Courage : Part 5

Character
by Samuel Smiles

(Page 9 of 20)

This servile pandering to popularity has been rapidly on the increase of late years, and its tendency has been to lower and degrade the character of public men. Consciences have become more elastic. There is now one opinion for the chamber, and another for the platform. Prejudices are pandered to in public, which in private are despised. Pretended conversions - which invariably jump with party interests are more sudden; and even hypocrisy now appears to be scarcely thought discreditable.

The same moral cowardice extends downwards as well as upwards. The action and reaction are equal. Hypocrisy and timeserving above are accompanied by hypocrisy and timeserving below. Where men of high standing have not the courage of their opinions, what is to be expected from men of low standing? They will only follow such examples as are set before them. They too will skulk, and dodge, and prevaricate - be ready to speak one way and act another - just like their betters. Give them but a sealed box, or some hole-and-corner to hide their act in, and they will then enjoy their "liberty!"

Popularity, as won in these days, is by no means a presumption in a man's favour, but is quite as often a presumption against him. "No man," says the Russian proverb, "can rise to honour who is cursed with a stiff backbone." But the backbone of the popularity-hunter is of gristle; and he has no difficulty in stooping and bending himself in any direction to catch the breath of popular applause.

Where popularity is won by fawning upon the people, by withholding the truth from them, by writing and speaking down to the lowest tastes, and still worse by appeals to class-hatred, such a popularity must be simply contemptible in the sight of all honest men. Jeremy Bentham, speaking of a well-known public character, said: "His creed of politics results less from love of the many than from hatred of the few; it is too much under the influence of selfish and dissocial affection." To how many men in our own day might not the same description apply?

Men of sterling character have the courage to speak the truth, even when it is unpopular. It was said of Colonel Hutchinson by his wife, that he never sought after popular applause, or prided himself on it: "He more delighted to do well than to be praised, and never set vulgar commendations at such a rate as to act contrary to his own conscience or reason for the obtaining them; nor would he forbear a good action which he was bound to, though all the world disliked it; for he ever looked on things as they were in themselves, not through the dim spectacles of vulgar estimation."

"Popularity, in the lowest and most common sense," said Sir John Pakington, on a recent occasion, "is not worth the having. Do your duty to the best of your power, win the approbation of your own conscience, and popularity, in its best and highest sense, is sure to follow."

When Richard Lovell Edgeworth, towards the close of his life, became very popular in his neighbourhood, he said one day to his daughter: "Maria, I am growing dreadfully popular; I shall be good for nothing soon; a man cannot be good for anything who is very popular." Probably he had in his mind at the time the Gospel curse of the popular man, "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets."

Intellectual intrepidity is one of the vital conditions of independence and self-reliance of character. A man must have the courage to be himself, and not the shadow or the echo of another. He must exercise his own powers, think his own thoughts, and speak his own sentiments. He must elaborate his own opinions, and form his own convictions. It has been said that he who dare not form an opinion, must be a coward; he who will not, must be an idler; he who cannot, must be a fool.

But it is precisely in this element of intrepidity that so many persons of promise fall short, and disappoint the expectations of their friends. They march up to the scene of action, but at every step their courage oozes out. They want the requisite decision, courage, and perseverance. They calculate the risks, and weigh the chances, until the opportunity for effective effort has passed, it may be never to return.

Men are bound to speak the truth in the love of it. "I had rather suffer," said John Pym, the Commonwealth man, "for speaking the truth, than that the truth should suffer for want of my speaking." When a man's convictions are honestly formed, after fair and full consideration, he is justified in striving by all fair means to bring them into action. There are certain states of society and conditions of affairs in which a man is bound to speak out, and be antagonistic - when conformity is not only a weakness, but a sin. Great evils are in some cases only to be met by resistance; they cannot be wept down, but must be battled down.

The honest man is naturally antagonistic to fraud, the truthful man to lying, the justice-loving man to oppression, the pureminded man to vice and iniquity. They have to do battle with these conditions, and if possible overcome them. Such men have in all ages represented the moral force of the world. Inspired by benevolence and sustained by courage, they have been the mainstays of all social renovation and progress. But for their continuous antagonism to evil conditions, the world were for the most part given over to the dominion of selfishness and vice. All the great reformers and martyrs were antagonistic men - enemies to falsehood and evildoing. The Apostles themselves were an organised band of social antagonists, who contended with pride, selfishness, superstition, and irreligion. And in our own time the lives of such men as Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, Father Mathew and Richard Cobden, inspired by singleness of purpose, have shown what highminded social antagonism can effect.

It is the strong and courageous men who lead and guide and rule the world. The weak and timid leave no trace behind them; whilst the life of a single upright and energetic man is like a track of light. His example is remembered and appealed to; and his thoughts, his spirit, and his courage continue to be the inspiration of succeeding generations.

About the Author

Born in Haddington, Smiles was the eldest of eleven children. He left school at the age of 14 and was apprenticed to a doctor, eventually enabling him to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. While studying and after graduating he campaigned for parliamentary reform, contributing articles to the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and the Leeds Times.