The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and ServiceHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
The Investment of Influence: A Study of Social Sympathy and Service
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Conduct of life
Great men capitalize the impotency of unsupported intellect.
Ten-talent men have often known more than they would do. The children
of genius have not always lived up to their moral light. Burns' mind
ran swiftly forward, but his will followed afar off. If the poet's
forehead was in the clouds, his feet were in the mire. How noble,
also, Byron's thoughts, but how mean his life! Goethe uttered the
wisdom of a sage, as did Rousseau, yet their deeds were often those we
would expect from a slave with a low brow. Even of Shakespeare, it is
said in the morning he polished his sonnets, while at midnight he
poached game from a neighboring estate. Our era bestows unstinted
admiration upon the essays of Lord Bacon. How noble his aphorisms!
How petty his envy and avarice! What scholarship was his, and what
cunning also! With what splendor of argument does he plead for the
advancement of learning and liberty! With what meanness does he take
bribes from the rich against the poor! His mind seems like a palace of
marble with splendid galleries and library and banqueting hall, yet in
this palace the spider spins its web and vermin make the foundations to
be a noisome place.
In all ages also the intellect of the common people has discerned truth
and light that the will has refused to fulfill. Generations ago
society discovered the doctrine of industry and integrity, and yet
thousands of individuals still prefer to steal or beg or starve rather
than work. For centuries the work of moralists and public instructors
has not been so much the making known new truth as the inspiring men to
do a truth already known. As of old, so now, the word is nigh man,
even in his mouth, for enabling society to lift every social burden,
right every social wrong, turn each rookery into a house, make each
place wealth, make every home happiness, make every child a scholar, a
patriot and a Christian. In Solomon's day wisdom stood in the corner
of the streets but man would not regard, and the city perished. Should
the heart now join the intellect, man's feet would swiftly find these
paths that lead to prosperity and perfect peace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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