LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class GLIMPSES OF TRUTH EDUCATION AND THE HIGHER LIFE. 12010. $1.00. THINGS OF THB MIND. izmo. $1.00. MEANS AND ENDS OF EDUCATION. i2mo. $1.00. THOUGHTS AND THEORIES OF LIFE AND EDUCATION. i2mo. $1.00. OPPORTUNITY AND OTHER ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES. 12010. $1.00. SONGS: CHIEFLY FROM THE GERMAN. i6mo, gilt top. $1.25. APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS. i2mo. 80 cents net. RELIGION, AGNOSTICISM, AND EDUCATION. 12010. 80 cents net. SOCIALISM AND LABOR. i6mo. 80 cents net. GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. i6mo. 80 cents net. A. C. McCLURG & CO. CHICAGO. GLIMPSES OF TRUTH WITH ESSAYS ON ETICTETUS AND MARCUS AURELIUS BY RT. REV. J. L. (SPALDING 33ts{)0p of R OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ^4S^ CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG & CO. 1903 COPYRIGHT BY A. C. McCLURG & Co. A.D. 1903 PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 4, 1903 UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSON AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. ACS CONTENTS PAGE GLIMPSES OF TRUTH . 3 EPICTETUS 201 MARCUS AURELIUS 223 GLIMPSES OF TRUTH EVERY surmise and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain respect, and we learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences which contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no one valu- able suggestion. EMERSON. The study of proverbs may be more instructive and comprehensive than the most elaborate scheme of philosophy. MOTHERWELL. Good maxims are germs of all good ; firmly impressed on the memory they nourish the will. JOUBERT. Exclusively of the abstract sciences the largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of aphorisms ; and the greatest and best of men is but an aphorism. COLERIDGE. Why spin a story when a phrase will tell what thou hast to say? Why read a book when an aphorism will express the truth a volume may hold? Wisdom becomes current and passes most readily from mind to mind when it is coined into proverbs and maxims, which, holding a world of meaning in small compass, delight by their brevity and stimulate by their wealth of implication. The wise seek these focuses of light and warmth with more eagerness, cling to them with more joy, and cherish them with more devoutness than misers gold. ( UNIVERSITY } X. r OF J ^^^o^^^ GLIMPSES OF TRUTH i. THE delight there is in becoming more and more, whether by acquiring knowledge, or virtue, or insight, or self-control, makes pleasant what else were difficult, tedious, and monotonous. Spiritual growth is the aim and end of life, and nothing that ministers to it can satiate or pall. This makes the happiness of all noble strivers, whether they lay the chief stress on culture of mind, or formation of character, or purification of soul. How miserable were not those ages in which the writings of Homer and Plato, of Cicero and Virgil, existed, but had fallen into neg- lect and oblivion. One may or may not deem it a misfortune never to have seen the monu- ments of Greece and Rome; never to have looked from the Acropolis on the Attic plain and its island-studded sea; never from Taor- mina's heights to have gazed on the slopes of 4 GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. TEtna, stooping with their crown of lemon and almond trees and vines to the waters that bathe their feet ; but only unraised and sluggish souls, only ignoble and brutish spirits, can consent to die without having drunk the divine words of the greatest and most illumined minds. The Greek and the Latin, which we call dead languages, are not dead. They cannot die. They live not only in the literatures which they inform and which the world will not suffer to perish, but they enter as a vital force into the tongues of the modern civilized peoples. They inspire, shape, and control the thoughts of the most living minds. They are a spur to the noblest aspirations; they embody the beauty which never grows old; they fire the most generous and gifted of each newborn genera- tion with a courage and an enthusiasm which keep the race fresh and young. They cannot die. They are immortal, because immortal spirits have breathed into them the truth and beauty which are imperishable. Though thou art in the midst of the world and busy with many things, it is none the less thy duty to live within where the soul finds itself in the company of God and eternal truth; and if this secret be hidden from thee thou art doomed to a superficial and vulgar life. Thou GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. 5 hast not yet attained. To-day thou art reborn. Begin thy life anew. " The greatness or small- ness of a man," says Ruskin, " is in the most conclusive sense determined for him at his birth, as strictly as it is determined for a fruit whether it is to be a currant or an apricot. . . . Apricot out of currant great man out of small, did never yet art or effort make." This is an instance of the readiness with which a comparison may be perverted to insinuate what is false. No sane mind ever imagined that education can develop one species from another, an eagle from a dove, an apple from a grain of wheat, and yet Ruskin thinks it necessary to be emphatic in denying what no one affirms. His argument is not merely so- phistical, but harmful, tending as it does to take away hope and heart from students and teachers, who are not to labor for anything else than to make the most of what is given them to shape and fashion. Except by ceaseless striv- ing one cannot know what he may become. Each one, certainly, can attain skill in doing whatever he can accustom himself to persevere in doing. Let him learn to occupy himself gladly and unwearyingly with the things of the mind, and he will become wiser and nobler and go farther than as yet he is able to imagine. 6 GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. The difference between great and small men is not absolute. There are many kinds and de- grees of human power and worth; and they who strive faithfully for the best attain it in the measure their talent makes possible. Let the student have boundless trust in the efficacy of self-activity, in the marvellous excellences which the habit of doing patiently and thor- oughly is capable of producing in even the most unpromising subjects. Endowments are gifts of nature; but a faculty is not so much devel- oped as produced by education in the large sense of the word. It does more than unfold: it creates, it confers ability to do what without it we should never have power to do. The vital consideration for one who wishes to get an education is whether he have the will and the courage to take infinite pains for years or for a lifetime, and this he cannot have unless he have infinite faith in the supreme worth of a cultivated mind and a perfect character. However great one's talent or skill, some- thing of it is lost if for a little while, even, he cease to improve himself. This is manifestly true of artists, and it is not less so of those whose instrument is more immediately the mind. .Where man is civilized art prevails over na- GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. *J ture, in government, in commerce, in war, in literature, in the professions, in everything. In the progress he has been making for ages he has so transformed his endowments that what he has produced within himself transcends, directs, and controls that which is born in him. Thus a few thousands of a civilized race hold in subjection millions of barbarians. Thus in law, in medicine, and in the ministry, the great- est students, not the greatest talents, reach the summits; and so in literature also they who take endless pains to educate themselves, and not rude genius, write what becomes a per- manent part of the spiritual treasures of their people or of mankind. Even in the world of fashion they who are best trained and culti- vated, not the best endowed, are the leaders. In admiring the abilities of others what we really admire is the industry which has pro- duced them, and which would bring forth like faculties in ourselves, had we the will and the courage to become perseveringly self -active. The question of education resolves itself for each one into learning how to learn. Be atten- tive, observe, inquire, reflect, meditate, compare, weigh, write, not for others, but for your own enlightenment and improvement; and let all this become habitual. The greatest genius, if 8 GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. he would accomplish something worth remem- bering, must conform to this law ; and they who appear to have little talent will, if they obey it faithfully, be found in the end to have much. Whatever we thoroughly accustom ourselves to becomes pleasant, and often indispensable, however disagreeable it may have been at first. It is this that makes home sweet, country dear, and friends delightful. It is this that gives to study, meditation, and prayer the power to refresh, strengthen, and console. When the mature look back to their child- hood and youth they cannot fail to perceive that most of the things which interested and absorbed them had no value or importance other than that wherewith their ignorance and inexperience endowed them. The toys, the games, the sights and sounds which delighted them they now recognize to have had this power only because they themselves were weak and foolish, the victims of illusion. In the same way a cultivated and reflective mind sees how unworthy of rational beings are the pas- times, pleasures, and ambitions of the many. They too are victims of illusion. If he con- sider more closely he finds that he also is be- guiled by a world of vanities and dreams, that he is but a child of larger growth, whose busi- GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. g ness, office, reputation, and schemes, if con- templated from the point of view of a higher intelligence, are as insignificant, as ephemeral, as idle as the playthings of children or the amusements and expectations of the ignorant. If all belief in illusion were taken from us life would lose its charm. The estimate each one places on himself is illusive; the importance he ascribes to his thoughts, his words, his works, is fictitious. Were he to perish at once the world would not be more changed than if a mote dropped out of a sunbeam. This is true of the greatest as of the least of mortals. Man- kind would be much what they are had their heroes never lived; and what they are, if we view things in the light of eternity, is but as a silly tale. The race is of yesterday and to- morrow it shall have passed away, leaving no trace behind. Unless it is from God, in Him and for Him, it were better it had never been. If we look at things as they are in them- selves, why should we hold that a plant is a higher form of existence than a stone, an ani- mal than a plant, a man than a mere brute? Only faith can supply an adequate answer: faith that mind is superior to matter, that it is more excellent to feel and think, to know and love than simply to exist: and this faith 10 GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. is ineradicably implanted in the human heart. We believe that life is the essential good, that the highest life is the highest form of being, and therefore that the Supreme Being, the primal and creative cause of all that exists, is perfect Life. Whatever within us is born of strength, whatever awakens a sense of power and vigor, gives pleasure, because we love life and all its potent manifestations. Hence it is delightful to perform deeds of prowess or to see them performed by others. Hence there is a thrill of joy in writing with point and force, in speaking with eloquence and effect, in control- ling and guiding the wills of men, in arousing their energies and impelling them to do more than they believed themselves capable of doing; in inspiring faith, hope, and courage; in en- kindling the flame of a pure and noble love. There is bliss in reading sublime words, in the exaltation of spirit caused by lofty and im- passioned utterances, by deeds of daring, by- imposing pageants, by storm and thunderpeal and the ceaseless roar of mighty cataracts; for all this arouses within us a deeper conscious- ness of the infinite power of life, of the life of Him who breathes in the soul of man and at- tunes it to harmony with the awful and un- GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. II imaginable forces which work in endless time and space, and fill the abysmal heavens with light and beauty. The intelligent even often express surprise that men of great wealth should not be content with what they have, but continue to accumu- late. Nothing is less surprising, for whatever man sets his heart on must increase or lose the power to please, whether it be money or knowl- edge or virtue or fame. To have or to have done can satisfy no one. To feel ourselves alive we must still acquire, still accomplish. Our passions, like our appetites, are never really sated, but only lulled into a repose which prepares them to crave for more. Since our yearning is infinite, let us yearn for the infinite good which is not material, but spiritual; not money and the things it buys, but truth and love, which are above all price. A chief virtue of vital books lies in their power to reveal us to ourselves, to show us that we possess potentialities of ability of which we were not conscious, and so to stimulate us to effort in the direction of our talents. For many a one the reading of such a book for the first time has been the beginning of a new life. Contact with sublime souls is what is most to be desired, above all for youth. It is capable 12 GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. of producing in them a higher quality of being, of making them something more and better than otherwise they could have become. The aim and end of education is to produce faculty and ability, and its one method is habit- uation. To be habituable is the first require- ment, the infallible proof of talent. What one can accustom himself to, he can learn to know and do. What is power of attention or obser- vation or reflection but a result of the habit of holding the mind to its objects? The multitude of those who pass through schools fail to be- come scholars because they fail to acquire the habit of study. He who is habitually attentive, inquiring, observant, eager to learn and to cor- rect his defects, whether of mind or character, whether of thought and speech or of conduct and deportment, necessarily becomes wiser and nobler, whatever difficulties and obstacles con- front him. He finds teachers in all that he meets, and in the face of poverty and opposi- tion works his way to a knowledge of men and books. If we have genuine powers they who throw doubts on our ability stimulate us even more effectually than the expectations and urgency of friends; for real strength, like heroic cour- age, loves the face of foes. GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. 13 Creative force secretes itself. It grows in solitude and hiding; craves silence and ob- scurity; wraps itself in mystery. Where it works the soul bows in awe and holy shame, and from those who live in the glare and noise of the clamorous world, its sacred power de- parts. There hangs about it the darkness that brooded on primal chaos, from which the Eter- nal called forth a universe of light and glory. It lies in the seed germinating under ground; it is enfolded in the love of virginal hearts; it moves in the meditations of sincere minds, who in self-forgetfulness and tranquillity bend all their strength to know truth, that they may follow where it leads. The negative exists for the positive. Rest is for the sake of action. If night buries us in darkness, it is that we may be all alive when day breaks. Silence and solitude are for re- freshment of spirit. Continence is for self- control and strength; humility for good sense; abstinence for health. Self-denial is for greater ability to help others, voluntary poverty is for their enrichment; obedience is for the sake of liberty and the common welfare. Life never seems so short to me as when I think of the books I know something of and should wish to study more and more. I would 14 GLIMPSES OF TRUTH. spend a winter with Plato, another with Dante, another with Shakespeare and Milton,