The word, Perspective, is derived from the Greek, περισπεύθειν, which means to make an approach or come forward, to advance. But we must not be in haste. The great art lies not in making short cuts, but in ascending.
A man cannot know himself unless he knows his limits. If we know what we can and cannot do, if we know what we need and what we don’t need, if we know what we can tolerate and what we can’t stand, we learn to be responsible for our actions. If we learn what we can accomplish, how much we need to rest, and what we need to do to live a longer, more productive life, we grow from this knowledge.
A man cannot know himself unless he knows others,–that is to say, if he looks about in the world, and is active in business and social relations, he will find himself and those with whom he has intercourse placed, by nature, in a certain position; and when he looks up to the world above, or the religious realm that he inwardly occupies, he may, as it were, look out upon the world from a mountain peak; see from the point where he rests and watches the changing scene, and know what has been–what is, and what must be. He has a true idea of his place in the great scheme of being and doing. The world as seen from its height is more than the world he has known; for, as he looks on, his eye is caught by distant mountains, and his thoughts leap toward the heights of heaven, and his hopes take wings for heaven. He thus sees that life is one unbroken chain, and he knows that he is a member of the whole, and of each link and part. He feels that he is not without an aim, that the world moves and that he does with it–for he makes himself a sharer of all the world, and its life, not only in thought, but also in action. He who has such a feeling can take a large view of the world, and yet his attention is not fixed on that and that alone, but upon the whole in all its parts, in all its aspects. The world, the human race, as he views it, is a vast and rich and splendid spectacle, and he is a noble spectator. But such a man, when all his moral and intellective powers are thus united, can also take a keen, critical, searching, and penetrating view of the various elements of his own being; he will be a philosopher and a poet too. The world, as he feels it, is a great drama, and its every act is an event which he can study, and which may bear upon him. He will know that he is living and part of a great drama–it is the great drama of the universe–and of which man is only one part. He is part of a great drama, not of a single act in it. Thus his own life is a drama, and a drama in the full sense of the word. It is, indeed, a grand drama.
But as soon as he has come down from his mountain peak, and taken a survey of things on earth, then, if he be a man of a common nature, he must needs descend from this mount of vision, and his mind will be a prisoner in the valley; he must needs think of other things, of what has been, and what must be, in the world that is, and the world that is to come. In short, he will become like all the rest of his fellow-men, and lose his perspective. It is my ambition to discover ways of extending that higher perspective, even in the lower affairs of common life to which even the saint needs must make his descent from the mountain. For when man has thus descended to the valley, his mind then becomes of the common clay, with no larger outlook than that of the herd or than that of the mob; his intellect and his power of discrimination is no keener than the keenest of those who follow their peculiar trade. But I confess my own point of view and creative instinct is not so much one of the practical world as of the world of the mind, for that is the only world in which there is, or can be, any freedom. The mind is free of the body. There it has room and scope, and to that sphere alone, if I am a poet, I go. And as to my own business, that is to say, the business of making myself useful in the world, there I set out, not from the mountain, but from a hillock, or a mole-hill.
I wish to discover how the great views of life can be best presented to people in the more trivial concerns of life. I would try to find out how these lower views can be elevated and spiritualized. We can only see through a window what is beyond it. I can give you an idea of the effect that a high-minded passion has on the mind of the passionate man, and I have in view the purpose of writing down, as much as possible, all the thoughts and ideas that pass through my mind in my pursuit of truth and justice. The result, I hope, may be to arouse in others, not only an interest in my thoughts, but also a desire for such thoughts themselves. The moral life in the sense in which I have here written of it is no longer to be the work of any exalted caste, of any higher class or profession. It is to be a common property–not a thing to be appropriated, not a possession to be guarded with jealous care, but to be shared in, to be made of equal service. Its exercise is to bring into play all the faculties of man, and to elevate him to his highest, his noblest, his noblest, his noblest, his noblest! If to such a man God has given some degree of perception of his connection with the vast world, which no created intelligence can fathom, so to him he has given also the faculties to receive the influences of this knowledge, and, as he apprehends it, to partake in this grand and universal sympathy, that there may be no more discord and strife, but a harmony and concord in the universe. “The soul,” recalling Emerson, when it has had its taste of the grandeur and mystery of the universe, takes a new aim in life, and begins to find her vocation; her part is not merely to answer the call of nature, but to hear the voice of God, and to obey it. She has a mission to the unknown and infinite. To the philosopher all things can now be related; all things must now give up a portion of their mystery; for his insight can rise even into the inmost spirit, and he can apprehend and divine the relations between the infinite and the finite. He can, for his part, look down on life and can see that God is its source, and that it is his noblest duty to render to God the tribute that he owes.
And so I write now, in this day of change and uncertainty, as it were, a chapter upon the manly virtues–those which were held dear by the ancient Romans, and yet to be admired and enjoyed even in these modern times. Our present generation is the most practical and utilitarian; and yet it is, as it were, in a new world, or at least in a new atmosphere. No doubt there are few among us who look back upon the old state of life and its institutions with much interest, delight and admiration. Yet I would ask any man, with an appreciation of the past, to look at those old time warriors, the knights, or at least in the olden day, who represented the chivalrous virtues as they did, or who were the representatives of the spirit of manly independence and worth. To have seen these good men when they rode to battle, armed, in their mail, with sword or battle-axe in hand, is something; to have seen them with the ladies in their train, riding to the tournament, to have seen them in the joust–in short, to have seen them in all their manly and chivalrous pursuits–is a sight never to be forgotten, and which is not likely to become less interesting, so long as man remains upon the face of the earth.
There was another thing which made these ancient warriors so attractive and interesting, and which was in themselves an expression of the highest civilization. They were free men. They represented what was noble in their own country. They were a part of their own, they represented all that was best and highest of their age. They were true representatives of their age. And hence they lived, as it were, for their times, for all time. And I feel the force of this remark; and I may add that, as my attention has been directed to the olden time by my own study of the present, so I think it likely that my observations will extend to the very latest time, to the present. For the great interests of the world have their centres and their life in the present. They are not bound up with the past, with the dead; but are constantly rising higher and higher, reaching further and further towards the future; to which their progress is only a step. They are not, and never can be, stationary. Their great power lies in their great progress, their great importance lies in the fact of their progress, in their ever-increasing power, in the ever-augmenting interests of man. The great and central position which the interests of the world occupy, is not a position of rest, it is a position of motion; and I am inclined to think that the present is but the commencement of their progress. They are both energetic and yet implacable, motive and still; like the stars: no matter how high in the heaven the stars may rise, they do not move- it is only the world that moves. All that man can do to retard their progress is simply to waste, to impede, to hinder their march. He does this, not by the actual destruction of natural forces, which he cannot effect, but by the loss of liberty and happiness; and this loss, though it can be inflicted in various ways, is more generally inflicted by the loss of mental power, and by the want of energy and independence; the inability to act, to be free, to exercise powers, which belong to man as a part of nature. The first step was easy, but the second was difficult; the third is of far higher importance than the second, and the fourth and fifth are of a much greater importance than the third; the sixth is the centre of the whole.
As I look more and more into the past, I think I can discern a gradual development, and an increasing movement towards ever-better states and condition. I see the world gradually unfolding, and this is the feeling which, I think, should accompany us as we go along, as we look back, as we contemplate the past. It is in connection with this, that I speak of future worlds; for what can be said more? What can be said that more clearly shows that this is a world of motion, and a world of progressive movement.
It is not merely by resting on the heights that such an individual perceives and loves the world; it is by going into the thick of life that he has the right and the power to love it. Therefore, I want to think, in this book, of those things that are high and of those that are low; of those above and those below, of those in whom we know there is real greatness and those who may not realize what it is; of those whose feet tread on the very edge of the earth, and who, even from their exalted position, yet are fallen too low. I want to write of people who have climbed up, and also of those who have fallen back, until they have got lower down than they were before,–of those who rise to a higher moral life, and of those who sink in the moral life. To be with the heights, to behold the depths, to watch these changes of condition in those who are rising and falling,–this is my ambition. As the earth has two faces, a sun and a moon, so has the soul; but the soul has also a wider horizon than that of the earth, upon whose curtain we view the twinned luminaries, and steeper heights, and more extreme depths, and she can therefor observe the moral unity that underlies the apparent diversity of the visible universe. She can see a providence that governs the world. She can discern that this apparent order is in reality the result of some latent Intelligence, and she realizes that the apparent chaos of nature has a meaning and is not the end of ends.
In the world below there are multitudes who know not God, or, if they do, care not to know; and, among them, multitudes who know not even themselves, or, if they do, care not to know. Of these there are multitudes, who not knowing even themselves, or, if they do, caring not to know, live in ignorance as to their own highest and their own lowest; in which ignorance they pass their lives, without knowing themselves to be either wicked or good, nor, as they think, knowing it to be either. There are multitudes, who, not knowing what they are, or, if they do, not caring to know, seek to enjoy what they think are the pleasures of this life; and, not knowing what those pleasures are, or, if they do, not caring to know, live on in such ignorance. But there are multitudes who know, who know the joy of knowing, and know the sorrow of being deceived, and know the pain of being deceived.
There are multitudes who are struggling upward, who are on the very brink of attainment; and of these there are many who, though perhaps they realize that they have a duty to themselves to better their condition, are very lukewarm about it, and have not strength enough to attempt it, or have not adequately grappled with their own moral and religious instincts; and of these there are multitudes, who know their duty, and are struggling upward, and know they need strength to struggle, and have not any, and who, instead of trying to better their condition, are sinking in it.
It is, that we may the better understand what is in the view of the Creator of the world, in the constitution and nature of man, of society, of government, and of religion; and, if we may do so, to what it is that we owe the happiness which that intelligence has been pleased to pour into our hearts, and in which we ourselves have been so deeply interested. Our happiness is in our power; we may make ourselves rich or poor; we may be happy or miserable in body or mind, according as we make use of that power to obtain or avoid those advantages and disadvantages; and we may all do, or all suffer, what any other man can do, or suffer. As to the other parts of man’s constitution, all are subject to the same causes of good and evil, which are in the view of the Creator. That which in some parts is of use, in others is superfluous. That which seems the most powerful, may be rendered abortive; and, therefore, that which is weak, may likewise be rendered useful. All good and evil is within the power of man to produce or to prevent, and it is to the exercise of this power that man is to give account. Thus far, and nothing more, the Creator has revealed of himself to us and in us, and be it taken a basis for our natural religion, and written upon our forehead: we are bound to follow the light of this Presiding Intelligence, and, if we proceed to inquire too far into the nature of things we do not yet understand, and have not bathed in this light, we may end up shutting our eyes against its most convincing proofs. The pursuit of knowledge requires, if it be a pursuit worthy of a rational creature, that we first ascertain the boundaries within which this pursuit must, or must not, be indulged; As the light of reason has no other limit in its range that this, so neither has that of faith; the two are the means which God has appointed for the discovery of himself, and, as the one reveals the existence of his power, so the other reveals the existence of his attributes. The pursuit of knowledge requires therefor a kind of moderation; it requires some faith, a belief in the existence of a Power to instruct man, and a Reason deeper than his own; the knowledge of this Power is not, however, to be attained by mere intellectual inquiries, but must be obtained by a religious and moral study. The belief in God, the existence of his power, his divine providence, and his attributes, is therefore an indubitable basis upon which the knowledge of nature and the religious and moral instincts of man can proceed to their most successful conclusions. These conclusions might be drawn up in this triumvirate:
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The existence of God requires the belief of the immortality of the soul.
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The belief of the immortality of the soul requires the belief in a providence which watches over it, and directs its destiny.
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The belief of a providence which directs the destiny of the soul requires the belief in the intelligence of God, and thus in the justice with which the fluxions and forces of Nature have been organized.
To these three great principles, we might further reason:
1.A. ) The belief in the intelligence and justice of God involves the conviction that the human will, the will of man, is subject to a law, the will of God, and that this law directs his course and the course of the Universe.
2.A.) The conviction that the will of God is just, and that the will of man is subject to it, involves the belief that all the acts and movements of life are subject to a general providence, of which man has been only a partial, and not an exclusive, realization.
3.A.) A general providence implies the existence of a moral law, which regulates all our acts, and the order which pervades all the phenomena of the Universe.
It is,-- that we may the better understand what is in the view of the Creator of the world,-- in the constitution and nature of man, of society, of government, and of religion to which our speculations in this work direct our view; and, if we may do so, to what it is that we owe the happiness which that intelligence has been pleased to pour into our hearts, and in which we ourselves have been so deeply interested, and to what it is that it has been pleasing to our Creator to pour into our hearts the knowledge of our own wants and desires, and to give us to understand them;–and, in fine, to what is the principal end of this knowledge, and of all the powers of the mind, for the service and adornment of man.
Our view then is, that man is endowed by the Creator with all his faculties, and with the power to use those faculties with liberty. Man is endowed with reason and conscience. Reason is the means to discern what is true, and conscience is the measure of his actions. Both these endowments, in their proper nature, are alike to be regarded, as the source of the highest good in every one, as to their power in man. This is to regard man as a Godlike being. The God-like nature of man’s reason and conscience are, however, so much inferior in power, so much more subject to a perversion by the will of man, so much more liable to be darkened by a cloud of error, so much less capable of being developed and strengthened, that it is necessary, when we speak of the faculty of reason, to consider it only in connection with the will, and when we speak of conscience, to consider it only in connection with the understanding. Because the human intelligence has an imperfection in its nature, it necessarily follows, that it must have an greater imperfection in its use. Reason has then, as to its nature and perfection, a relation subordinate to the Good, to the end which it is supposed to promote, and to the means by which it is supposed to promote it. We differ here from the Platonic account, which drew up a perfect equivalency between Reason, Beauty, and the Good, which in their highest abstraction, the Greeks found shared the one identity, as we find in the Platonic Socrates, who in the Phaedo says, “we will not even dare, in our philosophy, to set aught equal with the Good but Reason.”