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"From the winter of
1821 I had what might truly be called an
object in life: to be a reformer of the
Earth.
My conception
of my own happiness was entirely identified with this
object. The personal sympathies
I wished for were those of fellow laborers
in this enterprise. I endeavored to pick up
as many flowers as
I could by the
way but as a serious and permanent
personal satisfaction to rest upon,
my whole reliance was placed on this; and
I was accustomed to felicitate myself on the
certainty of a happy
life which I
enjoyed, through placing my
happiness in some
thing durable and distant, in which
some progress might be always making, while it could never be exhausted by
complete attainment.
This did very well for several
years, during which the general improvement
going on the Earth and the
idea of myself as engaged with
others in struggling to promote
it, seemed enough to fill up an interesting and animated
existence.
But the
time came when I awakened from this as from a
dream. It was in the autumn of 1826.
I was in a dull state of nerves,
such as everybody is occasionally liable to; unsusceptible to enjoyment or
pleasurable excitement; one of
those moods when what is pleasure at other times, becomes insipid or
indifferent; the state,
I should think, in which converts to Methodism usually
are, when smitten by their first 'conviction of
sin.'
In this frame of
mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to
myself:
"Suppose
that all your objects in
life were realized; that all the changes in
institutions and
opinions which you are looking forward to,
could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great
joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible
self consciousness distinctly answered, "No!"
At this my heart sank
within
me: the
whole foundation on which
my life was
constructed fell down. All my
happiness was to have been found in the
continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and how could there
ever again be any interest in the means?
I seemed to have nothing left
to live for.
For
I now saw, or
thought I saw, what I had always before received with incredulity -
that the habit of analysis has a tendency
to wear away the feelings: as indeed it
has, when no other mental habit is
cultivated, and the analyzing spirit
remains without its natural complements
and correctives.
The very excellence of
analysis (I argued) is that it tends to weaken and
undermine whatever is the result of prejudice; that it enables
us mentally to separate
ideas which have only casually clung
together: and no associations whatever could ultimately resist this dissolving
force, were it not that
we owe to analysis our clearest
knowledge of the permanent sequences in
nature; the real connections between
things, not dependent on
our will and
feelings;
natural laws, by virtue of which, in many cases, one
thing is inseparable from
another in
fact; which laws, in proportion as they are
clearly
perceived and
imaginatively
realized, cause
our ideas of
things which are always
joined together in
Nature, to cohere more and more closely in
our thoughts.
Analytic habits may thus even strengthen the
associations between causes and effects, means and ends, but tend altogether to
weaken those which are, to speak
familiarly, a mere matter of
feeling. They are therefore (I thought)
favorable to prudence and
clear sightedness, but a
perpetual worm at the root both of the passions and of the
virtues; and, above all,
fearfully undermine all
desires, and all pleasures, which are the
effects of association, that is, according to the theory I
held, all except the purely physical and
organic; of the entire insufficiency of
which to make life desirable, no one had a
stronger conviction than
I had.
These were the
laws of human
nature, by which, as it seemed to
me, I had
been brought to my present state. All those to
whom I looked up were of
opinion that the pleasure of
sympathy with
human beings, and the
feelings which made the
good of
others, and especially of
mankind on a large scale, the object of
existence, were the greatest and surest
sources of happiness.
Of the
truth of this I was convinced, but to
know that a
feeling would make
me happy
if I had it, did not give
me the feeling.
My education,
I thought, had failed to create
these feelings in sufficient strength
to resist the dissolving influence of
analysis, while the
whole course of
my intellectual
cultivation had made precocious and
pre-mature analysis the inveterate habit
of my mind.
The fountains of vanity and
ambition seemed to have dried up
within
me, as completely as those of benevolence.
Thus neither selfish nor
unselfish pleasures were pleasures to me.
And there seemed no power in
nature sufficient to begin the formation of
my character anew, and
create in a mind now irretrievably analytic, fresh
associations of pleasure with any of the objects of
human desire.
I frequently asked
myself, if I
could, or if I was bound to go on
living, when
life must be passed in this manner.
I generally answered to
myself, that I did not think I
could possibly bear it beyond a year.
In all probability
my case was by no means so peculiar as
I fancied.
A vivid
conception of the scene and its
feelings came over
me, and I
was moved to tears. From this moment
my burden grew lighter. The oppression of the
thought that all
feeling was dead
within
me, was gone. I was no longer hopeless.
Relieved from
my ever present sense of irremediable wretchedness,
I gradually found that the ordinary
incidents of life could again give
me some pleasure; that
I could again find
enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for
cheerfulness, in sunshine and
sky, in books, in conversation, in
public affairs; and that there was,
once more, excitement, though of
a moderate category, in
exerting myself for my opinions,
and for the public
good. Thus the cloud gradually drew off, and
I never again was as miserable as
I had been.
The
experiences of this period led
me to adopt a theory of life,
very unlike that on which I had before
acted, and having much in common with what at
that time I certainly had never heard of,
the anti-self-consciousness
theory of Thomas Carlyle.
I never, indeed, wavered in the
conviction that
happiness is the test of all
rules of conduct, and the end of
life.
But
I now thought that this end was only to be attained
by not making it the direct end. Those only are
happy (I thought)
who have their minds fixed on some
object
other than their own
happiness; on the
happiness of
others, on the improvement of
mankind, even on some
art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as
itself an ideal end.
Aiming thus at
some thing else, they find
happiness by the
way.
Ask yourself whether you are
happy, and you cease to be so.
The
only chance is to treat, not
happiness, but some end external to it, as
the purpose of
life.
If otherwise fortunately
circumstanced you will inhale happiness
with the air you breathe, without dwelling on
it or thinking about it, without either
forestalling it in imagination, or
putting it to flight by fatal
questioning.
This
theory now became the basis of
my philosophy of life. And I
still hold to it as the best theory for all
those who have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity for
enjoyment, that is, for the great majority
of mankind.
I ceased to attach almost exclusive importance
to the ordering of outward circumstances.
The maintenance of a due
balance among the faculties, now seemed
to me of primary importance.
I had now learnt by experience that the passive susceptibilities
needed to be cultivated as well as the active
capacities, and required to be nourished and enriched as well as guided.
The cultivation of the
feelings became one of the cardinal
points in my ethical and
philosophical creed.
I now began to find meaning in the
things which
I had read or heard about the importance of
poetry and art as instruments of
human culture. The only one of the
imaginative arts in which I
had from childhood taken great pleasure, was music; the best effect of which consists in
exciting
enthusiasm; in winding
up to a high pitch those feelingsof an
elevated
category which are already in
the character, but to which this excitement gives a glow and a
fervor, which, though transitory at its utmost height, is precious for
sustaining them at
other times.
This effect of
music I
had often experienced; but like all
my pleasurable susceptibilities it was
suspended during the gloomy period. I had
sought relief again and again from this quarter, but found none. After the tide
had turned, and I was in process of
recovery, I had been helped forward by
music, but in a much less
elevated manner.
I at this time first became acquainted with Weber's Oberon,
and the extreme pleasure which I drew from
its delicious melodies did me
good, by showing me a source of
pleasure to which I was as susceptible as
ever.
The good, however, was much
impaired by the thought, that the pleasure
of music fades with familiarity, and
requires either to be revived by
intermittence, or fed by continual novelty. It is very characteristic both of
my then state, and of the general tone of my
mind at this period of
my life, that
I was seriously tormented by the
thought of the exhaustibility of
musical combinations.
This
source of anxiety may, perhaps, be
thought to resemble that of the
philosophers of Laputa, who
feared lest the
sun should be burnt out.
In this
power of rural beauty over me,
there was a foundation laid for taking pleasure in Wordsworth's
poetry; the more so, as his scenery lies
mostly among mountains, which, owing to
my early Pyrenean excursion, were
my ideal of
natural beauty. What made Wordsworth's poems a medicine
for my state of mind, was that they
expressed, not mere outward
beauty, but states of
feeling, and of
thought colored by
feeling, under the
excitement of
beauty. They seemed to be the very
culture of the
feelings, which
I was in quest of. In them
I seemed to draw from a
source of inward
joy, of sympathetic and
imaginative pleasure, which could be
shared in by all human
beings; which had no
connection with struggle or imperfection,
but would be made richer by every improvement in the
physical or social condition of
mankind.
From them
I seemed to
learn what would be the perennial
sources of happiness, when all the greater
evils of life
shall have been removed. And I
felt myself at once better and
happier as I came under their
influence. There have certainly
been, even in our own
age, greater poets than Wordsworth; but
poetry of deeper and loftier
feeling could not have done for
me at that time
what his did.
I needed to be made to
feel that there was
real, permanent
happiness in tranquil contemplation.
Wordsworth taught me this, not only without
turning away from, but with a greatly increased interest in the
common
feelings and
common
destiny of
human beings. And the
delight which these poems gave
me, proved that with
culture of this sort, there was nothing to
dread from the most confirmed habit of analysis."
"Fortunately
analysis is not the only way to resolve
inner conflicts.
Life itself still remains a very effective
therapist."
- Karen Horney, German psychoanalyst
"The aim,
therefore, of patriots, was to set
limits to the power which the
ruler should be suffered to exercise over the
community; and this limitation was what they
meant by liberty; protection from
the tyranny of
political rulers. It was attempted in two ways.
First, by obtaining a recognition of certain immunities, called
political liberties or
rights, which it was to be
regarded as a breach of duty in the
ruler to infringe, and which, if he did
infringe, specific resistance, or general rebellion, was held to be
justifiable.
A second, and generally
a later expedient, was the
establishment of constitutional
checks; by which the consent of the community, or of a body of some sort supposed to
represent its interests, was made a necessary condition to some of the more
important acts of the governing
power.
A time, however, came in the progress of
human affairs, when
men ceased to
think it a necessity of
nature that their
governors should be an independent
power, opposed in interest to
themselves. It appeared to them much better
that the various magistrates of the State
should be their tenants or delegates, revocable at their pleasure. In that
way alone, it seemed, could they
have complete security that the
powers of
government would never be
abused to their disadvantage."
If all mankind minus one
were of one opinion and only one
individual were of the
contrary
opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing
that individual than, if he had
the power, would be in silencing
mankind…
If the
opinion is right, they are deprived of the
opportunity of
exchanging error for truth;
if wrong, they
lose, what is almost as great a benefit,
the clearer
perception and livelier
impression of
truth, produced by its collision with
error.
If any
opinion be compelled to
silence, that
opinion may, for aught
we can certainly
know, be true.
To deny this is to assume
our own infallibility.
-John Stuart Mills, English
philosopher
See
Ian Player
See John
Muir
See Edward Abbey
See
Rachel Carson
See Charles Darwin
See Henry
David Thoreau
See John Wesley
Powell
See Marcus Aurelius V
See
Thomas Aquinas
See Rene Descartes
See David
Hume
See Ralph Waldo
Emerson
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This web site is not a commercial web site and
is presented for educational purposes only.
This website defines a new religious ideology to which its author adheres. The author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has created a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an international corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of the religion aptly named The Truth of the Way of Life - a rational religion based on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation with God through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of Life are spelled out in detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to their religious beliefs in America is considered a “hate crime.”
This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already controls the world central banking system, mass media worldwide, the industrial military complex of America and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the point of a gun.
American social mores and values have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general through mass media by pressing emotional buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior mass media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.
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