Speaker 1: Self reliance. Every young man ought to read Emerson's Essay
on self Reliance. It is the manliest, most virile essay
that was ever penned. It is calculated to cure alike
those two mental maladies common to youth, namely self deprecation
and self conceit. It is almost as sure to reveal
to the prig the smallness and emptiness of his vanity
as it is to show the bashful man the weakness
and ineffectuality of his dividends. It is a new revelation
of manly dignity, as much a revelation as any that
was vouchsafed to ancient seer and profit, and perhaps a
more practical, eminently suited to his mechanic age, coming as
it does from a modern prophet of a new type
and called in a new race. And its chief merit
is its powerfully tonic quality. Let not self reliance be
confounded with self conceit, For as high and excellent as
the one, just so low and worthless as the other,
there cannot be anything mean in self reliance, while in
self conceit there cannot be anything great. The man that
never says no when questioned on subjects of which he
is entirely ignorant to avoid as he imagines being thought ignorant,
but confidently puts forth guesses and assumptions as knowledge, will
be known for his ignorance and ill esteemed for his
added conceit. An honest confession of ignorance will command respect,
where a conceited assumption of knowledge will elicit contempt. The timid,
apologetic man who seems almost afraid to live, who fears
that he will do something not in the approved way
and will subject himself to ridicule, is not a full man.
He must imitate others and has no independent action. He
needs that self reliance which will compel him to fall
back on his own initiative, and so become a new
example instead of the slavish follower of an old one.
As for ridicule, he who is hurt by it is
no man. The shafts of mockery and sarcasm cannot pierce
the strong armor of the self reliant man. They cannot
reach the invincible citadel of his honest heart to sting
or wound it. The sharp arrows of irony may rain
upon him, but he laughs as they are deflected by
the strong breastplate of his confidence, and fall harmless about him.
Trust thyself, says Emerson. Every heart vibrates to that iron string.
Throughout the ages, men have so far leaned, and do
still lean upon external makeshifts instead of standing upon their
own native simplicity and original dignity. The few who have
had the courage so to stand have been singled out
and elevated as heroes. And he is indeed the true
hero who has the hardihood to let his nature speak
for itself, who has that strong metal that enables him
to stand upon his own intrinsic worth. It is true
that the candidate for such heroism must endure the test
of strength. He must not be shamed from his ground
by the bugbears of the initiate conventionalist. He must not
fear for his own reputation or position, or for his
standing in the church, or his prestige in local society.
He must learn to act and live as independently of
these considerations as he does of the current fashions in
the Antipodes. Yet, when he has endured this test, and
stander and odium have failed to move or afflict him,
he has become a man, indeed one that society will
have to reckon with and finally accept on his own terms.
Sooner or later all men will turn to the guidance
of the self reliant man, And while the best minds
do not make a prop of him, they respect and
value his work and worth, and recognize his place among
the goods that have gone before. It must not be
thought in indication of self reliance to scorn to learn.
Such an attitude is born of a stubborn superciliousness, which
has the elements of weakness and is prophetic of a fall,
rather than the elements of strength and the promise of
high achievement, which are characteristic of self reliance. Pride and
vanity must not be associated with Self rests upon incidentals
and impertinencies on money, clothing, property, prestige, position, and these
lost all is lost. Self reliance rests upon essentials and principles,
on worth, probity, purity, sincerity, character, truth, and whatever may
be lost is of little account, for these are never lost.
Pride tries to hide its ignorance by ostentation and assumption,
and is unwilling to be thought a learner in any direction.
It stands during its little fleeting day on ignorance and appearance,
and the higher it is lifted up to day, the
lower it will be cast down tomorrow. Self reliance has
nothing to hide and is willing to learn. And while
there can be no humility where pride is, self reliance
and humility are compatible. Nay more, they are complimentary. And
the sublime form of self reliance is only found associated
with the profoundest humility. Extremes meet, says Emerson. And there
is no better example than the haughtiness of humility. No aristocrat,
no prince born to the purple, can begin to compare
with the self respect of the saint. Why is he
so lowly but that he knows that he can well
afforded resting on the largness of the God in him.
It was Buddha who, in this particular said, those who
either now or after I am dead, shall be a
lamp unto themselves, relying upon themselves only, and not relying
upon any external help, but holding fast to the truth
is their lamp, and seeking their salvation in the Truth alone,
shall not look for assistance to any one beside themselves.
It is they among my disciples who shall reach the
very topmost height. But they must be willing to learn.
In this saying, the repeated insistence on the necessity for
relying upon oneself alone, coupled with the final exhortation to
be eager to learn, is the wisest utterance on self
reliance that I know. In it, the great teacher comprehends
that perfect balance between self trust and humility which the
man of truth must acquire. Self trust is the essence
of heroism. All great men are self reliant, and we
should use them as teachers and exemplars, not as props
and perambulators. A great man comes who leans upon no one,
but stands alone in the solitary dignity of truth and straightway,
the world begins to lean upon him, begins to make
him an excuse for spiritual indolence and a destructive self abasement.
Better than cradling our vices in the strength of the
great would be to newly light our virtues at their
luminous lamp. If we rely upon the light of another,
darkness will overtake us. But if we rely upon our
own light, we have to but keep it burning. We
may draw light from another and communicate with it, but
to think it sufficient while our own lamp is rusting
is neglect, is shortly to find ourselves abandoned in darkness.
Our own inner light is the light which never fails us.
What is the inner light of the Quakers but another
name for self reliance. We should stand upon what we are,
not upon what another is. But I am so small
and poor, you may say, will stand upon that smallness,
and presently it will become great. A babe's needs are
to suckle and cling, but not so a man. Henceforth
he goes upon his own limbs. Men pray to God
to put their hands that which they are framed to
reach out for, to put into mouth the food for
which they should strenuously labor. But men will outgrow this
spiritual infancy. The time will come when men will no
more pay a priest to pray for them and preach
to them. Man's chief trouble is a mistrust of himself,
so that the self trusting man becomes a rare and
singular spectacle. If a man look upon himself as a
warm what can come out of him but an ineffection wriggling. Truly,
he that humbleth shall be exalted, but not he that
degradeth himself. A man should see himself as he is,
and if there is any unworthiness in him, he should
get rid of it and retain and rely upon that
which is of worth. A man is only debased when
he debases himself. He is exalted when he lives an
exalted life. Why should a man with ceaseless iterations draw
attention to his fallen nature? There is a false humility
which takes a sort of pride in vice. If one
has fallen, it is that he may rise and be
the wiser for it. If a man falls into a ditch,
he does not lie there and call upon every passer
by to mark his fallen state. He gets up and
goes on his way with greater care. So if one
has fallen into the ditch of vice, let him rise
and be cleansed, and go on his way rejoicing. There
is not a fear in life wherein a man's influence
and prosperity will not be considerably increased by even a
measure of self reliance. And to the teacher, whether secular
or religious, to organizers, managers, overseers, and in all positions
of control and command, it is an indispensable equipment. The
four grand qualities of self reliance are one decision two
steadfastness three dignity four independence. Decision makes a man strong.
A man who is to play a speaking part, however small,
in the drama of life, must be decisive and know
what he is about. Whatever he doubts, he must not
doubt his power to act. He must know his part
in life and put all energy into it. He must
have some solid ground of knowledge from which to work
and stand securely on that. It may only be the
price and quality of stock, but he must know his
work thoroughly and know that he knows it. He must
be ready at any time to answer for himself when
his duty is impugned. He should be so well grounded
upon his particular practice as to not be effected with
hesitation on any point or in any emergence. It is
a true saying that the man that hesitates is lost.
No one believes in him who does not believe in himself,
who doubts, halts and wavers, and cannot extricate himself from
the tangled threads of two courses. Who would deal with
the tradesman who did not know the price of his
own goods or was not sure where to find them.
A man must know his business. If he does not
know his own, who shall instruct him. He must be
able to give a good report of the truth that
is in him. He must have that touch which skill
in knowledge can only impart. Certainty is a great element
in self reliance. To have weight, a man must have
some truth to impart, and all skill is a communication
of truth. He must speak with authority, and not as
the scribes. He must master something and know he has
mastered it, so as to deal with it lucidly and understandingly,
in the way of a master, and not to remain
always as an apprentice. Indecision is a disintegrating factor. A
minute's faltering may turn back the current course of success.
Men who are afraid to decide quickly for fear of
making a mistake nearly always make a mistake. When they
do act the quickest in thought and action are less
liable to blunder. And it is better to act with
decision and make a mistake than to act with indecision
and make a mistake, for in the former case there
is but error, but in the latter weakness is to error.
A man should be decided always both where he knows
and where he does not know. He should be as
ready to say no as to say yes, as quick
to acknowledge his ignorance as to impart his knowledge. If
he stands upon fact and acts from the simple truth,
he will find no room for halting between two opinions.
Make up your mind quickly and act decisively. Better still,
have a mind that is already made up, and then
the decision will be instinctive and spontaneous. Steadfastness arises in
the mind that is quick to decide. It is indeed
a final decision upon the best course of conduct and
the best path of life. It is the vow of
the soul to stand firmly by its principles, whatever betide.
It is neither necessary nor unnecessary that there be any
written or spoken vow, for unswerving loyalty to a fixed
principle is the spirit of all vows. The man without
fixed principles will not accomplish much. Expediency is the quagmire
in a thorny waste, in which a man is continually
sticking in the shifting mud of his own moral looseness,
and is pricked and scratched with the thorns of his
own self created disappointments. One must have some solid ground
on which to stand among one's fellows. He cannot stand
on the bog of concession. Shiftiness is a vice of weakness,
and the vices of weakness do more to undermine character
and influence than the vices of strength. The man that
is vicious through excess of animal strength takes a shorter
cut to truth. When one understands that power is adaptable
to both good and bad ends, it will not surprise
him that the drunkards and harlots should reach the Kingdom
of Heaven before the diplomatic religionists. They are at least
thorough in the course which they have adopted, vile though
it may be, and thoroughness is strength. It only needs
that strength to be turned from bad to good, and
lo the loath sinner has become the lofty saint. A
man should have a firm, fixed, determined mind. He should
decide upon those principles which are best to stand by
in all issues, and which will most safely guide him
through the maze of conflicting opinions and inspire him with
unflinching courage in the battle of life. Having adopted his principles,
they should be more to him than gain or happiness,
more even than life itself. And if he never deserts them,
he will find that they will never desert him. They
will defend him from all enemies, deliver him safely from
all dangers, light his pathway through all darkness and difficulties.
They will be to him a light in darkness, a
resting place from sorrow, and a refuge from the conflicts
of the world. Dignity clothes as with a majesty garment.
The steadfast mind, he who is as unyielding as a
bar of steel when he is expected to compromise with evil,
and as supple as a willow wand in adapting himself
to that which is good, carries about with him a
dignity that calms and uplifts others by its presence. The
unsteady mind, the mind that is not anchored to any
fixed principles, that is stubborn where its own desires are threatened,
and yielding where its own moral welfare is at stake,
has no gravity, no balance, no calm composure. The man
of dignity cannot be downtroddened and enslaved because he has
ceased to tread upon and enslave himself, he at once
disarms with a look, a word, a wise and suggestive silence,
any attempt to demean him. His mere presence is a
wholesomer proof to the flippant and the unseemly, while it
is a rock of strength to the lover of the good.
But the chief reason why the dignified man commands respect
is not only that he is supremely self respecting, but
that he graciously treats all others with a due esteem.
Pride loves itself and treats those beneath it with supercilious contempt.
For love of self and contempt for others are always
found together in equal degrees, so that the greater the
self love, the greater the arrogance. True dignity arises not
from self love, but from self sacrifice, that is, from
unbiased adherence to a fixed central principle. The dignity of
the judge arises from the fact that, in the performance
of his duty, he sets aside all personal consideration and
stands solely upon the law. His little personality, impermanent in fleeting,
becomes nothing, while the law, enduring and majestic, becomes all.
Should a judge in deciding a case forget the law
and fall into personal feeling and prejudice, his dignity would
be gone. So the man of a stately pure character
stands upon the divine law and not upon personal feeling.
For immediately when a man gives way to passion, he
has sacrificed dignity and takes his place as one of
the multitude of the unwise and uncontrolled. Every man will
have composure and dignity in the measure that he acts
from a fixed principle. It only needs that the principle
be right and therefore unassailable, so long as a man
abides by such a principle and does not waver or
descend into the personal element attacking passions, prejudices, and interests. However,
powerful will be weak and ineffectual before the conquerable strength
of an incorruptible principle, and will at last yield their
combined and eyes unseemly confusion to his single and majestic right.
Independence is the birthright of the strong and well controlled man.
All men love and strive for liberty. All men aspire
to some sort of freedom. A man should labor for
himself or for the community unless he is a cripple,
a chronic invalid, or is mentally irresponsible. He should be
ashamed to depend upon others for all he has, giving
nothing in return. If one imagines that such a condition
is freedom, let him know that it is one of
the lowest forms of slavery. The time will come when
to be a drone in the human hive, even as
matters are now, a respectable drone and not a poor tramp,
will be a public disgrace, and will no longer be respectable. Independence, freedom,
glorious liberty come through labor, and not from idleness. And
the self reliant man is too strong, too honorable, too
upright to depend upon others like a sucking babe for
his support. He earns, with hand or brain the right
to live as becomes a man and a citizen, and
thus he does, whether born rich or poor. For riches
are no excuse for idleness. Rather, they are an opportunity
to labor with the rare faculties which they afford for
the good of the community. Only he who is self
supporting is free, self reliant, and independent. Thus is the
nature of the eight pillars, explained on what foundation they rest,
the manner of their building their ingredients, the fourfold nature
of the material of which each is composed, what positions
they occupy, and how they support the temple all may
now build, and he who knew perfectly may rejoice in
this systemaization and simplification of the moral order and prosperity.
Let us now consider the Temple itself, that we may
know the might of its pillars, the strength of its walls,
the endurance of its roof, the architectural beauty and perfection
of the whole