LOWELL ADVOCATES CLEARNESS OF VISION

The following is the text of the Baccalaureate Sermon delivered by President Lowell yesterday afternoon in Appleton Chapel.

President Lowell took as his text Psalm CXXI:6: "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night."

The psalmist promised to the faithful freedom from both sunstroke and moonstroke. The meaning of the first of these is clear--especially in the hot climate where the psalm was written. But to most people at the present day the second promise is either meaningless, or a reminder of an ancient, and obsolete superstition that the shining of the moon on the face during sleep will cause insanity a superstition still preserved in our word lunatic.

Although we have long ceased to believe that the moon has any connection with mental disease, the intent of the benediction is as vital as ever. In present day prose, it might be expressed thus--"You shall be free from illness in body or aberration in mind", and of those the second is the more important to the man himself, and of by far the greater moment to the rest of the world. If to err in thought is an evil, and to escape it a benefit to oneself and others, there is also a duty to keep one's mind from error and to think aright.

Public Opinion Rules

We say that public opinion rules the world, and we often say so carelessly, because by public opinion, we are apt to mean merely the ideas held by ourselves and the little group of people to which we belong. Nevertheless it is true that public opinion does rule. The slave trade was abolished by it, and so later was slavery--although in this case not without a struggle. Taking the civilized world over, corruption in public life, while not indeed, abolished has been greatly reduced, in the last two hundred years by the force of public opinion; and this has occurred not so much from a perception that corruption is practised at the cost of the whole community, but chiefly from a sense of its inherent iniquity. Cruel forms of punishment for crime, torture in obtaining evidence have disappeared in the same period under the pressure of this compelling influence. In short, the advance of civilization in its social and moral conditions is caused and measured by the progress of opinion.

Every One Counts to Some Extent

Public opinion is, therefore, of the highest consequence to mankind. But after all the stuff, it is made of is only the opinions of individuals combined into a mass. In its information some men count for more than others, but everyone counts for something; and most men count for more than they are aware. We are much too inclined to think that hasty judgments, idle words, careless statements of passing impressions are unimportant; and yet these may have a distinct influence on those who hear them. Everyone truly counts to some extent, for although many people from no opinions of their own and merely reflect their surroundings--Laodiceans, neither hot nor cold--spineless drifters without self-direction--still they have an effect, and may both prevent the spread of right thought and promote a mischievous course. They are a shitting cargo in the ship of state, a peril if the bulkheads break.

Public Morals Based on Private

All this is true, not only of opinions about public matters, but also about what is right, just, honorable and generous in personal conduct. As a rule, indeed, public morals are built upon private morals, and a stable commonwealth does not stand upon an unsound moral foundation. Let us repeat, therefore, that morals, public and private, depend upon opinion. The morality of a people is sustained by a general opinion of its rightfulness, and a general condemnation of its violation. All men sometimes do, and a few men often do what they know to be wrong; but even so they usually try to justify to themselves, or at least to palliate, their sins. In the main men conduct themselves, both in public and private life, in accordance with their moral opinions, or the opinions of those they respect, or the opinions prevalent among the people with whom they mix. If so right opinions are of supreme importance, and the duty of holding right opinions is one of paramount obligation.

Difficult To See Aright

This does not mean that all true men should think alike. Men differ, must differ, and ought to differ; but that does not affect the momentous results of wrong opinions, or the imperative duty of thinking aright. Nor is it any excuse that other people think the same. It is quite as bad, and often worse, to think wrong with the majority as to be in the wrong alone. If truth were so easy to ascertain that all honest-minded people instinctively thought alike the duty to think aright would involve too little effort to need an exhortation. Life is so complex in its personal, social, public and international relations, it has so many facets, refracts the light in so many different ways, that it is very difficult to see aright, or to take into account in due proportion all the manifold elements it contains.

Form Judgments With Care

We must strive to see as much as we can, to keep our minds as clear from error as possible, and form our judgments by earnest, painstaking effort. We must beware of assuming that an idea is true because it is old or because it is new, but try simply to discover whether it is true or not. To put the matter more accurately, we must endeavor to ascertain how much of truth or error it contains; for from history we learn that the common mistake of men has been to assume that of two opposing views one is absolutely right and the other wholly wrong, when in fact each had a savor of truth confused by exaggeration and error. From this cause have flowed political and religious struggles, resulting indeed in progress, but progress less complete and less durable than might have come from earnest effort on both sides to seek for what was right in each. In such cases the elements of truth on each side were not brought face to face and weighed in the balance; but men have weighed what truth there was on their own side against the errors on the other. To see clearly one's own modicum of truth and what is wrong in one's opponents is an easy way of forming a judgment, but not a method that leads either to truth or harmony.

Citizens Should Strive for Truth

It is often thought that the best means of promoting the search for truth is to have men advocate divergent views as strongly as they can, with the ideas that from the discord truth will emerge. This has its merit in assuring that no grain of truth will remain obscure; and it is excellent when as in a court, there are judges and jurors entrusted with the duty of remaining impartial and forming a right judgment. But in his part in creating opinion a citizen is both advocate and judge. Not only does he present his views, but he contributes also to the public judgment; and therefore he should strive for the nearest approximation he can make to truth. Moreover, by so doing he becomes a larger force. It was Lincoln rather than Garrison or Phillips that convinced his people of the necessity for emancipation.

There are times of stress when men must fight for the greater truth as they see it against another aspect of truth which in the insistent strife is less vital; times when duty demands not to ask the reason why, but to do and die! Then duty becomes heroic, but intellectually simply. In more tranquil periods the supreme duty is to think aright. It is then that opinions can, and should, be formed that will direct action when the stress comes. Let us not forget that in peace the conflicting opinions are formed that later produce wars; that in quiet times the social ideas grow which, if erroneous, collect the explosives for subsequent catastrophes. It is then that the duty is incumbent to form, and help others to form, correct, unbiased opinions, particularly upon these subjects in which we may have special means of reaching a right judgment.

Forethought Urgently Needed

Before we were drawn into the war, and still more since, we have heard much of the need of preparedness, and rightly so. But preparation should not be merely of material things, but of opinions. Most of all we need thinking to prepare for crises ahead. In fact there was never more need of forethought than now, for the public men of the present day are, as a rule, apt to take short views. For such a need educated men, and among them college graduates, are peculiarly responsible, because they have been furnished above others with the means of forming opinions by ascertaining the facts on which they should be based, and by considering them from an abstract, and hence a detached, point of view. Such men are in a real sense the watchmen of the people, for if they see the evil coming and give not warning, the blood of the people who suffer should be required at their hand: and not less should it be required when they have failed to see it after receiving the privilege of education that should have given them the power of seeing.

Prejudice Obscures Vision

Wrong opinions come mainly from lack of sight, from not seeing far enough, or widely enough, or from obstacles in the line of vision, and there fore failing to take into account a part of the factors in the problem. Such near-sightedness, or defective vision, is due partly to our ignorance in large part unavoidable because we know, and can know, only a small portion of the influite compass of eternal truth. If is partly due also to the narrowness of our sympathies' which prevents us from comprehending the sentiments and point of view of others, who are quite as sincere, intelligent and well informed as ourselves, perhaps familiar with aspects of the matter we know little about and gifted with a deeper insight. It is due in no small measure to prejudice which obscures our vision.

Usually quite unconsciously to ourselves, for prejudice's that is conscious, like a mist at the rising of the sun, is likely to be about to dissipate. And herein lies one of the great difficulties in thinking aright, that we do not know when we are wrong, or we should not be wrong. The man who knows the right trail does not miss it. We go wrong because the moon has smittea our minds with error.

Blindness Partly Due to Passion

Again our failure to see clearly is due partly to passion that blinds us often selfish, ignoble passion, impatience with those who oppose us, jealously, vindictiveness, fear, or avarice of wealth and fame. Sometimes the passion springs from better motives, a desire to help others unjustly treated, or eagerness for the success of a cause in whose righteousness we have faith I knew a man who made a rule when indignant to write a letter as strongly as he felt, then address if to himself and drop it into the mail. On receiving if the next morning he had an impression of the way it would affect the person for whom it was intended not a bad thing to do, if not literally at least in imagination, as a means of putting oneself in another's place.

The fact is that over all these sources of shortsightedness we have some control, over many of them very great control. We can lessen our ignorance by earnest search for truth. We can widen our sympathies, and reduce our prejudice by striving to do so, and that without letting our resolution be sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought. We can control our passions by frankly acknowledging their existence to ourselves.

Above all we can place ourselves on a higher plane of vision by striving to look at things from a loftier standpoint. We can endeavor to rise above our own sentiments, surroundings and purposes until they assume their true proportions in a wider horizon. We can try to think how they would be regarded by a Being infinite in knowledge, in love and in sympathy with all sentient creatures that now are, or hereafter will be, living upon the earth. No doubt we shall still be in error, because we are finite, severely limited in mind and heart, but the nearest approach we can make to the pure white light of truth is to raise our thoughts as closely as we are able to those of the Infinite and Eternal