Part 13

When the stomach is out of order, it needs more than its share of vital force to do its work, and necessarily robs the brain; but when it is in good condition this force may be used for mental work. Then again, when we are in a condition of mental strain or unhealthy concentration, this condition affects our circulation and consumes force that should properly be doing its work elsewhere, and in this way the normal balance of our bodies is disturbed.

The physical and mental degeneration that follows upon moral wrong-doing is too well known to dwell upon. It is self-evident in conspicuous cases, and very real in cases that are too slight to attract general attention. We might almost say that little ways of wrongdoing often produce a worse degeneration, for they are more subtle in their effects, and more difficult to realize, and therefore to eradicate.

The wise care for one's self is simply steering into the currents of law and order,--mentally, morally, and physically. When we are once established in that life and our forces are adjusted to its currents, then we can forget ourselves, but not before: and no one can find these currents of law and order and establish himself in them, unless he is working for some purpose beyond his own health. For a man may be out of order physically, mentally, or morally simply for the want of an aim in life beyond his own personal concerns. No care is to any purpose--indeed, it is injurious--unless we are determined to work for an end which is not only useful in itself, but is cultivating in us a living interest in accomplishment, and leading us on to more usefulness and more accomplishment. The physical, mental, and moral man are all three mutually interdependent, but all the care in the world for each and all of them can only lead to weakness instead of strength, unless they are all three united in a definite purpose of useful life for the benefit of others.

Even a hobby re-acts upon itself and eats up the man who follows it, unless followed to some useful end. A man interested in a hobby for selfish purposes alone first refuses to look at anything outside of his hobby, and later turns his back on everything but his own idea of his hobby. The possible mental contraction which may follow, is almost unlimited, and such contraction affects the whole man.

It is just as certain a law for an individual that what he gives out must have a definite relation to what he takes in, as it is for the best strength of a country that its imports and exports should be in proper balance. Indeed, this law is much more evident in the case of the individual, if we look only a little below the surface. A man can no more expect to live without giving out to others than a shoemaker can expect to earn his bread and butter by making shoes and leaving them piled in a closet.

To be sure, there are many men who are well and happy, and yet, so far as appearances go, are living entirely for themselves, with not only no thought of giving, but a decided unwillingness to give. But their comfort and health are dependent on temporary conditions, and the external well-being they have acquired would vanish, if a serious demand were made upon their characters.

Happy the man or woman who, through illness of body or soul, or through stress of circumstances, is aroused to appreciate the strengthening power of useful work, and develops a wholesome sense of the usefulness and necessity of a rational care of self!

Try to convince a man that it is better on all accounts that he should keep his hands clean and he might answer, "Yes, I appreciate that; but I have never thought of my hands, and to keep them clean would make me conscious of them." Try to convince an unselfishly-selfish or selfishly-unselfish person that the right care for one's self means greater usefulness to others, and you will have a most difficult task. The man with dirty hands is quite right in his answer. To keep his hands clean would make him more conscious of them, but he does not see that, after he had acquired the habit of cleanliness, he would only be conscious of his hands when they were dirty, and that this consciousness could be at any time relieved by soap and water. The selfishly-unselfish person is right: it is most pernicious to care for one's self in a self-centred spirit; and if we cannot get a clear sense of wholesome care of self, it is better not to care at all.

With a perception of the need for such wholesome care, would come a growing realization of the morbidness of all self-centred care, and a clearer, more definite standard of unselfishness. For the self-centred care takes away life, closes the sympathies, and makes useful service obnoxious to us; whereas the wholesome care, with useful service as an end, gives renewed life, an open sympathy, and growing power for further usefulness.

We do not need to study deeply into the laws of health, but simply to obey those we know. This obedience will lead to our knowing more laws and knowing them better, and it will in time become a very simple matter to distinguish the right care from the wrong, and to get a living sense of how power increases with the one, and decreases with the other.

XVIII.

OUR RELATIONS WITH OTHERS

EVERY one will admit that our relations to others should be quiet and clear, in order to give us freedom for our work. Indeed, to make these relations quiet and happy is the special work that some of us have to do. There are laws for health, laws for gaining and keeping normal nerves, laws for honest, kindly action toward others,--but the obedience to all these is a dead obedience, and does not lead to vigorous life, unless accompanied by a hearty love for work and play with those to whom we stand in natural relations,--both young and old. It is with life as it is with art, what we do must be done with love, or it will have no force. Without the living spark of love, we may have the appearance, but never the spirit, of useful work or quiet content. Stagnation is not peace, and there can be no life, and so no living peace, without happy relations with those about us.

The more we realize the practical strength of the law which bids us love our neighbor as ourselves, and the more we act upon it, the more quickly we gain the habit of pleasant, patient friendliness, which sooner or later may beget the same friendliness in return. In this kind of friendly relation there is a savor which so surpasses the unhealthy snap of disagreement, that any one who truly finds it will soon feel the fallacy of the belief that "between friends there must be a little quarrelling, to give spice to friendship."

To be willing that every one should be himself, and work out his salvation in his own way, seems to be the first principle of the working plan drawn from the law of loving your neighbor as yourself. If we drop all selfish resistance to the ways of others, however wrong or ignorant they may be, we are more free to help them to better ways when they turn to us for help. It is in pushing and being pushed that we feel most strain in all human relations.

We wait willingly for the growth of plants, and do not complain, or try in abnormal ways to force them to do what is entirely contrary to the laws of nature; and if we paid more attention to the laws of human nature, we should not stunt the growth of children, relatives, and friends by resisting their efforts,--or their lack of effort,--or by trying to force them into ways that we think must be right for them because we are sure they are right for us.

There is a selfish, restless way of pushing others "for their own good" and straining to "help" them, and there is a selfish, entirely thoughtless way of letting them alone; it is difficult to tell which is the worse, or which does more harm. The first is the attitude of unconscious hypocrisy; the second is that of selfish indifference. It is in letting alone, with a loving readiness to help, that we find strength and peace for ourselves in our relations with others.

All great laws are illustrated most clearly in their simplest forms, and there is no better way to get a sense of really free and wholesome relations with others than from the relations of a mother with her baby. Even healthy reciprocity is there, in all the fulness of its best beginnings, and the results of wholesome, rational, maternal care are evident to the delighted observer in the joyous freedom with which the baby mind develops according to the laws of its own life.

Heidi is a baby not yet a year old, and is left alone a large part of the day. Having no amusements imposed upon her, she has formed the habit of entertaining herself in her own way; she greets you with the most fascinating little gurgles, and laughs up at you when you stop and speak to her as if to say, "How do you do? I am having a very happy time!" Five minutes' smiling and being smiled at by her gives a friend who stops to talk "a very happy time" too. If you take her up for a little while, she stays quietly and looks at you, then at the trees or at something in the room, then at her own hand. If you say "ah," or "oo," she answers with a vowel too; so the conversation begins and goes on, with jolly little laughter every now and then, and when you give her a gentle kiss and put her down, her good-bye is a very contented one, and her "Thank you; please come again," is quite as plainly understood as if she had said it. You leave her, feeling that you have had a very happy visit with one of your best friends.

Heidi is not officiously interfered with; she has the best of care. When she cries, every means is taken to find the cause of her trouble; and when the trouble is remedied, she stops. She is a dear little friend, and gives and takes, and grows.

Another baby of the same age is Peggy. She is needlessly handled and caressed. She is kissed a hundred times a day with rough affection, which is mistaken for tenderness and love. She is "bounced" up and down and around; and the people about her, who believe themselves her friends and would be heartbroken if she were taken from them, talk at her, and not with her; they make her do "cunning little things," and then laugh and admire; they try over and over to force her to speak words when her little brain is not ready for the effort; and when she is awake, she is almost constantly surrounded by "loving" noise. Peggy is capable of being as good a friend as Heidi, but she is not allowed to be. Her family are so overwhelmed by their own feelings of love and admiration that they really only love themselves in her, for they give her not the slightest opportunity to be herself. The poor baby has sleepless, crying nights, and a little irritating illness hanging about her all the time; the doctor is called, and every one wonders why she should be ill; every one worries about her; but the caressing and noisy affection go on. Although much of the difference between these two babies could probably be accounted for by differences of heredity and temperament, it nevertheless remains true that it is very largely the result of a difference between wise and foolish parents.

The real friendship which her mother gave to Heidi, and which resulted in her happy, placid ways and quickly responsive intelligence, meets with a like response in older children; and reciprocal friendship grows in strength and in pleasure both for child and older friend, as the child grows older. When a child is permitted the freedom of his own individuality, he can show the best in himself. When he is tempted to go wrong, he can be rationally guided in the right way in such a manner that he will accept the guidance as an act of friendship; and to that friendship he will feel bound in honor to be true, because he knows that we, his friends, are obeying the same laws. Of course all this comes to him from no conscious action of his own mind, but from an unconscious, contented recognition of the state of mind of his older friends.

A poor woman, who lived in one room with her husband and two children, said once in a flash of new intelligence, "Now I see: the more I hollers, the more the children hollers; I am not going to holler any more." There are various grades of "hollering;" we "holler" often without a sound, and the child feels it, and "hollers" with many sounds which are distressing to him and to us.

It is primarily true with babies and young children that "if you want to have a friend, you must be a friend." If we want courtesy and kindliness from a child, we must be courteous and kindly to him. Not in outside ways alone,--a child quickly feels the sham of mere superficial attention,--but sincerely, with a living interest.

So should we truly, from our inmost selves, meet a child as if he were of our own age, and as if we were of his age. This sounds like a paradox, but indeed the one proposition is essential to the other. If we meet a child only as if he were of our age, our attitude tends to make him a little prig; if we meet him as if we were as young as he is, his need for maturer influences produces a lack of balance which we must both feet; but if we sincerely meet him as if the exchange of age were mutual, we find common ground and valuable companionship.

This mutual understanding is the basis of all true friendship. Only read, instead of "age," "habit of mind," "character," "state," and we have the whole. It is aiming for reciprocal relations, from the best in us to the best in others, and from the best in others to the best in ourselves. It is the foundation of all that is strengthening, and quiet, and happy, in all human intercourse with young and old.

To gain the friendly habit is more difficult with our contemporaries than it is with children. We have no right to guide older people unless they want to be guided, and they often want to guide us in ways we do not like at all. We have no right to try to change their opinions, unless they ask us for new light; and they often insist upon trying to change ours whether we ask them or not. There is sure to be selfish resistance in us when we complain of it in others, and we must acknowledge it and get free from it before we can give or find the most helpful sympathy.

A healthy letting people alone, and a good wholesome scouring of ourselves, will, if it is to come at all, bring open friendliness. If it is not to come, then the healthy letting people alone should continue, for it is possible to live in the same house with a wilful and trying character, and live at peace, if he is lovingly let alone. If he is unlovingly let alone, the peace will be only on the outside, and must sooner or later give way to storms, or, what is much worse, harden into unforgiving selfishness.