Practical Ethics Part 3

+Woman's sphere is chiefly in the home and the social circle.+--Provided she is able to earn her living whenever it becomes necessary, and in case her parents are able and willing to support her, a young woman is justified in remaining in the home until her marriage. Her a.s.sistance to her mother in the domestic and social duties of the home, and her preparation for similar duties in her own future home, is often the most valuable service she can render during the years between school and marriage. In order, however, for such a life to be morally justified she must realize that it is her duty to do all in her power to help her mother; to make home more pleasant; and to take part in those forms of social and philanthropic work which only those who have leisure can undertake.

The son or daughter who is to inherit wealth, should be trained in some line of political, scientific, artistic, charitable, or philanthropic work, whereby he may use his wealth and leisure in the service of the public, and justify his existence by rendering to society some equivalent for that security and enjoyment of wealth which society permits him to possess without the trouble of earning it.

All honest work, manual, mental, social, domestic, political and philanthropic, scientific and literary, is honorable. Any form of life without hard work of either hand or brain is shameful and disgraceful.

The idler is of necessity a debtor to society; though there are forms of idleness to which, for reasons of its own, society never presents its bill.

THE VIRTUE.

+Industry conquers the world.+--Industry is a virtue, because it a.s.serts this fundamental interest of self-support in opposition to the solicitations of idleness and ease. Industry masters the world, and makes it man's servant and slave. The industrious man too is master of his own feelings; and compels the weaker and baser impulses of his nature to stand back and give the higher interests room. The industrious man will do thorough work, and produce a good article, cost what it may.

He will not suffer his arm to rest until it has done his bidding; nor will he let nature go until her resources and forces have been made to serve his purpose. This mastery over ourselves and over nature is the mark of virtue and manliness always and everywhere.

THE REWARD.

+Industry works; and the fruit of work is wealth.+--The industrious man may or may not have great riches. That depends on his talents, opportunities, and character. Great riches are neither to be sought nor shunned. With them or without them the highest life is possible; and on the whole it is easier without than with great riches. A moderate amount of wealth, however, is essential to the fullest development of one's powers and the freest enjoyment of life. Of such a moderate competence the industrious man is a.s.sured.

THE TEMPTATION.

+Soft places and easy kinds of work to be avoided.+--Work costs pain and effort. Men naturally love ease. Hence arises the temptation to put ease above self-support. This temptation in its extreme form, if yielded to, makes a man a beggar and a tramp. More frequently the temptation is to take an easy kind of work, rather than harder work; or to do our work shiftlessly rather than thoroughly.

Young men are tempted to take clerkships where they can dress well and do light work, instead of learning a trade which requires a long apprenticeship, and calls for rough, hard work. The result is that the clerk remains a clerk all his life on low wages, and open to the compet.i.tion of everybody who can read and write and cipher. While the man who has taken time to learn a trade, and has taken off his coat and accustomed himself to good hard work, has an a.s.sured livelihood; and only the few who have taken the same time to learn the trade, and are as little afraid of hard work as himself, can compete with him. This temptation to seek a "soft berth," where the only work required is sitting in an office, or talking, or writing, or riding around, is the form of sloth which is taking the strength and independence and manliness out of young men to-day faster than anything else. It is only one degree above the loafer and the tramp. The young man who starts in life by seeking an easy place will never be a success either in business or in character.

THE VICE OF DEFECT.

+The slavery of laziness.+--Laziness is a vice because it sacrifices the permanent interest of self-support to the temporary inclination to indolence and ease. The lazy man is the slave of his own feelings. His body is his master; not his servant. He is the slave of circ.u.mstances.

What he does depends not on what he knows it is best to do, but on how he happens to feel. If the work is hard; if it is cold or rainy; if something breaks; or things do not go to suit him, he gives up and leaves the work undone. He is always waiting for something to turn up; and since nothing turns up for our benefit except what we turn up ourselves, he never finds the opportunity that suits him; he fails in whatever he undertakes: and accomplishes nothing. Laziness is weakness, submission, defeat, slavery to feeling and circ.u.mstance; and these are the universal characteristics of vice.

THE VICE OF EXCESS.

+The folly of overwork.+--Work has for its end self-support. Work wisely directed makes leisure possible. Overwork is work for its own sake; work for false and unreal ends; work that exhausts the physical powers.

Overwork makes a man a slave to his work, as laziness makes him a slave to his ease. The man who makes haste to be rich; who works from morning until night "on the clean jump"; who drives his business with the fierce determination to get ahead of his compet.i.tors at all hazards, misses the quiet joys of life to which the wealth he pursues in such hot haste is merely the means, breaks down in early or middle life, and destroys the physical basis on which both work and enjoyment depend. To undertake more than we can do without excessive wear and tear and without permanent injury to health and strength is wrong. Laziness is the more ign.o.ble vice; but the folly of overwork is equally apparent, and its results are equally disastrous. Laziness is a rot that consumes the base elements of society. Overwork is a tempest that strikes down the bravest and best. That work alone is wrought in virtue which keeps the powers up to their normal and healthful activity, and is subordinated to the end of self-support and harmonious self-development. The ideal att.i.tude toward work is beautifully presented in Matthew Arnold's sonnet on "Quiet Work":

One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown; One lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity--

Of toil unsevered from tranquillity; Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplished in repose, Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.

THE PENALTY.

+Laziness leads to poverty.+--The lazy man does nothing to produce wealth. The only way in which he can get it is by inheritance, or by gift, or by theft. Money received by inheritance does not last long. The man who is too lazy to earn money, is generally too weak to use it wisely; and it soon slips through his fingers. When a man's laziness is once found out people refuse to give to him. And the thief cannot steal many times without being caught. Industry is the only sure and permanent t.i.tle to wealth; and where industry is wanting, there, soon or late, poverty must come.

CHAPTER V.

Property.

The products of labor, saved up and appropriated to our use, const.i.tute property. Without property life cannot rise above the hand-to-mouth existence of the savage. It is as important to save and care for property after we have earned it, as it is to earn it in the first place. Property does not stay with us unless we watch it sharply. Left to itself it takes wings and flies away. Unused land is overgrown by weeds; unoccupied houses crumble and decay; food left exposed sours and molds; unused tools rust; and machinery left to stand idle gets out of order. Everything goes to rack and ruin, unless we take constant care.

Hence the preservation of property is one of the fundamental concerns of life and conduct.

THE DUTY.

+Provision for family and for old age.+--Childhood and old age ought to be free from the necessity of earning a living. Childhood should be devoted to growth and education; old age to enjoyment and repose. In order to secure this provision for old age, for the proper training of children and against sickness and accident, it is a duty to save a portion of one's earnings during the early years of active life. The man who at this period is not doing more than to support himself and family, is not providing for their permanent support at all. They are feasting to-day with the risk of starvation to-morrow.

In primitive conditions of society this provision for the future consisted in the common ownership by family or clan of flocks and herds or lands, whereby the necessities of life were insured to each member of the clan or family from birth to death.

THE VIRTUE.

+The importance of systematic saving.+--In the more complex civilization of to-day, property a.s.sumes ten thousand different forms; is held mostly by individuals; and has for its universal symbol, money. Hence the practical duty is to lay aside a certain sum of money out of our regular earnings each month or week during the entire period of our working life, or from sixteen to sixty. Persons who acquire a liberal education, or learn a difficult trade or profession, will not be able to begin to save until they are twenty or twenty-five. Whenever earning begins, saving should begin. If earnings are small, savings must be small too.

He who postpones saving until earnings are large and saving is easy, will postpone saving altogether. The habit of saving like all habits must be formed early and by conscious and painful effort, or it will not be formed at all. Saving is as much a duty as earning; and the two should begin together. Earning provides for the wants of the individual and the hour. It requires both earning and saving to provide for the needs of a life-time and the welfare of a family. Savings-banks and building and loan a.s.sociations afford the best opportunities for small savings at regular intervals; and no man has any right to marry until he has a savings-bank account, or shares in a building and loan a.s.sociation, or an equally regular and secure method of systematic saving. In early life, before savings have become sufficient to provide for his family in case of death, it is also a duty to combine saving with life-insurance. Both in investment of savings and in life-insurance, one should make sure that the inst.i.tution or organization to which he intrusts his money is on a sound business basis. All speculative schemes should be strictly avoided. Any company or form of investment that offers to give back more than you put into it, plus a fair rate of interest on the money, is not a fit place for a man to trust the savings on which the future of himself and his family depends. Security, absolute security, not profits and dividends, is what one should demand of the inst.i.tution to which he trusts his savings.

Economy eats the apple to the core; wears clothes until they are threadbare; makes things over; gets the entire utility out of a thing; throws nothing away that can be used again; gets its money's worth for every cent expended; buys nothing for which it cannot pay cash down and leave something besides for saving. It is a manly quality, or virtue, because it masters things, keeps them under our control, compels them to render all the service there is in them, and insures our lasting independence.

THE REWARD.

+The savings of early and middle life support old age in honorable rest, and give to children a fair start in life.+--All men are liable to misfortune and accident. The improvident man is crushed by them; for they find him without reserved force to meet them.

The economical man has in his savings a balance wheel whose momentum carries him by hard places. His position is independent and his prosperity is permanent. For it depends not on the fortunes of the day, which are uncertain and variable; but on the fixed habits and principles of a life-time, which are changeless and reliable.

THE TEMPTATION.

+Living beyond one's income: running in debt.+--Income is limited; while the things we would like to have are infinite. We must draw the line somewhere. Duty says, draw it well inside of income. Temptation says, draw it at income, or a trifle outside of income. Yield to this temptation, and our earnings are gone before we know it, and debt stares us in the face. Debts are easy to contract, but hard to pay. The debt must be paid sometime with acc.u.mulated interest. And when the day of reckoning comes it invariably costs more inconvenience and trouble to pay it than it would have cost to have gone without the thing for the sake of which we ran in debt.

Never, on any account, get in debt. Never spend your whole income. These are rules we are constantly tempted to break. But the man who yields to this temptation is on the high road to financial ruin.

THE VICE OF DEFECT.

+Wastefulness.+--The wasteful man buys things he does not need; spends his money as fast as he can get it; lives beyond his means; throws things away which are capable of further service; runs in debt; and is forever behindhand. He lives from hand to mouth; is dependent upon his neighbors for things which with a little economy he might own himself; makes no provision for the future, and when sickness or old age comes upon him, he is without resources.

THE VICE OF EXCESS.

+Miserliness.+--Economy saves for the sake of future expenditure.

Miserliness saves for the sake of saving. The spendthrift sacrifices the future to present enjoyment. The miser sacrifices present enjoyment to an imaginary future which never comes; and so misses enjoyment altogether. The prudent man harmonizes present with future enjoyment, and so lives a life of constant enjoyment. The spendthrift spends recklessly, regardless of consequences. The miser h.o.a.rds anxiously, despising the present. The man of prudence and economy spends liberally for present needs, and saves only as a means to more judicious and lasting expenditure. The miser is as much the slave of his money as is the spendthrift the slave of his indulgences. Economy escapes both forms of slavery and maintains its freedom by making both spending and saving tributary to the true interests of the self.

THE PENALTY.