The school-teacher who criticized my juvenile attempts to write as
prettily as the copperplate pattern across the top of the copy-book
page went about her task in a kindly spirit. Had she rapped me across
the knuckles I should have hated her, I know.
“Napoleon wrote a very poor hand,” she told me, “and he became a great
man. He did not become great because his penmanship was bad, but in
spite of that fact.”
My sex precluded my becoming a great man, whether my chirography aided
or retarded such a destiny. Nevertheless, I received in that lesson a
foundation of logic that “comes in handy” every now and then.
So when I heard the story of the Industrious Flies and the Patient Ass,
I rejected the reasoning of the wise fly, however satisfactory it may
have been to the donkey.
Once there was a man so foolish that he could understand the language
of the insects. He owned a donkey.
So it was that on a hot day, an ass pulling a heavy load along a dusty
road made no complaint except against the harassments imposed upon her
by a swarm of flies. She lashed at the ravenous insects with her tail,
made an occasional snap at them with her teeth, and a desultory dart
at them with a hoof in her frantic effort to be rid of her tormentors.
She laid down on the roadside, breaking the shafts of the wagon, killed
some of the flies, but most of the flies got away and jumped on the ass
again when she arose. This operation was repeated a great many times.
She was a tired beast when she reached her journey’s end several hours
behind time, and it was a relief to get into the friendly shelter of a
stable, where she might enjoy hay and water, secure from the merciless
flies. The wisest of the flies however had accompanied her into the
stable, and, perching on the donkey’s best ear, he buzzed his plaint of
misery thus.
“Thou dolt and ingrate! All day hast thou manifested displeasure
because of the great love we bear thee. We sang to thee our sweetest
songs, and our proddings gave thee strength to complete thy journey
to this haven of rest. Had it not been for us how couldst thou have
reached the succulent fodder which is now thy portion?”
The penitent ass bowed her head in shame before these reproaches.
“I had not estimated your help at its proper value,” she brayed,
humbly, “and I beg to be forgiven, miserable sinner that I am!”
Was ever donkey in such manner wooed? I forgot to mention the fact that
it was a “she” donkey.
Away back in “the blurred bush of bygones” it was a most important
religious ceremonial to eat the flesh of our grandmothers. The priest
of that day assured us of eternal damnation did we omit reverent regard
for that sacrament, however tough the fiber of the feast.
And the priest of this day tells us that, were it not for him, we would
still be dining on grandma.
“See what government has done for you!” shrieks the vehement
politician. “It gives you your rights and protects you in them!”
In refusing to admit the claims of priest and politician I lay myself
open to the indictment of being the same sort of an ingrate as the wise
fly charged the patient donkey with being, but I know the story of
Napoleon’s handwriting, and the donkey didn’t.
Whatever progress humanity has made toward decency, considerateness and
justice have been accomplished in spite of church and state, and not
because of them.
Nevertheless the wise flies keep on buzzing their claims unto the
patient donkey, and the ass believes.
Every onward step from cannibalism, slavery, tyranny, injustice, was
made against the protest of church and state.
Our truly great have become so only as they have taught us to laugh to
scorn the magniloquent claims of authority.
Every form of Magna Charta, in every age, was wrested from some
unwilling king, who protested that it was his great love for us that
resisted our demands.
Authority maintains its institutions in order to teach the masses
patriotism, religion, and wisdom. It behooves us to discount
authoritarian definitions if we would attain happiness.
When the wise established institutions to inject wisdom into fools,
the foolishness of the fools infected the wisdom of the wise and they
became foolish. When the state establishes military academies to train
cowards into heroes, the cowardice of the coward is assimilated by the
heroes, and they in turn refuse to fight. When great institutions are
founded to teach the masses, the masses unlearn the professors, so
that they question their own wisdom. While I agree with the wise ones
that things will settle themselves all right, I must say that we have
progressed in spite of them, and if we would see ourselves as the wise
see us, then they must see that we are getting less and less religious,
less and less virtuous, less and less patriotic, less and less wise.
We are safe in abjuring authoritarian religion that we may become
sanely religious. We must rebel against institutionalized patriotism if
we would evince a decent regard for the rightful claims of humanity.
We must become less wise and less virtuous from conventional points of
view to be truly virtuous and practically wise.
Lest we be as the credulous donkey.