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Optimism, An Essay - Hellen Keller · Self-Help Library

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  Speaker 1: Optimism by Helen Keller, Part one Optimism within Could we
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  Speaker 1: choose our environment and were a desire in human undertaking
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  Speaker 1: synonymous with endowment, all men would, I suppose, be optimists.
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  Speaker 1: Certainly most of us regard happiness as the proper end
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  Speaker 1: of all earthly enterprise. The will to be happy animates
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  Speaker 1: alike the philosopher the prince in the chimney sweep. No
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  Speaker 1: matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a
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  Speaker 1: man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.
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  Speaker 1: It is curious to observe what different ideals of happiness
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  Speaker 1: people cherish, and in what singular places they look for
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  Speaker 1: this well spring of their life. Many look for it
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  Speaker 1: in the hoarding of riches, some in the pride of power,
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  Speaker 1: and others in the achievements of art and literature. If
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  Speaker 1: you seek it in the exploration of their own minds
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  Speaker 1: or in the search for knowledge, Most people measure their
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  Speaker 1: happiness in terms of physical pleasure and of material possession.
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  Speaker 1: Could they win some visible goal which they have set
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  Speaker 1: on the horizon, how happy they would be Lacking this
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  Speaker 1: gift or that circumstance. They would be miserable. If happiness
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  Speaker 1: is to be so measured, I who cannot hear or see,
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  Speaker 1: have every reason to sit in a corner with folded
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  Speaker 1: hands and weep. If I am happy in spite of
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  Speaker 1: my deprivations, If my happiness is so deep that it
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  Speaker 1: is a faith, so thoughtful that it becomes a philosophy
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  Speaker 1: of life, If in short, I am an optimist, my
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  Speaker 1: testimony to the creed of optimism is worth hearing. As
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  Speaker 1: sinners stand up in meeting and testify to the goodness
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  Speaker 1: of God, so one who is called afflick did may
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  Speaker 1: rise up in gladness of conviction and testify to the
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  Speaker 1: goodness of life. Once I knew a depth where no
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  Speaker 1: hope was, and darkness lay on the face of all things,
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  Speaker 1: then love came and set my soul free. Once I
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  Speaker 1: knew only darkness and stillness, Now I know hope and joy.
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  Speaker 1: Once I fretted and beat myself against the wall that
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  Speaker 1: shut me in, Now I rejoice in the consciousness that
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  Speaker 1: I can think, act, and attain heaven. My life was
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  Speaker 1: without past or future death. The pessimist would say, a
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  Speaker 1: consummation devoutly to be wished. But a little word from
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  Speaker 1: the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched
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  Speaker 1: at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.
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  Speaker 1: Night fled before the day of thought, and love and
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  Speaker 1: joy and hope came up in a passion of obedience
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  Speaker 1: to knowledge. Can anyone who has escaped such captivity, who
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  Speaker 1: has felt the thrill and glory of freedom, be a pessimist?
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  Speaker 1: My early experience was thus a leap from bad to good.
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  Speaker 1: If I tried, I could not check the momentum of
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  Speaker 1: my first leap out of the dark to move breast
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  Speaker 1: forward as a habit learned suddenly at that first moment
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  Speaker 1: of release, and rush into the light. With the first
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  Speaker 1: word I used intelligently, I learned to live, to think,
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  Speaker 1: to hope. Darkness cannot shut me in again. I have
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  Speaker 1: had a glimpse of the shore, and can now live
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  Speaker 1: by the hope of reaching it. So my optimism is
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  Speaker 1: no mild and unreasoning satisfaction. A poet once said, I
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  Speaker 1: must be happy because I did not see the bare,
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  Speaker 1: cold present, but lived in a beautiful dream. I do
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  Speaker 1: live in a beautiful dream, but that dream is the actual,
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  Speaker 1: the present, not cold but warm, not bare but furnished
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  Speaker 1: with a thousand blessings. The very evil which the poets
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  Speaker 1: supposed would be a cruel disillusionment is necessary to the
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  Speaker 1: fullest knowledge of joy. Only by contact with evil could
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  Speaker 1: I have learned to feel, by contrast, the beauty of
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  Speaker 1: truth and love and goodness. It is a mistake always
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  Speaker 1: to contemplate the good and ignore the evil, because by
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  Speaker 1: making people neglectful it lets in disaster. There is a
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  Speaker 1: dangerous optimism of ignorance and indifference. It is not enough
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  Speaker 1: to say that the twentieth century is the best age
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  Speaker 1: in the history of mankind, and to take refuge from
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  Speaker 1: the evils of the world in sky ye dreams of good.
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  Speaker 1: How many good men, prosperous and contented looked around a
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  Speaker 1: and saw nought but good, while millions of their fellow
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  Speaker 1: men were bartered and sold like cattle. No doubt if
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  Speaker 1: there were comfortable optimists who thought Wilberforce a meddlesome fanatic
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  Speaker 1: when he was working with might and main to free
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  Speaker 1: the slaves. I distrust the rash optimism in this country
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  Speaker 1: that cries, Hurrah, We're all right, this is the greatest
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  Speaker 1: nation on earth. When there are grievances that call loudly
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  Speaker 1: for redress. That is false optimism. Optimism that does not count.
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  Speaker 1: The cost is like a house builded on sand. A
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  Speaker 1: man must understand evil and be acquainted with sorrow before
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  Speaker 1: he can right himself an optimist and expect others to
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  Speaker 1: believe that he has reason for the faith that is
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  Speaker 1: in him. I know what evil is. Once or twice
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  Speaker 1: I have wrestled with it, and for a time felt
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  Speaker 1: its chilling touch on my life. So I speak knowledge
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  Speaker 1: when I say that evil is of no consequence except
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  Speaker 1: as a sort of mental gymnastic. For the very reason
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  Speaker 1: that I have come in contact with it, I am
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  Speaker 1: more truly an optimist. I can say with conviction that
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  Speaker 1: the struggle which evil necessitates is one of the greatest blessings.
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  Speaker 1: It makes us strong, patient, helpful men and women. It
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  Speaker 1: lets us into the soul of things, and teaches us
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  Speaker 1: that although the world is full of suffering, it is
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  Speaker 1: full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then,
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  Speaker 1: does not rest on the absence of evil, but on
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  Speaker 1: a glad belief in the preponderance of good, and a
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  Speaker 1: willing effort always to cooperate with the good that it
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  Speaker 1: may prevail. I try to increase the power God has
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  Speaker 1: given me to see the best in everything and every one,
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  Speaker 1: and make that best a part of my life. The
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  Speaker 1: world is sown with good. But unless I turn my
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  Speaker 1: glad thoughts into practical living until my own field, I
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  Speaker 1: cannot reap a kernel of the good. Thus my optimism
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  Speaker 1: is grounded in two worlds, myself and what is about me.
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  Speaker 1: I demand that the world be good, and lo it obeys.
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  Speaker 1: I proclaim the world good, and facts range themselves to
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  Speaker 1: prove my proclamation overwhelmingly true. To what is good. I
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  Speaker 1: open the doors of my being and jealously shut them
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  Speaker 1: against what is bad. Such is the force of this
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  Speaker 1: beautiful and wilful conviction. It carries itself in the face
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  Speaker 1: of all opposition. I am never discouraged by absence of good.
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  Speaker 1: I never can be argued into hopelessness. Doubt and mistrust
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  Speaker 1: are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast
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  Speaker 1: heart will conquer and the large mind transcend. As my
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: college days draw to a close, I find myself looking
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  Speaker 1: forward with beating heart and bright anticipation to what the
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  Speaker 1: future holds of activity for me. My share in the
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  Speaker 1: work of the world may be limited, but the fact
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  Speaker 1: that it is work makes it precious. Nay, the desire
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  Speaker 1: and will to work is optimism itself. Two generations ago,
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  Speaker 1: a Carlyle flung forth his gospel of work to the
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  Speaker 1: dreamers of the Revolution, who built cloud castles of happiness,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And when the inevitable winds rent the castles asunder, turned
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: pessimists to those ineffectual endymions, alisters and worthers. This Scots
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  Speaker 1: peasant man of dreams in the hard practical world cried aloud,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: his creed of laborer be no longer a chaos, but
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  Speaker 1: a world produce. Produce, Were it but the pitifulest, infinitesimal
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  Speaker 1: fraction of a product, produce it. In God's name tis
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  Speaker 1: the utmost thou hast in thee out with it. Then
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  Speaker 1: up up whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it
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  Speaker 1: with thy whole might work, while it is called today
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  Speaker 1: for the night cometh, wherein no man may work. Some
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  Speaker 1: have said Carlile was taking refuge from a hard world
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  Speaker 1: by bidding men grind and toil, eyes to the earth,
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  Speaker 1: and so forget their misery. This is not Carlyle's thought, fool,
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  Speaker 1: He cries, The ideal is in thyself. The impediment is
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  Speaker 1: also in thyself. Work out the ideal in the poor miserable, actual, live, think, believe,
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  Speaker 1: and be free. It is plain what he says that
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  Speaker 1: work production brings life out of chaos, makes the individual
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  Speaker 1: a world an order, and order is optimism. I too
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  Speaker 1: can work, and because I love to labor with my
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: head and my hands, I am an optimist. In spite
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  Speaker 1: of all I used to think I should be thwarted
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  Speaker 1: in my desire to do something useful. But I have
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  Speaker 1: found out that though the ways in which I can
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  Speaker 1: make myself useful are few, yet the work open to
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  Speaker 1: me is endless. The gladdest laborer in the vineyard may
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  Speaker 1: be a cripple, even should the others outstrip him, Yet
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  Speaker 1: the vineyard ripens in the sun each year, and the
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  Speaker 1: full clusters way into his hand. Darwin could work only
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  Speaker 1: half an hour at a time, yet in many diligent
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  Speaker 1: half hours he laid anew the foundations of philosophy. I
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  Speaker 1: long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it
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  Speaker 1: is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks
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  Speaker 1: as though they were great and noble. It is my
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  Speaker 1: service to think how I can best fulfill the demands
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  Speaker 1: that each day make upon me, and to rejoice that
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  Speaker 1: others can do what I cannot. Green the historian tells
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  Speaker 1: us that the world is moving along not only by
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  Speaker 1: the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the
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  Speaker 1: aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker, and
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  Speaker 1: that thought alone suffices to guide me in this dark
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  Speaker 1: world and wide. I love the good that others do,
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  Speaker 1: for their activity is an assurance that, whether I can
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  Speaker 1: help or not, the true and the good will stand sure.
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  Speaker 1: I trust, and nothing that happens disturbs my trust. I
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  Speaker 1: recognize the beneficence of the power which we all worship
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  Speaker 1: as supreme order Fate, the great Spirit Nature God. I
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  Speaker 1: recognize this power in the sun that makes all things
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  Speaker 1: grow and keeps life afoot. I make a friend of
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  Speaker 1: this indefinable force and straightway. I feel glad, brave, and
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  Speaker 1: ready for any lot Heaven may decree for me. This
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  Speaker 1: is my religion of optimism, and of part one optimism
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  Speaker 1: within part two. Optimism. Without optimism then is a fact
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  Speaker 1: within my own heart. But as I look out upon life,
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  Speaker 1: my heart meets no contradiction. The outward world justifies my
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  Speaker 1: inward universe of good. All through the years I have
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  Speaker 1: spent in college, my reading has been a continuous discovery
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  Speaker 1: of good. In literature, philosophy, religion, and history, I find
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  Speaker 1: the mighty witnesses to my faith. Philosophy is the history
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  Speaker 1: of a deaf blind person, writ large from the talks
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  Speaker 1: of Socrates, through Plato, Berkeley, and Kant. Philosophy records the
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  Speaker 1: efforts of human intelligence to be free of the clogging
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  Speaker 1: material world and fly forth into a universe of pure idea.
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  Speaker 1: A deaf blind person ought to find special meaning in
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  Speaker 1: Plato's ideal world. These things which you can see and
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  Speaker 1: hear and touch are not the reality of realities, but
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  Speaker 1: imperfect manifestations of the idea, the principle, the spiritual. The
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  Speaker 1: idea is the truth the rest distillusion. If this be so,
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  Speaker 1: my brethren, who enjoy the fullest use of the senses,
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  Speaker 1: are not aware of any reality which may not equally
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  Speaker 1: well be in reach of my mind. Philosophy gives to
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  Speaker 1: the mind the prerogative of seeing truth and bears us
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  Speaker 1: into a realm where I, who am blind, am not
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  Speaker 1: different from you who see. When I learned from Berkeley
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  Speaker 1: that your eyes receive an inverted image of things which
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  Speaker 1: your brain unconsciously corrects, I began to suspect that the
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  Speaker 1: eye is not a very reliable instrument after all, And
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: I felt as one who had been restored to equality
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  Speaker 1: with others, glad not because the senses avail them so little,
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  Speaker 1: but because in God's eternal world, mind and spirit avail
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  Speaker 1: so much. It seemed to me that philosophy had been
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  Speaker 1: written for my special consolation. Whereby I get even with
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  Speaker 1: some modern philosophers who apparently think that I was intended
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  Speaker 1: as an experimental case for their special instruction. But in
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  Speaker 1: a little measure, my small voice of individual experience does
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  Speaker 1: join in the declaration of philosophy that the good is
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  Speaker 1: the only world, and that world is a world of spirit.
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  Speaker 1: It is also a universe where order is all, where
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  Speaker 1: an unbroken logic holds the parts together, where a disorder
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  Speaker 1: defines itself as nonexistence. Evil, as Saint Augustine held, is
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  Speaker 1: delusion and therefore is not. The meaning of philosophy to
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  Speaker 1: me is not only in its principles, but also in
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  Speaker 1: the happy isolation of its great expounders. They were seldom
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  Speaker 1: of the world, even when, like Plato Enlibnitz, they moved
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  Speaker 1: in its courts and drawing rooms to the two modes
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  Speaker 1: of life. They were deaf, and they were blind to
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  Speaker 1: its distraction and perplexing diversities. Sitting alone but not in darkness,
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  Speaker 1: they learned to find everything in themselves, and failing to
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  Speaker 1: find it even there, they still trusted in meeting the
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  Speaker 1: truth face to face. When they should leave the earth
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  Speaker 1: behind and become partakers in the wisdom of God. The
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: great mystics lived alone, deaf and blind, but dwelling with God.
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  Speaker 1: I understand how it was possible for Spinoza to find
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  Speaker 1: deep and sustained happiness when he was excommunicated, poor, despised,
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  Speaker 1: and suspected alike by jew and Christian. Not that the
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  Speaker 1: kind world of men ever treated me so, but that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: his isolation from the universe of sensuous joy is somewhat
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  Speaker 1: analogous to mine. He loved the good for its own sake.
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  Speaker 1: Like many great spirits, He accepted his place in the
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  Speaker 1: world and confided himself childlike to a higher power, believing
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  Speaker 1: that it worked through his hands and predominated in his being.
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  Speaker 1: He trusted implicitly, and that is what I do. Deep
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: solemn optimism, it seems to me, should spring from this
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: firm belief in the presence of God in the individual,
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  Speaker 1: not a remote, unapproachable governor of the universe, but a
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  Speaker 1: God who is very near every one of us, who
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  Speaker 1: is present not only in earth, sea, and sky, but
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  Speaker 1: also in every pure and noble impulse of our hearts,
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  Speaker 1: the source and center of all minds, their only point
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  Speaker 1: of rest. Thus from philosophy I learn that we see
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  Speaker 1: only shadows and know only in part, and that all
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  Speaker 1: things change. But the mind, the uncongruable mind, compasses all truth,
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  Speaker 1: embraces the universe as it is, converts the shadows to realities,
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  Speaker 1: and makes tumultuous changes seem but moments in an eternal silence,
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  Speaker 1: or short lines in the infinite theme of perfection, and
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  Speaker 1: the evil but a halt on the way to good.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Though with my hand I grasp only a small part
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  Speaker 1: of the universe, with my spirit I see the whole,
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  Speaker 1: and in my thought I can compass the beneficent laws
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  Speaker 1: by which it is governed. The confidence and trust which
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  Speaker 1: these conceptions inspire teach me to rest safe in my
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: life as in a fate, and protect me from spectral
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: doubts and fears. Verily blessed are ye that have not
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  Speaker 1: seen and yet have believed. All the world's great philosophers
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  Speaker 1: have been lovers of God and believers in man's inner goodness.
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  Speaker 1: To know the history of philosophy is to know that
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  Speaker 1: the highest thinkers of the ages, the seers of the tribes,
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  Speaker 1: and the nations, have been optimists. The growth of philosophy
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: is the story of man's spiritual life. Outside lies that great,
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  Speaker 1: massive events which we call history. As I look on
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  Speaker 1: this mass, I see it take form and shape itself
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  Speaker 1: in the ways of God. The history of man is
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: an epoch of progress in the world within and the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: world without. I see a wonderful correspondence, a glorious symbolism,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: which reveals the human and the divine communing together. The
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: lesson of philosophy, repeated in fact, in all the parts
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that compose the history of mankind, hides the spirit of
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  Speaker 1: good and gives meaning to the whole. Far back in
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  Speaker 1: the twilight of history, I see the savage fleeing from
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  Speaker 1: the forces of nature which he has not learned to control,
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  Speaker 1: and seeking to propitiate supernatural beings which are but the
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  Speaker 1: creation of his superstitious fear. With a shift of imagination,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: I see the savage emancipated, civilized. He no longer worships
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: the grim deities of ignorance. Through suffering, he has learned
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  Speaker 1: to build a roof over his head to defend his
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: life and his home, and over his state. He has
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  Speaker 1: erected a temple in which he worships the joyous gods
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: of light and song. From suffering, he has learned justice
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: from the struggle with his fellows. He has learned the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: distinction between right and wrong, which makes him a moral being.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: He is gifted with the genius of Greece. But Greece
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: was not perfect. Her poetical and religious ideals were far
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: above her practice. Therefore she died that her ideals might
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: survive to ennoble coming ages. Rome too left the world
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  Speaker 1: a rich inheritance. Through the vicissitudes of history, her laws
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  Speaker 1: and ordered government have stood a majestic object lesson for
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  Speaker 1: the ages. But when the stern, frugal character of her
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: people ceased to be the bone and sinew of her civilization,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Rome fell. Then came the new nations of the North
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and found it a more permanent society. The base of
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Greek and Roman society was the slave, crushed into the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: condition of the wretches who quote labored foredone in the
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: field and at the workshop like haltered horses, if blind
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: so much. The quieter end quote the base of the
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: new society was the freeman who fought, tilled, judged, and
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  Speaker 1: grew from more to more. He wrought a state out
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  Speaker 1: of a tribal kinship and fostered an independence and self
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  Speaker 1: reliance which no oppression could destroy. The story of man's
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: slow ascent from savagery, through barbarism and self mastery to
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: civilization is the embodiment of the spirit of optimism. From
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the first hour of the New Nations, each century has
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: seen a better Europe until the development of the world
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: demanded America. Tolstoy said the other day that America, once
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: the hope of the world, was in bondage to Mammon.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Tolstoy and other Europeans have still much to learn about
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: this great free country of ours before they understand the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: unique civic struggle which America is undergoing. She is confronted
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: with the mighty task of assimilating all the foreigners that
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: are drawn together from every country and welding them into
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: one people with one national spirit. We have the right
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to demand the forbearance of critics until the United States
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: has demonstrated whether she can make one people out of
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: all the nations of the earth. London economists are alarmed
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: at less than five hundred thousand foreign born in a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: population of six million, and discuss earnestly the danger of
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: too many aliens. But what is their problem in comparison
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: with that of New York, which counts nearly one million,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: five hundred thousand foreigners among its three and a half
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: million citizens. Think of it, Every third person in our
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: American metropolis is an alien. By these figures alone, America's
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: greatness can be measured. It is true, America has devoted
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: herself largely to the solution of material problems, breaking the fields,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: opening minds, irrigating death wizards, spanning the continent with railroads.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: But she is doing these things in a new way
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: by educating her people, by placing at the service of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: every man's need every resource of human skill. She is
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: transmuting her industrial wealth into the education of her workmen,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: so that unskilled people shall have no place in American life,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: so that all men shall bring mind and soul to
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the control of matter. Her children are not drudges and slaves.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: The Constitution has declared it, and the spirit of our
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: institutions has confirmed it the best the land can teach them.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: They shall know. They shall learn that there is no
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: upper class in their country and no lower, and they
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: shall understand how it is that God and his world
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: are for everybody. America might do all this and still
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: be selfish, still be a worshiper of Memon. But America
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is the home of charity as well as of commerce.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: In the midst of roaring traffic, side by side with
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: noisy factory and sky reaching warehouse, one sees the school,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: the library, the hospital, the park, works of public benevolence,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: which represent wealth wrought into ideas that shall endure forever.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Behold what America has already done to alleviate suffering and
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: restore the afflicted. To society. Given sight to the fingers
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: of the blind, language to the dumb lip, and mind
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: to the idiot Clay. And tell me if indeed she
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: worships Mammon. Only, who shall measure the sympathy, skill, and
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: intelligence with which she ministers to all who come to her,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and lessens the ever swelling tide of poverty, misery, and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: degradation which every year rolls against her gates from all
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: the nations. When I reflect on all these facts, I
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: cannot but think that Tolstoy and other theorists to the contrary,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: it is a splendid thing to be an American. In America,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the optimist finds abundant reason for confidence in the present
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and hope for the future. And this hope, this confidence,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: may well extend over all the great nations of the Earth.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: If we compare our own time with the past, we
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: find in modern statistics a solid foundation for a confident
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and buoyant world. Optimism Beneath the doubt, the unrest, the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: materialism which surround us still glows and burns at the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: world's best life, a steadfast faith. To hear, the pessimist,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: one would think civilization had bivouecked in the Middle Ages
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and had not had marching orders, since he does not
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: realize that the progress of evolution is not an uninterrupted march. Quotation,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: now touching goal, now backward, hurl toils the indomitable world.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I have recently read an address by one whose knowledge
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: it would be presumptuous to challenge footnote addressed by Honorable
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Carol D. Wright before the Unitarian Conference, September nineteen o three,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and footnote in it I find abundant evidence of progress.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: During the past fifty years, crime has decreased. True, the
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: records today contain a longer list of crime, but our
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: statistics are more complete and accurate than the statistics of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: times past. Besides, there are many offenses on the list
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: which half a century ago would not have been thought
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: of as crime. This shows that the public conscience is
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: more sensitive than it ever was. Our definition of crime
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: has grown stricter, our punishment of it more lenient and intelligent.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: The old feeling of revenge has largely disapp appeared. It
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: is no longer an eye for an eye, a tooth
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: for a tooth. The criminal is treated as one who
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: is diseased. He is confined not merely for punishment, but
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: because he is a menace to society. While he is
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: under restraint, he is treated with humane care and disciplined,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: so that his mind shall be cured of its disease,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and he shall be restored to society, able to do
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: his part of its work. Another sign of awakened and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: enlightened public conscience is the effort to provide the working
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: class with better houses. Did it occur to any one
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a hundred years ago to think whether the dwellings are
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the poor or sanitary, convenient are sunny. Do not forget
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: that in the good old times, cholera and typhus devastated
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: whole counties, and that pestilence walked abroad in the capitals
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of Europe. Not only have our laboring classes better houses
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and better places to work in, but employers recognize the
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: right of the employed to seek more than the bare
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: wage of existence. In the darkness and turmoil of our
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: modern industrial strifes, we discern but dimly, the principles that
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: underlie the struggle, the recognition of the right of all
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: spirit of conciliation, such as Burke dreamed of, the willingness
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: on the part of the strong to make concessions to
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: the weak, the realization that the rights of the employer
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: are bound up in the rights of the employed. In
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: these the optimist beholds the signs of our times. Another right,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: which the state has recognized as belonging to each man
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: is the right to an education. In the enlightened parts
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: of Europe and in America, every city, every town, every
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: village has its school, and it is no longer a
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: class who have access to knowledge. For to the children
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of the poorest laborer, the school door stands open. From
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the civilized nations, universal education is driving out the dull
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: host of literacy. Education broadens to include all men and
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: deepens to reach all truths. Scholars are no longer confined
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: to Greek, Latin, and mathematics, but they also study science,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: and science converts the dreams of the poet, the theory
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: of the mathematician, and the fiction of the economists into ships, hospitals,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: and instruments that enable one skilled hand to perform the
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: work of a thousand. The student of today is not
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: asked if he has learned his grammar, Is he a
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: mere grammar machine, a dry catalog of scientific facts, or
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: has he acquired the qualities of manliness? His supreme lesson
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: is to grapple with great public questions, to keep his
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: mind hospitable to new ideas and new views of truth,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to restore the finer ideals that are lost sight of
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: in the struggle for wealth, and to promote justice between
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: man and man. He learns that there may be substitutes
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: for human labor, horsepower and machinery and books, but there
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: are no substitutes for common sense, patience, integrity, and courage.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Who can doubt the vastness of the achievements of education
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: when one considers how different the condition of the blind
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and the deaf is from what it was a century ago.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: They were then objects of superstitious pity and shared the
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: lowest beggars lot. Everybody looked upon their case as hopeless,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: and this view plunged them deeper in despair. The blind
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: themselves laughed in the face of how We when he
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: offered to teach them to read. How pitiable is the
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: cramped sense of imprisonment in circumstances, which teaches men to
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: expect no good and to treat any attempt to relieve
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: them as the vagary of a disordered mind. But now
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: behold the transformation. See how institutions and industrial establishments for
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: the blind have sprung up as if by magic. See
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: how many of the deaf have learned not only to
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: read and write, but to speak. And remember that the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: faith and patience of Doctor Howe have borne fruit in
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the efforts that are being made everywhere to educate the
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: deaf blind and equip them for the struggle. Do you
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: wonder that I am full of hope and lifted up.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: The highest result of education is tolerance. Long ago men
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: fought and died for their faith, but it took ages
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: to teach them the other kind of courage, the courage
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: to recognize the faiths of their brethren and their rights
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of conscience. Tolerance is the first principle of community. It
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: is the spirit which conserves the best that all men think.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: No loss by flood and lightening, no destruction of cities
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and temples by the hostile forces of nature, has deprived
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: men of so many noble lives and impulses as those
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: which his intolerance has destroyed. With wonder and sorrow, I
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: go back in thought to the ages of intolerance and bigotry.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I see Jesus received with scorn and nailed on the cross.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: I see his followers hounded and tortured and burned. I
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: am present where the finer spirits that revolt from the
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: superstition of the Middle Ages are accused of impiety and
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: stricken down. I behold the children of Israel, reviled and
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: persecuted unto death by those who pretend Christianity with the tongue.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I see them driven from land to land, hunted from
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: refuge to refuge, summoned to the felon's place, exposed to
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: the whip, mocked as they utter amid the pain of martyrdom,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a confession of the faith which they have kept with
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: such splendid constancy. The same bigotry that oppresses the Jews
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: falls tigre like upon Christian nonconformists of purest lives, and
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: wipes out the Albagenses and the peaceful vaudoir whose bones
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: lie on the mountains cold. I see the clouds part slowly,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and I hear a cry of protest against the bigot
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: The restraining hand of tolerance is laid upon the inquisitor,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: and the humanist utters a message of peace to the
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: persecuted instead of the cry burn. The heretic men study
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the human soul with sympathy, and there enters into their
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: hearts a new reverence for that which is unseen. The
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: idea of brotherhood re dawns upon the world with a
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: broader significance than the narrow association of members in a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: sect or creed, and thinkers of great soul like lessing
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: challenge the world to say which is more god like?
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: The hatred and tooth and male grapple of conflicting religions,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: or sweet accord and mutual helpfulness. Ancient prejudice of man
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: against his brother man wavers and retreats before the radiance
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: of a more generous sentiment, which will not sacrifice men
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: to forms or rob them of the comfort and strength
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: they find in their own beliefs. The heresy of one
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. Mere tolerance has
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: given place to a sentiment of brotherhood between sincere men
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: of all denominations. The Optimist rejoices in the affectionate sympathy
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: between Catholic heart and Protestant heart, which finds a gratifying
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: expression in the universal respect and warm admiration for Leo
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the thirteenth on the part of good men the world over.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: The centenary celebrations of the births of Emerson and Channing
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: are beautiful examples of the tribute which men of all
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: creeds pay to the memory of a pure soul. Thus,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: in my outlook upon our times, I find that I
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: am glad to be a citizen of the world. And
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: as I regard my country, I find that to be
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: an American is to be an Optimist. I know the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: unhappy and unrighteous story of what has been done in
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the Philippines beneath our flag. But I believe that in
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the accidents of state craft, the best intelligence of the
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: people sometimes fails to express itself. I read in the
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: history of Julius Caesar that during the Civil Wars there
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: were millions of peaceful herdsmen and laborers who worked as
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: long as they could, and fled before the advance of
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: the armies that were led by the few. Then waited
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: until the danger was passed, and returned to repair damages
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: with patient hands. So the people are patient and honest,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: while their rulers stumble. I rejoiced to see in the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: world and in this country, a new and better patriotism
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: than that which seeks the life of an enemy. It
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: is a patriotism higher than that of the battlefield. It
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: moves thousands to lay down their lives in social service,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: and every life so laid down brings us a step
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: nearer the time when cornfields shall no more be fields
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: of battle. So when I heard of the cruel fighting
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: in the Philippines, I did not despair, because I knew
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: that the hearts of our people were not in that fight,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: and that sometime the hand of the destroyer must be stayed.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: End of Part two, optimism without part three the practice
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: of optimism. The test of all beliefs is in their
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: practical effect in life. If it be true that optimism
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: compels the world forward and pessimism retards it, then it
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy. One who believes
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: that the pain in the world outweighs the joy and
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: expresses that unhappy conviction only adds to the pain. Schopenhauer
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: is an enemy to the race, even if he earnestly
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: believed that this is the most wretched of possible worlds.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: He should not promulgate a doctrine which robs men of
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the incentive to fight with circumstance. If life gave him
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: ashes for bread, it was his fault. Life is a
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: fair field, and the right world prosper. If we stand
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: by our guns. Let pessimism once take hold of the mind,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: and life is all topsy turvy, all vanity and vexation
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: of spirit. There is no cure for individual or social
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: disorder except in forgetfulness and annihilation. Let us eat, drink,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: and be merry, says the pessimist. For tomorrow we die.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: If I regarded my life from the point of view
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: and the music that does not ring in my ears.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: I should beg night and day, and never be satisfied.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: to myself and to others to be happy, I escape
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: a misery worse than any physical deprivation. Who shall dare
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: let his incapacity for hope and goodness cast a shadow
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: upon the courage of those who bear their burdens as
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: if they were privileges. The optimist cannot fall back, cannot falter,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: for he knows his neighbor will be hindered by his
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: failure to keep in line. He will therefore hold his
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: place fearlessly and remember the duty of silence sufficient unto
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: each heart is its own sorrow. He will take the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: iron claws of circumstance in his hand and use them
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: as tools to break away the obstacles that block his path.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: He will work as if upon him alone depended the
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: establishment of heaven on earth we have seen that the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: world's philosophers, the sayers of the word, were optimists. So
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: also are the man of action and achievement, the doers
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: of the word. Doctor Howe found his way to Laura
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: Bridgeman's soul because he began with the belief that he
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: could reach it. English jurists had said that the deaf
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: blind were idiots in the eyes of the law. Behold
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: what the optimist does. He controverts a hard legal axiom.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: He looks behind the dull, impassive clay and sees a
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: human soul in bondage, and quietly resolutely sets about its deliverance.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: His efforts are victorious. He creates intelligence out of idiocy
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: and proves to the law that the deaf blind man
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: is a responsible being. When Howie offered to teach the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: blind to read, he was met by pessimism that laughed
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: at his folly. Had he not believed that the soul
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of man is mightier than the ignorance that fetters it,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: had he not been an optimist, he would not have
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: turned the fingers of the blind into new instruments. No
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: the human spirit. Saint Bernard was so deeply an optimist
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: that he believed two hundred and fifty enlightened men could
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: illuminate the darkness which overwhelmed the period of the Crusades,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and the light of his faith broke like a new
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: day upon Western Europe. John Bosco, the Benefactor of the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: poor and the friendless of Italian cities, was another Optimist,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: another prophet who, perceiving a divine idea while it was
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: yet afar, proclaimed it to his countrymen. Although they laughed
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: at his vision and called him a madman. Yet he
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: were worked on patiently, and with the labor of his hands,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: he maintained a home for little street waifs. In the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: fervor of enthusiasm, he predicted the wonderful movement which should
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: result from his work. Even in the days before he
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: had money or patronage. He drew glowing pictures of the
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: splendid system of schools and hospitals which should spread from
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: one end of Italy to the other. And he lived
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: to see the organization of the San Salvador Society, which
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: was the embodiment of his prophetic optimism. When doctor Sagan
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: declared his opinion that the feeble minded could be taught again,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: people laughed, and, in their complaisant wisdom, said he was
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: no better than an idiot himself. But the noble optimist persevered,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: and by and by the reluctant pessimists saw that he
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: whom they ridiculed, had become one of the world's philanthropists.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Thus the optimist believed, attempts, achieves. He stands always in
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: the sunlight. Some day the wonderful, the inexpressible arrives and
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: shines upon him, and he is there to welcome it.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: His soul meets his own and beats a glad march
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: to every new discovery, every fresh victory over difficulties, every
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: addition to human knowledge and happiness. We have found that
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: our great philosophers and our great men of action are optimists.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: So too, our most potent men of letters have been
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: optimists in their books and in their lives. No pessimist
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: ever won an audience commensurately wide with his genius, and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: many optimistic writers have been read and admired out of
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: all measure to their talents, simply because they wrote of
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the sunlit side of life. Dickens, Lamb Goldsmith, Irving all
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: the well beloved and gentle humorists were uptimists. Swift the
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: pessimist has never had as many readers as his towering
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: genius should command. And indeed, when he comes down into
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: our century and meets Thackeray, that generous optimist can hardly
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: do him justice. In spite of the latter day notoriety
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: of the rubaiyat of O mark i Am, we may
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: set it down as a rule that he who would
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: be heard must be a believer, must have a fundamental
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: optimism in his philosophy. He may bluster and disagree and lament,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: as Carlyle and Ruskin do sometimes, but a basic confidence
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: in the good destiny of life and of the world
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: must underlie his work. Shakespeare is the prince of optimists.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: His tragedies are a revelation of moral order. In Lear
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and Hamlet, there is a looking forward to something better.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Someone is left at the end of the play to
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: right wrong, restore society, and build the state anew. The
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: later plays, The Tempest and Cymbeline show a beautiful, placid
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: optimism which delights in reconciliations and reunions, and which plans
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: for the triumph of external as well as internal good.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: If Browning were less difficult to read, he would surely
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: be the dominant poet of this century. I feel the
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: ecstasy with which he exclaims, Oh good, gigantic smile of
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: the brown old earth this autumn morning, and how he
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: sets my brain going when he says, because there is imperfection,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: there must be perfection. Completeness must come of incompleteness, failure
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: is an evidence of triumph for the fullness of the days. Yes,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: discord is that harmony may be, pain destroys, that health
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: may renew. Perhaps I am deaf and blind that others
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: likewise afflicted may and hear with a more perfect sense.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: From Browning, I learned that there is no lost good,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and that makes it easier for me to go at
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: life right or wrong, do the best I know, and
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: fear not. My heart responds proudly to his exhortation to
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: pay gladly life's debt of pain, darkness, and cold. Lift
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: up your burdens. It is God's gift, Bear it nobly.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: The man of letters whose voice is to prevail must
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: be an optimist, and his voice often learns its message
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: from his life. Stephenson's life has become a tradition. Only
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: ten years after his death, he has taken his place
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: among the heroes, the bravest man of letters since Johnson
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: and Lamb. I remember an hour when I was discouraged
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: and ready to falter. For days, I had been pegging
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: away at a task which refused to get itself accomplished.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: In the midst of my perplexity, I read an essay
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: of Stephenson which made me feel as if I had
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: been outing in the sunshine instead of losing heart over
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: a difficult task. I tried again with new courage, and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: succeeded almost before I knew it. I have failed many
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: times since, but I have never felt so disheartened as
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I did before that sturdy preacher gave me my lesson
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: in the fashion of the smiling face. Read Schopenhauer and Omar,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: and you will grow to find the world as hollow
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: as they find it. Read Green's History of England, and
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the world is peopled with heroes. I never knew why
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: Green's history thrilled me with the vigor of romance until
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I read his biography. Then I learned how his quick
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: imagination transfigured the hard, bare facts of life into new
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: and living dreams. When he and his wife were too
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: poor to have a fire, he would sit before the
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: unline at hearth and pretend that it was ablaze. Drill
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: your thoughts, he said, shut out the gloomy and call
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: in the bright. There is more wisdom in shutting one's
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: eyes than your copybook philosophers will allow. Every optimist moves
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: along with progress and hastens it, while every pessimist would
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: keep the world at a standstill. The consequence of pessimism
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: in the life of a nation is the same as
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: in the life of an individual. Pessimism kills the instinct
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: that urges men to struggle against poverty, ignorance, and crime,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: and dries up all the fountains of joy in the world.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: In imagination, I leave the country which lifts up the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: manhood of the poor, and I visit India, the underworld
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of fatalism, where three hundred million human beings, scarcely men
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: submerged in ignorance and misery, precipitate themselves still deeper into
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the pit. Why are they thus because they have for
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: thousands of years been the victims of their philosophy, which
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: teaches them that men are as grass, and the grass fadeth,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: and there is no more greenness upon the earth. They
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: sit in the shadow and let the circumstances they should
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: master grip them until they cease to be men, and
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: are made to dance and salaam like puppets in a play.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: After a little hour, death comes and hurries them off
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to the grave, and other puppets with other pasteboard passions
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and desires take their place, and the show goes on
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: for centuries. Go to India and see what sort of
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: civilization is developed. When a nation lacks faith in progress
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: and bows to the gods of darkness. Under the influence
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: of Brahmanism, genius and ambition have been suppressed. There is
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: no one to befriend the poor, or to protect the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: fatherless and the widow. The sick lie untended. The blind
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: know not how to see, nor the deaf to hear,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: and they are left by the roadside to die. In India,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: it is a sin to teach the blind and the deaf,
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: because their affliction is regarded as a punishment for offenses
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: in a previous state of existence. If I had been
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: born in the midst of these fatalistic doctrines. I should
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: still be in the darkness my life, a desert land,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: where no caravan of thought might pass between my spirit
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: and the world beyond. The Hindus believe in endurance, but
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: not in resistance. Therefore they have been subdued by strangers.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Their history is a repetition of that of Babylon, a
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: nation from Afar came with speeds swiftly, and none stumbled
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: or slept or slumbered. But they brought desolation upon the land,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: and took the stay and the staff from the people,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the whole stay of bread and the whole stay of water.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: That mighty man and the man of war, the judge
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: and the prophet, and the prudent and the ancient, and
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: none deliver them. Woe. Indeed, is the heritage of those
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: who walk sad, thoughted, and downcast through this radiant soul,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: delighting earth, blind to its beauty and death to its music.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: And of those who call evil good and good evil,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: and put darkness for light and light for darkness. What
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: care the weather bronzed sons of the West feeding the
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: world from the plains of Dakota. For the Omars and
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: the Brahmins, They would say to the Hindus, blot out
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: your philosophy dead for a thousand years, look with fresh
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: eyes at reality and life. Put away your Brahmins and
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: your crooked gods, and seek diligently for Vishnu. The preserver.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: be done without hope. When our forefathers laid the foundation
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: of the American Commonwealth, went nerved them to their task.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: But a vision of a free community against the cold,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: inhospitable sky across the wilderness, white with snow, where alurk
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: to the hidden savage, gleamed the bow of promise toward
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: which they set their faces with the faith that levels mountains,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: fills up valleys, bridges rivers, and carries civilization to the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: uttermost parts of the earth. Although the pioneers could not
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: build according to the Hebraic ideal they saw, yet they
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: gave the pattern of all that is most enduring in
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: our country today. They brought to the wilderness the thinking mind,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: the printed book, the deep rooted desire for self government,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: and the English common law that judges alike the king
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and the subject, the law on which rests the whole
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: structure of our society. It is significant that the foundation
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: of that law is optimistic. In Latin countries, the court
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: proceeds with a pessimistic bias. The prisoner is held guilty
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: until he is proved innocent. In England and the United States,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: there is an optimistic presumption that the accused is innocent
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: until it is no longer possible to deny his guilt.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Under our system, it is said many criminals are acquitted,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: but it is surely better so than that many innocent
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: persons should suffer. The pessimist cries, there is no enduring
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: good in man. The tendency of all things is through
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: perpetual loss to chaos. In the end, if there was
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: ever an idea of good in things evil, it was impotent,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: and the world rushes on to ruin. But behold, the
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: law of the two most sober minded, practical, and law
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: abiding nations on earth assumes the good in man and
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: demands a proof of the bad. Optimism is the faith
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: that leads to achievement. The profits of the world have
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: been of good heart, or their standards would have stood
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: naked in the field without a defender. Tolstoy's strictures lose
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: power because they are pessimistic. If he had seen clearly
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: the faults of America and still believed in her capacity
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: to overcome them, our people might have felt the stimulation
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: of his censure. But the world turns its back on
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: a hopeless prophet and listens to Emerson, who takes into
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: account the best qualities of the nation and attacks only
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: the vices which no one can defend or deny. It
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: listens to the strong man Lincoln, who, in times of doubt, trouble,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: and need, does not falter. He sees success afar, and
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: by s out hope, by hoping against hope, inspires a
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: nation through the night of despair. He says all is well,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: and thousands rest in his confidence. When such a man
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: censures and points to a fault, the nation obeys, and
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: his words sink into the ears of men. But to
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the lamentations of the habitual Jeremiah, the ear grows dull.
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Our newspapers should remember this. The press is the pulpit
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: of the modern world, and on the preachers who feel it.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Much depends. If the protest of the press against unrighteous
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: measures is to avail, then for ninety nine days the
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: word of the preacher should be bullyant and of good cheer,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: so that on the hundredth day the voice of censure
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: may be a hundred times strong. This was Lincoln's way.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: He knew the people, he believed in them, and rested
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: his faith on the justice and wisdom of the great majority.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: When in his rough and ready way he said, you
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: can't fool all the people all the time, he expressed
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: a great principle, the doctrine of faith in human nature.
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: The prophet is not without honor, save he be a pessimist.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: The astatic prophecies of Isaiah did far more to restore
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: the exiles of Israel to their homes than the lamentations
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of Jeremiah did to deliver them from the hands of evildoers.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Even on Christmas Day, do men remember that Christ came
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: as a prophet of good. His joyous optimism is like
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: water to feverish lips, and has for its highest expression
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: the Eight Beatitudes. It is because Christ is an optimist
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: that for ages he has dominated the Western world for
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: nineteen centuries. Christendom has gazed into his shining face and
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: felt that all things work together for good. Saint Paul
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: too taught the faith which looks beyond the hardest things,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: into the infinite horizon of heaven, where all limitations are
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: lost in the light of perfect understanding. If you are
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: born blind, search the treasures of darkness. They are more
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: precious than the gold of of fear. They are love
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and goodness, and truth and hope, and their price is
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: above rubies and sapphires. Jesus utters and Paul proclaims a
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: message of peace and a message of reason, a belief
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: in the idea, not in things, in love, not in conquest.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: The optimist is he who sees that men's actions are
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: directed not by squadrons and armies, but by moral power,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: that the conquests of Alexander and Napoleon are less abiding
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: than Newton's, and Galileos and Saint Augustine's silent mastery of
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the world. Ideas are mightier than five and sword, nor
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: is lesslie. They propagate themselves from land to land, and
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: mankind goes out and reaps the rich harvest, and thanks God.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: But the achievements of the warrior are like his canvas
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: city today, a camp tomorrow, all struck and vanished, a
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: few pit holes and heaps of straw. This was the
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: gospel of Jesus two thousand years ago. Christmas Day is
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: the festival of optimism. Although there are still great evils
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: which have not been subdued, and the optimist is not
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: blind to them. Yet he is full of hope. Despondency
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: has no place in his creed, for he believes in
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: the imperishable righteousness of God and the dignity of man.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: History records man's triumphant descent. Each halt in his progress
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: has been but a pause before a mighty leap forward.
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: The time is not a joint. If indeed some of
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the temples we worshiped in have fallen, we have built
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: new ones on the sacred sites, loftier and holier than
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: those which have crumbled. If we have lost some of
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: the heroic physical qualities of our ancestors, we have replaced
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: them with the spiritual nobleness that turns aside wrath and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: binds up the wounds of the vanquished. All the past
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: attainments of man are ours, and more his day dreams
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: have become our clear realities. Therein lies our hope and
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: sure faith. As I stand in the sunshine of a
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: sincere and earnest optimism, my imagination paints yet more glorious
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: triumphs on the cloud curtain of the future. Out of
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: the fierce struggle and turmoil of contending systems and powers,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I see a brighter spiritual era slowly emerge, an era
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: in which there shall be no England, no friends, no Germany,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: no America. Know this people or that, but one family,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: the human race, one law, peace, one need, harmony, one
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: means labor, one taskmaster God. If I should try to
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: say anew the creed of the optimist, I should say
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: something like this. I believe in God, I believe in Man.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: I believe in the power of the spirit. I believe
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: it is a sacred duty to encourage ourselves and others
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: to hold the tongue from any unhappy word against God's world,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: because no man has any right to complain of a
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: universe which God made good, and which thousands of men
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: have striven to keep good. I believe we should so
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: act that we may draw nearer and more near the
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: age when no man shall live at his ease while
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: another suffers. These are the articles of my faith, and
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: there is yet another on which all depends. To bear
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: this faith above every tempest which overfloods it, and to
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: make it a principle in disaster and through affliction. Optimism
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: is the harmony between man's spirit and the spirit of God,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: pronouncing his works good. End of Optimism, an essay by
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Helen Keller,