A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and CharacterHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and Character
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Character; Self-culture
Nor is there any science or any productive industry whatsoever that is
at all comparable to the science of just, smooth and kindly living.
For the business of life is not the use and control of winds and
rivers; it is not the acquisition of skill in calling out the secret
energies contained in the soil or concealed in the sky. The business
of life is the mastery of the art of living smoothly and justly with
one's fellows and the acquisition of skill in calling out the best
qualities of those about us. Indeed, the home and the market do but
furnish practice-ground for developing expertness in carrying one's
faculties. Sir Arthur Helps first coined the expression, "the art of
right living," and society can never be sufficiently grateful to this
distinguished scholar for reminding us that when every other art has
been secured, every other science achieved, there still remains for
mastery the finest of all the fine arts, the science of a right
carriage of one's faculties midst all the duties and relations of home
and school, of store and street.
Searching out for some reason why scientists have discussed
friendship, reform, or patriotism, but have passed by the science of
right living, we shall find the adequate explanation in the fact that
this is the largest subject that can possibly be handled. It concerns
the right carriage of the whole man, the handling of the body, and the
maintenance of perfect health; the control of the temperament, with
its special talent or weakness; the use of reason, its development
and culture; the control of judgment, with the correction of its
aberrations; it involves such a mastery of the emotions as men have
over winds and rivers; it concerns conscience and conversation,
friendship and commerce, and all the elements affectional and social,
civic and moral.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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