing of our promises into truth, or the turning of engagements into facts, is a great part of honesty. People get a property in promises when they are once made ; and every man should regard his promise as his note. He who keeps his promise gets credit, and he can PEOMISES. 125 go through the world on promises. He thus has the aid of men — of their services and their property — when he wants it, and not merely when he can give an equivalent for it; and it is highly important in busi- ness to have what we want at the right time. He whose promises are as good as his money may have out as many notes as he wants to circulate. Most litigation arises from broken promises, which lie also at the foundation of bankruptcies and financial depression. Impairing confidence, they stop business, which is intolerant of suspicion. Men's increasing caution after disappointment limits ventures and causes delay. Promise-keeping is to business what truth- telling is to society, the keeping of contracts fully and on time being the life of trade. To take advantage of inadequate laws, or of inaccu- racies in contracts, to escape their obligation, is as dishonest as to omit any other duty. The ability of others to enforce your contract is not the measure of your duty to perform it; and he who takes hold of the law to injure his neighbor is no better than he who takes hold of a club. Litigation should be resorted to only to get our rights, and not to deprive others of theirs. We have more to do as duty than the law requires, and should strive to live so faithfully to our engagements that the law need never be invoked for us or against us. 126 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. VI. GAMBLING. 1. — IN GENERAL. Gambling is a unique form of dishonesty, which consists in getting other people's money without giv- ing an equivalent. That it does not generally succeed does not diminish the guilt, since one at least aims at the wrong. That he risks his own property to accom- plish it does not mitigate the injustice, since he always hopes to get more. Nobody gambles expect- ing a mere equivalent. And that he usually gets less is proof of his folly, and not of his generosity. The gambler commits the double wrong of risking his own money imprudently, and trying to get an- other's dishonestly. And, being sure to create loss, if long continued, he braves poverty in one party or the other. Property should go from one to another only as exchange. To create arbitrary routes of alienation, so that he shall get who has not earned, and he lose who has not spent, is to unsettle all interests. Men become thereby reckless, and, losing easily, want to gain easily ; so that they become in time dissatisfied with the slow way of earning money, and engage in methods of cunning to become rich. BAFFLING. 127 If this be long continued, men will not have their property by any just title; and thieves will feel justi- fied in taking it by their method — without risks — which is scarcely less dishonest. Gambling is a thiev- ing which consists in getting the victims' consent to the theft. 2. — RAFFLING. Gambling is generally done, especially at first, in some form which, from the smallness of the risks, or the ulterior purpose of amusement, goes by some other name. This, however, leads to the common forms of gambling, and is, besides, as bad in itself. As long as we try to get others' property by games, or without an equivalent, it is gambling; and the fact that the stakes are small, or the game interesting, does not change the vice. There is simply the difference be- tween stealing a cow and stealing a pig. To "take chances," whether at a church fair or saloon raffle, is to gamble and develop the gambler's passion. That the object is charity is no mitigation of the evil, since the hopes of the players are excited in the same way, and the stakes paid on the same principle. The fact that the charitable institution has the greater chance of winning, does not make it less dishonest on the part of the players, or more fair on the part of the charitable institution. 128 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Churches, above all, should shun these games, which imprudently excite in children the passion for winning, and then withhold the chance — thus cheat- ing them as well as tempting them. Enterprises which aim to lead in morality should exclude the vices from their methods. By gambling they teach a bad lesson, and set a dishonest example to enforce it. For to gamble for religion no more purines the sin than to lie or steal for it. And those who learn to gamble for religion rarely stop there, but put to use in the gambling dens the lessons they learn in the churches. Governments also should avoid such methods of money-raising as State lotteries, since by them they lead their subjects in crime, and prepare, by the plant- ing of vice, for their own overthrow. 3. — PARLOR GAMES. Games where money or other valuables are risked should not be tolerated in homes. Parents should be the last to teach their children crimes. And they should be the slowest to believe that gambling will stop at home, any more than that raffling will stop in the churches. The taste and skill acquired in the parlor will find exercise in the saloon, and, instead of pennies, dollars will be risked. To teach crimes to women does not make them more respectable, although it makes the women less so. PARLOR GAMES. 129 For gambling does not change its character with the sex of the player; and those who have the regulation of society should not plant schools for spreading vice through the customs. To play for the love of it is dangerous, like drink- ing for the love of it; in fact, it does not become spe- cially dangerous till a love of it is developed. To put up money, therefore, to " increase the interest of the game," is to specially develop the dangerous fascina- tion, which at first is about all that feeds the vice. To play for " favors " or trifling expenses is specially demoralizing as furnishing most playing for the money, and so providing a cheap way of exercising the vice and its passions. The money won at games is as dangerous as the money lost, since by it the winner has a better opinion of gambling, and is more desirous of playing again. The whole practice is bad, and should never be indulged for pastime, charity or business. Honesty should be taught in small things; and parents who teach their children that it is wrong to steal a pin,, should not teach them that it is right to win a cent. Money should be earned, not won; acquired by- effort, not chance; and received for an equivalent, and not a prize. When men get their money by chance, they want to acquire other things by chance; and, 9 130 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. instead of a life of work, directed by reason, under law, they want to live a life of lawless luck. 4. — BETTING. Betting is the most popular form of gamoling, and therefore the worst. It is equally bad in principle with faro or roulette. The risk is simply taken on a horse or candidate, instead of on cards or a wheel. The money is staked all the same, and is won or lost by chance. No equivalent is given for what is gained, and the winner has no title but luck. This practice is the more deplorable because the games bet on are generally played by youth, so that school boys are early drawn into gambling through their interest in the sports. The tendency to bet has almost turned our games into a business, instead of an amusement; and boys run, row and skate for money, instead of fun. Many have no other business than playing games for betters, while others have no other business than betting on them. The practice promotes idleness, or employment as worthless as idleness. Games should be played for their enjoyment and healthfulness, and not for their income ; and the object should be to play well, and not to guess well. It de- grades even sports to make them means to ulterior ends. Our amusements, like our affections, should be SPECULATION. 131 exercised for themselves, and not for profit. When we sell everything away from life, and barter in our pleasures, we reduce ourselves to simply money-making automatons. Business should not unduly interfere with pleasure, any more than pleasure with business., Above all should we not allow our popular pastimes to be prostituted for illegal gain. When our amuse- ments are captured by our vices, it sometimes becomes necessary to abolish both; so that a pleasure often passes out of existence because of its company. 5. SPECULATION. Speculation may be a form of gambling, since men may bet on wheat or pork, as well as on cards or horses. If they buy or sell because they want the articles, or will place them nearer to those who do, it is legitimate traffic, and the profit legitimate gain; for all merchants buy with the expectation of selling for more. But in selling they usually transfer the goods nearer to their use. To buy, however, simply to sell, and repurchase only to resell, leaving the merchandise always where it is, and having no other object than to get the difference between the price at one deal and another, is simply to bet on what the next price will be. For the principle is the same whether we bet on what the market will be or on what the cards will be. As far as we, or our customers, are concerned, it is a 132 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. game of chance; and the money pux up is simply lost or wins more. If it were laid on a faro table the ven- ture would be the same. Speculations on the Board of Trade or Stock Exchange need not be gambling, because values are often bought for investment or use ; but they may be gambling, and when conducted as we have explained they are gambling. VII. i BLACK-MAIL. One of the most contemptible ways of getting an- other's money is black-mail, which is threatening to cause trouble unless bought off. By threatening to expose a secret, cause an arrest or assist an opponent, one often wrings from another a payment without any claim. The black-mailer thus sells his silence, his fidelity, or something else in which he has no legiti- mate property. He trades on another's fears, the per- plexities of his neighbors being his stock in trade. He gets compensation, not for doing a service, but for refraining from an injury. Sometimes he sells justice, as by engaging not to inform on crime. He makes money, in short, out of men's misfortunes by threaten- ing to make more misfortune if not paid for desisting. SEPARATION. 133 Black-mail is everywhere punished as crime, and, in its plainest forms, is practiced only by confessed criminals. But there are methods of business which approach black-mail ; as starting a competing house with the object of being bought off, or putting a livery-stable on a fashionable avenue to compel the residents to buy the lot. Many feints are made simply to scare others into giving something for de- sisting. Adventurers thus trade on established busi- ness, and sell their power to harm. When lawyers bring suits merely to harass, when prices are lowered to drive out competitors, when bids are made to com- pel others to buy, and when, in any way, it is sought to compel persons to settle where there is no claim, it is black-mail, although there may be some other busi- ness with it. VIII. EEPAEATION. Honesty requires, when there has been injury, that there be reparation. It is not enough to be sorry for a. wrong, or to desist from it. The injured person should be indemnified. We are not honest as long as we hold the fruits of dishonesty. Our wrong-doing 134 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. does not stop with the act, but goes with the results. To make right is as important as to do right ; and setting aright our wrongs is a great part of honesty. We can not cut off the past from our obligations. The evil done carries its claims over into the future against us, and they are claims until we pay them. Many of us are thus under obligations to the past. What we can not do we should, indeed, dismiss from our conscience, as from our effort ; but there is rarely a wrong that we can not right, just as there is rarely an evil that we can not remedy. The only cure for past wrongs is present compensa- tion ; and we should see that other men have been treated right, as well as that they are treated right. We ought not to keep the results of our past wrongs even to help us to do right now. Our first duty is to the wronged; when that is done we should see that no more wrong is caused. CHAPTER FOURTH. FAMILY DUTIES. Our duties are modified, and often created, by our individual relations. While we have duties to all, we have special duties to some, as we have special loves. The duties between husband and wife, between parent and child, between relatives and friends, and between neighbors and countrymen, are some of these. They follow our opportunities and obligations to love these classes, and are part of one general circle of obliga- tions. I shall speak in this chapter of family duties, and in the next of the wider range of duties which affect the nation and the race. The family is a small state, as the state is a large family. In the first we have a government whose principles are more fully developed in the latter. The duties of the family are those growing out of the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, and of remoter relatives. We have spoken of these in considering the varieties of love be- tween these several classes, and in discussing forbear- ance, tenderness, mutual preference and other virtues 135 136 THE VIRTUES AND THEIE REASONS. which are specially required in the family ; — all of which look to the pleasant and easy intercourse of men in the most intimate relations. As we are most with our families, our duties, and especially our earliest ones, are mostly to its members, so that their perform- ance gives us our chief moral training, as well as exercise. Love and kindness, we have seen, are the principal of these duties, as they are the principal of our privi- leges, a tender family feeling being the best security for all family duties; so that, when this actuates us, all else will be done. The love of each usually impels him to do more than the wants of the others require; so that a good father, husband or child performs Ms duties as a pleasure, rather than as an obligation. The members of a family, however, being much together, are liable, in a long life, to have differences, which, if unguarded, lead to alienation. Quarrels in a family should be as carefully averted as war in a State. And the assailant of the family, especially the seducer, should be treated as severely as the assassin of the State. His crime, which is the greatest possible against the family, is high treason against the em- bryo State. CHAPTER FIFTH. PUBLIC DUTIES. PRINCIPLES. 1. — IN GENERAL. The State, we have seen, is a large family, or com- bination of families, and the world entire a combina- tion of States; so that family duties are enlarged to public duties. While these are less specific, and inspired by more indefinite feelings than family duties, they are no less important, since they affect more per- sons and involve greater interests — war, oppression, corruption, and other national and international mat- ters. "We live a world life, as well as a family and individual life; and, as some of our actions extend to all men, we must consider what is best for the whole, and take up duties as statesmen, or ruling members of a larger family. For, hard as it is for the members of a family to get along together, who are but few, it is harder for the whole of mankind to do so, with their more varied and 137 138 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. clashing interests, and their greater variety of char- acters. But as the family, by a close and tender love, are held together, and, by a recognition of mutual duties, forbear and help one another, so the people in their public capacity, by a cultivation of love for man- kind, and by espousing certain political principles which express that love, can be similarly cemented. These public feelings and principles, which are more intellectual than emotional (as the passions accompanying them are more indefinite), enter into speculation and literature, and become the subject of our intellectual life. For men discuss with intense interest such matters as popular rights, education, and the future of the world; whereas family matters are kept for private consideration; so that the higher life of man is lived on mankind as a whole — its hopes and interests. Of the general principles whose observance is thus necessary in order that men may live together in States and prosper as a whole, the most fundamental are equality and liberty, whose espousal as theories ex- cites the enthusiasm necessary to unite and impel men in these great world movements. These we shall briefly consider. 2. — EQUALITY. The first and most important of these is equality, which, in a general sense, involves them all, since it is EQUALITY. 139 simply justice. The recognition of all men as equal, or as having the same rights, is the foundation of justice in the State ; and all the political virtues grow out of it. Men are not, indeed, by nature equal. Some are stronger and healthier than others ; some are more intellectual ; some are born to more wealth ; some have received a better education. Yet these differences are not proper subjects for political discrimination. The weak, the sick and the poor have the same interest as the fortunate in voting, holding office, and using the mails. The government should, accordingly, ignore men's natural inequalities in making laws — should confer no titles, recognize no rank, and notice no religious differences. All should be allowed simply an equal chance, and be scrupulously protected in it. And, to conform to this attitude of the government, we should, as individuals, recognize and practice equality, never taking our pride out of others' inferior- ity, or our humility out of their superiority. Instead of a changing behavior toward the poor, the rich and the official, we should show the same politeness and kindness to all, caring more to preserve this equality than to learn the etiquette of the "classes." It should be part of our own self-respect to treat all as simply men, and recognize none as either better or worse than ourselves. 140 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Avoiding sycophancy and subserviency r therefore, and expecting them of none, we should do to others simply as we would have them do to us, and demand only what we yield. Bowing to none as superiors, we should allow none as inferiors to bow to us. A bow of politeness, as to an equal, or of friendship, is from a different principle, as also an act of deference or ser- vice to the suffering, which is only kindness. While we should help abundantly, it should be as dealing with our kind, and not with inferiors ; and we should neither give nor expect as if any difference existed be- tween us. If the spirit of equality is not maintained there is no sense of justice left; and a wrong submitted to pre- pares for a wrong to be done. He who does not know his own rights will not recognize his duties. One who has the ignominy to be a slave has the injustice to be a master, submission always leading to tyranny. Our own rights and those of others go together, the recognition of one not being possible without that of the other, or the assertion of one without that of its correlative ; so that our own self-respect is necessary for our proper treatment of our fellows. 3. — LIBERTY. (1.) In General. A great problem in politics is how, in the close de- pendencies required for society, we can preserve LIBERTY. 141 liberty. Since we must so largely act with reference to others, how can we so manage as to act as we please ? If all were just, and intelligently respected each others' equality, tliere would be little desire to act otherwise than according to the general good; so that restraint would have to be imposed on none. But as this is not the case, we must all submit to many concessions as the price of our association with all kinds of people. As far as we only are concerned — in our opinions and private conduct — we should be left entirely free, and also in as far as our freedom will comport with the same freedom in all others. When our individual rights, however, conflict with those of our neighbors, both we and they must submit to mutual limitations. Of these limitations, however, equality should be the principle. "While as much freedom for each should be demanded as all may have, all should willingly sur- render the rest for the benefit of one another, nobody asking others to submit to what he himself is not willing to submit to. But beyond this we should not compel others to yield anything even for the public good. The best society requires no restraint on the good man, Th^ necessary burdens of government are small, so that the proper intercourse of men requires no concessions that may not be made with pleasure, as the spontaneous 142 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. impulse of the love felt toward mankind. Only the vicious need feel restraint under a good government, or those who want to do what would be injurious to somebody, for whom, of course, there can be no liberty. When others, therefore, feel restraint, there is some encroachment by the government on the liberties of the people. As nearly all oppression, however, comes from lim- itations claimed to be for the general good, and urged by some class in its own interest, we should avoid not only special legislation, but more legislation than is necessary. The least government is the best govern- ment, and the less people feel they are governed the better they are governed. Laws can not much help men, and should aim only to let them have equal chances to help themselves. The province of government is properly limited to se- curing us our rights in the necessary contact of men with men, and does not extend to giving us help. While the government protects us when plowing, it does not plow for us; and while it awards us our money (when claimed by others), it does not make our money for us. We should expect nothing of the °uthorities but to let us alone, and compel others to do so. A free people quickly develops into a great people, since its powers are unrestrained. It becomes intelli- TOLERANCE. 143 gent, since no repression is put upon the mind. It is more apt to be virtuous, since morality is made a pri- vate charge. A greater variety of inventions, indus- tries and institutions is stimulated, since each has a chance to work out his ideas. And so, in general, liberty tends to uplift the State, as also the individual, and to promote aggrandizement and security. For, against a free State there is little liability to revolt ; because men, having their rights, have nothing for which to antagonize the government. The unrea- sonable who are discontented must be few, since reason is so much alike in all that a good State is generally approved by its subjects ; so that exceptional insub- ordination may be easily checked. In short, liberty is best for the State as for the people, and for the rulers as for the ruled, who, not being distinct classes, should exchange places often in order to appreciate all their duties. (2) — Tolerance. We should learn, as part of liberty, tolerance for those who differ from us. We require it of others, since we differ from all ; and it lies at the basis of the mutual concessions necessary for society. The more intelligent men are the more they differ, since they develop greater individuality; so that the better the people the greater the amount of tolerance necessary. 144 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. The problem of the State is, how differing men may get along together, and not how agreeing ones may do so. We should learn to see differences and not be offended. Men who have thought much, and so been over the dark paths where others must tread, are gen- erally tolerant, because they know the difficulty of forming right opinions, and especially of many people forming the same opinions. We should even learn to see others working against us without being offended. If they do not agree with us, we can not expect them to co-operate with us. Hence to tolerate antagonism becomes a virtue — political patience. We should learn to do all we can to promote our ends, without preventing others from doing likewise, which is simply equality. Practicing tolerance as individuals, we should not encourage intolerance in our party; but, instead of trying to force men into agreement, should learn to live harmoniously with them as different. We should as jealously defend freedom in others as in ourselves, and see that they are not unjustly dealt with in our interest, any more than against it. The liberty of our opponent may be as important to us as is our own lib- erty; and we should always concede to all what we ask for ourselves, and even insist that they have it when our partisans would withhold it. We may soon PERSECUTION. 145 want the precedent of this justice to secure our own rights. Let each one, then, think as he pleases, speak as he pleases, and act as he pleases; and encourage him in so doing, since it is only an encouragement to honesty ; and you may want him to be honest in your interest before you are through with him. To grudge one his rights is as mean as to grudge him his money or his happiness ; so that intolerance is a vice akin to envy. One who values his own peace of mind must learn to not be disturbed by the differences of his antagonist. Displeasure at another's opinion is like displeasure at his wealth. If you can be pleased only with your own, you are necessarily unhappy. Charity, like sympathy, should go to whatever be- longs to another; and an honest opinion, like an honest dollar, should elicit respect. We should demand no more for our views than for our property rights, but remember that the like rights of others are part of the same system which makes ours possible. (3) — Persecution. J Persecution is the child of intolerance, and its natural expression. It is intolerance put in action, or given effect. There is little of the old-time persecu- tion now for religious or political differences ; but men may say and print about what they please. We have, 146 THE VIRTUES AND THEIE REASONS. accordingly, every variety of political and religious agitation, so that one must learn to get along compla- cently with great differences. The best cure for what is bad is to let it alone, to die from its lack of sense. Persecution makes mar- tyrs; and martyrs, whether for a good or bad cause, become the seed of the movement for which they die. All suffering attracts sympathy ; and persecution should be the last weapon taken up by the govern- ment. When we allow the greatest liberty to all causes, the most just has the best chance to prevail. Persecution commonly proceeds from those who are not very confident that they are right, and so is gen- erally the weapon of wrong. > (4) — Strikes. But while there is no religious or political persecu- tion, there is occasional industrial persecution. The government having ceased to persecute, the people, in their business capacity, sometimes seize this weapon against their competitors. The mob, or union of workmen (or of other classes), may thus become oppressors ; for tyranny is not the vice of the great alone. While it is a part of men's freedom to be privileged to strike, and only a question of conscience whether they have sufficient cause to incur the waste of idle- ANABCHISM. 147 ness, it is a crime against freedom to compel others to do so. As long as strikers keep to argument, and abstain from violence, they are within their rights ; for it is the privilege of workmen, as of others, to act in concert. But it is implied in their rights that they allow others the same privilege. To compel men to quit work who are desirous of working, or to forci- bly hinder them unless working on the terms dictated by their associates, is to fly in the face of liberty, and to commit other crimes besides. No man's liberty includes the right to destroy another's liberty. In being free to do as you please, you are not free to compel others to do as you please. While the workingman may follow his inclination, he should let the capitalist do so, and also his fellow- workman. To act differently is to invoke tyranny. We must learn, if we are to get along well together, to respect others' rights as much when they antag- onize, as when they co-operate with, us; and all inter- ference, whether by fellow-workmen or by others, with one's personal liberty, should be treated as criminal, if we are to have any society at all. (5) — Anarchism. All agitation should be within the laws. In a free government there is always a remedy for wrongs. The laws provide for their own correction by periodically 148 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. taking the will of the people and embodying it as the government. If it is not what any persons want, they have the privilege of arguing till they change it, or learn that it can not be changed. As the government always expresses what the majority think best, its action should be final. For one to resist, or for a minority to resist, is to declare that the people may not do as they please, and so to assail their liberty; for there is no other form of exercising liberty than the rule of the majority. To attempt changes of opin- ion by force, is for the few to try to conquer the many, which is as foolish as it is unjust. To destroy all government would be to reduce men to savages, where each, like a wild beast, would live for himself. To reduce things to chaos, with the view of rebuilding society entirely new, would be the extreme of unreason, since society is the result of gen- erations of growth and attainments in the arts and virtues. Such new society, made to order out of nothing, might, indeed, be easily attempted, as an experiment, in the islands of the Pacific or other savage countries, where there are now no laws, and so the necessary anarchy to begin with, and where there is also plenty of land which might be held in common without first taking it from individual possessors; but none have sincerity enough in the theory to attempt its practice. SOCIALISM. 149 (6) — Socialism. The organization of men in socialistic communities, in which all property shall be held in common, is like- wise irrational as a theory and impractical as a policy. Wherever it has been attempted it has quickly failed; and the attempts have been so many and varied as to have about exhausted the possibilities. Men's opinions, tastes and preferences are too diverse for such close dependence; and it is not desirable (even if it were practicable) to so destroy their individuality as to make them sufficiently alike. If two families can hardly get along in the same house, many millions must quarrel when in similarly close connections. Communism is the extinction of liberty. To have the officers of a community determine when we shall work, and at what, when we may take a journey, and how we shall be educated, together with the countless other details that would have to be surrendered to the managers, would be tolerable to no free man. Our liberty to go and do as we please, to spend our earn- ings or hoard them, and to exercise the other rights which we have in our present system, are among the greatest privileges we have, and will never be will- ingly surrendered. Those who contemplate socialistic schemes should take into account these obstacles arising from the love of liberty itself. 150 THE VIETUES AND THEIR REASONS. Whether more or fewer interests may be taken in charge by the government, as telegraphs, railroads, insurance, or lands, is a question simply of the extent of the powers of government. At present the govern- ment operates the post-offices and some other general interests; and a few more would make little difference in principle. In general, however, private individuals conduct business better than the government. A store house invariably costs less than a court house. No class is so proverbially corrupt, extravagant or inefficient as public employees. Not having the personal interest, they can not feel the responsibility of private individ- uals; so that we do not want more of them than we must have. The least government, as we have said, is the best government; and the more government we have the less liberty remains. A forced equality, at the expense of liberty, would yield no advantage what- ever but only exhaust the people in perpetual broils. PATRIOTISM. 151 II. PATEIOTISM. Love of country is not a narrowing of general love, but an application of it. The love of all does not con- flict with the love of a part; but love for whoever we think about, or come in contact with, being the state of the loving soul, our country and countrymen, who necessarily engage much of our attention, come in for much of our love. And while we have duties to all, corresponding to our universal love, we have special duties to those with whom we have special relations. As we have, therefore, duties to parents and friends, corresponding to our love for them, we have duties to a State and its citizens. All men belonging to a nation are engaged in a common enterprise. They derive many of their privi- leges and possessions from this enterprise — their land and its titles, their protection, use of streets, etc. ; and they have their hopes for posterity and for the world's- progress in it. This interest is a species of wealth, whence the State is called "the commonwealth," or interest which all have in common; and having this interest, and deriving such benefits from the State, men have corresponding duties — to defend and promote it. 152 THE VIBTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Hence we should not only love our country, but act out that love in all needed work and sacrifice. In a conflict with others we should espouse its cause as a special obligation. For it is not then a question merely of which side is right, or of discretion for us as disinterested parties, but of fidelity to special trusts. As we are united with our fellow-citizens in a sort of partnership, we are bound to stand by them and work with them, like partners in business or mem- bers of a family ; for the people of a State are nearly related, as well as associated (being generally of the same race, and having strong resemblances). To refuse, therefore, to participate in the defense of this common cause, or to share its burdens, is to break the contract, express or implied, into which every one has entered as a citizen. For these duties go with the very existence of a nation; and one who does not perform them makes no return for what he gets from the State, but is a sponger on the rest. Like an indolent or treacherous member of the family, he forfeits his rights in the society which depends on the performance of such duties. TAXES. 153 III. SPECIAL DUTIES. 1.— TAXES. Of our special duties, in bearing the burdens of the State, the most common is tax-paying. This we need not generally enforce from moral considerations, as it is enforced by the State itself. But, by giving attention to the government's wants, so as to see that the taxes are properly levied and expended, we can often pay them more cheerfully. If men performed their other public duties, they would not have to complain so much of their taxes. As it is expensive to conduct a government, it is dishonest to evade the cost, whether by false assess- ments, smuggling, or otherwise; and the fact that the State undertakes to enforce our duty does not absolve us from its performance. Taxes are duties which we owe to our fellow-citi- zens as well as to the government; and our exemption puts, by so much, a greater burden on them. ' For what we do not pay others must; and in having our taxes paid by them we are the recipients of charity, if, indeed, we are not thieves. Cheating the government is simply cheating all the people instead of one; so that by evading a tax we rob many at once. 154 THE VIETUES AND THEIR REASONS. It is important to learn to do our duty when it is minutely divided, and many are charged with the same obligation. When each has but little to do, the whole is apt to escape through the meshes of the public con- science. Duty must be executed frequently in concert as well as music, and on its proper performance depends as great a matter as the harmony of the State. And when each neglects his part, the whole is not done by all. The fact that we may not think a tax just (and persons are apt to think their taxes unjust), is no excuse for its evasion. It must be paid by somebody, and the wrong of evasion is done to such person. It is our duty to obey the laws while we have them, and to pay assessments while we get the benefits; and, if we do not like the laws, we should remedy them by new legislation, and not by violation. 2. — JURY DUTY. One of our duties is to serve as jurymen in settling disputes between citizens. It is a part of our general duty to act in any capacity to which we may be chosen in the public behalf ; but as nearly all other offices are gladly filled, on account of their emoluments, this remains unique in its inadequacy of compensation and interruption to private business. There is the more reason, therefore, to fill it as a duty, since it can not MILITARY DUTY. 155 be done as an honor, or for the profit; as we must also fill the role of witness, and a few other minor positions. This is a sacrifice of time and convenience that all must make for one another, since we hold all our rights subject to calls upon us for service. The courts, with their juries and witnesses, are the instruments for securing our rights; and, however unpleasant it may be to pronounce judgment against our fellows, condemning them to loss of property, liberty, and even life, it is a duty which the very existence of society imposes, and which the security of all renders impera- tive on each. Whether we have justice well adminis- tered depends not only on the integrity of the officials, but on the faithfulness of the citizens as jurors, wit- nesses and upholders of the court. For it is the whole people who try causes ; and private individuals, resum- ing their original authority, must occasionally take part in person as well as by representatives. (3) — MILITARY DUTY. In time of war we owe our life to the country. "When the vast interests of society are imperilled by violence, which can be met only by violence, we must defend them at every private risk. This we owe to others, as well as to ourselves, since the interests of all are jeopardized together; so that, as no other defense 156 THE VIETUES AND THEIR REASONS. than common warfare is possible, the duties of all are bound together in it, as their interests are. If our own welfare only were involved, we might, indeed, use our discretion as to whether we should surrender it rather than fight ; but we can not so decide our neigh- bors' fate; and the call to arms is a call to our duty to them, . and not something that we can settle for ourselves. It is not a question for the individual, therefore, whether a war is just, since any coward would likely decide that in the negative when called upon to fight, but for all the people, who must settle this question together, just as they must fight together, and just as they are interested together; and, as the only expres- sion by the people as a whole is through their officials, we must follow their decision in war. Our time to decide is at the polls, and in the creation of public sentiment; but when the decision of all is rendered, whether by the ballot or by the officers chosen thereby, we have only to acquiesce, since in a nation we cannot pursue individual policies. War being the greatest public evil, we should do everything for peace. Kemembering the inevitable differences of opinion, and our own liability to err, we ought to yield much and delay long before fighting. The responsibility for peace is one of the greatest in life, and he who is faithless therein is chargeable with PUBLIC EDUCATION. 157 the lives of the slain. Avoidable war is a crime in which many are the criminals. Wars undertaken for oppression or gain add to the crime of tyranny or rob- bery, that of murder, and multiply the crimes by the number of losses and deaths. In an unjust war a whole people become criminals. But while we should do everything honorable for peace, we should, when war becomes inevitable, do everything for victory, fighting as hard as we before reasoned, and esteeming our military duties the great moral code of the hour. For it is then a question, not of what we owe our enemies, but of what we owe our fellow-countrymen. (4) — PUBLIC EDUCATION. One of our duties to the State is to educate; and this education should be not only of ourselves, but of others. Intelligence is necessary for a free govern- ment, so that ignorance remains a national menace. Men must know their rights so as to maintain them, and to not demand more than their rights. The ignorant are liable, on the one hand, to be oppressed by tyrants, and on the other to be led into extrava- gances by demagogues. For self-rule there must be self-culture; and there should be intelligence enough in the masses to lead themselves and not be led. Ignorance is the principal cause of crime, as well 158 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. as of misrule. The untrained person is not likely to have his morals developed, any more than his intelli- gence. With a good education one can do not only his private but his public work better, and so be in a con- dition to be ruled as well as to rule. While men should be allowed to educate themselves and their families as they deem best, so that private schools should be encouraged, the State should see that all the people have a chance to be educated, and, if need be, should compel them to be educated. Public schools must be established to give the chance to all, and especially to those who can not, from poverty, distance, or other obstacle, patronize the private schools. These public schools should be adapted to the wants of all the people, and, to this end, should be unpartisan and unsectarian. Where so much differ- ence of opinion exists, subjects of irritation should be avoided, which is easily done, since there are abundant subjects on which all men agree, and which constitute nearly all elementary education — spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, drawing, music, etc. The public schools may be supplemented by private academies, colleges and universities, by Sunday schools, churches and family training, by polytechnic and pro- fessional schools, by apprenticeships, training acade- VOTING. 159 mies, etc., so that the education given by the State need not be exhaustive. But for the early years, when youths can not take care of themselves, and when they have, perhaps, ignorant, poor, or vicious parents, who can not give them an adequate start in life, it is the duty of the State to provide an elementary training, and of the citizens to contribute to it, in taxes and otherwise, with cheerfulness and public spirit. 5.— VOTING. (1) — In General. A principal duty of the citizen is voting, which is the only act of sovereignty in the United States, where all authority proceeds from the power granted at the polls. Men express, in voting, their opinions and desires, and the result indicates popular sentiment as nearly as it can be obtained. It being our duty to interest ourselves in public affairs, we vote as the most natural expression of this interest, and so as the outlet of a duty. "We owe it to all the people to vote: first, because it is a duty which, if neglected by us, will not be done at all (or will impose unjustly a responsibility on others) ; secondly, because the habit of voting induces a study of the issues and candidates, which forestalls government by default or hazard ; and, thirdly, because 160 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. when any class have once studied the public questions the people are entitled to their judgment as an offset to the ignorant and corrupt voters. Of all affairs, those of the State least go of themselves; and when intelligence neglects the polls, chance runs them. That there are so many unfit voters is not the fault of such voters, but of those who, by abstention, allow them a disproportionate voice at the polls; and the remedy is not the inactivity of the less qualified (whose interest is itself educatory), but the greater activity of the others. The remedy often proposed for the excessive vote of ignorance, namely, the restriction of the ballot to wealth and intelligence, is suicidal; since it proposes to take the ballot from those who perform their polit- ical duty, and .to give it exclusively to those who neglect it. The failure of the " better " citizen to per- form his duty is no fault in the " worse " one for performing his. It is our duty to vote for the best men and the best measures; and, if we have no opinion on these, it is our duty to have an opinion. Every man owes it to his country to know enough to vote, and, to this end, to examine sufficiently the candidates and issues to form an intelligent judgment. One who votes against his conviction betrays his country ; while one who sells his vote commits a like crime with one who sells his PARTY. 161 evidence or his verdict, and is similarly punished for bribery. {1)— Party. /The most common disturbance of candid voting is by party spirit. Passion, prejudice and ignorance so control the confirmed partisans that their votes are lost, so far as any wisdom is concerned. There is a legitimate place, however, for party. Since people differ, and form combinations according to their agreements (so that the political organizations generally represent distinct interests), it is important to act with those that express our convictions. We must even support at times inferior men in order to attain great general ends. Where it is a question between the best policy and the best men, we must decide as in other cases of conflicting considerations. If our party represents our principles, we are under the same obligation to follow it that we are in other respects to follow our best judgment; and if it does not, we have no right to be partisan at all. But while to abandon party is often to abandon principle, yet, when no difference of principle is involved, as in local elections, but only honesty, economy, or some particular measure (as the construc- tion of a bridge), it is a misuse of party to be parti- san. We should show the same judgment in following 162 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. a party as in choosing a party in the first place. Men should, no matter what their political relations, be always independent, and never abandon their judg- ment in their fealty; since the illiberal partisan can not appreciate even the principles of his own party. Only as one's party aims at the welfare of his country should he be a partisan, which is nothing more than being a patriot; but when he abandons his country's interests for those of his party, he becomes a traitor; and his treason is no less because he sells out to a domestic, instead of a foreign, foe. (3) — Election Frauds. The purity of the ballot is of the first importance to a nation, since when the ballot does not express the popular will, there is no government by the people. The country is then ruled by chance, or, what is worse, by its criminals — those who commit the frauds. The danger of such chaos rule is in the fact that there is no remedy for our wrongs under it. As long as we can express our will at the polls we can correct any abuse; but when we are denied such expression, or the vote as counted does not declare it, we are simply helpless, with no remedy but revolution. One who gets charge of the elections, and can, by fraud, make them express what he pleases, is simply an irre- ELECTION FRAUDS. 163 sponsible ruler, and the people whose rights are taken away are invited to resistance as against a despot. In a republic, where the appeal is periodically to the people, who can make any changes they de- sire, both in the laws and officials, there is no justifi- cation of violence, ho matter how badly the rulers act ; for, as their misgovernment brings unpopularity, which usually sweeps them from power, the system corrects its own defects. But when the election itself is unfair, and the result, instead of expressing, r.everses the popular will, there is no possibility of such lawful correction; and the only remedy, as we have said, is revolution; so that whenever the people generally be- lieve they have no way of asserting their will, they will naturally revolt. When any class take possession of the government by force, force alone can resist them ; and fraud is simply a form of force with decep- tion added. Those who cheat at elections should, therefore, be deemed the nation's enemies, since they not only de- prive us of free government, but threaten the existence of the government itself. If they become numerous, they are liable to get beyond control. For, though a few frauds may be powerless, as only the acts of indi- vidual criminals, yet when they are sufficient to change the result in a general election, or are thought to do 164 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. so, they become revolutionary, and invite counter revo- lution; so that their logical effect is anarchy. He who defrauds at election stabs the nation, or strikes all the people at one blow. It is as much trea- son against the sovereign as is any act against the king in royal countries. (4) — Intimidation. The forms of these crimes against the government are becoming as numerous as the forms of crimes against individuals — impersonation, repeating, ballot- box stuffing, intimidation, etc. As long as only cam- paign stories, misleading tickets, and like forms of deceit are indulged, to induce men to vote against their wishes, the offense is less serious; since every- body is supposed to use his intelligence in voting, as in transacting business, and he has a chance, by watch- fulness, of avoiding deception. But when one is frightened from the polls, or the ballots cast are tam- pered with, the crime transcends that of mere personal immorality, and becomes a public wrong, with the dangers mentioned. Violence especially is serious, since it tends to turn our system into a reign of terror; and this is so whether it takes the form of intimidating the weak and ignorant, as the colored people, or of mob out- rages in large cities. Neither public sentiment nor SUBMISSION TO AUTHORITY. 165 the administration of law should show it any tolerance. It is safer to be severe against the outlaws than to risk the results of their practices. A republic is not safe in which election criminals are safe; and if the frauds are deemed respectable, they are doubly dan- gerous, since the public then becomes participants by their condonation — accessory after the act. (6) — Submission to Authority. When the people have once spoken, and the result of an election is declared, it becomes the supreme duty of all to acquiesce. We must often do so when unfit per- sons (in our opinion) and unwise measures are chosen, and even when frauds have been perpetrated. Not every fraud justifies resistance or revolution. Many may be committed without affecting the general result. But even when they are material there is much reason for patience. We have legal remedies for counteract- ing them, when they can be proven (and when they can not they are not subjects for action), and resort should be had to courts instead of clubs. When the courts have finally spoken, we have nothing to do but submit, which we should do with cheerfulness, :^ess no likelihood remains of again having a fair election, which is the only just ground for revolution; for in such condition we have no republic to overthrow, but only a lawless tyranny. 166 THE VIETUES AND THEIE EEASONS. To rush readily, however, into revolution, as in Mexico and South America, is to imperil all on a small issue. In a great country we must learn to respect the courts, and put confidence in officials, as well as in the people, and not assume either that there has been fraud, or that it will not be remedied at the next election. It is part of our right to vote to sub- mit to the declared result; for the franchise becomes valuable only by the acquiescence of the people in it. We should learn to be active before election and quiet after it; doing all we can while argument will avail, and dropping the subject till the next campaign when we have been defeated. (7)- Little is to be gained by violence. Mobs, not being controlled by reason, rarely accomplish what they want, if, indeed, they have any definite purpose, but usually spend their time afterward in regretting their failures, — and equally their successes. They can do more damage in an hour of unreason than they can repair in weeks of rational work, and hence are their own worst enemies. They are an agglomeration of the passions of men without their reason, and con- sequently a combination of many crimes. Rioting should be treated severely, as also incite- ments to riot. A riot is a declaration of war against COSMOPOLITANISM. 167 the country. Its only treatment is prevention, since once under way it is not responsive to reason. Inflam- matory speeches, which are often deemed the privilege of freedom, are specially dangerous in a republic, and less excusable than in a monarchy, because they are crimes against the people. There is no justification of violence in a land where all men are equal, and where the officials are of their own choice. To resort to force is to attack the laws which we ourselves have made, and so to resist our own commands. To set up laws in our authorities, and then knock them down in riots, is political suicide, of which democracies should, least of all, be capable. IY. COSMOPOLITANISM. Our public duties should not be confined to our country, any more than our feelings should be. We owe something to all mankind, and should live a world morality. Eecognizing all men as related to us, we should perform the duties of such relationship; so that parallel with universal love should go universal justice. While we should, accordingly, seek our country's good, like the good of our family and of ourselves, it 168 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. should not be at the expense of other countries, but in connection with them as having like interests with ours. As we can learn our own rights only in learn- ing those of others, so we can enforce them only by the like enforcement of theirs. For all rights, national and personal, are held in a system together, and grow out of one set of interests which are mutually recon- cilable and reciprocally supporting. A narrow cosmopolitan can not be a liberal patriot. We can love our own country better by loving other countries, just as we can understand it better by hav- ing some acquaintance with them ; so that, as we owe much to other nations, as well as to our own, we should, in preparing for our national duties, prepare for our international ones also. We should do to other States as we would have them do to us, and not think that what is wrong toward us is right toward them. Our sense of duty should be extended to all mankind, and morals be made cosmopolitan, universal reciprocity being the highest law of ethics. While patriotism should accordingly specialize our love, it should not limit it, but leave it all for other applications also; since love does not, like mortar, become thinner by being spread out, but, like an ava- lanche, grows greater by moving farther. We should be lovers of the world, as well as of our country, always loving the greatest thing we know, and CARE FOE POSTEEITY. 169 expanding our feelings as wide as our knowledge extends. And as the nighest love is thus without limitation, embracing all men, so is our highest duty; and when our thoughts and feelings rise to consider the uni- versal, our activity should so follow them that when all men are under consideration, they shall be treated with universal justice. For we sometimes touch the whole race in our conduct, when it should be with morality, and not to their disadvantage, so that our beneficence may reach as wide as our knowledge and our love. V. CAKE FOE POSTEEITY. While we should especially love this age, and per- form our duties to it, as to our country, we should also look to the future. Men ought to go out in their love in time as well as in space, and comprehend all men that can come within their thoughts. We owe something to the unborn, as well as to the unknown; and as we go beyond our nation we should go beyond our time. Nearly all great works run through many genera- tions, if not in their performance in their results, and 170 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. most that we do for others must be done for future ones. Charity goes ahead of life, as well as away from home ; and our greatest love reaching to posterity, our duties should go out to them also. He who con- fines his duties to the present, like him who confines them to self, has a narrow horizon, and engages in but small work. There is some compensation in care for posterity, since posterity gets our fame, and will treat our memo- ries as we have treated its hopes. The man who looks forward will be looked back to ; and the prophet is the man of honor in future times, as well as in for- eign countries. The founders of States and religions, the patriots and soldiers, the inventors and explorers, the poets and artists, all look much to the future, and work for far-off results ; and they are remembered by that future, to which they have given legacies. We should always care more for our country's future than its past, and for our family's. The world that is yet to be contains our chief interest ; and while we should bury the dead, we should live for the unborn. PART SECOND. DUTIES REGAEDING SELF CHIEFLT. CHAPTER SIXTH. SELF-DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION. 1.— IN GENERAL. We have thus far treated of Duties Eegarding Others Chiefly. In Part Second we shall treat of Duties Regarding Self Chiefly. These are not merely duties to self, or what we owe to ourselves. They may affect our fellows quite as much, just as the others affect also us. Our train- ing, for example, qualifies us to serve others as well as ourselves, just as our honesty, which contemplates others chiefly, is usually profitable also to us. This second class of duties, like all duty, is simply for the benefit of all, ourselves included. We have no duties to self which conflict with duties to others ; but duty is always self -reconcilable. The duties contemplating mainly self may be classed under the following heads: I. Self-Development. II. Industry. 173 174 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. III. Self-Support. IV. Self-Control. V. Temperance. VI. Self-Eespect. , VII. Purity. VIII. Conscientiousness. Self -development is the bringing out of our possi- bilities, thereby qualifying ourselves for what we have to do and be. Few become what they might be, the bulk of men's powers being wasted, or left to perish in the germ. To bring them into play is the work of education, which is the making of the man. If left to grow, like a tree, without direction, man becomes weak and purposeless. Especially in the complicated society of civilization does one need much training for his duties, which are mostly conventional. He will no more fill his place without it, than a prairie will spontaneously grow to a wheat field. Education is intellectual, physical, moral, and industrial, and looks to making the most of the man, with the ulterior view of his doing most for oth- ers. The first three kinds of education are for all. In the fourth, or industrial education, we specialize; and though all men should be educated for some par- ticular work in life, they part at this point, and vary their training according to their talents and intended pursuits. We speak now of education in general. EDUCATION. 175 It is our obvious duty to make the best of our- selves, and to do the best with ourselves. Education becomes a duty, since it does not do itself. It is the result of effort — always prolonged and sometimes painful effort. Work put on ourselves is as hard as work put on a task. To gather into the mind is as difficult as to gather into a barn. A third of life is generally spent in coming to maturity, which is the educational period. In this season we should see that each faculty gets its devel- opment, so that we do not grow up without judgment or senses. Our members are not all external, and education is needed to bring out the internal parts. Did we look into men's minds we should see many intellectual cripples and deformities, which it is the purpose of education to prevent or cure. The time in which we can educate is short, and, if allowed to pass, can not be retrieved. One can not in mature life stop, when he comes to a task, to learn how to do it. He must be educated to be ready. And not only must one who does not educate him- self in youth remain uneducated through life, but if he lets the opportunity of one part of youth go he will not again get the advantage of that. We usually have only one time to do one thing, and if it is not done then it will not be done at all ; and though he who squanders part of his youth may still be educated in 176 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. the remaining part, it will be a lame education, want- ing something which only that squandered period could have furnished. The proper using of all our time, and the doing of each thing at the right time, is what makes the well educated man, as well as the highly successful one; and we should aim in education not only to do well, but to do the best. The educational period is to determine what rank we shall take in life — whether high or low, whether as strong men or weak, whether as leaders or follow- ers, whether as rich or poor, in short, whether as suc- cessful or not, and how successful. This is the most important matter that a youth has to attend to, and his conscience, as well as his efforts, should be cen- tered on his education. As it is about all that many have to do, unless their school duties are done they are remiss generally. The ethics of school life should be made a great part of every moral system. The virtues of mental conduct — of study, attention, inquiry, and retention — make up the main moral character of the period; and a duty of thought left undone, or the escape of a fact from our intelligence, should send a pang to the conscience no less than a lie or theft. We should early understand the wrong of not knowing a lesson, the sin of confounding oxygen and carbon, and the PHYSICAL TRAINING. 177 immorality of fallacies. It is our duty to have a good mind well stored, and to make no mistakes in think- ing, any more than in willing. 2.— PHYSICAL TRAINING. To think well one must have a healthy body, and to think much he must have a strong body. Hence the development of the body is necessary for one who will do mental work, as well as for one who will do physical work ; for when the body gives out the mind is practically gone. It is one of the greatest problems of life to keep both to old age. What one accom- plishes depends quite as much on his health as on his talents, and hence health becomes a duty as well as education. The body, however, in itself is a worthy object of culture. We can make about as much out of it as out of the mind. Most of the occupations require great skill in the hand, eye, or other special organ, and some of the trades are almost wholly a culture of the body. In most cases, however, the culture of the body goes along with that of the mind. In eloquence, act- ing, war, and social intercourse, the man of educated physique has many advantages. The body not only expresses the mind, but executes its orders; and a well-developed body often makes all the difference 178 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. between a pleasing and a repulsive man, as between a practical and an impractical one. A trained body is a better agent of the mind, and has a reflex influence on the culture of the mind. The trades all develop the body according to their several specialties; but the literary and public man, the lawyer and scientist, the clergyman and diplomat, all need good bodies quite as much as the artisan — bodies not only healthy, but quick, graceful, strong, easy and commanding, which qualities are, in part at least, to be obtained by culture. The body should be made, if possible, fit for an artist's model — to please, to last, and to serve. It may be an impediment to the mind, destroying, by its awkwardness or weakness, all that thought sends through it; or it may be an aid, giving grace and power to the utterances of the intellect. The duty of bodily exercise, accordingly, which develops this culture — the duty of rowing, playing, walking, etc. — is an important part of morals; for while these, like eating, may be in excess, and so injure instead of develop, they are just as necessary in moderation. We may take so much play as to make it work, and exercise until we become tired instead of strong, or we may acquire such a fondness for sports as to absorb all our strength for study; but this is the excess of a necessary exercise, and calls for HEALTH-KEEPING. 179 restraint and not prohibition. We should see that we have a good body, and take the requisite means to acquire it, and to neglect this is to pay for it by fail- ures in after life. (3) — HEALTH - KEEPING. The duty of health is one on which all others in part depend. A mind can not be much better than its body, and the morals often depart with the loss of digestion. It is as much our duty to keep the engine in order as to work with it. If the boiler explodes, we are at fault as much as if we do wrong with its power. We are given ourselves to look after, as well as our outward duties ; and to keep ourselves in con- dition is necessary for every other duty. The duty on which duties depend should never be deemed an unimportant one. The duty of health-keeping is mainly one of mod- eration and direction, and as such we shall treat of it hereafter. At present we call attention simply to the fact of such a duty. We can labor so as to injure our health, as by doing severe work immediately after eating, or rest so as to injure our health, as by exces- sive sleep. We can eat too much or too little, eat at the wrong time, or eat unwholesome food ; we can neg- lect medical treatment, or take too much medicine. 180 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. We can, in countless -ways, injure our health, which it is the province of hygiene to point out. Our duty is to give abundant attention to the sub- ject, so as to know what to do for our health. Ignor- ance does not excuse us on a subject which it is so great a duty to study; just as ignorance does not exempt us from the ills of indiscretion. We suffer alike whether we knowingly or ignorantly violate nature's laws; and a part of our duty is to get rid of this ignorance. Every man should see that his stomach, and liver, and teeth, and lungs, are good for fifty years' work, and that they keep up with him through life. Many are cut off from existence by the stopping of one little function, which, like a stubborn mule, arrests the whole team, though all the rest are good for a long life. The chain of life hangs by many links, the weakest of which measures the strength of the whole. He who dies by preventible ill-health is guilty of homicide; and he who is sick by indiscretion is wrong as well as ill. It is a duty to learn to eat, and venti- late, and sleep and work, right, to avoid colds as well as lies, and prevent toothache as well as theft. When we know that green apples will produce colic, we sin, as much as did Eve, in eating them. Health once ruined remains lost, and we have only one chance to keep it. The best that we can do after COUEAGE. 181 an indiscretion is to save the rest. He who often violates the laws of nature will soon have nothing to do but keep himself from dying. Early death is usually a sin, whereas long life is proverbially asso- ciated with virtue. Nearly every one who dies early gets killed. Natural deaths are only by old age. We should, therefore, avoid death as wrong, and not commit our last sin by dying. But to do this we must commence early to live. We can not, by giving death a start through our indiscretions, hope to stop it when under way. The sin of dying is committed when we first break down our health. And we should not only avoid death, but avoid dying along the way. Ill health is partial death, and most sickly hours might be taken out of life for all the good they do. We should try to be all alive, and alive all the time; and as this is usually within our power it becomes our duty. IL COUEAGE. A requisite qualification for success is courage — courage to say what we think is true, and to do what we think is right. We should never be afraid of our opinions, and, to this end, should not have opinions to 182 THE YIETUES AND THEIR REASONS. be afraid of. When sure we are right, we are doubly- fortified in our position, and can never be made to appear ridiculous. We should make our opinions respected, therefore, and not cringe to those we believe false. Since whenever two men meet there is a superior and an inferior, the man of most courage is taken for the superior. People respect a courageous man, even when differing from him; and the man who is right can always afford to make others give in. If we are wrong we should change to the right, that we may take on courage; for to hold out when wrong is only stubbornness. We should be able to be laughed at without embarrassment; and, if courageous in the right, we will make the other fellow the one to be laughed at. While it is not advisable to obtrude our opinions, or defend them on needless occasions, it is never nec- essary, either for politeness or peace, to deny them, or appear to yield them. The man who causes you to surrender to him has little respect for you. It is bet- ter to be silent when you do not assent, unless you care to antagonize. If one sees that you are cour- ageous he will surrender, rather than expect you to do so. Never seem to hold your opinions subject to another's sufferance; and do not change them accord- ing to the company you are in. When others are COURAGE. 183 making sport of what you approve, do not join in, or allow yourself to seem to do so. Discriminate when asked to assent, when you can assent only in part. In society we should aim to be the influencing rather than the influenced, ones. The courageous man will be a leader among his companions, and will seem the abler one, whether he is or not. Timidity follows self-assertion, and vice is bold only to a cow- ard. Instead of fearing temptation, we should lead the tempters to our side, and be ourselves the persons of influence, instead of the others. It is only the weaker of two that is tempted; and, instead of being ashamed to resist, we should be proud to be formida- ble. Especially should we show our manhood in saying No. It requires often more courage to refuse than to fight, 'and to refuse a polite invitation than a coarse demand. We naturally throw off our armor in the presence of friends, and are exposed to solicitation when we are secure against hostility. It is more painful to antagonize feeling than opinion or effort, and espe- cially perplexing to oppose kindness and wrong in the same person. It is hard to be bold against one who does not oppose us, or to fortify against well-meant vice. In accepting invitations to drink, when we do not 184 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. want to, and in going with the crowd, when we think it wrong, there is neither kindness nor accommodation; and our tempters despise us for following their lead. It is never necessary to go wrong in order to be a good companion or popular friend. The very lowest like men who are better than themselves, and do not respect their peers in vice. The man of independence commands the respect of the good and the bad, of his friends and his opponents, of those who agree with him and those who do not. We should try, then, instead of consenting to wrong to attack the wrong, and instead of yielding to others to . make them follow us ; for in so doing we give a victory not only to ourselves but to the right. There is no occasion where lack of courage is an advantage ; for the world hates meanness ; and one of the worst forms of meanness is the surrender by one who is right to one who is wrong, which is adding wickedness to weakness. One who goes down in the right goes up in others' opinions ; and he goes not down to stay, but only takes a back step for a higher leap ; and in the next battle he will fight at an advantage. Those contending for the right are never fighting a losing cause; and the cer- tainty of ultimate success gives courage in present defeat; knowing that their cause will not fail, though its champions do. INDEPENDENCE. 185 III. INDEPENDENCE. We should learn, as far as possible, to be self- suf- ficient, depending on our own opinions and will. To do this well we must, of course, be able to use others and their attainments. But a free spirit, ready to grapple with any problem, is necessary for the highest development and the greatest success. Instead of being pliable to outside influences, so as to be moved according as a stronger man meets us, we should feel our freedom within as a conscious security from cir- cumstances. If one can be good only in good company, and res- olute only under favorable conditions, he is mostly out- side of himself, his environment, instead of his char- acter, actuating him. The independent man has worked up much of nature into his own being, and has the forces of activity within him to resist and to act, so that outside circumstance is comparatively weak. Instead of being the play of winds and waves, he moves against adverse forces, and is himself a power deter- mining the current of surrounding events. There is a difference between guiding a vessel and being driven in it. One is free who keeps himself in a condition to be 186 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. always controlled by reason. For then he goes by his own judgment, which is his will. To allow other mo- tives to take possession of him, is like admitting pirates to run his vessel. To be thus internally free we should keep our wishes close along by our reason, so that in following our judgment we shall do what we please, which is the highest as well as the completest freedom — to wish what is right, and to do it from internal motive. IY. LAEGE - MINDEDNESS. Having many faculties, each capable of a high culture, which makes it a means of both usefulness and enjoyment, we should be many-sided in our devel- opment — cultivating our taste as well as our intel- lect, and our public spirit as well as our business capacity. The man of one concern only — money, society, family, music — is an incomplete man, narrow and incapable of either understanding or using the world. With but one interest, his happiness is inse- cure ; for when that fails, or ceases to satisfy, he has nothing on which to rely. Unsatisfactory to himself and others, he is not much of a man, and naturally displeases as well as is displeased. LAKGE-MINDEDNESS. 187 We have only as much of the world as we appre- ciate, and the many-sided man has many avenues to pleasure as well as to power. The world is several times as large to him as to the one-interest man, it being to all as large as their minds can grow to see it. We make the size of the world by the dimensions of our culture. Large-mindedness looks at a big world and takes hold of it with many hands. We should learn, accordingly, not to depreciate what others are interested in, since whatever occupies many, or great, minds, may be presumed to have value; and if we can not appreciate it, it is because of something wanting in us, and not in them. We un- consciously criticise ourselves in criticising others, and declare our own weakness when we assert others' worthlessness. The man who can laugh at art, litera- ture, benevolence, or politics, is a man to be laughed at. Indifference to great interests is always evidence of limitation, instead of ability. Whatever interests men should be our interest; and, while interests are of different values, those that occupy many minds can never be wisely ignored. At all events we should not depreciate them till we understand them, and then we will not. 188 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. V. IDEALITY. A refined mind is of next importance to a large mind, and closely related to it ; since the greatest principles, having the widest sweep, are of a delicate character, and not to be pursued by a coarse intellect into their refined applications. Some truths can be understood only by sensitive feelings, just as some pleasures, like music, can be enjoyed only by them. The highest appreciation of art is of this kind, so that gestheticism and refinement are nearly identical. Ex- alted poetic thought is of the same kind; and the highest reach of the philosopher requires the most exquisite refinement of feeling, as well as of thought. Morality, of course, depends much upon it, a highly refined mind revolting from most forms of vice; while in religion, " spiritual " is almost synonymous with "devotional." In society, the "fine" pleases, and works itself out as good taste in dress and manner. In public life it attracts in the orator and writer; and in general it is powerful as well as pleasing. Beauty, grace, tenderness, are its natural expression; for a fine mind usually acquires a fine exterior, elegance being the language of refinement. Nature's move- ments are beautiful, and the mind approaching nearest IDEALITY. 189 thern. is the most naturally, as well as the most fully, developed. It is as natural for the mind as for the tree to bloom into flowers, and in both the blossoms plentifully precede the fruit. CHAPTER SEVENTH. INDUSTRY. I. ENEKGY. To accomplish anything in life, either for self or for others, one must be industrious; and one of the most important habits to acquire is to be busy. The active man gets nearly everything that is going; and the difference between the idle and the industrious makes nearly all the difference between failure and success. There are great differences in activity, some being more active than other active peo- ple, and some more frequently active, which corre- sponds in general with the differences in success. He who does most becomes most; and fame, wealth and happiness follow the path of the energetic man. Nearly all that is valuable is the result of work. Our pleasures are not productive ; and they have value only as relaxation from effort, or as the enthusiasm of our work itself. Grain, gold, scholarship, all are obtained by a forced activity. What we accomplish spontan- eously is, like weeds, worthless, and is mostly vice. 190 ENERGY. 191 Arduous and directed energy is the producer; and we should see that we have much of this, so as to habit- ually live in effort. Work is not necessarily painful. It proceeds with pleasure when well under way, and when we have a habit of industry. It is only the start that is usually dis- agreeable, the first effort out of idleness being painful. But once started we naturally go on, activity being then almost automatic by the very law of inertia. The habit of making starts, therefore, is important. If we see that we are always started, nature will see that we are always going. It makes all the difference between an active and a lazy man to be able to start easily; for even the lazy man inclines to go on when started ; but his misfortune is that he starts seldom, so that for most of his life he is not going. The facility with which we make beginnings commonly determines our success ; for he who begins easily always has some- thing to do, and is generally doing it. We should acquire, therefore, as of first import- ance, the habit of getting up out of our idleness, and of moving and setting things in motion, — the habit of making first efforts and hard efforts. For he who begins work hard usually finds each successive stroke easier. Hard work itself grows easy with continuance, and effort becomes spontaneous with repetition, as well as does rest, there being habits of activity, as well as 192 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. of idleness. For by much energy one becomes an energetic man, when his energy proceeds of itself; so that he goes to work as naturally as he gets up, and continues to work as naturally as he continues to keep awake, nature always helping the active man. When we consider how much there is to be done before we achieve any position in life, and how hard that work is, we see the necessity of habitual energy. Spurts of activity are not availing. The countless details requiring attention escape the spasmodic worker. In order to do much, one must be so often active as to be habitually active. Hard work often repeated is the price of success ; and we should learn not to " let up," or see ourselves idle. Beyond the time required for needed rest, we should have an active brain, an active will and active hands. Many tasks, and not one, constitute the successful man's employ- ment. They may be in the same line of work (and usually must be), but they must be numerous and independently taken up — tasks for every hour and every moment. Many are able to work if they are set at a task, and have nothing to do but keep at it. This is not energy, but often only the perseverance of laziness. Energy takes up many tasks, and, when it accomplishes them, goes to others. All the difference between energy and laziness, is that energy does not stop when it is done, ENERGY. 193 but, taking up something else, keeps on through many achievements. Temptation comes when one task is done, and we are inclined to stop, instead of go on to the next. To take up new work is as important as to do the work in hand; and not to stop too long between works is a necessary condition of success. We should learn not to rest till we are weary, or to stop till we are done. In passing from one branch of work to another, we should not get the habit of feeling tired, and wanting to pause. "Work often ends at such pause, instead of merely suffering an interval. The intervals between tasks should not be long; and lazi- ness should not be allowed to set in before we begin again. For at this juncture indolence usually attacks a man — when the next duty is to be done. We are too apt to take rest when we need none, or delay before beginning a new work, when it is only one of several little works which make a single task. Indolence is nearly all in the disinclination to begin ; and having so many little things to do, we should learn to begin often, as well as to begin easily. The man of many beginnings is the man of success. We should learn to begin quickly, to begin when we are busy, and to begin immediately on the completion of our last work ; so that the many beginnings may make a continuity of the same task. Doing this we accom- plish many things; and many things make up the 13 194 THE VIRTUES AND THEIE REASONS. great tasks. Instead of saving our energy for a few great works, we should learn to be often busy, and to be energetic at whatever we undertake. For there are mot many successes that depend on only a few works. Success stands on many props. Above all, we should learn to work hard — to make great efforts, and to do all that we are capable of doing. Many never reach the maximum of their energy. There is a great difference between the aver- age effort of a man and his greatest effort. When his full nature comes out he usually accomplishes some- thing, and everyone should learn to go to the limit of his strength. This is easy enough in physical labor, like lifting and running, where one often even strains himself; but in using the mind, few know what they can do. It is important, therefore, to learn the power of concentration, and to be able to call out all our thought upon a subject. It is such efforts that pro- duce the great works of genius — inventions, poems, and philosophic systems — and that make great think- ers and men of action. When men habitually do their best they become the world's leaders. We should learn to work hard when we work, and to rest completely when we rest ; to be wide awake when awake, and fast asleep when asleep; to call up all our energies when we want them, and to throw PERSEVERANCE. 195 them all off when we do not need them. In this way we will learn, while using all our strength, to not dis- sipate it. To conserve our power is one of the great problems of the active man, and he who thinks he has too much to do will accomplish more if he uses his strength only for what he has to do. II. PEESEYEEANCE. Most fail of success from lack of perseverance; for little is accomplished at a single stroke, as we have said. The way of success is long, and becomes tedious before its end is reached. Those who give up when the stage of tediousness is reached, make a failure of life. Step after step, stroke after stroke, achievement after achievement, are required before anything of value is assured; and those who do not go to the end usually lose all they do. The way of life is strewn with the wrecks of those who have accomplished a part. It is the men who hold on that get what others let go. The persistent plodder gets the unfinished mansion of the dashing speculator, who works well for a while. The solid achievements are generally accomplished after the first enthusiasm is spent. The race is 196 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. mostly determined in the last half mile. All can da well in starting, especially if the course is long, but keeping up is what counts. When the energy begins to flag, the time to apply courage has come, and he who overcomes at this stage is apt to succeed. The setting in of disinclination is the signal for perseverance to come forward. We can not persevere in commencing; it is when worn out, and when the hard work comes, that we need new infusions of spirit to carry us through. He is fortunate, therefore, who can recommence in the middle of his work, and keep up enthusiasm when the task becomes stale. The new is ever inspiring, and makes many run well for a while ; but to throw inspi- ration into the old is what counts. Continuity of work, or kept-up resolution, is the price of success. We should be able to begin where we have left off, and not leave off to stop, but to recuperate. To take up the thread of our endeavor is the secret of great achieve- ment, and so to weave our tasks into a whole. We must not only persevere in our working, but in our work, and keep busy at the same thing. Many active people are not successful because they change their employment, and thus present a career with many unfinished beginnings. They are fortunate who can work at one thing for a life ; for they are sure of something great. To keep to a purpose is to guaran- PERSEVERANCE. 197 tee its realization. The number of efforts which any man can make are enough to get what almost any man strives for. Few things that the average man wants are unattainable by the average man. But many fail to attain them, because they do not keep in the track of them. The lazy stop, the irresolute go off in other paths, and he who aims at several targets hits none. To keep an object in view long enough to work up to it is often harder than to do the needed work. Any one who has a single plan for life, and never changes it, is sure of success ; and one of the most import- ant problems of man is to work up a system of living that shall keep him employed through life. By doing everything as part of a plan, and keeping at it, he will fill up a rounded life. But two half lives do not make a whole one, and two things half done do not make a completed one. Partial successes are only whole fail- ures, and everything begun that is not carried through is wasted. Men should learn to complete, as well as to begin, and especially to work on the last half of success. We should keep to our work and not change to another in which our past efforts will not count, but rather learn to end before we begin again, and be impatient of the incomplete. While we should be sure we are right before we go ahead, we should be sure we are wrong before we stop ; and, before changing to something else, we should 198 THE VIRTUES AND THEIB EEASONS. consider whether we are willing that our present work shall be a failure. Do not change plans in the middle of an enterprise ; but, having taken a resolution, refuse to reconsider it in the midst of its execution. When you have begun work call upon your will, rather than your judgment, and consider its completion rather than its wisdom. Do not give to decision the time needed for execution; but, having determined what to do, decline to weaken your resolution by reconsidera- tion. He who often stops along the way to consider the wisdom of his course, will render it unwise, if it is not already so ; whereas it is often better to resolutely fol- low an unwise purpose, than irresolutely to pursue a wise one. It is one thing to persevere and another to persevere at the same thing. "We can keep up our energy without keeping up our purpose; whereas, for success, we must keep up our energy on our purpose. Tasks are jealous of attention to others, and achieve- ment requires undivided devotion. Every one undertaking a task should consider whether he has perseverance enough for a long effort — whether he can toil for weeks, or years, or life, without wanting a change. It is the tasks which run through a long career that constitute, when done, the great achievements; and one who easily gets tired of PEESEVEEANCE. 199 the same work should not begin anything great — or rather should cure his tendency to get tired. Men should learn continuity, not by thoughtlessly plodding at a prescribed task, which is routine, but by repeating great efforts on the same task. Perse- verance that is merely mechanical accomplishes no more than other unskilled labor. No great success is attained by simply turning a crank. But to throw into every part of the work the same thought and energy that we spend in its inception and first start, is what constitutes greatness. We have seen that nature helps us to persevere by imparting an enthusiasm for our work when it is fairly under way, so that we proceed almost spontaneously in the excitement. To some energetic souls it is easier to go on than to stop, like rolling down hill; and any one may acquire this impulse ; so that we have little more to do, in being persevering, than to start again the enthusiasm when it becomes low, or dies out, which often requires but a little effort. A concentration of thought, or mere commencement of work, will usually start it again. Perseverance is but a few little efforts thrown in along the way, to keep up the enthusiasm which the work itself generates; and a little attention to this makes the habit of perseverance a permanent one, so that, like a falling body, we go of ourselves, and only have to begin in order to finish. 200 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. III. DECISION. No qualification is so commonly deemed essential to success as decision, which implies several others. To make a decision we must think, and when thought precedes action it is to some purpose; so that the man of decision is a man of thought, as well as of action. He is also a man of prudential thinking, since he must think with reference to results. And he is a compre- hensive thinker; since for decision all the details of the subject to be affected must be considered. He becomes, therefore, also a rapid thinker ; and, knowing that his thoughts will have definite results, he becomes an accurate thinker; so that we have, in decision, the essential condition of success, — constant thought and thought for a purpose. The undecided man is incomplete as a thinker. Running from subject to subject, without exhausting any consideration, his mind fails to furnish complete motives ; and, lacking comprehensiveness, it can not gather up all the considerations which should influ- ence him, and weigh them accurately for their proper effect on his conduct. A subject is not generally thought of adequately until we are about to act upon it; so that the undecided man has generally unsatis- DECISION. 201 factory information, as well as volition. Decision is a great educator, as well as operator. Many decisions are necessary in order to make one a decided man, or to train him to decide with judg- ment. If he is not habitually decisive, he fails in decision when the critical moment comes. One must decide often to decide well, since the habit of quick decision, like other habits, comes only by practice. Hence we should on all subjects habituate ourselves to be decided, which implies that we have opinions on them, and that we act on such opinions; which fre- quent forming of opinions, and the rapidity of thought required therefor, is the best training for both the intellect and the will. For one can not be a man of decision without beinsf a man of quick decision. There being many questions requiring decision, he has not much time for any one; and the experience acquired in deciding often, induces a facility for deciding instantly, so that rapidity fol- lows from practice. A second decision is easier than the first, and a thousandth is automatic. One who decides much, moreover, learns to look at a subject comprehensively, so as to quickly see how to decide, thus learning to take in the situation at a glance. Unless we decide we act by chance, letting circum- stances drive us instead of our judgment. There are so many occasions to act, that we must often do so 202 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. whether we decide or not, and when action comes before decision it generally ends in a mistake. We should keep our thoughts ahead of our wills, and make action follow intention. Life thus becomes the * execution of a plan, instead of the play of chance. Often, indeed, we have not the materials for a deci- sion, so that we can not be certain we are right. In such cases we should decide on the best information we have, which, at the worst, is better than no decision, for without such decision we should be driven solely by chance. The habit, moreover, of deciding induces a capacity for making good deci- sions, even upon few data, and the probabilities are that we will decide right. But whether we do or not, it is the best we can do, and we should learn to act courageously when we are attempting our best, no matter how poor that may be. They who can act only when sure will accomplish lit- tle, since nearly all great enterprises must be begun in uncertainty. We should learn to be decisive in doubtful matters as well as in sure, and to act with resolution when we can not be certain. Having decided our best, we should next do our best. The courageous man is no more afraid of uncertainties than of difficulties. Some of the most heroic acts are done in the face of possible failure, so that the chances that we may not succeed need not unnerve us. DECISION. 203 When you are sure of failure you may stop, but not when you are uncertain of success. While we should be sure we are right when sureness is possible, we should go ahead just as resolutely on probabilities when probabilities are all we can get. Every man must make up his mind to stand a few failures in an active life; but the resolute man can often wrest suc- cess from the conditions of failure, whereas the irres- olute one can not take hold of success when it is within his reach. We should learn, therefore, when we have made the best decision of which we are capable, to act with as much conviction as if we were certain, for such decision is as right for us as if no doubt existed. The best possible should always be deemed the best con- ceivable as far as conduct is concerned, and he is for- tunate who can be decided in doubtful matters. A strong will may be founded on probabilities, and we should never let irresolution add disaster to uncer- tainty. 204 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. IV. EAENESTNESS. Little is accomplished without an impression of its importance; and he who looks seriously at life is best fitted for its weighty tasks. The trifler accomplishes but trifles ; and dealing habitually in small matters, he sees things small. This habit belittles the mind until it is soon unfit for great activities. We should, therefore, be in earnest, and enter life with zeal. To this end we should see that we are roused, instead of merely tickled, and that our feelings are called out, as well as our strength. It is import- ant that we act with the most of ourselves. He who is not deeply interested in anything has nothing on which to succeed in life ; for the success of trifling or indifference is no better than failure. The earnest man gets respect, as the trifler gets contempt. When he speaks he is heard; for habitual earnestness gives him something to say. While there is not much difference between trifling and folly, there is, in all earnestness, a measure of sense. Much vice arises from lack of earnestness, which prevents the trifler from adequately considering the virtues, or being duly influenced by them. The habit- ual consideration of trifles diverts the mind from EARNESTNESS. 205 weighty topics, such as the moral interests all are. Seriousness and virtue are commonly deemed identical. Earnestness is not, indeed, incompatible with amuse- ment. Mirth, sport, wit, all may coexist with it. But life is not all fun, and we should be able to be serious when we want to. It being the earnest that counts, and the trifling that is unproductive, we should not indulge the latter as a general business, or trifle enough to make ourselves triflers. As the bulk of life is serious, our habitual demeanor should correspond with it. It is tiresome to be a monkey — especially to the one who is monkeyed to. Seriousness is a relief where there is much nonsense. Amusement should take no more time than is required for recreation. The bulk of our enjoyment should be derived from our work; for we may learn to enjoy our serious, as well as our lighter states, and to enjoy such states in others. It is as important to learn to enjoy the great as to do the great, and so to get great souls as well as great intel- lects, or to effect an enlargement of feeling through the grandeur of our pleasures. CHAPTER EIGHTH. SELF-SUPPORT. For our livelihood each must depend on himself, as much as do the brutes. For, though we use and help one another in society, we are no less independ- ent than if society did not exist. We must rely on ourselves in order to use this help. The aids of society only make larger demands on us to aid our- selves ; for our wants, induced by society, increase quite as fast as the supply we get from society. - Man must simply help himself with men, which is now the problem of self-support. Unless one supports himself he becomes a charity subject or criminal, living against the laws of society. While our parents and friends help us when children and when aged, the period of competency should be lived in self-support. Though we can not, indeed, when working together, say what each contributes to his own support (since many are supported by a com- mon work), each should be sure that he contributes enough to the general labor of society to entitle him to a support from the results. Whether it comes as 206 SELF-SUPPORT. 207 products, as profits or as wages, he should see that he earns a livelihood as well as that he gets it. This implies a support not only for himself, but for those depending on him; for everyone has for some periods dependencies on him, just as for other periods he is a dependency. The duty of self-support implies that of diligence, already referred to, and of care, frugality, and many other virtues; also of ambition, or a desire to get up in life, where we can control the forces of society, and use them for ourselves and others. It implies also self-defense, including the defense of those depending upon us — a duty which goes to the extent of using force, when necessary, against those wrongfully assailing us or withholding our rights, and of going to law or war for ourselves or country. The right to live has no limits, and those who stand in its way should themselves look to the consequences of such violation. The duty to support ourselves is the greater because all other duties so largely depend upon it. The tramp can not perform his duties because of his helpless condition, so that he is not only worthless to society, but when his vagrancy is voluntary, is a wrong-doer. We owe something to the respectability of people, and it is a duty to be well-to-do when that is possible. 208 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. This duty of self-support is the more imperative because the support of others is incidentally involved, as of our families. We have no right to keep others in poverty, even if we ourselves are willing to be poor, so that a competence is a virtue as well as an educa- tion. One has, therefore, no right to be lazy, or unem- ployed, or purposeless, or impractical, which are the. usual hindrances to support. He should have the domestic virtues, with a home and wife and well-kept children, and take position with his neighbors as a substantial citizen. He has no right to follow a whim, as an eccentric man or nondescript, to the neglect of those who depend, or should depend, on him. Every- one should perform his social duties, by having his right position in society. A good support is the measure of a well developed man, and shows a most desirable balancing of powers. When one can not get along there is something lack- ing in his character — industry, purpose, integrity or something practical. To support a family well calls out many capabilities, and often makes the manly man. The man of family is not apt to be one-sided, like the bachelor, theorist or tramp. The best man, as a rule, is in the way of the best support; as the duties all imply this, and tend to it. CHAPTER NINTH. SELF-CONTROL, I. WILL POWEE. It is all important to have ourselves under control, so as not to run through life at random, and to have all our powers under control so as not to be carried off by one into eccentricity. To regulate a life is no small part of life. Unless we control ourselves others will do so, or else we will drift through a purposeless exist- ence ; and if we fail to control any particular function, the rest will overbear it, and often the worst — the passions generally controlling the reason. The whole man should be carried along in our career, each func- tion performing its part, so that all of them together shall lead us to the desired goal of life. To this end we must have a will, and make life pro- ceed according to it. Nothing should be done until we decide to do it. Spontaneous or impulsive, living has no results. Our actions should be intended. When we design anything we must usually think about 14 209 210 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. it, as we have seen; so that our effort becomes the result of consideration. To lie around waiting for inclinations to drive us is like trying to cross the ocean by chance winds without a pilot. Accidental impulses never drive men to great achievements. We should, accordingly, see that we are frequently intending. The will, like a picket, should never be off guard, except when we sleep ; and sleep even should be taken in obedience to our will. He who allows himself to go to sleep when he does not want to, has not adequate control of himself; and if he were a sen- tinel he would be shot for unfaithfulness. There should be no accidental rest any more than accidental labor. We ought not to quit work without our own permission, but learn to get our consent for all time given to idleness, as well as to labor. There is so much natural inclination to do nothing, that, without the direction of the will, our whole life-stream is lia- ble, like a river going down hill, to rush into some low pool of stagnation. To this end we should learn, when we know what we want to do, to will to do it. Volition should be trained to follow quick on judgment. To see our duty should be to do it. Laziness should not be allowed to intervene between our decision and our volition. To have a will to work quickly and unfailingly at such times is (like having a mind for similarly quick decis- WILL POWER. 211 ion), one of the greatest guarantees of a successful life; and such a will is the result of much practice. To do our duty unfailingly we must have done many duties, so that duty and habitual duty are nearly the same. Many never learn to execute. Tlieir will lags behind their judgment; and undone decisions pile up awaiting performance. Their life ebbs away at ran- dom, and even their thinking is purposeless. Quick willing is as imperative as quick thinking, and a read- iness to do as a readiness to decide. He who learns to not will when his duty is seen, becomes conscienceless. It should hurt us to stop at a decision, as being an unnatural ending of a move- ment, like a fall. Performance ought to follow inten- tion as naturally as eating does an appetite, or explo- sion a torch. There should be no divorce between our judgment and our execution. A will, like a wheel, should work easily, and start at the first signal from conscience. Alert wills are as important as alert minds, sluggishness clogging action as much as thought. There should be no long route between the volition and the act. Directness should characterize our whole life ; and we should be no sooner willing than doing. Quick execution is as necessary as quick willing and quick thinking ; so that a duty seen, a duty 212 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. undertaken and a duty done should be a rapid succes- sion of events. II. PBUDENCE. Next in importance after having everything under control, is to have it in proper subordination; so that the great interests shall receive great attention, and the minor interests small attention, according to their importance. This regulation is the work of prudence, which weighs and adjusts. Much of life is dissipated on little things, which, though valuable, are not worth the attention given them. All undue time spent on trifles is taken from something important. Much time is also spent on one thing, when a bet- ter might be chosen. There should be a choice between good things as well as between good and bad mixed. It is important to get not only the good, but the best ; and many errors are committed by doing well when we should do better. To do the right thing, and to choose it among many claiming to be such, is the con- summation of wisdom. Good sense shows itself chiefly in prudence, which must pick out a right course where there are many good ones, as well as where there are few; and it is often harder, as well as more important, PRUDENCE. 213 to do what is best among the good, than to do what is good among the bad. Many of our chief difficulties come from the plentitude of our advantages, where to take one and leave another may be a serious disadvant- age. One of the first rules of prudence is not to fly off after everything good that offers. Such a course leads to the frequent abandonment of what we are doing for something that seems better; since all advantages seem best when first presented. The prudent man thinks before he commences something else, and espec- ially before he quits what he is at. We should act cautiously, therefore, as well as act, and see that we have the caution when we stop for it, instead of delay- ing from mere timidity, which is irresolution. To be prudent we must be thoughtful, and not pro- ceed without considering, cautious, and not undertake without calculating, and discriminating, and not choose without comparing, so that we shall attain only what is valuable, and undertake only what is possible. We should guard against both failure and success in the worthless; for one often fails through imprudent suc- cesses, and loses his aim as a whole by gaining his aims as parts. Many good things go only to make up a bad whole, and we should see that what we desire is what is best on the whole, as well as that what we do will attain it as a whole, so that we do not fail in all 214 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. by succeeding in everything. We should set the right end before us, so that every successful step shall bring us nearer a desired object. When going in the wrong direction all progress leads backward. Our desires should express our real wants, so that when we attain them we will have supplied some actual need. Many seek what they do not want, when success is only a failure of their purpose. It is as important to regulate our desires as our conduct, so that we shall want only what we need. Many desires express only whims, and when attained fill no require- ments, so that no course of prudent conduct can satisfy them. Desires may be prudent as well as efforts, and we should see that we do not want the undesirable, as well as that we do not get it. It is our duty to want the good as well as to do it, and often our first duty is to get our desires right. As desires lead to conduct as their natural expression, the regulation of our desires is a great part of our conduct. Bad desires may be stopped as well as bad actions, and one can not hope to be good whose wishes are wrong. Since one usually does what he wants to, his wants must be right if virtue be not a constant effort against his nature. He who starts his desires on the way of right is making motives for good conduct, for if one wants the good he will do it as voluntarily as the evil. MODERATION. 215 Desire-making is, therefore, an important part of ethics. Being responsible for our wants as well as for our deeds, the duty of desiring right is funda- mental. The judgment should get in behind our wishes, and set our will to working there. Desires may be reasonable as well as thoughts, and we should get our own permission to wish as well as to act. We should have no desires that we do not want, but set our reason to work upon them, for reason can control our feelings as well as our will. The will can thus get behind not only the will, but the motive that drives the will, so that its freedom is back of all movement and in league with reason there. "We should not overlook in morals this greatest part of our responsibility — the responsibility for our wishes. III. SELF - EESTEAINT. 1. — MODERATION. (1) — In General. All our powers are liable to run to excess, as well as to stop short of sufficiency; and this excess pro- duces the common vices — drunkenness, gluttony licentiousness, avarice, etc. For many hold that all 216 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. vice is simply an excess of virtue; that licentiousness, for example, is an excess of love, intemperance an excess of drinking, avarice an excess of economy, prodigality an excess of liberality, cowardice an excess of prudence, recklessness an excess of courage, and, in general, each vice an excessive use in one direction, or its opposite, of a function whose proper use constitutes a virtue. Without admitting this, however, but thinking rather that vice is. an abnormal, as well as excessive, use of a faculty (for there can not be too much love, but love in its greatest strength is very different from licentiousness), we must admit that every excess is a vice, and works injury. Some of our functions tend naturally to excess, and need habitual restraint: as eating, drinking and rest- ing; while others run rarely to excess, so that their inordinate use has no name among the vices : as think- ing, willing, and acting; although in the latter also excess may be serious as vice, even if nameless (as when people break down through hard work or over- strained nerves). Moderation in all things is a virtue, and consists in the use of each faculty up to its health- ful limit, and in just proportion to its importance among the functions. While a proper use of all our faculties is necessary for their development, an excess- ive use of one not only injures that, but withdraws GLUTTONY. 217 strength from the others, so as to make us monstrosi- ties, or lop-sided characters. The immoderate man is always out of proportion, and in some way impractical. His opinions have little weight, as a rule; his statements are not reliable, his presence is not pleasing, and, in general, he is not of much use to himself or others. The embodiment of imprudence, he rarely achieves a great or lasting suc- cess. Practical sense consists in taking enough of everything, and stopping at enough, and especially in avoiding hobbies by giving due importance to every- thing. For a hobby consists not so much in empha- sizing one thing as in neglecting many. Virtue, we have seen, is simply the right use of ourselves, which gives us most pleasure, as well as most profit, especially when life is taken all together; so that he who goes to excess gets no advantage from it when results are summed up. Let us consider, then, several of the forms of mod- eration and the opposite excesses which constitute vices ; and, first, gluttony. (2) — Gluttony. He who eats too much gets more pain than pleas- ure from his meal, so that gluttony has no advantages over a proper use of food. The pleasure in having the food go down is but little compared with the pain of 218 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. keeping it there — or getting rid of it. One does not eat to eat, but to digest and live; and the task of living on badly-eaten food is a painful one. Good living can not follow on bad eating; but as you eat, so shall you live; and when the aches and pains come you will see the sins of your dinner. Excess is nearly all worked off in agony; and some time in life you must pay in ill-health for all your indiscretions. The certainty with which Nature inflicts the penalty for the violation of her laws in eating, is a good exam- ple for all living. For a proper use of life, which we call virtue, is simply that which gives us most pleas- ure and least pain, when taken all together; whereas the vice which indulges the moment, at the expense of the rest of life, is sure to meet suffering in the end, and more suffering than will off- set the pleasure of excess. For while the pleasure of vice is temporary, the pain is permanent. The first gives us a tickled palate, the last leaves us the dyspepsia; and the ques- tion of the profit of vice is whether you will, for a big dinner, take an afternoon colic. We should eat for life, and not for a meal ; and, con- sidering how much the pleasures of appetite are worth, should try to have them last. Some eat as if their meal were their last, and as if they were going to destroy their stomach as well as their appetite ; which, in fact, many are doing — eating on toward their last GLUTTONY. 219 meal. Their excesses are fast destroying their palate and their digestion, so that they soon can eat no more with pleasure, and no more at all except with pain. Man should not eat away his stomach, but eat as if it were to last for life. To come to old age with an unim- paired digestion is to enjoy a whole life of eating; and virtue generally consists in enjoying things so that they shall last — that the appetite and the man shall both last. Many eat away their capacity to enjoy. Excess destroys the taste, so that it can not appreciate; and spices and relishes must be used to stimulate it. Food goes through some people's throats as if they were iron tubes; and such persons feel more in their stom- achs than in their mouths — the feeling being pain instead of taste. Good food, properly taken, keeps up the taste as well as the other functions; and it is our duty to keep up a good appetite through life. To do this, however, we must not take too much of it away at one meal. Appetite will not recover any more than will the stomach, after excess ; and repeated excess takes away permanently the pleasure, as well as the profit of eating. When one eats without relish and digests with pain, the time is approaching when he will eat no more. It is the career of all vice to destroy itself. He who runs himself down at the mouth 220 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. is one of the most despised wrecks, and he gives out most ungracefully. (3) — Amusements. The same principle applies to all other enjoyments. Pleasures to be of long duration, must be taken in moderation ; and it is as important not to lose our self- control in our enjoyments as in our work. Dissipa- tion ends one's pleasures sooner than his pains. He should, therefore, take his pleasure so as to get most of it, which is by taking a little at a time. He who makes a business of pleasure finds it as hard work as any other business; and, besides palling on his appe- tite, it wears him out faster than work. One can take only a certain amount and have it pleasure, just as he can take only a certain amount of food. To take pleasure all the time would be as hard as to sleep all the time. When you have enough your appetite is gone, and you must turn to something else to get a rel- ish for more. To enjoy, you must have a want to fill, want being the capacity for pleasure, and if you keep your wants always supplied you can not have the satisfaction of filling them. As one must have hunger in order to eat, so must he have desires in order to enjoy; and to keep himself surfeited is to destroy his capacity for enjoyment. What many need is wants rather than AMUSEMENTS. 221 possessions. He who needs nothing is not the happy- man, but he who is supplying his needs. To have great enjoyments we must have great wants, enjoyment being simply the filling of our wants. The want, moreover, must be felt, as well as the filling of it. The appetite is the greatest part of every dinner, and we should not be afraid to get hun- gry. Depriving ourselves of pleasure is as necessary to enjoyment as taking pleasure, and learning to want is no little part of our training for happiness. The time spent in getting hungry is as important for the dinner as the time spent in eating. He who does not know how to deprive himself long enough to be in good condition to enjoy himself, has not learned the secret of happiness. Want-making is as important as want-filling, and to build up wants we must not be impatient of the sense of deprivation. To feel want without inconvenience is a great qualification for enjoying life. Instead, therefore, of a life of pleasure, pleasure should alternate with work. "Work is the appetite for pleasure, as pleasure is the appetite for work. Each feeds the other, and will stop if its correlative is want- ing. To be able to rest well, one must be able to get tired well ; to sleep well, he must conduct himself well when awake; to eat well, he must get hungry well; and to amuse himself well he must employ himself 222 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. well. He who never works can never rest, as he who is never awake can never sleep, but is permanently dead. The busy man has most time for pleasure, as he has most capacity, because he can have pleasure in all his unemployed time. The idle man has little time for pleasure, because for most of his time he can not enjoy himself, and that only is pleasure-time in which pleasure can be taken. Taking all life together, therefore, the hard-working man gets most pleasure, and the pleasure-seeker, or person who gives himself up mainly to pleasure, gets least pleasure. Virtue requires the sacrifice of no pleasures, but the regulation of our pleasures, so that we shall have most pleasure, and that it shall last longest. We must often forego little pleasures for greater ones, and pleasures now for longer ones hereafter; but the aim of virtue is to get most enjoyment out of life, tak- ing all life and all enjoyment into account. (4) — Cupidity. Greed is a disgusting vice, no matter what you are greedy for — food, amusements, or money — and it generally defeats its end. By being lost in the present you surrender the future. Money, like food, is a means ; and, as by eating to die, instead of to live, you eat away what your are eating for, so by giving CUPIDITY. 223 yourself wholly to money-getting, you give yourself away to your money. He who lives for money looks but a short way ahead, and when he gets it he has what he can not use. For money is only a half-way measure, where one should start for something else. By stopping at its acquisition he ends his life in the middle. We need money that we may live better; and to give up living well in order to make money, is to abandon the end of life to get the means. Such a one is about as wise as the doctor who should kill his patient to get his medicine into him. It is one thing to get ready to live, and another to live; and to kill yourself in the preparation is to defeat your work before it is begun. The desire for getting money should not destroy the capacity to enjoy it. It is as important to know how to spend money as to know how to acquire it; and he who can not use it can not be said to have it, as far as its purposes are concerned. Like a dyspeptic who can do everything with his dinner but eat it, the miser, who can do everything with his gold but spend it, is only the steward for his heirs, earning as a hire- ling and managing as an agent what he can not him- self enjoy. For he sells himself out as a slave to one passion which denies him everything else. 224 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. $) — Self -Sacrifice. In all our pursuits, and particularly in our pleas- ures, we must make many sacrifices, which are neces- sary for our own success and enjoyment, as well as for the good of others. All work is of the nature of sacrifice, in which we give up some of our incli- nation for future results. Self-denial is the price of health, intelligence, possessions, and nearly every- thing that we want, and we should learn to heroic- ally sacrifice. He who can not do what he does not want to, can not have what he wants. While we should avoid denying ourselves when it is useless, we should be ready to fast, thirst, suffer, or work, when our interest lies in that direction. He who can do only the pleas- ant things that are for his advantage, will make little progress, as the way of success runs across hardships. To overcome our own inclinations — and disinclin- ations — is a great part of life's work. We often stand in the way of our purposes, and must push our- selves aside to get our ends. This overcoming of self is the victory which helps us to overcome others. He who can not surmount his own inclinations can not surmount those of his fellows ; for others, it may be SELF-SACRIFICE. 225 presumed, will oppose him harder than he does him- self. There is much about us that we do not want, and we must pare off ourselves to get what is really us, and not mere dead flesh that has accreted upon us. When one works his way out through his blood and bile and opposing humors to his task, he has cut his road half way to success. Some men are their own greatest opponents, and to get a body that will always respond to the will is of vital importance. One must learn to give up much to have it hereaf- ter, to give up something pleasant to have something better, to give up something desired to have something needed, and to give up, in general, anything to have the right thing. While it is important not to have desires which we should not gratify, it is equally im- portant, when we have them, to be able to surrender them. The denial of unprofitable inclinations is the best way to prevent their recurrence. The child must learn to give up play, the youth amusement and the man ease, when it stands in the way of his interests. This sacrificing of one thing for another (which is usually something desired for some- thing preferred, but not yet desired), is highly import- ant ; for desire can not always keep up with judgment, so as to want what is thought best. We must, there- fore, commence nearly everything in disinclination, 15 226 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and against some other inclination, so that we are nearly always called npon to give up something that we want for something that we ought to have, or to exchange the desired for the valued. We should learn the important lesson of preferring the general to the particular good, and of striving for it when we do not yet desire it. Desire often comes after intention, and after work begun; so that what is begun in disinclination is pursued with avidity. But we must not wait for desire to begin with. Inclination is so long in overtaking us in some tasks that we must often sacrifice to the end. (2) — PATIENCE. To accomplish anything men must learn to wait as well as to work, and particularly to wait for results. Little is accomplished at once, and that of little value. Everything of importance has a long parentage of causes, and the practical man must look far ahead in his enterprises. To demand immediate results, or to work only for what will produce them, disqualifies for permanent success. Some things can not be forsed. Crops must have their time to grow. And one must learn how not to work, as well as how to work, and when. To wait without suffering is a great attain- ment. To do this successfully one must learn to work PATIENCE. 227 while waiting. To be patient in idleness is not much better than to be impatient in idleness. We should do something else while waiting for our first work to ripen into results, and not allow the delay between cause and effect to unnerve us. Time works for the patient man; and when all is done that needs to be done, we should not worry about what is to come with- out being done. Instead of fretting over the past, we should work for the future, and let our rewards come to us when busy. To wait long and work long is the price of success, and to wait and work when there is no near encouragement. In disappointment and sorrow especially should we be patient, and learn to work after failing, as well as before succeeding. Feeling bad should not stop duty ; but bad feeling itself may be stopped by taking up new tasks, and exchanging other hopes for the disappointed ones. Eegrets should be short; and we should not let pain, any more than pleasure, wear out our lives, the only use of pain being to cause us to stop what pro- duces it. When you lose anything make the best of what remains, and not the worst of what is gone; and be always ready to swap enjoyments that you can not have for those that you can. 228 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. 3.— MODESTY. The modest man has many advantages — not that modesty is a great virtue, but that its lack is a great fault. We are naturally offended at the boaster or arrogant man. Merit discloses itself, and so needs no herald; but when one praises himself he detracts from his reputation. To keep your mind on your own importance is to produce littleness, as well as to show that it already exists. The strongest men think little of themselves, and less of their importance. In contrasting yourself with others, you need not dwell on your superiority or express your satisfaction with yourself. When one begins to praise himself others cease to praise him, and when he thinks much of himself he gets no com- pany in his opinion. We should, therefore, restrain our self-love, so that it never show itself as self-glori- fication. One's attention is always attracted from his duties when he dwells complacently on himself, and our absorption should be in our tasks instead of their per- former. We should not let too much of our feelings, any more than of our person, be seen; and in public speaking even we should, instead of indecent mental exposure, keep ourselves in the background. One never hears with patience one who presents a subject if he presents himself with it. DEMEANOR. 229 It is a disagreeable weakness to want to see yonr name and face conspicuous, and those who see it are more apt to hate your vanity than admire your noto- riety. When your deeds herald you you are thought famous, but when you herald yourself you are thought indelicate. One worthy of recognition generally gets it, but he who thinks more of the reward of merit than of merit rarely gets either. Fame and respect should be received as incidentals. To pursue them is, like pursuing your shadow, to drive them from you. They follow merit as an effect, and do not precede it as a cause. 4. — DEMEANOR. Good demeanor expresses, in general, the outward conduct which conforms to these inward graces. Our " manners " are always important, and to many they furnish the only means of judging us. Especially is this so on first acquaintance, where good manners is the next thing to make an impression after good looks. With those who get but little acquainted they furnish the whole estimate of the man, while with those who are well acquainted they perpetually ingratiate. To have good manners one must have many good qualities, because they always express something, and generally something good. To be well behaved, so as to invariably do the right thing at the right time, is 230 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. no little accomplishment, and implies no little charac- ter. The rules of etiquette are mostly rules of sense, so that what is required in society is something good instead of bad. Where etiquette descends to the trivial, we can, of course, safely ignore it; and where it falls to the silly we must do so to exhibit sense; but such cases are rare and generally local, so that they are not really what good breeding requires. To be in style is wise, if you must not go through too much foolishness to get in. The fashions are gen- erally what the concerted sense of mankind has agreed upon, and if you do not go to extremes therein (which is really to get out of fashion) you will do well to dress, eat and behave like others. The fashions, more- over, are flexible, so that without getting out of style you can generally find something to your taste and judgment. Some men can not follow the fashions without making fools of themselves, just as some can not ignore them without doing so. The best practice is to observe the customs without making it a matter of importance, so that you will not be known for your dress, or gait, or tone, but for your sense. Affectation should be especially avoided ; since one can never appear so well in any character as his own, a forced appearance, like anything else forced, being always awkward and displeasing. In imitating another you destroy your own charms without getting his; for DEMEANOR. 231 affectation never reaches the thing affected. The best grace attainable is through the cultivation of your own talents, so as to bring them out in the line of their natural growth. Much of our proper demeanor depends on our situ- ation — our age, occupation, wealth and relation to other people. To act according to our situation is the highest grace. As youth, our proper behavior is obe- dience to parents, teachers and others in charge of us ; and in such position, insubordination is not independ- ence, but the want of it. "We are not, when thus diso- bedient, independent enough to follow a rational line of behavior, which a little thought would recommend. Self-control requires us to give ourselves into the con- trol of others for a while ; and if we do not restrain ourselves so as to be directed by others, we can not restrain ourselves for our own direction when the time for that comes. Independence requires us to give up, as well as to insist, and to learn to follow, as well as to lead. Obedience becomes often an active principle, since many must act together. The physician, the attorney, the general, the ruler, all must act for us ; and it is no less a duty of sovereignty to follow them than it is to appoint them ; so that following is a part of our directing. Children and students must learn to obey before they learn to command ; and they should learn this les- 232 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. son as a preparation for a larger control. He who does not obey in reason can not command in reason ; but to insist on having the lead at all times disqualifies one for having the lead at all. He is most powerful who knows how to give up. To know when not to yield, you must know when to yield. It does not pay to expend yourself in holding on, when you should be saving your strength by letting go. Many of our vic- tories are won by yielding ; and the man of great cour- age has the courage to hold back when it is not prudent to come forward. The greatest leader is one who knows well when not to lead, but to allow things to go on without him. We must learn to not do some things, as well as to do others, and to let others do, as well as to make them do. IV. SELECTING THOUGHTS. 1. — IN GENERAL. The greatest guarantee of morality is to keep the mind on good subjects. If we do not allow ourselves to think of anything bad, we will not want to do it. Temptation comes only through the mind — with dwelling on the evil — its passage to the desires be- SELECTING THOUGHTS. 233 ing always through the thoughts. By reflecting exclusively on the good, we will want to do that instead; and, as we can as easily get interested in the good as in the bad, there is no sacrifice in thus choos- ing the best. Since, therefore, we can create an interest for what- ever we want to, it is part of our duty to get interested in the right subjects, as well as to pursue them. It being the interesting that engages us, we should make interesting the most important things. This may be done by contemplating them. What first gets our attention is apt to win our affections; and to keep the mind on the right subjects is to have the right desires. We should no more let our minds run at random than our wills, but direct what we think as well as what we do. We need have no thoughts that we are not willing to have; and we should get our own con- sent to do our thinking. It is our duty to keep out bad thoughts as carefully as bad desires. A man is made by what he thinks on; and self -direction should begin far back in the mind. We can call up the world we want to live in; and where there are so many subjects we are not justified in having poor ones. Where we are thinking we are living; and each one makes his mental surroundings. By thinking on public questions, poetry, art, philoso- 234 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. phy, or benevolence, v^e live in an elevated region, and find it as congenial as anything else. By think- ing on drink, debauchery, or gossip, we come to find a life of vice congenial. We create companionship by our thoughts, and what the mind dwells on becomes our moral environment. Our thoughts, no more than our persons, should be in bad company. One should see that his thinking is laid out, and that he has a plan for the conduct of his mind. As all his nature follows his thoughts, his intellect should be set in the right direction, and a thought-fabric be planned for a life work. What you are going to think on is as important a question as what you are going to do; and you should see that you have the right work for your mind. We should no more trust to chance for what we are to think about, than for what we are to do, but should see that we have a plan of thinking that is adequate to our general purposes. We must make our mind before we can use it ; and the direction of our thoughts determines the character of the capacity with which we are to work. The thoughts that we put into our head become our mind ; and every one under self-control is making himself. You have, therefore, to determine what you will be, and become your own intellectual and moral parent. If you do not determine it yourself, your surroundings will; and men made by chance are no READING. 235 better than other chance products. If you allow the slums to make you, you will be mostly slum. All persons, and particularly the young, should consider where their thoughts are leading them, and whether they want to go there. Character -building commences with the direction given to thought, for everything that is thought stays, in part, in the mind. Even what hurriedly passes through and is forgotten, leaves something. Like the bed of a river, the mind is being made by the deposits left by the passing stream of thoughts. Those streams that flow through mountains of gold leave golden sands, while those that come from marshes leave but slimy beds. Men will usually think right if set going right. The mind is naturally logical, — in fact is logic. The reason why many do not think better is because they have not good subjects to think on. You can not Biake good thoughts out of street - pickings. You must have a worthy topic to make worthy thought. 2. —READING. In our reading especially, which largely gives us subjects of thought, we should carefully discriminate. What we take hold of with our mind chiefly depends on what books we take up. We surrender, in a meas- ure, the direction of our minds to our authors, who start thoughts for us. We should see that our books 286 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. are leading us right, as well as that our companions are doing so. We must often change books, as we change conversation, in order to get the right subjects. The press is a great part of our circumstances, bringing the absent world near us to furnish sub- jects of thought; and we must choose our mental sur- roundings as well as our physical, all of which is done by knowing what to read. "We should learn to not care for petty gossip, or "sensations," but for important topics chiefly. Those who go for the murder and scandal columns of a news- paper, go into bad company. We can create a morbid appetite for such things, or a serene indifference to them. The details of casualties are not worthy of strong minds; and the head-lines, announcing them, should be a warning rather than an invitation to read. The use we make of a newspaper has much to do with creating our taste, and, in fact, our whole mind. We can, by reading, get interested in foreign affairs as easily as in a dog-fight ; and the great problems of the day should always be part of our news. Much of modern morality consists in reading the newspaper right. One can enter a church, a legisla- tive chamber, a battle-field, or a brothel, without going outside of the morning paper; and we should learn to keep good company in the newspaper, where most of HABIT-MAKING. 237 us are living much of the time; and in gathering the news we should learn to get something valuable. A man is largely made by what news he feeds on. Some who will admit filth into their minds in no other way, will take it in as news. HABIT-MAKING. One of the most important duties of self-control is habit-making, or the producing of the machine that is to make us, for we make ourselves wholesale by habit as well as retail by individual acts. By doing an act often, we come to do it automatically, so that instead of being a part of our work it becomes part of our- selves. We commonly work as much on ourselves as on our tasks, fashioning our minds by what we do. An act, like a man, wants to be parent of another, and there is a tendency in everything to multiply its kind. Doing creates a capacity to do 9 and so is its own pre paration. It also creates a desire, and so is its own motive. It even creates a necessity, and so is its own fate. "We thus weave a chain about ourselves, and create by our present career a future one. What we do now determines more than the work we are engaged at, 238 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and we all labor at future tasks. Acts pass into a tendency to act, effort into skill, and repetition into facility, so that what we do at first by calculation is done at last by habit. An acting man becomes an active man, and soon goes of himself. Labor gives an impulse for labor, and the first result of effort is repe- tition, so that one not only becomes a machine, but is set going by his conduct. Effort is cumulative, and if added to past effort accelerates results, since at each succeeding act we do not only what the new effort pro- duces, but what is transmitted over from the first. The act, therefore, which is at first hard becomes easy, then eager, and at last necessary, so that the habit which is at first difficult to make becomes at last impossible to resist. We go much by the force of past conduct. Our habits are thus turned into our nature, until we are at last hardly distinguishable from our acts. Men's deeds are constantly passing into their composition, and action becomes acting, effort becomes impulse, and volition becomes skill. We thus make ourselves by what we do, as well as by what we think, turning force as well as thought into mind, and taking our outward acts up into our- selves. We can not do anything often without want- ing often to do it, so that we become slaves to our repetition, and stick to our deeds as to our opinions. What we do not want to be we should not do. An act HABIT-MAKING. 239 often entertained remains as the host, and no longer a guest. Lying often makes one a liar, drinking often makes one a drunkard, and repetition in general makes one a repeater, so that one should not do often what he ever wants to quit doing. We can make what habits we want, just as we can learn what trades we want. In fact, every habit represents a small apprenticeship served to conduct, so that as one who is a shoemaker can not well become a mason, one who has a habit can not take on another, especially a contradictory one. We should choose what we want to have a habit for, as well as what we want to do, and not let our habits, any more than our acts or thoughts, be the work of chance. In making yourself you need much calculation. By giving much attention to your habit you need give less to your work, since after a good habit is formed things go right of themselves. Making habits is preparing to go by machinery. A habit is a law of conduct worked up out of our individual acts, a law which, as it is learned by induction, is made by practice, in both cases induced from the individual efforts. CHAPTER TENTH. TEMPERANCE. IN GENEKAL. The chief subject for self-control is strong drink, which offers the greatest danger to youth. This is because of the frequency of the temptation, the facil- ity for acquiring an appetite, the difficulty of getting rid of it, and the disaster of its continuance. Intemperance is the most deplorable of the vices, because it ruins most people, and ruins them most completely. There is scarcely a family in which it has not its wrecks; and whereas other vices generally leave their victims capable of rallying again and achieving some success, this is pretty sure to make life-wrecks. It is a vice which takes hold of the future, and every present spree has its after penalties. When one is known to drink, his friends are alarmed as they are for no other vice, since intemperance, while destroying, like all other vices, the moral charac- ter, destroys, unlike them, also the intellect and busi- ness capacity. One who falls before intemperance 240 TEMPEEANCE. 241 falls most completely, and falls without much hope of rising again. Intoxicants eat up the brain, so that all the pleas- ure of drinking is the pleasure of self -consumption. The tickling sensation of burning up, and sending the vital forces out, like our food, through the digestive channels is exhilarating for awhile; and this pleasure of self-destruction is what the drinker seeks. Unlike the food which we consume, alcohol consumes us ; for it starts our blood, and muscles, and particularly our nerves and brain, into a process of disintegration. The heat which it makes is not from any fuel which it brings, but from burning fche drinker himself up. Every dram sets the drinker on fire. For whisky is fire, not fuel ; the stomach and brain are the fuel. It will be readily seen, therefore, how calamitous is drink. It does not leave, like other vices, the power of reformation; but, when it sets the passions in the wrong direction, it destroys the reason that is to recall them. It is a vice that goes all in one way. The will is carried along with the wreck, so that there is noth- ing to stop the fall. One drinking away his brains can not see that he is going until he is gone ; and when he sees his ruin his will no longer acts, so that he is helpless to save himself when perishing before his own eyes. The guilt of drunkenness lies in putting one's self 16 242 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. out of his own power, so that he is made to do what he does not want, and what he can not resist. It is the giving of his will over to passion, to be driven instead of to direct, and to a passion inflamed and set wrong, so that it can only rush to injury. But as one begins to drink when sober, and knows the possible results of intoxication, he is guilty, in beginning, of all that he does in continuing. No law excuses him on the ground of irresponsibility, or exempts him from punishment. One takes the consequences on his own conscience of putting himself in a condition to do noth- ing but crime; and, when he wills to drink, he wills to drink notwithstanding the consequences. While drinking is most disastrous to self, it is a wrong also against others. The family of the drunk- ard suffers no less than himself ; and when he drinks it is a question of quarrels and bruises and poverty for them, as well as for himself. In drinking away one's fortune, he drinks away that of his wife and children ; in drinking away his own powers he drinks away their support ; and in making a pauper of himself he beggars them ; so that the question of whether he has a right to drink is a question of whether he has a right to drink his wife and children into the poor-house. The drunkard carries many responsibilities with him into the gutter. Nor does his wrong end with his family. Intoxica- TEMPERANCE. 243 tion, being the usual cause of crime, is, perhaps, the greatest calamity known. Its offspring are murders, riots, licentiousness and every other crime. It is equally calamitous with war, destroying more people and more property. The drinker, therefore, and those who promote drunkenness, have to consider these re- sults when they drink or give to drink. The responsi- bility for intemperance ought to be felt deeply, and felt not by the drunkard, who is past feeling, but by one who commences to drink, or who invites to drink ; since there is the only place of responsibility. The crimes of intemperance are all committed by sober men — when they start themselves or others on the career that is to irresistibly end in crime. II. MODEEATE DEINKING. The responsibility for drunkenness must be met afar off, before the vice has taken away the sense of responsibility. One is not responsible when drunk, so that he must exercise the responsibility when sober; for none will say that there is no responsibility for intemperance. Nobody drinks to become a drunkard. Every drunkard starts out to be a moderate drinker, and the 244 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. danger is in this effort. After one has drunk to mod- eration the appetite usually helps itself; and the rest of the career of intoxication is accomplished without any intention whatever. He who aims at moderate drinking usually overshoots the mark. He puts him- self out of his power when he commences to drink, so that drunkenness is simply the result over of an effort to drink moderately. The wrong of drinking lies in its tendency to excess. It is an indulgence that craves to go on, and so is dan- gerous from the start He who commences knows that he takes risks, with the chances, as in gambling, largely against him. Did he know that he would become a drunkard, he would doubtless not commence ; but he knows that he may become one, and, if he rea- sons candidly, that he probably will become one. He therefore takes risks against great odds, and risks his family as well as himself. To thus risk a life, and the happiness out of sev- eral other lives, for a slight gratification, is the great- est of sins, as well as of follies. The moderate drinker is guilty of gross carelessness, at least, if not of mur- der. He who drinks moderately must take the conse- quences as well as he who drinks to excess, and the result is commonly the same — only a little farther off. In drinking one should look tor consequences far ahead. MODERATE DRINKING. 245 There is no excuse for drinking, inasmuch as there is no desire for it except in excess, and no pleasure in it except in injury. It is the intoxication that is wanted of intoxicants; so that there is no place for moderate drinking. To stop short of excess is only a tantalization that calls for more. As a harmless indul- gence drinking is a bore, and only as a danger is it a pleasure. Until one has an appetite liquor is distaste- ful, and after he has it, it is a passion ; so that he has no reason to either commence or continue. Those who drink moderately should not do so if they do not care for intoxicants, because it is simply to force down what is disagreeable; whereas if they like them there is still greater reason why they should not drink them, since it is already dangerous. Stimulants are never desired till they are dangerous; and when you want most to drink is when you most ought not to. The right to drink is inversely as the desire. If there is a time when you can drink without wrong it is when you do not want to; and then it is a folly, and moreover it is then no sacrifice to refrain for the benefit of others. Those who like strong drink should not drink it, and those who do not have no reason to drink it. The misfortune about intoxicants is that they are all drunk by the wrong persons. One should not, however, think he is safe in drink- ing because he does not like to drink. All drunkards 246 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. commence when they do not like it. The taste for alcohol is not natural, and every drunkard has to drink awhile against his taste. Dislike, however, quickly yields to practice, and is changed to passion before it is recognized as a taste. When you want to drink you should stop ; for thereby you will end a danger, whereas by stopping before you would have ended a folly. Nothing grows faster than an appetite for drink, and it never grows backward. None acquire a less appe- tite by drinking more. Excess does not produce sur- feit, as in food ; but when you have too much you most want more. The less the need the greater the desire; and when the further use is fatal the habit is irresisti- ble. To stop one must stop when he is not yet in dan- ger ; since when it becomes imperative that he should quit, it becomes necessary that he should go on. III. TEACHING TO DKINK. The responsibility of those who sell, treat and enter- tain with intoxicants can not be overestimated. They do the training for drunkenness. No one learns to drink till some one teaches him ; and it is not usually drunkards that train drunkards. The first glass is not bought because one wants a drink ; it would be buying TEACHING TO DKINK. 247 \ a pain instead of a pleasure. It is the parent who supplies it at the table, or the hostess who entertains at New Tear, or the treating friend who instills the taste. The liquor dealer also does much in offering inducements to drink. These are the schoolmasters in vice ; and their responsibility is the greater because they take the youth before they have developed a will to resist. One is apt to think of his children or friends, as he does of himself, that they are not in danger. No drunkard ever thought, when commencing, that he would become an inebriate. This vice generally pro- gresses by deception, no danger being suspected until it is unavoidable. The most criminal work of intem- perance is done in changing a taste from dislike to liking, which is usually the work oi others; and it is the more criminal because there is no reason for it. There are always many other things to enjoy which will serve all purposes of friendship and hospitality. It is no politeness to give one what he does not like, or to insist on his swallowing it when it is as disagreea- ble as medicine. Insisting is, in general, the culmination of folly, as as well as of vice, and good sense as well as morality should make it inconsistent with etiquette. Nothing is naturally more impolite than to urge, at the risk of ridicule, that one violate his pledge, his principle, or 24:8 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. his sense of security, merely to gratify a host or friend vain of his wine. Everybody ought to know that many make it a matter of conscience not to drink, that others (who have reformed, perhaps) dare not drink on account of the danger, that others will not drink on account of the example, and that others for various reasons want to be let alone. There is no knowing what feelings one antagonizes when he offers intoxi- cants and insists on having them drunk, so that it ought to be regarded as impolite to promiscuously offer strong drink, and coarsely vulgar to insist on having it drunk. He who offers drink promiscuously has about as much sense as the madman who shoots into a crowd, and the host who furnishes his party table with wine has the judgment of the " didn't-know-it-was-loaded " imbecile. IV. PEOHIBITION. So great is the evil of intemperance, equaling, as we have said, that of war, that were it possible to remove it by legislation the severest laws would be justified against it. All the liberties that we should surrender by prohibition would be a small matter com- PROHIBITION. 249 pared with the evils of intemperance. Whether or not prohibition can effect its purpose is another question, which practical sense must determine. But any meas- ures are justifiable that will end this vice, which transcends all others. No man's interest in strong drink is so great that all the youth of the country ought to be imperilled to save it to him. The state has a right, in time of danger, to make its citizens forego anything whose abandonment will contribute to the public safety, and no one ought to complain if he has to give up such a little privilege for so great an end. To say that a state should not legislate on intem- perance, would be as unwise as to say that it should not legislate on war, which, though no more serious than intemperance, has mainly occupied the attention of states. And as almost all rights of personal liberty must give way in war-time (as the writ of habeas cor- pus, for example), the little privilege of drinking and selling drink ought to be gladly yielded in the pres- ence of a greater evil. What measures are best to restrain or abolish intemperance we can not here dis- cuss; but the most effective ones are not too severe. 250 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. OPIUM, COCAINE, ETC. There are other intoxicants besides strong drink, as opium, cocaine, chloral, and a variety of chemical compounds. Some of these are more violent than alcohol, and more rapid and deadly in their results, as well as more difficult to wean from, and the same rea- sons which we have cited against the use of alcohol will hold in greater strength against the use of these. There are various ways of burning up the brain, which give pleasure during the incineration, and one may have a choice of the methods of ruin by paying the penalty. These drugs should all be avoided and prohibited. No man has a right to destroy himself or others, or to put anybody on the way of destruction; and though the government should not establish a guardianship over sane men, a man is not very sane who wants to use these stimulants, and does not remain sane long after commencing them, so that the care of him is the care of a non compos. But whatever may be the right of the government in regard to adults, it is the duty of the government to protect the children. No man has a right to make an inebriate of his own child, or to put him in danger TOBACCO. 251 of becoming one ; and when parents do not take the requisite care of minors, the state should do so. The use of these drugs is, in each case, a method of suicide, and those who promote it are guilty of murder. VI. TOBACCO. The use of tobacco is far less serious than of the drugs named, and it is not to be classed with that of alcoholic liquors. It is objectionable, however, if not actually dangerous ; and, as there are no good reasons for its use, it becomes a folly, if not a wrong, to indulge in it. It is an unnatural stimulant, whereas man needs no stimulant at all. Those who never learn its use never miss it, whereas those who do regret it. All that is gained in stimulant, moreover, is lost in the reaction, so that, as with strong drink, the exhilara- tion is followed by a corresponding depression. This unnatural consumption of vour nerves is permanently injurious, as in drinking, although not as much so; and we should not waste ourselves for a good time now, when we must pay for it with a bad time in the future. A long-lasting health is worth more than a short last- ing enjoyment. As the use of tobacco, moreover, is filthy and dis- 252 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. figuring, rendering coarse one's manners, giving him a foul breath and making him disagreeable generally, he has no right to force these discomforts on a wife or friends, thereby making them suffer the disgust while he enjoys the pleasure of the habit. It is selfish and inconsiderate; and, inasmuch as there is no good derived from it, these are abundant reasons why it should not be indulged. CHAPTER ELEVENTH. SELF-RESPECT. I. HONOR Self-respect, by which you think yourself too high to do anything low, is a security against many vices ; for most of the vices, being low, require degradation as well as guilt. We should lead all men in a high opinion of our- selves; since none will have a higher opinion of us then we make for them. By working our opinion of what we ought to be into what we become we will make it also the opinion of others about us, or work our ideal into our reputation. Our self-respect should be in advance, and form a motive, and not an after-thought, in the nature of a congratulation. It should prevent us from descending to the low, and not be merely an opinion that we are not low. He who thinks too highly of life to live meanly is not egotistic, but a lover of life, instead of self; and he asserts humanity rather than his own personality. To be ashamed of the low shows an exalted nature ; 253 254 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. and self-respect, as long as it respects the virtues in you, and not the worthlessness, is itself a virtue. Honor presupposes many graces, of which it is itself the culmination. It is a grace built upon the virtues, and has too strong a foundation in morality to easily fall into vice. The honorable man is above wrong, as the pure man is remote from it; and his sense of greatness is his protection. One who can not descend to anything mean can be more relied on than if his virtue were in any other form. Nobility is thus both a virtue and a guard of virtue ; it is also a notice of virtue. One seldom tempts a high-minded man, which would be to attack a greater. To one with an exalted sense of honor vice comes as an insult rather than a temptation, and shrinks as if from a rebuff, rather than assaults as an aggressor. Virtue should be admired as well as esteemed, so that it can not be violated without a shock to the taste, as well as to the conscience. To the honorable man a stain is felt like a shame; and he revolts from the wrong as from the disgraceful. To be too dignified for the vices implies nearly all the virtues. One who can not stoop, except with grace, can hardly sin. The man of honor is awkward in vice, his dignity becoming stiffness. He can better do something better, and is at home only when he is right. CHIVALEY. 255 II. CHIVALEY. Honor shows itself in heroic conduct, and is natur- ally chivalrous. Taking up the cause of the wronged, it makes right manly, and, by creating a taste for unselfishness, pursues justice as naturally as vanity does fashion. In a world where so much happiness depends on gratuitous aid from the virtues, there is a demand for some contribution from refinement to relief. Honor supplies this in the form of chivalry, which is simply alms of grace instead of money. To bestow rights on men when oppressed, thereby giving justice as a gratuity, and busying yourself that men may not be wronged, is a great benevolence, since the interest of the helpless in the right is one of the largest interests of mankind. He, therefore, who takes up the cause of those needing heroes becomes heroic. To be a gentleman is no little attainment, since it implies so much in the making. Though busying itself with trifles, gentlemanliness . is valuable from its very attention to those minute interests which, fi'om their smallness, are apt to escape through the meshes of the great virtues. If minute in its attentions, moreover, it is correspondingly fine in its feelings. 256 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Great virtues are often unavailable because lacking the finish of a fine polish. Virtue as a gawk is not much more successful than attractive. Grace has demands upon it as well as strength, and the occasions are many where a gentleman is needed. The services of gallantry, moreover, are not trivial when taken all together, because they are so many as to be great from simply numbers. If, therefore, one polish his virtues, and not his manners only, and so give finish to his substantial conduct instead of his useless diversions, he becomes great by his elegance, and, in becoming a gentleman, becomes also a benefactor. It is not enough in life to be strong and bold. Boisterousness can not execute all the decrees of good- ness. Bluntness will not get admittance where gen- tleness can go. It is our duty to be refined not only in our feelings but in their expression. Love defeats its own end when it rides on an ox. The virtues are all called graces, grace being the manner of virtue. DIGNITY. 257 III. DIGNITY. Dignity is the natural expression of nobility, which loves to show itself in a worthy appearance. The manly man acts and looks manly, as well as is so, his manner being in keeping with his character. The good naturally impresses, so that the man of worth is impressive. Honor coming out in one's varied expres- sions permeates his whole appearance, so that, like beauty, it attracts from the first, and like strength, soon rises to command. The dignified man, accord- ingly, gets attention from the start, which is often enough to make success in the end. If one's dignity be not real, but assumed, he soon falls back to his place ; for dishonor can not long main- tain the appearance of nobility. Meanness must show itself as well as honor, so that appearances are valua- ble only when true. As affected they are not perma- nent enough for influence; for affectation, besides showing itself through its bad acting (which produces disgust by appearing unnatural), soon wearies of an assumed part, and drops into its real character. But one whose dignity is backed by honor, so that he does not seem to have too much for his merit — which is pomposity — doubles his power by the def er- 17 258 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. ence he calls forth. Greatness seems greater when clothed with dignity, and manliness in becoming garb is magnificence. IY. PKIDE. A becoming pride is an advantage when it does not descend to vanity. To take a satisfaction in keeping within the virtues, and not merely within the fashions, is a worthy gratification, as also to take a lively inter- est in your abilities and not in your superficial accom- plishments. To dwell on that which may affect your conduct, and so get a love for traits that may result in good (which love may become your motive thereto), is to cultivate a virtue ; but to dwell on what is fixed and can not be changed by your thought (as your looks or birth), and with no other object than self-glorifica- tion, is to nourish a petty vice. To feel that you are too important to sin is not much of a vanity, or to be ashamed to come down (not to lowness, but) to mean- ness. In caring for all other good appearances, you should care for them in yourself. When one does not care for his reputation, he is in a way to soon have no reputation to care for. Many are saved from vice by NEATNESS. 259 feeling that they have something in themselves worth protecting. When you feel no responsibility for your character you lack one strong bond to virtue. To be proud then of something great and not small, and to be kept to such greatness by that pride, radi- cally differs from vanity, which is a great pride in small matters, and usually indifferent ones — dress, eti- quette or personal appearance. To be unduly elated over trifles is always petty, and, if they are your own trifles, is offensively vain. Y. NEATNESS. Neatness, or attention to the minor details of ap- pearance, is a duty to others as well as to self. We owe to all men what will please them; and order and tidiness are a pleasure to them, as well as to us. They go to make up men's opinion of us; and to convey a pleasant opinion is one of the amenities of life. It is as cruel to shock men with our slovenliness as with anything else ; and one should be hurt, at least as much as others, by his own repulsiveness. It is a duty to please by appearance, as well as by kindness. Do not add another therefore to the horrors of life by presenting yourself as a fright. Some see only 260 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. your clothes; and while they are not a fit subject for much pride, they are important in avoiding shame. One who does not dress well is supposed to be defi- cient in either means, or taste or spirit ; and while he can be excused for what he can not buy, there is no excuse for slovenliness when neatness is so cheap. Put yourself in order, then, and keep all about you neat, as being conducive to happiness and a cure for laziness. Neatness often passes for taste, and goes farther than wealth. The ordering of one's pos- sessions is frequently worth more than his possessions. A good housekeeper makes a pleasanter home than a rich one. Cost can not buy what management will accomplish. The duty of neatness stretches far into morals, as it does into happiness, it being the details of regulation, which is the expression of the most uni- versal law of nature — order. VI. CLEANLINESS. Cleanliness deserves a place among the virtues, since filthiness is so evidently a vice. Uncleanness is an assault against our taste, our health and our enjoy- ment generally. What we have said of our duty of appearing neat applies with greater force to our duty CLEANLINESS. 261 of appearing clean. Nothing disgusts more than filth ; and the duty of not disgusting our neighbors should be recognized as fundamental. Filth of person, of dress and of home should be combatted with conscience and soap. Nobody has a right to carry disgust with him, and spread unpleasantness where he goes. As cleanliness is a cheap virtue everybody should have it in perfection. The duty of bathing, scrubbing and dusting should be recognized, of cleaning halls and alleys, and of white-washing and disinfecting. Vermin and sewer gas are signs of immorality ; and it is some- body's duty to get rid of them, as it was somebody's to have prevented them. Cleanliness is not a duty, however, which we owe to self only. The filth of cooks, grocers and manufact- urers of food affects the health and happiness of the people who eat after them, and the morals of the kitch- en and mill are by no means the least. Dirt seen dis- agrees with the appetite, as dirt unseen does with the digestion; and the assaults of slovenliness and lazi- ness in foocl-preparers on our happiness are seri- ous wrongs. Men would have more enjoyment if they could eat with more confidence; but the known filth produces a suspicion of much that is unknown. Uncleanness being the cause of much disease — cholera, diphtheria, typhoid fever and nearly all that is contagious — cleanliness becomes the great sanitary 262 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. virtue. Dirtiness goes with poverty ; since one who is too lazy to wash is generally too lazy to work, and liv- ing in filth reconciles him to living in privation. Un- cleanness, like crime, accordingly flees to the alleys and garrets, and huddles with the other vices. To clean up would often bring industrial, as well as phys- ical health. One who keeps clean will not be content to remain long poor ; and often the first lesson in busi- ness thrift is to wash. Cleanliness is a virtue that goes hand in hand with Medicine and Political Econ- omy, as well as with Morals. VII. VICES ANTAGONISTIC. 1. — MEANNESS. Opposed to the virtues of self-respect are several low vices, which are more the absence of virtue r how- ever, than any full measure of vice. They are* 1. Meanness. 2. Cowardice. 3. 4. 5. Jealousy. * Vulgarity. Morbidness. ^ These call out our disgust rather than our indigna- MEANNESS. 263 tion, and are generally more detrimental to self than to others. They are commonly known as weaknesses, and proceed from some deficiency of character rather than excess of it, a deficiency, however, which it should be everybody's care to supply in the interest of self-respect. The most general of these, which is a common name for all, is meanness, which delights generally in the smaller vices, but takes to them so readily and accumulates so many of them, that the whole make considerable of an iniquity. It consists commonly in taking advantage of some weakness, is brave when there is no danger, fights with a smaller antagonist, attacks property when the owner is not about, and takes little disadvantages when men are off guard. It is more apt to steal than to rob, and to slander than to fight. Petty theft, and particularly sly theft, is its specialty. It takes to short weight, and stickles for the half cent of difference rather than the substance of a deal. It characterizes the man of detail in vice, who accumulates wickedness little by little. It makes vic- tims of laboring men, widows and children, especially when in distress and without power of resistance. It generally keeps within the law, or by very little viola- tions works great wrongs. Instead of boasting, it will make itself humble for an advantage, and take a kick for five cents. It will indifferently give or take an 264 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. insult for gain, and would rather be a servant to get the wages than a master to pay them. Meanness, in short, is a foraging vice, picking up little advantages where, on account of their unimportance, they are left exposed, though it would just as soon be virtuous as vicious if it were thought as profitable. This is a vice which has no friends, and does not even have its own respect. It works mostly in the dark and on the sly, and denies what it does, or else asserts some higher motive for it. It crawls instead of walks erect, and peeps instead of looks you in the face. It can attach itself to any vice, and is a kind of menial among the vices — the hand-maid of theft, dis- honesty, sordidness, jealousy, and curiosity. It will work for any of them for pay, and even for a virtue, as we have said. It will, by attaching itself to a harm- less weakness like curiosity, make a very low vice by rendering it excessive or morbid. It makes even vir- tue disreputable by associating with it, as in searching out and exposing faults (for men can be mean in their denunciation of vice as well as in their practice of it. ) Meanness is never generous, but looks for meanness, and is suspicious and intolerant. Others' sins, espe- cially if against us, it exaggerates and dwells upon with all the pains of self-erosion, making them its own in all except their advantages. If one will try not to be mean, or in any respect to MEANNESS. 265 be mean, he will attempt nearly all good ; for, as nobil- ity implies most of the virtues, the vices nearly all run to meanness. As wrong is the letting down of the standard of conduct, its natural tendency is downward. A man can not be meanly virtuous, for when meanness takes hold of him virtue gets out of him. The appear- ance of it in him is mostly hypocrisy. A mean man's truthfulness or politeness is grudged by him, and all the virtues in him are in diminutive form. If one gets the meanness all out of him, he will be nearly all that is implied in the upright man. Little things should not impel or disturb you too much. Instead of doing your good for them, you should see that great considerations actuate your life. While details should be attended to, they should be the details of important matters, and go, when taken all together, to make up something weighty. Mean- ness takes to little things out of love for the small, or rather out of disinclination for the great. Hence it gets our contempt rather than our concern. That you should think of anything mean is bad enough, but to do it is to give your will, as well as your intellect, over to something too small for you. It is making yourself captive of something that is not worth even capturing. For meanness always gets the best of the man, instead of him getting the best of it; 266 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. so that we say of one, he is mean, rather than that he has something mean. One is no higher than his lowest meanness, and when he gets clown he is apt to stay down. Meanness has no inclination to rise, but loves a rat-hole in the floor rather than a sky-light in the roof. When you begin to go up you begin to go out of your meanness, whose natural course is down till it can get no lower. (2) — COWARDICE. Cowardice is commonly nothing but a recognition of one's meanness. When one has no confidence in himself — in his ability, his opinions, his character or his reputation — he is naturally afraid. He who is right, and doing right, has nothing to fear. He expects ultimately to triumph, as part of the confidence that the right will generally prevail. Doing his full duty he knows that his efforts will succeed, for they would not be his duty unless practicable; and, inas- much as there is nothing disgraceful in duty, he has nothing of which to be ashamed. The right-doing man is, therefore, bold, and can afford to be. Only when one suspects he is wrong is he afraid. If he thinks his opinions are prejudiced, he naturally wants them not discussed, lest they be exposed. Meanness of judgment makes one an intellectual cow- ard. If one is accustomed to do mean things, and COWARDICE. 267 does not want to be found out, he becomes timid from habit. Shame is always cowardly. The sly man has none of the boldness of the open one, who does every- thing with emphatic assertion. Wrong naturally makes one afraid; and habitual wrong so accustoms him to fear that even when he is right he is not courageous. Cowardice, therefore, implies meanness, if not at pres- ent at some past time, and is the fruit of shame. Hence, without knowing why, we dislike the cow- ard; and to call him by his appropriate name is to offer an insult. To prevent cowardice we must be habitually right; so that, as cowardice is the badge of shame, the brave man has a long ancestry of noble acts. We accordingly speak of noble birth as " free-born." Those whose ancestors never cringed are brave chil- dren, and those who never cringed in the past are brave now. But to be thus right, and conscious of the right, we must be prudent; for right does not come to one acci- dentally, but with thought. Before you can afford to be brave you must have taken a worthy stand. If you are wrong cowardliness is the most appropriate thing for you. The considerate man can afford to be brave, because he knows what he is standing for, and what grounds he has to expect success. Courage does not support itself on ignorance or inconsideration ; but it has been reasoned out ; and he who habitually decides 268 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. well becomes brave from habit, as the other becomes cowardly from habit. Courage has something to rest on ; and indecision is cowardice because it has not. If one does not know but that his position is foolish, he can not have much confidence in maintaining it. A fool is necessarily a coward, whereas judgment is an indispensable part of valor. To be courageous with- out discretion is foolhardiness, which soon ends itself. Courage without common sense can not last long enough for use. A virtue can not live with a folly, any more than with a vice, and can not be supported on nonsense. The wise are, therefore, more courageous than the fool- ish, just as the good are more so than the bad. Cowardice at once bespeaks your inferiority. You are thereby afraid of somebody or something which you recognize as too much for you. This is extremely demoralizing, as unnerving you for life's struggles, for which you need confidence. Fear is the vice of inferiority; and to be afraid of your equals is to bespeak some moral deficiency. One who carries about with him the constant impression that something is greater than himself, can not be much of a man. He should habituate himself to companionship with nature as an equal in rank, and not to servitude as an inferior; for men may be cowards toward nature as well as toward men, and be afraid of everything about JEALOUSY. 269 them — of forces, elements and common events — of the future and of the unknown. One should come up to, and keep abreast of, the laws of the world — in intelligence to know them, and in will-power to cooperate with them. He who is well acquainted with nature, like him who is well acquainted with men, is not afraid of it; but ignorance only is cowardice, being, like vice, a weakness. The untaught savage who fears the winds and flight of birds, and sees omens of dread, does so because he knows not the laws by which such things are produced. He fears as an inferior, instead of confides as an acquaintance. He who has confidence in nature, as one who knows and lives up to its principles (in a kind of high life of nature), will have no fear for the future anymore than for the present. But to feel yourself beneath it, and beneath its requirements, is to make yourself a natural menial, full of apprehensions, as if everything were above you and more powerful than you, and were unfavorably disposed toward you. 3. — JEALOUSY. Jealousy is more a lack of confidence in self than in others. Mistrusting your powers to hold the affec- tions of a wife or lover, you fear a rival. Mistrusting your abilities as a politician or tradesman, you fear a competitor. Conscious of some inferiority, you expect 270 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. in general another to out-distance you, so that jeal- ousy is a form of cowardice. Like all other meanness, it is most disagreeable as well as belittling, and should not be exercised without cause, as it usually is, for lack of confidence in self produces lack of confidence in others. When you mis- trust your own powers you mistrust others' faithful- ness, which is supposed to depend on them, for none are as apt to be faithful to an unworthy as to a worthy person. Jealousy, accordingly, produces unfaithful- ness, and so is its own cause; for when one has no confidence in himself he can not expect to retain the respect of others, and when he has not their respect he can not get their following or their love. One does not like to rely on one who can not confidently rely on himself. The jealous man carries incipient wrongs about him, and besides starting them against himself, suf- fers them before they happen. He also suffers many that never happen at all. When one is his own injurer as well as sufferer, he has few chances for hap- piness. One can not be mean and enjoy himself. Meanness begets fears of meanness, and being accus- tomed to injure others, one comes habitually to expect others to injure him. He is thus on guard against his fellow-men, like pickets who are ready both to attack and resist. The jealous man has declared a state of JEALOUSY. 271 war. As you injure another when you wrongfully sus- pect unfaithfulness in him, you naturally expect to be injured by such, and in this battle with unhappiness you will, generally be worsted. He who challenges his own fears for a fight, arms his enemy and surrenders before he begins. To have peace with yourself or others you must be liberal, neither expecting nor easily seeing cause for jealousy, nor being much moved by it. You will thus escape injuries before they happen and injuries that do not exist, and will not be so apt to evoke injuries out of little offenses, or exaggerate real wrongs into greater ones, or a few into many. We should at least be sure we see before we suffer a wrong, and have a cause for our unhappiness before we entertain it. He who is always looking for offenses will create more than he will find, and will suffer them whether he finds them or not; for to suspect is about as painful as to discover, and the jealous person is equally unhappy whether he have cause for his jealousy or not. By showing one's self manly he will do more to keep the affections of a loved one than by searching for evidences of her lack of affection. The search for unhappiness is about as disagreeable as the finding of it, and is the sport that least pays. He who trusts others can confide in himself, and though he may deprive himself of the privilege of suf- 272 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. fering some wrong that actually exists, he who is jeal- ous is sure to suffer the wrong suspected, whether it exists or not. The generous man's loss is simply the escape from some real wrongs, whereas the jealous man's gain is the suffering of some imaginary ones. Jealousy adds fear to uncertainty, and if all the unknown is to distress us we can have little hope of happiness in this world of ignorance. Put not more confidence in others' weakness than in your own power, and let not the stronger be distresssed by the weaker. Be sure you are wronged before you feel injured, and do not suffer things that are not true. 4. — VULGARITY. (1). — Coarseness. Vulgarity is naturally offensive. Even the vulgar like something better in others, and are disgusted with their kind. Long after men have lost their dignity they appreciate it, and often the more so because of its loss, as health seems most valuable to those who no longer have it. None love the unrefined, and where one with vulgarity is popular it is not because of his vulgarity, but of some virtue which has survived it. The vulgar themselves appreciate something better than themselves, and want to look up. There is a painful sense of incongruity in the great man's obscen- PKOFANITY. 2 i 3 ity or buffoonery, and even the lowest pity a good man who sinks to their level. Nor has one any occasion to be vulgar. Befine- ment of demeanor and language secures all for which vulgarity is assumed, so that it is a vice without a motive. One can easily accustom himself to elegance, which is then as attractive to self as to others. (2) — Profanity. Profanity is the most offensive sort of vulgarity, and, being without motive, is the most senseless. For while the other vices have their temptation, this pro- ceeds on simply the force of its foolishness. Whereas he who steals expects something for his theft, namely, what he takes, and he who lies expects something for his lying, namely, the false impression which he is interested in conveying, and he who gets drunk ex- pects something from his drunkenness, namely, the pleasure of intoxication, the man who swears expects nothing, and gets nothing — neither money, pleasure nor reputation. Profanity is a vice which has no con- sideration, good or bad, selfish or otherwise; it satis- fies neither kindness, vanity nor ambition; it gratifies no appetite or passion ; but it might be omitted without any sense of loss whatever. But while profanity is thus without any reason for being, even as a vice, there are many reasons why it iS 274 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. should not be. Being offensive to many it is always indulged, like obscenity, at the risk of evoking dis- gust. Most persons, regarding it as serious, set a low estimate on those who indulge in it, and, thinking that they themselves deem it wrong, believe they will com- mit other wrongs ; for he who deliberately violates his conscience in one matter is presumed to be willing to do so in another. The profane man, therefore, adver- tises his own immorality; and he who does this indis- criminately gives himself unwittingly a bad name. For profanity, unlike other vices, is its own proclama- tion; since he who swears not only commits the vice, but tells it in the act, the offense consisting in the utterance. It is not a fault, therefore, that can be hid; so that, while it is without reason, it is without concealment It is not, however, a question for ourselves only whether we will swear, but one of consideration for others. Since it is so offensive to many, we have no right to annoy them, even if we are willing to undergo the disgrace; just as we have no right to indecently expose ourselves even if we are indifferent to the shame. Others' ears, like their eyes, have some rights ; and everyone is entitled to exemption from disgust. Ladies especially are entitled to this protection, and are so deemed ; although some men are as refined and SLANG. 275 sensitive as women, and these find this vice just as offensive. (3)— Slang. Slang, though no great vice, is objectionable as low; for nobility requires dignity of language as well as of conduct and appearance. To many slang is of- fensive, and one never knows whether his low talk is not disgusting. While he may think it expressive, he should remember that those who hear it may not. This expressiveness is felt only at first ; and what is new to you may be old to your hearer. One using slang runs the perpetual risk of repeating something stale; and, since it spreads in sections, and soon spoils (so that when in vogue in one place it is out of style elsewhere), one generally thinks he is funny when he is only offen- sive. There is this further objection to slang, that it dis- qualifies for facility in elegance of speech. To one accustomed to its use it often comes first in mind when he wants good language, as a mule comes first to the bars when a horse is wanted ; so that one must repeat- edly try before he gets the right word, which is special- ly embarassing in writing and public speaking, where there is no time for delay. We should not accustom ourselves to words that can not be used when we most need words. Education in conversation and literature requires a ready use of the right terms, so that the 276 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. indulgence of slang is an antidote to education tend- ing to disability. 5.— MORBIDNESS. The most disgusting form of lowness is morbidness, or the desire to dwell on the unnatural. Health of feeling is as important as health of mind. As it is best to love the good, it is best to love the natural. The desire to see the dead, read of accidents, or dwell on crimes is a sickness of feeling that needs cure. The weakness that most runs to this vice is curios- ity, which gossips on the secrets of our neighbors and exposes their afflictions. We should give no more attention to the misfortunes of others than is neces- sary to help them, and say no more about them than is necessary to procure further help. Charity does not require us to learn what they do not want known, or to» make public what the interest of the public re- quires to be kept private. To fix the eye on a cripple, to turn to look at a deformity, or to call attention to a fault is to aggravate the evil. Persons with misfort- unes do not want them noticed, which is a very little favor for us to grant. It is almost as important to not know what should be unknown, as to know the proper mat- ters of knowledge. Ignorance is the best thing we can accord to some people; who ask as the first thing that we do not know their misfortunes, as a second that we MORBIDNESS. 277 do not think of them, and as a third that we do not speak of them. But, apart from the wrong done to others by mor- bidness, it is a serious degradation to self. To have the mind run off, without control, to the disgusting — to dive for the low and feed on the low — is to disqual- ify for all exalted thought. Nothing is farther from the artistic, the refined or the "proper" than such conduct, the morbid man being always out of place. We should see, then, that what we like to dwell on is natural and healthy; and to acquire this health of inclination we should recall our minds from all unnat- ural subjects, and check them as soon as they incline to such. The thought of the morbid tends to unnatural crimes and abuses — to suicide, insanity and crimes against nature, the tendency being to do what one likes to think about. Men's food is transmuted into their acts ; and good conduct must have healthy intel- lectual and moral diet. He who feeds on the stews of the slums will make matter for the slums. CHAPTER TWELFTH. PURITY. Elevation of thought and aspiration is the greatest security alike for morality and happiness, furnishing, as it does, a worthy aim and worthy efforts to attain it. Purity, accordingly, like every other virtue, is its own reward, and its violation its own punishment ; although the benefits and the penalties, being both subtile, are apt to escape recognition. The impure can never ade- quately know the advantages of virtue, though they must painfully become acquainted with the disadvan- tages of vice. Incontinence is an indulgence whose gratification is short, and whose repentance is long— and often hopeless — so that it has no motive in reason, but only in passion. None ever remain virtuous who regret it, or become impure who do not, the regret often strengthening into agony. The obligations to purity are sufficiently obvious from a glance at the results of incontinence — as the disgrace of its victims, generally leading to ruin, the lowering of the moral tone which leads to other crimes, and the impairing of confidence and spreading of gen- eral suspicion. 278 PURITY. 279 Purity is an easy virtue, as its opposite is an easy vice, proceeding automatically when thoroughly grounded. It rarely meets a temptation or is much disturbed by it, just as impurity is rarely exempt from one; for each seeks its kind, and is propagated by its exercise. To the exalted mind the impure is as repulsive as the deformed, and, instead of furnishing a temptation, gives a shock. The less one thinks of it the less he is tempted, and, as the pure are averse to thinking of it, virtue furnishes its own protection. The tendency to think of the impure is itself impure, and leads to further impurity. The interests of virtue do not re- quire that men think much of unchastity, the first rule of the upright man being to give it no more attention than is necessary. The whole subject is one which we can afford not to think about, ignorance being less of a weakness than knowledge. As thought soon turns to feeling, and feeling to conduct, the parodox of purity is that the less you entertain it the more you have it, it excluding its own consideration. The question of purity is, therefore, one of what we shall think about. We can not be pure on bad sub- jects, but only pure from them, nothing being easier than to keep virtuous when the mind is not on vice, or harder when it is. Mind will go down hill as fast as 280 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. matter; and to keep going up you must keep turned upward. Purity is not, however, a negative virtue, practiced hj merely trying to avoid vice. To think of vice suf- ficiently for such effort is itself a temptation. Purity is maintained best by thinking of something else, which thought, through grappling with greater subjects, strengthens the mind against vice, as well as produces results of its own. Occupation, therefore, and espe- cially mental occupation, is necessary for purity, it being hard to be idly virtuous. While the busy think little of vice, and have little feeling of a kind that temptation can take hold of, the idle generally think of this vice first; so that they who "have nothing to do" proverbially support licentiousness. The evils of impurity resulting to self are about as obvious as those resulting to others. The breaking down of the mind, disqualifying it for strong work, the like enervation of the body predisposing it to disease, the blunting of conscience, fatal alike to clearness of thought and energy of will, the conviction perpetually carried about of personal degradation, and the sneak- ing habit acquired through a general sense of mean- ness (or else a brazen shamelessness like that of the courtesan), go far to undermine both character and success. When one can not live the life he is recommending, PURITY. 281 but is himself at variance with the law which he would have universal, he is fatally divided against himself. One can not maintain his self-respect on inconsistency, or be widely useful when perpetually conscious of insincerity. The man who is an outlaw against his own opinions has no support for any virtue. The most serious injury to self, however, is in the damage to one's affections. None but the pure can know the full pleasures of love. Love is as jealous as lovers, and will not dwell with an unlawful rival. While the virtues and vices generally will not mix, love and licentiousness specially neutralize each other. All feeling given to vice is taken from the pleasure of virtue. As the source of most happiness and of the intensest happiness, love must be kept pure to con- tinue long or strong. Divided it becomes weak, and finally dies; so that the acts of love, which are fed with such fervor in courtship, become through unfaith- fulness burdensome in marriage, and generally disap- pear through disinclination. The impure thus fail to get the greatest enjoyment out of the chief pleasure of life, and early end that pleasure, so that unfaithfulness is as injurious to the faithless as to the wronged. When you cease to love your wife you are as much damaged as she, being doomed to a loveless marriage, which is its own pun- ishment. It is as important to keep your love as your 282 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. health, and one who for a short indulgence sells a long bliss makes a bad bargain with sin. By exclusive devo- tion and the limitless trust ensuing, one may love to old age a wife with the love of a suitor, which is the guarantee of permanent happiness. CHAPTER THIRTEENTH. CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. IN GENEBAL. The most general rule of morality is to do what you believe right and good, and to preserve the per- petual consciousness of this by instantly performing your duty when seen. Goodness is simple when thus reduced to one rule. For you have but to look at your conscience to see your duty, conscience being the sense of what we ought to do which results from all our thought and information on the subject. Though conscience may err, it is the best judgment we have- — the pointing of the compass after all the conflicting forces which would diversely impel us, and so the coming of our knowledge to a head in the will. If we go wrong by following it, then wrong is inevita- ble, and any other course would still more likely be wrong. If the result is not good, it is the best we can have. For, going by conscience, we simply go on our best information. 283 284 THE VIBTUES AND THEIR REASONS. Though something else may be taken for con- science, and conscience be persuaded off its guard or enlisted for whims, it generally corrects such impres- sions of itself, and leads to its own interpretation as well as its own observance. If one faithfully follows it, it will faithfully lead him. Its mistakes generally come from its violation, though the mistake of to-day may result from some past violation. Conscience, to be reliable, must be obeyed when it acts, and not after disobedience has made embarrassments for the future. We can not do right to-day on yesterday's wrongs, so that men should often straighten out their conscience to get its legitimate indications. It is important, then, in taking conscience as a guide, to have it in working order. For this it must be often exercised, and exercised against difficulties, as well as with inclination. It demands obedience as the condition of its commanding, and when you often dis- obey it becomes as wayward as your will. To make it work easily you must obey it easily, a few violations producing a state of anarchy. One can not be conscientious by spells. The con- scientious man is always conscientious ; and conscience is worth little unless strong enough to enforce general observance. The nearer perfection it comes the faster it grows, and when it reaches the point where it never fails, it is never assaulted. The entirely conscientious CONSCIENTIOUSNESS. 285 man is, accordingly, the entirely happy one, since con- science and desire then become identified, as also judgment and will. The most general rule of morality, therefore, we say, is to strictly follow conscience, and, to this end, to acquire the habit of entire obedience to it. To follow conscience is the sum of all rules; to follow it at each moment is the sum of all duties at the time ; and to want to do so is to have the most perfect character attain- able. Observing this rule, we may ignore all others, since it includes them, it being the most comprehen- sive rule as well as the most simple, and the most practical as well as the most philosophic. Duty is least irksome when thus done scrupulously. It is easiest to do right if we do it all, our whole duty being lighter than a part, because infusing the enthusiasm of duty By resolving to do all that we should do, we relieve ourselves, on each special occa- sion, of deciding whether we shall do our duty. It is usually harder to get one's consent to not do a part than to do all. The little that a good man can knock off from duty to make it easier, is not worth the effort to so reduce it. The best way out of a disagreeable duty is to do it, going through being easier than going round. One who does his whole duty, moreover, does it as a whole man, and so has more strength than if half of 286 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. him were expended in sacrificing a part. He who comes to a great task comes to it as more of a man than he who comes to a part, so that it is relatively- easier to do more than to do less. The task is lightest when you bring a great soul to it; and when one has his entire integrity he is greater than any duty. One should, therefore, see that he stands his full height in morals, and preserves himself a man entire for his tasks. When you are greater than your duties, your duties seem easy; and when you are better than your duties, your duties seem pleasant. You thus master your duties and your aversion to them at once; so that entire conscientiousness is duty made easy. II. INTEGEITY. For such conscientiousness it is important to have never gone wrong. It is easier to keep pure than to make one's self so after defilement. Till one has sinned, it is hard to commence ; but, having begun, it is easy to continue, a little more seeming a trifle to one already astray. The first sin must, therefore, be guarded against, and one sin. To be wholly virtuous is to have a guard for your whole virtue. For a stainless INTEGRITY. 287 character always seems worth preserving, while one partly gone may not. This spotlessness, moreover, while a protection against particular wrongs, as impurity and dishonesty, specially protects against all, there being a greater satisfaction in keeping from every sin, and greater facility in uniformity of conduct. When all sins are grouped, we can resist them at once ; and, when secure from all, we are not in danger from any. We may thus be good in bulk, and, by avoiding all wrong, escape each particular wrong, which is easiest, as we have seen, because we have thus but one resolution to keep, and one temptation to meet ; the whole being done by simply following conscience, which shuts out the first offense. For, as we can not commit a second wrong till we have done the first, if the first is excluded the rest are shut out, one at a time being all the wrong we need avoid. We should, therefore, resist the beginnings of wrong, and, by keeping out entering wedges, make ourselves impervious to assaults. While, in a long life, all must have sinned, so that when each comes to consider this question, he has already entered upon wrong, he can yet, at any time, quit, and, by opening a new record, keep a clean char- acter thereafter. Many thus date their moral career from the present, and, renouncing their past, keep 288 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. with equal pride their integrity for the future. It is a great privilege to have this chance of a new begin- ning, which, started with resolution, may be con- tinued with enthusiasm. For, though it is better to have never lied than to quit lying, it is a good record, if, for ten years, one has not lied; and though it inspires more confidence to have never defrauded, than if, having done so, one reforms, yet he is deemed essentially honest who, for ten years, has never been dishonest. But for these new characters, founded on ruined ones, there must be a great start, and great patience to maintain it. Much practice is needed in scrupulously obeying conscience to get the habit of obeying it automatically, which is having a character to do so. III. SCRUPULOUSNESS. For such a close pursuit of right we must scrupu- lously discriminate. Many wrongs are little wrongs; but, as conscience declares against them, we must, to be conscientious, avoid them also. For our security is in violating in no respect our conscience. He who commits small wrongs, which are numerous, so habitu- ates himself to violate conscience, that he is not ready SCRUPULOUSNESS. 289 to obey it in great matters. For it is conduct in the many cases of conscience that makes character for con- scientiousness ; and, if we habitually disobey, we will have no conscience for the special occasions. And further, if we do not commit small wrongs we will not commit greater ones; for he who is careful about the least offense, is not apt to be negligent about a greater; and he who is so conscientious that he can quickly see a little wrong, will not be so obtuse that he can not see a larger one; so that the scrupulous avoidance of small offenses is a protection against great ones. We can, indeed, often fortify against all wrong by parrying little wrongs, thereby never meeting the assaults of great temptations. As the good man is habitually free from temptation his good- ness becomes at last easy to him. We should, therefore, guard against little wrongs as standing at the door of. all wrongs, whose commis- sion opens and whose resistance shuts the door; and should resist them for the further reason that, if wrongs at all, they are great wrongs, the fact that they ara wrong being important, and not the fact that they are-, more or less so. A little wrong makes one a wrong- doer, which is a material compromise of his character ; and what is powerful enough for this is not little in morals. 290 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. IV. AETIFICIAL DUTIES. To have a clear conscience, however, as well as to live sensibly in morals, we should guard against believ- ing things wrong which are indifferent, and keeping observances which are valueless. Many people's goodness consists in avoiding sins which are not sins, and doing duties which are not duties. Such persons needlessly forego many enjoyments, and fritter away their strength on trifles. Morality is always substan- tial; and one of our first duties is to have "sensible views of duty. We can not make arbitrary rights and keep good by observing them. We may, indeed, get conscience to work on such things, although it is diffi- cult, conscience being generally sensible; so that what we call conscienc is often only bigotry or prejudice. In the insane or weak, conscience may, indeed, im- pose whimsical duties, so that it sometimes gets a bad name through enforcing a senseless morality ; for con- science is no security to a fool against his folly. In the interest of virtue one should avoid justifying silly things by conscience, and, in following it, learn not to sin. Inspect your conscience as well as your observ- ance of it ; or, rather, look after your views of right, as well as your conformity thereto ; and do not expecl ARTIFICIAL DUTIES. 291 to get along in morals on less sense than in busi- ness. Those who assume arbitrary duties must often vio- late their conscience through the very multitude of their scruples, which violation, becoming habitual, disables conscience for real duties. One can not do much that is not right for right and have strength left to do the right for right. Do not habituate yourself, therefore, to do wrong by having so many foolish things for right that every time you are sensible, you are in dan- ger of violating your conscience. For one who is silly when right is apt to be guilty when reasonable. For he who violates his conscience when not doing wrong, accustoms himself to violation as much as if he were doing wrong, so that he will more likely vio- late it in cases of real wrong than if he reserved his conscience for only the matters of conscience. One can not support a conscience long on error, but he who uses it up in nonsense has no more left than he who uses up his intellect in nonsense. 292 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. V. CONFLICTING DUTIES. Duties rarely conflict, though they often seem to, especially if we include the artificial ones just men- tioned. Nothing is duty which can not be clearly done, duty being that course which, in view of all the circumstances, is best. The considerations may con- flict, one interest impelling one way and another a dif- ferent way. But while in the necessity of choosing one good we must often forego another, duty is indi- cated by the preponderance of interests, which, when learned, makes conscience clear. It is sometimes difficult, indeed, to learn this, and so to determine duty, so that the knowledge of right is not always without effort. We must work hard to know our duty, as well as to do it, which labor then becomes part of our duty. But when we once decide what is best, conscience takes it up, as common sense does in all practical matters, conscience being the common sense of ethics. We may thus know, or at least pursue, our duty amid conflicting considerations, conscience going beyond thought in pointing out the way (which is not, however, irrational, but only unrecognized reason), so CONFLICTING DUTIES. 293 that no practical difficulty arises from conflicting duties any more than theoretical difficulty. Every man may know his duty who wants to do it. Like other wise courses, it is often found by doing it, and the more you go ahead the more you find it clear. Duty done reveals duty to be done, and often the best way to know is to do, effort being an educator as well as thought. The will reveals many truths which the intellect can not discover. He who starts out makes the way clear behind him. A duty need rarely be known till reached, and then it is conspicuous. Noth- ing so easily yields to us as a knowledge of our duty, when we are doing our duty. The alleged conflicts of duties are usually where one or more of the "duties" are of the artificial kind just mentioned. By creating arbitrary duties we of course get some to conflict, especially if we accept somebody else's views of duty, as most do who take indifferent matters for right and wrong (for they rarely rely on their own judgment for their mistakes). By admitting nonsense into morality men can no more have consistency in their thought than in their con- duct. For, hard as it is to prevent sense from con- flicting, it is hopelessly impossible to keep nonsense reconciled; so that those who distress themselves by observing trivial things for right and wrong, embar- rass themselves still more by trying to harmonize 294 THE VIRTUES AND THEIR REASONS. them. Before troubling yourself about conflicts of duties, see that they are duties, and do not set con- science at work on whims. He who considers his duties with common sense, will find them consistent with practical performance. As nothing is duty but what is rational, and as reason does not conflict with itself, there is no antagonism of obligations to the earnest thinker. Real duty is as rational to think as it is profitable to do. Ethics and logic are thoroughly reconcilable, as well as duty and interest, there being no duty to believe anything fool- ish any more than to do anything disadvantageous. If one does not require all his senses to be good, it at least does not help him to be nonsensical. As ethics is wisdom in living, it is no less reason in thinking. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 022 210 519 5