Section 2 : Part 10

Wisdom and Destiny
by Maurice Maeterlinck

(Page 12 of 14)

Ought we never to hesitate, then? and is our duty most faithfully done when we ourselves are wholly unconscious that this thing that we do is a duty? Is it most essential of all that we should attain a height whence duty no longer is looked on as the choice of our noblest feelings, but as the silent necessity of all the nature within us?

63. There are some who wait and question themselves, who ponder, consider, and then at length decide. They too are right, for it matters but little whether the duty fulfilled be result of instinct or intellect. The gestures of instinct will often recall the delicate, naive and vague, unexpected beauty that clings to the child's least movement, and touches us deeply; but the gestures of matured resolve have a beauty, too, of their own, more earnest and statelier, stronger. It is given to very few hearts to be naively perfect, nor should we go seek in them for the laws of duty. And besides, there is many a sober-hued duty that instinct will fail to perceive, that yet will be clearly espied by mature resolution, bereft though this be of illusion; and man's moral value is doubtless established by the number of duties he sees and sets forth to accomplish.

It is well that the bulk of mankind should listen to the instinct that prompts them to sacrifice self on the altar of duty, and that without too close self-questioning; for long must the questioning be ere consciousness will give forth the same answer as instinct. And those who do thus close their eyes, and in all meekness follow their instinct, are in truth following the light that is borne at their head, though they know it not, see it not, by the best of their ancestors. But still this is not the ideal; and he who gives up the least thing of all for the sake of his brother, well knowing what it is he gives up and wherefore he does it, stands higher by far in the scale of morality than the other, who flings away life without throwing one glance behind.

64. In this world there are thousands of weak, noble creatures who fancy that sacrifice always must be the last word of duty; thousands of beautiful souls that know not what should be done, and seek only to yield up their life, holding that to be virtue supreme. They are wrong; supreme virtue consists in the knowledge of what should be done, in the power to decide for ourselves whereto we should offer our life. The duty each holds to be his is by no means his permanent duty. The paramount duty of all is to throw our conception of duty into clearest possible light. The word duty itself will often contain far more error and moral indifference than virtue. Clytemnestra devoted her life to revenge - she murdered her husband for that he had slain Iphigenia; Orestes sacrificed his life in avenging Agamemnon's death on Clytemnestra. And yet it has only needed a sage to pass by, saying, "pardon your enemies," for all duties of vengeance to be banished for ever from the conscience of man. And so may it one day suffice that another sage shall pass by for many a duty of sacrifice too to be exiled. But in the meanwhile there are certain ideas that prevail on renouncement, resignation, and sacrifice, that are far more destructive to the most beautiful moral forces of man than great vices, or even than crimes.

65. There are some occasions in life, inevitable and of general bearing, that demand resignation, which is necessary then, and good; but there are many occasions when we still are able to fight; and at such times resignation is no more than veiled helplessness, idleness, ignorance. So is it with sacrifice too, which indeed is most often the withered arm resignation still shakes in the void. There is beauty in simple self-sacrifice when its hour has come unsought, when its motive is happiness of others; but it cannot be wise, or of use to mankind, to make sacrifice the aim of one's life, or to regard its achievement as the magnificent triumph of the spirit over the body.

(And here let us add that infinitely too great importance is generally ascribed to the triumph of spirit over body, these pretended triumphs being most often the total defeat of life.) Sacrifice may be a flower that virtue will pluck on its road, but it was not to gather this flower that virtue set forth on its travels. It is a grave, error to think that the beauty of soul is most clearly revealed by the eager desire for sacrifice; for the soul's fertile beauty resides in its consciousness, in the elevation and power of its life. There are some, it is true, that awake from their sleep at the call of sacrifice only; but these lack the strength and the courage to seek other forms of moral existence. It is, as a rule, far easier to sacrifice self - to give up, that is, our moral existence to the first one who chooses to take it - than to fulfil our spiritual destiny, to accomplish, right to the end, the task for which we were created. It is easier far, as a rule, to die morally, nay, even physically, for others, than to learn how best we should live for them.

There are too many beings who thus lull to sleep all initiative, personal life, and absorb themselves wholly in the idea that they are prepared and ready for sacrifice. The consciousness that never succeeds in travelling beyond this idea, that is satisfied ever to seek an occasion for giving all that which it has, is a consciousness whose eyes are sealed, and that crouches be- numbed at the foot of the mountain. There is beauty in the giving of self, and indeed it is only by giving oneself that we do, at the end, begin to possess ourselves somewhat; but if all that we some day shall give to our brethren is the desire to give them ourselves, then are we surely preparing a gift of most slender value. Before giving, let us try to acquire; for this last is a duty where from we are not relieved by the fact of our giving. Let us wait till the hour of sacrifice sounds; till then, each man to his work. The hour will sound at last; but let us not waste all our time in seeking it on the dial of life.

66. There are many ways of sacrifice; and I speak not here of the self-sacrifice of the strong, who know, as Antigone knew, how to yield themselves up when destiny, taking the form of their brothers' manifest happiness, calls upon them to abandon their own happiness and their life. I speak of the sacrifice here that is made by the feeble; that leans for support, with childish content, on the staff of its own inanity - that is as an old blind nurse, who would rock us in the palsied arms of renouncement and useless suffering. On this point let us note what John Ruskin says, one of the best thinkers of our time: "The will of God respecting us is that we shall live by each other's happiness and life; not by each other's misery or death.

A child may have to die for its parents; but the purpose of Heaven is that it shall rather live for them; that not by sacrifice, but by its strength, its joy, its force of being, it shall be to them renewal of strength; and as the arrow in the hand of the giant. So it is in all other right relations. Men help each other by their joy, not by their sorrow. They are not intended to slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as one of the fatallest. They have so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such . . . that they accept pain and defeat as if these were their appointed portion; never understanding that their defeat is not the less to be mourned because it is more fatal to their enemies than to them."

About the Author

Count Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (August 29, 1862 - May 6, 1949) was a Belgian poet, playwright, and essayist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life.