LIFE AS A FINE ART.* 



BY LEWIS G. JANES. 



" The Art of Life the greatest of all arts" THOMAS CARLYLE. 



" The art of living rightly is like all arts : the capacity only is 

 born with us; it must be learned, and practiced with incessant care. 

 GOETHE, in Wilhelm Meister. 



AMOXG the gems of thought which may be gathered by 

 diligent seeking from that wonderful store-house of Hebrew 

 tradition, the Talmud, is this wise precept of Rabbi Hillel, 

 prophetic of the later teaching of the New Testament: 

 "Energetically seize Life." ... "If we cling to the letter 

 of holy writ, all morality will be lost. Whether anything 

 be written or not, the life decides." 



" The life decides," reiterates the modern thinker, the 

 philosophical evolutionist. The object of life is life itself 

 fullness of life, the free, temperate, and harmonious exercise 

 of every natural faculty in the service of the Good, the True, 

 and the Beautiful. This rule, made universal, should be the 

 ideal end toward which all human activities are directed 

 the criterion of choice in our vocations, the mentor of our 

 bodily appetites, the educator of conscience, the final test of 

 the morality of actions. What a paltry query is that, 

 whether life is worth living ! Life is infinite opportunity. 

 Its worth for us depends largely on our own volition. Our 

 vision of the universe is tinged by the hue of our subjective 

 limitations. What the world is for us depends upon what 

 we are ourselves. Life is never stale, flat, and unprofitable, 

 save as it reflects the dullness of our own torpor and our 

 neglected opportunities. What interest, what zest there is 

 in life for the man who is thoroughly alive whose faculties 

 are all alert and active, striving for the best possible attain- 

 ments ! How vastly suggestive and inspiring is the untried 

 future with its limitless outlook ! The haze and shadow of 

 unsearchable mystery which encompass the span of life at 

 either end, and recede before us as we vainly strive to pene- 



* Delivered before the Ohio State University, at Columbus, March 22, 1891 ; 

 before the Brooklyn Ethical Association, May 24, 1891. 



