English
, are, one and all of them, indifferent; they contri- (1) Socrates-Plato. 30 l)ute nothing to reason, nothing to the greatness and strength of the soul they may issue in grief and they may issue in joy; they are not, therefore, any thing really good; only Virtue is profitable; to want or to lose external possess- ions affects not the happiness of the virtuous. (1) “ Good counsel is the best service one can do to mankind. “ Man should be estimated according to what he is and not ^according to what he has. “ The great blessings of mankind are witliin us, and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and, like people in the dark, we fall foul of the very thing we search for without finding it. “No man is happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man is great or power- ful that is not master of himself. The greatest felicity of all is, not to stand in need of any. “ He is only great who is not elevated or dejected with good or ill fortune, bi:^ content with his lot, whatever it be, and performs the business of his life, like nature, without tumult or noise. “ He that would be truly happy must think his own lot best, and so live with men, as if considering that God sees liim, and so speak to God as if man heard him. “ Those are the only certain and profitable delights which arise from the conscience of a well-acted life. “ There is not in the scale of nature a more inseparable connection of cause and effect than in the case of virtue and happiness. “ Whoever observes the world, and the order of it, will find all the motions in it to be only vicissitude of falling and rising: nothing extinguished, and even those things which seem to us to perish, are in truth but changed. “ Hope the best and provide for the worst (1) Zeno, the Stoic. 31 “ One sovereign remedy against all misfortunes is constancy of mind. Nothing can be above him tliat is above fortune. ‘‘ It is the mind that makes us rich and happy, in what condition so-ever we are. There is nothing ill that is well taken. “An injury cannot be received without being done : but it may be done and not received. “ That man only is happy that draws good out of evil. “ Noble examples stir us up to noble actions, and the very history of large and public souls inspires a man with generous thoughts Those are the best instructors that teach in their lives. “ True friends are the whole world to one another. “ Every one can secure his own happiness, if he learns to seek it, not in external circumstances, but in himself. “ Expect nothing and be prepared for all things.” (1) “ A wise man is always content with that which liappens; for he thinks that what God chooses is better than what he cliooses. “ If a man is unhappy, this must be his own fault; for God made all men to be happy. “ Seek not that things should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life. “ The soul is a much better thing than all the others which you possess. Can you then show me in what way you-so wise a man-have taken care of it ? “ Contentment-happiness-consists not in great wealth, but in few wanta “ You will do the greatest service to the State if you shall raise, not the roofs of the houses, but the souls of the citizens: for it is better that great souls should dwell in small houses rather tlian for mean slaves to lurk in great houses. (1) The Morals of Seneca. 32 “ Tliink of God oftener than you breathe. Let the dis- course of God be renewed daily more surely than your food. ** Remember that you are an actor of just such a part as is issigned you by the Poet of the play ; of a short part, if the part be short ; of a long part, if it be long. Should He wish you to act the part of a beggar, take care to act it naturally iand nobly ; and the same if it be the part of a lame man, or ^ ruler, or a private man ; for this is in your power, to act well the part assigned to you ; but to choose that part is the function of another. Set before you the examples of the great and good. “ Do what is right quite irrespective of what people will my or think. " We all have been in some special manner born of God, and God is the father of gods and men, ( and therefore we must not have) any ignoble, any humble thoughts about ( 1 ) Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livcst, while it is in thy power, be good. (IV-17 ) ‘‘ A (good) man, like a bee when it has made the honey, when he has done a good act, does not call out for others to come and see, but he goes on to another act, as a vine goes on to produce again the grapes in season. (V. G ), “ Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts, (V. 16) Let the part of thy soul which leads and govenis be undisturbed by the movements in the flesh, whether of pleasure or of pain. (V. 26 ) “ (Man) consists of a little body and a soul. Now to this little body all things are indifferent, for it is not able to per- ceive differences. But to the understanding those things only are indifferent which are not the works of its own activity. (VI. 32) (1) Bpictetus. 33 “ Whatever any one does or says, I must be good, just as if the gold, or the emerald, or purple were always saying this, whatever any one does or says I must be emerald and keep my colour. (VIL 15). “Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which thou seest, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other things from the substance of them in order that the world may be ever new. (VIL 25). “ Think not so much of what thou hast not, as of what thou hast: but of the things which thou hast select the best and then reflect liow eagerly tliey would have been sought, if thou liadst them not (VIL 27). “ Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it vull ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig. (VIL 59). “ It is not men’s acts which disturb us, for those acts have their foundation in men’s ruling principles, but it is our own opinions which disturb us. (XL 18). “ I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinions of others ... (XIL 4) “ I have not seen my own soul and yet I honour it Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly ex- perience of their ]>ower, from this I comprehend that they exist and I venerate them. ” (XII. 28) (1) Inspired as he was by such thoughts as the above, Gokulaji^s rule of conduct was mostly similar in spirit to a concentrated admonition of Goethe, ‘who combines the higher and lower wisdom and has skill to put moral truths in forms of words that fix them* selves with stings in the reader’s mind/ “ Wouldst fashion for thyself a seemly life?- Then fret not over what is past and gone; (1) The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Anto- ninus, (Prof. G. Long.) 34 And spite of all thou inayst have lost behind, Yet act as if thy life has just begun. What each day wills, enough for thee to know; What each day wills, the day itself will tell. Do thine own task, and be there with content; What others do, that shalt thou fairly judge; Be sure that thou no brother-mortal hate. Then all besides leave to the Master-Pow'er, ” (1) Whatever character GokulajibhS,i established as a minister, his memory will be cherished most as a good man and a philosopher. In his case the notion-Just as we think, so we become — was not less trne than that in the saying,— As we sow, so we reap. It is well observed that every man is Avorth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself. In short, his conduct was governed by high thinking and plain living. His life, it is hoped, Avill inspire many with a consciousness of the noble work they may do for God and their fellow-men by thinking lofty thoughts and doing generous deeds. Gokulaji held that political and social progress depended upon intellectual progress. We must, he used to say, therefore, first endeavour to increase knowledge among our people by spreading education and educing thereby from their own minds their own natural treasures by stimulating their reflective capacities, and trust to it and not to dictation in our campaign against popular beliefs and prejudices for the improvement and the progress of our country. We must remember that compulsion is not convic- tion. In all progress the process of Nature is the (1) Goethe. 35 fittest and most efiective. This process is to maintain uninterruptedly and in continuous action a portion of the useful old that is already established and has been tried, reject a portion of what has grown too old and corrupted, and in its stead create and establish a portion that is new and useful, but not what only exists in speculation. Let the light of knowledge destroy darkness and our people Avill see for themselves all things in their true colours, and the desired progress all round will follow. Though Gokulaji held to the best that is in ideas of old institutions and old ways of thinking under which, he believed, could well flourish all virtues such as manliness and reverence, strength and tendei-ness, love of truth and jnty for man, &c,, he was on the side of improvement and progress. He Avould advise the reformer not to talk of his ancestors with contempt, but to judge them as he would have his descendants judge of himself. Some questions of social reform had already begun to be raised in his time.