In his book, “What Men Live By,” Dr. Richard C. Cabot makes what might be
called a plea for the sense of the human. In speaking of the peril of
looking on individuals in terms of sex rather than in terms of
personality, he carries the matter a little farther. He says the physician
should not look on a patient as merely a sort of walking disease, that the
teacher should not think of the student as merely a piece of raw material
for the educative process, and that the lawyer should see more in his
client than a case at law.
The point is clear. It is that we need to treasure the sense of the human,
to keep alive a proper estimate of the human values, and to fulfil our
obligation to the thinking, toiling, feeling people about us. People are
the one great concern for one’s mind. Humanity is the center of all
creation, and the proper object of all our striving.
There is much in the world about us that is more or less negligible. We
have to do with it. It plays its part in our daily round of life. It
seems necessary in the scheme of things that we have established.
Yet there is nothing permanent or supremely vital about it.
These negligible things, however, do not include the human beings with
whom we associate and with whom we have to deal. They belong to an
altogether different class of interests. Humanity is one of the few
everlasting things in the swiftly changing picture of this world’s
temporary landscape. Moreover, it is the one thing which reacts with
suffering when it is wronged, and is thrilled with joy at the deed of
kindness. Humanity, therefore, is our great concern. We need to keep
the sense of it very clear and responsive.
It is important that we look further than the cheap and often sordid glare
which surrounds us. Beyond it we can always behold a sea of human faces.
Each represents a person who shares the common lot of humanity. Each has
his hopes, joys, fears, struggles, and anxieties. There are among them
many unwritten stories of heroism, many unvoiced pleadings of need, many
unsuspected opportunities for service. There is no measuring the
possibilities hidden in that circle of faces.
Daily we see people about us without realizing their presence and what it
means. This is altogether possible, for seeing and realizing are two
entirely different things. One may see a rose by his path every morning
for days or every summer for many seasons, and yet never be really
impressed with its beauty. One morning he stops and notes its form, and
color, and perfume. His soul reaches out in answer to its silent message.
On this particular morning he has not only seen, but he has also realized
the presence of the rose.
In the same way we need to realize the presence of people about us. If we
did so, we would see that we have with them a great mutuality of interest
and need. We would realize the tenderness of their hearts, the worth of
their lives, the presence of the immortal image upon them.
The sense of the human must be kept uppermost in our relation to money and
money-making. If it is not, one soon gets into the wrong relation to his
money, and it becomes a curse when it might as well have been a blessing.
This is a point at which many make a serious mistake. They enter life with
the right viewpoint and understand that money is only a means to the
happiness and well-being of people. As time goes on, however, their plans
and purposes get out of adjustment. They become guilty of the fatal
assumption that people are a means to the making of money. Accordingly,
they keep wages at too low a level; sacrifice the lives of men to bad air,
poor working conditions, and dangerous machinery; and subordinate the
interests of living human beings to the declaring of dividends.
Not only do they assume this perilous attitude toward others, but they
also assume the same attitude toward themselves and their families. They
have simply allowed money to get into the position of an end instead of
that of a means. It has become a fetish instead of a convenience.
The trouble is largely a lost sense of the human. The man who succumbs to
this common temptation takes love, hope, kindliness, and human
appreciation from the high pedestal which they should by right occupy,
and puts a golden idol in their place.
The value of a dollar is measured by its power to make life more worth
living for some human being. The more people it can make comfortable and
happy the more valuable it is. When it is appropriated to any other
purpose, it is removed from its right relationship to the general scheme
of things. As an end within itself, it is not worth the struggle it costs
in the acquiring. Its one business is to purchase comfort for and render
service to people.
The sense of the human is also necessary in the administration of
government. Throughout the ages, there have been two dominating ideas of
empire. One is the autocratic idea, and the other is the democratic idea.
The former has held that the state exists for the sake of itself and its
rulers. The latter has held that the state exists for the good of its
population. The former has steadily lost ground. The latter has as
steadily gained it.
A certain French monarch is said to be the author of the declaration:
“I am the state.” Whether he said it or not, there have been plenty of
national leaders in history whose deeds would indicate their faith in such
a governmental philosophy. From the first, such a race has been destined
to perish. There is no place in the modern conception of government for
any regime which does not strive to better the condition of the people
within its scope of power. In these times we see with increasing clearness
that there is but one worthy conception of kingliness, and that it is the
kingliness of service. Incidentally, against such there are
no revolutions.
A good public official thinks often of the eyes that are turned in his
direction to see what he is going to do, of the lives that depend upon
his action for much of their peace and contentment, of the children who
must have food, of the aged who must have shelter, and of the struggling
who must have encouragement. To him, the people are not simply something
to govern. They are human beings, the mission of whose government is to
see that each of them has his complete opportunity in life.
Nowhere in these days do we need more to have the sense of the human keen
and operative than in our industrial system. It is a question worth asking
whether we would have our present industrial turmoils if the men who buy
labor and the men who sell it would make a serious effort to know and
understand one another. It seems that most of the trouble and strife of
this world is the result of a lack of mutual human understanding.
Capitalists and laboring men segregate themselves in different
neighborhoods, churches, lodges, and social circles. They need to mingle
on a common basis, be in one another’s homes, know one another’s families,
and enter into the spirit each of the others’ joys and troubles.
One is certainly not religiously heterodox when he contends for such a
principle. Nothing stands out more clearly in the philosophy of the Man of
Galilee than this particular ideal. The emphasis of Jesus was upon the
human being. He held all men in much the same esteem, for to Him a human
being was inherently worthy of respect and honor. His friends were a
varied group. He could meet a tax collector, a fisherman, an erring
Samaritan woman, a rich host, a conscience-stricken tradesman, an
afflicted sufferer, a sinful woman, or a little child, and make each one
feel that they had found a friend. When we learn to be like Him, we shall
possess the same viewpoint.