Heart and Soul.
by Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post).
APOLOGY
This book was not written with any idea of being published, but simply because I could not help it.
I got thinking about various things, in the lives of people about me, and in my own life, and, after a while, I found that my thoughts would not let me alone. They kept coming back, to trouble and haunt me, until finally I realized that the only way I could be rid of them and have a little peace, was to set them down on paper.
After that, I had the indiscretion to read parts of them to one or two who are near to me. These seemed to think that they might prove helpful to others who felt the same way and urged me to publish them.
I cannot be blamed very much for conceiving a hope that this might prove true. And, in that hope, I have followed their advice.
M.P.
HEART AND SOUL
I
DIAGNOSIS
Many of us, to-day, are disturbed and alarmed by the point of view and the behavior of people about us--especially the younger generation.
Girls of good family are seen on all sides, who smoke and gamble and drink and paint their faces and laugh with scorn at the traditions and conventions which their grand-parents regarded with almost sacred reverence. The young men are worse, if anything, and as for the married people of the new era, what they are doing to the sanct.i.ty of the home and the bonds of matrimony might seem like a weird travesty of the teachings of the past.
What is the world coming to? Are things going on indefinitely, this way,--or more so? If not, who, or what, is to stop the movement and turn it in another direction? What is the meaning of it all? What is to be done about it?
Before attempting to speculate on these questions, it might be a good idea to consider for a moment the main, fundamental influences which have always been at work, to a greater or less extent, in determining the conduct of human beings.
First come the material instincts. Each individual is born with a large number of desires, appet.i.tes, feelings, impulses, tastes. There is also a natural wish to gratify these and the process of doing so brings with it a sense of satisfaction and pleasure. So that if these natural instincts were the only things to be considered, the problem of humanity in a general way would resolve itself into preserving life and getting as much pleasure out of it as possible. Why not follow the lead of our instincts, accept all opportunities as they come, and make the most of them?
Is not this point of view, however briefly and crudely expressed, the first principle of existence as it confronts each individual to-day, as it has confronted them in the past, and as it will continue to confront them always?
Is it not, in its essence, the starting point--the ever-present raw material--which must be recognized and dealt with somehow in any scheme of philosophy or morality?
The next consideration, which follows closely after, is that certain wishes cannot be gratified, certain pleasures are forbidden, certain instincts must be repressed or controlled.
Why?
For various reasons. The first being force and might. Some one stronger interferes and prevents.
Every child comes in contact with this principle at an early stage. It cannot have what it wants, it cannot do as it wills--because the nurse or the mother says "no."
A little later, if it undertakes to gratify a certain wish which has been forbidden, if it gives free play to an instinct for pleasure, against orders, it is slapped and scolded. It is made to feel that it has done wrong. And when one does wrong, punishment follows--one must learn to expect that.
This same principle confronts the individual in later years,--all through life. First the nurse and mother; then the father and other members of the family; then the neighbors and people at large; the police and the laws. All these embody the same principle, they represent greater force, without the individual, which interferes with its instincts, its pleasures, its wishes, which forbids certain things--declares they are wrong--and punishes, if they are done.
On top of this comes the church and religion. In a more exalted way, appealing to the imagination and the inner spirit, they nevertheless apply the same principle. Certain things are sinful and wicked, certain instincts and desires are temptations, contrived by an evil spirit. If temptations are yielded to, if evil is committed, punishment is sure to follow, if not in this world, then in another, a world beyond.
In this connection, it is not a question of any particular church, or creed, or any particular religion, but simply of the fundamental idea of all churches and all religions,--the idea that somewhere, somehow, in a spiritual world of some sort, good will be rewarded and evil punished.
Crudely and briefly stated, it is the same fundamental principle that begins with the child and nursemaid, and runs up through the highest forms of church and religious appeal. This is good, you are allowed and urged to do it, and it will bring reward; that is bad, you are commanded to resist it, and if you yield, it will bring punishment.
This, then, is what we have called the second consideration in the problem of life.
There is another consideration, of a different order, which exerts an influence on the acts of an individual; which causes it to repress certain appet.i.tes and desires, on the one hand, and urges it, on the other hand, to do certain things against its instincts and inclination.
This third consideration is the influence of reason and experience.
A crude example will suffice to ill.u.s.trate the principle. A certain individual eats a plate of sliced cuc.u.mbers. Their taste is delicious and the sensation most enjoyable. An acute indigestion follows, however, with great discomfort and distress. On a later occasion, another plate of fresh cuc.u.mbers is so tempting that the experiment is tried again, with the same results.
Before long, this individual will refuse to eat a cuc.u.mber, no matter how fresh and tempting it looks. There is no question of right or wrong here involved. There is no outside force or command, to restrain him. It is his own reason, based on experience, which determines him to give up a present pleasure for the sake of avoiding a future pain.
In a reverse way, a certain individual who is tired and sleepy and yearns to go to bed, will force himself to sit up and work over annoying papers, in order to be free for a game of golf, the following day. He deliberately denies his desires and accepts present discomfort for the sake of future enjoyment.
This principle, if we look into it carefully and follow it through its ramifications and side lights, is an active and important factor in the conduct of nearly everybody. In its essence, it is personal, its force springs from within the individual--and in that respect, at least, it is quite different from the orders of parents, or the commandments of religion, which are issued from without and which the individual is called upon to accept and obey, irrespective of his own notions or preferences.
There is still another main consideration in this question of conduct.
It is a very great factor in the lives of many people, and in some cases its force and influence are overwhelming. And it is totally different in its very essence and tendency from the other principles we have noted.
This is the influence of love and affection.
A mother will give up any pleasure, she will accept any pain for the sake of her sick child. She does not do it because any one has ordered her, or because of any commandment of any religion, or because of any reward or punishment in this world, or another. There is no selfish motive of any kind involved in her thought. Any sacrifice of self, she is ready to make without the slightest hesitation. What she does, and what she is willing to do is for her child alone--because she loves it and, for the time being, its little life seems of more importance than everything else in the world put together.
Now, if we pause right here a moment and reflect we can hardly fail to realize that we are in the presence of something strange and wonderful.
It appears to be the very contrary and contradiction of all that has gone before. The life of the individual, as it unfolds from the first principle, is a question of self-preservation, self-gratification, appet.i.tes, desires, pleasures, as full a measure of enjoyment as it is possible to obtain. This is interfered with by outside force and considerations of reason and experience; certain desires have to be controlled by the idea of good and bad, reward and punishment; certain pleasures and pains have to be balanced against each other to determine a choice. But from beginning to end, it is all concerned in considerations of advantage--what is best for self, at the time being, or in the long run--in this world or the next. Why do this, that, or the other? because you will gain most by it, in the end. At bottom, the motive is taken for granted, whether openly admitted or more or less thinly disguised--self, self-interest, selfishness.
Then we turn and look upon a mother and her child--and we find that all thought of personal advantage can be transferred to another.
Self-interest can be controlled and obliterated by a new and mysterious principle--the principle of love.
There are various kinds and degrees of feeling that go under the name of love and nothing in life is more interesting or more vitally important to study and understand. But in this preliminary summary it is enough to signal its existence as one of the factors in the problem of life.
It may be just as well to note, in pa.s.sing, that mothers are to be found whose love for their children is not so completely unselfish. Mothers are to be found who care very little about their children. Mothers are to be found who regard children as a nuisance and a disadvantage and prefer to be without them. That will be found to be one of the curious side-lights of the problem when time comes to discuss it.
It does not alter the fact, however, that love exists, that the true mother"s love of her child is the most complete and universal ill.u.s.tration of it.
Also in many other forms of love and affection, it is easy to recognize this same tendency toward unselfishness--a readiness to sacrifice one"s personal pleasures and inclinations for the joy of another. A father may have this feeling for his son, or his brother, just as he may have it for his wife, or his mother. A man, or a woman, may have it for a dear and intimate friend, and be willing to make real sacrifices in order to benefit them.
This, then, is the fourth consideration--a fourth factor in the problem of life--and to avoid misunderstanding and confusion of ideas, we will call it affection--the influence of affection.
There remains one more consideration--one further cla.s.s and kind of influence--which has its bearing on conduct. This may be summed up, in a general way, as love of an ideal, or an idea. Although it is less wide-spread and less potent in most lives than affection for fellow beings, yet it is, in varying degrees, a real factor that cannot be left out.
A sense of duty exists, to greater or less extent, in nearly all people.