Surely a man has come to himself only when he has found the best that
is in him, and has satisfied his heart with the highest achievement he
is fit for. It is only then that he knows of what he is capable and
what his heart demands. And, assuredly, no thoughtful man ever came to
the end of his life, and had time and a little space of calm from which
to look back upon it, who did not know and acknowledge that it was what
he had done unselfishly and for others, and nothing else, that
satisfied him in the retrospect, and made him feel that he had played
the man. That alone seems to him the real measure of himself, the real
standard of his manhood. And so men grow by having responsibility laid
upon them, the burden of other people’s business. Their powers are put
out at interest, and they get usury in kind. They are like men
multiplied. Each counts manifold. Men who live with an eye only upon
what is their own are dwarfed beside them—seem fractions while they are
integers. The trustworthiness of men trusted seems often to grow with
the trust.
It is for this reason that men are in love with power and greatness: it
affords them so pleasurable an expansion of faculty, so large a run for
their minds, an exercise of spirit so various and refreshing; they have
the freedom of so wide a tract of the world of affairs. But if they use
power only for their own ends, if there be no unselfish service in it,
if its object be only their personal aggrandizement, their love to see
other men tools in their hands, they go out of the world small,
disquieted, beggared, no enlargement of soul vouchsafed them, no usury
of satisfaction. They have added nothing to themselves. Mental and
physical powers alike grow by use, as every one knows; but labor for
oneself is like exercise in a gymnasium. No healthy man can remain
satisfied with it, or regard it as anything but a preparation for tasks
in the open, amid the affairs of the world—not sport, but
business—where there is no orderly apparatus, and every man must devise
the means by which he is to make the most of himself. To make the most
of himself means the multiplication of his activities, and he must turn
away from himself for that. He looks about him, studies the facts of
business or of affairs, catches some intimation of their larger
objects, is guided by the intimation, and presently finds himself part
of the motive force of communities or of nations. It makes no
difference how small a part, how insignificant, how unnoticed. When his
powers begin to play outward, and he loves the task at hand, not
because it gains him a livelihood, but because it makes him a life, he
has come to himself.
Necessity is no mother to enthusiasm. Necessity carries a whip. Its
method is compulsion, not love. It has no thought to make itself
attractive; it is content to drive. Enthusiasm comes with the
revelation of true and satisfying objects of devotion; and it is
enthusiasm that sets the powers free. It is a sort of enlightenment. It
shines straight upon ideals, and for those who see it the race and
struggle are henceforth toward these. An instance will point the
meaning. One of the most distinguished and most justly honored of our
great philanthropists spent the major part of his life absolutely
absorbed in the making of money—so it seemed to those who did not know
him. In fact, he had very early passed the stage at which he looked
upon his business as a means of support or of material comfort.
Business had become for him an intellectual pursuit, a study in
enterprise and increment. The field of commerce lay before him like a
chess-board; the moves interested him like the manoeuvers of a game.
More money was more power, a great advantage in the game, the means of
shaping men and events and markets to his own ends and uses. It was his
will that set fleets afloat and determined the havens they were bound
for; it was his foresight that brought goods to market at the right
time; it was his suggestion that made the industry of unthinking men
efficacious; his sagacity saw itself justified at home not only, but at
the ends of the earth. And as the money poured in, his government and
mastery increased, and his mind was the more satisfied. It is so that
men make little kingdoms for themselves, and an international power
undarkened by diplomacy, undirected by parliaments.