the best possibilities in others, our own
standards must be high and clear, and we must be steadily true to them.
Such sympathy is freedom itself,--it is warm and glowing,--while the
sympathy which adds its weight to the pain or selfishness of others can
really be only bondage, however good it may appear.

X

_Personal Independence_

IN proportion as every organ of the human body is free to perform its
own functions, unimpeded by any other, the body is perfectly healthy
and vigorous; and, in proportion as every organ of the body is
receiving its proper support from every other, the body as a whole is
vigorous, and in the full use of its powers.

These are two self-evident axioms, and, if we think of them quietly for
a little while, they will lead us to a clear realization of true
personal independence.

The lungs cannot do the work of the heart, but must do their own work,
independently and freely; and yet, if the lungs should suddenly say to
themselves:

"This is all nonsense,--our depending upon the heart in this way; we
must be independent! It is weak to depend upon the other organs of the
body!" And if they should repel the blood which the heart pumped into
them, with the idea that they could manage the body by themselves, and
were not going to be weakly dependent upon the heart, the stomach, or
any other organ,--if the lungs should insist upon taking this
independent stand, they would very soon stop breathing, the heart would
stop beating, the stomach would stop digesting, and the body would die.
Or, suppose that the heart should refuse to supply the lungs with the
blood necessary to provide oxygen; the same fatal result would of
course follow. Or, even let us imagine all the organs of the body
agreeing that it is weak to be dependent, and asserting their
independence of each other. At the very instant that such an agreement
was carried into effect, the body would perish.

Then, on the other hand,--to reverse the illustration,--if the lungs
should feel that they could help the heart's work by attending to the
circulation of the blood, if the heart should insist that it could
inhale and exhale better than the lungs, and should neglect its own
work in order to advise and assist the lungs in the breathing, the
machinery of the body would be in sad confusion for a time, and would
very soon cease altogether.

This imaginary want of real independence in the working of the
different organs of the body c