Progress and Achievements of the Colored People: Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Progress and Achievements of the Colored People: Containing the Story of the Wonderful Advancement of the Colored Americans—the Most Marvelous in the History of Nations—Their Past Accomplishments, Together With Their Present-day Opportunities and a Glimpse Into the Future for Further Developments—the Dawn of a Triumphant Era. A Handbook for Self-improvement Which Leads to Greater Success
John Stuart Mill · en
At the same time, life will always be to a large extent what we make it.
Each mind makes its own little world. The cheerful mind makes it
pleasant, the discontented mind makes it miserable. “My mind to me a
kingdom is,” applies alike to the peasant and the monarch. Life is, for
the most part, but the mirror of our own individual selves.
PRINCIPLE AND CONSCIENCE
The true character acts rightly, whether in secret or in the sight of
others. That boy was well trained who, when asked why he did not pocket
some pears, for nobody was there to see, replied: “Yes, there was; I was
there to see myself; and I don’t intend ever to see myself do a
dishonest thing.” This is a simple but not inappropriate illustration of
principle, or conscience, dominating in the character, and exercising a
noble protectorate over it; not merely a passive influence, but an
active power regulating life.
Such a principle goes on molding the character hourly and daily, growing
with a force that operates every moment. Without this dominating
influence, character has no protection, but is constantly liable to fall
away before temptation; and every such temptation succumbed to, every
act of meanness or dishonesty, however slight, causes self-degradation.
It matters not whether the act be successful or not, discovered or
concealed; the culprit is no longer the same, but another person; and he
is pursued by a secret uneasiness, by self-reproach, or the workings of
what we call conscience, which is the inevitable doom of the guilty.
WILL DISTINGUISHED FROM CONSCIENCE
We have within us that controlling element or power known as the will
which should be distinguished from mere impulse, and which gives us the
ability of passing upon and determining suggestions made to our mind and
of allowing or disapproving the thought or possible impulse which gives
them use. Will is distinguished from conscience in that it marks the
determination and lends the force which makes conscience potent, drawing
us nearer to the perfection which self-denial and self-control create
and, let us hope, to the end—
“That God which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves.”
“The great end of training,” says a great writer, “is liberty; and the
sooner you can get a child to be a law unto himself, the sooner you will
make a man of him. I will respect human liberty in the smallest child
even more scrupulously than in a grown man; for the latter can defend it
against me, while the child cannot. Never will I insult the child so far
as to regard him as material to be cast into a mold, to emerge with the
stamp given by my will.”
DUTY BEGINS IN THE HOME