Hmm..this is my last entry for today. I think I like to share
with you about a book that was written more than a century ago. It
is a very good book and I think most of you would not regret after
reading it.
Thanks and God Bless Mankind.
With Love,
Joe
http://www.er.com.sg
PREFACE
TWENTY-FOUR years since, I wrote 'Self-Help.' It was published
three years later, in 1859. The writing of that book was occasioned
by an apparently slight circumstance. I had delivered a few
lectures at Leeds to some young men, in a place that had been used
as a temporary cholera hospital. I endeavoured to point out to them
that their happiness and well-being in after life depended very
much upon themselves - upon their diligent self-culture,
self-discipline, and self-control; and, above all, upon the honest
and upright performance of individual duty, which constitutes the
glory of manly character.
The results were more satisfactory than I could have expected. I
found that many of these young men, as they grew up into manhood,
were chosen to fill positions of trust, responsibility, and
usefulness; and some of them were pleased to attribute some measure
of their honest success in life to their endeavours to work up to
the spirit of the lessons which they had received from their
instructor.
I was thus led to prepare the memoranda for a book on the same
subject; for books reach much faster than spoken words. I prepared
the work in my leisure evening moments, after the hours of business
were over. I entitled the book 'Self-Help,' being able to find no
better word to suit the purpose; though mutual help, as well as
self-help, was prominently set forward.
When the book was prepared, I offered the manuscript to a London
publisher, but it was declined with thanks. The Crimean War was
then raging, and books were almost unsaleable. It was not until
after the 'Life of George Stephenson' had been published, that I
issued 'Self-Help' through the kindness of Mr. Murray.
It was received most favourably. I owe my greatest thanks to the
reviewers. I hope their reviews have been just. With very few
exceptions, they have praised my efforts perhaps more than they
deserved. And yet I knew nothing of them, nor they of me.
'Self-Help' was translated and published in nearly every European
language; as well as into some of the languages or dialects of
India and Japan. In America, the book has been more widely
published and read than in Great Britain. But the English author
can never know the fate of his book in America. Piracy of English
books is protected by American law; and the honest publisher of New
York is overwhelmed by the dishonest publisher of Chicago. I cannot
understand why the American Legislature should be less honest than
the governments of France, Germany, and Italy. In all these
countries international copyright is freely granted.
Thirteen years after the appearance of 'Self-Help,' during which I
had been engaged with other works, I wrote and published
'Character.' I there endeavoured to fill up the picture of the
noble nd magnanimous man and woman, and cited numerous examples
taken from the lives of the best men and women who ever lived. It
seemed to me that this was the best manner of impressing the minds
of young people, by giving them invigorating examples of nobility
of character. "Some people exclaim," said Isaac Disraeli, "give me
no anecdotes of an author, but give me his works; yet I have often
found that the anecdotes are more interesting than the works." This
is the example which I have always pursued. "It is not," said
Plutarch, "in the most distinguished exploits that men's virtues or
vices may be best discovered, but frequently an action of small
note, a short saying, or a jest, that distinguishes a person's real
character more than the greatest battles or the most important
actions."
Five years later, 'Thrift' appeared. In that book I assumed the
dignity of labour, and urged men to economize in order to secure
their independence: to provide for their families, with a view to
the future; to live a clean, sober, and manly life; to avoid the
horrible curse of drink, which keeps so many men and women poor;
and to raise them up to an elevation of virtue, morality, and
religion. I believe that the book has done much good. Since its
publication many institutions have formed for the establishment of
National Thrift; and I know, form many correspondents, that
thriving Penny Banks have been established where they did not exist
before.
Five years after the publication of 'Thrift,' I now give 'Duty' -
the last book of the series. I hope it will be as useful as its
predecessors. I have, at all events, done my best, according to the
faculty that still remains in me. The reader will find, in the
following pages, numerous examples given of the best and bravest
men and women in the career of well-doing.
Great deeds are great legacies, which work with wondrous usury. By
what men have done, we learn what men can do. A great career,
though baulked of its end, is still a landmark of human energy. He
who approaches the highest point of the supreme quality of Duty, is
entitled to rank with the most distinguished of his race.
"The primal duties shine aloft like stars,
And charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers."
LONDON, November 1880.
DUTY
by Samuel Smiles
Chapter 1
Duty - Conscience
Man does not live for himself alone. He lives for the good of
others as well as of himself. Every one has his duties to perform -
the richest as well as the poorest. To some life is pleasure, to
others suffering. But the best do not live for self-enjoyment, or
even for fame. Their strongest motive power is hopeful, useful work
in every good cause.
Hierocles says that each one of us is a centre, circumscribed by
many concentric circles. From ourselves, the first circle extends -
comprising parents, wife, and children. The next concentring circle
comprise relations; then fellow citizens; and lastly, the whole
human race.
To do our duty in this world towards God and towards man,
consistently and steadily, requires the cultivation of all the
faculties which God has given us. And He has given us everything.
It is the higher Will that instructs and guides our will. It is the
knowledge of good and evil, the knowledge of what is right and what
is wrong, that makes us responsible to man here, and to God
hereafter.
The sphere of Duty is infinite. It exists in every station of life.
We have it not in our choice to be rich or poor, to be happy or
unhappy; but it becomes us to do the duty that everywhere surrounds
us. Obedience to duty, at all costs and risks, is the very essence
of the highest civilized life. Great deeds must be worked for,
hoped for, died for, now as in the past.
We often connect the idea of Duty with the soldier's trust. We
remember the pagan sentinel at Pompeii, who died at his post,
during the burial of the city by the ashes of Vesuvius, some
eighteen hundred years ago. This was the true soldier. While others
fled, he stood to his post. It was his Duty. He had been set to
guard the place, and he never flinched. He was suffocated by the
sulphureous vapour of the falling ashes. His body was resolved to
dust, and his memory survives. His helmet, lance, and breast plate
are still to be seen at the Museo Borbonico at Naples.
This soldier was obedient and disciplined. He did waht he was
appointed to do. Obedience, to the parent, to the master, to the
officer, is what every one who would do right should be taught to
learn. Childhood should begin with obedience. Yet age does not
absolve us. We must be obedient even to the end. Duty, in its
purest form, is so constraining that one never thinks, in
performing it, of one's self at all. It is there. It has to be done
without any thought of self-sacrifice.
To come to a much later date than that of the Roman soldier at
Pompeii - When the Birkenhead went down off the coast of Africa,
with her brave soldiers on board firing a few de joie as they sank
beneath the waves, the Duke of Wellington, after the news arrived
in England, was entertained at the Banquet of the Royal Academy.
Macaulay says, "I remarked (and Mr. Lawrence, the American
Minister, remarked the same thing) that in his eulogy of the poor
fellows who were lost, the Duke never spoke of their courage, but
always of their discipline and subordination. He repeated it
several times over. The courage, I suppose, he treated as a matter
of cour."
Duty is self-devoted. It is not merely fearlessness. The gladiator
who fought the lion with the courage of a lion, was urged on by the
ardour of the spectators, and never forgot himself and his prizes.
Pizzarro was full of hardihood. But he was actuated by his love of
gold in the midst of his terrible hardships.
"Do you wish to be great?" asks St. Augustine. "Then begin by being
little. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think
first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure
is to be, the deeper must be its foundation. Modest humility is
beauty's crown."
The best kind of duty is done in secret, and without sight of men.
There it does its work devotedly and nobly. It does not follow the
routine of worldly-wise morality. It does not advertise itself. It
adopts a larger creed and a loftier code; which to be subject to
and to obey, is to consider every human life, and every human
action, in the lightof an eternal obligation to the race. Our evil
or our careless actions incur debts every day, that humanity,
sooner or later, must discharge.
But how to learn to do one's duty? Can there be any difficulty
here? First, there is the pervading, abiding sense of duty to God.
Then follow others: - Duty to one's family; duty to our neighbours;
duty of masters to servants; and of servants to masters; duty to
our fellow creatures; duty to the State, which has also its duty to
perform to the citizen.
Many of these duties are performed privately. Our public life may
be well known, but in private there is that which no one sees - the
inner life of the soul and spirit. We have it in our choice to be
worthy or worthless. No one can kill our soul, which can perish
only by its own suicide. If we can only make ourselves and each
other a little better, holier, and nobler, we have perhaps done the
most that we could.
Here is the manner in which an American legislator stood to his
post:-
An eclipse of the sun happened in New England about a century ago.
The heavens became very dark, and it seemed to many that the Day of
Judgment was at hand. The Legislature of Connecticut happened then
to be in session, and on the darkness coming on, a member moved the
adjournment of the House, on which an old Puritan legislator,
Davenport of Stamford, rose up and said that if the last day had
come, he desired to be found in his place and doing his duty: for
which reasons he moved that candles should be brought, so that the
House might proceed with its business. Waiting at the post of Duty
was the maxim of the wise man, and he carried his motion.
There was a man of delicate constitution, who devoted a great deal
of his time to philanthropic work. He visited the sick, he sat by
them in their miserable homes, he nursed them and helped them in
all ways. He was expostulated with by his friends for neglecting
his business, and threatened with the illness he was sure to
contract by visiting the fevered and the dying. He replied to his
friends with firmness and simplicity, "I look after my business for
the sake of my wife and my children, but I hold that a man's duty
to society requires him to have a care for those who are not of his
own household."
These were the words of a willing servant to duty. It is not the
man who gives his money that is the true benefactor of his kind,
but the man who gives himself. The man who gives his money is
advertised; the man who gives his time, strength, and soul, is
beloved. The one may be remembered, while the other may be
forgotten, though the good influence he has sown will never
die.
But what is the foundation of Duty? Jules Simon has written a
valuable work, 'Le Devoir,' in which he makes duty depend upon
liberty. Men must be free in order to perform their public duties,
as well as to build up their individual character. They are free to
think; they must also be free to act. At the same time liberty may
be used to do evil rather than to do good. The tyranny of a
multitude is worse than the tyranny of an individual. Thoreau, the
American, says that modern freedom is only the exchange of the
slavery of feudality for the slavery of opinion.
Freedom, enjoyed by all men alike, is a late idea in history*. In
remote ages, men who were so-called "free" possessed the right of
being served by slaves. There was slavery in the state, and also in
the family. It existed in republics as well as in monarchies. The
elder Cato, the greatest economist of Republican Rome, enforced the
expediency of getting rid of old slaves to avoid the burden of
their maintenance. The sick and infirm slaves were carried to the
island of AEsculapius, in the Tiber, where they were suffered to
die of disease or of hunger. In Imperial Rome, the Populus Romanus
was dependent upon charity. In England also, when slavery was
abolished, and when the poor were no longer fed by the charity of
the monasteries, a poor law was established, which was only a
compensation for the loss of liberty.
( * The feeling that labour is not an honourable occupation is but
a survival of the old pagan and feudal times, when the plough was
left to the slaves, and only the villeins hoed the corn. The Roman
definition of gentility was gentem habent soli cujus parentes
nemini servierunt - "those only are genteel whose ancestors have
never served." The idea prevalent in the North American Republic,
according to which slave blood, in even the extremest branch,
contaminates, is decidedly of Roman origin. "Dear German peasants,"
says Heine, "go to America: there you will find neither princes nor
nobles; all men are equals, with the exception, in truth, of a few
millions who have a black or a brown skin, and are treated like
dogs. He who has the least trace of negro descent, and betrays his
origin no longer in colour, but in the form of his features, is
forced to suffer the greatest humiliations....Doubtless many a
noble heart may there in silence lament the universal self-seeking
and unrighteousness. Would he, however, strive against it, a
martydom awaits him which surpasses all European conception."
)
There is a stronger word than Liberty, and that is Conscience. From
the beginning of civilization the power of this word has been
acknowledged. Menander, the Greek poet, who lived three hundred
years before Christ, duly recognized it. "In our own breast," he
said, "we have a god - our conscience." Again he says, "Tis not to
live, to live for self alone. Whenever you do what is holy, be of
good cheer, knowing that God himself takes part with rightful
courage. The rich heart is the great thing that man wants."
Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called
the religious instinct. It first reveals itself when we become
aware of the strife between a higher and a lower nature within us -
of spirit warring against flesh - of good striving for the mastery
over evil. Look where you will, in the church or without the
church, the same struggle is always going on - war for life or
death; men and women wrung with pain because they love the good and
cannot yet attain it.
It is out of this experience that Religion is born - the higher law
leading us up to One whom the law of conscience represents. "It is
an introspection," says Canon Mozley, "on which all religion has
been built. Man going into himself and seeing the struggle within
him, and thence getting self-knowledge, and thence the knowledge of
God." Under this influence man knows and feels what is right and
wrong. He has the choice between good and evil. And because he is
free to choose, he is responsible
Whatever men may theoretically believe, none practically feel that
their actions are necessary and inevitable. There is no constraint
upon our volition. We know that we are not compelled, as by a
spell, to obey any particular motive. "We feel," says John Stuart
Mill, "that if we wished to prove that we have the power of
resisting the motive, we could do so; and it would be humiliating
to our pride, and paralysing to our desire of excellence, if we
thought otherwise."
Our actions are controllable, else why do men all over the world
enact laws? They are enacted in order to be obeyed, because it is
the universal belief, as it is the universal fact, that men obey
them or not, very much as they determine. We feel, each one of us,
that our habits and temptations are not our masters, but we of
them. Even in yielding to tham we know that we could resist, and
that, were we desirous of throwing themoff altogether, there could
not be required for that purpose a stronger desire or will than we
know ourselves to be capable of feeling.
To enjoy spiritual freedom of the highest kind, the mind must have
been awakened by knowledge. As the mind has become enlightened, and
conscience shows its power, the responsibility of man increases. He
submits himself to the influence of the Supreme Will, and acts in
conformity with it - not by constraint, but cheerfully; and the law
which holds him is that of Love. In the act of belief, implying
knowledge and confidence, his humanity unfolds. He feels that by
his own free act, his faith in and his working in conformity to the
purpose of a Divine Will, he is achieving good, and scuring the
highest good.
"Man without religion," says Archdeacon Hare, "is the creature of
circumstances; but religion is above all circumstances, and will
lift him up above them." And Thomas Lynch, in his 'Theophilus
Trinal,' says, "Till fixed, we are not free. The acorn must be
earthed ere the oak will develop. The man of faith is the man who
has taken root - taken root in God; our works prove our heart - our
heart in God." In the New Testament we find, "Where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is liberty." And Cowper:
"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free
And all are slaves beside."
Where there is no such acknowledgment of Divine law, men act in
obedience to sense, to passion, to selfishness. In indulging any
vicious propensity, they know they are doing wrong. Their
conscience condemns them. The law of nature cries out against them.
They know that their act has been wilful and sinful. But their
power to resist in the future has become weakened. Their will has
lost power; and next time the temptation offers, the resistance
will be less. Then the habit is formed. The curse of every evil
deed is that, propagating still, it brings forth evil.
But conscience is not dead. We cannot dig a grave for it, and tell
it to lie there. We may trample it under foot, but it still lives.
Every sin or crime has, at the moment of its perpetration, its own
avenging angel. We cannot blind our eyes to it, or stop our ears to
it. "Thus conscience does make cowards of us all." There comes a
day of judgment, even in this world, when it stands up confronting
us, and warning us to return to the life of well-doing.
Conscience is permanent and universal. It is the very essence of
individual character. It gives a man self-control - the power of
resisting temptations and defying them. Every man is bound to
develop his individuality, to endeavour to find the right way of
life, and to walk in it. He has the will to do so: he has the power
to be himself and not the echo of somebody else, nor the reflection
of lower conditions, nor the spirit of current conventions. True
manhood comes from self-control - from subjection of the lower
powers to the higher conditions of our being.
The only comprehensive and sustained exercise of self-control is to
be attained through the ascendency of conscience - in the sense of
duty performed. It is conscience alone which sets a man on his
feet, frees him from the dominions of his own passions and
propensities. It places him in relation to the best interests of
his kind. The truest source of enjoyment is found in the paths of
duty alone. Enjoyment will come as the unbidden sweetener of
labour, and crown every right work.
At its fullest growth, conscience bids men do whatever makes them
happy in the highest sense, and forbear whatever makes them
unhappy. "There are few if any among civilized people," says
Herbert Spencer, "who do not agree that human well-being is in
accordance with Divine Will. The doctrine is taught by all our
religious teachers; it is assumed by every writer on morality: we
may therefore safely consider it an admitted truth."
Without conscience, a man can have no higher principle of action
than pleasure. He does what he likes best, whether it be sensuality
or even sensuous intellectual enjoyment. We are not sent into the
world to follow our own bent - to indulge merely in
self-satisfaction. The whole constitution of nature works against
this idea of life. The mind ought never to be held in subjection to
the lower parts of our nature. There can be no self-sacrifice, no
self-denial,no self-control - except what may be necessary to avoid
the consequences of human law.
A race so constituted, with intellect and passions such as man
possesses, and without the paramount influence of conscience to
govern their deeds, would soon be consigned to utter anarchy and
terminate in mutual destruction. We partly see the results already,
in the mad riot in human life which has recently prevailed among
the Nihilists in Germany and Russia, and the fire and destruction
of the Communists' war in Paris. Such a principle prevailing
throughout society, can lead to nothing else than utter
demoralization - individual, social, and national.
The only method left is to recall men to their sense of duty. The
task of our fathers has been to conquer right; be it the task of
this generation to teach and propagate duty. Give justice also -
justice, which is the splendour of virtue; and benevolence, its
companion. There is a sentence in the Evangelists which comes back
to us without ceasing, and which ought to be written on every page
of a book of morality: "Do unto others as ye would that they should
do unto you." "In life," says Wilhelm von Humboldt, "it is worthy
of special remark, that when we are not too anxious about happiness
and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing
performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself, - nay, even
springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and
privations."
"What is your duty?" asks Goethe. "The carrying out of the affairs
of the day that lies before you." But this is too narrow a view of
duty. "What again," he asks, "is the best government? That which
teaches us to govern ourselves." Plutarch said to the Emperor
Trajan, "Let your government commence in your own breast, and lay
the foundation of itin the command of your own passions." Here come
in the words, self-control, duty, and conscience. "There will come
a time," said Bishop Hooker, "when three words, uttered with
charity and meekness, shall receive a far more blessed reward than
three thousand volumes written with the disdainful sharpness of
wit."
It is well for the soul to look on actions done for love, not for
selfish objects, but for duty, mercy, and loving-kindness. There
are many things done for love, which are a thousand times better
than those done for money. The former inspire the spirit of heroism
and self-devotion. The latter die with the giving. Duty that is
bought is worth little. "I consider," said Dr. Arnold, "beyond all
wealth, honour, or even health,is the attachment due to noble
souls; because to become one with the good, generous, and true, is
to be in a manner, good, generous, and true yourself."
Every man has a service to do, to himself as an individual, and to
those who are near him. In fact, life is of little value unless it
be consecrated by duty. "Show those qualities altogether in thy
power - sincerity, gravity, endurance of labour, aversion to
pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things,
benevolence, frankness, and magnanimity."
The greatest intellectual power may exist without a particle of
magnanimity. The latter comes from the highest power in man's mind
- conscience, and from the highest faculty, reason, and capacity
for faith - that by which man is capable of apprehending more than
the senses supply. It is this which makes man a reasonable creature
- more than a mere animal. Mr. Darwin has truly said "that the
motives of conscience, as connected with repentance and the
feelings of duty, are the most important differences which separate
man from the animal."
We are invited to believe in the all-powerful potency of matter. We
are to believe only in what we can see with our eyes, and touch
with our hands. We are to believe in nothing that we do not
understand. But how very little do we absolutely know and
understand! We see only the surfaces of things, "as in a glass
darkly." How can matter help us to understand the mysteries of
life? We know absolutely nothing about the causes of volition,
sensation and mental action. We know that they exist, but we cannot
understand them.
When a young man declared to Dr. Parr that he would believe nothing
he did not understand, "Then, sir," said the doctor, "your creed
would be the shortest of any man whom I ever knew." But Sydney
Smith siad a better thing than this. At the dinner at Holland
House, a foreigner announced himself as a materialist. Presently
Sydney Smith observed, "A very good soufflet this! To which the
materialist rejoined, "Oui, monsieur; il est ravissant!" "By the
way, " replied Smith, with his usual knock-down application, "may I
ask, sir, whether you happen to believe in a cook?"
We must believe a thousand things that we do not understand. Matter
and its combinations are as great a mystery as Life is. Look at
those numberless far-off worlds majestically wheeling in their
appointed orbits; or at this earth on which we live, performing its
diurnal motion on its own axis, during its annual circle round the
sun. What do we understand about the causes of such motions? What
can we ever know about them, beyond the fact that such things are?
"The circuit of the sun in the heavens," says Pascal, "vast as it
is, is itself only a delicate point when compared with the vaster
circuit that is accomplished by the stars. Beyond the range of
sight, this universe is but a spot in the ample bosom of nature. We
can only imagine of atoms as compared with the reality, which is an
infinite sphere, of which the centre is everywhere, the
circumference nowhere. What is man in the midst of this infinite?
But there is another prospect not less astounding; it is the
Infinite beneath him. Let him look to the smallest of the things
which come under his notice - a mite. It has limbs, veins, blood
circulating in them, globules in that blood, humours, and serum.
Within the enclosure of this atom, I will show you not merely the
visible universe, but the very immensity of nature. Whoever gives
his mind to thoughts such as this, will be terrified at himself -
trembling where nature has placed him - suspended, as it were,
between infinity and nothingness. The Author of those wonders
comprehends them; none but He can do so."
Confucius taught his disciples to believe that Conduct is
three-fourths of life. "Ponder righteousness, and practise virtue.
Knowledge, magnanimity, and energy, are universally binding.
Gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness,
constitute perfect virtue." These words come to us as the far-off
echo of the great teacher of ten thousand ages, as his disciples
called him - the holy and prescient sage Confucius.
But all these virtues come from the innate monitor Conscience. From
this first principle all rules of behaviour are drawn. It bids us
do what we call right, and forbids us doing what we call wrong. At
its fullest growth it bids us do what makes others happy, and
forbids us doing what makes others unhappy. The great lesson to
belearnt is, that man must strengthen himself to perform his duty
and do what is right, seeking his happiness and inward peace in
objects that cannot be taken away from him. Conscience is the
conflict by which we get the mastery over our own failings. It is a
silent working of the inner man, by which he proves his peculiar
power of the will and spirit of God.
(Socrates)
We have also something to learn from the noble old Greeks as to the
virtue of Duty. Socrates is considered by some as the founder of
Greek philosophy. It was his belief that he was specially charged
by the Deity to awaken moral consciousness in men. He was born at
Athens 468 years before Christ. He received the best education
which an Athenian could obtain. He first learnt sculpture, in which
he acquired some reputation. He then served his country as a
soldier, according to the duty of all Athenian citizens. The oath
which he took, in common with all other youths, was as follows: "I
will not disgrace the sacred arms entrusted to me by my country;
nor will I desert the place committed to me to defend."
He displayed much fortitude and valour in all the expeditions in
which he was engaged. In one of the engagements which took place
before Potidaea, Alcibiades fell wounded in the midst of the enemy.
Socrates rushed forward to rescue him, and carried him back,
together with his arms. For this gallant performance he was awarded
the civic crown as the prize of valour - the Victoria Cross of
those days. His second campaign was no less honourable. At the
disastrous battle of Delium he saved the life of Xenophon, whom he
carried from the field on his shoulder, fighting his way as he
went. He served in another campaign, after which he devoted himself
for a time to the civil service of his country.
He was as brave as a senator as he had been as a soldier. He
possessed that high moral courage which can brave not only death
but adverse opinion. He could defy a tyrant, as well as tyrannical
mob. When the admirals were tried after the battle of Arginusae,
for not having rescued the bodies of the slain, Socrates stood
alonein defending them. The mob were furious. He was dismissed from
the Council, and the admirals were condemned.
Socrates then devoted himself to teaching. He stood in the
market-places, entered the workshops, and visited the schools, in
order to teach the people his ideas respecting the scope and value
of human speculation and action. He appeared during a time of utter
scepticism. He endeavoured to withdraw men from their metaphysical
speculation about nature, which had led them into the inextricable
confusion of doubt. "Is life worth living?" was a matter of as much
speculation in those days as it is in ours. Socrates bade them look
inwards. While men were propitiating the gods, he insisted upon
moral conduct as alone guiding man to happiness here and
hereafter.
Socrates went about teaching. Wise men and pupils followed him.
Aristippus offered him a large sum of money, but the offer was at
once declined. Socrates did not teach for money, but to propagate
wisdom. He declared that the highest reward he could enjoy was to
see mankind benefiting by his labours.
He did not expound from books; he merely argued. "Books,' he said,
"cannot be interrogated, cannot answer, therefore they cannot
teach. We can only learn from them what we knew before." He
endeavoured to reduce things to their first elements, and to arrive
at certainty as the only standard of truth. He believed in the
unity of virtue, and averred that it was teachable as a matter of
science. He was of opinion that the only valuable philosophy is
that which teaches us our moral duties and religious hopes. He
hated injustice and folly of all kinds, and never lost an occasion
of exposing them. He expressed his contempt for the capacity for
government assumed by all men. He held that only the wise were fit
to govern, and that they were the few.
In his seventy-second year he was brought before the judges. The
accusers stated their charge as follows: "Socrates is an evil-doer,
and corrupter of the youth; he does not receive the gods whom the
state receives, but introduces new divinities." He was tried on
these grounds, and condemned to die. He was taken to his prison,
and for thirty days he conversed with his friends on his favourite
topics. Crito provided for him the means of escaping from prison,
but he would not avail himself of the opportunity. He conversed
about the immortality of the soul,* about courage, and virtue, nd
temperance, about absolute beauty and absolute good, and about his
wife and children.
He consoled his weeping friends, and gently upbraided them for
their complaints about the injustice of his sentence. He was about
to die. Why should they complain? He was far advanced in years. Had
they waited a short time, the thing would have happened in the
course of nature. No man ever welcomed death as a new birth to a
higher state of being with greater faith. The time at length came
when the gaoler presented him with the cup of hemlock. He drank it
with courage, and died in complete calmness. "Such was the end,"
said Phaedo, "of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest and
justest and best of all the men whom I have ever known."
( * "If death," he said, "had only been the end of all, the wicked
would have had a good bargain in dying, for they would have been
happily quit, not only of their bodies, but of their own evil,
together with their souls. But now, inasmuch as the soul is
manifestly immortal, there is no release or salvation from evil,
except the attainment of the highest virtues and wisdom," -
Jowett's "Dialogues of Plato," i. 488 )
(Plato)
Socrates wrote no books. Nearly all that we know of him is derived
from his illustrious disciples, Plato and Xenophon, who have
embalmed the memory of his actions, lessons, wrongs, and death.
Plato lived with him for ten years, and afterwards expounded his
views in the famous 'Dailogues'; but in these dialogues it is
difficult to know which is Plato and which is Socrates. After they
had been separated by death, Plato, in his fortieth year, travelled
into Sicily. He there became acquaintdwith Dionysius I., the Tyrant
of Syracuse. Owing to a difference of opinion about politics, for
Plato was bold and free in his expressions about liberty, the
tyrant threatened his life. Dion, his brother, interceded for him,
and his life was saved; but he was ordered to be sold as a slave.
He was bought by a friend, and immediately set at liberty.
Plato returned to Athens, and began to teach. Like his master, he
taught without money and without price. It is not necessary to
foloow his history. Suffice it to say, that he devoted himself to
the inculcation of truth, morality, and duty. He divided the four
cardinal virtues into (1) Prudence and wisdom; (2) Courage,
constancy, and fortitude; (3) Temperance, discretion,and
self-control; and (4) Justice and righteousness. He assumed this
division of virtue as the basis of his moral philosophy. "let men
of all ranks," he said, "whether they are successful or
unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not - let them do their duty,
and rest satisfied." What a lesson for future ages lies in these
words!
Plato devoted the end of his days to the calm retirement of his
Academy. The composition of the 'Dialogues,' which have been the
admiration of posterity, was the cheering solace of his life, and
especially of his declining years. He has been called the Divine
Plato. His soul panted for truth. This alone, he said, should be
man's great object. Like his master, he connected with Supreme
Intelligence the attributes of goodness, justic, and wisdom, and
the idea of direct interposition in human affairs. He disliked
poetry as much as Carlyle. The only poetry he ever praises is moral
poetry, which is in truth verified philosophy. Let it be remarked
that he lived about foru hundred years before Christ. Coleridge
speaks of him as the genuine prophet of the Christian Era; and
Count de Maistre was accustomed to say of him, "Let us never leave
a great question without having consulted Plato."
The New Testament gives a glorigied ideal of a possible human life;
but hard are his labours who endeavours to keep that ideal
uppermost in his mind. We feel that there is something else that we
would like to do, much better than the thing that is incumbent upon
us. But the Duty is there, and it must be done, without dreaming or
idling. How much of the philosophy of moral health and happiness is
involved in the injunction, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do
it with all thy might." He that does his best, whatever his lot may
be, is on the sure road of advancement.
It is related of one, who in the depths of his despair cried, "It
is of no use to be good, for you cannot be good, and if you were,
it would do you no good." It is hopeless, truthless, and faithless,
thus to speak of the goodness of word and work. Each one ofus can
do a little good in our own sphere of life. If we can do it, we are
bound to do it. We haveno more right to render ourselves useless
than to destroy ourselves.
We have to be faithful in small things as well as in great. We are
required to make as good a use of our one talent as of the many
talents that have been conferred upon us. We can follow the
dictates of our conscience, and walk, though alone, in the paths of
duty. We can be honest, truthful, diligent, were it only out of
respect for one's self. We have to be faithful even to the end. Who
is not struck with the answer of the slave, who, when asked by an
intending purchaser, "Wilt thou be faithful if I buy thee?" "Yes,"
said the slave, "whether you buy me or not."
In the description of a sermon preached to the working classes by
Dr. Macleod, in the Barony Church of Glasgow, it is said that he
made a grand stand for Character. From the highest to the lowest
that was the grand aim to be made. He said that "the most valuable
thing that Prince Albert had left was character. He knew perfectly
well that many very poor people thought it was impossible for them
to have a Character. It was not true; he would not hear of it.
There was not a man or woman before him, however poor they might
be, but had it in their power, by the grace of God, to leave behind
them the grandest thing on earth, Character; and their children
might rise up after them and than God that their mother was a pious
woman, or their father a pious man."
Character is made up of small duties faithfully performed - of
self-denials, of self-sacrifices, of kindly acts of love and duty.
The backbone of character is laid at home, and whether the
constitutional tendencies to be good or bad, home influences will
as a rule fan them into activity. "he that is faithful in little is
faithful in much; and he that is unfaithful in little is unfaithful
also in much." Kindness begets kindness, and truth and trust will
bear a rich harvest of truth and trust. There are many little
trivial acts of kindness which teach us more about a man's
character than many vague phrases. These are easy to acquire, and
their effects will last much longer than this very temporary
life.
For no good thing is ever lost. Nothing dies, not even life, which
gives up one form only to resume another. No good action, no good
example, dies. It lives for ever in our race. While the frame
moulders and disappears, the deed leaves an indelible stamp, and
moulds the very thought and will of future generations. Time is not
the measure of a noble work: the coming age will share our joy. A
single virtuous action has elevated a whole village, a whole city,
a whole nation. "The present moment," says Goethe, "is a powerful
diety." Man's best products are his happy and sanctifying thoughts,
which, when once formed and put in practice, extend their
fertilizing influence for thousands of years, and from generation
to generation. It is from small seeds dropped into the ground that
the finest productions grow; and it is from the inborn dictates of
Conscience and the inspired principle of Duty that the finest
growths of Character have arisen. Thus sings Wordsworth of
Duty:-
"Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are
fresh and strong."
