As a virtue, magnanimity includes humility, confidence, and hope, but excludes their close neighbors, the vices of presumption, ambition, and vainglory. A magnanimous person must have the humility to know what he can do, the confidence that he can do it, and the hope that his plans will come to fruition. If he overestimates his abilities, he is presumptuous; if he desires to accomplish more than is realistic, he is ambitious; if he exults in his accomplishments, he is vainglorious.
Not to us, O Lord,
not to us, but to Thy
name give glory
(Ps. 115:1
It may be easier to accomplish great works than to be magnanimous in the process. As Aristotle points out: “For without virtue it is not easy to bear gracefully the goods of fortune; and, being unable to bear them, and thinking themselves superior to others, they despise others and themselves do what they please.”
The proud or arrogant man, in attempting to do great things, may bring upon himself great spiritual harm. He may poison his own soul in such a way that it leads to excessive self-absorption as well as contempt for other people. “Beware of the desire for glory,” warned Cicero, “for it enslaves the mind.” In the process of trying to make great things, a person may unmake himself. Magnanimity, therefore, is the virtue that can prevent a person from corrupting his soul.
As a youth, Count Henri de Saint-Simon was awakened each morning by his valet who would cry: “Arise, Monsieur le Comte, you have great things to do today.” Born in 1760, Saint-Simon was brought up to be conscious of the nobility of his ancestry and the importance of maintaining the luster of his family name. He claimed to have been visited by Charlemagne, who predicted that Saint-Simon would become a philosopher of the first rank.
Despite this alleged visitation, Saint-Simon did not achieve greatness in any field. By 1823 he was a failed social revolutionary. He was also depressed and utterly destitute. In his despair, he attempted to end his life by shooting himself in the head. He succeeded, however, only in losing an eye. Two years later, at death’s door, he gathered his few disciples around him and said, “Remember that in order to do great things one must be impassioned.” Yet he had done nothing to warrant such an operatic ending. Saint-Simon is remembered, as historian Robert Heilbroner points out, far more for his “perversity of character” than for any great achievement.
Carl Maria von Weber, by contrast, accomplished great things while remaining truly magnanimous. The father of the Romantic Movement in music was seriously ill with tuberculosis. His doctor advised him to take a year’s rest in Italy, a respite from work that might add five to six years to his life. At the same time, von Weber had been invited to come to London with a new opera that he would conduct with a guaranteed return of $5,000. Work on the opera, according to the doctor, would kill him. Yet von Weber urgently needed to make provision for his wife and children. “As God wills,” he said, and set to work on his opera. Oberon was greeted with great acclaim and von Weber was the toast of London. But eight weeks after the opera’s completion, he died. It was for his music and his family, not for honor, that von Weber engaged in his final labor.
Ulysses S. Grant, America’s 18th president, was a man who accomplished many great things despite his evident lack of ambition. Even his presidency was something he did not seek. “The office has come to me unsought,” he stated in his inaugural address.
After his retirement from the White House, Grant and his wife made a world tour, which he had intended to be a private affair. But government officials honored him wherever he went as the most distinguished living American. As historian Julian Hawthorne has written about the tour, “His simplicity and his greatness were at all times and in all places equally apparent, and greatly elevated the foreign estimate of his country.”
Toward the end of his life, Grant lost his entire life savings in an ill-advised investment. He spent his last few years providing security for his family by writing his Memoirs. At this time, Grant knew he was dying of cancer. Despite his painful condition, he worked assiduously on the project. He died two months after its completion. The Memoirs, published by Mark Twain, proved to be an important contribution to the history of the Civil War. Moreover, their modest tone and strength and simplicity of style attest to the magnanimous individual who wrote them. They were immensely successful and secured for Grant’s family earnings of approximately $500,000.
For both von Weber and Grant, the praise directed toward their final works was largely posthumous. Yet neither was interested in applause. They were perfect embodiments of what the Duc de la Rochefoucauld once said about magnanimity: “Magnanimity is sufficiently defined by its name; yet we may say of it, that it is the good sense of pride, and the noblest way of acquiring applause.”
Dr. DeMarco is a professor of philosophy at St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo, Ontario. He is the author of The Many Faces of Virtue and The Heart of Virtue
This article originally appeared in Lay Witness, a publication of Catholics United for the Faith, Inc., and is used by permission. Join Catholics United for the Faith and enjoy the many benefits of membership.
