Self Help by Samuel Smiles (desktop ebook reader txt) 📖

CHAPTER I—SELF-HELP—NATIONAL AND INDIVIDUAL

“The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the

individuals composing it.”—J. S. Mill.

 

“We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men.”—B.

Disraeli.

 

“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim,

embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience.

The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the

individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the

true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is

often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably

invigorates. Whatever is done FOR men or classes, to a certain

extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for

themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively

helpless.

 

Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps

the most they can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and

improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been

prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be

secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct.

Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has

usually been much over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part

of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or

five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can

exercise but little active influence upon any man’s life and

character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly

understood, that the function of Government is negative and

restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable

principally into protection—protection of life, liberty, and

property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the

enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body,

at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however

stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident,

or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means

of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits,

rather than by greater rights.

 

The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the

reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is

ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level,

as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be

dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a

nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and

government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be

nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all

experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State

depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the

character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of

individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of

the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom

society is composed.

 

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and

uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness,

selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great

social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the

outgrowth of man’s own perverted life; and though we may endeavour

to cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only

spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless

the conditions of personal life and character are radically

improved. If this view be correct, then it follows that the

highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in

altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and

stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free

and independent individual action.

 

It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed

from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself

from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a

despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his

own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. Nations who are thus

enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters or

of institutions; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that

liberty solely depends upon and consists in government, so long

will such changes, no matter at what cost they may be effected,

have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting of the

figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid foundations of liberty must

rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure

guarantee for social security and national progress. John Stuart

Mill truly observes that “even despotism does not produce its worst

effects so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever

crushes individuality IS despotism, by whatever name it be called.”

 

Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning up. Some

call for Caesars, others for Nationalities, and others for Acts of

Parliament. We are to wait for Caesars, and when they are found,

“happy the people who recognise and follow them.” {1} This

doctrine shortly means, everything FOR the people, nothing BY

them,—a doctrine which, if taken as a guide, must, by destroying

the free conscience of a community, speedily prepare the way for

any form of despotism. Caesarism is human idolatry in its worst

form—a worship of mere power, as degrading in its effects as the

worship of mere wealth would be. A far healthier doctrine to

inculcate among the nations would be that of Self-Help; and so soon

as it is thoroughly understood and carried into action, Caesarism

will be no more. The two principles are directly antagonistic; and

what Victor Hugo said of the Pen and the Sword alike applies to

them, “Ceci tuera cela.” [This will kill that.]

 

The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parliament is also a

prevalent superstition. What William Dargan, one of Ireland’s

truest patriots, said at the closing of the first Dublin Industrial

Exhibition, may well be quoted now. “To tell the truth,” he said,

“I never heard the word independence mentioned that my own country

and my own fellow townsmen did not occur to my mind. I have heard

a great deal about the independence that we were to get from this,

that, and the other place, and of the great expectations we were to

have from persons from other countries coming amongst us. Whilst I

value as much as any man the great advantages that must result to

us from that intercourse, I have always been deeply impressed with

the feeling that our industrial independence is dependent upon

ourselves. I believe that with simple industry and careful

exactness in the utilization of our energies, we never had a fairer

chance nor a brighter prospect than the present. We have made a

step, but perseverance is the great agent of success; and if we but

go on zealously, I believe in my conscience that in a short period

we shall arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal happiness,

and of equal independence, with that of any other people.”

 

All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the

working of many generations of men. Patient and persevering

labourers in all ranks and conditions of life, cultivators of the

soil and explorers of the mine, inventors and discoverers,

manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets, philosophers, and

politicians, all have contributed towards the grand result, one

generation building upon another’s labours, and carrying them

forward to still higher stages. This constant succession of noble

workers—the artisans of civilisation—has served to create order

out of chaos in industry, science, and art; and the living race has

thus, in the course of nature, become the inheritor of the rich

estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which

is placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only

unimpaired but improved, to our successors.

 

The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of

individuals, has in all times been a marked feature in the English

character, and furnishes the true measure of our power as a nation.

Rising above the heads of the mass, there were always to be found a

series of individuals distinguished beyond others, who commanded

the public homage. But our progress has also been owing to

multitudes of smaller and less known men. Though only the

generals’ names may be remembered in the history of any great

campaign, it has been in a great measure through the individual

valour and heroism of the privates that victories have been won.

And life, too, is “a soldiers’ battle,”—men in the ranks having in

all times been amongst the greatest of workers. Many are the lives

of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced

civilisation and progress as the more fortunate Great whose names

are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person, who sets

before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright

honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future

influence upon the well-being of his country; for his life and

character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and

propagate good example for all time to come.

 

Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which

produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of

others, and really constitutes the best practical education.

Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the merest beginnings of

culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life-education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind

counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is

that finishing instruction as members of society, which Schiller

designated “the education of the human race,” consisting in action,

conduct, self-culture, self-control,—all that tends to discipline

a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties

and business of life,—a kind of education not to be learnt from

books, or