Sunday, Dec. 11, 1904.
Painful and revolting associations are called up by the
phrase--"leading the double life." To the aversion provoked by the
evil itself, is added in such cases the disgust excited by the hypocrisy
with which it is cloaked. He who leads a double life offends not
only by the wrong he does, but by borrowing the plumes of virtue.
He lives a perpetual lie; he is "a whited sepulchre, clean on the
outside, full of filth and corruption within." The Beecher trial at
the time so profoundly agitated the whole country, because the
accusations brought forward associated the name of one of the
most prominent characters of the nation, a man of brilliant talent
and meritorious service, with secret impurity. The more
meritorious such a man's services, the more damning the charges if
they be established. Nor do we admit in such cases the sophistical
argument, that the interests of public morality require the facts to
be hushed up in order to avoid a scandal. Nothing is so imperative
where guilt really exists as that it be confessed and expiated. The
public conscience requires the truth. Let the sinner make a clean
breast of it; let the atmosphere be cleared by an act of public
humiliation. No injury to the cause of public morality is so great as
the lurking suspicion that men who stand forth as exponents of
morality are themselves corrupt. Lurking suspicion, distrust of all
the moral values, is worse than recognition of human weakness,
however deplorable.
There are other examples of the double life, with which all who
have knowledge of the world's ways are familiar. That of the
merchant, for instance, who, though he has long been virtually a
bankrupt, conceals his position behind a screen of opulence,
emulating the sumptuous expenditure of the rich, living a life of
glittering show; tortured inwardly by the fear of exposure, yet not
courageous enough to be honest; sinking deeper himself and, what
is worse, dragging others down with him. A young man at college
sometimes leads a double life, his letters home being filled with
accounts of his legitimate employments, while at the same time he
is leading the life of the prodigal, the spendthrift, the dissipated
sot.
The dual life has been depicted in powerful colors by poets and
writers of fiction; as, for instance, by Hawthorne in his "Scarlet
Letter," by Robert Louis Stevenson in his "Doctor Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde." I suppose if there be such a thing as hell on earth, the
double life is another name for it. Yet I know of no writer of
fiction whose plummet has sounded the depths of this hell. In
Stevenson's story one gets the impression of a too mechanical
separation between the two sides. The man is at one moment the
benevolent doctor, and at another the malignant fiend. The device
of the drug is introduced to explain the transition; but the
transformation is too sudden, too abrupt. Jekyll and Hyde dwell
side by side in the same body, and the relations between them have
not been wrought out with sufficient subtlety. It is rather a broad
moral parable than a subtle study of man's dual nature.
The initial point I desire to make is, that in certain cases the inner
torture and anguish of the dual life can only be ended by publishing
the secret, so long and jealously hidden. Just as the criminal must
stand judgment in a court of law, so must the double-minded man
stand judgment in the court of public opinion. It is not possible to
determine by a hard and fast line, when such exposure is
obligatory; but in general it may be said that it is required in those
cases where publicity is necessary to set things right and to repair
the wrong that has been done to others.
There are, however, cases in which others are not affected, or only
indirectly so; in which the evil relates to the personal life and its
consequences are private to the man himself. The situation is such
as is described by Goethe, when he speaks of the two souls
dwelling within the human breast; the soul itself in its own sphere
being divided against itself. The man is conscious of rectitude in
one part of his conduct, of magnanimous impulses, of high and
noble aspirations. He feels himself allied on one side to what is
best and purest, and at the same time is aware of another side
which in his saner moments fills him with loathing, and poisons for
him life's cup of satisfaction. It is of this class of cases that I
propose to speak. And here the terrible fact stares us in the face,
that if the dual life be interpreted in this sense, there is hardly a
man who is not leading it. Even the best of men have been aware
of an abhorrent side of their nature. What else can St. Paul mean
when he speaks of the continual warfare between the two
laws--"the law of the flesh that is in his members, and the law
of God that is in his spirit"? What else do the confessions of St.
Augustine reveal but the continual oscillations of a finely poised
nature between the two extremes? What else can we gather from
certain passages in Tennyson's writings, but hints of a miserable
and grievous struggle of the same sort? And what an intolerable
burden to any person of integrity, to any one who would at least
be honest, to think that he passes for better than he is, to think that
if men only could see his heart as he sees it, they would pass him
by with scorn instead of admiration! Yet as a rule, in such cases
self-revelation is not only not demanded, but not even allowable.
The opening of the secret chambers of one's life to the public,
confessions like those of Rousseau, are, if anything, indecent and
nauseating. The case of a man in such situations is bad enough, but
the remedy for it is perforce committed to his own hands. Let him
put his hand to the plough and not turn back, let him grapple with
the evil in his nature and subdue and transform it, let him
accomplish his inner redemption, let him make himself what he
ought to be--what others perhaps think he is. What aid can the
spiritual view of life extend to him in this stupendous business?
The cardinal thought I have in mind, which I believe will provide
an escape from such intolerable moral dilemmas, can best be set
forth by contrasting it with its diametrical opposite. This opposite
is contained in the Buddhistic doctrine of the Karma. The doctrine
of Karma implies that we are what we are to-day, good or bad, or
good and bad, in consequence of good or bad deeds which we
performed in previous states of existence. Our present life,
according to this view, is but a link added to the chain of the
innumerable lives which we have left behind us. It is true, we do
not remember those past existences; but all the same, they have left
their indelible mark upon us. Our fortunes, too, in this present
existence, are determined by our meritorious or unmeritorious
behavior in the past. If, for example, a man acts as your enemy
to-day, it is because in a previous state you wantonly injured him
or some one like him. Bear your disappointments, then, and the
harm you receive from others without complaint; you are but
suffering the penalty you deserve. Not only our fortune but our
character, as has been said, is thus predetermined; we are what
we are, in virtue of what we have been. If a man is a mean miser, it
is because in a previous existence he was already unduly covetous
of wealth. 'Tis but the seed he sowed in the past, that blossoms out
in the present. If a man commit murder, it is because he was
already guilty of unchecked violence in previous lives. The
beginnings which he made in the past culminate in the awful
present.
This is indeed a plausible theory, and it would help us to read some
dark riddles if it were true, but there is not the slightest reason for
supposing that it is. If ever there was a theory in the air, this is
one. We not only have no recollections of any past incarnations,
but we have no ground for inferring that there were any. I have
mentioned the theory merely in order to exhibit its opposite. And
the opposite is this: that a man is not responsible for the attractive
or repulsive qualities with which he is born; that these are not to be
accounted as his, in the sense that he is accountable for them. The
son of the dipsomaniac, for instance, is not responsible for the
morbid craving that stirs in him. He begins life, so far as
responsibility is concerned, so far as merit or demerit is concerned,
with a fresh start. He is not responsible for the craving; he is
responsible only for assenting to it. True, the pull in his case is
incomparably stronger than in others; still he can resist. He is
responsible, not for the hideous thing itself, but for the degree in
which he yields to it. He is meritorious to the extent of the effort
he puts forth not to yield to it. The reason why this point is often
obscured is that from the first awakening of consciousness, from
the time when first we have been capable of deliberate choice, we
have more or less often assented to these evil propulsions and have
thus made them our own. It has therefore become impossible to
separate clearly between that element in our acts which is imposed
upon us from without, and that deliberate element in the act which
is our own. Nevertheless, no fair-minded person will dispute that
there are qualities or predispositions, for which--hideous as they
may be--we are no more responsible than we are for being born
with an unprepossessing face. Men are born with certain attractive
qualities and certain atrocious qualities, but moral goodness and
badness consists not in having these predispositions, but rather in
consenting to them and adopting them into our will.
Now this, it seems to me, throws an entirely new light upon the
duality of our inner life. The fact that we discover that there is
baseness within us from which we recoil as we should from a
venomous snake, need not shake our throne of reason or overthrow
our balance. These base things are not we; our true self
does not reside in them, until, indeed, we unite with them by
assenting to them. A man's natural propensities are motley, but his
soul is white. One hears much nowadays of the "white man's
burden." There is such a thing as the white soul's burden. These
dipsomaniac cravings with which some men are handicapped,
these explosive irascibilities with which some are accursed, these
tendencies to impurity with which others are defiled--these are the
white soul's burden. Some men are more heavily burdened than
others. But it is not the nature of the burden that makes men good
or bad; it is the way they bear it, or rather it is the extent to which
they transform this initial nature of theirs into a better nature.
There is a distinction between the natural character and the moral
character; the moral character results from the changes produced
in the natural character, by the power of the moral will, or by the
energy of the soul striving to imprint its nobler pattern on this
difficult, oft intractable material.
But if we are not blameworthy for the repellant propensities,
neither are we praiseworthy on account of the attractive and
gracious qualities we may possess. The state of mind of one who is
conscious of a divided inner life is torture. Nothing but an heroic
treatment, nothing but a radical cure will free him from that
torture; the cure is to realize that our seeming virtues are often not
virtues at all. We must sacrifice our fancied virtues, if we would
escape from the horrid sense of utter depravity that arises from our
vices. A man puts to himself the question: How is it possible that
at one moment I should be sympathetic and kind, should strive to
compass the happiness of my fellow-beings, should take a
generous interest in public causes, and try to act justly; and that at
another moment I am so selfish and base? How can there be this
oscillation from one pole to the other of human character? It is the
contradiction that makes the tragedy. Am I, too, not "truly one but
truly two"; am I, too, a Jekyll and a Hyde, both dwelling under the
same skin? The answer is: You are neither the Hyde nor the Jekyll
unless you elect to be. The true self is a principle in you superior
to both these natural characters, a kind of oversoul, as Emerson
puts it.
Sympathy and kindness lend themselves to the building up of a
virtuous character, they are the psychological bases of virtue, but
they must not be confounded with virtue itself. Taken by
themselves, they represent merely a felicitous mixture of the
elements of which we are compounded, no more praiseworthy
than their opposites are blameworthy. Sympathy and kindness
must be governed and regulated by principle, if they are to be rated
as moral qualities. Left uncultivated, they often produce positively
immoral results. Likewise, what is called justice is often no more
than a hard adherence to rules, a love of order in our relations to
others, which must be tempered and softened by the quality of
mercy, before it can be accounted a moral virtue. Again, a
willingness to advance the interests of a class or of a people is
often no more than an enlarged egotism, with most of the defects
of the narrower egotism, and must be regulated by a moral
principle, if it is to attain to the dignity of a moral attribute. It is
only by the conformity of our thoughts, our feelings, and our acts
to principle, that morality is achieved. It is only by such means that
the genial and attractive tendencies of our nature are converted
into genuine virtues, and the way of escape from the double life is
along the line of the moral transformation of our seeming virtues.
_Mend your virtues, and your vices will take care of themselves._
But if the illusion is dispelled that the goodness or badness of
an action as it appears to the eye is the measure of the virtuousness
or viciousness of the agent; if the principle that governs the act and
the effort put forth to conform to the principle be recognized as
the true standard by which we are to judge, then two consequences
will follow with respect to the conduct of life. The first
is that the seemingly petty occasions of life are to be treated
as grand occasions in so far as a moral principle is involved. For
instance, a petty falsehood spoken for the purpose of securing
business advantage or of avoiding business loss may seem to the
average man a trivial affair; and it is so, so far as the results are
concerned. And yet a morally high-bred man could no more
condescend to such a falsehood than a man of cleanly habits would
willingly steep himself in the mire. It is not the consequences, one
way or the other, that matter. It is the eternal issue between the
moral realities, truth and untruth, that is at stake. And in the light
of this issue, in the light of the principle involved, petty as the
circumstances may be, the occasion is not to be considered trivial.
The eternal forces that have been at war since mankind first
existed are at war on this occasion also; he must cast in his lot on
the side of the good.
Another instance of action seemingly trivial is that of simulating a
personal interest in others, of pretending agreement in the foibles
of others or of affecting a personal homage which one does not
feel, in order to use others as instruments for the achievement of
one's ends, whether those ends be selfish pecuniary advantage or
political preferment, or even financial aid and support for some
important philanthropic enterprise. As if philanthropy--which
is based on respect for the worth of man--did not defeat its own
ends, the moment it seeks to accomplish them by methods which
degrade both him who gives and him who receives. The occasion
is small, but the principle involved as to the choice of means is
great. Another instance relates to the degree to which we may
trench upon the personality of others, or seek to enter into that
part of their life which they keep secret from us. We may suspect,
for instance, that a friend is oppressed by some secret trouble, and
we may believe that we could help him if only he would consent to
reveal himself; but the act of self-revelation must come from his
side, and the permission to help him must first be granted. We may
give him the opportunity to declare himself, but we may not invade
the sanctuary of his silence. The principle involved is great; it is
that of respect for the precincts within which every soul has the
right to live its own life.
And there are other illustrations in abundance that might be
quoted. For instance, custom prescribes rules of behavior in
respect to many things which are really indifferent; in regard to the
cut of the clothes we wear, in regard to the accepted form of
salutation, in regard to the language of polite speech, and much
more of the same sort. Now, the ethically-minded man is not a
pedantic micrologist who wastes his time on the minutiae of
conduct. But where custom relates to things not indifferent, where
a principle is involved, there is no detail of conduct so minute as
not to challenge the most vigorous protest, the utmost assertion of
independence. The ethically-minded man is one who endeavors to
shake off the yoke of custom, wherever it interferes with the
affirmation of the great principles of life; who disdains to follow
the multitude in doing not only what is palpably wrong, but what is
morally unfine. He seeks to be a free man, an independent being,
and to assert without acrimony or invidious criticism of others, yet
firmly and unflinchingly, a strong and self-poised manhood. This,
then, is one consequence that flows from our point of view:
namely, that in the moral sphere the small occasions are to be
treated as if they were grand occasions. As the poet puts it,
"Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, but
greatly to find quarrel in a straw when honor is at stake," or, as we
should put it, greatly to find quarrel in the straws of life when
principle is at stake.
And the second consequence is the obverse of this: To treat what
seem to be great occasions because of their outward results, as if
they were small. Is it a fortune that smiles upon you, that you can
win by suppressing a moral scruple, by transgressing the eternal
law? Put it aside as a thing not worth a second glance, if the price
exacted be the loss of self-respect, if the bargain to which you
must subscribe be the betrayal of principle. Is it life itself that is at
stake; the dear life to which we cling so fondly? Yes, life is
precious in its nobler uses; but life itself shall not be esteemed as
great in the hour in which we must choose between it and fidelity
to principle. And that it is really possible to take this high attitude
the example of the world's great martyrs shows.
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The leading thoughts I have endeavored to state in these addresses
are the following: Spirituality is morality carried out to the finish.
It depends on always keeping the ultimate end of existence in
view, and on not resting in the partial ends. Intervals set aside for
self-recollection and the facing of the thought of death are useful
aids. The ultimate end itself is to elicit worth in others, and, by
so doing, in one's self. The indispensable condition of this attitude
is to ascribe worth to every human being before even we observe
it, to cast as it were a mantle of glory over him, to take toward
every fellow human being the expectant attitude, to seek the worth
in him until we find it. Even toward oppressors we should take the
same attitude. Furthermore, our true self resides neither in our
poorer nor in our better natural endowments, but in the will that
suppresses the one and alone gives moral significance to the other.
Finally, we must testify to our respect for principle by treating the
small occasions of life as great if they involve a moral issue, and
the great prizes of life as small if they are offered at the price of
moral integrity. These are thoughts which I have found helpful in
my own experience; I submit them to you, in the hope that they
may be of use to you also.