What Is Man? and Other Essays
comfort of mind, the most _self_—approval; so he sacrificed all other
values to get it.
Y.M. Some noble souls have refused to fight duels, and have manfully
braved the public contempt.
O.M. They acted _according to their make_. They valued their principles
and the approval of their families _above_ the public approval. They
took the thing they valued _most_ and let the rest go. They took what
would give them the _largest_ share of _personal contentment and
approval_—a man _always_ does. Public opinion cannot force that kind of
men to go to the wars. When they go it is for other reasons. Other
spirit-contenting reasons.
Y.M. Always spirit-contenting reasons?
O.M. There are no others.
Y.M. When a man sacrifices his life to save a little child from a
burning building, what do you call that?
O.M. When he does it, it is the law of _his_ make. _He_ can’t bear to
see the child in that peril (a man of a different make _could_), and so
he tries to save the child, and loses his life. But he has got what he
was after—_his own approval_.
Y.M. What do you call Love, Hate, Charity, Revenge, Humanity,
Magnanimity, Forgiveness?
O.M. Different results of the one Master Impulse: the necessity of
securing one’s self approval. They wear diverse clothes and are subject
to diverse moods, but in whatsoever ways they masquerade they are the
_same person_ all the time. To change the figure, the _compulsion_ that
moves a man—and there is but the one—is the necessity of securing the
contentment of his own spirit. When it stops, the man is dead.
Y.M. That is foolishness. Love—
O.M. Why, love is that impulse, that law, in its most uncompromising
form. It will squander life and everything else on its object. Not
_primarily_ for the object’s sake, but for _its own_. When its object
is happy _it_ is happy—and that is what it is unconsciously after.
Y.M. You do not even except the lofty and gracious passion of
mother-love?
O.M. No, _it _is the absolute slave of that law. The mother will go
naked to clothe her child; she will starve that it may have food;
suffer torture to save it from pain; die that it may live. She takes a
living _pleasure_ in making these sacrifices. _She does it for that
reward_—that self-approval, that contentment, that peace, that comfort.
_She would do it for your child_ IF SHE COULD GET THE SAME PAY.
Y.M. This is an infernal philosophy of yours.
O.M. It isn’t a philosophy, it is a fact.
Y.M. Of course you must admit that there are some acts which—
O.M. No. There is _no_ act, large or small, fine or mean, which springs
from any motive but the one—the necessity of appeasing and contenting
one’s own spirit.
Y.M. The world’s philanthropists—
O.M. I honor them, I uncover my head to them—from habit and training;
and _they_ could not know comfort or happiness or self-approval if they
did not work and spend for the unfortunate. It makes _them_ happy to
see others happy; and so with money and labor they buy what they are
after—_happiness, self-approval_. Why don’t miners do the same thing?
Because they can get a thousandfold more happiness by _not_ doing it.
There is no other reason. They follow the law of their make.
Y.M. What do you say of duty for duty’s sake?
O.M. That _it does not exist_. Duties are not performed for duty’s
_sake_, but because their _neglect_ would make the man _uncomfortable_.
A man performs but _one_ duty—the duty of contenting his spirit, the
duty of making himself agreeable to himself. If he can most
satisfyingly perform this sole and only duty by _helping_ his neighbor,
he will do it; if he can most satisfyingly perform it by _swindling_
his neighbor, he will do it. But he always looks out for Number
One—_first_; the effects upon others are a _secondary_ matter. Men
pretend to self-sacrifices, but this is a thing which, in the ordinary
value of the phrase, _does not exist and has not existed_. A man often
honestly _thinks_ he is sacrificing himself merely and solely for some
one else, but he is deceived; his bottom impulse is to content a
requirement of his nature and training, and thus acquire peace for his
soul.
Y.M. Apparently, then, all men, both good and bad ones, devote their
lives to contenting their consciences.
O.M. Yes. That is a good enough name for it: Conscience—that
independent Sovereign, that insolent absolute Monarch inside of a man
who is the man’s Master. There are all kinds of consciences, because
there are all kinds of men. You satisfy an assassin’s conscience in one
way, a philanthropist’s in another, a miser’s in another, a burglar’s
in still another. As a _guide_ or _incentive_ to any authoritatively
prescribed line of morals or conduct (leaving _training_ out of the
account), a man’s conscience is totally valueless. I know a
kind-hearted Kentuckian whose self-approval was lacking—whose
conscience was troubling him, to phrase it with exactness—_because he
had neglected to kill a certain man_—a man whom he had never seen. The
stranger had killed this man’s friend in a fight, this man’s Kentucky
training made it a duty to kill the stranger for it. He neglected his
duty—kept dodging it, shirking it, putting it off, and his unrelenting
conscience kept persecuting him for this conduct. At last, to get ease
of mind, comfort, self-approval, he hunted up the stranger and took his
life. It was an immense act of _self-sacrifice_ (as per the usual
definition), for he did not want to do it, and he never would have done
it if he could have bought a contented spirit and an unworried mind at
smaller cost. But we are so made that we will pay _anything_ for that
contentment—even another man’s life.
Y.M. You spoke a moment ago of _trained_ consciences. You mean that we
are not _born_ with consciences competent to guide us aright?
O.M. If we were, children and savages would know right from wrong, and
not have to be taught it.
Y.M. But consciences can be _trained_?
O.M. Yes.
Y.M. Of course by parents, teachers, the pulpit, and books.
O.M. Yes—they do their share; they do what they can.
Y.M. And the rest is done by—
O.M. Oh, a million unnoticed influences—for good or bad: influences
which work without rest during every waking moment of a man’s life,
from cradle to grave.
Y.M. You have tabulated these?
O.M. Many of them—yes.
Y.M. Will you read me the result?
O.M. Another time, yes. It would take an hour.
Y.M. A conscience can be trained to shun evil and prefer good?
O.M. Yes.
Y.M. But will it for spirit-contenting reasons only?
O.M. It _can’t_ be trained to do a thing for any _other_ reason. The
thing is impossible.
Y.M. There _must_ be a genuinely and utterly self-sacrificing act
recorded in human history somewhere.
O.M. You are young. You have many years before you. Search one out.
Y.M. It does seem to me that when a man sees a fellow-being struggling
in the water and jumps in at the risk of his life to save him—
O.M. Wait. Describe the _man_. Describe the _fellow-being_. State if
there is an _audience_ present; or if they are _alone_.
Y.M. What have these things to do with the splendid act?
O.M. Very much. Shall we suppose, as a beginning, that the two are
alone, in a solitary place, at midnight?
Y.M. If you choose.
O.M. And that the fellow-being is the man’s daughter?
Y.M. Well, n-no—make it someone else.
O.M. A filthy, drunken ruffian, then?
Y.M. I see. Circumstances alter cases. I suppose that if there was no
audience to observe the act, the man wouldn’t perform it.
O.M. But there is here and there a man who _would_. People, for
instance, like the man who lost his life trying to save the child from
the fire; and the man who gave the needy old woman his twenty-five
cents and walked home in the storm—there are here and there men like
that who would do it. And why? Because they couldn’t _bear_ to see a
fellow-being struggling in the water and not jump in and help. It would
give _them_ pain. They would save the fellow-being on that account.
_They wouldn’t do it otherwise_. They strictly obey the law which I
have been insisting upon. You must remember and always distinguish the
people who _can’t bear_ things from people who _can_. It will throw
light upon a number of apparently “self-sacrificing” cases.
Y.M. Oh, dear, it’s all so disgusting.
O.M. Yes. And so true.
Y.M. Come—take the good boy who does things he doesn’t want to do, in
order to gratify his mother.
O.M. He does seven-tenths of the act because it gratifies _him_ to
gratify his mother. Throw the bulk of advantage the other way and the
good boy would not do the act. He _must_ obey the iron law. None can
escape it.
Y.M. Well, take the case of a bad boy who—
O.M. You needn’t mention it, it is a waste of time. It is no matter
about the bad boy’s act. Whatever it was, he had a spirit-contenting
reason for it. Otherwise you have been misinformed, and he didn’t do
it.
Y.M. It is very exasperating. A while ago you said that man’s
conscience is not a born judge of morals and conduct, but has to be
taught and trained. Now I think a conscience can get drowsy and lazy,
but I don’t think it can go wrong; if you wake it up—
_A Little Story_
O.M. I will tell you a little story:
Once upon a time an Infidel was guest in the house of a Christian widow
whose little boy was ill and near to death. The Infidel often watched
by the bedside and entertained the boy with talk, and he used these
opportunities to satisfy a strong longing in his nature—that desire
which is in us all to better other people’s condition by having them
think as we think. He was successful. But the dying boy, in his last
moments, reproached him and said:
“_I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and
my comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the
things which you have told me do not take the place of that which I
have lost_.”
And the mother, also, reproached the Infidel, and said:
“_My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do
this cruel thing? We have done you no harm, but only kindness; we made
our house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our
reward.”_
The heart of the Infidel was filled with remorse for what he had done,
and he said:
“_It was wrong—I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In
my view he was in error; it seemed my duty to teach him the truth_.”
Then the mother said:
“_I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the
truth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is
dead,—and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through
centuries of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to
disturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame_?”
Y.M. He was a miscreant, and deserved death!
O.M. He thought so himself, and said so.
Y.M. Ah—you see, _his conscience was awakened_!
O.M. Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It _pained_ him to see the mother
suffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought _him_ pain. It
did not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the
boy, for he was absorbed in providing _pleasure_ for himself, then.
Providing it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.
Y.M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case of _awakened
conscience_. That awakened conscience could never get itself into that
species of trouble again. A cure like that is a _permanent_ cure.
O.M. Pardon—I had not finished the story. We are creatures of _outside
influences_—we originate _nothing_ within. Whenever we take a new line
of thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse
is _always_ suggested from the _outside_. Remorse so preyed upon the