Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus FearthoughtFletcher, Horace
Philosophy
Happiness as Found in Forethought Minus Fearthought
Fletcher, Horace
Fear; Happiness
God-love does not discriminate. It is, therefore, ungodly to
discriminate. In the performance of the Man-Nature partnership-function
of "divine selection" in the harmonizing of things that are
antagonistic to each other and to Man--selecting for survival those
things that are not deterrent to the harmonious growth and happiness
of Man--if selection is to be made, it should be done in the spirit of
calm justice, and not in the spirit of hate, for, as love blesses the
lover, so does hate react upon the hater.
We cannot afford _not to love_.
There are animals and insects that seem to us to be undesirable and
prejudicial to the harmony we are seeking to secure, that may serve
most excellent purposes in relation to existing conditions. They are
frequently a warning against unfavorable conditions, in the same way
that pain is a warning against diseased conditions in the body. In the
same way, crime is a warning against social or political conditions
which invite or compel crime, and remedy should be sought in change of
the conditions in preference to the punishment of the crime. I believe
that a change of our point-of-view--our attitude towards causes and
effects--would find punishment generally unnecessary, and, as such,
brutal.
There is, then, a double reason why we should hate nothing. In the
first place, it is probable that we are hating the wrong thing, and
thereby are unjust, and we are certainly doing injury to ourselves by
nursing the feeling of hatred.
Disapproval--calm disapproval--is a better judge in the exercise of
"divine selection" than angry antagonism. Pity, as well as love, is a
divine attribute, but hate is an attribute of the devil. Pity suggests
change of conditions producing inharmonious results. Hate suggests
punishment of the victim of the inharmony.
In its relation to personal comfort, the practice of not permitting
hate, nor annoyance, nor irritation, nor repulsion to possess one's
feelings, will bring greatest good results. Take the mosquito pest, for
instance: One who begins to feel irritation at the sound made by the
wings of the insect, is already creating within himself a condition
favorable to inflammation from the effects of the bite. Many who
suffer by mosquitos admit that the buzz is worse, to them, than the
bite, which is proof of a purely mental and unnecessary affliction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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