SELF-CULTURE.
There is
One great society alone on earth
The noble Living and the noble Dead.
WORDSWORTH.
The passion for truth and for the culture which makes its possession
possible is not rightly felt by the heart of boy or of youth; it is the
man's passion, and its power over him is most irresistibly asserted when
outward restraint has been removed, when escaping from the control of
parents and teachers he is left to himself to shape his course and seek
his own ends. When his companions have finished their studies he feels
that his own are now properly only about to begin; when they are
dreaming of liberty and pleasure, of wealth and success, of the world
and its honors, his mind is haunted by the mystery of God and Nature, by
visions of dimly discerned truth and beauty which he must follow
whithersoever they lead; and already he perceives that wisdom comes to
those alone who toil and cease not from labor, who suffer and are
patient. Hitherto he has learned the lessons given him by teachers
appointed by others; henceforth he is himself to choose his instructors.
As once, half-unconscious, he played in the smile or frown of Nature,
and drank knowledge with delight, so now in the world of man's thought,
hope, and love, he is, with deliberate purpose, to seek what is good for
the nourishment of his soul. Happy is he, for nearly all men toil and
suffer that they may live; but he is also to have time to labor, to make
life intelligent and fair. He must know not only what the blind atoms
are doing, but what saints, sages, and heroes have loved, thought, and
done. He will still keep close to Nature who, though she utters myriad
sounds, never speaks a human word; but he will also lend his ear to the
voice of wisdom which lies asleep in books, and to sympathetic minds
whispers from other worlds whatever high or holy truth has consecrated
the life of man. His guiding thought must be how to make the work by
which he maintains himself in the world subserve moral and intellectual
ends; for his aim is not merely or chiefly to have goods, but to be wise
and good, and therefore to build up within himself the power of conduct
and the power of intelligence which makes man human, and distinguishes
him from whatever else on earth has life.
It is our indolence and frivolity that make routine duties, however
distracting or importunate, incompatible with the serious application
which the work of self-culture demands; but we are by nature indolent
and frivolous, and only education can make us earnest and laborious.
None but a cultivated mind can understand that if the whole human race
could be turned loose, to eat and drink and play like thoughtless
children, life would become meaningless; that a paradise in which work
should not be necessary would become wearisome. The progress of the race
is the result of effort, physical, religious, moral, and intellectual;
and the advance of individuals is proportional to their exertion. Nature
herself pushes the young to bodily exercise; but though activity is for
them a kind of necessity, only the discipline of habit will lead them to
prefer labor to idleness; and they will not even use their senses
properly unless they are taught to look and to listen,--just as they are
taught to walk and to ride. The habit of manual labor, as it is directly
related to the animal existence to which man is prone, and supplies the
physical wants whose urgency is most keenly felt, is acquired with least
difficulty, and it prepares the way for moral and intellectual life; but
it especially favors the life which has regard to temporal ends and
conduces to comfort and well-being. They whose instrument is the brain
rarely aim at anything higher than wealth and position; and if they
become rich and prominent, they remain narrow and uninteresting. They
talk of progress, of new inventions and discoveries, and they neglect to
improve themselves; they boast of the greatness of their country, while
their real world is one of vulgar thought and desire; they take interest
in what seems to concern the general welfare, but fail to make
themselves centres of light and love. What is worse they have the
conceit of wisdom,--they lack reverence; they are impatient, and must
have at once what they seek. But the better among us see the
insufficiency of the popular aims, and begin to yearn for something
other than a life of politics, newspapers, and financial enterprise.
They desire to know and love the best that is known, and they are
willing to be poor and obscure, if they may but gain entrance into this
higher world. "I shall ever consider myself," says Descartes, "more
obliged to those who leave me to my leisure, than I should to any who
might offer me the most honorable employments." This is the thought of
every true student and lover of wisdom; for he feels that whatever a
man's occupation may be, his business is to improve his mind and to form
his character. He desires not to be known and appreciated, but to know
and appreciate; not to _have_ more, but to _be_ more; not to have
friends, but to be the friend of man,--which he is when he is the lover
of truth. He turns from vulgar pleasures as he turns from pain, because
both pleasure and pain in fastening the soul to the body deprive it of
freedom and hinder the play of the mind.
He loves the best with single heart
And without thought what gifts it bring.
Unless one have deep faith in the good of culture he will easily become
discouraged in the work which is here urged upon him. He must be drawn
to the love of intellectual excellence by an attraction such as a poet
feels in the presence of beauty; he must believe in it as a miser
believes in gold; he must seek it as a lover seeks the beloved. Our
wants determine our pleasures, and they who have no intellectual
cravings feel not the need of exercise of mind. They are born and remain
inferior. They are content with the world which seems to be real,
forgetting the higher one, which alone is real; they are not urged to
the intellectual life by irresistible instincts. They are discouraged by
difficulties, thwarted by obstacles which lie in the path of all who
strive to move forward and to gain higher planes. It is not possible to
advance except along the road of toil, of struggle, and of suffering.
We cannot emerge even from childish ignorance and weakness without
experiencing a sense of loss. Mental work in the beginning and for a
long time is weariness, is little better than drudgery. We labor, and
there seems to be no gain; we study and there seems to be no increase of
knowledge or power; and if we persevere, we are led by faith and hope,
not by any clear perception of the result of persistent application.
Genius itself is not exempt from this law. Poets and artists work with
an intensity unknown to others, and are distinguished by their faith in
the power of labor. The consummate musician must practice for hours, day
by day, year in and year out. The brain is the most delicate and the
finest of instruments, and it is vain to imagine that anything else than
ceaseless, patient effort will enable us to use it with perfect skill;
indeed, it is only after long study that we become capable of
understanding what the perfection of the intellect is, that we become
capable of discerning what is excellent, beautiful, and true in style
and thought.
Discouragement and weariness will, again and again, suggest doubts
concerning the wisdom of this ceaseless effort to improve one's self.
Why persist in the pursuit of what can never be completely attained?
Why toil to gain what the mass of men neither admire nor love? Why wear
out life in a course of action which leads neither to wealth nor honors?
Why turn away from pleasures which lie near us to follow after ideal
things? These are questions which force themselves upon us; and it
requires faith and courage not to be shaken by this sophistry. Visions
of ideal life float before young eyes, and if to be attracted by what is
high and fair were enough, it were not difficult to be saint, sage, or
hero; but when we perceive that the way to the best is the road of toil
and drudgery, that we must labor long and accomplish little, wander far
and doubt our progress, must suffer much and feel misgivings whether it
is not in vain,--then only the noblest and the bravest still push
forward in obedience to inward law. The ideal of culture appeals to them
with irresistible force. They consent to lack wealth, and the approval
of friends and the world's applause; they are willing to turn away when
fair hands hold out the cup of pleasure, when bright eyes and smiling
lips woo to indulgence. If, you ask, How long? They answer, Until we
die! They are lovers of wisdom and do not trust to hope of temporal
reward. Their aim is light and purity of mind and heart; these they
would not barter for comfort and position. As saints, while doing the
common work of men, walk uplifted to worlds invisible, so they, amid the
noise and distractions of life still hear the appealing voice of truth;
and as parted lovers dream only of the hour when they shall meet again,
so these chosen spirits, in the midst of whatever cares and labors, turn
to the time when thought shall people their solitude as with the
presence of angels. They hear heavenly voices asking, Why stay ye on the
earth, unless to grow? Vanity, frivolity, and fickleness die within
them; and they grow to be humble and courageous, disinterested and
laborious, strong and persevering. The cultivation of their higher
nature becomes the law of their life; and the sense of duty, "stern
daughter of the voice of God," which of all motives that sway the heart,
best stands the test of reason, becomes their guide and support. Thus
culture, which looks to the Infinite and All-wise as to its ideal, rests
upon the basis of morality and religion.
To think is difficult, and they who wish to grow in power of thought
must hoard their strength. Excess, of whatever kind, is a waste of
intellectual force. The weakness of men of genius has impoverished the
world. Sensual indulgence diminishes spiritual insight; it perverts
reason, and deadens love; it enfeebles the physical man, and weakens the
organs of sense, which are the avenues of the soul. The higher self is
developed harmoniously only when it springs from a healthful body. It is
the lack of moral balance which makes genius akin to madness. Nothing is
so sane as reason, and great minds fall from truth only when they fail
in the strength which comes of righteous conduct.
Let the lover of wisdom then strive to live in a healthy body that his
senses may report truly of the universe in which he dwells. But this is
not easy; for mental labor exhausts, and if the vital forces are still
further diminished by dissipation, disease and premature decay of the
intellectual faculties will be the result. The ideal of culture embraces
the whole man, physical, moral, religious, and intellectual; and the
loss of health or morality or faith cannot but impede the harmonious
development of the mind itself. Passion is the foe of reason, and may
easily become strong enough to extinguish its light. He who wishes to
educate himself must learn to resist the desires of his lower nature,
which if indulged deaden sensibility, weaken the will, take from the
imagination its freshness, and from the heart the power of loving. The
task he has set himself is arduous, and he cannot have too much energy,
too much warmth of soul, too much capacity for labor. Let him not waste,
like a mere animal, the strength which was given him that he might
learn to know and love infinite truth and beauty. The dwelling with
one's self and with thoughts of what is true and high, which is an
essential condition of mental growth, is impossible when the sanctuary
of the soul is filled with unclean images. Intellectual honesty, the
disinterested love of truth, without which no progress can be made, will
hardly be found in those who are the slaves of unworthy passions. The
more religious a man is, the more does he believe in the worth and
sacredness of truth, and the more willing does he become to throw all
his energies with persevering diligence into the work of
self-improvement. They who fail to see in the universe an all-wise,
all-holy, and all-powerful Being, from whom are all things and to whom
all things turn, easily come to doubt whether it holds anything of true
worth. History teaches this, and it requires little reflection to
perceive that it must be so. Of the Solitary, Wordsworth says,--
"But in despite
Of all this outside bravery, within
He neither felt encouragement nor hope;
For moral dignity and strength of mind
Were wanting, and simplicity of life
And reverence for himself; and, last and best,
Confiding thoughts, through love and fear of Him
Before whose sight the troubles of this world
Are vain."
The corrupt and the ignorant easily learn to feel contempt, but the
scholar is reverent. He moves in the midst of infinite worlds, and knows
that the least is part of the whole.
Now, how shall he who is resolved to educate himself set about his work?
What advice shall be given him? What rules shall be made for him that he
may not waste time and energy? He who yearns for the cultivation of mind
which makes wisdom possible must work his way to the light. All
intellectual men strive to educate themselves, but each one strives in a
different way. They all aim at insight rather than information, at the
perfect use of their faculties rather than learning. The power to see
things as they are, is what they want; and therefore they look, observe,
examine, compare, analyze, meditate, read, and write. And they keep
doing this day by day; and the longer they work, the more attractive
their work grows to be. Descartes, who is a typical lover of the
intellectual life, looked upon himself simply as a thinking being, and
gave all his thought to the cultivation of his higher faculties in the
hope that he might finally discover some truth which would bring
blessings to men. He had no thought of literary fame, published little,
and sedulously avoided whatever might bring him into notoriety. "Those,"
he says, "who wish to know how to speak of everything and to acquire a
reputation for learning, will succeed most easily if they content
themselves with the semblance of truth, which may readily be found." The
love of truth is the mark of the real student. What is, is; it is man's
business to know it. He is the foe of pretense; sham for him means
shame. He will have sound knowledge; he will do his work well; whether
men shall applaud or reward him for it, is a foreign consideration. He
obeys an inward law, and the praise of those who cannot understand him
sounds to him like mockery. True thought, like right conduct, is its own
reward. To see truth and to love it is enough,--is more than to have the
worship of the world. The important thing is to be a man, to have a
serious purpose, to be in earnest, to yearn for what is good and holy;
and without this the culture of the intellect will not avail.
We must build upon the broad foundation of man's life, and not upon any
special faculty. The merely literary man is often the most pitiful of
men,--able, it may be, to do little else than complain that his merits
are not recognized. Let it not be imagined then that the lover of
wisdom, the follower of intellectual good, should propose to himself a
literary career. He may of course be or become a man of letters, but
this is incidental to his life-purpose, which is to develop within
himself the power of knowing and loving. He will learn to think rightly
and to act well, first of all; for he knows that a man's writing cannot
be worth more than he himself is worth. He is a seeker after truth and
perfection; and understanding at the price of what countless labors
these may be hoped for, he is slow to imagine that words of his may be
of help to others.
Observation, reading, and writing are the chief means by which thought
is stimulated, the mind developed, and the intellect cultivated. The
habit of looking and the habit of thinking are closely related. A man
thinks as he sees; and for a mind like Shakespeare's, for instance,
observation is almost the only thing that is necessary for its
development. The boundless world breaks in upon him with creative force.
His sympathy is universal, and therefore so is his interest. He sees the
like in the unlike, the differences in things which are similar. Every
little bird and every little flower are known to him. He contemplates
Falstaff and Poor Tom with as much interest as though they were Hamlet
and King Lear. In all original minds the power of observation is great.
It is the chief source of our earliest knowledge, of that which touches
us most nearly and most deeply colors the imagination. When the boy is
wandering through fields, sitting in the shade of trees, or lying on the
banks of murmuring streams, he is not only learning more delightful
things than books will ever teach him, but he is also acquiring the
habit of attention, of looking at what he sees, which nowhere else can
be gotten in so natural and pleasant a way. Hence the best minds have
either been born in the country or have passed there some of their early
years. Unless we have first learned to look with the eye, we shall never
learn to look with the mind. They who walk unmoved beneath the starlit
heavens, or by the ever-moving ocean, or amid the silent mountains; who
do not find, like Wordsworth, that the meanest flower that blows gives
thoughts which often lie too deep for tears, will not derive great help
from the world of books. But in the world of books the intellectual must
also make themselves at home and live, must thence draw nourishment,
light, wisdom, strength, for there as nowhere else the mind of man has
stamped its image; and there the thoughts of the master spirits still
breathe, still glow with truth and beauty. The best books are powers
"Forever to be hallowed; only less,
For what we are and what we may become,
Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God,
Or his pure Word, by miracle revealed."
But it is as difficult to know books as to know men. There are but few
men who can be of intellectual service to us; and there are but few
books which stimulate and nourish the mind. The best books are, as
Milton says, "the precious life-blood of a master spirit;" and it is
absurd to suppose that they will reveal their secret to every chance
comer, to every heedless reader. As it takes a hero to know a hero, so
only an awakened mind can love and understand the great thinkers. The
reading of the ignorant is chiefly a mechanical proceeding; and, indeed,
for men in general reading is little better than waste of time. Their
reading, like their conversation, leaves them what they were, or worse.
The mass of printed matter has no greater value from an intellectual
point of view at least than the wide ever-flowing stream of talk; and
for the multitude it is all the same whether they gossip and complain,
or read and nod. However much they read, they remain unintelligent; what
knowledge they gain is fragmentary, unreal; they learn merely enough to
talk about what they do not understand. We may of course read for
entertainment, as we may talk for entertainment; but this is merely a
recreation of the mind, which is good only because it rests and prepares
us for work. The wise read books to be enlightened, uplifted, and
inspired. Their reading is a labor in which every faculty of the mind
is awake and active. They are attentive; they weigh, compare, judge.
They re-create within their own minds the images produced by the author;
they seek to enter into his inmost thought; they admire each well-turned
phrase, each happy epithet; they walk with him, and make themselves at
home in the wonderland which his genius has called into being; past
centuries rise before them, and they almost forget that they did not
hear Plato discourse in the Academy, or stroll with Horace along the
Sacred Way. As they are brought thus intimately into the company of the
noblest minds, they think as they thought, feel as they felt, and so are
enlightened and inspired. They drink the spirit of the mighty dead, and
gradually come to live in a higher and richer world. The best in life
and literature is seen to be such only by those who have made themselves
worthy of the heavenly vision; and once we have learned to love the few
real books of the world, or rather what in these few is eternally true
and beautiful, we breathe the atmosphere of the intellectual life. What
is frivolous, or false, or vulgar can no longer please us; having seen
and loved what is high we may not sink to the lower.
Knowledge may be useful, and yet have little power to nourish, train,
and enlarge the mind, and it is its disciplinary and educational value
which we are here considering. Medicine for a physician, law for an
attorney, theology for a clergyman, is the most useful knowledge; but
they are not therefore the best means of intellectual culture. Natural
science, though it is most useful, ministering as it does in a thousand
ways and with ever-increasing efficacy to our wants and comforts, has
but an inferior educational power. Acquaintance with the uniform
co-existences and sequences of phenomena is not a mental tonic. Such
knowledge not only leaves us unmoved,--it has a tendency even to fetter
the free play of the mind and to chill the imagination. It unweaves the
rainbow, and leaves us the dead chemical elements. The information we
have gained is practical, but it does not exalt the soul or render us
more keenly alive to the divine beauty which rests on Nature's face. It
does not enable us, as does the knowledge of literature and history, to
participate in the conscious life of the race. It makes no appeal to our
nobler human instincts. There is no book on natural science, nor can
there ever be one, which may take a place among the few immortal works
which men never cease to read and love. Physical science has its own
domain, and its study will continue to enrich the world, to make
specialists of a hundred kinds; but it never can take the place of
literature and history as a means of culture; and as an educational
force its value is greatest when it is studied not experimentally, but
as literature,--though of course, every cultivated man should be
familiar with the inductive method, and should receive consequently a
certain scientific training.
History, in bringing us into the presence of the greatest men and in
showing us their mightiest achievements, rouses our whole being. It sets
the mind aglow, awakens enthusiasm, and fires the imagination. It makes
us feel how blessed a thing it is "to scorn delights and live laborious
days;" how divine to perish in bringing truth and holiness to men. We
commingle with the makers of the world; we hear them speak and see them
act; we catch the spirit of their lofty purpose, their high courage,
their noble eloquence. When we drink deeply of the wisdom which history
teaches, we come to understand that truth and justice, heroism and
religion, which are the virtues of the greatest men, may be ours as
easily as theirs; that opportunity for true men is ever present, and
that the task set for each one of us is as sacred and important as any
which has ever been entrusted to the human mind and will. Our thought
is widened, our hearts are strengthened, and we come to feel that it
shall be well for others that we too have lived. When we have learned to
be at home with lofty and generous natures, the heroic mood becomes
natural to us.
There are of course but few histories which have this tonic effect upon
the mind and the will, but with these the lover of culture should make
himself familiar. Each one must find the book he needs; and though he
should find no help in a volume which time and the consent of the
learned have consecrated, let him not be discouraged, but continue to
seek and to read until he meet with the author who fills his soul with
joy and opens to his wondering eyes visions of new worlds. To love any
great book so that we read it--or at least those portions of it which
especially appeal to us--many times, and always with new pleasure (as a
mother never wearies of looking upon her child), until the thought and
style of the author become almost our own, is to learn the secret of
self-education; for he who understands and loves one great book is sure
to find his way to the love and knowledge of other works of genius. He
will not read chiefly to gain information, but he will read for
exaltation of spirit, for enlightenment, for strength of soul, for the
help which springs from contact with generous and awakened minds. He
will mark his favorite passages and refer to them often, as one loves to
revisit places where he has been happy; and these very pencil-marks will
become dear to him as tokens of truth revealed, of wisdom gained, of joy
bestowed. The best reading is that which most profoundly stimulates
thought, which brings our own minds into active, conscious communion
with the mind of the author; and hence the best poetry is the most
efficacious and the most delightful aid to mental improvement.
Poetry is, as Aristotle says, the most philosophic of all writing. It is
also the writing which is most instinct with passion, with life. It
springs from intense thought and feeling, and bears within itself the
power to call forth thought and feeling. It is thought transfused with
the glow of emotion, and consequently thought made beautiful,
attractive, contagious. It is, to quote Wordsworth, "the breath and
finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is
in the countenance of all science." The poet has more enthusiasm and
tenderness than other men, a more sensitive soul, a more comprehensive
mind. His wider sympathy gives him greater insight; and his power to see
absent things as though they were present enables him to bring the
distant and the past before our eyes, to make them live again in a new
and immortal world; he stimulates the whole mind and appeals to every
faculty of the soul. The greatest philosophers are, like Plato, poets
too; and unless the historian is also a poet, there is no inspiration,
no life in what he writes. It is as superficial and vulgar to sneer at
poetry as to sneer at religion; and they alone are mockers who have eyes
but for some counterfeit. To be able to read a true poet is not a gift
of Nature; it is a faculty to be acquired. He creates, as Wordsworth
says, the taste by which he is appreciated. To imagine we may read him
as we read a frivolous novel is absurd; it may well happen we shall see
no truth or beauty in him until patient study has made it plain. It
often takes the world a hundred years or more to recognize a great poet;
and a knowledge of his worth can be had by the student only at the price
of patient labor. Wordsworth will attract scarcely any one at the first
glance; the great number of readers will soon weary of him and throw him
aside; but those who learn to understand him find in his writings
treasures above all price. There are but a few great poems in the
literatures of the different nations, but he who wishes to have a
cultivated mind must, at the cost of whatever time and labor, make
himself familiar with them; for there alone are found the best thoughts
clothed in fittest words; there alone are rightly portrayed the noblest
characters; there alone is the world of men and things transfigured by
the imagination and illumined by the pure light of the mind. True poets
help us to see, they teach us to admire, they lift our thoughts, they
appeal to our higher nature; they give us nobler loves, more exalted
aims, more spiritual purposes; they make us feel that to live for money
or place is to lead a narrow and a slavish life; and to men around whom
the fetters of material and hardening cares are growing, they cry and
bid them--
"Look abroad
And see to what fair countries they are bound."
But even the greatest poets have weaknesses, and are great only by
comparison. There is not one who however he may enchant and strengthen,
does not also disappoint us. The perfect poet the future will bring; and
to his coming we shall look with more eager expectation than if we
foresaw man dowered with wings. The elevation we forebode is of the
soul, not of the body. Progress we have already made. It is no longer
possible for a true poet to sing of sensual delights; the man he creates
is now no more the slave "of low ambition or distempered love." His
theme is rather--
"No other than the heart of man
As found among the best of those who live,
Not unexalted by religious faith,
Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few,
In Nature's presence."
Writing is as great an aid to the cultivation of the mind as reading. It
is indeed indispensable, and the accuracy of thought and expression of
which Bacon speaks, is but one of its good results. "By writing," says
Saint Augustine, "I have learned many things which nothing else had
taught me." There is, of course, no question here of writing for
publication. To do this no one should be urged. The farther we are from
all thought of readers, the nearer are we to truth; and once an author
has published, a sort of madness comes over him, and he seems to be
doing nothing unless he continue to publish. The truly intellectual man
leads an interior life; he dwells habitually in the presence of God, of
Nature, and of his own soul; he swims in a current of ideas, looks out
upon a world of truth and beauty; he would rather gain some new vision
of the eternal reality than to have a mountain of gold or the suffrages
of a whole people. The great hindrance is lack of the power of
prolonged attention, of sustained thought; and this the habit of
serious writing gives. But the habit itself is difficult to acquire. At
first in attempting to write we are discouraged to find how crude, how
unreal, how little within our control our knowledge is; and it will
often happen that we shall simply hold the pen in idleness, either
because we find nothing to write, or because the proper way to express
what we think eludes our efforts. When this happens day after day, the
temptation will come to abandon our purpose, and to seek easier and less
effective means of developing mental strength, or else we shall write
carelessly and without thought, which is even a greater evil than not to
write at all. In the writing of which I am thinking there is no question
of style, of what critics and readers will say; all that is asked is
that we apply our minds to things as they appear to us, and put in plain
words what we see. Thus our style will become the expression of our
thought and life. It will be the outgrowth of a natural method, and
consequently will have genuine worth. What is written in this way should
be preserved, not that others may see it, but that we ourselves by
comparing our earlier with our later essays may be encouraged by the
evidence of improvement. It is not necessary to make choice of a
subject,--whatever interests us is a fit theme; and if nothing should
happen specially to interest us, by writing we shall gain interest in
many things.
The method here proposed requires serious application, perseverance,
diligence: it is difficult; but they who have the courage to continue to
write, undeterred by difficulties, will gain more than they hope for.
They will grow in strength, in accuracy, in pliancy, in openness of
mind; they will become capable of profound and just views, and will
gradually rise to worlds of truth and beauty of which the common man
does not dream. And it will frequently happen that there will be
permanent value in what is written not to please the crowd or to flatter
a capricious public opinion, or to win gold or applause, but simply in
the presence of God and one's own soul to bear witness to truth. As the
painter takes pallet and brush, the musician his instrument, each to
perfect himself in his art, so he who desires to learn how to think
should take the pen, and day by day write something of the truth and
love, the hope and faith, which make him a living man.