The Freedom of Life | Page 6

at night.
Of course, a strained way of working is only one cause of nervous
fatigue; there are others, and even more important ones, that need to be
understood in order that we may be freed from the bondage of nervous
strain which keeps so many of us from our best use and happiness.
Many people are in bondage because of doing wrong, but many more
because of doing right in the wrong way. Real freedom is only found
through obedience to law, and when, because of daily strain, a man
finds himself getting overtired and irritable, the temptation is to think it
easier to go on working in the wrong way than to make the effort to
learn how to work in the right way. At first the effort seems only to
result in extra strain, but, if persisted in quietly, it soon becomes
apparent that it is leading to less and less strain, and finally to restful
work.

There are laws for rest, laws for work, and laws for play, which, if we
find and follow them, lead us to quiet, useful lines of life, which would
be impossible without them. They are the laws of our own being, and
should carry us as naturally as the instincts of the animals carry them,
and so enable us to do right in the right way, and make us so sure of the
manner in which we do our work that we can give all our attention to
the work itself; and when we have the right habit of working, the work
itself must necessarily gain, because we can put the best of ourselves
into it.
It is helpful to think of the instincts of the beasts, how true and orderly
they are, on their own plane, and how they are only perverted when the
animals have come under the influence of man. Imagine Baloo, the bear
in Mr. Kipling's "Jungle Book," being asked how he managed to keep
so well and rested. He would look a little surprised and say: "Why, I
follow the laws of my being. How could I do differently?" Now that is
just the difference between man and beast. Man can do differently. And
man has done differently now for so many generations that not one in
ten thousand really recognizes what the laws of his being are, except in
ways so gross that it seems as if we had sunken to the necessity of
being guided by a crowbar, instead of steadily following the delicate
instinct which is ours by right, and so voluntarily accepting the
guidance of the Power who made us, which is the only possible way to
freedom.
Of course the laws of a man's being are infinitely above the laws of a
beast's. The laws of a man's being are spiritual, and the animal in man
is meant to be the servant of his soul. Man's true guiding instincts are in
his soul,--he can obey them or not, as he chooses; but the beast's
instincts are in his body, and he has no choice but to obey. Man can, so
to speak, get up and look down on himself. He can be his own father
and his own mother. From his true instinct he can say to himself, "you
must do this" or "You must not do that." He can see and understand his
tendency to disobedience, and _he can force himself to obey._ Man can
see the good and wholesome animal instincts in himself that lead to
lasting health and strength, and he can make them all the good servants
of his soul. He can see the tendency to overindulgence, and how it leads

to disease and to evil, and he can refuse to permit that wrong tendency
to rule him.
Every man has his own power of distinguishing between right and
wrong, and his own power of choosing which way he shall follow. He
is left free to choose God's way or to choose his own. Through past and
present perversions, of natural habit he has lost the delicate power of
distinguishing the normal from the abnormal, and needs to be educated
back to it. The benefit of this education is an intelligent consciousness
of the laws of life, which not only adds to his own strength of mind and
body, but increases immeasurably his power of use to others. Many
customs of to-day fix and perpetuate abnormal habits to such an extent
that, combined with our own selfish inheritances and personal
perversions, they dim the light of our minds so that many of us are
working all the time in a fog, more or less dense, of ignorance and
bondage. When a man chooses the right and refuses the wrong, in so far
as he sees it, he becomes