OF THE KNOWLEDGE GAINED BY HUMAN EXPERIENCE IN REGARD TO THE NATURE OF MIND

Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People by Catharine Esther Beecher, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. OF THE KNOWLEDGE GAINED BY HUMAN EXPERIENCE IN REGARD TO THE NATURE OF MIND AND THE LAWS OF THE SYSTEM OF WHICH IT IS A PART.

CHAPTER IV. OF THE KNOWLEDGE GAINED BY HUMAN EXPERIENCE IN REGARD TO THE NATURE OF MIND AND THE LAWS OF THE SYSTEM OF WHICH IT IS A PART.

We have seen that there are only these sources of human knowledge, viz., the intuitive truths, human experience, reasoning, and revelation. We have alluded to the nature of intuitive knowledge; we will now inquire as to the nature of the knowledge gained by human experience, firstly, in regard to the constitution of mind and the laws of that system in which it is placed. We restrict our inquiries to those points which have the most direct bearing on the great questions to be discussed.

As it respects the nature of mind, then, as exhibited by experience, we learn, in the first place, that it is constituted with desires and propensities for various kinds of enjoyment. These are the gratifications secured by the senses, the pleasures of taste, the happiness of giving and receiving affection, the various intellectual pleasures, and the still higher enjoyment resulting from our moral nature. All these are common to the race, though in varied degrees and combinations. The mind is also constituted with susceptibilities to pain and suffering from all the sources from which enjoyment may spring.

With these susceptibilities are combined an all-pervading and constant desire to gain enjoyment and to escape suffering. This desire is the grand motive power to the mind, as the main-spring is to a watch. For this reason, awakened desires to gain any particular enjoyment or escape any pain are called motives. And so, also, all those things that cause these desires are called motives.

Next, it is seen that the mind is endowed with intellect, or the intellectual powers, by which it can perceive the nature and relative value of various kinds of enjoyment, compare the present with the future, and judge both of what is most valuable and of the proper modes of securing it.

To this add the power of choice or volition, by which, in view of any two or more kinds of enjoyment, the mind decides which shall be secured and which be denied.

Thus constituted, the mind comes into action in a system of law.

By this is signified that in every direction in which man can seek enjoyment there is a right course, or one that secures the good sought in such proper degrees and at such times as that the enjoyment designed is the result. At the same time there is a wrong course, or one in which the enjoyment sought is not secured, or, if gained, is combined with pain and disappointment.

Thus there are right and wrong modes of seeking all the multiplied kinds of enjoyment, while to the right course is attached the reward of pleasure, and with the wrong course is connected the penalty of pain, either immediate or remote.

Again, our minds come into existence in a social system so constituted that the rewards and penalties of law extend, not merely to the good and evil doer, but to those connected with him. Thus each mind is made dependent for happiness on the well-doing of those around almost as much as on its own obedience to law. The penalties for the sins of parents fall on their children, and the sins of children are visited on their parents, and thus in all the other relations of life. Equally so are the rewards of obedience shared by all who are connected with the well-doer.

Thus it appears that in this life happiness is the joint product of the obedience of each individual and the obedience of all connected with him to the laws of the vast system in which we are placed.

Again, each mind comes into this system of law in perfect ignorance of the right and wrong courses to be pursued. At the commencement of being there has been no knowledge of good or of evil to call forth desire or fear, while the only conceivable way in which such a being can be taught law, and its penalties and rewards, is by experience. Good must be tasted before the desire for it can come, and evil must be felt before the fear of it can arise.

After there has been some experience of pleasure and pain, and such advance in knowledge as that others around can teach the new-comer what are the right and wrong courses, then faith or belief becomes the leading mode of safety. From this time happiness or suffering will be proportioned to the truth of the instructions given, to the faith accorded, and to the obedience rendered.

In this complicated system of law, it is found that the great Author of all is never moved to modify or suspend the penalties of wrong-doing by commiseration for the inevitable ignorance of inexperienced beings, nor by pity when wrong instructions are given, nor by sympathy for the pain inflicted. Obedience, exact, constant, persevering—this is the only mode of securing the enjoyment and escaping the pain that are the sanctions of law.

And not only so, but it is often the case that disobedience to some law in only one instance will destroy the comfort and usefulness of a whole life. Nay, more, the neglect or the mistake of a parent sometimes will bring the penalty of violated law on some innocent child, whose whole life will thus be made miserable.

Again, it is found that the sources of enjoyment are of different relative value.

In the commencement of existence pleasure is secured mainly through the senses. Next come the higher social and domestic pleasures; then follow the intellectual enjoyments, the various gratifications of taste, and all the multitudinous resources open to a highly-cultivated, virtuous, and religious man.

The greater the number of these sources, and the more elevated the nature of each, the greater the degree of happiness gained.

Such, also, is the nature of things, that the lower kinds of happiness are placed first within our reach, and then, as the higher modes of enjoyment come, we often find them incompatible with the others, so that to obtain these we must, to some extent, relinquish the humbler classes. Thus, when a child begins to find the value of intellectual attainments, he sees they can not be gained without a sacrifice of many indulgences that are of an inferior value.

We now come to the grand law of the system in which we are placed, as it has been developed by the experience of our race, and that, in one word, is

SACRIFICE!

Each mind finds that it has conflicting desires, so that one class must constantly be sacrificed to another of superior value. And the rule in reference to individual enjoyment is "always to sacrifice the lesser for the greater good, having reference to the future as much as to the present."

This is the lesson of self-denial and self-control first taught to infancy and childhood, and just as fast as the reasoning powers are developed, the extent of this far-reaching rule is impressed on the mind. At first this rule is applied to the young child himself, and he is trained chiefly to understand what will injure or benefit himself.

But gradually a new and higher law begins to appear. As soon as the child can be made to understand that he is surrounded by other minds, who can suffer and enjoy by the same rules that regulate his happiness, he begins to learn the other and still higher law of sacrifice; and that is, that "the lesser good of the individual is always to be sacrificed to the greater good of the many, having reference always to the future as much as to the present."

Thus life commences with desires that are to be controlled and denied, first by parental power and influence, and next by the intellect and will of the child. And the farther life advances, the more numerous and complicated are the occasions where intellect must judge what is best for self, and what is best for the commonwealth, whose interests must have precedence.

And as self-denial always involves more or less pain, it becomes a fact that happiness is to be gained only by more or less suffering.

Moreover, the greater the good to be gained, the greater is the self-denial and suffering involved in its attainment. Though there are exceptions, this certainly is the general rule.

The history of an individual is a history of self-conquest. It is a history of the self-denial and suffering involved in subjecting the physical to the intellectual, and both to the moral nature.

In like manner, the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher, while men learn to give up lower gratifications for the more elevated, and to sacrifice the lesser good of the minority to the well-being of the majority.

But the cheering aspect of the case is that the effects of suffering are salutary and tonic. The child who is trained to bear cold bravely, to undergo toil, and to meet crosses, becomes strong in body, and enterprising and energetic in spirit; while a course of ease and indulgence debilitates both mind and body. This is true most decidedly when such a course is cheerfully and voluntarily assumed, and is not forced merely by fear of penalties.

The same is true of communities. Those people who live in a cold climate and on a hard soil become vigorous, industrious, and enterprising; while a soft climate, and such abundance as requires no self-denial and toil, tend to national debility and decay.

Another fact is still more cheering, and that is, that the more a habit of self-control and self-denial is formed, the easier they become, so that what at first was severe and painful may become a pleasure. Such may be the progress of a virtuous mind, that, ultimately, acting right, or conscious rectitude, may become more desirable and agreeable than any other mode of enjoyment.

The history of mankind thus far shows that as a race we are progressing to higher and higher happiness. As we take the history of each nation from its origin, we find it a development of progress from lower to higher degrees of enjoyment. Then we find periods of retrocession and decay. Still, the experience of one age is transmitted more or less to another, so that, on the whole, the race has been gaining, both as to the number of sources of enjoyment received and as to the relative value of the enjoyments sought. The proportion of persons who secure the higher class of enjoyments is certainly greater now than at any former period of the world's history.

Again, the history of the world teaches us that while the race gains in knowledge of the laws of the system and in obedience to them, there are vast multitudes to whom, as individuals, this life is a total failure. Their career has involved such frequent and fatal violations of the laws of the system, that their progress is constantly downward; and, so far as past experience gives any data, we must infer that continued existence would prove a continued downward progress. The glutton, the drunkard, the miser, the sluggard, the licentious, the selfish, malignant, and cruel—all these are binding their spirits with the chains of habit, rendering obedience to the laws they are violating more difficult and improbable.

But then, as a counterbalancing result, it is seen that these losses to individuals are made available to the protection and improvement of the race, and seem indispensable to it; for it is the example of the evils suffered by wrong-doers that is constantly exercising a preservative influence to deter others from similar courses. Thus good is constantly educed from ill, even in the most melancholy cases.

We have seen that it is the desire of good and fear of evil that is the motive power in causing all mental action, and we have the history of man to teach us also what kinds of motives prove the most effective in securing that obedience to law which is the only way to true and perfect happiness.

Our only mode of learning the nature of a thing is to observe how it acts and is acted upon. This is as true of mind as it is of material things. What, then, has the experience of our race taught as to the nature of mind in reference to the kinds and relative influence of motive that secure obedience to law?

In the first place, then, we learn that fear of evil is indispensable. As soon as children in the family, or adults in society, find that no harm comes from gratifying their desires, all restraint is removed. So strong is this necessity, that when natural penalties seem uncertain or far off, parents and civil rulers find it imperative to add those which are more immediate and discernible.

But with this we learn that fear alone is not a healthful stimulus. Children and slaves who have no motives to action but fear of penalties are never so successfully led to obedience as when other more agreeable influences are combined. A mind that is constantly goaded to action by fear of evil becomes torpid, or irritable, or despairing, or all together. The hope of good, or rewards, then, are as indispensable to secure obedience to law as penalties. The proper balancing of the motives of fear of evil and hope of good is the grand art of controlling mind, both as it respects individuals and communities.

In reference to those motives that are pleasurable, there are two classes which it is very important to recognize. The first class are those sources of enjoyment which are sought for the gratification of self without any reference to another. Of this class are the pleasures of the senses, the enjoyment of acquiring knowledge, the exercise of power, the pleasures of taste, and others that need not here be specified.

The second class are those in which the enjoyment is secured by producing happiness for others, and is sought solely in reference to the enjoyment of another. The most decided illustration of this kind is that of a mother who is providing for her offspring. This and all true love has, as its distinctive feature, the pleasure found in conferring happiness on the beloved object. Gratitude, also, has for its main element the desire to make some returns of enjoyment to one who has conferred a favor.

Experience has shown that the most powerful of all motives in securing obedience to law is that of love.

When love is awakened toward a superior mind—when this superior mind knows what are the true rules of right and wrong, and is deeply interested to guide and aid the inferior mind—when this interest is expressed by all winning and attractive methods, nothing has ever yet been found so successful in securing obedience to the rules of right and wrong.

The power of this principle is greatly enhanced when the superior mind is a benefactor. The bestowal of kindness excites a desire to make some returns of good, and when it is seen that such a benefactor is gratified by leading a dependent mind to right action, it proves a most powerful motive to obedience.

Still more is the power of this principle increased when the favors bestowed are purchased by self-denial and suffering on the part of the benefactor. The more noble the benefactor, and the greater the good thus purchased or the evils thus averted, the stronger is the principle of gratitude leading to such returns of obedience.

Again, experience has shown that the advance of the race has been by the agency of teachers and confessors who secured light and elevation to their fellows at the expense of labor, toil, and self-denial of the severest kind.

These are the leading points in the results of human experience as to the nature of mind and the laws of the system of which it is a part.

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