Self-examination is dangerous if it encroaches upon self-devotion;
reverie is hurtful when it stupefies the will; gentleness is an evil
when it lessens strength; contemplation is fatal when it destroys
character. "Too much" and "too little" sin equally against wisdom.
Excess is one evil, apathy another. Duty may be defined as energy
tempered by moderation; happiness, as inclination calmed and tempered by
self-control.
Just as life is only lent us for a few years, but is not inherent in us,
so the good which is in us is not our own. It is not difficult to think
of one's self in this detached spirit. It only needs a little
self-knowledge, a little intuitive preception of the ideal, a little
religion. There is even much sweetness in this conception that we are
nothing of ourselves, and that yet it is granted to us to summon each
other to life, joy, poetry and holiness.
Another application of the law of irony: Zeno, a fatalist by theory,
makes his disciples heroes; Epicurus, the upholder of liberty, makes his
disciples languid and effeminate. The ideal pursued is the decisive
point; the stoical ideal is duty, whereas the Epicureans make an ideal
out of an interest. Two tendencies, two systems of morals, two worlds.
In the same way the Jansenists, and before them the great reformers, are
for predestination, the Jesuits for free-will--and yet the first founded
liberty, the second slavery of conscience.
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