SELF-KNOWLEDGE.
Vast extent of the science of self-knowledge. Spurious self knowledge.
Knowledge of our physical frame--its laws and relations. Examples of
the need of this knowledge. Instruments of obtaining it. The use of
lectures. Study of our peculiarities. Study of mental philosophy. The
Bible. How the Bible should be studied.
Self-knowledge is of the utmost importance to every human being. To no
person, however, is it more important than to the young woman.
It is the more necessary to urge the importance of self-knowledge, from
the fact that it is a species of knowledge which every one claims, and
which she would deem it almost a reflection upon her character to be
supposed not to possess; while it is that very knowledge of which
almost every one, of both sexes, is exceedingly ignorant.
Such an one "understands himself," is deemed quite a compliment among
our sex nor is it wholly disregarded by the other. But by this
expression is too often meant no more than a knowledge of the petty
acts and shifts, and I might say tricks, by means of which men and
women contrive to pass current in the fashionable world. How much this
kind of self-acquaintance is worth, is too obvious to need illustration.
I have represented a just self-knowledge as of very great importance;
but it is a science of vast extent, as well as of vast importance. A
thorough knowledge of one's self includes, first, a knowledge of man in
general, in his whole character--compounded as it is--and in all his
relations to surrounding beings and things; and, secondly, a knowledge
of the peculiarities produced by particular circumstances, condition,
mode of life, education and habits.
She who merely understands all the little arts to which I have alluded,
which enable us to pass current with a fashionable and grossly wicked
world, will find her self-knowledge exceedingly small, when she comes
to compare it with the standard of self-acquaintance set up by such
writers as Mason, Burgh, Watts, &c.; and, above all, when she comes to
compare it with the standard of the Bible. How little, nay, how
contemptible will all mere worldly arts and shifts appear--things which
at most belong to the department of manners--when she comes to
understand her three-fold nature, as exhibited by the natural and
revealed laws of Jehovah!
The Subjects of Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene alone--and they teach
us little more than the laws and relations of the mere body or shell of
the human being--are almost sufficient for the study of a long life;
and yet no individual can ever thoroughly understand herself without
them: it is impossible. Anatomy shows us the _structure_ of this body,
which the Psalmist, long ago, taught us was fearfully and wonderfully
made. Physiology teaches us the _laws_ by which the living machine
operates--is kept in play for seventy, eighty, or a hundred years; and
Hygiene teaches us the _relations_ of the living, moving human body to
surrounding beings and objects. This, indeed, is a knowledge which few
young women possess; and yet it is a knowledge which no young woman,
who would do her utmost in the work of self-education, can dispense
with.
She wishes, perhaps, to improve her voice by conversation, reading and
singing. But is she qualified to do this in the best possible manner,
while she is wholly ignorant of the structure of the lungs, the
wind-pipe, and the fauces, as they are called--parts so intimately
concerned in the production of voice and speech?
She wishes, perhaps, to develope and invigorate her muscular system in
the highest possible degree; but how can she do this, while she knows
almost nothing of the nature or power of the muscular fibre?
She wishes to develope and cultivate her intellectual powers; to
acquire "firmness of nerve and energy of thought." But how can she do
it, if she is ignorant of the situation and functions of the cerebral
and nervous system--that wonderful organ of the intellect?
She would train her eye in the best possible manner; but how can she do
so, if she is ignorant of the nature and powers of that wonderful
little organ? She would educate, properly, all her senses; but how can
she do it, without a knowledge of their structure, functions and
relations?
Perhaps she would study the philosophy of dress, and of eating and
drinking. How can she do so, till she understands, intimately, the
relation of the human system to air, heat, the various kinds of food,
drink, &c.?
She would know, still further, the relation of body to mind, and of
mind to body--of body and mind to spirit, and of spirit to body and
mind. She would study the particular effect of one passion, or faculty,
or affection, upon the body, or upon particular functions of the bodily
system--and the more remote or more immediate effects of diseases of a
bodily organ on mind and spirit. She must know all this, and a thousand
times, yea, ten thousand times as much, before she is qualified to go
far in the work of self-knowledge.
But she must go beyond even all this, and study her own peculiarities.
It is not sufficient to understand the general laws and relations of
the human economy; she must understand herself in her own individual
character--physically, intellectually and morally. She must understand
the peculiarities of her physical frame, of her mental structure, and
of her spiritual condition--her relation to other spirits, particularly
to the Father of spirits.
How amazing and how extensive--I repeat it--the science of
self-knowledge! To be perfect in it we need the life of a Methuselah!
But something may be done, even in the short period of seventy years.
And if it be but little that we can do in a life time, this
consideration only enhances the value of that little.
Something, I have said, may be done in the short period of seventy
years. But I might say more. Something may be done in a single day. And
years are made up of days. A little done, every day, amounts to much in
a whole year.
Let not the individual despair who can get but one new idea respecting
herself, in a day. If she can sit down at quiet evening and say, I know
something respecting myself which I did not know last night at this
time, let her be assured the day is not lost. One idea a day is three
hundred and sixty-five a year; and three hundred and sixty-five a year,
amount, in seventy years, to twenty-five thousand five hundred and
fifty. There _are_ those who can hardly be said, at seventy years of
age, to have twenty-five thousand five hundred and fifty ideas in their
heads.
It is a matter of joy to every friend of self-knowledge, that so many
means have been, of late years, devised to facilitate the study of this
science. The lectures which have been given to both sexes on the
structure, laws and relations of their bodily constitution, and the
books which have been written, have made a considerable change in the
state of the public sentiment respecting this species of knowledge. For
it is not they alone who have heard or read, that have reaped the
benefit of hearing and reading on this subject. Many a parent or
teacher, aware that such instructions and books were abroad, has been
encouraged to the performance of that which she might not have dared to
do, had nothing been said or done to encourage her.
Every young woman should, therefore, study these subjects for herself.
Such books as those of Miss Sedgwick--her "Poor Rich Man, and Rich Poor
Man," and her "Means and Ends"--will prepare the way, or will at least
enkindle the desire, for the kind of knowledge of which I am speaking.
She will then desire to read the works of the Combes, and perhaps, ere
long, some of the other popular books of our day, which treat of
Physiology and Hygiene. May I not venture to hope, that at an early
stage of her progress, some of the chapters of _this_ book will be
found serviceable, as well as several other works I have prepared,
especially the little volume called the "House I Live In?"
She who, having a hearty desire for improvement in self-knowledge, on
an extended scale, lets her years pass without looking into any of the
volumes or treatises to which I have referred, can hardly be said to
act up to the dignity of a Christian of the nineteenth century.
But it is not the physical department of her nature alone, that she who
has the desire for self-knowledge and self-progress, should study. Such
works as those of Mason on Self-Knowledge, Burgh on the Dignity of
Human Nature, Watts on the Mind, Opie on Detraction and Scandal,
Wayland on Moral Science, Skinner on the Religion of the Bible, &c.
&c., should not only be perused, but carefully studied. It is to little
purpose, that is, comparatively, that our physical nature is
attentively and assiduously studied and cultivated, if it lead not to
the more intimate and more earnest study of the immortal spirit.
In this better department--the spiritual--permit me, _once_ more, to
direct your attention to the Bible. It should be studied chiefly
without note or comment. Your own good sense, brought to bear upon its
simple, unstudied, unscholastic pages, accompanied by that light from
on high which is ever vouchsafed to the simple, humble inquirer and
learner, will be of more value to you than all the notes, and
commentaries, and dictionaries in the world, without it. It is a book
which is most admirably adapted to the progress of all grades of
mind--those which are but little developed, no less than those which
are more highly cultivated. Other books speak to the intellect--to the
head; this speaks to the heart. Other books often plead for human
nature; this presents it just as it is--its perversity and deformity on
the one side; its susceptibilities to improvement, its capability of
excellency, on the other. Though it reveals to us our humble
origin--the brotherhood of worms--on the one side, it unveils to us our
relation to angels and archangels, on the other. Nay, more; it not only
shows us our relation to the celestial hosts, and to Him who presides
in their midst, but it points out to the penitent and the humble, the
road which, through divine grace, will conduct them thither.
I have spoken of the study of the Bible without note or comment. Notes
and comments, indeed, after you have made diligent use of all your own
faculties and powers, and sought thereon the blessing of God's Spirit,
have their use. I am exceedingly fond of them: and I would not wholly
deny to you what I am so fond of myself. The danger is, of leaning upon
them too much. Scott, and Clarke, and Henry, and Jenks, and Calmet, and
Barnes, and Bush, may help to show me the true way of finding out and
interpreting the Scripture for myself; but if I go farther, and either
indolently or superstitiously suffer them to interpret it for me, it
were almost better that I had not sought their aid. But the Bible, with
or without notes, is--I repeat it--the great volume of self-knowledge
which I urge you to study, and which, in comparison with all the books
written by man, and even the great volume of nature herself, is alone
able to make you wise to salvation.
It seems to me to have been too seldom observed, and still more seldom
insisted on, how apt the love and study of the Bible are to awaken the
dormant intellectual faculties, and to enkindle, even in the aged, a
desire for general improvement. On this point, Mr. Foster, in his essay
on Popular Ignorance, has some very striking remarks. In alluding to
that great moral change which it is one object of the Bible to produce,
and to the consequences which often immediately follow, he thus remarks:
"It is exceedingly striking to observe how the contracted, rigid soul
seems to soften, and grow warm, and expand, and quiver with life. With
the new energy infused, it painfully struggles to work itself into
freedom from the wretched contortion in which it has been so long
fixed, as by the impressed spell of infernal magic."
This change in the moral and religious man, has been often observed;
and Mr. Foster, therefore, tells us nothing very new, however striking
it may be. But now for the secondary effect which is produced on the
intellect, and, indeed, on the whole character:
"It (the soul) has been seen filled with a painful and indignant
emotion at its own ignorance; actuated with a restless desire to be
informed; acquiring an unwonted applicableness of its faculties to
thought; attaining a perception combined of intelligence and moral
sensibility, to which numerous things are becoming discernible and
affecting, that were as non-existent before. We have known instances in
which the change--the intellectual change--has been so conspicuous,
within a brief space of time, that even an infidel observer must have
forfeited all claim to a man of sense, if he would not make the
acknowledgment--This that you call divine grace, whatever it may really
be, is the strangest awakener of faculties, after all."
I have made this quotation, chiefly to confirm the sentiment I have
advanced, that the love of the Bible and the religion of the Bible,
actuates the soul with "a restless desire to be informed," and
stimulates its faculties to thought, and fills it with pain and
indignation at its own ignorance. This is the state of mind and heart
which I would gladly encourage in the reader. It is the truest and best
foundation of all progress, not only in self-knowledge, but in every
other sort of knowledge which is valuable. Give me but this trait of
character in a young woman, and I will not despair of her, however low
may be her present condition, or how degraded soever may have been her
former life. Give me but a hearty desire, a hungering and thirsting for
improvement--physical, moral, intellectual, social and religious--and I
will dare to believe that the most debased and depressed soul _may_ be
restored, at least in some good measure, to that likeness to Jehovah in
which it was originally created.
One thing more, however, should be remembered. Not a few who really
have within them the desire of improvement, and who mean to make the
Bible and its doctrines their standard, fail of accomplishing much
after all. The reason is, they measure themselves, continually, by
their neighbors. If they are no more ignorant or no more vicious than
their neighbors--Misses S. and L., perhaps--or on the other hand, if
they are as wise and as virtuous as Miss R.--they seem to rest
satisfied. Or at any rate, if, they make as much progress in the great
path of self-knowledge, or do as much good in the world as the latter,
they are anxious for no more, and settle down in inaction.
Now every such individual ought to know that the habit of measuring
herself by others, in this way, will hang like a millstone about her
neck; and if it do not drown her in the depths of ignorance and
imbecility, will at least make her forever a child, in comparison with
what she should be. It will keep her grovelling on the earth's surface,
when she ought to be exploring the highest heavens. It will keep her a
near neighbor to the sisterhood of worms on which she treads, when she
ought to be soaring towards those lofty heights which Gabriel once
traversed--nay, which he even now traverses--fast by the throne of the
Eternal.
Let her not stop, then, to demean, and embarrass, and fetter herself by
comparisons of herself with any thing finite. She has no right to do
this. The perfection which the word of God requires, is the standard or
measure by which she should compare herself. She may, indeed, sometimes
compare herself with herself--her present self with her past
self--provided it be done with due humility; but let her beware of
measuring herself by others. Such a course is as perilous as it is
ignoble and unprofitable.