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Title: Self Help
Author: Samuel Smiles
Release Date: June, 1997 [EBook #935]
[This file was first posted on June 10, 1997]
[Most recently updated: May 20, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, SELF HELP ***
Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
SELF HELP; WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF CONDUCT AND PERSEVERANCE
“The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the
individuals composing it.”—J. S. Mill.
“We put too much faith in systems, and look too little to men.”—B.
Disraeli.
“Heaven helps those who help themselves” is a well-tried maxim,
embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience.
The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the
individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the
true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is
often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably
invigorates. Whatever is done FOR men or classes, to a certain
extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for
themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively
helpless.
Even the best institutions can give a man no active help. Perhaps
the most they can do is, to leave him free to develop himself and
improve his individual condition. But in all times men have been
prone to believe that their happiness and well-being were to be
secured by means of institutions rather than by their own conduct.
Hence the value of legislation as an agent in human advancement has
usually been much over-estimated. To constitute the millionth part
of a Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or
five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can
exercise but little active influence upon any man’s life and
character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly
understood, that the function of Government is negative and
restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable
principally into protection—protection of life, liberty, and
property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the
enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body,
at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however
stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident,
or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means
of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits,
rather than by greater rights.
The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the
reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is
ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level,
as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be
dragged up. In the order of nature, the collective character of a
nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and
government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be
nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all
experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State
depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the
character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of
individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of
the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom
society is composed.
National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and
uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness,
selfishness, and vice. What we are accustomed to decry as great
social evils, will, for the most part, be found to be but the
outgrowth of man’s own perverted life; and though we may endeavour
to cut them down and extirpate them by means of Law, they will only
spring up again with fresh luxuriance in some other form, unless
the conditions of personal life and character are radically
improved. If this view be correct, then it follows that the
highest patriotism and philanthropy consist, not so much in
altering laws and modifying institutions, as in helping and
stimulating men to elevate and improve themselves by their own free
and independent individual action.
It may be of comparatively little consequence how a man is governed
from without, whilst everything depends upon how he governs himself
from within. The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a
despot, great though that evil be, but he who is the thrall of his
own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice. Nations who are thus
enslaved at heart cannot be freed by any mere changes of masters or
of institutions; and so long as the fatal delusion prevails, that
liberty solely depends upon and consists in government, so long
will such changes, no matter at what cost they may be effected,
have as little practical and lasting result as the shifting of the
figures in a phantasmagoria. The solid foundations of liberty must
rest upon individual character; which is also the only sure
guarantee for social security and national progress. John Stuart
Mill truly observes that “even despotism does not produce its worst
effects so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever
crushes individuality IS despotism, by whatever name it be called.”
Old fallacies as to human progress are constantly turning up. Some
call for Caesars, others for Nationalities, and others for Acts of
Parliament. We are to wait for Caesars, and when they are found,
“happy the people who recognise and follow them.” {1} This
doctrine shortly means, everything FOR the people, nothing BY
them,—a doctrine which, if taken as a guide, must, by destroying
the free conscience of a community, speedily prepare the way for
any form of despotism. Caesarism is human idolatry in its worst
form—a worship of mere power, as degrading in its effects as the
worship of mere wealth would be. A far healthier doctrine to
inculcate among the nations would be that of Self-Help; and so soon
as it is thoroughly understood and carried into action, Caesarism
will be no more. The two principles are directly antagonistic; and
what Victor Hugo said of the Pen and the Sword alike applies to
them, “Ceci tuera cela.” [This will kill that.]
The power of Nationalities and Acts of Parliament is also a
prevalent superstition. What William Dargan, one of Ireland’s
truest patriots, said at the closing of the first Dublin Industrial
Exhibition, may well be quoted now. “To tell the truth,” he said,
“I never heard the word independence mentioned that my own country
and my own fellow townsmen did not occur to my mind. I have heard
a great deal about the independence that we were to get from this,
that, and the other place, and of the great expectations we were to
have from persons from other countries coming amongst us. Whilst I
value as much as any man the great advantages that must result to
us from that intercourse, I have always been deeply impressed with
the feeling that our industrial independence is dependent upon
ourselves. I believe that with simple industry and careful
exactness in the utilization of our energies, we never had a fairer
chance nor a brighter prospect than the present. We have made a
step, but perseverance is the great agent of success; and if we but
go on zealously, I believe in my conscience that in a short period
we shall arrive at a position of equal comfort, of equal happiness,
and of equal independence, with that of any other people.”
All nations have been made what they are by the thinking and the
working of many generations of men. Patient and persevering
labourers in all ranks and conditions of life, cultivators of the
soil and explorers of the mine, inventors and discoverers,
manufacturers, mechanics and artisans, poets, philosophers, and
politicians, all have contributed towards the grand result, one
generation building upon another’s labours, and carrying them
forward to still higher stages. This constant succession of noble
workers—the artisans of civilisation—has served to create order
out of chaos in industry, science, and art; and the living race has
thus, in the course of nature, become the inheritor of the rich
estate provided by the skill and industry of our forefathers, which
is placed in our hands to cultivate, and to hand down, not only
unimpaired but improved, to our successors.
The spirit of self-help, as exhibited in the energetic action of
individuals, has in all times been a marked feature in the English
character, and furnishes the true measure of our power as a nation.
Rising above the heads of the mass, there were always to be found a
series of individuals distinguished beyond others, who commanded
the public homage. But our progress has also been owing to
multitudes of smaller and less known men. Though only the
generals’ names may be remembered in the history of any great
campaign, it has been in a great measure through the individual
valour and heroism of the privates that victories have been won.
And life, too, is “a soldiers’ battle,”—men in the ranks having in
all times been amongst the greatest of workers. Many are the lives
of men unwritten, which have nevertheless as powerfully influenced
civilisation and progress as the more fortunate Great whose names
are recorded in biography. Even the humblest person, who sets
before his fellows an example of industry, sobriety, and upright
honesty of purpose in life, has a present as well as a future
influence upon the well-being of his country; for his life and
character pass unconsciously into the lives of others, and
propagate good example for all time to come.
Daily experience shows that it is energetic individualism which
produces the most powerful effects upon the life and action of
others, and really constitutes the best practical education.
Schools, academies, and colleges, give but the merest beginnings of
culture in comparison with it. Far more influential is the life-education daily given in our homes, in the streets, behind
counters, in workshops, at the loom and the plough, in counting-houses and manufactories, and in the busy haunts of men. This is
that finishing instruction as members of society, which Schiller
designated “the education of the human race,” consisting in action,
conduct, self-culture, self-control,—all that tends to discipline
a man truly, and fit him for the proper performance of the duties
and business of life,—a kind of education not to be learnt from
books, or
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