Every man—if I may adopt and paraphrase a passage from Dr. South—every
man hath both an absolute and a relative capacity: an absolute in that
he hath been endued with such a nature and such parts and faculties;
and a relative in that he is part of the universal community of men,
and so stands in such a relation to the whole. When we say that a man
has come to himself, it is not of his absolute capacity that we are
thinking, but of his relative. He has begun to realize that he is part
of a whole, and to know _what_ part, suitable for what service and
achievement.
It was once fashionable—and that not a very long time ago—to speak of
political society with a certain distaste, as a necessary evil, an
irritating but inevitable restriction upon the “natural” sovereignty
and entire self-government of the individual. That was the dream of the
egotist. It was a theory in which men were seen to strut in the proud
consciousness of their several and “absolute” capacities. It would be
as instructive as it would be difficult to count the errors it has bred
in political thinking. As a matter of fact, men have never dreamed of
wishing to do without the “trammels” of organized society, for the very
good reason that those trammels are in reality but no trammels at all,
but indispensable aids and spurs to the attainment of the highest and
most enjoyable things man is capable of. Political society, the life of
men in states, is an abiding natural relationship. It is neither a mere
convenience nor a mere necessity. It is not a mere voluntary
association, not a mere corporation. It is nothing deliberate or
artificial, devised for a special purpose. It is in real truth the
eternal and natural expression and embodiment of a form of life higher
than that of the individual—that common life of mutual helpfulness,
stimulation, and contest which gives leave and opportunity to the
individual life, makes it possible, makes it full and complete.
It is in such a scene that man looks about to discover his own place
and force. In the midst of men organized, infinitely cross-related,
bound by ties of interest, hope, affection, subject to authorities, to
opinion, to passion, to visions and desires which no man can reckon, he
casts eagerly about to find where he may enter in with the rest and be
a man among his fellows. In making his place he finds, if he seek
intelligently and with eyes that see, more than ease of spirit and
scope for his mind. He finds himself—as if mists had cleared away about
him and he knew at last his neighborhood among men and tasks.
What every man seeks is satisfaction. He deceives himself so long as he
imagines it to lie in self-indulgence, so long as he deems himself the
center and object of effort. His mind is spent in vain upon itself. Not
in action itself, not in “pleasure,” shall it find its desires
satisfied, but in consciousness of right, of powers greatly and nobly
spent. It comes to know itself in the motives which satisfy it, in the
zest and power of rectitude. Christianity has liberated the world, not
as a system of ethics, not as a philosophy of altruism, but by its
revelation of the power of pure and unselfish love. Its vital principle
is not its code, but its motive. Love, clear-sighted, loyal, personal,
is its breath and immortality. Christ came, not to save Himself,
assuredly, but to save the world. His motive, His example, are every
man’s key to his own gifts and happiness. The ethical code he taught
may no doubt be matched, here a piece and there a piece, out of other
religions, other teachings and philosophies. Every thoughtful man born
with a conscience must know a code of right and of pity to which he
ought to conform; but without the motive of Christianity, without love,
he may be the purest altruist and yet be as sad and as unsatisfied as
Marcus Aurelius.
Christianity gave us, in the fullness of time, the perfect image of
right living, the secret of social and of individual well-being; for
the two are not separable, and the man who receives and verifies that
secret in his own living has discovered not only the best and only way
to serve the world, but also the one happy way to satisfy himself.
Then, indeed, has he come to himself. Henceforth he knows what his
powers mean, what spiritual air they breathe, what ardors of service
clear them of lethargy, relieve them of all sense of effort, put them
at their best. After this fretfulness passes away, experience mellows
and strengthens and makes more fit, and old age brings, not senility,
not satiety, not regret, but higher hope and serene maturity.