Unconscious Ideals

What Are Your "Imaginary Models of Perfection"?

GEORGE HIBBARD

NOTHING probably could cause greater surprise, not to say consternation, in the mind of the average American citizen than to be accused of being a poet. Certainly nothing could be farther from his thoughts than poetry and the influence of poetry. His conception of a poet would be that of a mild-mannered maniac who wrote lines that trickled through the middle of the page instead of standing boldly and in orderly rows down the side of it as all respectable writing should do. He would have a very shadowy image of a creature yearning for a visionary ideal of something which would be of no possible use to him or to anybody else if he attained it. The writing of such irregularly irresponsible lines would, of course, be the end and object of such an existence, but still, this would be more or less an incident. The cherishing of the ideal which is supposed to be particularly the property of poets would constitute the essence of his being.

STILL, what are ideals? We have long been accustomed to think of them as something having solely to do with art and beauty—with the ultimate expression of the highest attainment in character and conduct. But the dictionary which helps to keep us from receiving and passing false currency in the world of thought does not bind us down to any such interpretation. The definition given is merely, "an imaginary model of perfection."

If the history of its ideals could be the history of the world, decidedly the history of his or her ideals would be the history of the individual. That is the reason why these unconscious ideals are matters of every day moment. They are the guides which are directing each one of us during each hour and moment and everybody has one,—in fact, one or more —for there are plenty to go 'round.

Indeed, the belief has been too long held that there is something exclusive and grandiose about ideals. Really, nowadays they are the most universal and democratic affairs. Probably this has always been so. The darkest inhabitant of darkest Africa in. the dark ages undoubtedly cherished an idea of what he wished the most. However, as man has attained a greater freedom he has reached greater consciousness and approached more nearly to a definite concept of what he considered desirable. He has conquered the right to have ideals as he has conquered so much else. They are some more of the things which the classes and the highbrows cannot consider wholly their own property.

Every man may have one, and the only trouble is that every man does not recognize that he has one. He has it but realizing that he has it is better. To know it is more advantageous because to work consciously toward an end is better than unconsciously. One may be following a street without being aware of its name, but if one wants to go to a particular place, knowing its name makes it easier to get directions in going along. To know that the baton is in the knapsack is better, for the consciousness of it is an incentive and in most respects we are more apt to live up to it.

Of course, the most important matter is first to select your ideal, and this you cannot do unless you are aware of it. Pick in youth a carefully chosen ideal, dress carefully, and bring to boiling point over a quick fire of enthusiasm. Indeed, the mistakes of youth are almost inevitably mistakes of ideals. The knowledge of age is the rejection of the false and the setting up of wise ones. As a general thing, the ideal comes unsought and unconsciously, and in this is the danger. How they steal on us, these unconscious ideals and control the mind, taking possession of us and making us their captive. We never feel it. We never are aware of it. We are subjected to an influence and we take an ideal as we would a disease. Only we know when we are ill and we very often do not know when a new ideal has come to influence us. In the first case, we can send for a doctor, but there is no one to minister to a mind diseased, particularly when it does not know that it is afflicted, and often we languish under the baneful influence of the disorder without being in the slightest degree aware of it.

PERHAPS there never was a time when the careful sorting out of ideals was more necessary. However, the sifting is going on very vigorously and what the world is passing through now may very well serve to separate the wheat from the tares, the good from the bad. Only a short time ago we were living in a world of war, a world of shades and not of color, and were disputing too much about the shades. Nowadays at least we have come back to the good, strong primary colors and every man is forced, or will be forced, or should be forced to stand by his colors which are his ideals.

Naturally, during the past five years, the ideals of the world have been largely martial. Here, too, there has been a change—and not only has the opportunity for holding an ideal been greater but the chance—for the attainment of it infinitely more likely. There has always been the ideal of martial heroism, but the circumstances have been different. There were brave men living before Agamemnon. Very true, but they were living under other conditions. A certain social position, to state the fact simply, was necessary in order that the individual might become known as a hero. Kings were, of course, "ex officio" heroes, and generally were brave enough. Otherwise membership in a well-known family was necessary in the glory that was Greece to have particular notice taken of any deed of daring done. The common soldier had a little better chance in the grandeur that was Rome, but not much. As for the heroes of chivalry, there never was a more exclusive set, and getting into the Knights of the Round Table was more difficult than getting into the smartest London club. The quest of a knight errant was very much like making a round of extremely smart country house visits.

The change came, as so many other such changes came, with the French Revolution and has been going on ever since. Of course, the change really began when gunpowder knocked the armoured knight out of the saddle and the man on foot commenced to show what he was. Still, battles were carried on with a great deal of decorum and according to the rules of precedence. Only with the campaigns of the French Revolution may be found the first indications of present conditions. Nevertheless, the generals and marshals were mostly the heroes, but now even the generals and the marshals have gone. Their names are to be seen in communiques and despatches, but heroism or indeed picturesqueness is no more found with them nor, as a matter of fact, is it any longer expected from them.

THE whole thing is turned upside down, or rather round-about, and the man in the fighting line has come into his own. The rank and file are the heroes nowadays and promotion means renunciation of the laurels of heroism. Why, no one, certainly, above the rank of the colonel, in one case out of a thousand had any possible chance of becoming one of the heroes of the Great War.

The most remarkable thing about all this, or the consequence of all this, has been found to be that in no war in the world's history—and this is another reason why this war is more wonderful than all other wars—has heroism been so constant and universal, so much a part of a great many men's daily life. As has been said by those who have seen much of the fighting, what was once called heroism was so usual, the standard had become so high, that what formerly would have been considered a brilliant action was an every day occurrence. A disregard of danger that almost amounted to an act of deliberate suicide, so apparently certain must be the fatal outcome, alone entitled a man to consideration and to be regarded as a hero. And there is no lack of numbers who have qualified even under these most stringent rules.

Formerly one hero made a battle or a battle produced only one hero, but now, they come "in battalions." They marched across the muddy bogs of Flanders and the devastated fields of France in a never-ending procession. Byron began "Don Juan" by cynically exclaiming—

"I want a hero, an uncommon want.

When every year and month sends forth a new one,"

but in very truth to-day he would discover that any such sneering would be meaningless. In fact to-day, every day and every hour, sends forth not only a real hero, but heroes without numbers from the ranks. The popularization, the democratization of heroism has brought the. chance for humanity to prove itself, and nowadays the most famous of the heroes of past times—Achilles, Castor and Pollux, Amadis of Gaul, or Richard Coeur de Lion—would find themselves completely lost in the shuffle.

With the signing of the peace treaty truly there may arise a need for new ideals but no less need for ideals. Certainly in the difficulties of the present what they are is of more consequence than ever and more urgent is the necessity of coming to know exactly what they are.