2. To-day misery is the disease of mankind, as disease is the
misery of man. And even as there are physicians for disease, so
should there be physicians for human misery. But can the fact that
disease is, unhappily, only too prevalent, render it wrong for us
ever to speak of health? which were indeed as though, in anatomy--
the physical science that has most in common with morals--the
teacher confined himself exclusively to the study of the deformities
that greater or lesser degeneration will induce in the organs of
man. We have surely the right to demand that his theories be based
on the healthy and vigorous body; as we have also the right to
demand that the moralist, who fain would see beyond the present
hour, should take as his standard the soul that is happy, or that at
least possesses every element of happiness, save only the necessary
consciousness.

We live in the bosom of great injustice; but there can be, I
imagine, neither cruelty nor callousness in our speaking, at times,
as though this injustice had ended, else should we never emerge from
our circle.

It is imperative that there should be some who dare speak, and
think, and act as though all men were happy; for otherwise, when the
day comes for destiny to throw open to all the people's garden of
the promised land, what happiness shall the others find there, what
justice, what beauty or love? It may be urged, it is true, that it
were best, first of all, to consider the most pressing needs, yet is
this not always wisest; it is often of better avail from the start
to seek that which is highest. When the waters beleaguer the home of
the peasant in Holland, the sea or the neighbouring river having
swept down the dyke that protected the country, most pressing is it
then for the peasant to safeguard his cattle, his grain, his
effects; but wisest to fly to the top of the dyke, summoning those
who live with him, and from thence meet the flood, and do battle.

Humanity up to this day has been like an invalid tossing and turning
on his couch in search of repose; but therefore none the less have
words of true consolation come only from those who spoke as though
man were freed from all pain. For, as man was created for health, so
was mankind created for happiness; and to speak of its misery only,
though that misery be everywhere and seem everlasting, is only to
say words that fall lightly and soon are forgotten. Why not speak as
though mankind were always on the eve of great certitude, of great
joy? Thither, in truth, is man led by his instinct, though he never
may live to behold the long-wished-for to-morrow. It is well to
believe that there needs but a little more thought, a little more
courage, more love, more devotion to life, a little more eagerness,
one day to fling open wide the portals of joy and of truth. And this
thing may still come to pass. Let us hope that one day all mankind
will be happy and wise; and though this day never should dawn, to
have hoped for it cannot be wrong. And in any event, it is helpful
to speak of happiness to those who are sad, that thus at least they
may learn what it is that happiness means. They are ever inclined to
regard it as something beyond them, extraordinary, out of their
reach. But if all who may count themselves happy were to tell, very
simply, what it was that brought happiness to them, the others would
see that between sorrow and joy the difference is but as between a
gladsome, enlightened acceptance of life and a hostile, gloomy
submission; between a largë and harmonious conception of life, and
one that is stubborn and narrow. "Is that all?" the unhappy would
cry. "But we too have within us, then, the elements of this
happiness." Surely you have them within you! There lives not a man
but has them, those only excepted upon whom great physical calamity
has fallen. But speak not lightly of this happiness. There is no
other. He is the happiest man who best understands his happiness;
for he is of all men most fully aware that it is only the lofty
idea, the untiring, courageous, human idea, that separates gladness
from sorrow. Of this idea it is helpful to speak, and as often as
may be; not with the view of imposing our own idea upon others, but
in order that they who may listen shall, little by little, conceive
the desire to possess an idea of their own. For in no two men is it
the same. The one that you cherish may well bring no comfort to me;
nor shall all your eloquence touch the hidden springs of my life.
Needs must I acquire my own, in myself, by myself; but you
unconsciously make this the easier for me, by telling of the idea
that is yours. It may happen that I shall find solace in that which
brings sorrow to you, and that which to you speaks of gladness may
be fraught with affliction for me. But no matter; into my grief will
enter all that you saw of beauty and comfort, and into my joy there
will pass all that was great in your sadness, if indeed my joy be on
the same plane as your sadness. It behoves us, the first thing of
all, to prepare in our soul a place of some loftiness, where this
idea may be lodged; as the priests of ancient religions laid the
mountain peak bare, and cleared it of thorn and of root for the fire
to descend from heaven. There may come to us any day, from the
depths of the planet Mars, the infallible formula of happiness,
conveyed in the final truth as to the aim and the government of the
universe. Such a formula could only bring change or advancement unto
our spiritual life in the degree of the desire and expectation of
advancement in which we might long have been living. The formula
would be the same for all men, yet would each one benefit only in
the proportion of the eagerness, purity, unselfishness, knowledge,
that he had stored up in his soul. All morality, all study of
justice and happiness, should truly be no more than preparation,
provision on the vastest scale--a way of gaining experience, a
stepping-stone laid down for what is to follow. Surely, desirable
day of all days were the one when at last we should live in absolute
truth, in immovable logical certitude; but in the meantime it is
given us to live in a truth more important still, the truth of our
soul and our character; and some wise men have proved that this life
can be lived in the midst of gravest material errors.

4. Is it necessary that we should conceive ourselves to be superior
to the universe? Our reason may provë what it will: our reason is
only a feeble ray that has issued from Nature; a tiny atom of that
whole which Nature alone shall judge. Is it fitting that the ray of
light should desire to alter the lamp whence it springs?

That loftiness within us, from whose summit we venture to pass
judgment on the totality of life, to absolve or condemn it, is
doubtless the merest pin-prick, visible to our eye alone, on the
illimitable sphere of life. It is wise to think and to act as though
all that happened to man were all that man most required. It is not
long ago--to cite only one of the problems that the instinct of our
planet is invited to solve--that a scheme was on foot to inquire of
the thinkers of Europe whether it should rightly be held as a gain
or a loss to mankind if an energetic, strenuous, persistent race,
which some, through prejudice doubtless, still regard as inferior to
the Aryan in qualities of heart and of soul--if the Jews, in a word,
were to vanish from the face of the earth, or to acquire
preponderance there. I am satisfied that the sage might answer,
without laying himself open to the charge of indifference or undue
resignation, "In what comes to pass will be happiness." Many things
happen that seem unjust to us; but of all the achievements of reason
there has been none so helpful as the discovery of the loftier
reason that underlies the misdeeds of nature. It is from the slow
and gradual vindication of the unknown force that we deemed at first
to be pitiless, that our moral and physical life has derived its
chief prop and support. If a race disappears that conforms with our
every ideal, it will be only because our ideal still falls short of
the grand ideal, which is, as we have said, the intimate truth of
the universe.

Our own experience has taught us that even in this world of reality
there exist dreams and desires, thoughts and feelings of beauty, of
justice, and love, that are of the noblest and loftiest. And if
there be any that shrink from the test of reality--in other words,
from the mysterious, nameless power of life--it follows that these
must be different, but not that their beauty is less, or their
vastness, or power to console. Till reality confront us, it is well,
it may be, to cherish ideals that we hold to surpass it in beauty;
but once face to face with reality, then must the ideal flame that
has fed on our noblest desires be content to throw faithful light on
the less fragile, less tender beauty of the mighty mass that crushes
these desires. Nor does this seem to me to imply a mere drowsy
fatalism, or servile acquiescence, or optimism shrinking from
action. The sage no doubt must many a time forfeit some measure of
the blind, the head-strong, fanatical zeal that has enabled some
men, whose reason was fettered and bound, to achieve results that
are nigh superhuman; but therefore none the less is it certain that
no man of upright soul should go forth in search of illusion or
blindness, of zeal or vigour, in a region inferior to that of his
noblest hours. To do our true duty in life, it must ever be done
with the aid of all that is highest in our soul, highest in the
truth that is ours. And even though it be permissible at times in
actual, every-day life to compromise with events, and not follow
impulse to the ruthless end--as did St. Just, for instance, who in
his admirable and ardent desire for universal peace, happiness,
justice, in all good faith sent thousands to the scaffold--in the
life of thought it is our unvarying duty to pursue our thought right
to the end.

Again, the knowledge that our actions still await the seal of final
truth can deter from action those only who would have remained no
less inert had no such knowledge been theirs. Thought that rises
encourages where it disheartens. And to those of a loftier vision,
prepared in advance to admire the truth that will nullify all they
have done, it seems only natural still to endeavour with all might
and main to enhance what yet may be termed the justice, the beauty,
the reason of this our earth. They know that to penetrate deeper, to
understand, to respect--all this is enhancement. Above all, they
have faith in "the idea of the universe." They are satisfied that
every effort that tends to improvement approaches the secret
intention of life; they are taught by the failure of their noblest
endeavours, by the resistance of this mighty world, to discover anew
fresh reasons for wonder, for ardour, for hope.

As you climb up a mountain towards nightfall, the trees and the
houses, the steeple, the fields and the orchards, the road, and even
the river, will gradually dwindle and fade, and at last disappear in
the gloom that steals over the valley. But the threads of light that
shine from the houses of men and pierce through the blackest of
nights, these shine on undimmed. And every step that you take to the
summit reveals but more lights, and more, in the hamlets asleep at
your foot. For light, though so fragile, is perhaps the one thing of
all that yields naught of itself as it faces immensity. Thus it is
with our moral light too, when we look upon life from some slight
elevation. It is well that reflection should teach us to disburden
our soul of base passions; but it should not discourage, or weaken,
our humblest desire for justice, for truth, and for love.

Whence comes this rule that I thus propound? Nay, I know not myself.
To me it seems helpful and requisite; nor could I give reasons other
than spring from the feelings alone. Such reasons, however, at times
should by no means be treated too lightly. If I should ever attain a
summit whence this law seemed useless to me, I would listen to the
secret instinct bidding me not linger, but climb on still higher,
till its usefulness should once again be clearly apparent to me.

6. "It was doubtless the will of their destiny that men and events
should oppress them whithersoever they went," said an author of the
heroes of his book. Thus it is with the majority of men; Indeed,
with all those who have not yet learned to distinguish between
exterior and moral destiny. They are like a little bewildered stream
that I chanced to espy one evening as I stood on the hillside. I
beheld it far down in the valley, staggering, struggling, climbing,
falling: blindly groping its way to the great lake that slumbered,
the other side of the forest, in the peace of the dawn. Here it was
a block of basalt that forced the streamlet to wind round and about
four times; there, the roots of a hoary tree; further on still, the
mere recollection of an obstacle now gone for ever thrust it back to
its source, bubbling in impotent fury, divided for all time from its
goal and its gladness. But, in another direction, at right angles
almost to the distraught, unhappy, useless stream, a force superior
to the force of instinct had traced a long, greenish canal, calm,
peaceful, deliberate; that flowed steadily across the country,
across the crumbling stones, across the obedient forest, on its
clear and unerring, unhurrying way from its distant source on the
horizon to the same tranquil, shining lake. And I had at my feet
before me the image of the two great destinies offered to man.

8. But this knowledge of self is only too often regarded as
implying no more than a knowledge of our defects and our qualities,
whereas it does indeed extend infinitely further, to mysteries
vastly more helpful. To know oneself in repose suffices not, nor
does it suffice to know oneself in the past or the present. Those
within whom lies the force that I speak of know themselves in the
future too. Consciousness of self with the greatest of men implies
consciousness up to a point of their star or their destiny. They are
aware of some part of their future, because they have already become
part of this future. They have faith in themselves, for they know in
advance how events will be received in their soul. The event in
itself is pure water that flows from the pitcher of fate, and seldom
has it either savour or perfume or colour. But even as the soul may
be wherein it seeks shelter, so will the event become joyous or sad,
become tender or hateful, become deadly or quick with life. To those
round about us there happen incessant and countless adventures,
whereof every one, it would seem, contains a germ of heroism; but
the adventure passes away, and heroic deed is there none. But when
Jesus Christ met the Samaritan, met a few children, an adulterous
woman, then did humanity rise three times in succession to the level
of God.

10. Let us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of
the nature of ourselves. There comes no adventure but wears to our
soul the shape of our everyday thoughts; and deeds of heroism are
but offered to those who, for many long years, have been heroes in
obscurity and silence. And whether you climb up the mountain or go
down the hill to the valley, whether you journey to the end of the
world or merely walk round your house, none but yourself shall you
meet on the highway of fate. If Judas go forth to-night, it is
towards Judas his steps will tënd, nor will chance for betrayal be
lacking; but let Socrates open his door, he shall find Socrates
asleep on the threshold before him, and there will be occasion for
wisdom. Our adventures hover around us like bees round the hive when
preparing to swarm. They wait till the mother-idea has at last come
forth from our soul, and no sooner has she appeared than they all
come rushing towards her. Be false, and falsehoods will haste to
you; love, and adventures will flock to you, throbbing with love.

They seem to be all on the watch for the signal we hoist from
within: and if the soul grow wiser towards evening, the sorrow will
grow wiser too that the soul had fashioned for itself in the
morning.