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Lay Morals

by Robert Louis Stevenson



CHAPTER 1


THE problem of education is twofold: first to know; and then  to utter。  Every one who lives any semblance of an inner life  thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks; and the best  of teachers can impart only broken images of the truth which  they perceive。  Speech which goes from one to another between  two natures; and; what is worse; between two experiences; is  doubly relative。  The speaker buries his meaning; it is for  the hearer to dig it up again; and all speech; written or  spoken; is in a dead language until it finds a willing and  prepared hearer。  Such; moreover; is the complexity of life;  that when we condescend upon details in our advice; we may be  sure we condescend on error; and the best of education is to  throw out some magnanimous hints。  No man was ever so poor  that he could express all he has in him by words; looks; or  actions; his true knowledge is eternally incommunicable; for  it is a knowledge of himself; and his best wisdom comes to  him by no process of the mind; but in a supreme self… dictation; which keeps varying from hour to hour in its  dictates with the variation of events and circumstances。

A few men of picked nature; full of faith; courage; and  contempt for others; try earnestly to set forth as much as  they can grasp of this inner law; but the vast majority; when  they come to advise the young; must be content to retail  certain doctrines which have been already retailed to them in  their own youth。  Every generation has to educate another  which it has brought upon the stage。  People who readily  accept the responsibility of parentship; having very  different matters in their eye; are apt to feel rueful when  that responsibility falls due。  What are they to tell the  child about life and conduct; subjects on which they have  themselves so few and such confused opinions?  Indeed; I do  not know; the least said; perhaps; the soonest mended; and  yet the child keeps asking; and the parent must find some  words to say in his own defence。  Where does he find them?  and what are they when found?

As a matter of experience; and in nine hundred and ninety… nine cases out of a thousand; he will instil into his wide… eyed brat three bad things: the terror of public opinion;  and; flowing from that as a fountain; the desire of wealth  and applause。  Besides these; or what might be deduced as  corollaries from these; he will teach not much else of any  effective value: some dim notions of divinity; perhaps; and  book…keeping; and how to walk through a quadrille。

But; you may tell me; the young people are taught to be  Christians。  It may be want of penetration; but I have not  yet been able to perceive it。  As an honest man; whatever we  teach; and be it good or evil; it is not the doctrine of  Christ。  What he taught (and in this he is like all other  teachers worthy of the name) was not a code of rules; but a  ruling spirit; not truths; but a spirit of truth; not views;  but a view。  What he showed us was an attitude of mind。   Towards the many considerations on which conduct is built;  each man stands in a certain relation。  He takes life on a  certain principle。  He has a compass in his spirit which  points in a certain direction。  It is the attitude; the  relation; the point of the compass; that is the whole body  and gist of what he has to teach us; in this; the details are  comprehended; out of this the specific precepts issue; and by  this; and this only; can they be explained and applied。  And  thus; to learn aright from any teacher; we must first of all;  like a historical artist; think ourselves into sympathy with  his position and; in the technical phrase; create his  character。  A historian confronted with some ambiguous  politician; or an actor charged with a part; have but one  pre…occupation; they must search all round and upon every  side; and grope for some central conception which is to  explain and justify the most extreme details; until that is  found; the politician is an enigma; or perhaps a quack; and  the part a tissue of fustian sentiment and big words; but  once that is found; all enters into a plan; a human nature  appears; the politician or the stage…king is understood from  point to point; from end to end。  This is a degree of trouble  which will be gladly taken by a very humble artist; but not  even the terror of eternal fire can teach a business man to  bend his imagination to such athletic efforts。  Yet without  this; all is vain; until we understand the whole; we shall  understand none of the parts; and otherwise we have no more  than broken images and scattered words; the meaning remains  buried; and the language in which our prophet speaks to us is  a dead language in our ears。 

Take a few of Christ's sayings and compare them with our  current doctrines。

'Ye cannot;' he says; 'SERVE GOD AND MAMMON。'  Cannot?  And  our whole system is to teach us how we can!

'THE CHILDREN OF THIS WORLD ARE WISER IN THEIR GENERATION  THAN THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT。'  Are they?  I had been led to  understand the reverse: that the Christian merchant; for  example; prospered exceedingly in his affairs; that honesty  was the best policy; that an author of repute had written a  conclusive treatise 'How to make the best of both worlds。'   Of both worlds indeed!  Which am I to believe then … Christ  or the author of repute?

'TAKE NO THOUGHT FOR THE MORROW。'  Ask the Successful  Merchant; interrogate your own heart; and you will have to  admit that this is not only a silly but an immoral position。   All we believe; all we hope; all we honour in ourselves or  our contemporaries; stands condemned in this one sentence;  or; if you take the other view; condemns the sentence as  unwise and inhumane。  We are not then of the 'same mind that  was in Christ。'  We disagree with Christ。  Either Christ  meant nothing; or else he or we must be in the wrong。  Well  says Thoreau; speaking of some texts from the New Testament;  and finding a strange echo of another style which the reader  may recognise: 'Let but one of these sentences be rightly  read from any pulpit in the land; and there would not be left  one stone of that meeting…house upon another。'

It may be objected that these are what are called 'hard  sayings'; and that a man; or an education; may be very  sufficiently Christian although it leave some of these  sayings upon one side。  But this is a very gross delusion。   Although truth is difficult to state; it is both easy and  agreeable to receive; and the mind runs out to meet it ere  the phrase be done。  The universe; in relation to what any  man can say of it; is plain; patent and staringly  comprehensible。  In itself; it is a great and travailing  ocean; unsounded; unvoyageable; an eternal mystery to man;  or; let us say; it is a monstrous and impassable mountain;  one side of which; and a few near slopes and foothills; we  can dimly study with these mortal eyes。  But what any man can  say of it; even in his highest utterance; must have relation  to this little and plain corner; which is no less visible to  us than to him。  We are looking on the same map; it will go  hard if we cannot follow the demonstration。  The longest and  most abstruse flight of a philosopher becomes clear and  shallow; in the flash of a moment; when we suddenly perceive  the aspect and drift of his intention。  The longest argument  is but a finger pointed; once we get our own finger rightly  parallel; and we see what the man meant; whether it be a new  star or an old street…lamp。  And briefly; if a saying is hard  to understand; it is because we are thinking of something  else。

But to be a true disciple is to think of the same things as  our prophet; and to think of different things in the same  order。  To be of the same mind with another is to see all  things in the same perspective; it is not to agree in a few  indifferent matters near at hand and not much debated; it is  to follow him in his farthest flights; to see the force of  his hyperboles; to stand so exactly in the centre of his  vision that whatever he may express; your eyes will light at  once on the original; that whatever he may see to declare;  your mind will at once accept。  You do not belong to the  school of any philosopher; because you agree with him that  theft is; on the whole; objectionable; or that the sun is  overhead at noon。  It is by the hard sayings that  discipleship is tested。  We are all agreed about the middling  and indifferent parts of knowledge and morality; even the  most soaring spirits too often take them tamely upon trust。   But the man; the philosopher or the moralist; does not stand  upon these chance adhesions; and the purpose of any system  looks towards those extreme points where it steps valiantly  beyond tradition and returns with some covert hint of things  outside。  Then only can you be certain that the words are not  words of course; nor mere echoes of the past; then only are  you sure that if he be indicating anything at all; it is a  star and not a street…lamp; then only do you touch the heart  of the mystery; since it was for these that the author wrote  his book。

Now; every now and then; and indeed surprisingly often;  Christ finds

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