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THE DANGERS OF EXPERIENCE.

[Reprinted from The Manchester, Salford and District Congregational Magazine, October, 1887.]

ence.

THE value of experience is proverbial. We have all heard that "experience teaches fools," and that "a man at forty years of age is either a fool or a physician." But we do not hear so often of the dangers of experiMany men who have reached or have passed middle life are rather apt to flatter themselves that the years which are said to "bring the philosophic mind," have brought nothing but gain to them, so far as their own character is concerned. They are apt to fancy that their experience has simply produced greater maturity of judgment, given them a wider knowledge, delivered them from the illusions of imagination, put them on their guard against deceitful appearances and uncalculating impulses, and led them to conduct their life with more caution and self-control. Certainly it would be a strange thing if we could spend many years in a world like this without learning some lessons of practical wisdom. But, on the other hand, it may be well for us to remember, as the years roll on, that the wisdom of experience is not necessarily an unmixed gain-that, indeed, our very experience of

life brings with it temptations and dangers peculiarly its own.

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It will surely be acknowledged, to begin with, that some kinds of experience may be bought far too dearly. Not only may it be the case that the experimental knowledge obtained is not worth the initial cost; it may also be the case that the cost itself involves a permanent disability. There are men priding themselves on their knowledge of life, who are simply "glorying in their shame." They have been burrowing in filth, and they know what it is; but the taint of it may abide with them to the end of their days. They have learnt by experience what it would have been better for them to have learnt only by hearsay, or perhaps still better never to have learnt at all. experience may have opened their eyes in one direction, but it may have blinded them in another. Their moral instincts and spiritual sensibilities may have been dulled and their special experience, with its special knowledge, may have robbed them of the benefits and blessings of an experience which would have been a wider, richer, healthier, and sweeter thing. The selfishness which is reckless of the injury done to other lives in the process of self-culture, cannot possibly produce the highest type of character. The rake who prides himself on having "seen life" may find it all the more difficult to "see God." The unscrupulous man who has reached the goal of his ambition may find that he has missed a far nobler goal. We must ask what a man loses, as well as what he gains, in the gathering of his special experience. Goethe once said that he was bent on "building the pyramid of his existence as high as possible into the air": did he

forget that, after all, a pyramid may be only a big tomb?

But it is not only when experience is too dearly bought that it brings its own special dangers. We may gain much knowledge of human nature and human life without any self-degradation,—knowledge which may even be forced upon us in the necessary intercourse of the world; and yet this very knowledge brings with it temptations which may issue in the deterioration of our character. Men speak of the moral dangers which beset ignorance; but is it not the case that the healthy instincts of an inexperienced innocence are often a moral safeguard ? Is it not sometimes also the case that an impulsive courage which is ignorant of danger succeeds in achieving what prudence, in full view of the risk, would scarcely have ventured to attempt? Thus the disadvantages are not all on the side of ignorance. Experience may beget an over-cautious timidity. Experience also furnishes a man with tools and weapons which he is tempted to use as mere instruments of selfishness. This temptation is one which especially besets men in middle and later life. The knowledge which gives a man an advantage over his neighbours, gives him also the opportunity of making an unfair or ungenerous use of that advantage. Experience may often prevent a man from being tricked; but it does not prevent him from being tricky. Youth is naturally generous, impulsive, and uncalculating, and is not usually given to manœuvre and diplomacy. It is the man of experience who usually excels in finesse, and in a kind of tact which may be closely allied to cunning. It is the man of experience whose knowledge of human

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nature enables him to play upon the prejudices and weaknesses of others so as to promote his own selfish ends. It is the man of experience who is able to lay traps for the unwary-to make bargains which are apparently generous, but which are really to his own. advantage, and to tempt the ignorant into paths of sin and shame. There are human spiders who know well how to weave their web! And there are few things that degrade our nature more than the habit of looking upon our fellow-men, not as brethren to be loved and helped, but as instruments to be used for our own pleasure or profit. This is one of the greatest dangers of experience. For surely of all temptations one of the most dangerous is the temptation to become tempters or tricksters of our fellow-men.

Another danger of experience is the tendency which it sometimes produces towards a distrustful and even cynical habit of mind. The little child is naturally trustful; and the same may be said of every ingenuous and honest soul. The man who is himself conscious of pure motive and kindly feeling naturally looks out on the universe with faith. But it is impossible to live long in the world without having this faith severely tested. The mysteries of Providence-the afflictions which we ourselves have to endure, or which we observe in the lives of others-test our confidence in God. The knowledge which we acquire as to the possibilities of human nature in the way of vice, hypocrisy, and deceit, tends to lower our confidence in our fellow-men. Perhaps we ourselves have trusted those who have betrayed us. Such experience is apt to beget an over-suspicious habit of mind, which leads us to blunder in our estimates

of the character and conduct of others. Instead of putting the best possible construction upon their actions which is often the true construction--we may begin to indulge in groundless suspicion as to the motives of the most seemly deeds. This is very likely to be the case if we allow ourselves to become soured by our experience of disappointment, injustice, or unkindness. And it is still more likely to be the case if we have also had some painful and humiliating experience of our own moral weakness in the presence of temptation. Indeed, a man of wide experience who is also thoroughly selfish, is almost certain to become both cynical and sceptical. His experience of human life and of Divine Providence, interpreted by his knowledge of himself, makes it hard for him to trust either man or God. But even an honest and unselfish nature sometimes finds it difficult to combine a generous faith with the wise prudence which is forced upon us by our growing knowledge of human life. So, too, our hope of human progress is apt to be lessened, not only by our own failure to respond adequately to the good influences which have surrounded us through so many years, but also by the comparative failure of our endeavours to elevate and bless others. Enterprises of beneficence, which looked very promising for a time, have not been so successful as we expected. It is, indeed, one of the problems of life, how to preserve the earlier spirit of trust and hope amid the knowledge and wisdom born of maturer experience. And it is because this problem is too hard for many, that they begin, in middle life, to degenerate in character. They leave behind them the generous impulses, the energizing hopes, and the resolute courage, of youth. They cease

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