The weekly examiner., 1901-06-22
RESPECT YOUR CAPACITIES.
Human Inequality More tn Idea Than fin Fact-Ethica Versus
 Esthetics.

The seeming differences which exist between the more favored members of society and the less favored are em- phasized in way to make the more favored conceited and the less fa- yored discouraged. Probably all men are not equal, either in point of en- dowment or attainment, but what counts as inequality is good deal less to the way it is looked at.
 If it is said of man that he is rich, all that that means is that there are some others that have less; it says nothing as to his possessions actually, but only as to his possessions relative ly. One man under one set of circum- stances may be rich with $1,000, an other man under another set of cir cumstances may be poor with $1 ,000,- oeO. A street Arab with dollar is g millionaire. Any man is poor when he stands by the side of man who is worth 100 times as much. Any man is rich when he stands by the side of $ man who is worth 100 times as little. As compared with God, MT. Vanderbilt is pauper, and even MT. Carnegie is
 
 mathematics that although finite quantities differ when compared with each other, they are absolutely equal when compared with an infinite quan- tity, so that while as against MT. Van derbilt and MT. Carnegie I am poor, when they and stand up in the face of God they are neither of them a stiver better off than am.
 The differences between PeeRls in point of wisdom can be handled in very much the same way. man is learned when he knows more than most of his contemporaries, be those contemporaries scholars or igno- ramuses. It is all pure matter of com parison. Adam was the bright par ticular luminary of his day, and was liberally educated before he even knew how to read. A good deal is told us of the wisdom of Solomon, and he certainly was distinguished proverb- ialist, but he would have been plucked on an entrance to the freshman class of Columbia. I once taught an A B c class in a primary school, and there was one bright little fellow in the class who had learned, say, half of the letters of the alphabet, and it was fear full to behold the tortures he experi- enced in trying to strangle his merri- ment when his less iberally educated classmate called an "O""A." Whether boy or man, anybody knows great deal if he knows of nobody who knows more, particularly if he knows of good many who know less.
 Speaking still farther of this same matter of wisdom, it is important to notice that even those who know the most know nothing exactly as it is. Our best knowledge does not arrive at the truth and is only an approach to the truth. To say that we are educated is euphemistic way of saying that we are learnedly ignorant. St. Paul was exceedingly clear upon this point when he remarks in his letter to the Corinthians that the knowledge we have now is all of it knowledge Gin part" and that when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away" So that the more man s'knows,' the more he will have to unload when the season ar rives for the incoming of the knowl- edge that is perfect. So viewed, to ''know" little gives about as good title to complacency as to "know" good deal.
 Nor is it very different when we come to compare ourselves in the mat ter of morals. The difference between what we call the refined and the de- graded clements of society is one that consists less in the amount of iniquity distinguishing the two respectively than in the method and style of it. Civilization is not so much an improve ment in morality as it is the adoption of more cultivated and elegant forms of immortality. As people become civ ilized they do not necessarily sin less, but they learn to sin more artistically; they do it in ways that are less re- pulsive to 8 cultivated taste. A down town saloon is very different from an uptown club room-different in every thing except in that which makes them both bad, and perhaps equally bad, only that gilded sin is, if anything, worse than sin upon which no decora- tion has been put. So the elegant lady who gambIes in Fifth avenue is doing the same thing as the tough" who .gambles in the Bowery. He would not enjoy doing it in Fifth avenue, and she would not enjoy doing it in the Bow cry. The only difference, though, be- tween the vice as committed in one