and clear, in order to give us freedom for our work. Indeed, to make
these relations quiet and happy is the special work that some of us
have to do. There are laws for health, laws for gaining and keeping
normal nerves, laws for honest, kindly action toward others,--but
the obedience to all these is a dead obedience, and does not lead to
vigorous life, unless accompanied by a hearty love for work and play
with those to whom we stand in natural relations,--both young and
old. It is with life as it is with art, what we do must be done with
love, or it will have no force. Without the living spark of love, we
may have the appearance, but never the spirit, of useful work or
quiet content. Stagnation is not peace, and there can be no life,
and so no living peace, without happy relations with those about us.
The more we realize the practical strength of the law which bids us
love our neighbor as ourselves, and the more we act upon it, the
more quickly we gain the habit of pleasant, patient friendliness,
which sooner or later may beget the same friendliness in return. In
this kind of friendly relation there is a savor which so surpasses
the unhealthy snap of disagreement, that any one who truly finds it
will soon feel the fallacy of the belief that "between friends there
must be a little quarrelling, to give spice to friendship."
To be willing that every one should be himself, and work out his
salvation in his own way, seems to be the first principle of the
working plan drawn from the law of loving your neighbor as yourself.
If we drop all selfish resistance to the ways of others, however
wrong or ignorant they may be, we are more free to help them to
better ways when they turn to us for help. It is in pushing and
being pushed that we feel most strain in all human relations.
We wait willingly for the growth of plants, and do not complain, or
try in abnormal ways to force them to do what is entirely contrary
to the laws of nature; and if we paid more attention to the laws of
human nature, we should not stunt the growth of children, relatives,
and friends by resisting their efforts,--or their lack of
effort,--or by trying to force them into ways that we think must be
right for them because we are sure they are right for us.
There is a selfish, restless way of pushing others "for their own
good" and straining to "help" them, and there is a selfish, entirely
thoughtless way of letting them alone; it is difficult to tell which
is the worse, or which does more harm. The first is the attitude of
unconscious hypocrisy; the second is that of selfish indifference.
It is in letting alone, with a loving readiness to help, that we
find strength and peace for ourselves in our relations with others.
All great laws are illustrated most clearly in their simplest forms,
and there is no better way to get a sense of really free and
wholesome relations with others than from the relations of a mother
with her baby. Even healthy reciprocity is there, in all the fulness
of its best beginnings, and the results of wholesome, rational,
maternal care are evident to the delighted observer in the joyous
freedom with which the baby mind develops according to the laws of
its own life.
Heidi is a baby not yet a year old, and is left alone a large part
of the day. Having no amusements imposed upon her, she has formed
the habit of entertaining herself in her own way; she greets you
with the most fascinating little gurgles, and laughs up at you when
you stop and speak to her as if to say, "How do you do? I am having
a _very_ happy time!" Five minutes' smiling and being smiled at by
her gives a friend who stops to talk "a _very_ happy time" too. If
you take her up for a little while, she stays quietly and looks at
you, then at the trees or at something in the room, then at her own
hand. If you say "ah," or "oo," she answers with a vowel too; so the
conversation begins and goes on, with jolly little laughter every
now and then, and when you give her a gentle kiss and put her down,
her good-bye is a very contented one, and her "Thank you; please
come again," is quite as plainly understood as if she had said it.
You leave her, feeling that you have had a very happy visit with one
of your best friends.
Heidi is not officiously interfered with; she has the best of care.
When she cries, every means is taken to find the cause of her
trouble; and when the trouble is remedied, she stops. She is a dear
little friend, and gives and takes, and grows.
Another baby of the same age is Peggy. She is needlessly handled and
caressed. She is kissed a hundred times a day with rough affection,
which is mistaken for tenderness and love. She is "bounced" up and
down and around; and the people about her, who believe themselves
her friends and would be heartbroken if she were taken from them,
talk at her, and not with her; they make her do "cunning little
things," and then laugh and admire; they try over and over to force
her to speak words when her little brain is not ready for the
effort; and when she is awake, she is almost constantly surrounded
by "loving" noise. Peggy is capable of being as good a friend as
Heidi, but she is not allowed to be. Her family are so overwhelmed
by their own feelings of love and admiration that they really only
love themselves in her, for they give her not the slightest
opportunity to be herself. The poor baby has sleepless, crying
nights, and a little irritating illness hanging about her all the
time; the doctor is called, and every one wonders why she should be
ill; every one worries about her; but the caressing and noisy
affection go on. Although much of the difference between these two
babies could probably be accounted for by differences of heredity
and temperament, it nevertheless remains true that it is very
largely the result of a difference between wise and foolish parents.
The real friendship which her mother gave to Heidi, and which
resulted in her happy, placid ways and quickly responsive
intelligence, meets with a like response in older children; and
reciprocal friendship grows in strength and in pleasure both for
child and older friend, as the child grows older. When a child is
permitted the freedom of his own individuality, he can show the best
in himself. When he is tempted to go wrong, he can be rationally
guided in the right way in such a manner that he will accept the
guidance as an act of friendship; and to that friendship he will
feel bound in honor to be true, because he knows that we, his
friends, are obeying the same laws. Of course all this comes to him
from no conscious action of his own mind, but from an unconscious,
contented recognition of the state of mind of his older friends.
A poor woman, who lived in one room with her husband and two
children, said once in a flash of new intelligence, "Now I see: the
more I hollers, the more the children hollers; I am not going to
holler any more." There are various grades of "hollering;" we
"holler" often without a sound, and the child feels it, and
"hollers" with many sounds which are distressing to him and to us.
It is primarily true with babies and young children that "if you
want to have a friend, you must be a friend." If we want courtesy
and kindliness from a child, we must be courteous and kindly to him.
Not in outside ways alone,--a child quickly feels the sham of mere
superficial attention,--but sincerely, with a living interest.
So should we truly, from our inmost selves, meet a child as if he
were of our own age, and as if we were of his age. This sounds like
a paradox, but indeed the one proposition is essential to the other.
If we meet a child only as if he were of our age, our attitude tends
to make him a little prig; if we meet him as if we were as young as
he is, his need for maturer influences produces a lack of balance
which we must both feet; but if we sincerely meet him as if the
exchange of age were mutual, we find common ground and valuable
companionship.
This mutual understanding is the basis of all true friendship. Only
read, instead of "age," "habit of mind," "character," "state," and
we have the whole. It is aiming for reciprocal relations, from the
best in us to the best in others, and from the best in others to the
best in ourselves. It is the foundation of all that is
strengthening, and quiet, and happy, in all human intercourse with
young and old.
To gain the friendly habit is more difficult with our contemporaries
than it is with children. We have no right to guide older people
unless they want to be guided, and they often want to guide us in
ways we do not like at all. We have no right to try to change their
opinions, unless they ask us for new light; and they often insist
upon trying to change ours whether we ask them or not. There is sure
to be selfish resistance in us when we complain of it in others, and
we must acknowledge it and get free from it before we can give or
find the most helpful sympathy.
A healthy letting people alone, and a good wholesome scouring of
ourselves, will, if it is to come at all, bring open friendliness.
If it is not to come, then the healthy letting people alone should
continue, for it is possible to live in the same house with a wilful
and trying character, and live at peace, if he is lovingly let
alone. If he is unlovingly let alone, the peace will be only on the
outside, and must sooner or later give way to storms, or, what is
much worse, harden into unforgiving selfishness.
Our influence with others depends primarily upon what we are, and
only secondarily upon what we think or upon what we say. It is so
with babies and young children, and more so with our older friends.
If we honestly feel that there is something for us to learn from
another, however wrong or ignorant, in some ways, he may seem, we
are not only more able to find and profit by the best in him, but
also to give to him in return whatever he may be ready to receive.
How little quiet comfort there is in families where useless
resistance to one another is habitual! Members of one family often
live along together with more or less appearance of good fellowship,
but with an inner strain which gives them drawn faces and tired
bodies, or else throws them back upon themselves in the enjoyment of
their own selfishness; and sometimes there is not even the
appearance of good fellowship, but a chronic resistance and
disagreement, all for the want of a little sympathy and common
sense.
It is the sensitive people that suffer most, and their sensitiveness
is deplored by the family and by themselves. If they could only know
how great a gift their sensitiveness is! To appreciate this, it must
be used to find and feel the good in others, not to make us
abnormally alive to real or fancied slights. We must use it to
enlarge our sympathies and help us understand the wrong-doing of
others enough to point the way, if possible, to better things, not
merely to criticise and blame them. Only in such ways can we learn
to realize and use the delicate power of sensitiveness. Selfish
sensitiveness is a blessing turned to a curse; but the more lovingly
sensitive we become to the need of moral freedom in our friends, the
Dearer we are led to our own.
There are no human relations that do not illustrate the law which
bids me "love my neighbor as myself;" especially clearly is it
revealed,--in its breach of observance,--in the comparatively
external relations of host and guest in ordinary social life, and in
the happiness that can be given and received when it is readily
obeyed.
A lady once said, "I go into my bedroom and take note of all the
conveniences I have there, and then look about my guest chamber to
see that it is equally well and appropriately furnished." She
succeeds in her object in the guest chamber if she is the kind of
hostess to her guest that she would have her guest be to her; not
that her guest's tastes are necessarily her own, but that she knows
how to find out what they are and how to satisfy them.
It is often difficult to love our neighbor as ourselves because we
do not know how to love ourselves. We are selfish, or stupid, or
aggressive with ourselves, or try too hard for what is right and
good, instead of trusting with inner confidence and reverence to a
power that is above us.
Over-thoughtfulness for others, in little things or great, is
oppressive, and as much an enemy to peace, as the lack of any
thoughtfulness at all. It is like too much attention to the baby,
and comes from the same kind of selfish affection, with--frequently
the added motive of wanting to appear disinterested.
One might give pages of examples showing the right and the wrong way
in all the varied relations of life, but they would all show that
the right way comes from obedience to the law of unselfishness. To
obey this law we must respect our neighbor's rights as we respect
our own; we must gain and keep the clear and quiet atmosphere that
we like to find about our friend; we must shun everything that would
interfere with a loving kindliness toward him, as we would have him
show the same kindliness toward us. We must know that we and our
friends are one, and that, unless a relation is a mutual benefit, it
is no true relation at all. But, first of all, we must remember that
a true appreciation of the wonderful power of this law comes only
with daily, patient working, and waiting for the growth it brings.
In so far as we are truly the friend of one, whether he be baby,
child, or grown man,--shall we be truly the friend of all; in so far
as we are truly the friend of all, shall we be truly the friend of
every one; and, as we find the living peace of this principle, and a
greater freedom from selfishness,--whether of affection or
dislike,--those who truly belong to us will gravitate to our sides,
and we shall gravitate to theirs. Each one of us will understand his
own relation to the rest,--whether remote or close,--for in that
quiet light it will be seen to rest on intelligible law, which only
the fog and confusion of selfishness concealed.
XIX.
THE USE OF THE WILL
IT is not generally recognized that the will can be trained, little
by little, by as steadily normal a process as the training of a
muscle, and that such training must be through regular daily
exercise, and as slow in its effects as the training of a muscle is
slow. Perhaps we are unconsciously following, as a race, the law
that Froebel has given for the beginnings of individual education,
which bids us lead from the "outer to the inner," from the known to
the unknown. There is so much more to be done to make methods of
muscular training perfect, that we have not yet come to appreciate
the necessity for a systematic training of the will. Every
individual, however, who recognizes the need of such training and
works accordingly, is doing his part to hasten a more intelligent
use of the will by humanity in general.
When muscles are trained abnormally their development weakens,
instead of strengthening, the whole system. Great muscular strength
is often deceptive in the appearance of power that it gives; it
often effectually hides, under a strong exterior, a process of
degeneration which is going on within, and it is not uncommon for an
athlete to die of heart disease or pulmonary consumption.
This is exactly analogous to the frequently deceptive appearance of
great strength of will. The will is trained abnormally when it is
used only in the direction of personal desire, and the undermining
effect upon the character in this case is worse than the weakening
result upon the body in the case of abnormal muscular development. A
person who is persistently strong in having his own way may be found
inconsistently weak when he is thwarted in his own way. This
weakness is seldom evident to the general public, because a man with
a strong will to accomplish his own ends is quick to detect and hide
any appearance of weakness, when he knows that it will interfere
with whatever he means to do. The weakness, however, is none the
less certainly there, and is often oppressively evident to those
from whom he feels that he has nothing to gain.
When the will is truly trained to its best strength, it is trained
to obey; not to obey persons or arbitrary ideas, but to obey laws of
life which are as fixed and true in their orderly power, as the
natural laws which keep the suns and planets in their appointed
spheres. There is no one who, after a little serious reflection, may
not be quite certain of two or three fixed laws, and as we obey the
laws we know, we find that we discover more.
To obey truly we must use our wills to yield as well as to act.
Often the greatest strength is gained through persistent yielding,
for to yield entirely is the most difficult work a strong will can
do, and it is doing the most difficult work that brings the greatest
strength.
To take a simple example: a small boy with a strong will is troubled
with stammering. Every time he stammers it makes him angry, and he
pushes and strains and exerts himself with so much effort to speak,
that the stammering, in consequence, increases. If he were told to
do something active and very painful, and to persist in it until his
stammering were cured, he would set his teeth and go through the
work like a soldier, so as to be free from the stammering in the
shortest possible time. But when he is told that he must relax his
body and stop pushing, in order to drop the resistance that causes
his trouble, he fights against the idea with all his little might.
It is all explained to him, and he understands that it is his only
road to smooth speaking; but the inherited tendency to use his will
only in resistance is so strong, that at first it seems impossible
for him to use it in any other way.
The fact that the will sometimes gains its greatest power by
yielding seems such a paradox that it is not strange that it takes
us long to realize it. Indeed, the only possible realization of it
is through practice.
The example of the little stammering boy is an illustration that
applies to many other cases of the same need for giving up
resistance.
No matter how actively we need to use our wills, it is often,
necessary to drop all self-willed resistance first, before we begin
an action, if we want to succeed with the least possible effort and
the best result.
When we use the will forcibly to resist or to repress, we are simply
straining our nerves and muscles, and are exerting ourselves in a
way which must eventually be weakening, not only to them, but to the
will itself. We are using the will normally when, without repression
or unnecessary effort, we are directing the muscles and nerves in
useful work. We want "training and not straining" as much for the
will as for the body, and only in that way does the will get its
strength.
The world admires a man for the strength of his will if he can
control the appearance of anger, whereas the only strength of will
that is not spurious is that which controls the anger itself. We
have had the habit for so long of living in appearances, that it is
only by a slow process that we acquire a strong sense of their
frailty and lack of genuine value. In order to bring the will, by
training, out of the region of appearances into that of realities,
we must learn to find the true causes of weakness and use our wills
little by little to remove them. To remove the external effect does
no permanent good and produces an apparent strength which only hides
an increasing weakness.
Imagine, for instance, a woman with an emotional, excitable nature
who is suffering from jealousy; she does not call it jealousy, she
calls it "sensitive nerves," and the doctors call it "hysteria." She
has severe attacks of "sensitive nerves" or "hysteria" every time
her jealousy is excited. It is not uncommon for such persistent
emotional strain, with its effect upon the circulation and other
functions of the body, to bring on organic disease. In such a case
the love of admiration, and the strength of will resulting from that
selfish desire, makes her show great fortitude, for which she
receives much welcome praise. That is the effect she wants, and in
the pose of a wonderful character she finds it easy to produce more
fortitude--and so win more admiration.
A will that is strong for the wrong, may--if taken in time--become
equally strong for the right. Perversion is not, at first, through
lack of will, but through the want of true perception to light the
way to its intelligent use.
A man sometimes appears to be without power of will who is only
using a strong will in the wrong way, but if he continues in his
wrong course long enough, his weakness becomes real.
If a woman who begins her nervous degeneration by indulging herself
in jealousy--which is really a gross emotion, however she may refine
it in appearance--could be made to see the truth, she would, in many
cases, be glad to use her will in the right direction, and would
become in reality the beautiful character which her friends believe
her to be. This is especially true because this moral and nervous
perversion often attacks the finest natures. But when such
perversion is allowed to continue, the sufferer's strength is always
prominent in external dramatic effects, but disappears oppressively
when she is brought face to face with realities.
Many people who are nervous invalids, and many who are not, are
constantly weakening themselves and making themselves suffer by
using their wills vigorously in every way _but_ that which is
necessary to their moral freedom: by bearing various unhappy effects
with so-called stoicism, or fighting against them with their eyes
tight shut to the real cause of their suffering, and so hiding an
increasing weakness under an appearance of strength.
A ludicrous and gross example of this misuse of the will may be
observed in men or women who follow vigorously and ostentatiously
paths of self-sacrifice which they have marked out for themselves,
while overlooking entirely places where self-denial is not only
needed for their better life, but where it would add greatly to the
happiness and comfort of others.
It is curious a such weakness is common with people who are
apparently very intelligent; and parallel with this are cases of men
who are remarkably strong in the line of their own immediate
careers, and proportionately weak in every other phase of their
lives. We very seldom find a soldier, or a man who is powerful in
politics, who can answer in every principle and action of his life
to Wordsworth's "Character of the Happy Warrior."
Absurd as futile self-sacrifice seems, it is not less well balanced
than the selfish fortitude of a jealous woman or than the apparent
strength of a man who can only work forcibly for selfish ends. The
wisest use of the will can only grow with the decrease of
self-indulgence.
"Nervous" women are very effective examples of the perversion of a
strong will. There are women who will work themselves into an
illness and seem hopelessly weak when they are not having their own
way, who would feel quite able to give dinner parties at which they
could be prominent in whatever role they might prefer, and would
forget their supposed weakness with astonishing rapidity. When
things do not go to please such women, they are weak and ill; when
they stand out among their friends according to their own ideal of
themselves and are sufficiently flattered, they enter into work
which is far beyond their actual strength, and sooner or later break
down only to be built up on another false basis.
This strong will turned the wrong way is called "hysteria," or
"neurasthenia," or "degeneracy." It may be one of these or all
three, _in its effect,_ but the training of the will to overcome the
cause, which is always to be found in some kind of selfishness,
would cure the hysteric, give the neurasthenic more wholesome
nerves, and start the degenerate on a course of regeneration. At
times it would hardly surprise us to hear that a child with a
stomach-ache crying for more candy was being treated for "hysteria"
and studied as a "degenerate." Degenerate he certainly is, but only
until he can be taught to deny himself candy when it is not good for
him, with quiet and content.