Volume Ii Part 40 (1/2)
64.
THE MOST n.o.bLE VIRTUE.-In the first era of the higher humanity courage is accounted the most n.o.ble virtue, in the next justice, in the third temperance, in the fourth wisdom. In which era do _we_ live? In which do _you_ live?
65.
A NECESSARY PRELIMINARY.-A man who will not become master of his irritability, his venomous and vengeful feelings, and his l.u.s.t, and attempts to become master in anything else, is as stupid as the farmer who lays out his field beside a torrent without guarding against that torrent.
66.
WHAT IS TRUTH?-_Schwarzert_ (Melanchthon): We often preach our faith when we have lost it, and leave not a stone unturned to find it-and then we often do not preach worst!
_Luther_: Brother, you are really speaking like an angel to-day.
_Schwarzert_: But that is the idea of your enemies, and they apply it to you.
_Luther_: Then it would be a lie from the devil's hind-quarters.
67.
THE HABIT OF CONTRASTS.-Superficial, inexact observation sees contrasts everywhere in nature (for instance, ”hot and cold”), where there are no contrasts, only differences of degree. This bad habit has induced us to try to understand and interpret even the inner nature, the intellectual and moral world, in accordance with such contrasts. An infinite amount of cruelty, arrogance, harshness, estrangement, and coldness has entered into human emotion, because men imagined they saw contrasts where there were only transitions.
68.
CAN WE FORGIVE?-How can we forgive them at all, if they know not what they do? We have nothing to forgive. But does a man ever fully know what he is doing? And if this point at least remains always debatable, men never have anything to forgive each other, and indulgence is for the reasonable man an impossible thing. Finally, if the evil-doers had really known what they did, we should still only have a right to forgive if we had a right to accuse and to punish. But we have not that right.
69.
HABITUAL SHAME.-Why do we feel shame when some virtue or merit is attributed to us which, as the saying goes, ”we have not deserved”?
Because we appear to have intruded upon a territory to which we do not belong, from which we should be excluded, as from a holy place or holy of holies, which ought not to be trodden by our foot. Through the errors of others we have, nevertheless, penetrated to it, and we are now swayed partly by fear, partly by reverence, partly by surprise; we do not know whether we ought to fly or to enjoy the blissful moment with all its gracious advantages. In all shame there is a mystery, which seems desecrated or in danger of desecration through us. All _favour_ begets shame.-But if it be remembered that we have never really ”deserved”