2. Knowledge is only then knowledge when it has been acquired by an effort of a man's own thinking rather than by memory alone.
Only when we have forgotten everything that has been tatight us do we begin to know truly. I shall not come a hair's breadth closer to the knowledge of things as long as I look upon them as I have been taught to do. In order to know an object I must approach it as something entirely mnknown to me. Thoreau.
3. We expect from a teacher that he first make his pupil a reasoning person, then a rational one and finally a learned one.
This method has the advantage that though the pupil may never attain the final stage, which is usually the case, he still may profit from instruction and will become more experienced and wiser—if not for the purposes of the school, then at least for those of life.
But if this method is inverted, then the pupils are apt to catch something of cleverness before their reasoning faculties have been developed and to take away from school a borrowed knowledge, like something that is glued to them but has not been assimilated by them, and their spiritual faculties remain sterile as before, but at the same time much vitiated by a spurious leamedness. Therein is the cause why we Irequently meet men of learning (or rather of instruction) who show so little reason, and why so many more blockheads come into the world out of coU^es than from any other social class. Kant.
4. Science is not in schools. In schools we find the finical ignorance of dunces. Science is in books and in the individual and independent labor of acquiring knowledge from books, but it is by no means in the schools, where since the days of the inventttm of the art of printing nothing has ever remained of science but a musty trace.
The character of school instruction is dry, mind-killing
302 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE
pedantry. This is inevitable. Who will not tire of saying the same thing over and over again for ten or twenty years? The instructor nearly always engages in his profession with loathing, and to relieve his tedium exchanges science for mere formalism. And in addition the stupid monotony of his trade makes of him a plain fool.
N. G. Tchemyshevsky.
5. In all classes we meet people of mental superiority though frequently not possessed of any learning. The natural mind may replace almost any degfree of learning, but no amount of learning may replace the natural mind, and though the latter as compared with the former has the advantage of a wealth of knowledge of cases and facts (historical information) and definition of causality (natural sciences)—^in methodical and easily surveyed arrangement, this does not yet give a more accurate or a deeper view of the real substance of all these facts, cases and causalities. The man without learning, by sagacity and quick judgment of all things, can easily do without these riches. One instance out of his own experience can teach him more than a thousand instances, which another may know without having fully grasped their significance, will teach a man of learning, and the knowledge of the untutored man is a living knowledge.
But on the contrary much that an ordinary man of learning knows is dead knowledge, which if it does not entirely consist of empty words, frequently consists of abstract ideas attaining significance only to the extent that the possessor thereof exhibits judgment and a lofty understanding of the questions under discussion. But if this understanding be scant, such discussion is bound to lead to bankruptcy, just as a bank that issues obligations exceeding tenfold its cash assets. Schopenhauer.
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CONTENTS VOL. II.
PAGE
Effort 9
Living in the Present 23
Doing Good and Kindness 37
On Refraining 53
The Spoken Word 65
Thought 77
Self-Renunciation 93
Humility 115
Truthfulness 129
The Ills of Life 147
Death 165
After Death 185
Life is Blessedness 203
Doing His Will 223
i
EFFORT
EFFORT
Sins, errors and superstitions obstruct a man's soul and hide it from himself. In order to reveal his soul to himself, man must make an effort of consciousness, and therefore in such efforts of consciousness is the principal task of a man's life.
I.
Deliverance From Sins, Errors and Superstition
is in Effort
1. Self-renunciation delivers men from sins, humility from errors, truthfulness from superstitions. But in order to renounce the passions of the body, to humble himself before the errors of pride, and in order to examine in the light of reason the superstitions which enmesh him, man must make efforts. Only by efforts of his consciousness can man be delivered from sins, errors and superstitions which deprive him of happiness.
2. The Kingdom of God is taken by effort. The Kingdom of Gk)d is within you (Luke, XVI, 16; XVII, 21). These two sayings of the Gospel signify that only by effort of the consciousness within himself can man overcome the sins, errors and superstitions which would retard the coming of the Kingdom of God.
3. Here on earth there can be, there must be, no rest, because life is progress towards a goal that cannot be reached. Rest is immoral. I cannot say what this goal is. But whatever it be, we are moving toward it. Without this progress life would be folly and delusion. And we move toward this goal only by our own efforts.
4. To become ever better herein is the whole concern of life, and one can become better only by effort.
We all know that we cannot achieve anything in the material world without effort. We must realize that likewise in the life of the soul—which is the paramount concern of life—nothing can be achieved without effort.
5. True strength is not in being able to tie a steel rod into a knot, nor in possessing boundless wealth, nor yet in ruling over millions of people—true strei^h is in having mastery over self,
6. Never think of a good deed: "it is not worth the trouble, it is so difficult that I shall be unable to accomplish it," nor "it is so easy, I can do it any time at my pleasure." Neither think nor speak in this manner: every effort, though its purpose be unattainable, though its purpose be ever so unimportant, every effort, we repeat, strengthens the soul.
7. Some think that in order to be a Christian we must perform peculiar and extraordinary deeds. This is not so. No such peculiar and extraordinary deeds are required of a Christian, but a constant effort of consciousness to rid the soul of sins, errors and superstitions.
8. Our evil deeds, the sources of our misfortunes, are easy to perform. But what is good and beneficial to us requires an effort. Buddhist wisdom,
9. If a man makes it his rule to do only what he pleases, he will not be pleased for long with what he is doing. Real tasks are those which require an effort to be accomplished.
10. The path to good knowledge never leads over velvety lawns strewn with blossoms: man must always make his way towards it over bare rocks. Rusktn.
11. The search for truth is not entered upon in a merry mood, but always with agitation and emotion; and still this search must go on, for if you do not find truth and learn to love it, you must perish. But, you might say, if truth cared to be found and loved by me, it would manifest itself to me. Truth does manifest itself to you, but you fail to see it. Seek it, truth wills it so. Pascal,
II.
It Requires Effort to Live for the Soul
1. I am an instrument with* which God performs His work. My true happiness is to share in this work. I can share in this woric only by those efforts of my consciousness which I make so as to keep in good order, clean, sharp and accurate the divine tool that has been intrusted to me— myself, my soul.