Wisdom and Destiny | Page 7

own
thoughts, and feelings, and actions. It is a book that many will love--all

those who suffer, for it will lighten their suffering; all those who love,
for it will teach them to love more deeply. It is a book with its faults,
doubtless, as every book must be; but it has been written straight from
the heart, and will go to the heart of many ...
Alfred Sutro

WISDOM AND DESTINY
1. In this book there will often be mention of wisdom and destiny, of
happiness, justice, and love. There may seem to be some measure of
irony in thus calling forth an intangible happiness where so much real
sorrow prevails; a justice that may well be ideal in the bosom of an
injustice, alas! only too material; a love that eludes the grasp in the
midst of palpable hatred and callousness. The moment may seem but
ill-chosen for leisurely search, in the hidden recess of man's heart, for
motives of peace and tranquillity; occasions for gladness, uplifting, and
love; reasons for wonder and gratitude-- seeing that the vast bulk of
mankind, in whose name we would fain lift our voice, have not even
the time or assurance to drain to the dregs the misery and desolation of
life. Not to them is it given to linger over the inward rejoicing, the
profound consolation, that the satisfied thinker has slowly and painfully
acquired, that he knows how to prize. Thus has it often been urged
against moralists, among them Epictetus, that they were apt to concern
themselves with none but the wise alone. In this reproach is some truth,
as some truth there must be in every reproach that is made. And indeed,
if we had only the courage to listen to the simplest, the nearest, most
pressing voice of our conscience, and be deaf to all else, it were
doubtless our solitary duty to relieve the suffering about us to the
greatest extent in our power. It were incumbent upon us to visit and
nurse the poor, to console the afflicted; to found model factories,
surgeries, dispensaries, or at least to devote ourselves, as men of
science do, to wresting from nature the material secrets which are most
essential to man. But yet, were the world at a given moment to contain
only persons thus actively engaged in helping each other, and none
venturesome enough to dare snatch leisure for research in other
directions, then could this charitable labour not long endure; for all that
is best in the good that at this day is being done round about us, was
conceived in the spirit of one of those who neglected, it may be, many

an urgent, immediate duty in order to think, to commune with
themselves, in order to speak. Does it follow that they did the best that
was to be done? To such a question as this who shall dare to reply? The
soul that is meekly honest must ever consider the simplest, the nearest
duty to be the best of all things it can do; but yet were there cause for
regret had all men for all time restricted themselves to the duty that lay
nearest at hand. In each generation some men have existed who held in
all loyalty that they fulfilled the duties of the passing hour by pondering
on those of the hour to come. Most thinkers will say that these men
were right. It is well that the thinker should give his thoughts to the
world, though it must be admitted that wisdom befinds itself sometimes
in the reverse of the sage's pronouncement. This matters but little,
however; for, without such pronouncement, the wisdom had not stood
revealed; and the sage has accomplished his duty.
2. To-day misery is the disease of mankind, as disease is the misery of
man. And even as there are physicians for disease, so should there be
physicians for human misery. But can the fact that disease is, unhappily,
only too prevalent, render it wrong for us ever to speak of health?
which were indeed as though, in anatomy-- the physical science that
has most in common with morals--the teacher confined himself
exclusively to the study of the deformities that greater or lesser
degeneration will induce in the organs of man. We have surely the right
to demand that his theories be based on the healthy and vigorous body;
as we have also the right to demand that the moralist, who fain would
see beyond the present hour, should take as his standard the soul that is
happy, or that at least possesses every element of happiness, save only
the necessary consciousness.
We live in the bosom of great injustice; but there can be, I imagine,
neither cruelty nor callousness in our speaking, at times, as