Karl Hilty

“ Blithe are those ages when young and progressive nations still hope for happiness, or when men believe that in some new formula of philosophy, or of religion, or perhaps in some new industrial programme, the secret of human happiness has at last been found. Gloomy are those ages in which, as in our time, great masses of people are burdened with the conviction that all these familiar formulas have been illusions, and when persons of the keenest insight say—as they are now saying—that the very word happiness has in it a note of melancholy. ”

“ What the happiness is which one then finds is hard to communicate to another. It comes of ceasing to think first of all of oneself. It has, as Rothe says, “no private business to transact.” It does its work tranquilly, with absolute certainty that, though the issue of its work may be unrecognized, still it is secure. This way of life brings with it courage, and this courage manifests itself, not in feverish excitement, but in an outward habit of composure which testifies to inward and central stability. Such a life trusts its way and its destiny. ”

“ Great numbers of thoughtful people are just now much perplexed to know what to make of the facts of life, and are looking about them for some reasonable interpretation of the modern world. They cannot abandon the work of the world, but they are conscious that they have not learned the art of work. They have to fight the battle of life, but they are not sure what weapons are fit for that battle. They are so beset by the cares of living that they have no time for life itself. They observe that happiness often eludes those who most eagerly pursue it ”

“ There are not good things enough for all. The question is not whether such a state of things is right or just. On the contrary, it must be admitted to be a hard, unreasonable, unjust universe. It is not for the individual, however, set without consent of his own in such a universe, to change it. His only problem is to make it certain that in such a universe he is ‘the hammer, not the anvil.’”
Such is the essence of that worldly wisdom which is the creed of many cultivated people to-day. With it disappears, of course, any need of moral or religious education. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus, at any cost, and even for the sake of one’s own soul, one must make it his habit to cultivate love for others, not first of all inquiring whether they deserve that love or not—a question which is often too hard to answer. For without love life is without joy, especially when one has outgrown his youth. Lacking love, we sink into indifference, and indifference passes easily into aversion, and one’s aversions so poison life that life is no better than death. ”

“ Of all seekers for happiness, the most foolish are those who evade these two conditions. Without work no man can be happy. In this negative statement the saying is absolutely true. And yet, it is a greater error to suppose that work is in itself happiness, or to believe that every work leads to happiness. It is not alone our imagination that pictures another ideal, so that one can hardly imagine a heaven, or an earthly paradise, as devoted to unremitting work; it is also true—and it is much more to be remembered—that only a fool can be wholly contented with the work that he does. ”

“ The paths by which people journey toward happiness lie in part through the world about them and in part through the experience of their souls. On the one hand, there is the happiness which comes from wealth, honor, the enjoyment of life, from health, culture, science, or art; and, on the other hand, there is the happiness which is to be found in a good conscience, in virtue, work, philanthropy, religion, devotion to great ideas and great deeds. ”

“ This man of art declares that in his view life is nothing else than misery! There is hardly an honest day-laborer who at the end of his life, full as it may have been of genuine troubles, could give so poor an account of himself.
The fact is, then, that human nature seems obviously not intended for this kind of happiness. Life is made for activity; and this kind of receptive enjoyment, even in its highest forms, is designed merely to give flavor and change to life, and to be sparingly used; so that those who give themselves too confidently to such enjoyment bitterly deceive themselves. ”

“ In a word, it must be said that the deeper life of man and that noble bearing which we remark in some people, and which no one, whatever be his station, can falsely assume, are attained only through faithful endurance of misfortune. That word of the Apostle Paul, “We glory in tribulations,” is, like many of his sayings, absolutely unintelligible to any one who has not experienced what renewal of power and what profound happiness may be discovered through misfortune itself. It is a form of happiness which one never forgets if he has once really experienced it. ”

“ Why is it then that these principles—to which the experience of thousands of years testifies, which any one, whether he works or does not work, can test for himself, and which all the religions and philosophies preach—have not made their just impression? Why is it, for instance, that there are still thousands of women who defend with much passion many passages of Bible-teaching, and yet, with astonishing composure and in opposition to an express command of the Bible, take one day at the most, or perhaps none at all, for work, and six for refined idleness? ”

“ 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. ”

“ The conception of work, thus excellently stated, meets a final difficulty which our discussion has already recognized. For work, under this view, maintains continuity, in spite of and even during one’s necessary rest. Here is the ideal of the highest work. The mind works continuously, when it has once acquired the genuine industry which comes through devotion to one’s task. In fact, it is curious to notice how often, after pauses in one’s work not excessively prolonged, one’s material has unconsciously advanced. Everything has grown spontaneously. ”

“ The children of this world know what they want and pursue the end they set before themselves with energy and persistence, putting away all that stands between them and it; and this the children of light, at least in their earlier stages of development, seldom do. Still further, the children of this world are not wholly impervious to the higher motives of life. Their hearts are not the rock where the good seed falls in vain. They are merely the soil which is choked by other growth, where the seed takes root but cannot prosper. ”

“ Here is a proof which any one may test whose heart is pure; while from those who merely reason about God’s order of the world He hides Himself, and no man may rend by force the veil that covers Him.
If, then, one begins simply to live as in a moral world, his path to happiness lies plainly before him. The door is open and no man can shut it. Within his heart there is a certain stability, rest, and assurance, which endure and even gather strength amid all outward storms. ”

“ Ambition is the Moloch of our time, to whom we feel bound to sacrifice even our own children, and who, more than all other foes, destroys the bodies and the souls of youth.
If, still further, one commit himself, as is so often the case, to that philosophy of materialism in which this brief life is the end of [94] opportunity, so that but a few years are ours for the accomplishment of all which the pitiless and endless struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest permit, then there is an end of all restfulness and blessedness in work. ”

“ There are people who always find something especially hard about beginning their work, and who are always so busy with preparations, behind which lurks their laziness, that they never apply themselves to their work until they are compelled; and then the intellectual and even the physical excitement roused by the sense of insufficient time in which to do one’s work injures the work itself. Other people wait for some special inspiration, which in reality is much more likely to come by means of, or in the midst of, work itself. ”

“ The maxim says that a good conscience makes a soft pillow, and he who has this unfailing sense of duty done no doubt has happiness; but I have not, as yet, fallen in with such a man. My impression is that there is not one of us who has ever, even for a single day, done his whole duty. Beyond this, I need not go. If one of my readers says to me: “I am the man who has thus done his duty,”—well, he may be quite right, but I do not care for that man’s nearer acquaintance. The farther a man advances in the doing of his duty, so much the more his conscience and perception grow refined. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sometimes, again, philosophy has taught, with many and large words, that the meaning of the world resides in an opposition between Being and Not-being. This is no new doctrine and it is at least intelligent and intelligible. Yet what we really need to know [133] concerns Being alone. It is the world that lies before our eyes that interests us. How has this world come to be, we ask, or is it perhaps a mere illusion, the mirage of our own thought, with no reality but that which our own minds assign, as people in their despair have sometimes believed it to be? ”

“ If, then, we are at times tempted to fancy that all this undemonstrable experience is unreal, or metaphysical, or purposeless, or imaginary, it is best to deal with such returning scepticism much as we deal with the selfish or mean thoughts which we are trying to outgrow. Let all these hindrances to the higher life be quietly but firmly repelled. The better world we enter is indeed entered by faith and not by sight; but this faith grows more confident and more supporting, until it is like an inward faculty of sight itself. ”

“ Yet such conceptions are in the highest degree elusive, and force us to inquire whence such substance, be it simple or infinitely divided, comes, how it becomes quickened with life, and how it imparts the life it has. The transition from such mere movements of atoms to phenomena of feeling or thought or will, makes a leap in nature which no man has in the remotest degree proposed to explain. On the contrary, instead of bridging such a chasm the most famous inquirers simply record the melancholy confession: “Ignoramus, ignorabimus.” ”

“ WHATEVER the philosophers may say, it remains true that, from the first hour of man’s waking consciousness until that consciousness ceases, his most ardent desire is to be happy, and that the moment of his profoundest regret is when he becomes convinced that on this earth perfect happiness cannot be found. Here is the problem which gives to the various ages of human history their special characters. ”

“ Many a person, when he sees this lion in his path, turns about and contents himself with something less than happiness. And yet it is also true, as experience teaches, that in our misfortunes, as in our enjoyments, imagination greatly outruns reality. Our pain is seldom as great as our imagination pictures it. Sorrow is often the gate which opens into great happiness. ”

“ THE most important of all arts is the art of work; for if one could thoroughly understand this art, all other knowledge and conduct would be infinitely simplified. Few people, however, really know how to work, and even in an age when oftener perhaps than ever before we hear of “work” and “workers” one cannot observe that the art of work makes much positive progress. On the contrary, the general inclination seems to be to work as little as possible, or to work for a short time in order to pass the remainder of one’s life in rest. ”

“ Here is the solemn and tragic fact which lies behind all human life,—that what we have once done we can never change. There it remains, just as it happened, little as we may be inclined to believe, or to admit, that it is there. And hence it is that history truly written is no entertaining drama, ending in general reconciliation and embrace, but a tragedy which describes the movement of destiny. ”

“ 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, [74] 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. ”