When a Man Comes to Himself by Woodrow Wilson (websites to read books for free .TXT) 📕

fall into new environments, a better and truer perspective; seem no

longer so susceptible to separate and radical change. The real

nature of the complex stuff of life they were seeking to work in is

revealed to them—its intricate and delicate fiber, and the subtle,

secret interrelationship of its parts—and they work circumspectly,

lest they should mar more than they mend. Moral enthusiasm is not,

uninstructed and of itself, a suitable guide to practicable and

lasting reformation; and if the reform sought be the reformation of

others as well as of himself, the reformer should look to it that he

knows the true relation of his will to the wills of those he would

change and guide. When he has discovered that relation, he has come

to himself: has discovered his real use and planning part in the

general world of men; has come to the full command and satisfying

employment of his faculties. Otherwise he is doomed to live for

ever in a fool’s paradise, and can be said to have come to himself

only on the supposition that he is a fool.

VI

Every man—if I may adopt and paraphrase a passage from Dr. South—

every man hath both an absolute and a relative capacity: an absolute

in that he hath been endued with such a nature and such parts and

faculties; and a relative in that he is part of the universal

community of men, and so stands in such a relation to the whole.

When we say that a man has come to himself, it is not of his

absolute capacity that we are thinking, but of his relative. He has

begun to realize that he is part of a whole, and to know what part,

suitable for what service and achievement.

It was once fashionable—and that not a very long time ago—to speak of

political society with a certain distaste, as a necessary evil, an

irritating but inevitable restriction upon the “natural” sovereignty and

entire self-government of the individual. That was the dream of the

egotist. It was a theory in which men were seen to strut in the proud

consciousness of their several and “absolute” capacities. It would be as

instructive as it would be difficult to count the errors it has bred in

political thinking. As a matter of fact, men have never dreamed of

wishing to do without the “trammels” of organized society, for the very

good reason that those trammels are in reality but no trammels at all,

but indispensable aids and spurs to the attainment of the highest and

most enjoyable things man is capable of. Political society, the life of

men in states, is an abiding natural relationship. It is neither a mere

convenience nor a mere necessity. It is not a mere voluntary

association, not a mere corporation. It is nothing deliberate or

artificial, devised for a special purpose. It is in real truth the

eternal and natural expression and embodiment of a form of life higher

than that of the individual—that common life of mutual helpfulness,

stimulation, and contest which gives leave and opportunity to the

individual life, makes it possible, makes it full and complete.

It is in such a scene that man looks about to discover his own place and

force. In the midst of men organized, infinitely cross-related, bound by

ties of interest, hope, affection, subject to authorities, to opinion,

to passion, to visions and desires which no man can reckon, he casts

eagerly about to find where he may enter in with the rest and be a man

among his fellows. In making his place he finds, if he seek

intelligently and with eyes that see, more than ease of spirit and scope

for his mind. He finds himself—as if mists had cleared away about him

and he knew at last his neighborhood among men and tasks.

What every man seeks is satisfaction. He deceives himself so long

as he imagines it to lie in self-indulgence, so long as he deems

himself the center and object of effort. His mind is spent in vain

upon itself. Not in action itself, not in “pleasure,” shall it find

its desires satisfied, but in consciousness of right, of powers

greatly and nobly spent. It comes to know itself in the motives

which satisfy it, in the zest and power of rectitude. Christianity

has liberated the world, not as a system of ethics, not as a

philosophy of altruism, but by its revelation of the power of pure

and unselfish love. Its vital principle is not its code, but its

motive. Love, clear-sighted, loyal, personal, is its breath and

immortality. Christ came, not to save Himself, assuredly, but to

save the world. His motive, His example, are every man’s key to his

own gifts and happiness. The ethical code he taught may no doubt be

matched, here a piece and there a piece, out of other religions,

other teachings and philosophies. Every thoughtful man born with a

conscience must know a code of right and of pity to which he ought

to conform; but without the motive of Christianity, without love, he

may be the purest altruist and yet be as sad and as unsatisfied as

Marcus Aurelius.

Christianity gave us, in the fullness of time, the perfect image of

right living, the secret of social and of individual well-being; for

the two are not separable, and the man who receives and verifies

that secret in his own living has discovered not only the best and

only way to serve the world, but also the one happy way to satisfy

himself. Then, indeed, has he come to himself. Henceforth he knows

what his powers mean, what spiritual air they breathe, what ardors

of service clear them of lethargy, relieve them of all sense of

effort, put them at their best. After this fretfulness passes away,

experience mellows and strengthens and makes more fit, and old age

brings, not senility, not satiety, not regret, but higher hope and

serene maturity.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg’s When a Man Comes to Himself, by Woodrow Wilson

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN A MAN COMES TO HIMSELF ***

This file should be named mnhsl10.txt or mnhsl10.zip

Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mnhsl11.txt

VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mnhsl10a.txt

This etext was produced by Jennifer Godwin, <http://www.jengod.com/>

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed

editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US

unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not

keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance

of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.

Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,

even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til

midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.

The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at

Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A

preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment

and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:

http://gutenberg.net or

http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project

Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new

eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).

Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement

can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is

also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the

indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an

announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or

ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03

Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,

as it appears in our Newsletters.

Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The

time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours

to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright

searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our

projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value

per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2

million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text

files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+

We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002

If they reach just 1-2% of the world’s population then the total

will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year’s end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!

This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,

which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

1 1971 July

10 1991 January

100 1994 January

1000 1997 August

1500 1998 October

2000 1999 December

2500 2000 December

3000 2001 November

4000 2001 October/November

6000 2002 December*

9000 2003 November*

10000 2004 January*

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created

to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people

and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,

Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,

Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,

Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New

Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,

Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South

Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West

Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones

that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list

will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.

Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally

request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and

you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,

just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are

not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting

donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to

donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don’t know ANYTHING about

how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made

deductible, and don’t have the staff to handle it even if there are

ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

PMB 113

1739 University Ave.

Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment

method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by

the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN

[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are

tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising

requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be

made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up