by the acquisition of good habits; or philosophically, by meditating
upon, and coming to know, and discriminating between, the true and the
untrue in the conduct of life; or, through religion, at once seeking
the infinite and the power that thence springs. The easiest way is
undoubtedly the last, and to this, even though one takes the other
ways, one is finally led. For the secret of true culture, its beginning
and its real key, lies in the conquering of selfishness and especially
of the inordinate desire for pleasure. Thus it comes about that often
a very simple man, who possesses little knowledge and has had little
contact with so-called good society, is nevertheless more truly
cultured than some aristocratic or learned gentleman. He has the real
essentials of culture before they have, and has taken the easiest way
to acquire it.
Only when a man is no longer constantly busied about himself and no
longer thinks of himself alone does he receive his freedom of spirit
and the full use of the forces that lie in his mental and spiritual
power. The spirit, then for the first, becomes in some sort free from
an occupation not worthy of itself, and becomes capable of taking up
and quietly working at things which otherwise had remained forever
concealed under personal cares and pleasures.
To be sure--and this also must be said--these things are hard so long
as the youthful man is in the full tide of his physical and mental
unfolding. Such young people as have already attained to these things
very early in life usually do not live very long. It appears that man,
like the animal, and like the plant before it bears fruit, needs a time
of self-seeking activity, in order first to obtain a sufficient growth
and strength as a natural creature. In the case of man, however, there
surely and naturally comes a moment when an exclusive or preëminent
occupation about one’s own self becomes unnatural, and in every larger
nature--and, it may perhaps be said, in every existence at all worthy
of men--there comes the impulse to free oneself from oneself and to
live for an idea.
This is the most decisive moment of existence. It is, with some men,
comparable to a sudden, violent death, and a new birth to another life.
With others, it is more like the gradual and quiet sinking of the
former things into slumber, and the awakening and slow fashioning of a
new nature.
But if this change has once taken place, in one way or the other, then
all the real questions of human existence appear in another light,
clear and solved.
But if this change does not take place in a man who is not wholly
animal in his nature, then there always stays with him a never-quieted
thirst for such a change; and likewise a feeling of guilt, which
clearly says to him that he could and should have become something
better, a voice within him he can not drown, however great his seeming
success.
IV
With this we have also solved the last question you will put: “What
shall we get out of it? What real gain has a man from true culture?” To
this is to be answered that every great inward advancement a man makes
rests first upon a faith. He must forsake something he knows, and seek
something toward which only a presentiment is leading him, something he
can not understand yet fully, because the capacity is for the present
lacking.
But if he possesses the courage to will it, he attains it; and of those
who have attained this goal, not one has yet found the cost too high,
or the toil too hard.
The reward of virtue in this world is just this, that virtue _is_,
and that it can be overcome by no power of the world, but itself is
the only real power and force that will completely fill life full and
satisfy.
Tennyson has expressed this very beautifully in his poem “Wages”:
“_Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song,
Paid with a voice flying by to be lost on an endless sea--
Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong--
Nay, but she aim’d not at glory, no lover of glory she:
Give her the glory of going on, and still to be._
“_The wages of sin is death: if the wages of Virtue be dust,
Would she have heart to endure for the life of the worm and the fly?
She desires no isles of the blest, no quiet seats of the just,
To rest in a golden grove, or to bask in a summer sky:
Give her the wages of going on, and not to die._”
It is therefore, in the judgment of the best even of our own day,
fully worth the trouble to strive for true culture, and all attain who
really desire--rich or poor, learned or unlearned. Indeed, what Christ
first said for his own generation is also very appropriate for ours,
that simple souls and modest lives stand much more intimately near to
true culture, and on the way to it do not meet so many and so great
hindrances as do the wise and the prudent, and especially the rich,
who must first strip off infinitely many prejudices and attachments to
outward things, all of which are irreconcilable with true culture.
It is therefore harder for some and easier for others to attain to
culture, but for none impossible, save those whose mind is wholly
bound up with material things, and are satisfied besides with a merely
external culture that is rather form and show than reality, however
much it may claim to be real.
An ancient Chinese philosopher has already expressed this very well in
the following verses, somewhat naïvely translated:
“_Men who win the highest prize
Are quick to learn and quickly wise;
Men in the second rank belong
Who’re wise, but in the learning long;
Those people must be classed as thirds
Who stupid stay, and learn--but words._”
It scarcely lies within the will of every one of us whether his lot
shall assign him to the first of these classes, and happily it is not
a matter of very much concern. They are the great exceptions, the
moral geniuses of humanity. But to the second rank every one of us
is called, yes, emphatically challenged, when once the way has been
shown. And the saddest thing that can happen to him in life is, if he
nevertheless remains among the third sort of men, whose existence, at
the end, has had no real worth, either for themselves, or for others.
“Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth
understanding; for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise
of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
“Wisdom is more precious than rubies: and none of the things thou canst
desire are to be compared unto her.
“Length of days is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and
honor.
“Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.”
V. NOBLE SOULS
V. NOBLE SOULS
Kant somewhere suggests that all the natural capacities of a being were
intended completely to unfold, at some time, along the line of some
definite purpose, but that in man (the only reasonable being on earth)
the capacities intended for the use of the reason can be unfolded
completely only in the race, and not in every particular individual.
But since this does not come about quite of itself, the conclusion
would necessarily follow that there must always be separate individuals
who are specially called, to bring about for the whole of humanity this
development to a higher stage of its existence--with the proviso that
they shall also have willed to devote themselves to this purpose and,
to this end, to set aside all other personal aims. And even the further
conclusion would seem to be justified that no single human life would
fully suffice for this, but that rather a certain bequeathal of this
mission from hand to hand would be possible and fitting.
With this intent, the Mosaic legislation cherished the magnificent
plan of lifting a whole tribe out of the ordinary conditions of the
life of the nation, and devoting it to this, the noblest of the
activities. Very significantly, this tribe was forbidden the possession
of property; the Lord alone should be their inheritance, and every
pious Israelite was obliged, in the interest of the whole, to help
support them with the tenth part of his income (which, however, he
could bestow on any Levite he chose). Whether such an arrangement could
be realized in any of our modern states, and whether (and this is the
important point) it could be kept up indefinitely as established,
might be very questionable. But the certainty remains that every human
society needs, for its preservation, some such kind of salt, without
which it would the more easily fall into corruption. This salt is--the
“noble souls.”
Doubtless Christianity, at the beginning, had the intention of
requiring such a temper of soul of every one of its followers. But
we have since become much more modest in our demands on Christendom
in its entirety; we have been driven to say that there exist certain
higher claims than the ordinary ones laid on everybody, but that these
higher claims shall never require, so long as the world stands, an
artificial, castelike order of men, but rather men who will accept
them in a spirit of perfect freedom and even joy; and all thoughts
of a specially privileged position resting on these claims, and all
consequent feelings of superiority, must be completely shut out.
Thus this aristocracy has the advantage over all others in that it is
immediately accessible to all and that every one may become the founder
of an aristocratic family after this sort. Nor will there ever be
much crowding to get into this aristocracy, but nearly every one will
be ready to yield this place to the modern Levites, if only they, in
return, will give up the eager competition for other advantages.
Noble souls, therefore, are those who completely renounce the chief
aim of ordinary souls, the personal enjoyment of life, in order that
they may devote themselves the more effectively to the elevation of the
whole race.
The ready objection, that both can perhaps be combined, may well
be disputed. Unless one purposely closes his eyes, his experience
will rather show that this is not the case; and any proof other
than experience will convince no one on this point. Nor can we yet
really believe in any transformation and elevation of the _whole_
of Christendom through anything that may happen in the future.
Christendom, at least at first, can be regenerated only by the
gradual formation once more of such a band of volunteers within it
as will earnestly and literally accept the demands of the Christian
faith--more earnestly than (in a purely practical sense) is possible
to the majority of the souls comprising Christendom, or than, at least
for the present, can be expected of them. The danger lurking therein,
that a new Pharisaism might spring from it, is a real one; but the
danger is lessened because this conception of life could remain on
a purely individual basis, without taking any outward or organized
form. It appears in general to be a characteristic mark of the present
evolution of Christianity that, apart from all essential improvements
in its outward form, it is going first to develop again from within
into an “invisible church,” into a kingdom that truly is not of this
world. To explain this, however, is not the purpose of this chapter;
it would rather contradict this chapter’s leading thought, that it
is first of all a duty for the individual to proceed to his own
transformation. The question for us here, therefore, is only this: What
are the necessary characteristics of a truly noble soul? What are the
chief obstacles that stand in the way of this extraordinary guidance
of the spirit? And finally, is it possible in our day, and is it worth
the trouble, to strive after this goal? What will they, who do thus,
receive?
The opposite to “noble” is not “bad” or “vicious” (though these are not
noble), but “little, narrow-hearted, provincial, thinking only of small
aims in life and only of oneself or of one’s immediate surroundings.” A
broad vision, a large heart for all, indifference for one’s own self,
care for others--all these are noble. Fearlessness is an essential
element; also the not allowing oneself to be imposed upon by anything
in the world, under any circumstances. This latter characteristic the
genuine nobility has in common with the false, though in a pleasanter
form and united with a sincere esteem for what is truly honorable,
an esteem that the spurious nobility lacks. Another element is a
certain finer cleanliness of spirit. No longer to be an animal in
any direction, no longer in any way to favor the merely physical
being--this is our real calling, which we are to learn here on earth
that we may pursue it hereafter. When the soul stands firmly upon this
level (and it seldom reaches it in one generation), what is vulgar
becomes, to noble souls, unnatural and therefore physically repugnant;
while, at the lower level of development, it still charms and entices,
though it may spiritually be already overcome.
The following particular qualities, then, are not noble: first, all
vanity; this is a quite certain mark of a soul still small; therefore,
second, all boasting, all self-praise in general, and all pretensions
of even (so to speak) the most permissible nature. These last are not
unmoral, perhaps, but they are at any rate common and small. Then we
must add, further, all immoderate pleasure in any kind of enjoyment,
even when not purely physical; in eating and drinking, in music and
the drama, or what not. The noble man must always stand above his
pleasure and never yield himself into its power. Only one step farther
in the very common though often innocent gratification of pleasure is
the finding of delight in luxury; a stain of injustice is already
associated with luxury, which infallibly means depriving another man
of his own, and creates and maintains a dividing-line among men such
as ought not to exist. A noble simplicity of living which does not
degenerate into the cynicism of the Stoic is a certain mark of a soul
by right of heredity already nobly born; but the love of luxury is the
characteristic trait of the upstart. Luxury, with debts besides and
one’s consequent dependence upon men, is the acme of commonness and
leads very often on into wrong-doing.
It is quite the contrary of noble to speak much of oneself, and
particularly to boast of one’s deeds or philanthropy--the latter,
because one is scarcely justified in making much of a stir about it;
for very few people give away what they themselves can make good
use of, but only a part of their superfluity, which, because it is
a superfluity, they do not even quite rightfully own. Those who are
charitable in a really large-hearted fashion are, for the most part,
only the poor, who regard it as a matter of course that they should
help one another with everything they possess. With them, giving is
not associated with glory, nor is receiving associated with shame;
while the higher classes often seek to balance accounts with their
Christianity on the cheapest terms, by bringing their philanthropy well
forward into men’s notice.
To be sure, there is a way of concealing one’s deeds in such a fashion
that they are meant to be discovered and thus win double praise. And
it is not wholly right, and particularly not wholly Christian to free
oneself altogether from personal contact with poverty by means of
contributions to benevolent institutions. The Gospel knows nothing of
such societies as yet (perhaps it even excludes them), but simply says,
“Give to him that asketh thee”; one might at most add, “unless it will
manifestly do him harm,”--as really happens in some cases. The anxious
avoidance of any contact with a callous or not quite cleanly hand is
anything but truly noble.
It is not noble to feel disdain toward inferiors, toward poor people
who are often the truly noble of this world, toward children, toward
the oppressed of every sort, and even toward animals. The chase
especially, much as it may belong to the pleasures of noble or
would-be noble people, can not be regarded as anything truly noble,
and particularly if it is connected with no danger, but is simply a
pleasure in the killing of defenceless creatures. Frederick the Great
has a sharp passage about this in his writings, while the last French
Bourbons were zealous huntsmen.
To be ever sincerely friendly with servants, never domineering or
condescending, never familiar, but always generous and careful, is a
great art which is rarely learned in a single generation, but is always
a sure mark of nobility.
The moods of a noble soul are not based on pessimistic lines. The
pessimists are those who have somehow fallen short and are incapable of
struggling with courage for the highest things of life and of gaining
them by the power and endurance necessary. Therefore they give out
that they disclaim them, or represent the renunciation of them as the
highest attainable goal. When their pessimism is not merely a passing
phase in development, pessimists are always egotistical men of a narrow
range of ideas, to whom one must not pay the honor of admiration.
Thorough faultfinders, constant critics of everything, tormentors of
women, overexacting, capable of falling into painful agitation over a
misplaced article or over a train they have missed,--such are the least
noble among them.
The noblest thing of all is the love of one’s enemies. To be kind to
one’s friends, or to be friendly and fair toward everybody, is socially
excellent, but a long way still from being noble. But they who take
injuries quietly, and can always be just even to enemies, are the
genuine aristocrats of the spirit.
The perfect pattern of nobility is Christ; many of his biographers give
quite a false impression in depicting him too much from the humble and
outwardly meek point of view, and thus carry many conceptions of our
own bit of sky over into the oriental world, with its different ways
of thought. It is just that unattainably perfect combination of the
tenderest affection for the little ones, the poor, the oppressed, and
the guilty, with that large and calm self-consciousness before all the
high, the rich, and the mighty of that day (which nevertheless is never
defiance or pride),--it is just that combination that lends to this
personality a stamp it would be hard to declare purely human. To follow
this type has since been the task of all who strive after perfection,
and whoever turns away from it will always run the risk of chasing
after a false ideal and not attaining the goal. As one of these false
ideals has himself truly said, “In the breast of every man two souls
inhabit: the one, in the strong joy of love, holds to the world with
clinging organs; the other lifts itself forcefully away from the mist
to the fields of high surmise.” A force exerted to subdue oneself,
and a faith in these fields, will always in truth belong to the truly
noble; and if the great poet, who never completely subdued the lesser
of these souls in himself, says, in the second part of his most famous
work, “Fool, whoever lifts yonder his blinking eyes, and fancies
himself above the masses of his equals, let him stand fast and look
about him here, for to him that can hear, this world is not mute,”--if
he says this, then it is to be answered that to nobility there also
belongs something of a foolishness that is yet wiser than all the
wisdom of men.
The chief obstacles in the way of genuine nobility are the nobility
that is not genuine and the fear of men.
The presence of some sort of “aristocracy” in every human society of
long continuance is a proof of the need of something such, and at
the same time the chief cause of its decay. One might say, somewhat
paradoxically, that an aristocracy is at its purest and best where it
has no right to exist; and at its worst where it possesses the greatest
“rights.” Those who belong to these higher classes live now, for the
most part, in the vain delusion (to which they are systematically
brought up, and by which they are debarred from any better conception)
that they owe to humanity nothing further than their mere existence,
or that there is in general no other society for them but the “upper
ten thousand,” as they are called in England. They deem it quite
sufficient if they in a certain measure stand as representatives of
“the beautiful” in the life of humanity, somewhat in the sense of the
tasteless expression, “The rose that doth itself adorn, adorneth, too,
the garden,” or in accordance with the better expression, not always
rightly applied, that common natures count for what they do, noble
natures for what they are. Taken in the right sense, this last is true;
for from nobly living, nobly doing necessarily follows of itself,
while it is but hypocrisy without it. One of the surest marks of men
with noble natures is that the unfortunate are dearer to them than the
fortunate. Where this is not so there is no genuine aristocratic nature
of God’s grace, but only an ordinary man, however showy his station in
life.
A certain haughty inaccessibility is very pleasant to the proud,
and passes with them for noble. With God, however, this is not the
case, and the man to whom he is merciful he transfers to conditions
of life where that must be given up. For no one has any feeling for
such distant demi-gods who do not share in the common human lot. They
purchase their “exceptional position” much too dearly, since by it they
are shut out from knowing what real love is.
Then, too, it is strange that the most useless of these
birds-of-paradise of human society (and proud, too, of their
uselessness) very often deport themselves as zealous followers of
Christianity, while their whole mode of existence and their whole
conception of the world stand in contradiction with the most elementary
Christian principles.
It will therefore remain on the whole as Cromwell said, “The cause of
Christ goes hand in hand with the cause of the people.” The spirit of
nobility in the ordinary sense goes no further than a curious hearing
of the gospel, or than the attempt to use the gospel for quite other
ends than it was meant.
Still less noble than this aristocracy of birth (unless it is also
inwardly noble) are, as a rule, the new arrivals into it from the lower
classes, who mostly bring with them their inborn servile nature, or the
arrogant money-aristocrats who have made themselves rich, but to whom
the feeling of the rightfulness of their possessions must be wanting.
Of such a man Demosthenes, in one of his finest speeches, asseverates
that he was surely the child of some slave spuriously substituted in
the place of the real child, and was not in the least fitted to belong
in a free state.
All arrogance (even that over one’s talents or success) is an unfailing
sign of a small soul. Of pride, however, one can not say quite the
same. In Dante’s great poem it is very noteworthy that it is only
inside the gate of grace that release from pride, that is, humility,
is imparted to the man who is purifying himself from all his faults;
before, he employs his pride in overcoming other and lower sins that
conflict yet more with the nobility of the soul.
We can not, then, change this fact, that every genuine aristocracy
rests upon the appointment of God, who is the only rightful “lord” upon
earth, beside whom there is no other “right of lordship,” and who
accepts those as his “vassals of the crown” whom he deems qualified.
On the other hand, it is just as undoubted that individualism, the
right of mastery over one’s own nature and over one’s free will so far
as it is employed for good ends, is the most inalienable of all human
rights, and one that no political democracy can or will ever set aside.
To lower this individualism to a mere class or mass consciousness and
to a common average of culture is barbarism; to develop it partially
and selfishly only for oneself is criminal or insane. Beauty of form
has its value and its right in the training of individual men and of
whole generations, provided it is developed on the sound basis of the
good--as if its blossom. But then it is the most perfect expression of
manliness, of virtue in the ancient sense, of that chivalrous spirit of
the Middle Ages which to-day is expressed in the word “gentlemanlike,”
though this word often stands only for an empty mould without real
contents. “Gentleness, when it weds to manhood, makes a man.” Otherwise
not.
“The fear of man bringeth a fall,” says the wise Hebrew proverb-writer;
“but whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.” That is very
much in accordance with experience. The fear of man leads always into
by-paths and is ever somewhat petty and ignoble. Yet no one, even the
highest and strongest, can forever remain without fear, if he knows no
invisible Lord above him on whose protection he may absolutely rely, so
long as he acts rightly.