________________________________________________
_ Young Man. You keep using that word--training. By it do
you particularly mean--
Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a
part of it--but not a large part. I mean ALL the outside
influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the
grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is under
training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands
ASSOCIATION. It is his human environment which influences his
mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on
his road and keeps him in it. If he leave that road he will find
himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and
whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of
his nature he takes the color of his place of resort. The
influences about him create his preferences, his aversions, his
politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion. He creates none
of these things for himself. He THINKS he does, but that is
because he has not examined into the matter. You have seen
Presbyterians?
Y.M. Many.
O.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not
Congregationalists? And why were the Congregationalists not
Baptists, and the Baptists Roman Catholics, and the Roman
Catholics Buddhists, and the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers
Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and the
Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus Atheists, and the Atheists
Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists Agnostics, and the Agnostics
Methodists, and the Methodists Confucians, and the Confucians
Unitarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans
Salvation Warriors, and the Salvation Warriors Zoroastrians, and
the Zoroastrians Christian Scientists, and the Christian
Scientists Mormons--and so on?
Y.M. You may answer your question yourself.
O.M. That list of sects is not a record of STUDIES,
searchings, seekings after light; it mainly (and sarcastically)
indicates what ASSOCIATION can do. If you know a man's
nationality you can come within a split hair of guessing the
complexion of his religion: English--Protestant; American--
ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South American--
Roman Catholic; Russian--Greek Catholic; Turk--Mohammedan; and so
on. And when you know the man's religious complexion, you know
what sort of religious books he reads when he wants some more
light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get
more light than he wants. In America if you know which party-
collar a voter wears, you know what his associations are, and how
he came by his politics, and which breed of newspaper he reads to
get light, and which breed he diligently avoids, and which breed
of mass-meetings he attends in order to broaden his political
knowledge, and which breed of mass-meetings he doesn't attend,
except to refute its doctrines with brickbats. We are always
hearing of people who are around SEEKING AFTER TRUTH. I have
never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think he had never lived.
But I have seen several entirely sincere people who THOUGHT they
were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They sought diligently,
persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect
honesty and nicely adjusted judgment--until they believed that
without doubt or question they had found the Truth. THAT WAS THE
END OF THE SEARCH. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up
shingles wherewith to protect his Truth from the weather. If he
was seeking after political Truth he found it in one or another
of the hundred political gospels which govern men in the earth;
if he was seeking after the Only True Religion he found it in one
or another of the three thousand that are on the market. In any
case, when he found the Truth HE SOUGHT NO FURTHER; but from that
day forth, with his soldering-iron in one hand and his bludgeon
in the other he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with objectors.
There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers of Truth--have you
ever heard of a permanent one? In the very nature of man such a
person is impossible. However, to drop back to the text--
training: all training is one from or another of OUTSIDE
INFLUENCE, and ASSOCIATION is the largest part of it. A man is
never anything but what his outside influences have made him.
They train him downward or they train him upward--but they TRAIN
him; they are at work upon him all the time.
Y.M. Then if he happen by the accidents of life to be
evilly placed there is no help for him, according to your
notions--he must train downward.
O.M. No help for him? No help for this chameleon? It is a
mistake. It is in his chameleonship that his greatest good
fortune lies. He has only to change his habitat--his
ASSOCIATIONS. But the impulse to do it must come from the
OUTSIDE--he cannot originate it himself, with that purpose in
view. Sometimes a very small and accidental thing can furnish
him the initiatory impulse and start him on a new road, with a
new idea. The chance remark of a sweetheart, "I hear that you
are a coward," may water a seed that shall sprout and bloom and
flourish, and ended in producing a surprising fruitage--in the
fields of war. The history of man is full of such accidents.
The accident of a broken leg brought a profane and ribald soldier
under religious influences and furnished him a new ideal. From
that accident sprang the Order of the Jesuits, and it has been
shaking thrones, changing policies, and doing other tremendous
work for two hundred years--and will go on. The chance reading
of a book or of a paragraph in a newspaper can start a man on a
new track and make him renounce his old associations and seek new
ones that are IN SYMPATHY WITH HIS NEW IDEAL: and the result,
for that man, can be an entire change of his way of life.
Y.M. Are you hinting at a scheme of procedure?
O.M. Not a new one--an old one. Old as mankind.
Y.M. What is it?
O.M. Merely the laying of traps for people. Traps baited
with INITIATORY IMPULSES TOWARD HIGH IDEALS. It is what the
tract-distributor does. It is what the missionary does. It is
what governments ought to do.
Y.M. Don't they?
O.M. In one way they do, in another they don't. They
separate the smallpox patients from the healthy people, but in
dealing with crime they put the healthy into the pest-house along
with the sick. That is to say, they put the beginners in with
the confirmed criminals. This would be well if man were
naturally inclined to good, but he isn't, and so ASSOCIATION
makes the beginners worse than they were when they went into
captivity. It is putting a very severe punishment upon the
comparatively innocent at times. They hang a man--which is a
trifling punishment; this breaks the hearts of his family--which
is a heavy one. They comfortably jail and feed a wife-beater,
and leave his innocent wife and family to starve.
Y.M. Do you believe in the doctrine that man is equipped
with an intuitive perception of good and evil?
O.M. Adam hadn't it.
Y.M. But has man acquired it since?
O.M. No. I think he has no intuitions of any kind. He
gets ALL his ideas, all his impressions, from the outside. I
keep repeating this, in the hope that I may impress it upon you
that you will be interested to observe and examine for yourself
and see whether it is true or false.
Y.M. Where did you get your own aggravating notions?
O.M. From the OUTSIDE. I did not invent them. They are
gathered from a thousand unknown sources. Mainly UNCONSCIOUSLY
gathered.
Y.M. Don't you believe that God could make an inherently
honest man?
O.M. Yes, I know He could. I also know that He never did
make one.
Y.M. A wiser observer than you has recorded the fact that
"an honest man's the noblest work of God."
O.M. He didn't record a fact, he recorded a falsity. It is windy,
and sounds well, but it is not true. God makes a man with honest
and dishonest POSSIBILITIES in him and stops there. The man's
ASSOCIATIONS develop the possibilities--the one set or the other.
The result is accordingly an honest man or a dishonest one.
Y.M. And the honest one is not entitled to--
O.M. Praise? No. How often must I tell you that? HE is
not the architect of his honesty.
Y.M. Now then, I will ask you where there is any sense in
training people to lead virtuous lives. What is gained by it?
O.M. The man himself gets large advantages out of it, and
that is the main thing--to HIM. He is not a peril to his
neighbors, he is not a damage to them--and so THEY get an
advantage out of his virtues. That is the main thing to THEM.
It can make this life comparatively comfortable to the parties
concerned; the NEGLECT of this training can make this life a
constant peril and distress to the parties concerned.
Y.M. You have said that training is everything; that
training is the man HIMSELF, for it makes him what he is.
O.M. I said training and ANOTHER thing. Let that other
thing pass, for the moment. What were you going to say?
Y.M. We have an old servant. She has been with us twenty-
two years. Her service used to be faultless, but now she has
become very forgetful. We are all fond of her; we all recognize
that she cannot help the infirmity which age has brought her; the
rest of the family do not scold her for her remissnesses, but at
times I do--I can't seem to control myself. Don't I try? I do
try. Now, then, when I was ready to dress, this morning, no
clean clothes had been put out. I lost my temper; I lose it
easiest and quickest in the early morning. I rang; and
immediately began to warn myself not to show temper, and to be
careful and speak gently. I safe-guarded myself most carefully.
I even chose the very word I would use: "You've forgotten the
clean clothes, Jane." When she appeared in the door I opened my
mouth to say that phrase--and out of it, moved by an instant
surge of passion which I was not expecting and hadn't time to put
under control, came the hot rebuke, "You've forgotten them
again!" You say a man always does the thing which will best
please his Interior Master. Whence came the impulse to make
careful preparation to save the girl the humiliation of a rebuke?
Did that come from the Master, who is always primarily concerned
about HIMSELF?
O.M. Unquestionably. There is no other source for any
impulse. SECONDARILY you made preparation to save the girl, but
PRIMARILY its object was to save yourself, by contenting the
Master.
Y.M. How do you mean?
O.M. Has any member of the family ever implored you to
watch your temper and not fly out at the girl?
Y.M. Yes. My mother.
O.M. You love her?
Y.M. Oh, more than that!
O.M. You would always do anything in your power to please her?
Y.M. It is a delight to me to do anything to please her!
O.M. Why? YOU WOULD DO IT FOR PAY, SOLELY--for PROFIT.
What profit would you expect and certainly receive from
the investment?
Y.M. Personally? None. To please HER is enough.
O.M. It appears, then, that your object, primarily, WASN'T
to save the girl a humiliation, but to PLEASE YOUR MOTHER. It
also appears that to please your mother gives YOU a strong
pleasure. Is not that the profit which you get out of the
investment? Isn't that the REAL profits and FIRST profit?
Y.M. Oh, well? Go on.
O.M. In ALL transactions, the Interior Master looks to it
that YOU GET THE FIRST PROFIT. Otherwise there is no
transaction.
Y.M. Well, then, if I was so anxious to get that profit and
so intent upon it, why did I threw it away by losing my temper?
O.M. In order to get ANOTHER profit which suddenly
superseded it in value.
Y.M. Where was it?
O.M. Ambushed behind your born temperament, and waiting for
a chance. Your native warm temper suddenly jumped to the front,
and FOR THE MOMENT its influence was more powerful than your
mother's, and abolished it. In that instance you were eager to
flash out a hot rebuke and enjoy it. You did enjoy it, didn't you?
Y.M. For--for a quarter of a second. Yes--I did.
O.M. Very well, it is as I have said: the thing which will
give you the MOST pleasure, the most satisfaction, in any moment
or FRACTION of a moment, is the thing you will always do. You
must content the Master's LATEST whim, whatever it may be.
Y.M. But when the tears came into the old servant's eyes I
could have cut my hand off for what I had done.
O.M. Right. You had humiliated YOURSELF, you see, you had
given yourself PAIN. Nothing is of FIRST importance to a man
except results which damage HIM or profit him--all the rest is
SECONDARY. Your Master was displeased with you, although you had
obeyed him. He required a prompt REPENTANCE; you obeyed again;
you HAD to--there is never any escape from his commands. He is a
hard master and fickle; he changes his mind in the fraction of a
second, but you must be ready to obey, and you will obey, ALWAYS.
If he requires repentance, you content him, you will always
furnish it. He must be nursed, petted, coddled, and kept
contented, let the terms be what they may.
Y.M. Training! Oh, what's the use of it? Didn't I, and
didn't my mother try to train me up to where I would no longer
fly out at that girl?
O.M. Have you never managed to keep back a scolding?
Y.M. Oh, certainly--many times.
O.M. More times this year than last?
Y.M. Yes, a good many more.
O.M. More times last year than the year before?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. There is a large improvement, then, in the two years?
Y.M. Yes, undoubtedly.
O.M. Then your question is answered. You see there IS use in
training. Keep on. Keeping faithfully on. You are doing well.
Y.M. Will my reform reach perfection?
O.M. It will. UP to YOUR limit.
Y.M. My limit? What do you mean by that?
O.M. You remember that you said that I said training was
EVERYTHING. I corrected you, and said "training and ANOTHER
thing." That other thing is TEMPERAMENT--that is, the
disposition you were born with. YOU CAN'T ERADICATE YOUR
DISPOSITION NOR ANY RAG OF IT--you can only put a pressure on it
and keep it down and quiet. You have a warm temper?
Y.M. Yes.
O.M. You will never get rid of it; but by watching it you
can keep it down nearly all the time. ITS PRESENCE IS YOUR
LIMIT. Your reform will never quite reach perfection, for your
temper will beat you now and then, but you come near enough. You
have made valuable progress and can make more. There IS use in
training. Immense use. Presently you will reach a new stage of
development, then your progress will be easier; will proceed on a
simpler basis, anyway.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. You keep back your scoldings now, to please YOURSELF
by pleasing your MOTHER; presently the mere triumphing over your
temper will delight your vanity and confer a more delicious
pleasure and satisfaction upon you than even the approbation of
your MOTHER confers upon you now. You will then labor for
yourself directly and at FIRST HAND, not by the roundabout way
through your mother. It simplifies the matter, and it also
strengthens the impulse.
Y.M. Ah, dear! But I sha'n't ever reach the point where I
will spare the girl for HER sake PRIMARILY, not mine?
O.M. Why--yes. In heaven.
Y.M. (AFTER A REFLECTIVE PAUSE) Temperament. Well, I see
one must allow for temperament. It is a large factor, sure
enough. My mother is thoughtful, and not hot-tempered. When I
was dressed I went to her room; she was not there; I called, she
answered from the bathroom. I heard the water running. I
inquired. She answered, without temper, that Jane had forgotten
her bath, and she was preparing it herself. I offered to ring,
but she said, "No, don't do that; it would only distress her to
be confronted with her lapse, and would be a rebuke; she doesn't
deserve that--she is not to blame for the tricks her memory
serves her." I say--has my mother an Interior Master?--and where
was he?
O.M. He was there. There, and looking out for his own
peace and pleasure and contentment. The girl's distress would
have pained YOUR MOTHER. Otherwise the girl would have been rung
up, distress and all. I know women who would have gotten a No. 1
PLEASURE out of ringing Jane up--and so they would infallibly
have pushed the button and obeyed the law of their make and
training, which are the servants of their Interior Masters. It
is quite likely that a part of your mother's forbearance came
from training. The GOOD kind of training--whose best and highest
function is to see to it that every time it confers a
satisfaction upon its pupil a benefit shall fall at second hand
upon others.
Y.M. If you were going to condense into an admonition your
plan for the general betterment of the race's condition, how
would you word it?
Admonition
O.M. Diligently train your ideals UPWARD and STILL UPWARD
toward a summit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in
conduct which, while contenting you, will be sure to confer
benefits upon your neighbor and the community.
Y.M. Is that a new gospel?
O.M. No.
Y.M. It has been taught before?
O.M. For ten thousand years.
Y.M. By whom?
O.M. All the great religions--all the great gospels.
Y.M. Then there is nothing new about it?
O.M. Oh yes, there is. It is candidly stated, this time.
That has not been done before.
Y.M. How do you mean?
O.M. Haven't I put YOU FIRST, and your neighbor and the
community AFTERWARD?
Y.M. Well, yes, that is a difference, it is true.
O.M. The difference between straight speaking and crooked;
the difference between frankness and shuffling.
Y.M. Explain.
O.M. The others offer your a hundred bribes to be good,
thus conceding that the Master inside of you must be conciliated
and contented first, and that you will do nothing at FIRST HAND
but for his sake; then they turn square around and require you to
do good for OTHER'S sake CHIEFLY; and to do your duty for duty's
SAKE, chiefly; and to do acts of SELF-SACRIFICE. Thus at the
outset we all stand upon the same ground--recognition of the
supreme and absolute Monarch that resides in man, and we all
grovel before him and appeal to him; then those others dodge and
shuffle, and face around and unfrankly and inconsistently and
illogically change the form of their appeal and direct its
persuasions to man's SECOND-PLACE powers and to powers which have
NO EXISTENCE in him, thus advancing them to FIRST place; whereas
in my Admonition I stick logically and consistently to the
original position: I place the Interior Master's requirements
FIRST, and keep them there.
Y.M. If we grant, for the sake of argument, that your
scheme and the other schemes aim at and produce the same result--
RIGHT LIVING--has yours an advantage over the others?
O.M. One, yes--a large one. It has no concealments, no
deceptions. When a man leads a right and valuable life under it
he is not deceived as to the REAL chief motive which impels him
to it--in those other cases he is.
Y.M. Is that an advantage? Is it an advantage to live a
lofty life for a mean reason? In the other cases he lives the
lofty life under the IMPRESSION that he is living for a lofty
reason. Is not that an advantage?
O.M. Perhaps so. The same advantage he might get out of
thinking himself a duke, and living a duke's life and parading in
ducal fuss and feathers, when he wasn't a duke at all, and could
find it out if he would only examine the herald's records.
Y.M. But anyway, he is obliged to do a duke's part; he puts
his hand in his pocket and does his benevolences on as big a
scale as he can stand, and that benefits the community.
O.M. He could do that without being a duke.
Y.M. But would he?
O.M. Don't you see where you are arriving?
Y.M. Where?
O.M. At the standpoint of the other schemes: That it is
good morals to let an ignorant duke do showy benevolences for his
pride's sake, a pretty low motive, and go on doing them unwarned,
lest if he were made acquainted with the actual motive which
prompted them he might shut up his purse and cease to be good?
Y.M. But isn't it best to leave him in ignorance, as long
as he THINKS he is doing good for others' sake?
O.M. Perhaps so. It is the position of the other schemes.
They think humbug is good enough morals when the dividend on it
is good deeds and handsome conduct.
Y.M. It is my opinion that under your scheme of a man's
doing a good deed for his OWN sake first-off, instead of first
for the GOOD DEED'S sake, no man would ever do one.
O.M. Have you committed a benevolence lately?
Y.M. Yes. This morning.
O.M. Give the particulars.
Y.M. The cabin of the old negro woman who used to nurse me
when I was a child and who saved my life once at the risk of her
own, was burned last night, and she came mourning this morning,
and pleading for money to build another one.
O.M. You furnished it?
Y.M. Certainly.
O.M. You were glad you had the money?
Y.M. Money? I hadn't. I sold my horse.
O.M. You were glad you had the horse?
Y.M. Of course I was; for if I hadn't had the horse I
should have been incapable, and my MOTHER would have captured the
chance to set old Sally up.
O.M. You were cordially glad you were not caught out and
incapable?
Y.M. Oh, I just was!
O.M. Now, then--
Y.M. Stop where you are! I know your whole catalog of
questions, and I could answer every one of them without your
wasting the time to ask them; but I will summarize the whole
thing in a single remark: I did the charity knowing it was
because the act would give ME a splendid pleasure, and because
old Sally's moving gratitude and delight would give ME another
one; and because the reflection that she would be happy now and
out of her trouble would fill ME full of happiness. I did the
whole thing with my eyes open and recognizing and realizing that
I was looking out for MY share of the profits FIRST. Now then, I
have confessed. Go on.
O.M. I haven't anything to offer; you have covered the
whole ground. Can you have been any MORE strongly moved to help
Sally out of her trouble--could you have done the deed any more
eagerly--if you had been under the delusion that you were doing
it for HER sake and profit only?
Y.M. No! Nothing in the world could have made the impulse
which moved me more powerful, more masterful, more thoroughly
irresistible. I played the limit!
O.M. Very well. You begin to suspect--and I claim to KNOW
--that when a man is a shade MORE STRONGLY MOVED to do ONE of two
things or of two dozen things than he is to do any one of the
OTHERS, he will infallibly do that ONE thing, be it good or be it
evil; and if it be good, not all the beguilements of all the
casuistries can increase the strength of the impulse by a single
shade or add a shade to the comfort and contentment he will get
out of the act.
Y.M. Then you believe that such tendency toward doing good
as is in men's hearts would not be diminished by the removal of
the delusion that good deeds are done primarily for the sake of
No. 2 instead of for the sake of No. 1?
O.M. That is what I fully believe.
Y.M. Doesn't it somehow seem to take from the dignity of the deed?
O.M. If there is dignity in falsity, it does. It removes that.
Y.M. What is left for the moralists to do?
O.M. Teach unreservedly what he already teaches with one
side of his mouth and takes back with the other: Do right FOR
YOUR OWN SAKE, and be happy in knowing that your NEIGHBOR will
certainly share in the benefits resulting.
Y.M. Repeat your Admonition.
O.M. DILIGENTLY TRAIN YOUR IDEALS UPWARD AND STILL UPWARD
TOWARD A SUMMIT WHERE YOU WILL FIND YOUR CHIEFEST PLEASURE IN
CONDUCT WHICH, WHILE CONTENTING YOU, WILL BE SURE TO CONFER
BENEFITS UPON YOUR NEIGHBOR AND THE COMMUNITY.
Y.M. One's EVERY act proceeds from EXTERIOR INFLUENCES, you think?
O.M. Yes.
Y.M. If I conclude to rob a person, I am not the ORIGINATOR
of the idea, but it comes in from the OUTSIDE? I see him
handling money--for instance--and THAT moves me to the crime?
O.M. That, by itself? Oh, certainly not. It is merely the
LATEST outside influence of a procession of preparatory
influences stretching back over a period of years. No SINGLE
outside influence can make a man do a thing which is at war with
his training. The most it can do is to start his mind on a new
tract and open it to the reception of NEW influences--as in the
case of Ignatius Loyola. In time these influences can train him
to a point where it will be consonant with his new character to
yield to the FINAL influence and do that thing. I will put the
case in a form which will make my theory clear to you, I think.
Here are two ingots of virgin gold. They shall represent a
couple of characters which have been refined and perfected in the
virtues by years of diligent right training. Suppose you wanted
to break down these strong and well-compacted characters--what
influence would you bring to bear upon the ingots?
Y.M. Work it out yourself. Proceed.
O.M. Suppose I turn upon one of them a steam-jet during a
long succession of hours. Will there be a result?
Y.M. None that I know of.
O.M. Why?
Y.M. A steam-jet cannot break down such a substance.
O.M. Very well. The steam is an OUTSIDE INFLUENCE, but it
is ineffective because the gold TAKES NO INTEREST IN IT. The
ingot remains as it was. Suppose we add to the steam some
quicksilver in a vaporized condition, and turn the jet upon the
ingot, will there be an instantaneous result?
Y.M. No.
O.M. The QUICKSILVER is an outside influence which gold (by
its peculiar nature--say TEMPERAMENT, DISPOSITION) CANNOT BE
INDIFFERENT TO. It stirs up the interest of the gold, although
we do not perceive it; but a SINGLE application of the influence
works no damage. Let us continue the application in a steady
stream, and call each minute a year. By the end of ten or twenty
minutes--ten or twenty years--the little ingot is sodden with
quicksilver, its virtues are gone, its character is degraded. At
last it is ready to yield to a temptation which it would have
taken no notice of, ten or twenty years ago. We will apply that
temptation in the form of a pressure of my finger. You note the
result?
Y.M. Yes; the ingot has crumbled to sand. I understand,
now. It is not the SINGLE outside influence that does the work,
but only the LAST one of a long and disintegrating accumulation
of them. I see, now, how my SINGLE impulse to rob the man is not
the one that makes me do it, but only the LAST one of a
preparatory series. You might illustrate with a parable.
A Parable
O.M. I will. There was once a pair of New England boys--
twins. They were alike in good dispositions, feckless morals,
and personal appearance. They were the models of the Sunday-
school. At fifteen George had the opportunity to go as cabin-boy
in a whale-ship, and sailed away for the Pacific. Henry remained
at home in the village. At eighteen George was a sailor before
the mast, and Henry was teacher of the advanced Bible class. At
twenty-two George, through fighting-habits and drinking-habits
acquired at sea and in the sailor boarding-houses of the European
and Oriental ports, was a common rough in Hong-Kong, and out of a
job; and Henry was superintendent of the Sunday-school. At
twenty-six George was a wanderer, a tramp, and Henry was pastor
of the village church. Then George came home, and was Henry's
guest. One evening a man passed by and turned down the lane, and
Henry said, with a pathetic smile, "Without intending me a
discomfort, that man is always keeping me reminded of my pinching
poverty, for he carries heaps of money about him, and goes by
here every evening of his life." That OUTSIDE INFLUENCE--that
remark--was enough for George, but IT was not the one that made
him ambush the man and rob him, it merely represented the eleven
years' accumulation of such influences, and gave birth to the act
for which their long gestation had made preparation. It had
never entered the head of Henry to rob the man--his ingot had
been subjected to clean steam only; but George's had been
subjected to vaporized quicksilver. _
Read next: Chapter V - More About the Machine
Read previous: Chapter III - Instances in Point
Table of content of What Is Man?
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
