Optimates

“ We may examine, we may reason, we may reckon up almost anything; but athwart all our conjectures, charm we never so wisely, comes genius, and revolutionises everything! It is the one thing which no formula can embrace. Not in the realms of literature and art alone will it break in and stultify our best prevision. In every department of life we must tread cautiously, aware that no one who would forecast the future can afford to neglect its disturbing possibilities. ”

“ The struggle for abundance begets the struggle for efficiency. Ideas and standards of efficiency appear. The efficient find each other out. They like each other and each other's ways. They dislike the inefficient, and begin in all possible ways to make life unpleasant for them. ”

“ The Optimist, or he who maintains that all is well, and who incessantly cries that we live in the best world possible, to be consistent, should never pray; neither ought he to expect another world, where man will be happier. Can there be a better world than the best world possible? Some theologians have treated the Optimists as impious, for having intimated that God could not produce a better world, than that in which we live. ”

“ Your efficiency is kept in balance by little, invisible and automatic thought neurons. A clear brain is the test of efficiency. Plans, orders, system, application, give efficiency. Efficiency is positive thinking. Freedom-thinking, above fear-thinking. Get out and keep out of negative thinking. Just as soon as you drop negative thinking your mind will begin to rise to a new brilliance of expression. One big element in efficiency is silence. It is the strongest thing to be silent. Noise is emptiness, weakness, inefficiency. Silence is the law of greatness ”

“ It will be noticed that my formula contains two requirements: it demands a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of effort. Efficiency means expressiveness, and effort means bodily and mental labour, and thus the formula is simply one of modern energetics. But unfortunately we are in possession of no method by which to measure either expressiveness or effort exactly, and in cases of conflict it may be difficult to decide to which of the two sides we are to attach the greater importance, how great a surplus of efficiency is required to counterbalance a surplus of exertion, or inversely. ”

“ All active energy tends to produce certain results. Then the question is what those results are to be. Are they to be favourable or detrimental, superior or inferior, for you or against you? This you can determine by thinking according to design—by thinking for a definite purpose—by placing in action energies that will act for your advantage—by training all the powers of your mind to work for your purpose, to build you up and promote your advancement—by thinking for results—for the results that you are determined to secure.
Every thought you think is a power. ”

“ But certainly, after the usual incubation period of a scientific discovery—when it is merely a sort of wonderful toy, as argon and radium are at present—there will come the practical men, suckled at the large and noble breasts of disinterested, unremunerative truth, and ready to turn that nutriment into world-moving material usefulness: so, again, the rate of progress will receive a vast and valuable acceleration. ”

“ Surely it is mere cheap rhetoric to call arguments which have never yet been answered by even the meekest and the least rational of Optimists, suggestions of the pride of reason. As to the concluding aphorism, its fittest place would be as an inscription in letters of mud over the portal of some 'stye of Epicurus' (14) ; for that is where the logical application of it to practice would land men, with every aspiration stifled and every effort paralyzed. Why try to set right what is right already? Why strive to improve the best of all possible worlds? ”

“ Now, from the point of view of securing a maximum efficiency, it seems to be a clearly desirable end that the only qualities which should indisputably help to determine a man's position in life, should also be those which determine his fitness for working in it efficiently. In Utopia, it should be the rule that each man shall do what he can do best. ”

“ It is impossible to tabulate in so many words the effect which this habit has on efficiency and temperament. We read and hear a great deal to-day about efficiency. Now, an individual's efficiency is an expression of that individual's health standard or capacity. To be 100 per cent. efficient one must enjoy good health. ”

“ Of the developments of the moral ideas of man likely to be determined, not so much by the coming change in his material environment, as by the evolution of inner forces already at work, I propose to say something at the end of the book. In the meantime, the probable material changes in the next hundred years (or less, according to the rate of our progress) in various departments of life will be the subject of some intermediate conjectures. ”

“ I am by no means an optimist in the sense of not thinking that what is might not be made a good deal better. And even your giants may have been short-sighted, and one-sided in some directions, may they not? ”

“ My pen straightened by the rapidity of time, the abundance of things I have to say, and the almost insensible progress of the first improvements, flies like an arrow over numberless ages, for the slower the succession of events, the quicker I may allow myself to be in relating them.
At length, these first improvements enabled man to improve at a greater rate. Industry grew perfect in proportion as the mind became more enlightened. ”

“ In every case he would be asking, ‘If we were to begin the world afresh, how should we proceed?’ He would always consider what is the best thing to be done, and next how can it be done irrespectively of everything conventional. ”

“ Instead of speaking of the strenuous life or the simple life, let us have as a doctrine 'the effective life.'
"What we need is not merely a man who acts, but one who does; that is, one who will do what he has to do regardless of intervening obstacles. Efficiency and effectiveness are the key-notes of success in actual life. ”

“ We must therefore make the distinction and say, that whilst no primary agent or prime efficient produces effects beyond its powers, every instrumental agent may exceed its own proper powers in action; for it acts not merely by its own virtue but by the virtue of a superior efficient.... ”

“ Since all advancement is from the unfolding of things that are in potency in the Spirit of God as it is received in nature and the hearts of men, it now only remains for some one again to assign the doctrine of "projected efficiency" to a "past and unenlightened age," and to formulate a modern doctrine of injected efficiency commendable to twentieth century intelligence. ”

“ One of the biggest factors in our work here is making arrangements for optimum conditions for the success of our experiments. By 'optimum' we mean the best conditions from several standpoints: from the standpoint of what we're trying to learn—the experiment itself, that is—and from the standpoint of the researcher, too. ”

“ An argument which aims to answer the question, Is it expedient? presupposes that there are at least two lines of action each of which is right. It aims to prove that one course of action will bring greater advantages than any other. Taking all classes of people into consideration we shall find that they are arguing more questions of expediency than of any other kind. Every one is looking for advantages either to himself or to those in whom he is interested. A question of expediency should never be separated from the question of right. ”

“ And so the balance sways and the story runs—here a gain, there a loss, and Nature’s great average struck across the two, whereof the sum total forms one of the factors in that mighty equation in which the result will equal the unknown quantity of her purpose. ”

“ As a somewhat anomalous but very important example of the erroneous ideas which the human race must needs acquire and reluctantly surrenders may next be considered the optimistic habit of thought. Optimism can scarcely be called a doctrine. ”

“ Well, the middleman will certainly be eliminated by the end of the century, and one of the forces which will help to eliminate him is the very force with which, at present, he endeavours, with a high degree of transient success, to defend himself—the very force we have to discuss here ”

“ And it is important to notice that this proposal, so imperfectly put forward, is no scheme hatched in a restless night in the fevered brain of an enthusiast, but is one having its origin in the thoughtful study of many minds, and the patient effort of many earnest souls, each bringing some element of value, till, the time and the opportunity having come, the smallest skill avails to weld those elements into an effective combination. ”

“ One moment, sir, and I think I can satisfy your mind that my motives are pure as alabaster. This is an age of machinery, of science and invention, and, above all, of efficiency. I am simply carrying this idea of efficiency into the domestic life, which, as you are doubtless aware, is so much more important than the physical. One moment, sir. ”

“ The fact is, there are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency, and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient. ”

“ Even if it be possible to gradually improve the poorer strains themselves (which we have said above is not probably) , the sure and far more rapid method of improvement is the elimination of these weaker strains, and the multiplication of the better. ”

“ This relation is scrutinized in the pragmatic context where efficiency considerations finally make us choose from among many possibilities. The optimum chosen indicates what, from the possibilities humans are aware of, is most suitable for reaching the goal pursued. Moreover, such an optimum is characteristic of the pragmatics of the particular context. For example, hunting could be performed alone or in groups, by throwing stones or hurling spears, by shooting arrows, or by setting traps. ”

“ The variety itself has an invigorating effect on what, for want of a more philosophical appellation, we must term the animal spirits; so important to the efficiency of all work not mechanical, and not unimportant even to that. The comparative weight due to these considerations is different with different individuals; some are more fitted than others for persistency in one occupation, and less fit for change ”

“ But by the theory of development on which the Positive synthesis is here made to rest, Optimism is discarded as well as Fatalism, in the direct proportion of the intricacy of the phenomena. It is in the most intricate that the defects of Nature, as well as the power of modifying them, become most manifest. ”

“ Do the advantages more than compensate for the disadvantages, or vice versa? You perceive? Sometimes there seems to be a complete balance of forces—an equilibrium—the scale will not incline either way. ”

“ Thus interpreted, the maxim loses much of its vitality and significance: it becomes irrelevant, and indeed misleading: it turns the footsteps of inquirers off into a wrong path. For the proper question is not, What is the strength or the weakness, the extent or the limitations, of man's capacities? ”

“ On the contrary, greater effectiveness would open out new avenues for thought and action, new spheres of usefulness, more refined and elevating in their character, and more satisfying in their results. ”

“ I suppose I have something harsher in my nature than you have, something which every now and then tells me dreary secrets about my race, and I cannot believe the voice of the Optimist, charm he never so wisely. ”

“ One hears nowadays a vast amount of chatter about efficiency—that magic word—and social organisation, and there is no doubt a huge expenditure of energy upon these things and a widespread desire to rush about and make showy and startling changes. ”

“ A distinguished economist has truly said, “God has implanted in man an infinite progression in the career of improvement. A soul capacitated for improvement ought not to be bounded by a tyrant’s landmarks.” This sentiment is just and true, the application of which to our case is adapted with singular fitness. ”

“ Thus improvements suggest themselves, one by one, step by step; each improvement is tested as it is made by practical use, until at length the happy thought comes, not like an elf from the wild forest, but like an angel on the daily path; and the little improvements become the great invention. ”

“ We read in the Ethics, that a properly cultivated mind knows what degree of precision is to be expected in each science. The greatest possible precision is always to be sought; but what is possible depends partly on the nature of the study and partly upon the state of scientific preparation.
(9) To treat an agent or condition remote in time as an unconditional cause: for every moment of time gives an opportunity for new combinations of forces and, therefore, for modifications of the effect. ”

“ Yet perceiving this development or change, and, more faintly, the need of balance and equation which runs through all and underlies all, man has set about the task of writing about it, framing the inescapable equational laws which all changes suggest and compel into definite unbreakable commands from a definite God, singing songs about Him, painting pictures of Him, and directing attention to what man has ignorantly assumed to be a universal source of supply which will or should permit the greatest possible number to live under some such scheme of equation as is here suggested. ”