IN every department of human activity, faith in our own ability to do a thing, no matter what, is almost necessary to our doing it at all, and at all events to our doing it well. To acquire this faith in himself is indeed with every man half the battle of life. Some men never do gain it. They are always so diffident and distrustful of themselves that they are incapable of a really vigorous effort: and life, accordingly, to them, is little other than an important struggle and a disastrous defeat. The very imagination that one cannot do a thing is almost certain either to deter from the attempt or to make it a failure. On the contrary, feel that you can, and the simple feeling is of itself almost certain to ensure success. It is so in ordinary life, and it is so in the Christian life. It is just because of this morbid self-distrust, this miserable sickly feeling, I can’t, that many persons who might be useful in the Church and in the world, who might be ministering angels to the really weak and incapable, remain inactive and useless, and fritter away their lives in merely dreaming about doing good. Whereas it is by the sound, healthy feeling, I can, that all the good that is done is really effected.
Most important, therefore, is it that this faith should be acquired. It may be all very right to preach about man’s weakness and nothingness in himself, but it will never do to confine ourselves to that. That is only one half of the truth. It is only the dark side of the shield, and we must look at its bright side. We are living under the gospel. Christ’s own words are addressed to us, and “they are spirit, and they are life” (Joh_6:63). Christ’s own Spirit is given to us, and it is not a “spirit of fear” and timidity, “but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind,” (2Ti_1:7) so that we may be “always confident,” (2Co_5:6) not arrogant, self-conceited, self-righteous, or rash; but consciously able to do anything and to suffer anything to which in the course of Divine providence we may be called.
A man may so grow up to the stature of “a perfect man” (Eph_4:13) in Christ, he may live in such intimate and habitual communion with Him, as to become conscious of the strength of Christ within him, bracing, nerving, energizing his spirit; so that no danger shall daunt, no trouble disturb him, but he shall go calmly and confidently forth, and mountains of difficulty shall vanish at his bidding. Such a man was St. Paul; and such too may we ourselves be. We ought, all of us, to be able in all humility and thankfulness, but at the same time with all confidence, to say, as he said, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
1. Bacon has a poor opinion of “boldness,” as he calls self-confidence. He says: “Question was asked of Demosthenes, what was the chief part of an orator? he answered, Action: what next?—Action: what next again?—Action. He said it that knew it best, and had by nature himself no advantage in that he commended. A strange thing, that that part of an orator which is but superficial, and rather the virtue of a player, should be placed so high above those other noble parts of invention, elocution, and the rest; nay almost alone, as if it were all in all. But the reason is plain. There is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise; and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men’s minds is taken are most potent. Wonderful-like is the case of boldness in civil business; what first?boldness; what second and third?—boldness: and yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, far inferior to other parts: but, nevertheless, it doth fascinate, and bind hand and foot those that are either shallow in judgment or weak in courage, which are the greatest part; yea, and prevaileth with wise men at weak times.” [Note: The Moral and Historical Works of Lord Bacon, 31.] Yet Bacon himself was a conspicuous example of self-confidence, as we shall see later.
Modesty has a natural tendency to conceal a man’s talents, as impudence displays them to the utmost, and has been the only cause why many have risen in the world, under all the disadvantages of low birth and little merit. Such indolence and incapacity is there in the generality of mankind, that they are apt to receive a man for whatever he has a mind to put himself off for; and admit his overbearing airs as proofs of that merit which he assumes to himself. A decent assurance seems to be the natural attendant of virtue; and few men can distinguish impudence from it: As, on the other hand, diffidence, being the natural result of vice and folly, has drawn disgrace upon modesty, which in outward appearance so nearly resembles it. [Note: Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, ii. 380.]
Nothing so fascinates mankind as to see a man equal to every fortune, unshaken by reverses, indifferent to personal abuse, maintaining a long combat against apparently hopeless odds with the sharpest weapons and a smiling face. His followers fancy he must have hidden resources of wisdom as well as of courage. When some of his predictions come true, and the turning tide of popular feeling begins to bear them toward power, they believe that he has been all along right and the rest of the world wrong. When victory at last settles on his crest, even his enemies can hardly help applauding a reward which seems so amply earned. It was by this quality, more perhaps than by anything else, by this serene surface with fathomless depths below, that Lord Beaconsfield laid his spell upon the imagination of observers in Continental Europe, and received at his death a sort of canonisation from a large section of the English people. [Note: Viscount Bryce, Studies in Contemporary Biography, 65.]
2. A Spanish philosopher of the same time as Bacon rates the value of self-confidence highly. “In great crises,” says Balthasar Gracian,” [Note: The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 100.] there is no better companion than a bold heart, and if it becomes weak it must be strengthened from the neighbouring parts. Worries die away before a man who asserts himself. One must not surrender to misfortune, or else it would become intolerable. Many men do not help themselves in their troubles, and double their weight by not knowing how to bear them. He that knows himself knows how to strengthen his weakness, and the wise man conquers everything, even the stars in their courses.”
A man who believes in himself will attain results and conquer difficulties far beyond the power and scope of characters in which we should have seen much more promise of effectiveness. He will, to take the very lowest estimate of his life, be outwardly successful: he will do what he wishes and intends to do: he will make other people believe in him and work for him: difficulties will disappear because he will not see them, and distant ends will come within his reach because he never doubts that they are so. [Note: F. Paget, Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Disbelief, 261.]
3. It is better that a man, and especially a young man, should have too high than too low an opinion of his own merit and usefulness. For the world will not be backward in bringing him down to his true level, while it will never trouble to raise him up to it. If you value yourself, your labour, your time, your talents too highly, the world may for a time receive you at your own valuation, until, in disgust at being deceived, it forces you to take an account of your worth that is no truer, inasmuch as it will err from defect as much as it had before erred in excess. But if you value yourself too low, the world will not correct you, it will take you at your own valuation, and will allow you to feel that you are of little use, so that you will let many opportunities of doing good, of helping others, of improving and strengthening your own character slip by. The Scotsman’s prayer, “Gie’ us a guid conceit o’ wursells,” might be offered up with great advantage by some of us.
There is nothing, I hold, in the way of work
That a human being may not achieve
If he does not falter, or shrink or shirk,
And more than all, if he will believe.
Believe in himself and the power behind
That stands like an aid on a dual ground,
With hope for the spirit and oil for the wound,
Ready to strengthen the arm or mind.
When the motive is right and the will is strong
There are no limits to human power;
For that great force back of us moves along
And takes us with it, in trial’s hour.
And whatever the height you yearn to climb,
Tho’ it never was trod by the foot of man,
And no matter how steep—I say you can,
If you will be patient—and use your time. [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Maurine and Other Poems, 209.]
