G. A. Johnston

“ Only the man who is entirely aimless is totally devoid of character. Again, those who say that the end of life is the attainment of fame and honour certainly imply a reference to character. If they are sincere in their ambition, they desire not merely that honour should be ascribed to them, but that their characters should be such as to deserve the honour. They want to deserve it, for it is not real honour unless they deserve it. Honour is simply the outward recognition of the fact that there is something great and good about a man's character. ”

“ It is a man's duty to be loyal to his vocation. He can do no more than this; but he should never do less. To be loyal to his vocation is a man's highest duty; and it is a duty that every man may attempt to perform, whether he be scavenger or king. It is at once the supreme duty and the universal duty. And if the man has himself chosen his vocation, his inclinations will be consonant with his duty: it will be his truest pleasure and surest happiness to respond to the claims made upon him by the vocation which he has himself chosen. ”

“ The self acknowledges one desire as its own, it throws itself upon its side, it "backs" it, it undertakes as far as in it lies to secure the attainment of the end that is desired; and thus the desire becomes definitely willed. It is a volition, and the actions in which it results are voluntary. The self always accepts responsibility for its volitions. When an action is willed by me, it is my action, and I am willing to stand by it. But I may look upon some of my mere desires as foreign to my real self, and may even regard them with horror and loathing. ”

“ It is not true that freedom means absolute independence of all restrictions and regulations. The purpose of laws is not to encroach upon the freedom of the individual, but to constitute it, and support it. That country is most free whose laws are most comprehensive and systematic. Real freedom is unknown in a land where justice consists in the capricious sentences of caliph or sultan. Freedom is made possible for the individual by the system of laws which the state administers. The individual's freedom does not mean simply liberty to act in accordance with the whim of the moment. ”

“ Even in its earliest years the child does not submit to be passively moulded by these two great influences. The child is not simply a mass of clay at the mercy of Heredity and Environment, the two hands of the Potter. The child himself takes a hand in the process of making his character. He reacts on the formative influences to which he is subjected, and as his system of purposes grows and his will-power develops, he definitely, though at first unconsciously, undertakes the task of fashioning his own character. ”

“ The peculiar "sanctity" of conscience comes, not from conscience itself, but from the kind of objects with which the self is concerned in making moral judgments. Moral judgments are made with regard to the good and duty, and it is these which have a special sanctity.
According to the other view, conscience is simply a group of instincts, or a collection of emotions, or an aggregate of sentiments—in short, a bundle of feelings. Conscience is of the heart, not of the head. It is simply the conglomeration of feelings which makes us feel good when we do right, and feel bad when we do wrong. ”

“ Happiness is the feeling of the whole self, as opposed to the feeling of some one aspect of the self." [1] Happiness is never mere pleasure, just as unhappiness is never mere pain. Unhappiness may often be due to a discord of pleasures. Happiness is found in a consistent life, the pleasure of whose relaxation is harmonised with the pleasure of its work.
On the other hand, happiness is not the mere performance of duty. The mere doing of one's duty will not make one happy. Happiness depends very largely on the capacity to "make the best" of everything that comes. ”

“ But even when men feel that they have made a mistake in the choice of their trade or profession, they usually decide to make the best of it; and they may come to find, with a shock of pleasant surprise, that the self may be realised in any walk of life which offers worthy work. On the whole, experience shows that for character-building it makes remarkably little difference what station in life is occupied. The farmer, the miner, the teacher, the doctor may each and all use their trades and professions as means to the development of their personality. ”

“ But, in general, the man who engages seriously in the struggle of morality tends to develop all the virtues harmoniously. The cardinal virtues are systematic, and real goodness of character expresses itself equally and naturally in all of them. The good character expresses itself whole-heartedly and impartially in its actions—and that is justice; it exhibits fortitude and perseverance—and that is courage; it exercises self-control in all things—and that is temperance; and its conduct shows insight, reflection and deliberation—and that is wisdom. The virtues appear only in actual conduct. ”

“ When the average man becomes impressed with the inadequacy of social convention as the standard of moral judgment, he may not have clearly present to his mind the definite reasons which we have just assigned for rejecting its claims. He may merely come to feel for it a deep-seated distrust, of which he can give no explanation. He simply feels that social convention is not a satisfactory standard. And he is apt to come to the conclusion that there is really no standard, and that his own feelings, in which alone he cannot be mistaken, supply the only working test of the value of his actions. ”

“ To subdue all emotions is to rob life of much of its glow and warmth. It is as disastrous to deprive life of its emotions as it is to destroy all its desires. But not every form of emotion is valuable either to the individual or to the society of which he is a member. The emotions of jealousy and fear, for instance, are not in general desirable. But the energy that expresses itself in these emotions may be diverted into socially valuable directions. The energy that would express itself in jealousy may be turned into emulation, and fear may be transmuted into the emotion of respect. ”

“ Most of us can think of occasions in our own experience when we have acted on impulse, though we were perfectly well aware of the unworthiness of the impulse. When we thus allow an impulse to become an action in contravention of our better judgment, it shows that our lives are not yet completely under the dominion of our wills. The open secret of controlling our impulses lies in "putting them in their proper place," in bringing them into subjection to the self as a whole, which, as conscience, is able to judge them, and, as will, is able either to restrain them or bring them into action. ”

“ We simply took it for granted that a man's character expresses itself freely in his actions. Conduct could not be an index to character unless it were free. Human conduct is free, both positively and negatively. Man is free from the dominion of particular impulses and appetites. The animal is governed by his appetites and impulses, but man is emancipated from the slavery they would fain impose. Man is able, as we have seen, to consider his impulses and desires, his emotions and sentiments, in relation to his self and the comprehensive ideals which he cherishes ”

“ It is my "bounden duty."
This consciousness of moral obligation is possible only to a growing self. It is possible only to a self that is aware of its own imperfection, and also of an ideal perfection which it has not yet attained. The sense of moral obligation implies that the self is aware that it ought to perform a certain action. Now, if the self is morally healthy, as soon as it perceives what it ought to do, it will do it. If it is morally healthy, it will regard what it ought to do as the only conceivable course of action for it. ”

“ Ethics and Moral Education. Perhaps it may be asked, What is the good of ethics? What is the use of reflecting on conduct? Even a very little experience of the world shows us that the happiest and best people are often those who have reflected least on character and conduct. Goodness and happiness, like health, are things about which the ordinary man rarely thinks unless they are impaired. There are moments when we feel, like Hamlet, the misery of being able to reflect at all: our native resolution becomes all sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought. ”

“ Each person should be just as eager that others should attain pleasure as that he should. "As between his own happiness and that of others, Utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator." The Utilitarians state, as a fundamental formula, "Each to count for one, and no one for more than one." Utilitarianism demands perfect impartiality in conduct: we must treat each man as one whose claim to enjoy pleasure is equal to our own; and we must aim at the greatest possible amount of pleasure for all human beings or for all sentient creatures. ”

“ But even those who would be inclined to deny that the world has seen any real moral progress are prepared to admit that in all the tale of history, discouraging as it often is, there is nothing to prevent us cherishing the hope that the future will be better than the present. We have a right to this hope, and it is only as this hope becomes an ideal to inspire our work, that we can render our best service. ”

“ The full moral worth of habitual action is realised only by those who have organised their habits. Habits are organised only when they are definitely directed to serve the comprehensive ends of the self whose habits they are. The habits of the good life are systematic. They all contribute to the well-being of the self. Our habits are of our own making, and it depends on us whether they will work together for the good of the whole self. All habits are the habits of a self: they make the self, and are made by it. ”

“ Unless we like our work, we can do neither it nor ourselves justice. In a word, the calling must be congenial. Only if our vocations are congenial, only if duty and pleasure can be harmonised in them, can we adopt the attitude of loyalty towards them. And unless we are loyal to our vocations we cannot hope to fulfil them well. But, it may be asked, what does loyalty to vocation imply? In being loyal to my vocation, must I practise self-denial, or may I make my vocation the means to my own self-assertion? ”

“ We believe that if we could have a complete record of a man's conduct in every department of life and at every stage in life—through childhood, youth, manhood, and old age, as son, brother, husband, and father, as an inferior, superior, and equal, in friendship and enmity, at work and play, in prosperity and adversity, as a citizen of a State and a member of a Church—we should have a complete expression of his character. We assume that all his actions have been produced by his character. ”

“ But in a complex civilisation, such as our own, the ends that men set before themselves may be very comprehensive and very remote; and it is often extremely difficult to see the value of the actions they perform and the knowledge they acquire. Yet ultimately it will be found that all the aims of man, whether in the complicated society of a high civilisation, or in a primitive community of savages, have value only in relation to life. This is the ultimate good of all man's material and spiritual achievements, of all that he does and knows. The good of a thing is its value-for-life. ”

“ It is impossible to give any particular reasons for doing right and being good that will be absolutely true, not because there are no reasons for being good, but because there is every possible reason. ”

“ But a virtue is not a particular thing like a hat or an umbrella that we may acquire or cast away without affecting the self. A virtue has reference to character and conduct: it may be called-adjectival to character, though such a phrase does not emphasise nearly enough the intimacy of its connection with character. When we say, in ordinary speech, that a man has the virtue of courage, we really mean that his character and conduct are courageous. If we say that he displays the virtue of justice, we really mean that his character and conduct are just. ”

“ When we judge that a certain play is clever, we have in mind some standard of cleverness in relation to which we make our judgment. But, though we all constantly make such judgments, we should find it very difficult to define exactly what our standard is. How many people could state the average height of an Englishman, or define the standard of dramatic cleverness? We regularly use standards which we have never attempted to formulate.
The same thing is true of moral judgment. From our earliest years we have been making judgments on our own or other people's actions and character. ”

“ The child's environment exists to be used, and as he grows up he more and more acquires the power of reacting upon it. Whether he makes a good or bad use of it depends ultimately on him alone. Parent or teacher or friend may point out how it should be used, what elements in it should be assimilated, and what avoided, but in the end the responsibility for choosing the right or the wrong rests with the individual himself. It is the privilege and prerogative of man to be, so far as his character is concerned, a creature of his own making. ”

“ The Self and its Habits. The importance of habit is now universally admitted, but it is not so widely recognised that habits are of no positive value until they are organised in the moral self. If our mental and moral and physical habits have been formed at haphazard, our lives will be but one stage removed from the capricious life of impulse. There is no more futile life than that which is at the mercy of chance impulses, but as a close second comes the life which is given up to habits which have grown up in accordance with no principle and in subordination to no system. ”

“ A man may look so long that he will never leap. But in such cases reflection has been indulged until it has become morbid. It has become an introspective inquisition of the depths of one's own moral life. And such self-examination is apt, in addition to weakening the springs of conduct, to turn men into canting prigs. But it is possible to avoid this result. There is such a thing as an honest conscientiousness. Conscientiousness is simply the formed habit of bringing conscience or intelligence to bear upon the actual moral situations in which we daily find ourselves. ”

“ Happiness is not mere pleasure. The man or woman whose life is a ceaseless round of pleasure finds that it soon begins to pall, and the happiness which he seeks is never attained, but vanishes like a will-o'-the-wisp as he goes forward to clutch it. ”

“ Everything, then, that man does is done because it is conceived to have a value-for-life. And this is a value for human life. Every action and judgment has some relation to man, and is done with reference to what is good for man. But what is the good for man? If all action and all science have a value-for-life, there must be some good for man. The question what that good is is the question that ethics asks and tries to answer. What is the good of human life? What is the aim of human life? ”

“ The personality of the teacher is centred in his sense of vocation. A reasoned enthusiasm for education and a conviction of its value, a firm faith in goodness and in the possibilities of training in goodness, lofty ideals which repeated disappointment and failure cannot shatter, and a whole-hearted loyalty to the cause to which he has dedicated his life—these, and nothing less than these, are the essential qualities of the teacher who hopes to exercise an influence on the development of character. ”

“ On the other hand, the conception of the self becomes narrowed and more distinctly defined. The child realises that all he possesses is not equally himself. There is an inner core, which would remain though all his possessions should be lost and his body maimed and mutilated. His self, his personality, would still exist. What exactly the pure self means is a question over which philosophers are still wrangling. We may call it, if we care, the soul or spirit or the mind or Ego; but the important point is that the self or "I" is presupposed in all we do and all we think. ”

“ The service of art or music or education is vaguely felt to be higher than carpentry or engineering or cooking. But all socially valuable vocations have their part to play in advancing the good of humanity, and all offer worthy lives to those who engage in them. In every one of these trades or professions, the worker may take pleasure in doing his duty, and in the great majority of cases the worker does find his deepest satisfaction in the consciousness of work dutifully done. The professions do not have a monopoly of work that is pleasant. ”

“ The teacher must be so penetrated with the ethical nature of his task, and so governed in all he does by the ethical aim of his vocation as giving life and significance to all he teaches and all he does, that he cannot fail to mould the thoughts of his pupils to those high conceptions of duty, justice, humanity, and religion, which are the bond of society and the sole guarantee of its stability and progress. ”

“ Pleasure is a jewel which will only retain its lustre when it is in a setting of work, and a vacant life is one of the worst of pains, though the islands of leisure that stand in a crowded, well-occupied life may be among the things to which we look back with the greatest delight. ”

“ Somehow the other self which they project on the screen of their imagination seems so much finer than the one on which they have actually decided to stake their all. If they persist in dreaming about other possible selves after the possibility of realising them has passed, of course they become discontented with the walk in life which they have actually chosen. In such cases the self will never be realised as it might be. The personality will never develop to its full stature. ”

“ Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up; a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again. Continuity of training is the great means of making the nervous system act infallibly right. ”

“ But a man's inclinations are also of importance in the choice of vocation. If I choose my profession or trade merely because it is my duty to do so, quite apart from the question whether I have any liking for it, it is improbable that I shall make the most of life. It is usually fatal for a man to enter an occupation, simply because he is actuated by a strong sense of duty. Unless his inclinations be in accordance with his duty, a feeling of discontent is apt to remain with him all his life. ”

“ If that be done, it is always at the expense of the self as a whole. Those who speak most about their rights of self-assertion in the narrow individualist sense, do not realise that the reason why the matter occupies so much of their attention is precisely that they have no self to assert. As we say, they do not know what to do with themselves. They have chosen no vocation, they have entered on no walk of life in which to realise a character. When a man identifies himself with a worthy cause, he ceases to harp on his right of self-assertion. ”