Human Life

For any human being, endowed with reason, to wilfully deceive himself could be nothing less than the height of folly. There is nothing more pitiful in all literature than Cicero, at the close of his “De Senectute,” bowed down with years, and crushed with grief over the loss of his son and intimate friends, saying that if his belief in personal immortality be illogical and untrue, as he almost intimates that he thinks it more than likely to be, then he wishes to willingly delude himself for the satisfaction which he will get therefrom. How different from the man who, in his impeachment of Verres, or his defense of Archias, runs the chance of public disfavor,—always little less than death to the politician,—or even to that staunch patriot, who, with almost his last breath, defied the powerful Antony, although it cost him his life! How strange it is that Tully did not realize that allegiance to the truth, regardless of whether it be for or against us, carries with it, per se, the greatest of all virtues,—the virtue of sincerity. Polonius’ death demonstrated the truth of his philosophy:

In considering this problem of the origin and destiny of man, which, axiomatically, includes ourselves, let us remember that it matters not what we may wish, for we have no choice in the matter,—the truth is inexorable, and, consequently, cannot be influenced. It is directly up to each human being to work out this problem for himself, and this can only be done by the fearless recognition of the truth, wherever found. It is in this spirit that the preceding and the succeeding chapters are written, and if they contain misstatements and errors, the author will not only most cheerfully acknowledge the same, when proven to him, but will accept the logical conclusions drawn therefrom, although they may completely revolutionize the philosophy of life as he now sees it, and is trying to live it.

Geological Table, showing Approximate Minimum Duration in Time. Comparative Duration of Periods: Paleozoic, ¹²⁄₁₆ths; Mesozoic, ³⁄₁₆ths; Cenozoic, ¹⁄₁₆th. Geological Time, at least 200,000,000 years.

CHAPTER III
The Physical Limitations of Existence

The tremendous strides made in the sciences of biology, histology, physiology, and psychology in the latter part of the last century, in connection with the development of the science of organic chemistry, have done much to unravel the life-mystery from a physical point of view. One by one the determining characteristics of the mentality of the genus homo have dwindled down until to-day even reason in its broadest sense is granted by the most conservative to some of the vegetable forms of life, and any unbiased mind will have hard work to determine the difference between the so-called “Brownian” movement of particles of gamboge when macerated in a little water, or even of bits of camphor when dropped upon the surface of water, and the movements of the particles of a protoplasmic mass; although one is caused by temperature changes, and the other by chemism. The selectative growth of a vertex of a crystal in a saturated solution, and the claw of a crab, both of which have previously suffered the loss of their respective parts, are perhaps not so different as the words “organic” or “inorganic” would lead us to believe when applied as a classification to their principals. We know that in the life-process, as everywhere else, the law of substance and the law of the conservation of energy are held inviolate, and the theory which treats of life as a characteristic entity apart from the condition which makes it possible, is certainly false. The matter which composes the living body is chemically the same as that which we find everywhere. The fact that some living bodies have the power to form protoplasm out of its chemical elements or simple combinations of them, or only assimilate such protoplasm after it has been formed from inorganic matter, constitutes, in the broadest sense, the difference between the vegetable and the animal life, as we now know it. But, whether living or dead, the protoplasm has about the same composition, and, therefore, it must be that life per se is in reality only the manifestation of a form of motion. Science, by deduction, teaches us to look upon the living body very much as a theoretically perfect motor-generator set, the line terminals of the dynamo being the feed wires of the motor. Such a machine, standing still, would be “dead” in all senses of the word, although, potentially, its integrity would be the same as when in operation. But, once put in motion, this machine would directly come up to speed, and maintain itself at its normal rate of rotation until something interfered with it, or set up resistance within its circuit. From this time on, its rate of rotation would diminish until it stopped. If its integrity were suddenly violated, this stop would come at once.

Fifty years ago, heat, light, and electricity were all talked of, and believed to be forces whose existence was in no way dependent upon matter. Since the investigations of Thomson and Helmholtz, there is no unbiased scientist who can for a minute think that the manifestation of any of these could possibly exist without material of some sort, such as in a general way we call matter. Even chemism, the most obscure of all physical forces, we know to be very closely allied to gravitative attraction, and to be so powerful since it operates through such short distances. In fact, if we adopt the only known feasible hypothesis to account for the formation of matter, we must, in the end, admit that motion, and not matter, is the most potent of all the primal causes which we can imagine to-day. If we could eliminate motion entirely from the universe, we do not know of a single characteristic which would be left, by which we could identify existence as we know it, certainly not even matter itself. Every investigation or experiment which has been made in the domain of the natural sciences has only amassed additional evidence to the tremendous amount already gathered; all going certainly to prove that at least the former two of the old three universally accepted postulates were false, viz.: the free moral agency of man, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of a personal God, or a power outside of and superior to nature. The latter will in no wise interest us, inasmuch as experience has taught us that, in general as well as in particular, the universe is governed by law; all honor to Humboldt and Descartes for so clearly demonstrating this.

We are quite sure to-day that, roughly estimated, each pound of human flesh represents an amount of potential energy equal to about sixteen million foot-pounds, and that all of the life-processes are, in the last analysis, purely physical, and that they follow physical laws. Any exertion, either muscular or nervous, which we make, over and above that supplied by the energy in our assimilated food, will have to be taken from the stock as represented in the tissue,—consequently, continued work means hunger; if continued longer without food, it means exhaustion, and if continued longer without food and rest intervening, it means the deterioration of the tissues. The recent investigations of Matthews upon the manner of nerve action, and the fact that the same is due to substances known as reversible gelatines, as well as to the cause of the negative variation of nerves exposed to exciting stimuli, all show that these most complex of life’s processes are as purely physical, in the largest sense, as the most simple ones. The artificial fertilization of sterile eggs by the use of dilute solutions, whose actions might almost be called catalytic, still further emphasizes the fact that life’s processes, even in the embryo, are essentially physical. Take, for instance, the sterile egg of the sea-urchin; the two per cent. solution of potassium cyanide; the continued constant temperature for a definite time, and all of the other conditions which enter into the development of this crude protoplasmic mass, are all physical factors, regardless of the fact that the result is a living organism, where we would, according to our old ideas, certainly expect an undeveloped sterile egg, or a potentially dead body. As with this ovum, so with the vegetable protoplasmic mass in the germinal radical of a seed: if its development is once started, it must continue its natural course without interference, upon pain of speedy degeneration upon interruption, and, in this light, both the egg and the grain of seed are places where life can be started (or motion on a larger scale begun) rather than living things before their development began, or while they were lying in their dormant state.

The death-knell to the theory of the personal immortality of the human soul, as ordinarily enunciated, was rung in 1875 by the German biologist, Hertzig, when he succeeded in bringing the living ovum into the presence of the ciliated sperm-cells under the microscope, while in the field of a lens of sufficient power to enable him to see clearly what took place. It is sufficient for our purpose to state that the minute the spermatozoon had pierced the cell wall of the egg-cell, the new individual of that species came into existence, and had, potentially, all of the life-possibilities, or was, in fact, as much alive as it would have been if this had happened under conditions which would have been favorable to its further development. The fact that the fertilized egg-cell immediately forms a mucous sheath the moment that its nucleus coalesces with that of the spermatozoon to prevent the further entrance of other spermatozoa, has done much to give rise and impetus to the theory that each cell has a soul, and that when these two nuclei completely fuse together, the resulting cytula, or fertilized ovum or stem-cell, has a soul peculiarly its own; which is made up in much the same way as two corresponding magnetic fields which are blended when two magnets are brought within the territory of each other’s influence and unite to form a resultant field. That each of the sexual una-cells is distinguished by a form of sensation and motion of its own, and that this is true throughout the whole animal world, has given peculiar significance to these empirical facts of conception; as these will at once offer an explanation of the mysterious influence of heredity, such as was never possible heretofore. That each human individual has a beginning of existence with the coalescing of the nuclei of the parent cells, just as he has an end of existence with the violation of the integrity of his physical body, whether after the lapsing of one second or one century, must, to anyone who has observed biological phenomena like the above, be perfectly clear.

With the recent development of the science of embryology, there is no longer any ground upon which man can lay claim, in the largest sense, to free moral agency. Conditioned as he is, even before birth, by the influence of heredity, which science has now localized to the inner nucleus of the cytula, not only are his natural tastes and temperament quite largely determined for him, but often, in at least as large a sense, his mental and physical possibilities. It was our genial Dr. Holmes, who, some years ago, said, “If you would make a man, you must begin at least four generations before he is born,” and, as embryology has since proven, he spoke more truth than he thought. Any person possessing a normally trained observation cannot help but note in their aptitude, or in their manner of doing certain things, their debt to their ancestors. How seldom (we might say, never) do we find in our friends what we had pictured and hoped for, owing, perhaps more than anything else, to the baneful influence of heredity. Degenerate features, scrofula, epilepsy, melancholia, etc., are all practically in every case the gift of some progenitor. Tendencies to insanity and crime are clearly recognized to-day by the administrators of the law, in every civilized country, as possible a legacy as coin, real estate, or chattels were a few centuries ago.

Whatever influence can be ascribed to heredity, as a positive limitation to human existence, we know absolutely that in a much larger sense is man a victim of his environment, particularly during the period of his childhood and adolescence. Professor Loeb has shown that at least as large proportion (possibly one-half) of the influence of heredity may be eliminated by the artificial fertilization of the ovum of many species, but embryology tells us that it is beyond the possibilities of science to ever render impotent the adaptive tendency of the individual. With human beings, the importance of environment is much greater under a high state of civilization than in the condition of savagery or barbarism, since the possibilities of achievement are infinitely greater in the individual well-educated than in a condition of illiteracy. What would the mathematical genius of Newton or Leibnitz accomplish in developing the calculus, had they been born among the Patagonians or the bushmen of Australia? Would Napoleon’s military talent have availed him anything if he had been placed by birth among the cliff-dwellers of Arizona instead of the fomenting political corruption of overpopulated France? Even in a much more restricted sense, Austerlitz, Marengo, and Lodi could not have become noted as the stepping-stones toward his imperialism, had he not attended the military school at Brienne.

In the discussion of this question, of the freedom of the will, or the free moral agency of man, it seems almost preposterous that educated people still cling to a theory so at variance with all known facts. That all men are created free and equal is not only relatively but absolutely untrue in the largest sense, but that they are all entitled to, and have equal possibilities, so far as is within their power, is not only the meaning which the writer of the “Declaration” intended to convey, but is what every fair-minded man must necessarily accord to all of his fellow-men, even regardless of sex. In Jefferson’s time, the last clause could not have been inserted, but at the beginning of the twentieth century, at least in four of the States of this country, woman has been given her full property rights, and in one she has full and complete citizenship on an equal basis with man. It cannot be many years until culture and a sense of equity will have been so disseminated that, at least under democratic forms of government, woman will be given her full civil and political rights, and regarded, as she justly should be, as no longer a forced parasite of man, but as potentially his equal in every respect.

While considering this matter, it is worthy of note that no less an authority than Havelock Ellis has conclusively shown that, not only in the moral world, where woman is and has been the acknowledged superior of man, is she at least his peer, but also in her intellectual power and physical development as concerns the evolution of the race when surrounded by equally advantageous conditions has she occupied the very van. The chivalrous and insane worship which man has bestowed upon her as an exchange for her condoning his moral crimes, has tended both to make him lax in his morality, by reason of her readily granted forgiveness, and to rob her of her rights as his equal, by keeping her in seclusion and incapacitated for self-support. Probably no one thing has worked more harm to the race as a whole than this, and it is perhaps the crowning glory of the age in which we are living that woman, in America, no longer has to accept the physical and moral derelict which the average man is when he comes to the age at which he has finished “sowing his wild oats,” and wishes to settle down to a domestic existence, as a candidate for reform under the tutelage of a pure and virtuous woman; or by refusing his proffer of marriage, become the laughing-stock of not only her suitor, but of her own sex as well, under the name of “an old maid.” As woman has become capable of self-support, man has lost his power over her, and his accountability for his actions has directly increased, just as woman has gone from under his power. That woman can have an honorable destiny to fulfill other than as a convenience or source of amusement for man is, at last, after countless ages of darkness, beginning to dawn upon the world of culture and intelligence.

Perhaps the greatest of all human limitations arises from the fact that after the gratification of physical desire, of whatsoever kind, comes satiety. The food which, to the starving man, was priceless, and which afforded him keen delight as he ate it, but nauseates him when temporarily his appetite is satisfied and try, as hard as he may, he can contain no more. How many a man has failed to realize this, and, after a youth of penury has, by the closest application, obtained a competence, and by its use, a gratification of his desires, but without consideration kept up his earning power, and hoarded his wealth, only to find, to his sorrow, that it was impossible to furnish gratifications when he no longer had the shadow of a desire! No matter how much of a gormand a man is he can eat but a certain small quantity of food per day, the amount of which varies directly with the manual labor which he does, and, as a usual thing, the more he is able to purchase, the less likely he is to do that labor which alone will make his money of value to him from a gastronomic standpoint. Should his desire be to pale “the lilies of the field” with his raiment, he is still limited to a certain quantity and character of vesture, so that in comparison with “unreasoning” vegetable life, his pride will not be greatly gratified should he possess any sense of humor at all. If prestige and prowess resulting as the outcome of any physical endeavor be his ambition, he must realize that whatever pinnacle of popularity he may attain to, it will be only a few years until he must acknowledge a successful rival.

In the constant mutation of all the conditions which surround human existence, we find another most potent limitation to life. How few of these vital conditions, from a physical standpoint, are under our control? And yet how important some of the even trivial ones really are? The extent to which we are dependent upon health, comeliness, wealth, location, the physical aspects in the lives of our friends, and all of those complex details which go to make up our routine of life, can hardly be over-estimated. Starting, as the individual does, with a complete lack of experience from which to judge, and without even the power to exercise his reason, as this develops within him after years of mistakes, until his fund of recollection of these errors constitutes a basis of experimental knowledge, he is at best upon most dangerous ground in early life. He is handicapped just in proportion as he has not some guardian who pilots him until he is able to judge for himself of the character of his actions. It is the most pathetic thought which the human mind is capable of comprehending, that nature cannot be imprecated, bribed, or frightened out of her relentless rule of exacting full and complete consequence of our every action. Ignorance is no plea for mercy before her court, and her penalties are exacted without either fear or favor. Nor is her tribunal cognizant of any plan of vicarious atonement, but in many cases partially are we visited with the penalties of our progenitors’ disobedience to her immutable laws. In view of these truths, let us not falsely be inflated with pride, because of any ephemeral successes. Let us in the moments of aggrandizement remember Massillon, as he stood at the bier of “Le Grand Monarch,” and when we consider the truth in his opening statement, in that magnificent funeral oration, “God only is Great,” we must feel our sense of importance leave us. Whoever stood erect with egotism over the corpse of a friend, even though he be as mad as Lear, raving, “O that a horse, a dog, a rat hath life, and thou no breath!”? Our control over our physical condition is worthy of mention only on account of its paucity, and we can never appreciate our true position on earth, until at times we are filled with the sentiment, so well expressed by Bryant:

It is not for us to be crushed with the appreciation of our real lack of importance, from a physical and moral viewpoint, but no scheme of life can be built upon a sure foundation without an understanding of what in the case of Schopenhauer, and some other brilliant intellects, formed the basis of their pessimistic philosophy. That we are not absolutely free, morally, to select our course, does not keep us from being relatively so, and, after all, the destiny of the individual is very largely within his power to shape. It is only through incessant and vigorous struggle that anything worth while is accomplished, and nature, in this and many other instances, is with us, since we become capacitated for greater endeavor through practice, and the habit, once formed, makes the effort for advancement become almost an instinct within us, so that our mental activity does not have to be continually consumed in holding our will to the course, but can be applied to fighting our way upward along it. Just as fresh recruits are unable to render the efficient service of veterans in actual warfare, so our capabilities, morally and intellectually, become augmented by constant practice. In the succeeding chapters, we shall attempt to show what is possible to be got from life by the use of all of the advantages which we have, and, in doing this, we shall elucidate a philosophy which is as consistent with the facts of life as known to us as we can make it.

In the days of the decadence of the Roman Empire, when perhaps life was as uncertain as it ever was in the history of the world, the walls of the banquet halls of a certain clique were always adorned with skulls and other tokens of death, and according to all accounts, the mirth was more furious, and the licentiousness greater, as the guests were brought to realize the shortness of the time during which they had to live. We moderns may well get an idea from these feasts, in which the sentiment of Solomon, as voiced a thousand years earlier—than the instance cited, and under similar conditions, “let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die,” is the dominating one, and, in considering the shortness of life, realize that every minute should be filled with effort, as time which is passed is gone forever. Even at the best, whatever we may elect to accomplish, should take all of our attention, and, although we may give it this, we will still be able to find moments in which we did not live up to our possibilities.

CHAPTER IV
The Purpose of Life

In the preceding chapters, we have attempted to get a view of life from a purely physical standpoint, and to show in what ways our race is connected with the terrestrial past, and how much the individual is dependent upon physical conditions, beyond his control, which constitute both the background and the framework of his existence. But as great as are these limitations, they are still not so important as they at first sight would seem, since at least a portion of each person’s environment is of his own choosing, and both his body and his mind are, to a greater or lesser degree, what he may elect to make them. Diligence and pertinacity have accomplished wonders along this line, and the poor struggling manual laborer very frequently turns out to be the great discoverer, not only in the province of geography, perhaps on the “Dark Continent,” but along all the lines of truth. Nor is even age a bar to achievement, as our own bard tells us:

However, it is far more safe to assume that, whatever we have to do, should be started early in life, for, if we are to carve out our own destinies, we shall need all the time which we have at our disposal. While fully realizing the limiting conditions of heredity and environment, it is difficult to disprove the statement of Cassius, when he says:

Perhaps Bulwer-Lytton has, in other words, more forcibly expressed a similar idea when he says:

Let us not shift the responsibility of our being other than we desire upon the shoulders of either our progenitors or circumstances, but, taking what is, as a fact, we should try to so regulate our conduct that what we wish may come to pass. It is not he who mourns the power which he has not—who becomes either the master of himself or of others, as the parable of the talents tells us, but it is he who, with a strong heart, dares and does, that achieves the great things on this earth. Perhaps as close an analogy as we can get to the real life-condition, is to represent the individual’s power over himself and his destiny, by one line, and the power of heredity and forced environment by one of equal length; then his power of accomplishment will be the vector sum of these two lines. The line representing the uncontrollable condition will necessarily be longer (as the influence is more powerful) in youth, while, during the life period, it gradually shortens up until it reaches its minimum at the physical and mental culmination of life, or when the individual is at his best, and lengthens again as old age comes on, and the physical and mental forces decline, and habit and environment become the prevailing factors. With our responsibility clearly before us, then, let us investigate what is worth having.

At this particular time, when all of the Occidental world is hopelessly insane with its Machiavelian money greed, it would seem that one of Horace’s sentiments, uttered satirically, had become the slogan of the battle:

Everything is thrown away by the average individual to-day, in his haste to satisfy his desire for inordinate wealth;—friendship, liberty, decency, humanity, honor, and even life itself, is hurled into the maw of this Mammon, which is not satisfied with such sacrifices, and gives only hard, cold gold as a return for the priceless jewels of the human soul, and even this usually at a time in life when the little value which the mental ever possessed has gone, since there are no longer desires to gratify by it, with the one exception of that calling constantly for more of the counters which have lost their purchasing power. Our forefathers thought of wealth as worth having only because with it came leisure, and with leisure came culture through application. Sir John Lubbock has well said, “If wealth is to be valued because it gives leisure, clearly it would be a mistake to sacrifice leisure in the struggle for wealth.”

Unfortunately, our country is going through that period which all other nations that have risen to “world power” have had to pass through, only, in our case, we have reached this period much earlier in point of time, owing to our vast natural resources, the activity of scientific research, and the multitude of inventions resulting therefrom within the last century. But, with the enormous increase in our national wealth, the legislative branch of our Government neglected to pass such restraining measures as would insure that no gigantic individual fortunes were amassed, or, in case that they were to have such wealth, bear its proportion of the tax; and, consequently, we are confronting a condition of both anarchy and socialism, inasmuch as, to-day, our law-making and higher judiciary branches of Government both have a decided leaning toward whatever is favorable to capital, as against the interests of the laboring people. Our lower judicial and executive officials, however, are in this country and in England, owing to rank partisan political influence, almost hopelessly under the domination of organized labor, whose leaders (necessarily demagogues) use all the means within their power to corrupt our system of jurisprudence to further their own ends. It remains to be seen whether our Government, owing to its democratic form, will be able to right these evils and withstand the stress and strain which such a changed social system must necessarily involve. Remembering our experience at the time of the Civil War, which was brought about by very similar causes, we have every reason to be hopeful of the outcome. Our vast alien population is the only factor which would be decidedly against us at a time such as this, since these foreigners have not had the privileges of citizenship where they were born, and into them has been instilled the blind hatred of all who possess wealth, owing to the monarchical feudal oppression of the poorer laboring classes, by the titled and plutocratic nobility of Europe. The most crying need of our time is a law equitable for poor and rich alike, and a judicial and executive system which will see that this law is enforced and its penalties are imposed impartially.

Perhaps the worst feature about the possession of wealth, is that it tends to dwarf and belittle the finer sensibilities of man. Its acquisition becomes a passion of such violence that, in the majority of cases, its possessor no longer cares for anything but the few paltry pleasures which it will buy. And as few as these apparently are, they are even less upon closer examination, since only the counterfeits of anything of real moral value can be purchased for money. Purity, sincerity, culture, or love, owing to their nature, never could be bought for gold. Yet many an individual has acquired the opposite of the four “pearls of great price” just mentioned, by having too much money at his disposal; and most truly has it been said that “poverty is one of the greatest teachers of virtue.” In fact, if it were not for the truth of our American aphorism, that “three generations cover the time it takes one of our wealthy families to go from shirt-sleeves to shirt-sleeves,” our wealthy aristocracy would be much more profligate. There can be no heritage of equal value to children, so long as their poverty does not interfere with their fundamental education, comparable to their being born in straitened, rather than in opulent, circumstances. Consequently, we must accept the fact that beyond a small competence set aside against age, money has no value of moment, nor is it worthy of greater than a reasonable effort being spent to acquire it.

In this age of bustle and hurry, the nervous system is operated at a very high tension, and as a result often refuses to do the work demanded of it. As a consequence, artificial stimulants are resorted to, with the most baneful effects upon our citizen body. Caffine, thermo-bromine, nicotine, narcine, alcohol, and, frequently, chloral, cocaine, morphine, and hyoscine, are used in some quantity, and often under several forms, for this purpose by over seventy-five per cent. of our population; and we have seen the statement that over ninety per cent. of the males, over the age of twenty-one, are addicted to some narcotic habit in this country. As a result of this, the vitality of the individual, suffering from these habits, is eventually lowered, owing to the effect which such stimulants have upon the involuntary muscular fibre; while the over-wrought nervous system, sooner or later, collapses, and we become, both mentally and physically, human wrecks. Particularly is the taking of the weaker stimulants, such as are more commonly used, harmful to children, inasmuch as, at this period of development, nature has about all that she can well care for, without interference from the outside, and abnormal activity of the imagination at this time is not to be desired; since, under these circumstances with the majority of human beings, the imaginative impulse runs more to sensual than to æsthetic things.

The demands of our present civilization upon the individual, especially if he belongs to the coterie constituting the so-called social set, is so great for both time and effort, that the use of narcotic stimulants with this class is even greater than with the majority. Hence, it happens in America, where wealth is often acquired very quickly, that instead of bringing with it leisure, health, education, and refinement, as it should, we see very frequently the opposite result. On this account, in our country, we have no aristocracy, in any real sense of the word, and, in general we are forced to believe that real culture and refinement are becoming all the time more rare. The late Mark Twain has well illustrated this tendency in his trite character sketch, “The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg.” If our age tends toward degeneration ethically from this cause, it does so even more from a physiological point of view. It is becoming more imperative all the while that we ascertain, for certain, that those with whom we must enter upon intimate relationship, should be able to show a clean bill of health, not only in a strictly physical sense, but in a moral sense as well. To-day, luxury and vice in our centers of population are corrupting and ruining a far larger proportion of our young and middle-aged men than ever before. Since all branches of our Government are influenced by plutocratic power, we are at a loss immediately to rectify these evils by closing up the dens of vice, and raising the age of consent, to stem the tide of infamy.

Any system of ethics is valuable as a guide for conduct just to that extent to which our interest is aroused. Inasmuch as with us all, self is always the paramount consideration, the safest and surest basis upon which we can build an ethical system is self-interest. Every human being of intelligence must sooner or later realize that he is on earth primarily by no choice of his own, and, since he is here, it is of the first importance to him that he should know, early in life, in just what way he will be able to secure the most out of his terrestrial existence. Now, as we take it, happiness, in its broadest and best sense, is alone the desideratum which is per se worth the individual’s effort, and, in the aggregate, is worth the pains, both as an end to be attained, and through the effects of the struggle of obtaining it upon others. By happiness, we mean that feeling of contentment and satisfaction which should, at all times, be with the conscientious and sincere being, whether he is expecting to live a few more decades, or if he has arrived at that inevitable hour which must sometime come to all. In other words, let his end come when it will, if he has happiness, in our sense, he feels and knows that he has had all that he could get out of life, and, if he had to live it over again, he would wish to operate upon only those principles which he had used to guide his existence. In this sense, then, should happiness be the purpose of life, we will now attempt to show what conditions must, of necessity, be fulfilled in order to attain it.

Happiness, for the individual, is but slightly dependent upon circumstances outside of his control, and, in general, is the result of living up to the highest moral possibility, which means the development of self in the highest conception. Since any environment can be made to serve the purpose, we are always so conditioned that some degree of happiness may be ours. The presence of the objects of our affection, in the form of human beings, is perhaps an actual necessary detail of our environment, without which we cannot experience that feeling of satisfaction and contentment which we call “happiness.”

The matter of the greatest importance is so ordering your life that, in all your actions, you may be equitable in the most amplified sense of the word. This has, at all times, been understood by those teachers of humanity who have been reformers or saviors, from the priests of Osiris in Egypt and Zoroaster in Bactria, more than five thousand years ago, to Abbas Effendi in Palestine, within the last century. And, strange as it may seem, the world has advanced perhaps less in the understanding and practice of this, than in any of the truths of lesser importance. The exposition of the Decalogue of the Pentateuch is less refined and more constricted in meaning and application than the Negative Confession in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, or the Vedantic philosophy, as given in the older Hindoo writings, or in the more modern Upanishads. From this point of view, the ethics of the Zend or of the Chinese sages are infinitely beyond the best modern practice of a majority of the people in any part of the earth. But all conscientious and fearless thinkers, regardless of the date or locality in which they existed, have realized that in every sense the “Golden Rule” is the only safe guide for conduct, if contentment and real happiness were the end sought. And if we once get thoroughly fixed in the individual’s mind that this is certain, and that, no matter what the intention, if our acts are not ordered in accordance with this fundamental principle of equity, we cannot be happy; we can rest assured that the individual would no sooner pursue a line of action which he absolutely knows will end in his own misery, than he would wilfully take a dose of poison. It is the putting of ethical matters upon a plain commonsense basis that will greatly assist, socially and morally, in revolutionizing the world. We have too long deformed and twisted facts to fit our fancies and prejudices, and we, as well as the rest of the human race, have paid “a pretty penny” for our delusion. The prevalence in all of the Western countries since Constantine raised Christianity to the prominence of a State religion, of a belief in a scheme of vicarious atonement, has worked inestimable harm to the human race. Certainly, in one particular, the doctrine taught by the gospel of Gautama Buddha is immeasurably further advanced ethically than that of his subsequent rival, Jesus of Nazareth, if we accept their gospels as correct reports of their teachings. Our blood, to-day, is tainted with venereal diseases, and our minds with a predisposition to infamy, because our ancestors were not taught, and did not know, that from the consequence of their actions, both physically and mentally, they could not escape. How many men would work day and night to accumulate wealth, at the expense of their fellows, through unfair advantage and unjust means, if they only knew that this could not, on account of immutable law, add one iota to their happiness after they had secured possession of their so much coveted gold? How many women, for the consideration of a home of leisure and luxury, would rush into a marriage “of convenience” with a man for whom they knew they had no semblance of an affection, if they felt, with certainty, that nature does not discriminate, even for a marriage license and a religious ceremony, between prostitution within the bonds of wedlock, and without, and that the horrors of remorse and disappointment are just as frightful in one case as in the other? How many young men would go out into the world with a Satanic sneer upon their faces, a cigarette between their lips, and a glass of champagne in their hands, to sow their wild oats under the tutelage of their older degenerate friends, if they fully realized that, in this one act, they were forever incapacitating themselves for the highest pleasure of life, and that no matter what their lives might be thereafter, that nature would ruthlessly hold them to the strictest accountability for their actions, and that ignorance would be no plea for mercy before her bar? This inexorable impartiality of nature is at once the saddest and the sublimest matter of contemplation, depending entirely upon whether we are considering the awful weight of her penalties or the magnificence of her rewards. The old axiom of prudery that “knowledge often comes hard,” is, in the cold light of fact and reason, a most palpable absurdity. It is to-day, the man and woman who knows; not necessarily from his or her own experience, but from the authentic records of the results of the actions of others, whose motives of narration cannot be questioned, who are well-equipped to fight the battles of life, and get from terrestrial existence all the real pleasure which is to be obtained. It is from such simple yet grand souls that we have inspirations, and fortunate is that individual who can call himself a friend to a man or woman whose life has, from the earliest childhood, been so ordered that purity and sincerity have been kept inviolate, and all of the fundamental conditions of equity, as applicable to our fellow human beings, have been observed. A friendship with this character of human being is one of the few unalloyed pleasures of life, inasmuch as their company, when present, or their memory, when absent, is equally delightful. But to get the highest enjoyment from such a person, we must not only strive to reach his or her level, but, just in proportion as we do attain their moral altitude, we will have our capacity for enjoyment augmented.

Perhaps in nothing more than in our moments of relaxation and amusement should we be careful that we make our actions accord with this law of equity. How many a careless thing we do without thinking what the result will be upon someone else! While the indulging in some amusements, such as a game of chance, for an insignificant stake, in order to maintain the interest, may be done with impunity by parties whose financial condition is such that the counters involved are of no moment to them, and the stability of their temperament is sedate enough so that the excitement of the game will not fascinate them with a snake’s charm; yet are these particular participants sure that this is true of all of the company at such times? If not—and in no gathering of this kind can we be sure—there is a possibility of great harm being done. The same is also true of an occasional glass of stimulant, so much in vogue on all social occasions; of the occasional cigar or cigarette; of a little gossip or scandalous small-talk, which we all enjoy so much; and of a thousand and one other things which, in themselves, are almost positively not so harmful when properly conditioned, but which may, and frequently do, become the means of a fellow mortal’s ruin. It is the lack of discerning and realizing our responsibility in these matters of conduct that causes almost all of the misery of the world. It is not, however, enough that we act equitably only toward our friends and strangers, but we must, within reasonable limits, follow the injunction which the Chinese philosopher has so well enunciated twenty-five hundred years ago: “Requite hatred with goodness.” In this particular instance, Lao-Tse’s philosophy is more sensible than Christ’s, who commanded us to turn the other cheek. It is not the part of good judgment that we should throw ourselves open to the ravages of our enemies, but it is essential that we do not wilfully harm or wrong even the least of human beings. It has been the most unfortunate thing for the Occidental world that those in high authority in the Christian movement should have so belittled their physical self in comparison with their spiritual natures, that anything pertaining to the flesh was thought unclean and worthy of no consideration. Everything which tends toward real beauty and sincerity, and helps to make us learned, just, and charitable, must necessarily be worth striving for; and the possession of this should be counted above all other things. At the same time, we must appreciate the awfulness of our responsibility, and continually test our actions in the light of their equity toward others, if we would be following the safe line of conduct. On the other hand, we should not be blind to the evil in others, and we should be willing to go to any reasonable self-sacrifice to better terrestrial conditions.

The philosophy, as enunciated in the foregoing, is not at all altruistic; it is, on the contrary, very selfish, and as such it has its chief value. If we teach our children that they must be good, not for the sake of doing the right thing, but for the purpose of increasing their happiness, it would seem but reasonable that such incentive in the latter case would be more potent than that given in the former one. Above all, the idea of vicarious atonement must be abhorred as a false conceit, and human beings should be taught that, in the moral as in the physical world, consequences are always absolutely true to their antecedents. As Orlando J. Smith so forcefully and tritely says, “Know that the consequences of your every act and thought are registered instantly in your character. This day, this hour, this moment, is your time of judgment. He who deceives, betrays, kills—he who entertains malice, treachery, or other vileness, secretly in his heart—takes the penalty instantly in the debasement of his character. And so, also, for every good thought or act, be it open or secret, he shall receive an instant reward in the improvement of his character.

“Every night as you lie down to sleep, you are a little better or a little worse, a little richer or a little poorer, than you were in the morning. You have nothing that is substantial, nothing that is truly your own, but your character. You shall lose your money and your property; your home shall be your home no longer; the scenes which know you now shall know you no more; your flesh shall be food for worms; the earth upon which you tread shall be cinders and cosmic dust. Your character alone shall stay with you, surviving all wreckage, decay, and death; your character is you, it shall be you forever. Your character is the perfect register of your progress or of your degradation, of your victory or of your defeat; it shall be your glory or your shame, your blessing or your curse, your heaven or your hell.”

Truly has Plato said: “Character is man’s destiny.” “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

CHAPTER V
Knowledge and Education

In entering upon the consideration of the part which knowledge plays in the making of human happiness, it seems impossible to secure a view of satisfactory breadth. What we, as children, knew as recently established facts was with our fathers, in many instances, entirely undreamed-of, so rapidly has the fund of knowledge grown within the last century. With us now, more than at any other time, is correctness of judgment advantageous, since, with increased learning, has come a fiercer competition in all the affairs of life, and more dependent than ever before is the individual now, upon his intelligence for his livelihood, as well as for his happiness. In this day, as never previously, are the words of Bacon true: “Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them, and wise men use them.”

At the present time, also, as at no time in the historic past, is experience gained at the hands of others or through them; so that the youth of to-day does not have to suffer the consequences of getting experience “first hand” on account of the lack of books, or of the prejudice or ignorance of his parents and teachers, as was so often the case in the not remote past. Furthermore, intelligent parents are taking their children into their confidence, and informing them upon all subjects with perfect freedom, since, inasmuch as knowledge must come to children at some time, it is vastly preferable that it should come through those who have the interest of the inexperienced at heart, so that the proper color and perspective may be given to each and every fact. It is almost an axiom of pedagogics to-day that “ignorance is the most potent cause of crime.” With the unprecedented dissemination of knowledge which has taken place during the past few decades, there has necessarily been a proportionate advancement in the culture of the masses, and, with culture, comes refinement and conscience.

The cheapness and attractiveness of current literature, before the decline in culture which engulfed this country with the rise of commercialism and imperialism, was a thing of which America had every reason to be proud; and while we are now in the trough of the wave of progress, and will continue to be until money and commercial influence lose their present prestige, yet it does not take an optimist to see that, sooner or later, and somewhere, humanity will take advantage of its hard-won victories of the past and commence again its march toward better conditions.

Here, again, as with the individual, so with the entire race. As we outgrow the things of our childhood at the arrival of mature years, so has and will the human family as a whole. Who cannot remember the marvelous width and depth of the vistas of youth, as looked back at in the transmuting light of memory; and yet, when, after years of toil, we look at the same scenes again in reality, how disappointing and dwarfed they are! It is not the actual physical distance which has been altered, but we, ourselves. Our horizons have unconsciously widened every day; our standards of comparison have been insidiously raised. Just as an inch, when compared with a foot, seems relatively small, with a yard, smaller, and so on until we reach the “light year,” the value of the fraction is reduced to almost an inappreciable sum; so, as we progress through life, the momentous events of our youth lose their importance, and we look at our past through the minifying glass of experience, until at last we can hardly believe that the person whose life we have been reviewing is, in reality, one with our present self. Furthermore, events seen at a distance assume their true proportions, and we are less influenced by passions and prejudices after the lapse of time; hence it is only in retrospection that we are able to secure a view of anything which we have experienced without distortion. All normal human beings are so constituted that their psychic activity runs through a long series of periods of evolution during each individual life. As Haeckel has shown, five of these, at least, can be clearly defined:

1st—The Infantile Stage—from birth to the beginning of self-consciousness.

2nd—The adolescent stage—from self-consciousness to puberty.

3rd—The idealistic stage—from puberty to the period of sexual intercourse.

4th—The mature stage—from the time of sexual intercourse to the beginning of degeneration with age.

5th—The senile stage—from the commencement of degeneration with age until death.

The investigation of a human life, according to this outline, will prove, quite readily, the psychic possibilities of mundane existence.

As is well known, the child enters life with its cerebellum almost devoid of functions. The vital processes are carried on through the cerebrum and the medulla oblongata, purely by virtue of the stamp of heredity, and it is only after some days that the outside stimuli, such as light, heat, pressure or contact, etc., of the most elementary and primitive sort, are responded to by the infant. Its life is a matter of little or no individual interest to it, and it is usually only after many months, and, in some cases, years, before the child has any conception of its own existence. Previous to the comprehension of its existence, the infant has to learn to see and judge something of the distance and size of objects by the use of its eyes, if not to invert the retina image. In a non-monistic sense, the child, during this period, has no soul, and its life or death is of absolutely no moment to it.

In the second, or adolescent stage, the most important of the individual’s concrete knowledge is obtained—that upon which the basis of judgment rests in after-years. The developing mentality seizes new facts with avidity, and the memory is more keen, potentially, at this stage than at any other. The value of correct associations at this era cannot be over-estimated, as ideas and habits formed in this period cling tenaciously to the individual. So deeply seated do they become that they form a part of what we call, in after-years, our instinct, and upon these memories and the foundation of habits we build our later intuition. Voltaire has somewhere remarked that “Mankind is led more by instinct than by reason,” and his observation is a just one. The acquisition of concrete facts or knowledge, in a specialized form, takes place at a very much more rapid rate at this period than during any other one, and the child’s mind is very plastic, and absorbs information greedily. Nature has so arranged it that at this time, when most is to be learned, learning comes more easily than before or afterwards. In the normal child, the sense of duty begins to make itself felt at this juncture, and while this may be entirely an objective idea, nevertheless, it clearly shows an appreciation of justice in a regard for the rights of others. Coupled with this, there is a satisfaction which comes both from a sense of our knowledge—little though it be—and the feeling that this is being used as a guide to our conduct; a sentiment which Bacon eloquently expresses in his aphorism: “No pleasure is comparable with the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth.” With this realization, life for the first time becomes worth living, and our desire for more knowledge follows directly upon our appreciation of the power which truth gives over our destiny. The grasping and comprehension of this idea by the child is one of the greatest, if not the most important, points to be attained in any educational system. The absorption of abstract facts does not constitute, primarily, any part of an education, as Spencer has so clearly shown; but the implanting of the desire for truth, and the manner in which we should assimilate and use it, does attain the highest aim of any scheme of erudition. It is in this second stage of development that this must be done rudimentally; consequently, compulsory education must be carried at least through this period.

At the beginning of the third subdivision in the life of the individual, we find a peculiar nervous tension, which is invariably an accompaniment of this stage of physical development. The imaginative faculties are enormously stimulated, and, unless directed into the right channels, are sure to work to the eternal harm of both male and female children. They should have been given a general knowledge of their physical peculiarities, previous to this time, by their parents, and should be allowed the companionship of playmates of the opposite sex so long as their characters are not objectionable. These close acquaintances between girls and boys should be fostered and allowed to become friendship, rather than be discouraged and ridiculed, by the parents and guardians, as is so often the case. The polarity of sex will assert itself at this early age, and the boys will strive to appear manly, strong and noble, while the girls, in a less positive sense, perhaps, but in an equally beneficial manner, will attempt to assume the womanly peculiarities of reserved kindliness and sympathy, which has made the female character so lovable and universally admired through all the ages. In this matter of the intersexual association of children, our public school system is usually in error, since, in most towns, the playgrounds of the boys and girls are separated by high fences, and communication is entirely cut off during play times. The association with a large number of individuals of the opposite sex gives the child a broader basis upon which to form a judgment concerning any one, and if taught at the same time to use his mind analytically, will mean a correspondingly high ideal of his own. The ideal of the child is but the selected striking characteristics of his own acquaintances, coalesced into an imaginative being. This ideal is high or low, just as he has been taught to reverence and worship beautiful or unlovely and vile things; but, all conditions being equal, there is no other time in life when the human mind will so readily respond to the pure and noble stimulation of æstheticism as against the baseness and depravity of unbridled sensuality.

Much has been said concerning the difference in the systems of education and the class of facts to be presented to the male, as distinguished from the female, mind. There can be no doubt that the desired result of education in either case is broadly similar—the fitting of the individual for a useful and happy life. But it does not follow that, because in our present civilization, the woman is necessarily the guardian of the æsthetic, while the man is engrossed with the practical, that the same set of facts and power of investigation and reason are not just as good a preparation with which to meet the identical world-problems in the one life as in the other. Truth is the same to the boy as to the girl, and the material facts do not change whether faced by one sex or its opposite. Since in our industrial life, we have allowed woman to assume already no mean part, we have more than ever a valid reason for giving her the same course of training in general which we prescribe for her brother. Nor are we speaking of intellectual and moral education alone—but the physical as well—and this in its broadest sense. If we can but stamp indelibly upon the minds of our children that the natural consequences of their actions are the punishments, per se, which they must suffer in person, we have done about all possible toward making their pathways through the world lead at least through negative enjoyment, in place of absolute grief. There must be inculcated a frankness and sincerity into the processes of their mentality, before correct judgment can exist, and, without this, no scheme of education can fulfill its mission. This honesty of character or intro-active integrity is a hard matter to instill into the child, since our methods and actions are very rarely consistent, as Richter, Rousseau, Spencer, and others—in truth, all of our great educational thinkers—have so well realized. The indispensability of this candor and fervor is none the less appreciated, however, owing to the almost insurmountable difficulties attending its procuration. It is just in this connection that intimate friendships with members of both sexes so nicely supplement the work accomplished by parental association, since the restraint certain to come from the authority of the parent or guardian, is unknown as an influence between those equal in age and station in life.

In the use of the beginning of sexual intercourse, as a line of demarcation between periods of human existence, it would seem that a most natural and rational selection were made. As a proof of this, it is but necessary to call to mind the large number of barbaric and semi-civilized peoples who observe some initiatory rites or mysteries connected with the arrival of the individual at puberty or nubility, which with them is, to all intents and purposes, the same as, if not absolutely identical with, the beginning of sexual indulgence. Under our civic law, it is at this time that, through marriage, the human being assumes his full responsibilities, and, by the beginning of an independent family relation, becomes an integral, co-ordinate member of the state. It is at this “stress and storm” period that the real work of life—the fruition of existence—takes place. Beginning with the intimate association with another human being, whose rights and privileges are so interwoven with our own that it is frequently a hard matter to respect them without becoming distant, tolerating the idiosyncrasies, and lauding the virtues, in such a way that the former are diminished, while the latter are increased; trying to anticipate the wants and wishes of the other so that they may be gratified—not for their own satisfaction, primarily, but for our own; seeing the pleasures of sensuality transmuted in the crucible of pain into the gold of a new existence; feeling the supplementary affection and interest, which, for the want of a better name, we call parental love, and, as the offspring grow older, the pride and elation which comes with their achievements; standing at last beside the grave, crushed with grief, raving like Macbeth in despair, or inspired with a transcendental insanity like Richter’s—these all are the vicissitudes of mature human life, when at its best.

But, great and varied as they are, we find them, in fact, very closely fused together; and like all life-processes, they take place at a comparatively slow rate, so that before we are aware, we have arrived at the beginning of senile degeneration.

Prior to the ending of this fourth stage, the education of the individual has been finished, and it depends largely upon the previous mode of living, and the manner of thinking whether he may not remain at his best for a while, or must at once begin the descent, from which there is no return. Fortunate, indeed, is he whose “star remains long bright at the zenith.” Considering now what constitutes an education and the best means of obtaining it, we can profitably review the principles involved. As Spencer has shown, intellectual, moral, and even physical development for the human being must proceed in one direction—call it what we will. There can be no question that the infant, as an individuality, is homogeneous in its ignorance and positive influence; that the first facts which dawn upon its germinating intelligence are concrete and empirical, and that all of its acts are simple, resulting from comparatively simple stimuli. Education, in its broadest sense, is the development, cultivation, and direction of all the natural powers of man, and its purpose should be to fit the individual for a useful and happy life. Education can come only through the acquisition of knowledge, but knowledge can be obtained in two ways. By knowledge, we mean assurance born of conviction, based upon sufficient evidence, that a mental conception corresponds with that which it represents. The primal way of gaining knowledge is by experience, and undoubtedly this is the most satisfactory and thorough in all cases, where the result of such experience is not of such a nature as to potentially lessen the possibilities of the individual for future usefulness and happiness. Where this would occur, or where, for any reason, such as lack of time or opportunity, it cannot be resorted to, the accurately recorded experience of others can be assimilated through the memory and reasoning faculties, and added to the store of knowledge for the mind’s use. In using the second method of acquiring knowledge, we should not only exercise the utmost care in selecting authorities who have a reputation for keenness of perception and truthfulness of narration, but we should not accept their dictum for what seems to be to us contrary to our previous experience, and unsound to our reason and judgment. Unless we are able to follow with our reason their narration of the causes of events, it is of but little avail that we reach their conclusion.

The adoption of the scientific as distinguished from the Aristotelian system of education by the leading teachers of all the Occidental countries within the last century, has been of enormous benefit to the human race. We know now that the first thing to be learned is to maintain the body in as nearly perfect physical condition as possible—since the mind, to a marked degree, reflects the pathological state of the flesh. Consequently, hygiene becomes the fundamental science in the education of the human being, and facts relating thereto should take precedence generally over all others in the priority of time in a youth’s education.

With the habit of health once established, the next matter is to see that those studies which will place the individual in possession of the greatest numbers of facts concerning his physical and mental environments, and which will give him the best training in observation and reasoning, are pursued.

For this, natural science and its accompanying mathematics, are supreme, although enough manual training and domestic science should be included in the curriculum to insure an acquaintance with the matters of everyday life. Human physiology and anatomy, as well as the subject of parenthood, should also have a share of attention commensurate with their importance—and this has long been denied them. Elementary psychology must also have a place even in that course of education which should be made compulsory in every State. A knowledge of the elementary Latin and Greek is also to be desired in those countries whose vernaculars are largely made up from word-roots to be found in these dead languages.

As a matter of amusement and erudition every individual should have some line of work other than that of his daily routine, upon which to devote his spare time, regardless of the educational advantages which he may have had before assuming his responsibilities in the world’s work. This is equally true of woman. However, this should not be done with the intention of winning fame—although that is not impossible, since Newton developed his Calculus in his spare time after hours, while working as a clerk upon a very moderate salary—or attracting the attention of others, but as a means of self-development. Either some particular unsolved problem may be taken hold of, such as the sciences of chemistry, physics, or biology are so replete with, or the subject of literature and belles lettres may be studied most entertainingly and profitably. This class of workers were very much more numerous formerly than at present, owing to the rise of commercialism recently over the whole world, and it is among these that labor for love, rather than for profit, that much of the real accomplishment occurs. From our standpoint, no plan of human existence can be complete, in the highest and best sense of the word, which does not include this phase of life, nor can any scheme of education be comprehensive which does not lead up to it. There is probably no natural law, the knowledge of which is of so much importance to the human race at large, as that commonly known as the law of compensation. How many of the thinking vulgar have for ages repeated the ancient adage: “You cannot have your pie and eat it.” But it has remained for modern science to demonstrate how absolutely true this is, and Emerson only partly stated his case in one of his best essays: “Tit for tat; an eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure, love for love. Give and it shall be given to you. Nothing venture, nothing have. Thou shalt be paid exactly for what thou hast done, no more, no less. Who doth not work, shall not eat. Harm watch, harm catch. Curses always recoil on the head of him who imprecates them. If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own. Bad council confounds the adviser. ‘What will you have?’ quoth God; ‘pay for it and take it.’” It is one of the largest parts of any education, yea, it is the major, to know that you must pay for what you get in life whether you will or no, and that you are forced constantly to bargain and barter what you have for what you have not, and it is imperative that you see that you get something which you really want, and which will add to your happiness. And, in spite of yourself, you will get what you really want, for you can’t help it; but for it you will have to pay out something, as you are doing all the time. Be sure to get something back of value, let your ideals be high, choose the thing which will give you the most happiness, but, remember, that you must pay its price. It is the sudden realization of the law of compensation, held possibly to an untenable extreme, that accounts for the recent rapid proselyting of the Christian Science cult.