moral insight, it will be on this stage imperfect. He will seek only to multiply himself in the forms of other men. These he will call his friends. That in which he does not recognize him¬ self, he will “ whack.”
But most men cannot keep this form of the illu¬ sion of individualism. They pass most of their lives in the midst of disappointment. The self cannot get its objects. The ideal independence is hampered. The stubborn world asserts itself against us. We feel the littleness of our powers and of our plans. The broken and despairing self has to seek refuge elsewhere. And so individualism most commonly assumes another shape. In inner self-development we seek what the world refuses us in outer self-reali¬ zation. Thoughts at least are free. Our emotions are our own. The world does not understand them; but the world is cold and unappreciative. Let us be within ourselves what we cannot get in the outer world. Let us be inwardly complete, even if we are outwardly failures. Then we shall outwit the cruel world, and produce the successful self, in spite of misfortunes.
The reader need not be reminded of what vast development individualism has undergone in this di¬ rection. Literature is full of accounts of struggles for inward self-realization, made by men whose outer growth is impeded. The Hamlets and the Fausts of poetry, the saints and the self-conscious martyrs of great religious movements, are familiar examples. W e have already in a former chapter studied the out¬ come of this romantic individualism in a few cases. There is no time to dwell here afresh at any length on so familiar a theme, but for the present we may point out that all illustrations of the tendency fall into two classes, representing respectively the senti¬ mental and the heroic individualism. These are the forms of that Nobler Selfishness which benevolent hedonism defends. They are efforts to find the con¬ tented and perfected self. Their failure is the fail¬ ure of individualism, and therewith of hedonism.
As for the sentimental individualism, we have seen already how unstable are its criteria of perfection, how full of fickleness is its life. The sentimental self admits that the world cannot understand it, and will not receive it; but it insists that this neglect comes because the world does not appreciate the strength and beauty of the inner emotional life. The ideal, then, is devotion to a culture of the beautiful soul, and to a separation of this soul from all other life. Let other souls be saved in like fashion. One does not object to their salvation; but one insists that each saved soul dwells apart in its own sensitive feel¬ ings, in the world of higher artistic pleasures. Now in fact such lives may be not uninteresting to the moralist; but no moralist can be really content with their ideal. Its best direct refutation is after all a sense of humor strong enough to let the sensitive and beautiful soul see once in a while how comical is its demure pursuit of these subjective phantoms. This miserable life of deep inward excitements and long¬ ings, how absurd it seems to any critic who, standing outside, sees that there is nothing more than froth and illusion and hypocrisy in it. Heine’s anecdote of the monkey boiling his own tail so as to get an inward sense of the nature and worth of the art of cookery, is what first comes to mind when we see such a man as this subjective idealist of the emo¬ tions. You have only to get him to laugh heartily once or twice, and his Philistine narrowness can no longer content him. “ Why is just my feeling worth so much?” he will say. And then he will wake up to observe that his ideal was all a bad dream; and that an experience has no more or less worth because it happens in connection with the decomposition of his particular brain-stuff. Faust discovered that, as we have seen; and so in time will any other sensible man. The real reason after all why Mephistopheles could not get Faust’s soul was that Faust could understand the Mephistophelean wit, which was throughout destructive of individualism. The sen¬ timentalist who has no humor is once for all given over to the devil, and need sign no contract. He stares into every mirror that he passes, and, cursing the luck that makes him move so fast in this world, he murmurs incessantly, Verweile dock, du hist so schon. And so in the presence of the moral insight he is forthwith and eternally damned, unless some miracle of grace shall save him. It is noteworthy that one or two of our recent and youngest novelists in this country have gained a certain reputation by sentimental stories of collegiate and post-graduate life that precisely illustrate this simple-minded but abominable spirit. May these young authors repent while there is time, if indeed they can repent.
Less dangerous to genuine morality, and far higher in the scale of worth, is the Titanic form of individualism, the form that has given birth to such expressions as the Everlasting No of “ Sartor Resartus.” The name of Prometheus at once springs to our lips when we think of this view of life. Pro¬ metheus is so fully the representative of Titan ism, that there is no better way of characterizing its whole spirit than to call it the Heresy of Prome¬ theus, the finest of all moral heresies, and the last.
The world will not grant you outward freedom, and you see the hollowness of that inward life of blessed emotions. You despise it in others; you see that the moral insight cannot approve such a form of selfish separation in you or in them. But there is another form of self - development. You must be something. Why not be heroic? Possibly the ideal is a world of courageous selves, that find their per¬ fection in their independence of action. Prometheus gave this ideal a peculiar emphasis by reason of the fact that he had a Zeus to defy. But the same ideal, in a more moderate expression, is the ideal of many a quiet, matter of fact man, who has little happiness, but much spirit and energy, who is too busy and too healthy to be sentimental, who knows little of poetry, who has never heard the name of Prometheus, but who knows what it is to hold his own in the fight with the world. This man you cannot put down; he cares little for the opinions of others. There is no judge above him save God or his conscience. He is no saint; but he is at least an admirable fellow. He belongs to the race of Achilles; he believes in the gospel of eternal warfare against whatever seems to him evil. He respects others; he wants to do good in his way. But he thinks that the best good that he could do would be to make other men brave like himself. This lonely, active, indomitable self he thinks the ideal type of perfection. For him the moral insight does not go beyond the approval of such life as this, indefinitely multiplied.
It is always a delight to follow this Titanism in its various shapes. Buddhism, as we know, is a re¬ ligion wholly founded on self-denial, and it counsels austere self -extinction. And yet, by a strange freak of moral dialectics, it is Buddhism that has given us some of the best expressions of the Titanic indi¬ vidualism. In a Buddhist homily in the Sutta Nipata 1 one may find such an outburst as the follow¬ ing, — one of the finest of the confessions of the Titans: — “ Having laid aside the rod against all beings, and not hurting any of them, let no one wish for a son, much less for a companion; let him wander alone like a rhinoceros.
“ In him who has intercourse with others, affections arise, and then the pain which follows affection; consid¬ ering the misery that originates in affection, let one wan¬ der alone like a rhinoceros.
“ He who has compassion on his friends and confiden¬ tial companions loses his own advantage, having a fettered mind; seeing this danger in friendship, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.
“ Just as a large bamboo-tree, with its branches entan¬ gled in each other, such is the care one has with children and wife; hut like the shoot of the bamboo not clinging to anything, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.
“ As a beast unbound in the forest goes feeding at pleas- 1 Max Muller’s Sacred Books of the East, vol. x., part ii., p. 6 sqq.
ure, so let the wise man, considering only his own will, wander alone like a rhinoceros...“ Discontented are some ascetics, also some householders, dwelling in houses; let one, caring little about other people’s children, wander alone like a rhinoc¬ eros.
“ If one acquires a clever companion, an associate right¬ eous and wise, let him, overcoming all dangers, wander about with him glad and thoughtful.
“ If one does not acquire a clever companion, an asso¬ ciate righteous and wise, then as a king abandoning his conquered kingdom, let him wander alone like a rhinoc¬...“ Seeing bright golden bracelets, well-wrought by the goldsmith, striking against each other when there are two on one arm, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.
“ Thus, if I join myself with another, I shall swear or scold; considering this danger in future, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros...
• • • “ Both cold and heat, hunger and thirst, wind and a burning sun, and gadflies and snakes, — having over¬ come all these things, let one wander alone like a rhinoc¬ eros.
“ As the elephant, the strong, the spotted, the large, after leaving the herd walks at pleasure in the forest, even so let one wander alone like a rhinoceros...“Not adorning himself, not looking out for sport, amuse¬ ment, and the delight of the pleasure in the world; on the contrary, being loath of a life of dressing, speaking the truth, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros...“ This is a tie, in this there is little happiness, little enjoyment, but more of pain, this is a fishhook, so having understood, let a thoughtful man wander al,one like a rhinoceros.
“ Having torn the ties, having broken the net as a fish in the water, being like a fire not returning to the burnt place, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros...“Not abandoning seclusion and meditation, always wandering in accordance with the Dhammas, seeing misery in the existences, let one wander alone like the rhinoc¬ eros.
“ Wishing for the destruction of desire, being careful, no fool, learned, strenuous, considerate, restrained, ener¬ getic, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.
“ Like a lion not trembling at noises, like the wind not caught in a net, like a lotus not stained by water, let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.
“ As a lion strong by his teeth, after overcoming all an¬ imals, wanders victorious as the king of the animals, and haunts distant dwelling-places, even so let one wander alone like a rhinoceros.”...“ They cultivate the society of others, and serve them for the sake of advantage; friends without a motive are now difficult to get, men know their own profit and are impure; therefore let one wander alone like a rhinoc¬ eros.”
When one contemplates the ideal of the heroic in¬ dividualism in this its purest form, rugged, empty of sensuous comforts, yet noble and inspiring in all but the highest degree, one feels how hard the decision as to its worth will be, unless the moral insight gives very definitely and authoritatively its ruling in the matter. But fortunately, in trying to judge of even so splendid a caprice as this, we are not left to our individual opinion. The will of the Titan as to the world of life is simply, by hypothesis, not the univer¬ sal will. The one being that included in his life all our petty lives, how must he regard this self-seeking loneliness of disposition? What is this heroic life but an overflow from the great stream of universal life, a pool, that, left to itself by some subsiding flood, slowly dries away in its shallow stagnancy, until it becomes a mud-puddle? And as for the proof of this, what becomes of your hero if you take him at his word, and leave him to himself like a rhi¬ noceros? Then indeed he soon sinks to the level of a peevish animal. His admirable character is what it is by reason of his conflicts with his fellows, and by reason of the respect that he excites in others. Stop talking about him, cease admiring him, do not even fight with him, ignore him utterly; and with these external supports see his inner heroism vanish. He exists as hero, in fact, only because he is in or¬ ganic relation to the world about him. His boasted loneliness is an illusion. Could not Mephistopheles have his laugh here tc5o?
But the Titan is often properly the hero not only of a comedy, but also of a tragedy; and a tragedy, as we know, always discovers to us the gloomy worth¬ lessness of this individual life as such. Mortal man, once brought to possess the moral insight, finds his destiny not in himself, but in the life about him, or in the ideal life of God. And the tragedy expresses one way of getting this insight.
In short, just what the Heresy of Prometheus as¬ serts to be the perfect, namely, the complete and allsided development of life, just that can belong only to the general, not to the individual life. Hence Titanism always contradicts itself. It says that I, the narrow, limited self, who am dependent for every quality of my life on constant living intercourse with other people, must become perfect, independent, practically infinite. But to ask this is to ask that I destroy myself, and my Titanism with me. Unquiet is and must be the life that seeks perfection in any group of selves. And so the ideal cannot here be found.
V.
V.
Somewhat hastily, as our limits have required, we have pursued the definition of our ideal through the imperfect forms of individualism. And now what must it be that the moral insight, with its Universal Will, demands of the possible future moral humanity, not as the negative task of preparing the way for goodness, but as the positive ideal task of the com¬ munity in which the moral insight is attained? This demand is: Organize all Life. And this means: Find work for the life of the coming moral human¬ ity which shall be so comprehensive and definite that each moment of every man’s life in that perfect state, however rich and manifold men’s lives may then be, can be and will be spent in the accomplish¬ ment of that one highest impersonal work. If such work is found and accepted, the goal of human prog¬ ress will be in so far reached. There will then be harmony, the negative expression of the moral in¬ sight; and there will be work, and organization of work. And this work will be no more the work of so and so many separate men, but it will be the work of man as man. And the separate men will not know or care whether they separately are happy; for they shall have no longer individual wills, but the Universal Will shall work in and through them, as the one will of two lovers finds itself in the united life of these twain, so that neither of them asks, as lover, whether this is his perfection or the other’s that he experiences. For their love makes them one. In such wise we must figure to ourselves the ideal state of humanity. And anything short of that we are required by the moral insight to alter in the direction of that end.
The reader may ask, What work can be found that can thus realize the universal will? It is not for us to know the whole nature of that work. We set before us the ideal task to discover such forms of activity as shall tend to organize life. The com¬ plete organization we cannot now foresee. But we can foresee in what general direction that human activity will tend, if it is ever discovered. For we have certain human activities that do now already tend to the impersonal organization of the life of those engaged in them. Such activities are found in the work of art, in the pursuit of truth, and in a genuine public spirit. Beauty, Knowledge, and the State, are three ideal objects that do actually claim from those who serve them harmony, freedom from selfishness, and a wholly impersonal devotion. Both in art and in the service of the state, the weakness of human nature makes men too often put personal ambition before the true service of their chosen ideal. The faultiness of all such individualism is, however, generally recognized. The dignity and severely impersonal relationships and language of offi¬ cial life are intended to express the sense that no in¬ dividual has as such the right to recognition at the moment when he exercises an official function. He lives at the time wholly in his office. The state is just then everything. Even so all higher criticism professes to disregard the personal pleasure of the artist, and the personal whim of the critic. The production and the criticism of Art are no amuse¬ ments of two individuals. They are work done in the service of the one mistress, the divine art it¬ self. But still, notwithstanding the recognition of this ideal devotion to one’s country or to one’s art, our typical politician and our typical ambitious ar¬ tist show us that these activities still but imperfectly overcome individualism, or lead men to the higher plane of moral life. Better success in organizing life one finds, when one passes to the activity of truth¬ seeking, especially in fields where human thought is best master of itself, and best conscious of its powers. When one considers the work of a company of scientific specialists, — how each one lives for his science, and how, when the specialty is advanced and well organized, no one in official expressions of his purely scientific purposes dares either to give himself airs of importance as an individual, or to show any benevolence or favoritism or fear in con¬ sidering and testing the work of anybody else; when one sees how impersonal is this idea of the scientific life, how no self of them all is supposed to have a thought about his science because it pleases him, but solely because it is true, — when one considers all this, one sees faintly what the ideal relation of mankind would be, if the ideal work for all men were found. This devoted scientific spirit is itself only an ideal even to-day; and all sorts of personal motives still interfere to disturb its purity. But here, at all events, one sees dimly in a concrete in¬ stance what the organization of life may yet be¬ come.
Now suppose a world in which men had some one. end of activity that united somehow all the differ¬ ent strivings of our nature, — aesthetic, social, theo¬ retical. Suppose that in the pursuit of this end all the petty, selfish aims of individuals had been for¬ gotten. Suppose that men said no longer: “ I have won this good thing for myself and my friends,” but only, “This good is attained,” no matter by whom. Suppose that thus all life was organized in and through this activity, so that a man rose up and lay down to rest, ate and drank, exercised and amused his senses, met his fellows, talked with them, lived and planned with them, built his cities, wan¬ dered over the oceans, searched the heavens with his telescopes, toiled in his laboratories, sang his songs, wrote his poems, loved and died, all for the service of this one great work, and knew his life only as the means to serve that one end, then would the ideal of the moral insight be attained. The world of life would be as one will, working through all and in all, seeking the ends of no one individual, caring not for any stupid and meaningless “ aggre¬ gate ” of individual states, but getting what 4s in¬ sight it demands, the absolute Unity of Life. Then indeed we should have reached the ideal; and this being the ideal, all is good that helps us in the di¬ rection thereof, and all is evil that drives us in the opposing direction.
The imperfection and the relative justification in its place of benevolent hedonism are thus indicated. The moral insight being attained by all men as an experience, this insight could not will for individuals such painful experiences as would degrade the suf¬ ferers below the level of the insight itself, back to the struggles and the illusions of individualism. It would be the business of men then as now, to remove useless pain out of the world, not however for any other reason than that pain implies separation of the sufferer from the consciousness of universal life, and consequent disharmony of his will in its relation to other wills. Pain that springs from selfish disap¬ pointments we must often temporarily increase, that we may lead a man out of himself. But for the rest, the moral insight rejects pain, though only be¬ cause it means disharmony of the wills that are in the world.
Thus we have completed the expression of our gen¬ eral ideal. We must add a few concrete precepts that this ideal has to give us concerning the conduct of our daily life. Plainly, if such a goal as this is what we aim at from afar, the acts of our lives must be influenced by it. Wliat relation between me and my neighbor to-day does this moral law establish?
Thou and I, neighbor, have in this world no rights as individuals. We are instruments. The insight that begins in me when I find thee, must go further I find not only thee, but also Life Universal. In¬ asmuch as I do anything for thee, I do it also to the life universal; but, even so, it is only because I serve the life universal that I dare serve thee. Thy happiness, however near and dear thou art to me, is but a drop in this vast ocean of life. And we must be ready to sacrifice ourselves to the Whole. But while we live together, and while we may with¬ out sin enjoy each other’s presence, how shall we treat each other? As mere masses of happy or miserable states? As selves to be made separately perfect! No, that cannot be. We must live united with each other and the world. Therefore must we do our part to find work vast enough to bring us all in so far as may be into unity, without cramping the tal¬ ent of any of us. Each then is to do his work, but so as to unite with the work of others. How may we accomplish this? By seeking to develop every form of life that does bring men into such oneness. Our vocation, whatever it be, must not end simply in increasing what people call the aggregate happi¬ ness of mankind, but in giving human life more interconnection, closer relationship. Therefore we must serve as we can art, science, truth, the state, not as if these were machines for giving people pleas¬ ant feelings, but because they make men more united. When we urge or seek independence of character, we must do so only because such independence is a temporary means, whose ultimate aim is harmony and unity of all men on a higher plane. In all this we must keep before us very often the high ideal that we are trying to approach. And when we judge of a good action we must say, not that this was good be¬ cause it made some one happy, but that it was good because it tended directly or remotely to realize the Universal Will.
And so, however much mere harmony may be our aim, we must be ready very often temporarily to fight with disorganizing and separating tendencies, forces, or men. When we fight we must do so for the sake of conquering a peace in the name of the Highest. And so we must fight resolutely, fearlessly, merci¬ lessly. For we care not how many stubbornly disor¬ ganizing spirits are crushed on the way. The One Will must conquer. But on the other side we must be very careful of every soul, and of every tendency that may, without destruction, be moulded into the service of the Universal Will. The moral insight desires that no hair fall from the head of any living creature unnecessarily. The one aim is stern to its steadfast enemies, but it is infinitely regardful of all the single aims, however they may seem wayward, that can at last find themselves subdued and yet realized in its presence, and so conformed to its will. All these rivulets of purpose, however tiny, all these strong floods of passion, however angry, it desires to gather into the surging tides of its infinite ocean, that nothing may be lost that consents to enter. Its unity is no abstraction. The One Will is not a one¬ sided will. It desires the realization of all possible life, however rich, strong, ardent, courageous, mani¬ fold such life may be, if only this life can enter into that highest unity. All that has will is sacred to it, save in so far as any will refuses to join with the others in the song and shout of the Sons of God. Its warfare is never intolerance, its demand for sub¬ mission is never tyranny, its sense of the excellence of its own unity is never arrogance; for its warfare is aimed at the intolerance of the separate selves, its yoke is the yoke of complete organic freedom, its pride is in the perfect development of all life. When we serve it, we must sternly cut off all that life in ourselves or in others that cannot ultimately conform to the universal will; but we have nothing but love for every form of sentient existence that can in any measure express this Will.
VI.
We have done for the present with the ideal, and must turn to reality. Our religious consciousness wants support for us in our poor efforts to do right. Is this real world that we have so naively assumed thus far, in any wise concerned to help us in realizing ideals, or to support us by any form of approval in our search for the right? We must face this prob¬ lem coolly and skeptically, if we want any result. We must not fear the thunders of any angry dog¬ matic thinker, nor the pain that such researches must cause us if they are unsuccessful. It is something very precious that we seek, and we must run great risks, if need be, to get it.
Let us begin to define a little better what this is that we seek. By a support for moral acts in outer reality, we do not mean merely or mainly a power that will reward goodness. The moral insight cares not for individual rewards. Only the good intention is truly moral. Good acts done for pay are selfish acts. So the outer support that we want in our mo¬ rality is not reward as such. We want to know that, when we try to do right, we are not alone; that there is something outside of us that harmonizes with our own moral efforts by being itself in some way moral. This something may be a person or a tendency. Let us exemplify what we mean by some familiar cases. Job seeks, in his consciousness of moral integrity, for outer support in the midst of his sufferings. Now whatever he may think about rewards, they are not only rewards that he seeks. He wants a vindi¬ cator, a righteous, all-knowing judge, to arise, that can bear witness how upright he has been; such a vindicator he wants to see face to face, that he may call upon him as a beholder of what has actually happened. “ Oh that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat. I would order my cause before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know the words which he would answer me, and understand what he would say unto me...There the righteous might dis¬ pute with him; so should I be delivered forever from my judge. Behold I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: On the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.”
So again in the great parable of the judgment day.