第13章 Lay Morals(13)

Now,a man's view of the universe is mostly a view of the civilised society in which he lives.Other men and women are so much more grossly and so much more intimately palpable to his perceptions,that they stand between him and all the rest;they are larger to his eye than the sun,he hears them more plainly than thunder,with them,by them,and for them,he must live and die.And hence the laws that affect his intercourse with his fellow-men,although merely customary and the creatures of a generation,are more clearly and continually before his mind than those which bind him into the eternal system of things,support him in his upright progress on this whirling ball,or keep up the fire of his bodily life.And hence it is that money stands in the first rank of considerations and so powerfully affects the choice.

For our society is built with money for mortar;money is present in every joint of circumstance;it might be named the social atmosphere,since,in society,it is by that alone that men continue to live,and only through that or chance that they can reach or affect one another.Money gives us food,shelter,and privacy;it permits us to be clean in person,opens for us the doors of the theatre,gains us books for study or pleasure,enables us to help the distresses of others,and puts us above necessity so that we can choose the best in life.If we love,it enables us to meet and live with the loved one,or even to prolong her health and life;if we have scruples,it gives us an opportunity to be honest;if we have any bright designs,here is what will smooth the way to their accomplishment.Penury is the worst slavery,and will soon lead to death.

But money is only a means;it presupposes a man to use it.

The rich can go where he pleases,but perhaps please himself nowhere.He can buy a library or visit the whole world,but perhaps has neither patience to read nor intelligence to see.

The table may be loaded and the appetite wanting;the purse may be full,and the heart empty.He may have gained the world and lost himself;and with all his wealth around him,in a great house and spacious and beautiful demesne,he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher.Without an appetite,without an aspiration,void of appreciation,bankrupt of desire and hope,there,in his great house,let him sit and look upon his fingers.It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.Although neither is to be despised,it is always better policy to learn an interest than to make a thousand pounds;for the money will soon be spent,or perhaps you may feel no joy in spending it;but the interest remains imperishable and ever new.To become a botanist,a geologist,a social philosopher,an antiquary,or an artist,is to enlarge one's possessions in the universe by an incalculably higher degree,and by a far surer sort of property,than to purchase a farm of many acres.You had perhaps two thousand a year before the transaction;perhaps you have two thousand five hundred after it.That represents your gain in the one case.But in the other,you have thrown down a barrier which concealed significance and beauty.The blind man has learned to see.The prisoner has opened up a window in his cell and beholds enchanting prospects;he will never again be a prisoner as he was;he can watch clouds and changing seasons,ships on the river,travellers on the road,and the stars at night;happy prisoner!his eyes have broken jail!And again he who has learned to love an art or science has wisely laid up riches against the day of riches;if prosperity come,he will not enter poor into his inheritance;he will not slumber and forget himself in the lap of money,or spend his hours in counting idle treasures,but be up and briskly doing;he will have the true alchemic touch,which is not that of Midas,but which transmutes dead money into living delight and satisfaction.ETRE ET PAS AVOIR -to be,not to possess -that is the problem of life.To be wealthy,a rich nature is the first requisite and money but the second.To be of a quick and healthy blood,to share in all honourable curiosities,to be rich in admiration and free from envy,to rejoice greatly in the good of others,to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness -these are the gifts of fortune which money cannot buy and without which money can buy nothing.For what can a man possess,or what can he enjoy,except himself?If he enlarge his nature,it is then that he enlarges his estates.If his nature be happy and valiant,he will enjoy the universe as if it were his park and orchard.

But money is not only to be spent;it has also to be earned.

It is not merely a convenience or a necessary in social life;but it is the coin in which mankind pays his wages to the individual man.And from this side,the question of money has a very different scope and application.For no man can be honest who does not work.Service for service.If the farmer buys corn,and the labourer ploughs and reaps,and the baker sweats in his hot bakery,plainly you who eat must do something in your turn.It is not enough to take off your hat,or to thank God upon your knees for the admirable constitution of society and your own convenient situation in its upper and more ornamental stories.Neither is it enough to buy the loaf with a sixpence;for then you are only changing the point of the inquiry;and you must first have BOUGHT THE SIXPENCE.Service for service:how have you bought your sixpences?A man of spirit desires certainty in a thing of such a nature;he must see to it that there is some reciprocity between him and mankind;that he pays his expenditure in service;that he has not a lion's share in profit and a drone's in labour;and is not a sleeping partner and mere costly incubus on the great mercantile concern of mankind.