Evening star., 1924-11-09

T HAVE known all varieties of
mean men and have concluded
that the meanest man is the man
i who becomes impudent because
of good treatment. An all of us
have a strain of that sort of meanness
in us.
There is a general impression that
people are generally mean. A few
of them are, but the bulk of US are
amiab BILE. Most foolish acts are the
result of people trying to be nice.
All the folly that comes from social
ism is due to Impractical efforts to
be good to everybody. The preva-
lence of religion. with the harm it
accomplishes along with considerable
good, is due to the general disposi-
tion to be nice; you never knew a
naturally mean man who was disposed
to religion. The religious man is al
ways buobling over with sentiment,
wants everybody to go to heaven, and
thereafter live life of endless bliss.
/ do not meet many mean people,
but hundreds bore me in trying to be
nicer than there is any natural call
for.
The disposition of people to be
good, or nice. is the base of our
civilization. The old savage was a
nasty man. He made servants of his
women and children. was always a
loafer and a good deal of a thief.
Note the habits of our own Indians,
of the lower races everyw where. AS
time passed, the better types of men
discovered the comfort in cleaning up,
in providing better shelter and more
conveniences. So the race progress
ed to the present civilization. Moral
ity is demonstrated convenience, not
a law Numbered from a mountain by
4 god; our moral system is no more
sacred than is our sewer system.
Everything human is as gross and
material, as fixed and certain as the
evolution in which we originated
our growth in civilization is no more
wonderful than the growth of the
wild horse to the present thorough
bred. Water at command by turn
ing a tap and paying tax Is more
convenient than carrying it from a
free spring. 1t is all d simple story.
easy to understand and apply in all
its phases. We have found civiliza-
tion easier and more convenient than
savagery: that is the shortest way
of expressing it. And since the race
as a whole has benefited by civilized
rules, the better the individual obeys
these rules. the better he practices
industry, thrift, politeness, temper
ance. such fairness and usefulness
a S others have found of benefit, the
easier he will get along. The gods
do not care whether you behave or
are ill-behaved; they are only con-
cerned in rewarding those who are
we'll behaved and in punishing those
who are not.
\ I. x
The neighbors know man better
than Eradstreet, and they are rea-
sonably fair in their Judgments. If
you are reliable they say SO; they
may admit it grudgingly, but they
admit it. If you are unreliable, they
! say so, and they have a right to
warn others against you. And you
may be sure they note your good
habits carefully as they note you,
I bad ones.
| = = X
Socretes is said to have been the
| most original thinker of antiquity
! Yet what did he know or think that
! the average man should not know
| or think at 80 years of age? He was
an apostle of truth, of plain commor
! sense, of plain living, of right con-
! duet for it's own sake. Who should
not be? There are millions of men
| who have almost never heard OF
! Socrates and his disciples. Patient
| self sacrificing, industrious, respecta-
| BILE, they have learned from good
| parents instead of from ancient
philosophy; they are not familiar with