What Is Man? and Other Essays

Y.M. Will you put that law into words?

O.M. Yes. This is the law, keep it in your mind. _From his cradle to his grave a man never does a single thing which has any_ FIRST AND FOREMOST _object_ _but one_—_to secure peace of mind, spiritual comfort_, _for_ HIMSELF.

Y.M. Come! He never does anything for any one else’s comfort, spiritual or physical?

O.M. No. _except on those distinct terms_—that it shall _first_ secure _his own_ spiritual comfort. Otherwise he will not do it.

Y.M. It will be easy to expose the falsity of that proposition.

O.M. For instance?

Y.M. Take that noble passion, love of country, patriotism. A man who loves peace and dreads pain, leaves his pleasant home and his weeping family and marches out to manfully expose himself to hunger, cold, wounds, and death. Is that seeking spiritual comfort?

O.M. He loves peace and dreads pain?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. Then perhaps there is something that he loves _more_ than he loves peace—_the approval of his neighbors and the public_. And perhaps there is something which he dreads more than he dreads pain—the _disapproval_ of his neighbors and the public. If he is sensitive to shame he will go to the field—not because his spirit will be _entirely_ comfortable there, but because it will be more comfortable there than it would be if he remained at home. He will always do the thing which will bring him the _most_ mental comfort—for that is _the sole law of his life_. He leaves the weeping family behind; he is sorry to make them uncomfortable, but not sorry enough to sacrifice his _own_ comfort to secure theirs.

Y.M. Do you really believe that mere public opinion could force a timid and peaceful man to—

O.M. Go to war? Yes—public opinion can force some men to do _anything_.

Y.M. _Anything_?

O.M. Yes—anything.

Y.M. I don’t believe that. Can it force a right-principled man to do a wrong thing?

O.M. Yes.

Y.M. Can it force a kind man to do a cruel thing?

O.M. Yes.

Y.M. Give an instance.

O.M. Alexander Hamilton was a conspicuously high-principled man. He regarded dueling as wrong, and as opposed to the teachings of religion—but in deference to _public opinion_ he fought a duel. He deeply loved his family, but to buy public approval he treacherously deserted them and threw his life away, ungenerously leaving them to lifelong sorrow in order that he might stand well with a foolish world. In the then condition of the public standards of honor he could not have been comfortable with the stigma upon him of having refused to fight. The teachings of religion, his devotion to his family, his kindness of heart, his high principles, all went for nothing when they stood in the way of his spiritual comfort. A man will do _anything_, no matter what it is, _to secure his spiritual comfort_; and he can neither be forced nor persuaded to any act which has not that goal for its object. Hamilton’s act was compelled by the inborn necessity of contenting his own spirit; in this it was like all the other acts of his life, and like all the acts of all men’s lives. Do you see where the kernel of the matter lies? A man cannot be comfortable without _his own_ approval. He will secure the largest share possible of that, at all costs, all sacrifices.

Y.M. A minute ago you said Hamilton fought that duel to get _public_ approval.

O.M. I did. By refusing to fight the duel he would have secured his family’s approval and a large share of his own; but the public approval was more valuable in his eyes than all other approvals put together—in the earth or above it; to secure that would furnish him the _most_ 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 Infidel that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy’s religion and made him come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the boy’s sake and the mother’s. Finally he found himself examining it. From that moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He became a believing Christian. And now his remorse for having robbed the dying boy of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It gave him no rest, no peace. He _must_ have rest and peace—it is the law of nature. There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself to saving imperiled souls. He became a missionary. He landed in a pagan country ill and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home and nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here was his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the other boy by doing a precious service for this one by undermining his foolish faith in his false gods. 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 missionary, and said:

“_My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do this cruel thing? We had 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 missionary 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_?”

The missionary’s anguish of remorse and sense of treachery were as bitter and persecuting and unappeasable, now, as they had been in the former case. The story is finished. What is your comment?

Y.M. The man’s conscience is a fool! It was morbid. It didn’t know right from wrong.

O.M. I am not sorry to hear you say that. If you grant that _one_ man’s conscience doesn’t know right from wrong, it is an admission that there are others like it. This single admission pulls down the whole doctrine of infallibility of judgment in consciences. Meantime there is one thing which I ask you to notice.

Y.M. What is that?

O.M. That in both cases the man’s _act_ gave him no spiritual discomfort, and that he was quite satisfied with it and got pleasure out of it. But afterward when it resulted in _pain_ to _him_, he was sorry. Sorry it had inflicted pain upon the others, _but for no reason under the sun except that their pain gave him pain_. Our consciences take _no_ notice of pain inflicted upon others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to _us_. In _all_ cases without exception we are absolutely indifferent to another person’s pain until his sufferings make us uncomfortable. Many an infidel would not have been troubled by that Christian mother’s distress. Don’t you believe that?

Y.M. Yes. You might almost say it of the _average_ infidel, I think.

O.M. And many a missionary, sternly fortified by his sense of duty, would not have been troubled by the pagan mother’s distress—Jesuit missionaries in Canada in the early French times, for instance; see episodes quoted by Parkman.

Y.M. Well, let us adjourn. Where have we arrived?

O.M. At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number of qualities to which we have given misleading names. Love, Hate, Charity, Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach misleading _meanings_ to the names. They are all forms of self-contentment, self-gratification, but the names so disguise them that they distract our attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled a word into the dictionary which ought not to be there at all—Self-Sacrifice. It describes a thing which does not exist. But worst of all, we ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse which dictates and compels a man’s every act: the imperious necessity of securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs. To it we owe all that we are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is our only spur, our whip, our goad, our only impelling power; we have no other. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses; no one would do anything, there would be no progress, the world would stand still. We ought to stand reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous power is uttered.