The Essentials of Spirituality by Felix Adler (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

the idea of mercifulness, that I doubt not there are many persons who have the impression that Samaritans in the ancient Hebrew days were people specially noted for their benevolent disposition. Nothing of the kind, of course, is true. The Samaritans were a despised lower stratum of the population of Palestine. Read the parable in this light, and you will perceive that the moral of it is not as commonly stated—every one who has need of me is my neighbor; but that there is a far deeper meaning in it.

There came to Jesus one day a man versed in the sacred law, and asked him what he must do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus replied: The substance of right conduct is plain enough. Why do you ask as if it were a thing very recondite and difficult? Love thy God and thy neighbor. But the doctor of the sacred law, wishing to justify himself (wishing to show that the way of the upright life is not so plain, that it may be difficult to decide whom one should regard as one's equal, to whom one should ascribe worth), asked: Who is my neighbor? And Jesus replied in the words of the well-known parable concerning a certain man who had fallen among thieves, and these stripped him of his raiment and left him for dead on the public road that runs between Jerusalem and Jericho. Presently a member of the high aristocracy, a priest, passed by, but paid no attention to the sufferer; then another, a Levite, came that way, looked at the man who was lying there helpless, and turned and went on his journey. Then there came one of those low-caste despised Samaritans; and he acted like a tender human brother, bound up the man's wounds, poured oil and wine into them, etc. And Jesus said: Which one of these three showed himself to be a neighbor to the man that had fallen among thieves? In which of the social classes did there appear to be the truest understanding of the conduct which moral duty requires of us toward our fellow-men—in the upper classes or in the lowest? And the answer evidently is—in the lowest. The point of the parable is that the Samaritan himself, whom priest and Levite and doctor of the law refused to regard as a neighbor, was worthy to be treated as a neighbor, because he understood, as they did not, how to treat others as neighbors. The lesson of the parable is a twofold one: not only that the wounded man lying untended on the road was a neighbor because of his need, but more especially that the Samaritan was a neighbor because he responded to the need, and set an example of truly human behavior to those who had doubted whether, because of his extreme social degradation, he was himself to be regarded as human.

The moral qualities in men, then, constitute their most universal title to respect, and these qualities we find in all social grades and among all races and nationalities. We find them among the Chinese, as their devoted family life, the honesty of their merchants, and the ethics of Confucius indicate. We find them among the negroes, not only in the case of exceptional persons like Booker Washington or Dubois or Atkinson, but also in the undistinguished life of many an obscure man and woman, whom to know more intimately is to learn to respect as a neighbor and a moral equal. What we need to build up our faith in human goodness is the clairvoyance that discerns the hidden treasures of character in others. And one other quality is indispensable for the moral appreciation of our neighbors, namely, the quality of humility. Strange as it may seem, the less we plume ourselves on our own goodness, the more we shall be ready to believe in the goodness of other people; the more we realize the infinite nature of the moral ideal and our own distance from it, the more we shall esteem as of relatively small importance the distance that separates us from others, the slight extent to which we may morally surpass them. The more we are aware of our own frequent and serious shortcomings, the more, when we perceive the moral delinquencies of others, shall we recognize in their nature the same recuperative agency which we believe to be in ourselves, namely, the power of divine regeneration that can make all things new. If we regard ourselves as morally little and yet as never lost, we shall regard no one else as lost, however morally little he may seem to be.

Respect, then, for the indefeasible worth of every human being must be based not on theological systems which are fast decaying, nor on the fancied self-evidence of Jefferson's Declaration, but solely on the moral law which commands us to ascribe such worth to others whether we perceive it or not, nay, to create it in others by ascribing it to them.

Such is the spiritual attitude toward our fellow-men. And though our confidence may not always be demonstrably justified by the result, though we not always succeed in uplifting others, yet by pursuing this line of conduct we ourselves at all events shall be uplifted, our own life will be touched to finer issues.

III. THE SPIRITUAL ATTITUDE TOWARD OPPRESSORS.

Sunday, Dec. 4, 1904.

The problem of our spiritual attitude toward positive badness, social and individual wrongdoing, cruelty and oppression, is far more difficult of solution than the problem of our attitude toward worth really existent but concealed. The thorny question, how we are to deal with wicked persons, whether we are to observe the spiritual attitude toward them, and in what that attitude consists, requires the most sincere and straightforward treatment.

Should we cultivate an attitude of indifference in such cases? A ruffian cruelly beats his horse, the poor beast that has rendered him faithful service for many a day, but is feeble now and sinks beneath its load. With curses and the sharp persuasion of the lash, the merciless driver seeks to force the animal to efforts of which it is plainly incapable. Can we stand by and witness such a scene in philosophic calm? Shall we say that the wretch is the product of circumstances, and cannot be expected to act otherwise than he does? Shall we liken evildoers generally, as at present is customary in certain quarters, to the sick? Shall we say that such men are the outcome of their heredity, their education, their environment? I have known of a husband who in a state of intoxication brutally struck and injured his wife, while she was holding in her arms a babe not eight days old. Shall we say that that man was morally sick, that he could not help becoming intoxicated, and therefore was not responsible for the havoc he wrought when the demon of drink had gained possession of him? Shall we say of the syndicate of traders who hunt the natives on the Congo like rabbits, massacre and mutilate them, that they are sick? A bad deed done with intention argues badness in the doer. We impute to the man the act and its consequences. We cannot separate the sin from the sinner, and merely condemn sin in the abstract. There is no such thing as sin in the abstract. Sin is sin only when it is incorporated in the will of a human individual. We condemn the sinner because he has wedded himself to the sin. If this were not the case, we might as well close our courts of justice. We hold men accountable, then, for their misdeeds, whatever speculative philosophy may urge to the contrary. How could we revere virtue if we did not stigmatize its opposite; how could we believe in human worth if we did not condemn unworth where it appears?

But the ordinary judgment stops short right here. It recognizes the particular badness of a particular act, and desires that the agent be made to suffer for it. It says, this act is the expression of an evil disposition, and it identifies the whole man with the particular act of which he was guilty. The spiritual attitude is characterized by discriminating between the particular act and the whole of the man's nature. It recognizes that there is an evil strand; but it also sees or divines the good that exists along with the evil, even in the most seemingly hopeless cases. It trusts to the good, and builds upon it with a view to making it paramount over evil. Upon the basis of this spiritual attitude, what should be our mode of dealing with the bad? There are a number of steps to be taken in order, and much depends on our following the right order.

The first step is to arrest the course of evil, to prevent its channel from being deepened, its area from being enlarged. Pluck the whip from the hand of the ruffian who is lashing his beast; stay the arm that is uplifted to strike the cowardly murderous blow. Much has been said of the need of considering the good of society, of protecting the community at large from the depredations of the violent and fraudulent; and of subjecting the latter to exemplary punishment, in order to deter others from following their example. But the welfare of society and the welfare of the criminal are always identical. Nothing should be done to the worst criminal, not a hair of his head should be touched merely for the sake of securing the public good, if the thing done be not also for his private good. And on the other hand, nothing can be done to the criminal which is for his own lasting good that will not also profoundly react for the good of society, assuring its security, and deterring others from a like career of crime. The very first claim which the criminal has upon the services of his fellow-men is that they stop him in his headlong course of wickedness. Arrest, whether by the agents of the law or in some other way, is the first step. The most spiritual concern for a degraded and demoralized fellow-being does not exclude the sharp intervention implied in arrest, for the spiritual attitude is not mawkish or incompatible with the infliction of pain.

This, I think, will be readily granted. But the second step, a step far more important than the arrest of the evildoer in order to arrest the evildoing, is more likely to be contested and misunderstood. The second step consists in fixing the mark of shame upon the offender and publicly humiliating him by means of the solemn sentence of the judge. It may be asked, What human being is fit to exercise this awful office of acting as judge of another? Remember the words of Shakespeare in King Lear: ". . . .See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark in thine ear: change places; and . . . . which is the justice, which the thief?" Or recall what the Puritan preacher said when he saw from his window a culprit being led to the gallows: "There, but for the grace of God, go I." In other words, had I been born as this man was, had I been played upon by the influences to which he was subject, had I been tempted as he was, how dare I say that I should not have fallen as he did? Had it not been for some grace extended to me through no desert of mine, I might be traveling the road on which he travels now.

Furthermore, can we say that the sentence of the judge is proportioned to the heinousness of the deed? Is the murderer who in a fit of uncontrolled passion has taken a human life—it may have been his first and only crime—necessarily more depraved than the thief; or is the thief in jail who has indeed broken the law, necessarily more depraved than numbers of others who have dexterously circumvented the law, violating the spirit though keeping within the letter of it? Is even the abject creature who strikes his wife more abandoned than a man of the type of Grandcourt in Daniel Deronda, whose insults are dealt with a marble politeness, and who crushes his wife's sensibilities, not with a vulgar blow but with the cold and calculating cruelty of a cynic? When it comes to passing moral judgments and fixing blame, and especially to measuring the degree of another's guilt, who of us is good enough, who of us is pure enough, who of us is himself free enough from wrong to exercise so terrible an office? Is not Lear right, after all: ". . . .change places; and. . . .which is the justice, which is the thief?"

It may be said in reply to these objections: First, that the judge does not speak in his