people, and is lacking in experience and knowledge of her own, she may
be very well pleased with herself for her daring. "Fools rush in where
angels fear to tread"--that is an old saying which suggests that
ignorant people, defying the counsels of experience, were known to exist
before now--only in the past they were called "fools," whereas to-day
they prefer to be considered "exponents of advanced thought," with a
superior point-of-view, inaugurating a new era of "emancipation."
It is not my purpose here to go on multiplying examples. I merely wished
to indicate as simply and clearly as possible an underlying, fundamental
principle. It is at work in countless ways, in everybody's life, nearly
all the time. Personal impulses and inclinations may be very
short-sighted, very unlovely, very unworthy. Greed, murder, arson, lust,
theft, lying, betrayal--are only a few samples of the variety of
impulses which may come and do come frequently to various individuals
upon occasion.
Our own limited experience and a little reason may be a sufficient guide
in many cases. They teach us to overrule certain inclinations, whose
consequences we understand and which we deem contrary to our interests.
In many other cases, the consequences may be just as contrary to our
interests, though they lie beyond our own experience and present
understanding. For that reason people have been taught throughout the
centuries to accept and be guided by the accumulated experience and
wisdom of those who have gone before. This accumulated experience has
been preserved and made available to each new generation, in many
ways--traditions, conventions, customs, familiar quotations, standard
books, the schools and the Bible. Most of all, it has been the special
care and function of parents to instill it into their children. For the
first ten or fifteen years of life, children are constantly being told
what to do and what not to do, in all sorts of contingencies. And what
they are told is the result of accumulated experience in crystallized
practical form.
In the days of obedience, discipline and fear of punishment, children
accepted and respected this guidance, as authoritative. They formed the
habit of doing not what they felt like, but what was considered right
and best for them. Very often the true reasons, the complicated motives
and remote consequences, involved in a question of conduct were not
comprehended by the young people, and only vaguely sensed by their
parents. They were traditional ideas, generally approved by right-minded
people and passed along. Their origin, in nearly all cases, was the
accumulated experience and wisdom of people who did comprehend.
So it happens that a young woman, or a young man, of the new school,
without respect for old-fashioned teachings, and with insufficient
experience, or knowledge of their own, can fall into the error of
imagining that their selfish interests are best served by gratifying
each passing inclination.
Their first shallow mistake, as I have tried to show, is in overlooking
the lessons of others' experience.
This whole point-of-view, of course, is absolutely selfish and for the
time being, I have been content to meet them on their own ground and
answer them in terms of absolute selfishness. Even on the assumption
that a human being is a kind of animal, which feels no need of
consideration for others' welfare, and is devoid of any higher
aspirations than a full measure of selfish enjoyment--even then, purely
as a question of intelligence, a matter of policy, there are excellent
reasons why various impulses and inclinations should be resisted and
denied. The nature of these reasons I have attempted to suggest and make
clear by some haphazard examples and as previously noted, the basis of
them all is Experience.
IV
AFFECTION
There remain two other sets of reasons why our selfish inclinations
should often be denied--affection and faith. They are of a higher and
finer order. We will take them one at a time.
The conscious life of a human being is by no means limited to the
perception of sensations and the exercise of reason. These are important
functions, but they are not all. A human being is also provided with a
heart, which is capable of feeling sympathy for other human beings--for
all living things. This sympathetic feeling may cover a wide
range--pity, commiseration, friendship, admiration, devotion, adoration.
It is not the nature of mankind to live an isolated existence, in
loneliness. Boys and girls, men and women, from the beginning of life to
the end, yearn for the companionship of others with whom they can share
their thoughts and feelings, their pleasures and their pains. Through
association with others come affectionate feelings for certain ones. We
attach ourselves to them with bonds of sympathy, understanding, love.
The feeling of affection is such a normal and essential part of human
life that it seeks to find expression at every opportunity. A
warm-hearted child will lavish it on a kitten, or a rag doll; or will
show it for a mongrel dog. If the kitten, or the dog is hurt, or sick,
or even hungry, the girl or boy will be distressed by its trouble and
want to help it.
This is a primitive form of the feeling; carried to its full development
in the heart of a sensitive, noble nature it becomes one of the most
beautiful and vital of human attributes.
As we share our thoughts and feelings with another and are allowed to
share his in return, our centre of interest expands, as it were, and the
essence of life within us enriches itself by this sympathetic mingling
with the essence of the other. His thoughts, his feelings, his welfare
are no longer a matter of indifference to us. As our sympathy and
attachment grow, we become more and more concerned in this other's
interests; they become a part of our existence, in a strange and lovely
way, just as real and just as dear to us as if they were our own. Any
pleasure, or good fortune, becomes doubly grateful, if we may share it
with him; no pleasure is worth considering, if in order to obtain it, we
would be obliged to cause him a deprivation. We cannot forget his
welfare, or his happiness, we do not wish to forget his welfare or his
happiness, because through our sympathy and affection, the essence of
another life has become inexpressively near and dear to us.
To a greater or less degree, this capacity for affection is inherent in
human kind, from the lowest to the highest. It is a most precious human
quality and it opens the gates of life to a sort of satisfaction that is
infinitely bigger and finer and more lasting than anything that can be
obtained from the mere gratification of selfish and material impulses.
Now, while it is true that practically everybody is aware of this
feeling and has a need for affection and sympathy, not all people by any
means have big enough hearts, or fine enough natures, to respond to the
need very deeply. Cold, superficial, self-centered people may go through
life giving a very small modicum of sympathy or affection to anybody and
receiving very little in return. Many a man is incapable and unworthy of
being a real true friend to anybody. He may have brains and breeding and
plenty of animal desires, but in his heart there is no understanding of
what it means to be devoted to a welfare not his own. The same is true
no doubt of a great many women, those whose characters are too fickle
and unstable to permit of any deep and lasting attachment. Fortunately,
even in the case of such men and women, if they marry and have children,
some of the joy and meaning of this heart-life is still vouchsafed them.
They feel it for their sons and daughters.
If they have no children and are unmarried, there are mothers and
fathers, brothers and sisters to keep alive some measure of sympathy and
endearment. A human being who is totally bereft of such attachments,
without any feeling that comes from the heart for any one, is such a
rare exception that he need not be considered. Such lives, if they do
exist, would appear to normal beings as very pitiful.
As a usual thing, for most of us, the affections are constantly in
operation. Certain people who are near and dear to us are never really
out of our lives at all. Consciously or subconsciously, we carry them
with us wherever we go, tucked away in our hearts, ready to rise up at
the slightest provocation and take a vital part in our innermost
deliberations.
A little boy or girl of the right sort, with the right kind of loving
parents, grows up naturally with this feeling for them. In all sorts of
new experiences and questions of conduct, the thought comes
spontaneously: "What will mother think about this?" "She'll be terribly
surprised when I tell her that." "Father will be pleased and proud when
he knows what I've done." "I don't think she'd approve of that." "He'll
laugh at me, when he hears this." And so forth and so on, countless
times, in countless connections.
Mothers and fathers carry around a similar feeling with regard to their
children. Things that they see, things that they hear, things that they
read, plans and projects of all kinds, are spontaneously colored by the
consideration of their effect on the son or daughter--surprise,
pleasure, disappointment, good or ill.
The same thing takes place to a remarkable extent between a man and a
woman who love each other deeply. Nothing of importance can happen to
one, without an immediate reflection of the effect and bearing it will
have on the other. A frequent result of this is that, in order to give
pleasure to the other, one will act contrary to his own selfish
inclination. And the anticipation of this pleasure to be given to the
other can be strong enough to transform this denial and deprivation of
self into a sweeter and finer form of satisfaction.
This same order of feeling, based on sympathy and affection, springing
from the heart, extends and ramifies and attaches itself in a great
variety of ways, in the life of a human being, as we have already
suggested.
While instances of complete devotion of one nature to another are
comparatively rare, in any walk of life, and while most individuals are
lacking in the bigness of heart and depth of feeling to be capable of
it, under any circumstances, the importance of affection comes home to
nearly everybody, to greater or less extent, and is treasured up as one
of the essentials of life.
As a result of this human sympathy and affection, it would seem only
natural and obvious that there should come to everyone a realization of
the fact that in many of the things we do, for our own good or ill,
other people besides ourselves can't help being concerned. We may, by
thinking only of our own inclinations and seeking to gain our selfish
ends, be doing great harm and injustice to them. If other people are
affected by what we do, and they have feelings of the same sort as ours,
are not they, too, entitled to some consideration?
This idea seems so simple and evident that any thinking person might be
expected to admit it and understand it. Yet, as we have seen repeatedly
in discussing the attitude of the new generation, it is one of the
questions about which there prevails the greatest misconception and
confusion of mind. Up-to-date young people, absorbed in the habit of
doing what they like and deciding for themselves, very easily fall into
the way of overlooking this consideration almost entirely. They fail to
grasp the importance of the part that sympathy and affection have been
assigned to play in their own natures; and at the same time they lose
sight of the feelings and interests of others who must be affected by
the consequences of their acts. Lack of consideration for others has
come to be spoken of currently as one of the marked characteristics of
this new generation.
For this reason, if for no other, it may be just as well to linger on
the subject and make explanations doubly plain, rather than leave any
possible ground for a continuation of the confusion and
misunderstanding.
Suppose you were walking along a country road and you came upon a nice
little boy, named Harry, one of your neighbor's sons, and Harry was
sitting hunched up on a stump, sniffling and sobbing, with tears
streaming down his cheeks. Upon enquiring the cause of his trouble, you
learn that a bigger boy, Jake, had taken away Harry's apple. Strictly
speaking, the apple didn't belong to either of them, but Harry had
spied it on the tree and after a great deal of determined effort had
managed to climb out on the branch and shake it down. Then Jake came
along and took it.
Now, to see a little fellow sobbing with disappointment, deprived of
something his heart was set on and which he had worked hard to get, is
enough to arouse a feeling of sympathy in any normal and kindly person.
You feel sorry for Harry and you'd like to do something for him.
Suppose you happen to look along the road, just then, and you spy Jake
seated on a fence rail with an air of contentment, proceeding to eat the
apple--what would you feel like doing and saying to him? Suppose you
controlled yourself and asked him quietly why he took that apple away
from Harry, and he replied, with a defiant grin "Because I wanted it. I
like apples, and this is a fine big one!" If you continue to talk
quietly to Jake, and show him Harry sobbing on the stump, and make him
realize the situation, as like as not it will end up by Jake's saying:
"All right--if he feels as bad as that, let him have it. I didn't know
he was that kind of a cry baby." And he will pass up his own
inclination, rather than cause that much harm to another.
That is a very primitive example which illustrates the principle in its
simplest form. In the first place you are moved by sympathy and
consideration for another, when you feel sorry for Harry and want to
help him, and so is Jake when he is willing to forego his own desire for
Harry's sake--although he lacked consideration in the first place, in
taking something on which another's heart was set.
Here is another example:
A boy, George, is an only son and very dear to his parents, who have
watched over him always with loving care. During the summer vacation,
George has been invited to make a week's visit at the home of a
school-mate which is in another state. The trip is a longer and more
complicated one than George has ever undertaken by himself, and his
mother cannot help feeling apprehensive and anxious at the thought of
possible accidents and emergencies which may occur. It involves a night
run on a steamboat, a railroad journey and a long automobile ride
through mountainous country. The mother, not wishing to stand in the way
of her boy's pleasure, gives a reluctant consent. She makes no attempt
to disguise the anxiety she will feel while he is on the way, and
impresses on his mind the importance of sending her a telegram, as soon
as he has arrived safely at his destination. George laughs at her fears,
boy-fashion, and promises to do as she wishes.
No sooner has he started on his way, than the mother's heart enters upon
a period of increasing perturbation. Suppose something should happen to
the steamer--that it should break down, or catch fire, or run on a
reef--or that there should be a railroad accident--or that George should
lose his ticket, or be robbed of his money and find himself in some
far-away spot, not knowing what to do with no one to go to? Then that
long motor ride through deserted country--suppose it should be raining
and the roads slippery and they should try to make it too fast? So many
things are among the possibilities, and one can never be sure until it
is over.
Some people might feel inclined to smile at this account of a mother's
apprehension, but it is only a natural attribute of devoted love,
ineffably sweet and beautiful. While the precious child is exposed to
possible dangers, she cannot help feeling thus. She talks to the father
about it, wanting the comfort of his reassurance; and she lies awake
that night imagining things and counting the hours that must separate
her from the telegram announcing George's safety.
At last the time comes when, according to schedule, she may expect the
message. She waits about, in momentary suspense, for the telephone ring
from Western Union.
Now suppose the minutes pass and then the hours, until the mother's
apprehension grows into feverish and unreasoning alarm. She gets word to
her husband and communicates her alarm to him. As more time passes, the
conviction comes that something has happened to their son, and something
must be done. They attempt to get a long distance telephone connection
with the home of George's friend, but after a long delay and various
appeals, the report comes that there is a break-down on the line
somewhere, in the mountain section. They get in communication with the
steamboat offices and the railroad station, and after interminable
efforts finally ascertain that there has been no accident on either
line. There remains the motor trip--or the possibility of a personal
mishap to George at some stage of the journey--and no way of telling. In
the end, they send a telegram to the mother of George's friend, and
resign themselves to wait, in an agony of suspense for the answer.
Individuals who are phlegmatic, matter-of-fact, and not very intense in
their feelings might be inclined to ridicule this anxiety and suffering
on the part of the parents, for so slight a cause; they would fail to
understand it. But any mother with children of her own would understand
perfectly and be moved to genuine and heart-felt sympathy.
The condition of George's mother would naturally evoke the same sort of
compassion as the spectacle of Harry on the tree stump, sobbing for his
apple.
But what of the Jake, in this case--the prime factor of the problem? The
Jake in this case, of course, is no other than our only son, George. No
trouble of any sort was experienced by him in the various stages of his
journey. Upon his arrival, there were a number of new people to meet and
various elements of interest in the new surroundings to occupy his
attention. For the time being, he forgot to think of the mother he had
left behind.
Hours later, as they are starting a game of tennis, it suddenly occurs
to him that he has not yet sent his telegram home, but as it would be a
bother to go back to the house now and he feels like going ahead with
the tennis game, he makes a mental note and puts it off. It is not until
dinner time that he thinks of it again and when he finds that the
telephone is out of order and he would have to motor in to the telegraph
office, its doesn't seem worth the trouble. He has allowed so much time
to go by already that he decides the most satisfactory way out of it is
to wait until he finds time to write a letter and explain, as an excuse
for not keeping his promise, that the telephone wasn't working.
Before he has an opportunity to write his letter, the telegram arrives
from home disclosing his mother's anxiety--whereupon he feels ashamed
and sorry, and hurries to the telegraph office to send a reply.
This is a more or less typical example of a great many cases where lack
of consideration for others is not necessarily due to a lack of
affection or sympathy, but comes from a lack of thoughtfulness and
understanding. George may love his mother very much and he would not
voluntarily hurt her feelings, or be the cause of her suffering. The
sight of his mother in tears would cause him unhappiness and he would
gladly make a real sacrifice in order to comfort her. But the sight of
his mother's suffering, or the thought of his mother's suffering, is not
before him--it does not enter into his calculations or motives of
conduct. In order for this to take place, a certain amount of reflection
and imagination is required on his part.
In the case of Harry and Jake and the apple, we assumed that some one
came along and called Jake's attention to the unhappiness of Harry.
When Jake was made to see and realize, he responded with a feeling of
consideration.
But in the case of George and the vast majority of cases where this
question is involved, no one comes along to explain to you. If the
pleasure or pain of others is involved in what you do, the thought of
that must come from yourself. Very often those others are not present at
the time and the consequences may not be immediately and superficially
apparent. Imagination, reflection, and a habit of mind, may be needed to
realize the effect upon them.
Suppose you have a friend named Brown whom you have known many years and
have a good deal of affection for. An unexpected opportunity offers for
you to get a week's hunting in the South and you think how fine it would
be, if you can get the right sort of companion to share it with you. You
see Brown, tell him about it, invite him and he accepts. You immediately
start in making plans and arrangements--dogs, guns, food,
drinks--leaving nothing undone to make it a bang-up affair and give
Brown and yourself the time of your lives. Now suppose when you have
fixed up everything and are waiting in joyful anticipation for the hour
to arrive, you receive word from Brown, with apologies and a lame
excuse, that he must deprive himself of the pleasure of going with you?
And suppose you discover later, in an accidental way, that the real
reason Brown left you flat was because something else turned up that
appealed to him more and he was thinking only of himself?
Suppose, now, you are a society lady, or a society man, and you have
accepted an invitation from a woman friend to motor out to her country
place and dine and spend the night--and suppose when the day arrives,
you are offered a box at the opera, that night, to hear Caruso? As this
appeals to you much more than the other, you send a wire to the country
at the last minute, pretending an indisposition, and go to the opera.
What of the woman friend--who had made special efforts and invited
certain people on your account, and had counted on you as a main
consideration in her whole affair? Your absence upsets her completely,
spoils her party, and robs her of something on which she had spent a
good deal of time and effort and on which her heart was set.
If she ever discovers or suspects the true reason for your desertion,
you will have inflicted a wound in her feelings that few friendships can
survive and the loss of a friend in this world is hardly to be regarded
as a trifling matter.
These few examples which we have cited and a countless multitude of
others, of a more or less similar nature, which might be drawn from the
everyday experiences of any human being, tend to make plain the palpable
truth--that very often other people besides ourselves are concerned in
our actions and we do violence to our better feelings and theirs, if we
leave them out of consideration. Even up-to-date young people of the
most selfish order can hardly fail to recognize that and admit it, in
certain instances--when the others are before their eyes, or the effect
upon them is so direct and immediate that it cannot escape their
attention. In such instances they respond instinctively to the finer
side of their natures, where sympathy and affection are found. But just
as soon as an effort of reflection and imagination is required to
realize this same effect on others, there is no longer the same
response. The will and the faculty to do this appear, somehow, to be
lacking; so that they lose sight of this consideration very easily, and
leave it out of account as a controlling influence. Some one else has to
direct their attention, do the thinking for them and appeal to their
feelings, in order to restore the equilibrium.
This difficulty of voluntary reflection and understanding on their part
is still greater when it comes to another phase of the question, which
is one degree more complicated, but no less vital in its bearing on the
affections. You cannot do evil things, or act in such a way as will
bring harmful consequences upon yourself, without causing suffering to
those who love you. If your mother is very sweet and gentle and loves
you devotedly and you have a good deal of tender affection for her, you
would not think of striking her a blow on the face with your clenched
fist. No impulse within you, however selfish, could make you do that.
Yet the pain from such a blow would be as nothing compared to the
suffering you might cause her by smoking opium or sniffing cocaine or
doing something dishonorable, like forging your father's signature.
None of these things affect her directly or personally, but
sympathetically, through her love for you.