How Do We Know

12

OUR DUTY AND ITS REWARDS

Try to put well in practice what you already know; and in so doing, you will in good time discover the hidden things which you now inquire about. Practice what you know and it will help to make dear what now you do not know.

—REMBRANDT

This Dutchman (1606-1669), “one of the world’s most famous painters,” gave the above thoughts to posterity, part of what his outstanding success as a painter had taught him. These enlightenments and admonitions are worthy of our seriously pondering.

Every day of everyone’s life—from adulthood to old age—there are one or more duties that challenge the intelligence. Failure to recognize these obligations consigns life to mediocrity. Reflect on the mass of humanity thus afflicted. They die on the vine, as the saying goes. Wrote the French essayist, Montaigne, “It is not death, it is dying that alarms me.” The millions thus stalemated are happy in their doldrums, not alarmed. Poor souls!

Now, what about the few to whom a recognition and the mastery of duties is a joy? Wrote the English novelist, Henry Fielding (1707-1754): “Great joy, especially after a sudden change of circumstances, is apt to be silent, and dwells rather in the heart, than on the tongue.”

Duties, as other circumstances, are forever changing. Why this assertion? One’s duties change as new and attractive opportunities present themselves. These new occasions are so numerous that were one not to hold his or her tongue, he or she would sound like a mockingbird. Hold one’s tongue! Silence is golden! Let our achievements dwell quietly in the heart.

If one has chosen an understanding and explanation of human liberty as the number one duty, he or she will be blest with insights, intuitive flashes, ideas and thoughts from seers, past and present. To the extent that one succeeds in comprehending liberty, to that extent will new and challenging duties grace ever so many others.

There is no evil we cannot face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded.

—Daniel Webster

To be free from evil thoughts is one of Creation’s greatest gifts. “When evils have become insufferable, they have touched the point of cure.” The evils of runaway government—with inevitable inflationary consequences—now approach the insufferable stage. Three of ever so many examples:

• The Federal government owns roughly 42% of our total geography.

• American business spends 130,000,000 man-hours per year filling out governmental forms and that cost is passed directly on to consumers in the form of increased prices.

• In addition to the devastating effect of taxes, government spending beyond its income has generated monetary inflation of such magnitude that our savings have been devalued by more than 60 per cent in the past ten years.

Can we face or fly from these evils? Hardly! They are, indeed, insufferable and, hopefully, we have reached the point of cure. The remedy for this hoped-for turnabout is our duty and it must not be disregarded! It is sink or swim, as the saying goes. Let us swim toward liberty!

Man is not born to solve the problems of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.

—Goethe

The last words of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as he passed away in 1832, were, “Give me light.” Although one of the wisest—most enlightened—humans, past or present, known to me, he had an awareness, as did Socrates, of how “infinitesimal was his wisdom.” To use an old aphorism, he “stuck to his last,” that is, to those duties within his comprehension.

Obviously, no individual keenly aware of his limitations tries to solve the problems of the universe. Who does then? The millions of politicians—not statesmen—with not a smidgeon of awareness as to how little they know. They “know” how to run the lives of all persons within their towns, counties, states, nations. The truth? They know not how to run their own lives, let alone yours or mine. “To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of ignorance.” Our prayer for each day of mortal life should be, “Give us light.” There is not enough darkness in the whole world to put out the light of one wee candle. Nor is there enough ignorance in America to put out the light of liberty.

The consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected will always continue to prompt me to promote the former by inculcating the practice of the latter.

—George Washington

Wrote the English author, Philip Hamerton: “The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is best in us.” Happiness and moral duty are twin experiences and, if life is lived aright, they are, indeed, inseparable.

What is best in us? Reflect on this:

Countless the various species of mankind, countless the shades that separate mind from mind; no general object of desire is known; each has his will, and each pursues his own.

—William Gifford

Human variation is an endowment of Creation, for the survival of the human species is keyed to individual differences. If by some malign miracle every human being suddenly became a carbon copy of every other, we would all perish. The planet earth would revert back to nature; there would be mountains, oceans, rivers, various living forms, but no people.

No universal object of desire, valid for everyone, is known; never has been or ever will be. People differ and so their goals are not the same. This fact is a Heavenly Blessing that diminishes or increases as an understanding of freedom fades or brightens.

A salute to George Washington for giving us a great truth: the source of happiness is an adherence to moral duty!

Duty performed, gives clearness and firmness to faith, and faith thus strengthened through duty becomes the more assured and satisfying to the soul.

—Tryon Edwards

Alexis de Tocqueville: “Despotism may govern without faith but Liberty cannot.” The millions of dictocrats in the U.S.A. are without faith in liberty. To the contrary, they are obsessed by the fallacious notion that they are supermen, self-anointed to wield a godlike power over others. This is a messianic delusion.

As Rembrandt, the famous painter, suggested, we should diligently practice what we already know. By so doing, we will, sooner or later, be led to explore the next step in our moral and spiritual upgrading, and the next. This is how we grow, and growth, in turn, will reveal to us how infinitesimal is our wisdom. To acknowledge our finitude is to escape from devastating know-it-all-ness!

To improve the lot of mankind, let each of us do his duty, starting with himself, deepening his understanding of the miracles wrought by freedom. Have faith in liberty!