Introductory.
Life Defined. Intellectual Culture and Intellectual Life,
Distinguished. Human Life, a Problem. The Evil to be Managed.
Self-Love Considered under a Three-fold Aspect. Three Agencies for
meliorating the Human Condition. The Growth of Thought, Slow; and oft
most in unexpected quarter.
Part II.
Welfare as dependent on the Social Institutions. Limited Aim of the
Received Political Economy. An Enlightened Policy but the Effective
Aim at managing Self-Love, directed towards Present Goods, vulgarly
understood. The Political Fault of the Papacy. Its Substantial
Correction by the Reformation. Republicanism carried from Religion
into Legislation; still without a clear perception of its Principle.
Its Progress accordingly Slow.
Part III.
Philosophy the Second Agency for promoting General Welfare, as the
Educator of Self-Love; the Corrector of mistaken apprehensions of
Temporal Good; the Revealer of the ties which bind the Members of the
Human Family to One Lot, to suffer or rejoice together. Progress in
estimating Life.
Part IV.
Mightier Influences yet needed, to contend with the Powers of Evil.
Supplied by Man's recognizing the whole of his Being; the extent of his
Duties; the Duration of his Existence. Religion, supplying the defects
of the preceding Agencies; Considered in nine particulars.
Conclusion.
Recapitulation. Suggestions to Christian Ministers.
Preface.
A contemporary thus reveals the state of mind, through which he has
come to the persuasion of great insight into the realities, which stand
behind the veil: "What more natural, more spontaneous, more imperative,
than that the conditions of his future being should press themselves on
his anxious thought! Should we not suppose, the 'every third thought
would be his grave,' together with the momentous realities that lie
beyond it? If man is indeed, as Shakespeare describes him, 'a being of
large discourse, looking before and after,' we could scarcely resist
the belief, that, when once assured of the possibility of information
on his head, he would, as it were, _rush_ to the oracle, to have his
absorbing problems solved, and his restless heart relieved of its load
of uncertain forebodings."* [Bush's Statement of Reasons, &c.,
p. 12.]
Not less frequently or intensely, the writer's mind has turned to the
problem of applying know truth to the present, reconciling self-love
with justice and benevolence, and vindicating to godliness, the promise
of the life that now is. If, meanwhile, he has been "intruding into
those things which he hath not seen," like affecting an angelic
religion,--then it were hardly possible but that he should mistake
fancy for fact. But if his inquiries have been into what it is
given to know, then he cannot resist the belief, that some may derive
profit from the results of many fearfully anxious years, here
compressed within a few pages. He might have further compressed, just
saying: Mainly, political wisdom is the management of self-love;
civilization is the cultivation of self-love; the excrescenses of
civilization are the false refinements of self-love; while unselfish
love is substantial virtue,--the end of the commandments,--the
fulfilling of the law: Or, he might have enlarged indefinitely; more
especially might have been written on practically applying the
principles to the advancement of society. He may yet produce something
of the kind. Of the substance of the following pages he has only to
say, that, if false, the falsehood has probably become too much a part
of his nature to be ever separated. As to such minor considerations,
as logical arrangement and the niceties of style, he asks only the
criticism due to one, whose hands have been necessitated to guide the
plough oftener than the pen, through the best years of life.
The Growth of Thought, As Affecting the Progress of Society.
Part I.
Introductory.
The meditation on human life--on the contrast between what _is_, and
what _might be_, on supposing a general concurrence to make the best of
things-yields emotions both painful and pleasing;--painful for the
demonstrations every where presented, of a love of darkness, rather
than light; pleasing, that the worst evils are seen to be so
remediable; and so clear the proofs of a gradual, but sure progress
towards the remedy.
The writer is not very familiar with those authors, who have so much to
say on the problem of life--the question, What is life? He supposes
them to follow a train of thought, something like this: The life of a
creature is that perfection and flourish of its faculties, of which its
constitution is capable, and which some of the race are destined to
reach. Thus, the life of the lion is realized, when the animal ranges
undisputed lord of the sunny desert; finds sufficiency of prey for
himself and offspring, which he raises to inherit dominion; lives the
number of years he is capable of enjoying existence, and then closes
it, without excessive pains, lingering regrets, or fearful
anticipations.
Life differs from happiness. It is supposable, that the lion, tamed
and petted, trained to feed somewhat after man's chosen manner, may be
as happy as if at liberty in his native range. But such happiness is
not the animal's life; since this implies the kind of happiness proper
to the creature's constitution, in distinction from that induced by
forced habits.
To happiness add knowledge and intellectual culture, and all together
do not realize the idea of life. The tame lion may be taught many
arts, assimilating him to the intelligence of man; but these remove him
so much further from his appropriate life. Thus there may be a
cultivated intelligence, which constitutes no part of the creature's
life; and this without considering the same as a moral agent.
Macauley remarks, that the Jesuits seem to have solved the problem, how
far intellectual culture may be carried, without producing intellectual
emancipation. I suppose it would be only varying the expression of his
thought to say, Jesuitical education strikingly exemplifies, how much
intellectual culture may be superinduced upon the mind, without
awakening intellectual life--without developing a spontaneous aptness
to appreciate, seek, find, embrace the truth. The head is filled with
the thoughts of others-many ascertained facts and just conclusions. It
can reason aright in the circles of thought, where it has been trained
to move; but elsewhere, no spontaneous activity--no self-directed power
of thinking justly on new emergencies and questions not yet settled by
rule--no spring within, from which living waters flow.
The difference between intellectual culture and intellectual life
appears in the fact, that in regard to those mastering ideas, which to
after times mark one age as in advance of the preceding, the classical
scholars, the scientific luminaries, the constitutional expounders of
the day, are quite as likely to be behind the general sense of the age,
as to be in advance.
The question, What is human life? arises on a contemplation like this:
There is no difficulty in determining the life of all the other tenants
of earth; unless, indeed, those which man has so long and so
universally subjected to his purposes, that the whereabouts, or indeed
the existence of the original stock, remains in doubt. The inferior
animals, left to themselves in favorable circumstances, manifest one
development, attain to one flourish, live the same life, from
generation to generation. Man may superinduce upon them what he
calls _improvements_, because they better fit them for _his_ purposes.
But said improvements are never transmitted from generation to its
successor; left to itself, the race reverts to proper life, the same it
has lived from the beginning.
Man here presents a singular exception to the general rule of earth's
inhabitants. The favorite pursuits of one age are abandoned in the
next. This generation looks back on the earnest occupations of a
preceding, as the adult looks back on the sports and toys of childhood.
It is more than supposable, that the planning for the chances of
office, the competition for making most gain out of the least
productiveness--these earnest pursuits of the men of this age--in the
next will be resigned to the children of larger growth; just as are
now resigned the trappings of military glory. Where then is the human
mind ultimately to fix? Where is man to find so essentially his good,
as to fix his earnest pursuit in one direction, in which the race is
still to hold on? Such seems to be the question, What is life?
The elements of that darkness, which excludes the light of life, may be
considered as these three: First, the excessive preponderance of
self-love, as the ruling motive of human conduct. Secondly, the
short-sightedness of self-love, in magnifying the present, at the cost
of the distant future. And, Thirdly, the grossness of self-love, in
preferring of present goods the vulgar and the sensible, to the refined
and more exquisitely satisfactory. And there are three ways, in which
we may attempt the abatement of existing evils; or, there are three
agencies we may call in for this purpose.
In the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common
motives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the
rule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of
present interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a
good citizen--contributing something to the general welfare; or, at
least, not greatly detracting therefrom. Here, the agency employed,
the Greeks would have called by a name, from which we have derived the
word _politics_; which word, from abuse, has well nigh lost its
original sense, _The science of social welfare_. _Policy_, we might
say, for want of an exacter word.
The second way, in which we may seek the same result, is, to inculcate
juster apprehensions of present good--to inform and refine self-love;
to show, that the purest of present enjoyments, are like the loaves and
fishes distributed by divine hands, multiplying by division and
participation--the best of all being such as none can enjoy fully, till
they become the common property of the race. For want of a more
accurately defined term, the agent here introduced may be called
Philosophy; understanding by the term, the search, what would be the
conduct and preferences of a truly wise man, dispassionately seeking
for himself the best enjoyment of this life, uninformed of another to
follow.
Or, thirdly, we may seek to infuse a nobler principle than self-love,
however refined--even the charity, whose essence is, to love one's
neighbor as one's self; while, at the same time, this life being
earnestly contemplated as but the introductory part of an immense
whole, additional security is provided for the coincidence of interest
with duty. In a word, the third agency to be employed is _Religion_.
The whole subject thus sketched is one of which the writer is not
aware, that it has been distinctly defined, as a field for thought and
investigation. He has little to learn from the successes or the
failures of predecessors. Be this his excuse for seeming prosy and
dull; possibly for mistakes and crudities. He has the doubly
difficulty of attempting to turn thought into trains to which it is
not accustomed; and yet of offering no results so profound as to have
escaped other observers; or so sublime as to be the due prize of
genius, venturing where few can soar. If he offers any thoughts new,
just, and important, they have rather been overlooked for their
simplicity and obviousness. One may dive too deep for that which
floats on the surface. Here are to be expected none of the splendid
results, which dazzle in the popular sciences. The cultivator of this
field can hope only to favor, imperceptibly it may be, the growth of
thoughts and sentiments, tending slowly to work out a better condition
of the human family. And he begs to commend that advice of Lacon,
which himself has found so profitable: "In the pursuit of knowledge,
follow it, wherever it is to be found; like fern, it is the produce of
all climates; and like coin, its circulation is not restricted to any
particular class. * * * * Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than
of being instructed; and she looks too high to find that, which very
often lies beneath her. Therefore condescend to men of low estate, and
be for wisdom, that which Alcibiades was for power." (Vol. I., p.
122.)
The difficulty with us Americans, in the way of being instructed, has
been, that too proud, as if already possessed of the fullness of
political wisdom, we have withal cherished a self-distrust, forbidding
us to harmonize our institutions and modes of thinking into conformity
with our work and altered situation. We have seen the British nation,
choosing by the accident of birth a baby for its future sovereign, and
training it in a way the least possible calculated to favor relations
of acquaintance and sympathy with varied wants of the many; and our
first impression, I fear, has been our last: What drivellers!
Obstinately blind to the clearest lights of common sense! Whereas
wiser for us would it be, to derive from the spectacle these general
conclusion: that hard is it for the human mind to proceed in advance
of ideas received and fashionable; that the so-called independent and
original thinkers--leaders of public sentiment-are such as anticipate
by a little the general progress of thought, as our hill-tops catch
first by a little the beams of the rising sun, before they fill the
intervening valleys; that men's superiority in profound thought or
liberal ideas, in one direction, affords no security for their
attaining to mediocrity in others; and that one familiar with the
history of thought, may pronounce, with moral certainty, that such and
such ideas were never entertained in such or such society, where due
preparation did not exist. As we may confidently say, No mountain-top
can tower high enough, to catch the sunbeams at midnight; with equal
confidence we may say of many ideas now familiar as school-boy truths:
no intellect in ancient Greece or Rome soared high enough above the
mass to grasp them.