Essay（s） by Lemuel K． Washburn
The Object Of Life
Lemuel K.Washburn
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Men live for less than their advancement. The object of life is not human improvement. Ambition has not self-denial for a mark but self-gratification. A thousand pander to one. Passion, instead of principle, is the power that guides. We do not save to help save the world, to aid progress and truth, but to have means to satisfy selfish desires. The highest consideration of mankind is self. Everything is done for one. Humanity is a word of little meaning. It is not often regarded as a great, living, suffering being, which demands of every person his or her best life. Man is not loved as the supreme fact of Nature. When not a beast of burden, he is too often a beast of pleasure.
As long as self is to be preferred to all, it matters little what is employed to promote it. Self is alone sacred to selfishness. General interest is sacrificed to individual possession. Every man thinks the world
his first. It is regarded as magnanimous to leave what you cannot take.
The world no longer permits the stronger to kill the weaker, but it allows the wealthy to oppress the poor. Money is holier than man. Human life is less sacred than property. To save a dollar is regarded as a more necessary virtue than to save a human heart. Society cares more for fortune than for truth. It is easier to win your way with hypocrisy than with honesty. The world does not ask: What are you worth morally? but, what are you worth financially? Self-interest has made it the object of life to injure our fellows. To get an advantage over another is the victory man seeks. One must fall that another may rise.
Those who are at the bottom support those who are on top. The toilers are the foundation of society. We need to be more careful of what is beneath us than of what is above us. “I write not these things to shame you, but to warn you.”
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When you are falling, you cannot stop where you wish to.
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The power that conquers men to-day must be the power of enlightened opinion.
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Two dollars given to the son do not atone for one stolen from the father.
[The end]
Lemuel K. Washburn's essay: Object Of Life