The Essay on Man

“ Again we may say, with no pretense of probing the mystery in its depths, but as gaining a touch of side-light, it is plain that what we look at as the strictly moral forces of mankind—the clear thinking, the definite purpose, the pure aspiration—must be reckoned with as only a part of the volume of force that carries along the individual and the race. ”

“ But, at the same time, I was in readiness for it because of my disposition for generally human feeling and thinking,—I mean: a feeling and thinking in human terms,—a disposition which was not only the product of my individual time and stage of life, but that of the time at large and in general, of OUR time, of the historic convulsions, adventures and tribulations, by which the question of man, the very problem of humanity was presented to us as an indivisible whole, and imposed upon our conscience as hardly ever to a generation before us. ”

“ Behold then all human faculties developed, memory and imagination in full play, egoism interested, reason active, and the mind almost at the highest point of its perfection. Behold all the natural qualities in action, the rank and condition of every man assigned him; not merely his share of property and his power to serve or injure others, but also his wit, beauty, strength or skill, merit or talents: and these being the only qualities capable of commanding respect, it soon became necessary to possess or to affect them. ”

“ IF a wise man should ask, What are the modern virtues? and should answer his own question by a summary of the things we admire; if he should discard as irrelevant the ideals which by tradition we profess, but which are not found outside of the tradition or the profession—ideals like meekness, humility, the renunciation of this world; if he should include only those excellences to which our hearts are daily given, and by which our conduct is motived,—in such an inventory what virtues would he name? ”

“ Herein is summed up the experience of humanity, and this experience, which each man must remake for himself, is more precious in proportion as it costs more dear. Illumined by its light, he makes a moral advance more and more sure. ”

“ In consequence, the true or metaphysically real Ego of a man, as I venture now with emphasis to repeat, is simply the totality of his experience in so far as he consciously views this experience as, in its meaning, the struggling but never completed expression of his coherent plan in life, the changing but never completed partial embodiment of his one ideal. ”

“ These form, naturally and necessarily, the objective expression of moral ideas, and it is in some civic or social whole that the moral ideal must finally take concrete shape.
To ask “What is man?” is to ask “What is experience?” for experience means that of which I am conscious. The facts of consciousness are the only facts which, to begin with, we are justified in asserting to exist. ”

“ The whole individual life that expresses and presents the meaning of any single idea. But you will still properly be dissatisfied. You will say: “Are not the individuals as various as are all our various ideas? And how are these individuals of which you have so far spoken to be related to what we mean when we talk of individual men, of souls, of moral personalities, or of one man as different from any other man?” ”

“ That true self-love and social are the same; That virtue only makes our bliss below; And all our knowledge is, ourselves to know. ”

“ We behold the real higher law. To the wise, therefore, a fact is true poetry, and the most beautiful of fables. These wonders are brought to our own door. You also are a man. Man and woman,{73} and their social life, poverty, labor, sleep, fear, fortune, are known to you. Learn that none of these things is superficial, but that each phenomenon has its roots in the faculties and affections of the mind. Whilst the abstract question occupies your intellect, nature brings it in the concrete to be solved by your hands. ”

“ But however we may understand the accessory conditions by which the one man rules the many, and controls, and fashions them to his purposes, and transforms them into his likeness—multiplying as it were himself—there remains at the bottom of it all a mystery—a reaction between body and soul that we cannot explain. ”

“ We are becoming more and more conscious of how close-wrought are the fibres of the human race; we recognize how the life of any one man affects the life of his fellows, and how the individual can gather into his own soul the sorrows and joys, the perplexities and aspirations of many people. ”

“ But when we take a survey of the more sublime parts of the human frame; when we behold man's internal make and structure; his mental faculties; his social propensions, and those active powers which set all in motion—the passions,—what an illustrious display of consummate wisdom is presented to our admiring view! ”

“ Let us name the higher and the purer one, the spirit of the soul; and call the other, the spirit of the flesh; for both are distinct from mere intellect, which each uses as an agent, as each gains the ascendancy, or appeals to as a judge when the struggle is nearly equal. It is upon this struggle between these two principles that turns the greater part of each man's moral history. ”

“ Not exactly in novels, tales, and philosophical treatises,—they are the work of exceptional individuals,—rather in the judgments on public events and personalities ; but above all there is a lack of the art of psychological analysis and summing-up in every rank of society, in which a great deal is talked about men, but nothing about man. ”

“ Such as we are—moral and rational beings—thinking and talking in general conceptions about the facts that [46] make up our life, feeling a necessity to act, not for ourselves, but for Ourself, for the larger life of Man in which we are elements; such moral and rational beings, I say, Man has made us. ”

“ From what innate principle does this arise, but from God within the mind!—I assert it for the honour of human nature, that no man, however dissolute, but comes back to the hour of reflection and solemn thoughtfulness—when the actions that are passed return upon the mind, and this internal monitor sits in judgment upon them, and gives her verdict of approbation or dislike. ”

“ Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom, and trade, and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you, and all men, and all events. ”

“ Every nation and every man instantly surround themselves with a material apparatus which exactly corresponds to their moral state, or their state of thought. Observe how every truth and every error, each a thought of some man’s mind, clothes itself with societies, houses, cities, language, ceremonies, newspapers. Observe the ideas of the present day,—orthodoxy, skepticism, missions, popular education, temperance, anti-masonry, anti-slavery; see how each of these abstractions has embodied itself in an imposing apparatus in the community ”

“ I may here, in passing, and for the sake of illustration merely, express the fundamental principle of morality in the following formula: “So act that thou mayest look upon the dictate of thy will as an eternal law to thyself.”
The ultimate vocation of every finite, rational being is thus absolute unity, constant identity, perfect harmony with himself. ”

“ The key to every man is his thought. ”

“ He is identified in the mind with all select and holy images, with the supreme interests of the human race. If hereby we attain any more precision, we proceed to say that we think no man in these later ages, and few men ever, possessed so great a conception of the manly character. ”

“ Thus the formula which we laid down,—‘That the life of Man be dedicated to that of his Race,’—may also be expressed thus,—‘That the life of Man be dedicated to Ideas;’—for Ideas embrace the Race as such, and its Life; and thus the Life according to Reason, or the only good and true Life, consists in this,—that Man forget himself in Ideas, and neither seek nor know any enjoyment save in Ideas, and in sacrificing all other enjoyments for them.—Thus far for our explanation. ”

“ Every human feeling is greater and larger than the exciting cause, ­ a proof, I think, that man is designed for a higher state of existence; ”

“ If we devote ourselves, for example, to the works and biography of any great man, the pleasure and moral effect come when we have read him and re-read him and have traced every thread we can find, connecting him with his contemporaries. ”

“ But I raise the standard of idealism, to try everything by it, every custom, every thought before we make it our own, and every sentiment before it finds a place in our hearts. Are these conditions, social and mental, which some would have us strive for really so admirable as we are assured they are? Are they worth having at all? What of the heroic best of man ”

“ Now the sort of 'fact of experience' on which in my book I have proposed to compromise, is the so-called 'mental state,' in whose existence not only common men but philosophers have uniformly believed. ”

“ Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment—originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit. ”

“ ...I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt himself most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside which speaks and says: "This is the real me!" ”

“ What a man is: that is to say, personality, in the widest sense of the word; under which are included health, strength, beauty, temperament, moral character, intelligence, and education. ”

“ You will hear every day the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear, that the first duty is to get land and money, place and name. ‘What is this Truth you seek? what is this Beauty?’ men will ask, with derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explore truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, ‘As others do, so will I: I renounce, I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the good of the land,{179} and let learning and romantic expectations go, until a more convenient season;’—then dies the man in you; ”

“ It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it. Among the works of man, which human life is rightly employed in perfecting and beautifying, the first in importance surely is man himself. ”

“ But here arises a most important question, to which every man is bound to give a serious answer who wishes to become acquainted with himself; and thus with the true quality, character, and tendencies of his own natural intellectual activities.—The question, I say, is—do these activities constitute the whole of man’s life and enjoyments? ”

“ Reason, that which we call reason, reflex and reflective knowledge, the distinguishing mark of man, is a social product. ”

“ The author of human nature impressed it with certain sensitive aptitudes and mental powers, so that apprehension, reflection or understanding could no otherwise be exerted or produced in the compound nature of man, but in the order prescribed by the creator. ”

“ A knowledge of the characters of men, as they appear varied in different situations and countries;—the study of human nature indeed in all its forms and modifications, is highly interesting to the mind, and worthy the attention of the greatest man. ”

“ But to Him it appears, that they are superficially informed of the Frame and Tenor of the human Mind, who think that mere Reason (as it exists in Man) is more than a Power of discerning and chusing the properest Means for obtaining his desired Ends, whether these Ends be Good or Evil. The Passions, pre-established Habits, and infused Principles of the Soul are the universal Motives to human Action. ”

“ Into the hands of every individual is given a marvellous power for good or for evil,--the silent, unconscious, unseen influence of his life. This is simply the constant radiation of what a man really is, not what he pretends to be. ”

“ Without Knowledge of the Human Nature. “Varied, according to character, are the demands made by heart and mind,” assures us a representative of modern philosophy, “corresponding to them is the image of the world to which the individual turns by inner necessity. ”

“ Every man is where he is by the law of his being; ”

“ But human nature, when placed in a conspicuous point of view, gives us every argument for appeasing the mind, and, to make this the more distinct, the laws and conditions of life should be explained in our discourse. ”

“ I believe that ideal character in its perfection is potentially in every man who is born into the world. ”

“ THE conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foundation of true manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character, and if Christianity runs counter to conscience in this matter, or indeed in any other, Christianity will go to the wall. ”

“ and the bowels of existence do not speak unto man, except as man. ”

“ Where did it get its power to go to the hidden man of the heart, that subliminal self with which modern speculation has been so busy, and shift him from off his age-long base? It is commonly said that, whatever our personal vicissitudes, human nature remains the same ”

“ He felt, how arbitrary was the law of human opinion; how little resorted to were the principles of human nature; how difficult to eradicate those principles impressed on the character without any operation of the reason, received in the first era of existence, expanding with the years, and associating with all the feelings, the passions, and the habits of life. ”