Part 5

It is still more difficult to say who are the children of light. It is true that the Gospels sometimes mention them, but what is the meaning of the light of which the Gospels speak? Whence comes it, and how does it shine into the life of men? Here we touch at once the greatest of human problems. Whence come we? Whither do we go? What is our destiny? All that can be said in plain words of the children of light is this: that they are seeking that which is beyond reality, and are receptive to the suggestions of the ideal world. The children of light are those who supremely desire something better than to eat and drink and to-morrow die. This is the motive which most stirs their hearts and wills, and out of this desire comes to them by degrees, first, faith, and then conviction.

This way to the light is in a certain degree indicated in the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God”; and it is more precisely described in the Gospel of Luke: “If thy whole body be full of light, the whole shall be full of light”--a passage whose exact meaning no one has clearly determined. Beyond such evidence as this one can hardly go; for, if we do, the children of this world, who know nothing of such experiences and regard them as extravagances or worse, will at the best turn away like Felix and the Athenians, saying: “We will hear thee again of this matter”; having no more inclination than Felix to be further drawn into such disturbing and unprofitable discussions. The dreams of the children of light, they will say, lead to nothing and had better be forgotten.

It must be sadly confessed that a great part of religious instruction has been singularly unfruitful. Indeed, religion cannot be imparted by instruction. It assumes not only a faith in that which is beyond the world of knowledge, but also a faith in the teachers of religion. The teachers of religion, therefore, can, at the best, only produce in one a kind of mental disposition. They can free the mind from disinclination to their view or from positive incapacity to share it, and they can fortify conviction by their teaching. This limitation in religious instruction has more than one cause. It sometimes happens because the hearer’s way of life is inconsistent with idealism. It is also, and quite as often, caused by a false definition of religion--the notion that religion is a matter of doctrine, a kind of science which can be taught and learned.

Wherein, then, it will be asked, lies the advantage of the wisdom of the light over the wisdom of this world? Surely, the wisdom of the world is a more obvious possession, and guarantees to us more of the good things of life than the children of light can secure. The advantage of the children of light, I answer, is threefold. It is to be found, first, in the assurance that they are the possessors of truth and are made thereby inwardly and wholly at peace. Lessing, in his well-known words, announced that truth was not a thing which men should desire to possess. Happiness, he conceived, was to be found in the search for truth, not in its possession. But the possession of the truth brings with it the only true happiness--a happiness which is abundant and unspeakable, and which no man who has in any degree obtained it would exchange for all the other good things of earth. For the fundamental question is not of possessing any definite outward thing, but of the inward happiness attained through that possession. Even the selfish, the envious, and the self-indulgent do not regard that which they want to possess as their real aim. It is only in their eyes the essential means to the real end, and that end is their own inward happiness. And this is precisely where they are self-deceived. For there is this solemn fact about the order of the world, which reveals itself to every candid observer,--that such people may attain all that they earnestly desire, yet not attain with it their own peace. Their attainment itself, their very success, becomes their punishment. All this may be perhaps somewhat hard to understand, but for the moment it may be accepted merely as a working hypothesis, and one may later observe in life whether it is not true. It is by using thus a working hypothesis that even natural science most easily reaches the truth.

The second advantage which the spirit of the truth, as we may paraphrase it, has over the wisdom of this world is this: that when brought to the test it is in reality much wiser than worldly wisdom. Nothing but the wisdom of the children of light is in harmony with the real laws of the universe. That is the reason why these seemingly unwise persons still for the most part pass through the experiences of life with less trouble and harm than the wise of this world. The consciences of the children of light are undisturbed, and a troubled conscience embitters the best joys. They pass through life also with much less hurry, worry, and fear, both of people and of events. None of these distresses of life is to be escaped except through this frame of mind. Finally, they live more peacefully--not only in their own hearts, but also with other people--because they live without the passions, hatreds, and jealousies which make life hard to endure. Even those who do not desire for themselves this habit of mind, and are not indeed capable of it, as soon as they are convinced that the children of light mean what they seem, that their attitude is not merely a cloak to cover the wisdom of the world, and that they are not vain and supercilious, grow more attached to these “Idealists” than to people like themselves. The affection which goes out toward such persons is quite beyond parallel. It is the reverence, for instance, felt toward characters like Nicolaus von Flüe, or Francis of Assisi, or Catherine of Siena, or in our own time Gordon Pasha. Thousands, for example, in all lands deeply lamented General Gordon’s death and felt it to be a national disaster, although they had not the least notion of following his life. It is a form of sentiment which the most distinguished and most successful political ruler of our own time does not inspire. Persons like these, just because they have denied themselves what seem to others the good things of life and have abandoned the competition for them, have become the true rulers of their people and the heroes of humanity. Truth, happiness, freedom from fear and care, peace with oneself and with all men, the sincere respect and affection of all,--one would think that these might be recognized as beyond a doubt the good things of life, compared with which the accumulation of wealth, the increase of honor, and the resources of luxury have no weight or significance. Indeed, the blessings of the children of light would outweigh the rewards of worldly wisdom, even if these rewards could be attained with certainty and without the bitterness, anxiety, and rivalry which inevitably accompany them.

Lastly, these ideal possessions have this further advantage,--that when attained, they are secure; and that they are within any one’s power to attain. One need only desire them seriously and wholly, and cease from a hesitating dependence on the wisdom and the successes of this world, and then, as many witnesses will testify from their own experience, the blessings of the children of light are surely attained. It may not be through one effort. Indeed, in most cases, it only happens after one or more crises in one’s life--crises which are in fact not unlike death itself, and in which a man renounces all his early hopes. In such a crisis, however, the worst of the way of light is passed. In everything else it is a much easier and more agreeable way than the worldly way, and one is sure to meet much better company.

Christ has compared his way of life to the bearing of a yoke, and indeed it always is a yoke; but compared with other ways of life, it is a much easier and lighter yoke. That is the testimony of all, without exception, who have ever borne that yoke, and not one single person has ever been found who, at the end of such a life, whatever may have been its outward circumstances, has looked back upon it with regret, or has confessed that the way of the world was better and happier. On the other hand, how many there have been since the days of King Solomon who have come to the end of a life which, to the wisdom of this world, seemed successful and free, and have found it only “vanity of vanities.”

One would think that this single fact of human experience would be decisive. It fails of its effect only, as we know, because the lower wisdom withholds one from that higher wisdom which ventures the larger gain for the higher stake. Yet, I will not reproach those who follow the lower wisdom. I simply leave it to the reader’s own reflection to decide whether, on weighing the case as he best can, and considering the conditions in which human life is ordinarily placed, he will do better to choose the lower or the higher way. For, after all, the most foolish people are beyond question those who follow this pilgrimage of life for seventy or eighty years without ever clearly deciding whether to choose the wisdom of this world or the wisdom of light; and to this class of foolish persons, who, for the most part, accomplish nothing in the world, belong, curiously enough, a very considerable number of what we call the cultivated people of our day.

V. THE ART OF HAVING TIME

V. THE ART OF HAVING TIME

I have no time,--that is not only the most familiar and convenient excuse for not doing one’s duty; it is also, one must confess, the excuse which has in it the greatest appearance of truth. Is it a good excuse? I must at once admit that within certain limits the excuse is reasonable, but I shall try to show how it is that this lack of time occurs, and how one may, at least in some degree, find the time he needs. Thus my sermon differs from those of the preachers, in having, not three heads, but only two. This I say to propitiate those who may protest that they have no time for reading.

The most immediate reason, then, for lack of time is to be found in the character of the present age. There is just now a prevailing restlessness, and a continuous mood of excitement, from which, unless one make himself a hermit, he cannot wholly escape. One who lives at all in these days must live fast. If one could observe the modern world as a bird might look down upon it, and at the same time could distinguish the details of its life, he would see beneath him a picture like that of a restless and swarming ant-hill, where even the railway trains, as they cross and recross each other by night and day, would be enough to bewilder his brain. Something of this bewilderment is, in fact, felt by almost every one who is involved in the movement of the time. There are a great many people who have not the least idea why they are thus all day long in a hurry. People whose circumstances permit complete leisure are to be seen rushing through the streets, or whirling away in a train, or crowding out of the theatre, as if there were awaiting them at home the most serious tasks. The fact is that they simply yield to the general movement. One might be led to fancy that the most precious and most unusual possession on earth was the possession of time. We say that time is money, yet people who have plenty of money seem to have no time; and even the people who despise money are constantly admonishing us, and our over-worked children, to remember the Apostle’s saying, and “to redeem the time.” Thus the modern world seems pitiless in its exhortation to work. Human beings are driven like horses until they drop. Many lives are ruined by the pace, but there are always more lives ready like horses to be driven.

Yet the results of this restless haste are in the main not convincing. There have been periods in history when people, without the restlessness and fatigue that now prevail, accomplished far more in many forms of human activity than men achieve to-day. Where are we now to find a man like Luther, who could write his incomparable translation of the Bible in an incredibly brief space of time, and yet not break down at the end of the task, or be forced to spend months or years in recreation or vacation? Where are the scholars whose works fill thousands of volumes, or the artists like Michael Angelo and Raphael, who could be at once painters, architects, sculptors and poets? Where shall we find a man like Titian, who at ninety years of age could still do his work without the necessity of retiring each year to a summer resort or sanitarium? The fact is that the nervous haste of our day cannot be wholly explained by assuming that modern men do more work, or better work, than their predecessors. It must be possible to live, if not without perfect rest, still without haste, and yet accomplish something.

The first condition of escape from this ineffective haste is, beyond doubt, the resolution not to be swept away by the prevailing current of the age, as though one had no will of his own. On the contrary, one must oppose this current and determine to live as a free man, and not as a slave either of work or of pleasure. Our present system of the organization of labor makes this resolution far from easy. Indeed, our whole manner of thinking about money-making and our painstaking provision of money for future generations--our capitalist system, in short--increase the difficulty. Here is the solemn background of our present question, with which I do not propose to deal. We may simply notice that the problem of the use of time is closely involved with the problem of that radical change which civilization itself must experience before it reaches a more equitable division of labor and a more equitable distribution of prosperity. So long as there are people, and especially educated people, who work only when they are forced to work and for no other purpose than to free themselves and their children as soon as possible from the burden of work; so long as there are people who proudly say: “Je suis d’une famille où on n’avait pas de plume qu’aux chapeaux,”--so long must there be many people who have too little time simply because a few have too much. All this, however, is of the future. The only practical problem for our own age is to maintain a sort of defensive attitude toward our lack of time, and to seek less radical ways of fortifying ourselves. Let me enumerate some of these ways.

The best way of all to have time is to have the habit of regular work, not to work by fits and starts, but in definite hours of the day,--though not of the night,--and to work six days in the week, not five and not seven. To turn night into day or Sunday into a work-day is the best way to have neither time nor capacity for work. Even a vacation fails of its purpose, if it be given to no occupation whatever. I am not without hope that the time may come when medical science will positively demonstrate that regular work, especially as one grows older, is the best preservative both of physical and intellectual health. I may even add for the sake of women among my readers, that here is the best preservative of beauty also. Idleness is infinitely more wearisome than work, and induces also much more nervousness; for it weakens that power of resistance which is the foundation of health.

Work, it is true, may be excessive, but this is most obviously the case when one cares more for the result of his work than he does for the work itself. Under such conditions, it is peculiarly difficult to exercise moderation, and as an ancient preacher remarks with a sigh: “Work is given to every man according to his power, but his heart cannot abide by it.” In such cases, however, Nature herself has given us a monitor in that physical fatigue which work itself produces. One need only take account of such fatigue, and not cheat it by stimulants, and then, even without much philosophizing, he will not lack self-control.

The habit of regular work is further greatly encouraged by having a definite vocation which involves positive tasks and obligations. Thus the socialistic romances which draw a picture of the future of the world are quite justified when they describe the universal organization of industry under the form of an army, for an army represents that way of life in which order and duty in one’s work are most emphasized. Every Swiss citizen knows that, with the exception of occasional excessive demands, he has never been in better health than when serving his term in the army. Every hour in the day then had its regular and sufficient task, and no one was called to consider whether he desired to do things or not to do them, while no one had time to anticipate the tasks of the following day. Here is the misfortune of many rich people in our day,--that they have no definite vocation. As the common saying has it, “There is no ‘must’ for them.” For many such persons, a specific business would be a redemption from the dilettantism which now threatens their peace of mind. They might well follow the example of that Bavarian prince who has undertaken the profession of an oculist. I am even inclined to believe that part of the movement toward the higher education which is so conspicuous among women in our day is simply the response to this demand of human nature for some definite vocation.

Another question much discussed in our time concerns the division of one’s working day. In great cities with their vast distances, in the case of unmarried persons engaged in more or less mechanical tasks, and in the case of all people who regard their work as a burden to be thrown off as soon as possible, there is some advantage in working continuously and without interruption. This is what we are in the habit of calling the English method. It is never possible, however, to accomplish in this way so much intellectual work of a productive character as may be done under the Swiss custom of a pause at midday. No one can continuously, or even with momentary pauses, devote himself for six or eight hours to work of an intellectual character. Even if he allow himself an hour’s interval, the sense of strain remains, together with an abbreviation of time for work in the afternoon. On the other hand, under the Swiss custom, it is perfectly easy to work for ten or eleven hours a day,--four in the morning, four in the afternoon, and two or three in the evening, and few of us could accomplish our work in that eight-hour day of which we hear so much, although we have not the honor of being reckoned as of the class known as “working-people.”

The next essential point is not to have too much fussiness about one’s work, or, in other words, not to permit oneself elaborate preparations as to time, place, surroundings, inclination, or mood. The inclination to work comes of itself when one has begun his work, and it is even true that a kind of fatigue with which one often begins--unless, indeed, it has some positive or physical cause--disappears as one seriously attacks his work, and does not simply, as it were, defend himself from it.

“Begin with cheerfulness thy task Nor ask how it may end, Farther than all that thou couldst ask Its issues surely tend.”

In short, if one permit himself habitually to stop and ask that indolent part of him which the Apostle Paul calls “the old man” what he would like to do, or would prefer not to do, “the old man” is most unlikely to vote for serious work, but betakes himself to excellent religious or moral advice. The bad part of one must be forced to the habit of obeying, without grumbling, the “categorical imperative” of the better part. When one has achieved this amount of soldierly discipline in himself, then he is on the right path, and until he has reached this point, he has not found his way. Here he first learns whether his life is saved or lost. Sometimes a man proposes to himself to collect his thoughts before he begins, or to meditate on the work he is going to do. In most cases, this is merely an excuse for doing nothing, and it is most obviously such an excuse, when, to encourage this preliminary reflection, a man lights his cigar. In short, one’s best ideas come while he is working, and often, indeed, while he is working on a wholly different topic. A distinguished modern preacher has remarked with originality, though not with strict accuracy, that there is not a single case mentioned in the Bible in which an angel appeared to a man who was not at work.

In close connection with this point should be mentioned the habit of using fragments of time. Many people have no time because they always want to have a large amount of uninterrupted time before they set themselves to work. In such a plan they are doubly deceived. On the one hand, in many circumstances of life these prolonged periods are difficult to secure, and, on the other hand, the power of work which one possesses is not so unlimited that it can continuously utilize long stretches of time. This is peculiarly true of such intellectual work as is devoted to productive effort. Of such work it may be said without exaggeration that the first hour, or even the first half-hour, is the most fruitful. Dismissing, however, these large intellectual undertakings, there are to be found in connection with every piece of work a great number of subordinate tasks of preparation or arrangement which are of a mechanical nature, and for each of which a quarter of an hour or so is sufficient. These minor matters, if not disposed of in small fragments of time which would otherwise be wasted, will absorb the time and power which should be devoted to one’s important task. It might, indeed, be reasonably maintained that the use of these fragments of time, together with the complete dismissal of the thought, “It is not worth while to begin to-day,” accounts for half of the intellectual results which one attains.

Another important means for saving time is the habit of changing the kind of work in which one is engaged. Change is almost as restful as complete rest, and if one acquire a certain degree of skill in his ways of change,--a skill which comes from experience rather than from theorizing,--one may carry on his work for almost the entire day. Moreover, so far as my experience goes, it is a mistake to plan that one piece of work shall be finished before another is begun. The judicious course, on the contrary, is that which prevails among artists, who are often engaged on a whole series of sketches, and turn, according to the momentary inclination which overmasters them, first to one piece of work and then to another. Here, too, it may be remarked is an excellent way of maintaining one’s self-control. The old Adam in us often persuades the better nature that he is not really lazy, but is simply not in the mood for a certain piece of work. In this state of things, one should forthwith say to himself: “Well, if you do not feel inclined to this piece of work, take up with another.” Then one will discover whether the difficulty is a disinclination to a special form of work, to which one might yield, or a disinclination to do any work at all. In short, one must not permit oneself to deceive oneself.

Another point to be considered is the habit of working quickly, not giving too much care to outward form, but devoting one’s efforts to the content of the task. The experience of most workers will bear me out when I say that the most profitable and effective tasks are those which have been done quickly. I am well aware that Horace advises one to take nine years for the perfecting of verses; but such scrupulousness presupposes an excessive notion of the quality of one’s work. Thoroughness is a very beautiful and necessary trait, in so far as it concerns truth, for truth cannot be too thoroughly explored; but there is a spurious thoroughness which absorbs itself in all manner of details and subordinate questions which are not worth investigating, or which cannot be wholly known. Thoroughness of this kind is never satisfied with itself. It is sometimes mistaken for great learning; for to many people learning is profound only when wholly detached from practical usefulness, or when an author, for a whole lifetime, has brooded over one book.

Truth, wherever it may be sought, is, as a rule, so simple that it often does not look learned enough. People feel as if they must add to it something which is not essential to the nature of truth, in order to give to truth a respectable and academic look. Among learned people, it is often the case that one must first earn his reputation by some piece of work which is of no use to himself or to any one else, and in which he heaps together the hitherto undiscovered rubbish of some remote century. Lassalle was able to write his famous work on Herakleitos without forfeiting his interest in the affairs of modern life, but there are few authors with this capacity for practical concerns. On the contrary, many authors in their maiden venture of learned work not only have their eyesight ruined by their researches, but lose their inward vision, which is a matter of much more consequence. They reach the goal of their ambition and become of no further use.

A further way of saving a deal of time is to do one’s work and be done with it; not to deal with it, that is to say, in a provisional or preparatory manner. This kind of immediate thoroughness is in our day extremely rare, and in my opinion much of the blame should be laid to the newspapers, which accustom people to superficial surveys of truth. The editorial writer says, at the close of his article, “We shall return to this subject later”; but in fact he never returns. So it is with the modern reader. If he wants to make use of what he has read, he has to begin the reading of it afresh. His skimming of the subject--as the phrase is--has had no result, and so the time that he has given to skimming has been lost. This is the reason why people have so little thorough knowledge in our day, and why, though they have studied a subject ten times, on the eleventh occasion when they need it, they must study it again. Indeed, there are people who would be extremely glad if they could remember even the works of which they themselves were the authors.

With this point is obviously connected the need of orderliness and of the reading of original authorities. The habit of orderliness saves one from the need of hunting for material, and this search for material is not only, as we all know, a great waste of time, but tempts us also to lose pleasure in our work. Further, orderliness permits us to allow one subject to be forgotten, while we apply ourselves to the next. The reading of original sources, on the other hand, gives one the advantage of being sure of his material, and of having his own judgment about it. There is this further advantage, that the original sources are in most cases not only much briefer, but much more interesting and much easier to remember than the books that have been written about them. Second-hand knowledge never gives the courage and self-confidence which one gets from acquaintance with original sources. One of the great mistakes of modern scholarship, as distinguished from that of the classic world, is--as Winkelmann has pointed out--that our learning in so many cases consists in knowing only what other people have known.

But, after all, we have not yet named the chief element in the art of having time. It consists in banishing from one’s life all superfluities. Much which modern civilization regards as essential, is, in reality, superfluous, and while I shall indicate several things which appear to me unnecessary, I shall be quite content to have my reader supplement them by his own impressions. For instance, one superfluity is beer. It is superfluous at any time of the day and especially when drunk in the morning, after the fashion made popular by Prince Bismarck. Perhaps the greatest contributors to waste of time in this century are the brewers, and the time will come when people may regard the excessive drinking of beer as they now regard the excessive use of alcohol in other forms.