Present life

“ Such is my purpose to-day. “Wandering back to living boyhood,” to the time when I first simultaneously passed the Harvard threshold and the threshold of responsible life, I propose to compare the ideals and actualities of the present with the ideals, anticipations and dreams of a past now somewhat remote.
To say that in life and in the order of life’s events it is the unexpected which is apt to occur, is a commonplace. ”

“ The conditions of our present life, then, are absolutely the result of our own action in the past; and the other side of that statement is that our actions in this life are building up conditions for the next one. ”

“ This principle is of very wide application.
What produces the noblest human creature now in our nineteenth century? What inspires hope? What sustains us most bravely to fight the battle of life? What makes life most worth living?
When we have ascertained these facts in the present, they will explain the past, and give the foundations of right for guidance in the future. ”

“ I have tried to show that one of the distinctive features of the present era is the stress it lays on the worth of the moral life of man, and the new significance it has given to that life by its view of the continuity of history. ”

“ The emotions of the present may incline us to look back regretfully upon that past which reminds us of so much that is great and noble, in spite of its many and inevitable drawbacks, and which, by showing us the origin of modern society, by revealing to us the manner of its birth and its onward progress, may give us the key to its present critical condition when a profound and universal transformation seems about to take place. ”

“ For our present purpose, I shall maintain the following proposition:—Everything great and good upon which our present existence rests, from which it has proceeded, and on the supposition of which alone our Age can order itself in the way it actually does, has an existence only because noble and powerful men have resigned all the enjoyments of life for the sake of Ideas ”

“ But surely it is better to pass into the next region of life having reaped some assurance, some firmness of character, determination of effort, and consciousness of the worth of life, in the present world ”

“ In one word: the permanent and fundamental peculiarity and characteristic of such an Age is this,—that every genuine product of it thinks and does all that he actually thinks and does solely for himself and for his own peculiar advantage;—just as the opposite principle, that of a Life according to Reason, consists herein,—that each Individual ought to devote his own personal life to the Life of the Race ”

“ In the Idea, the future Good and the present Want are both present, and the two together make the continuous flow of action—the élan vital or will to live—which constitutes the life of Self. And the analogy must be extended to the life of Nature. ”

“ It is our filiation with the Past, even more than our connexion with the Present, which teaches us that the only real life is the collective life of the race; ”

“ What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored. ”

“ Throughout these tales the plan has been to present a picture of ordinary life, with its small daily events, its pleasures, and its trials, so as to draw out its capabilities of being turned to the best account. ”

“ But such a period is an ill occasion for searching into the broad problems of human destiny; the present is all-important and all-absorbing; and such a book as that of Job could have arisen only out of an isolation of mind, and life, and interest, which we cannot conceive of as possible under such conditions. ”

“ In the preceding papers I have, with some repetition and much stumbling, set out a fairly complete theory of what men and women have to do at the present time if human life is to go on hopefully to any great happiness and achievement in the days to come. Much of this material was first prepared to be delivered to a lecture audience, and I regret that ill-health has prevented a complete re-writing of these portions. ”

“ I say therefore,—and so lay the foundation of our rising edifice,—the End of the Life of Mankind on Earth is this,—that in this Life they may order all their relations with Freedom according to Reason. ”

“ Each day of your life will prove that you have decided, and are acting upon the decision you make on this momentous point. Your conduct in society proves it, your behaviour in your family, every thought which occupies your mind, every wish you breathe, every plan you form, every pleasure you enjoy, every pain you suffer—all prove whether it is your object to live for yourself, or for others.
Again, is it your aim to live for this world only, or for eternity? ”

“ Weeks and even months then elapsed before the purpose of doing so revived in his mind, under the conviction that such a course was due, not only to himself, but to the momentous theme, which he has made the theme of his life, and on which he feels a strong assurance that he has some suggestions to offer, some great universal truths, great fundamental laws of social life, to announce, that are calculated to exert an important influence on the cause of knowledge and human advancement. ”

“ While many are lauding the spirit of the age and holding up to my gaze the picture of forth-coming improvements—opening broad and charming vistas into the almost present future of mental and moral perfection, I cannot help casting a lingering look upon the past. ”

“ The men that you meet with in all their variety of intellectual and moral nature, the political and social forces at work around you, the tendencies and aims of current speculation, will furnish to the well-trained mind, food for constant thought—for such thought as may elevate and brace the whole inner life by keeping it in perpetual contact with what is real and enduring beneath the shows of the fleeting hour. ”

“ And if the human race be destined, in future ages, to possess greater wisdom and happiness in this state of existence than at present, the value of this knowledge may be expected to increase in the progress of time ”

“ We may therefore acquiesce in the pleasing conclusion that every age of the world has increased, and still increases, the real wealth, the happiness, the knowledge, and perhaps the virtue, of the human race. ”

“ This form of Reason,—this standard of conceptions,—the results, present in the general consciousness of the Time, of the art of Being and Well-Being, is what the third Age encounters at its advent;—this is the universal and natural Common Sense, which it receives without labour or toil of its own, as its hereditary patrimony; which is born with it like its hunger and its thirst, and which it now applies as the undoubted measure of all existence and all worth. ”

“ Prove to yourselves that you have made this spiritual and moral discovery, and that the discovery gives you a passionate delight and satisfaction; you will have brought in a new industrial era, you will have solved the mystery of social life and give an absolutely intelligible reason for the continuity of human endeavour. ”

“ But that also, with its assured belief in heaven and hell as two countries in which to live, has gone, and now we do, both in word and in deed, believe in the continuous life of the world of men, and as it were, add every day of that common life to the little stock of days which our own mere individual experience wins for us: and consequently we are happy. ”

“ Every claim of duty, the employment of each minute, the daily vexations or trials we are called upon to bear, the momentary decisions that must be made, the casual interview, the contact with sin or sorrow in every-day dress—all, these and many others as small and as constant, are the real opportunities of life. These we are continually embracing or neglecting, and out of them we are forming a character that is fast consolidating into the shape we gave it for good or for evil. ”

“ These things lie deep in human nature and in the fundamental conditions of human life. The changes that are taking place, and which seem likely to strengthen in the future, lie chiefly in the importance attached to different qualities. ”

“ I understood that these things might be charming pastimes, but that one need seek in them no depth, whereas the life of the hard-working populace, of that multitude of human beings who really contribute to existence, appeared to me in its true light. I understood that there veritably is life, that the meaning which life there receives is the truth ”

“ And whether the life we are living is quiet and commonplace, or whether it is full of change and adventure, to be of the greatest and most permanent use, a life must have as its habitual background plain every-day common sense. ”

“ I do not mean the actions which, in the broad light of day, lie in the ordinary routine of life, but those more important circumstances which are not seen, but make up, and help to weave the skein of each man's destiny. ”

“ The conviction that it is nothing less than the social movement of modern life underlies this discussion, and alone warrants its suggestions. It is simply the way life is moving today, and along which “leaders” are really following afar off. ”

“ Down below them, is another question which is included in them all and which sooner or later must be faced by each and every one of us: "Why am I here on earth? Has my life any purpose in the great, everlasting scheme of things? What is that purpose?" ”

“ The forms which the highest spiritual life in an age or an individual assumes, the power of free and happy development which it obtains, or the limitations to which it has to submit, can, to a very considerable extent, be explained by reference, in the case of nations, to the political, social, and material circumstances of the age, and, in the case of the individual, to his early life and environment, his education and personal fortunes. ”

“ Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit. ”

“ They will observe that, though many things have been said about the life of the Spirit, not a great deal seems to have been said, at any rate directly, about the second half of the title—the life of to-day—and especially about those very important aspects of our modern active life which are resumed in the word Social. ”

“ It has completely taken off the sharp touchings and spirited reliefs of these embellishments of life, and has worn down society into a more smooth and polished, but certainly a less characteristic surface. ”

“ Your future is the not yet temporally expressed region wherein you, as finite being, seek your own further expression. That future is still, in one aspect, as we shall see, causally undetermined, precisely in so far as therein something unique, that is yours and yours only, is to appear in the form of various individually designed expressions of your life-purpose, — various individual deeds. ”

“ Sir, we must recognize the existing condition of things, remedy all practical grievances so far as possible, and set our faces towards the true system. We must act in the Present, but be mindful also of the Future. ”

“ But as society proceeds in its development, its phaenomena are determined, more and more, not by the simple tendencies of universal human nature, but by the accumulated influence of past generations over the present. ”

“ Around thee are the institutions, the ideals, the knowledge and beliefs, ethical or intellectual, in which that work, that life, have been so far fragmentarily and partially realised. Submit thyself and press forward. Thou knowest well what it means to be better: more pure, more loving, more self-denying. ”

“ To understand our present moral condition, to be able to give good counsel thereon, you must understand the former generation, and have potentially the spirit of the future generation; must appreciate the past, and yet belong to the future. ”

“ Some new things, as we look frankly upon them, willing to comprehend their real character, have come to assume the aspect of things long believed in and familiar, stuff of our own convictions. We have been refreshed by a new insight into our own life. ”

“ Naturally, I say, we ought by the time of middle life to come to a conception of what sort of things are of most value. By analogy, in the continual growth of the Republic, we ought to have a perception of what we have accomplished and acquired, and some clear view of our tendencies. ”

“ When our judgment has been warped in early life by excess of worldly advantages and success, how many years and how much suffering are necessary to bring the truth, the real meaning of life, back to us! ”

“ There are three successive states of morality answering to the three principal stages of human life; the personal, the domestic, and the social stage. ”

“ What is the principle of this new life? We answer: intellectual and moral progress. Mind has grown; the soul has been expanded. God has permitted man to be free, and furnished him with the means to be so. ”

“ Exactly that in which the characteristic quality of the world and of life is found, the individual personalities, the single generations, the concrete events—these lose, in this view, their own particular worth. ”