Practical Ethics. William de Witt Hyde
bad looks, as of our good looks. This is the trick of the Cynic. This is the reason why almost every town has its old codger who seems to delight in wearing the shabbiest coat, and driving the poorest horse, and living in the most dilapidated shanty of anyone in town. These persons take as much pride in their mode of life as the devotee of fashion does in hers. One of these Cynics went to the baths with Alcibiades, the gayest of Athenian youths. When they came out Alcibiades put on the Cynic's rags, leaving his own gay and costly apparel for the Cynic. The Cynic was in a great rage, and protested that he would not be seen wearing such gaudy things as those. "Ah!" said Alcibiades; "so you care more what kind of clothes you wear than I do after all; for I can wear your clothes, but you cannot wear mine." Another of the Cynics, as he entered the elegant apartments of Plato, spat upon the rug, exclaiming: "Thus I pour contempt on the pride of Plato." "Yes," was Plato's reply, "with a greater pride of your own." Since pride and vanity have these two forms, we need to be on our guard against them both. For one or the other is pretty sure to assail us. An eye single to the attractiveness of our personal appearance is the only thing that will save us from one or the other of these lines of temptation.
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
Too little attention to dress and surroundings is slovenliness.—The sloven is known by his dirty hands and face, his disheveled hair, and tattered garments. His house is in confusion; his grounds are littered with rubbish; he eats his meals at an untidy table; and sleeps in an unmade bed. Slovenliness is a vice; for it is an open confession that a man is too weak to make his surroundings the expression of his tastes and wishes, and has allowed his surroundings to run over him and drag him down to their own level. And this subjection of man to the tyranny of things, when he ought to exercise a strong dominion over them, is the universal mark of vice.
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
Too much attention to dress and appearance is fastidiousness.—These things are important; but it is a very petty and empty mind that can find enough in them to occupy any considerable portion of its total attention and energy. The fastidious person must have everything "just so," or the whole happiness of his precious self is utterly ruined. He spends hours upon toilet and wardrobe where sensible people spend minutes. Hence he becomes the slave rather than the master of his dress.
The sloven and the dude are both slaves; but in different ways.—Slovenliness is slavery to the hideous and repulsive. Fastidiousness is slavery to this or that particular style or fashion. The freedom and mastery of neatness consists in the ability to make as attractive as possible just such material as one's means place at his disposal with the amount of time and effort he can reasonably devote to them.
THE PENALTY.
Fastidiousness belittles: slovenliness degrades. Both are contemptible.—The man who does not care enough for himself to keep the dirt off his hands and clothes, when not actually engaged in work that soils them, cannot complain if other people place no higher estimate upon him than he by this slovenliness puts upon himself. The woman whose soul rises and falls the whole distance between ecstasy and despair with the fit of a glove or the shade of a ribbon must not wonder if people rate her as of about equal consequence with gloves and ribbons. These vices make their victims low and petty; and the contempt with which they are regarded is simply the recognition of the pettiness and degradation which the vices have begotten.
CHAPTER III.
Exercise.
When the body is well fed and clothed, the next demand is for exercise. Our powers are given us to be used; and unless they are used they waste away. Nothing destroys power so surely and completely as disuse. The only way to keep our powers is to keep them in exercise. We acquire the power to lift by lifting; to run, by running; to write, by writing; to talk, by talking; to build houses, by building; to trade, by trading. In mature life our exercise comes to us chiefly along the lines of our business, domestic, and social relations. In childhood and youth, before the pressure of earning a living comes upon us, we must provide for needed exercise in artificial ways. The play-impulse is nature's provision for this need. It is by hearty, vigorous play that we first gain command of those powers on which our future ability to do good work depends.
THE DUTY.
The best exercise that of which we are least conscious.—It is the duty of every grown person as well as of every child to take time for recreation. Exercise taken in a systematic way for its own sake is a great deal better than nothing; and in crowded schools and in sedentary occupations such gymnastic exercises are the best thing that can be had. The best exercise, however, is not that which we get when we aim at it directly; but that which comes incidentally in connection with sport and recreation. A plunge into the river; a climb over the hills; a hunt through the woods; a skate on the pond; a wade in the trout brook; a ride on horseback; a sail on the lake; camping out in the forest;—these are the best ways to take exercise. For in these ways we have such a good time that we do not think about the exercise at all; and we put forth ten times the amount of exertion that we should if we were to stop and think how much exercise we proposed to take.
Next in value to these natural outdoor sports come the artificial games; baseball, football, hare and hounds, lawn tennis, croquet, and hockey. When neither natural nor artificial sports can be had, then the dumb-bells, the Indian clubs, and the foils become a necessity.
Everyone should become proficient in as many of these sports as possible. These are the resources from which the stores of vitality and energy must be supplied in youth, and replenished in later life.
THE VIRTUE.
The value of superfluous energy.—The person whose own life-forces are at their best cannot help flowing over in exuberant gladness to gladden all he meets. Herbert Spencer has set this forth so strongly in his Data of Ethics that I quote his words: "Bounding out of bed after an unbroken sleep, singing or whistling as he dresses, coming down with beaming face ready to laugh at the slightest provocation, the healthy man of high powers enters on the day's business not with repugnance but with gladness; and from hour to hour experiencing satisfaction from work effectually done, comes home with an abundant surplus of energy remaining for hours of relaxation. Full of vivacity, he is ever welcome. For his wife he has smiles and jocose speeches; for his children stories of fun and play; for his friends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that come from buoyancy."
THE REWARD.
"Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance." The reward of exertion is the power to make more exertion the next time. And the reward of habits of regular exercise and habitual cheerfulness is the ability to meet the world at every turn in the consciousness of power to master it, and to meet men with that good cheer which disarms hostility and wins friends.
THE TEMPTATION.
Excitement not to be made an end in itself.—The exhilaration of sport may be carried to the point of excitement; and then this excitement may be made an end in itself. This is the temptation which besets all forms of recreation and amusement. It is the fear of this danger that has led many good people to distrust and disparage certain of the more intense forms of recreation. Their mistake is in supposing that temptation is peculiar to these forms of amusement. As we shall see before we complete our study of ethics, everything brings temptation with it; and the best things bring the severest and subtlest temptations; and if we would withdraw from temptation, we should have to withdraw from the world.
We must all recognize that this temptation to seek excitement for its own sake is a serious one. It is least in the natural outdoor sports like swimming and sailing and hunting and fishing and climbing and riding. Hence we should give to these forms of recreation as large a place as possible in our plans for exercise and amusement. We