In Memoriam 
 
 DR.JOHNJ.DORAN
 

 
 THE EDUCATION 
 OF CHARACTER
 
 THE EDUCATION 
 OF CHARACTER 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. M. S. GILLET, O.P. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 BENJAMIN GREEN 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 REV. BERNARD VAUGHAN, S.J. 
 
 SANTA BARBARA. CALIF, 
 
 NEW YORK 
 P. J. KENEDY & SON 
 
 BARCLAY STREET
 
 l bsiat. 
 
 C. SCHUT, S.T.D. 
 
 CENSOR DEPDTATDS. 
 
 imprimatur. 
 
 EDM. CAN. SURMONT, 
 
 VICARIUS GENERALIS. 
 
 Dit 19 Martii) 1914.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 IN a day when there is a growing tendency to leave 
 character to look after itself, and to batten on noxious 
 foodstuffs with little or no building properties in 
 them, the sight of a book with the title " L'Education 
 du Caractere " is good for sore eyes. It awakens 
 the spirit of hope ; and the table of contents, drawn 
 out analytically, helps to establish that hope. 
 
 Father Gillet, the distinguished Dominican, in this 
 brochure, has provided a plentiful supply of materials 
 for the 'formation and perfection of the Christian 
 character. Here, ready to hand, will be found all 
 those properties and accessories which will help to 
 build up character in our rising generation. 
 
 We sincerely hope that this precious little work 
 done into English may find a ready market on our 
 bookstalls, and may make a home for itself in our 
 libraries. 
 
 If it meet with the success which it deserves, 
 Father Gillet's mental offspring, decked out in its 
 English dress, promises to have a long run, with 
 
 God's blessing on it. 
 
 BERNARD VAUGHAN, SJ. 
 
 FEAST OF THE JAPANESE MARTYRS, 
 February 5, 1914.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE subject dealt with in this work is no novelty. 
 From long ago, ingenious psychologists and serious 
 moralists have preached on the formation of char- 
 acter and the training of the Will. They have, in 
 some sort, prepared the ground for us, and pointed 
 out the path to be followed. Yet, as we become 
 conversant with psychological and moral research 
 relative to the education of character, we are struck 
 by the limitedness of the methods employed. Psy- 
 chologists have confined themselves too exclusively 
 to the psycho-physiological side, ignoring the moral 
 aspect of the problem to be solved, whereas the 
 moralists, on the other hand, have overmuch dis- 
 regarded psychological sources. Hence, it seems 
 necessary for us to unite these two systems into 
 one living synthesis, to make manifest the share 
 supplied by Grace and the Christian ideal in the 
 work of self-conquest, without overlooking the fact 
 that Grace cannot annihilate nature, and that, in our 
 co-operation in this work, due account must be taken 
 of the physiological and psychological conditions of 
 moral activity. 
 
 We have assured ourselves of the utility of this 
 synthetic method for such as shrink from starting 
 life blindfold, and, in this assurance lies, indeed, the 
 supreme reward of all apostolic endeavour. 
 
 M. S. GILLET, O.P. 
 vii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE IDEAL AND THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 CHAPTER I'ACiS 
 
 I. THE WILL AND CHARACTER - - I 
 
 II. SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT AND THE EDUCATION OF CHAR- 
 ACTER - - 16 
 
 HI. SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 23 
 IV. THE IDEAL AND THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER - 30 
 
 PART II 
 THE PASSIONS AND CHARACTER 
 
 I. THE PASSIONS AND THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL - - 49 
 
 II. THE TACTICS OF THE WILL IN REGARD TO THE 
 
 PASSIONS- - 62 
 
 III. CONCERNING THE INTELLECT AND ITS RELATION TO 
 
 THE PASSIONS AND FEELINGS IN THE EDUCATION 
 
 OF CHARACTER - 78 
 
 IV. THE RELATIONS OF GRACE TO THE PASSIONS - - 85 
 V. EGOISM AND ALTRUISM - - Q2 
 
 VI. SENSUALITY- - - 105 
 
 ix
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 PART III 
 ACTION AND CHARACTER 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. HABIT - - 121 
 
 II. THE LAWS OF HABIT - - 131 
 
 III. CHARACTER AND MORAL HABITS - 142 
 
 IV. INTELLECTUAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 151 
 V. SUPERNATURAL HABITS AND CHARACTER - - 162
 
 PART I 
 
 THE IDEAL AND THE EDUCATION 
 OF CHARACTER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER 
 
 WHAT is character? In current language and this 
 frequently most approximates to reality man is 
 said to possess " Character " when, true to his con- 
 victions, to these he endeavours with firmness and 
 perseverance to conform his conduct. 
 
 On the other hand, a man "without character" is 
 swayed by every breeze of opinion, and, practically, 
 allows himself to be governed by, instead of govern- 
 ing, circumstance, and moulding the same to his 
 own ends. 
 
 In this wise is character the seal of the will ; or, 
 more accurately, it is the will that imparts to 
 Character its moral physiognomy. 
 
 I. THE WILL. 
 
 Character does not exist without Will ; Will does 
 not exist without Character. But what, then, is Will ?
 
 2 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 In the first place, our care must be to ascertain 
 whether, as many at the present time affirm, the 
 Will constitutes the actual essence of the soul 
 (understanding by the term "Will," all manifesta- 
 tions of psychical activity), or whether, on the other 
 hand, the Will is a distinct faculty, and in some sort 
 the soul's administrator in the direction of the 
 intellectual and sensible faculties. 
 
 For the moment I leave the solution of this wholly 
 speculative question in the hands of the psycho- 
 logical and metaphysical experts. 
 
 As I treat of this subject solely from the moral 
 standpoint, I apprehend the Will to be the highest 
 and most perfect form of human activity, of self- 
 conscious activity, as opposed to instinct, that is 
 unconscious and inevitable activity. 
 
 Will, in a word, then, is the power to act deliber- 
 ately that is to say, the power of being the master 
 of one's own actions. How fine a phrase : To be the 
 master of one's own actions. How eternally fresh 
 it is, albeit that it comes to us from across the 
 ages! 
 
 One is master of a thing when one possesses it. 
 To be the master of our own actions, we must be in 
 possession of them. We must use them to our own 
 ends, and cast them in this or that direction, as the 
 skilled hand throws the quoit of stone or metal at 
 some fixed object. 
 
 If then, by means of the will, we are given mastery 
 over our actions, and can direct them as we list, it 
 follows that at the root of our will is freedom. 
 Freedom is the prerogative of the master ; it is the 
 slave alone who is not free. Without freedom we
 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER S 
 
 should be the slaves of our acts and never the 
 controllers. 
 
 Whence, therefore, when analysed, is derived that 
 mastery over action in the conduct of our daily 
 life? 
 
 From the kingdom of our intelligence. The animal 
 is not free, because it is not intelligent ; we are free 
 merely by reason of our intelligence. It should be 
 evident, that I treat here of the will, in general, as 
 existent in however infinitesimal a degree in every 
 human subject. There remains, however, the 
 question as to how far, in each individual case, our 
 volitional activity is conditioned by our personal 
 intelligence, or temperament; by hereditary ten- 
 dencies or by acquired habits ; and in what measure, 
 consequently, we are free, and can direct our own 
 lives. Before replying to this question, it is ex- 
 pedient to estimate the exact meaning to be attached 
 to the term "Will," and to consider the common 
 conditions of human activity. 
 
 I maintain then, that if, in the elicitation of true 
 human acts, at the basis of the will there is liberty, 
 in its turn, liberty, like a mighty river fertilising life, 
 derives its source from the high peaks of intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 In proportion as our actions are intelligent, they 
 are free ; hence, intelligence must be our guide to 
 illumine our course. The goal must be predeter- 
 mined, while the choice is ours concerning the 
 means of its attainment. This is what we apprehend 
 by the Will ; it is the magic wand, that, applied to 
 the least actions of our lives, quickens and trans- 
 forms these to the full, exalting into the higher
 
 planes of morality that which had pertained to the 
 gross domains of matter. 
 
 This being so, it can easily be seen how essential 
 a part Will plays in the education of character. 
 
 II. CHARACTER. 
 
 Character, truly, is not a simple element, but 
 rather the very complex aggregate of ideas and tastes, 
 of deeds, tendencies, and habits, to be disciplined, 
 organised, unified, in virtue of an end to be com- 
 passed, of an ideal to be realised. 
 
 This aggregate varies with each individual. " The 
 parts of the face are identical in all, but in conse- 
 quence of varying proportions it results that each 
 individual presents a different physiognomy ; in like 
 manner do we all possess, mentally, the essential 
 characteristics of human nature, but in great 
 diversity of degree and relation."* 
 
 We have, each one of us, a distinct temperament, 
 natural propensities, passions, moods ; peculiar con- 
 ditions of activity and mental habit; our special 
 measure of energy, and so forth. And, whenever 
 these opposing elements, combined in one individual, 
 and unrestrained, come into conflict, because subject 
 to conflicting laws, it will be conceived how gigantic 
 is the task to be undertaken, if we would dominate 
 the whole, if we would by reconciling these di- 
 vergences and contradictions produce a perfect 
 harmony. Herein we recognise the Will's ordained 
 task in the education of character, or (as we may 
 describe it) the harmony of the mind. 
 
 * De La Hautiere, " Cours de Philosophic appliquee a 1'Educa- 
 ion," pp. 356, 357.
 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER 5 
 
 Character, indeed, may be recognised by these 
 two distinctive and concordant signs : unity and 
 stability. 
 
 "To have character," says Kant, "is to possess 
 that power of the will whereby the subject adheres 
 to certain practical and determined principles, which 
 his reason has laid down for him." And the 
 philosopher continues "Albeit that these principles 
 may be false and vicious, nevertheless the disposi- 
 tion of the will, generally, to act in accordance with 
 fixed principles (and not to jump hither and thither 
 as do the flies) is good, and so much the more 
 worthy of admiration in that it is rare." * 
 
 For us, at least, there is guidance in the possession 
 of established principles in all that concerns moral 
 training^ if we but hold by the teaching of the Faith. 
 Twenty centuries of experience bear witness to it ; 
 it is as brilliant and as strong as a diamond. Let 
 us, then, walk in the light of this brilliance, and rest 
 our actions on its strength. 
 
 It will be seen that every reflection here set forth 
 will be in agreement with this great and (as I am 
 convinced) incontestable truth. 
 
 III. COMPARATIVE IMPOTENCE OF THE WILL IN 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Were it needful to supply herewith a definition of 
 the term " Character," a scientific definition, and not 
 merely an empirical one, I would say that character 
 is the totality of moral qualities intelligently grouped 
 around the axis of the will. 
 
 This definition has, in my opinion, the twofold 
 
 " Anthropologie," Part ii., chap. 3.
 
 6 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 advantage of showing the importance of the will's 
 intervention in the education of character, while, at 
 the same time, it recognises the limits of such inter- 
 vention. Whereas it is certain that, without the 
 will, the education of character would be a vain 
 thing; yet is it no less certain that it is a difficult 
 task wisely to surround the will with a circle of 
 moral habits. And we must not hope to accomplish 
 this save by incessant and tireless effort. 
 
 There are two theories generally accepted, 
 although diametrically opposed which, while claim- 
 ing to simplify this intricate question of the educa- 
 tion of character, have complicated it to a startling 
 degree. Thus, we find it asserted that the will is 
 totally incapable of any kind of modifying action 
 whatsoever. 
 
 Theories. How frequently when the question of 
 moral training and social reform presents itself, do we 
 gather from quite well-meaning worldlings such dis- 
 couraging remarks as "I cannot help my tempera- 
 ment," " One cannot reconstitute oneself," " It is not 
 my fault if I am as I am," " You must bear with me 
 and take me as you find me." These observations, 
 and their like, drummed daily into our ears, and at 
 times under the guise of scientific dicta, are proofs 
 of a fact : the readiness with which, in self-justifica- 
 tion, we grasp at any theory that tends to excuse 
 our natural inertia, and permits us to become the 
 prey of our passions instead of attempting to elevate 
 them or turn them into new and better ways. 
 
 There are not lacking in these days philosophers, 
 and men of science, whose creed it is that education 
 is radically powerless to modify appreciably the
 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER 7 
 
 racial temperament and characteristics of the in- 
 dividual. According to these, "Man is born a crim- 
 inal, or man is born a poet; the moral destiny of 
 the child is contained in the maternal breast, and 
 develops itself, foreordained and immutable, through- 
 out life . . . races descend, simultaneously, the scale 
 of life and morality, and there can be no ascent."* 
 
 In fact, according to the conception of these 
 ethical theorists, character is reducible to a theorem, 
 and becomes deducible in relation to external en- 
 vironment as a necessary mathematical conclusion. 
 
 To what function, then, is character reduced by 
 such a system ? Obviously, character has no part 
 whatever therein. 
 
 As the waves break against the rocks by the 
 seashore, and are powerless to dislodge them, so 
 does conscious effort contend vainly against in- 
 herited disposition, against physical temperament, 
 against our manifold tendencies, instincts, passions, 
 all of which combined, form a natural and impass- 
 able barrier. It were better, then, to lay down 
 one's oars, haul in the sails, and, with folded arms, 
 drift aimlessly: Let come what may! . . . How 
 depressing is this restricted conception of character, 
 and how disastrous is its influence on the new 
 generations ! It serves no worthier purpose than 
 to proclaim the impotence and futility of morality. 
 Happily, against this error there stands opposed, 
 together with the common practices of humanity as 
 a whole, first the moral sense, then, the experience 
 of every educator of youth, and, above all, the 
 personal experience of the individual. 
 
 * Guyau, " Education et Heredite," pp. xiii-xiv.
 
 8 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Facts. Now, to the moral sense there is some- 
 thing peculiarly repellent in fatalism, as applied to 
 the education of character. And, therefore, once 
 having propounded and developed their theories, 
 with all the serene assurance of infallibility, it has 
 been found that even the most ardent exponents of 
 this doctrine have hesitated and faltered before an 
 attempt to put these into practice. After some con- 
 cessions, ultimately, they have been driven to admit, 
 notwithstanding their bias as men of science, that, 
 in practice, a tolerant sympathy should be extended to 
 those who rely on the educative powers of the will. 
 
 " Enthusiasm," writes one of these, " even when 
 pushed to fanaticism, is a good motive power 
 perhaps an indispensable one ; . . . hence, of those 
 who regard education, intellectual or moral, as the 
 panacea, we may say that their undue expectations 
 are not without use ; and that perhaps it is part of 
 the beneficent order of things, that their confidence 
 cannot be shaken."* 
 
 Here, in a word, we have a clear recognition that 
 the efforts of educators are, actually, not without 
 utility. 
 
 Moreover, to affirm that the education of character 
 is but an Utopian vision, and that human nature 
 can only be transformed, in the long run, and in the 
 course of ages, by the constraint of external forces 
 and existing conditions of life to affirm this, I 
 repeat, it should be established that, as a demon- 
 strable fact, all educators have failed in their under- 
 taking. 
 
 * Spencer, " De 1' Education intellectuelle, morale et physique," 
 p. 172. (Alcan, Paris.)
 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER 9 
 
 Obviously, such a statement does not merit 
 examination. It has been clearly realised how 
 instrumental education may be in the amelioration 
 of natural disposition. We may quote, for example, 
 the case of the Duke of Burgundy, the grandson of 
 Louis XIV. " This Prince," writes Saint-Simon, in 
 his memoirs, "was by nature vicious, and in his 
 early childhood gave cause for great anxiety. He 
 was unfeeling, and fiery in temper, to the last excess, 
 even against inanimate objects. He was furiously 
 impetuous, incapable of bearing the least opposition 
 even of time, or the elements, without bursting into 
 such rages, that it was sometimes feared he would 
 do himself an injury. His obstinacy was beyond 
 all bounds, and he was passionately addicted to 
 every kind of indulgence. . . ." 
 
 Necessarily, the education of this Prince was no 
 light task. Yet the Duke de Beauvilliers, seconded 
 by Fe"nelon, and the Abbe de Fleury, persisted with 
 patience and perseverance to we again quote Saint- 
 Simon "correct so perverse a character; so that 
 by God's mercy the task had been accomplished 
 by the time the Prince had reached his eighteenth 
 year. From the abyss, issued a Prince who was 
 affable, gentle, humane, patient, modest, humble, 
 and austere towards himself even to excess."* 
 
 The finest theories cannot prevail against such 
 facts as these. History furnishes us with many 
 such, but were this the unique instance, it would 
 thereby directly controvert all the arguments pro- 
 pounded by philosophers in regard to the impotence 
 and futility of moral education. 
 
 * Saint-Simon, "Memoires"; Bausset, "Vie de Fenelon."
 
 10 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 " A character that has shown some radical trans- 
 formation, were it only for the brief space of half an 
 hour, is not an unalterable character, and the first 
 variation gives ground for hope of its repetition, 
 and at increasingly frequent intervals."* But why 
 seek further for examples from without? Let us 
 rather consider, within our own experience, how, 
 in certain moments of enthusiasm, or when im- 
 pelled by the sight of some heroic action, we our- 
 selves have essayed to check our evil propensities, 
 if but for the time being, to correct our defects, and 
 discipline our passions. 
 
 Now, what has been done once may be repeated 
 a second and a third time. Inasmuch as our efforts 
 are multiplied in this direction, so are our difficulties 
 diminished, and the day will surely come when, 
 despite these mistaken systems, we shall perforce 
 find ourselves transformed. 
 
 IV. OF THE ALLEGED OMNIPOTENCE OF THE WILL 
 IN THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 We arrive, therefore, at the conclusion derived 
 from experience that disposition, so far from being 
 impervious to influence, provides, on the contrary, 
 a vast field of action for the Will. We have 
 vehemently opposed those who allege the radical 
 powerlessness of the will in the education of 
 character. But we must not run to extremes, 
 neither assert, for our part, that the will is omnipo- 
 tent in this work of education. This second error 
 would, obviously, be graver than the first. 
 
 * Payot, " L'Education de la Volonte," i7th ed., p. 26. (Alcan, 
 Paris : 1903.)
 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER 11 
 
 Theory. The many, who maintain that there is no 
 kind of difficulty in training character, argue from 
 a purely bookish and abstract theory, that is of 
 metaphysical derivation i.e., the theory si free-will. 
 Under pretext that man is free, by definition, the 
 conclusion is drawn that all men are so, actually, 
 absolutely, and in the same degree. Now, if, as a 
 matter of fact, we are all free in like measure, it 
 follows, since liberty is the power we have to shape 
 our lives as best pleases us, that the choice is ours 
 to become, by a mere creative fiat, from one day to 
 the next, men of character, heroes, or saints. 
 
 Here, as distinct as is reality from the ideal, is 
 presented a striking example of the vast distance 
 separating theory, however indisputable, from 
 practice. , Indubitably, man is free, by definition, and 
 herein consists his unlikeness to the animal, which 
 is not free. 
 
 It is equally clear, that if each one of my daily 
 actions is to possess a human value at all, I must be 
 in a position to exercise my freedom in their control 
 If, further, my life in its perpetual development is 
 nought but an entanglement, wherein I am involved 
 from the outset, and powerless to extricate myself; 
 if all my actions, performed, as I fondly imagine, 
 deliberately, are, on the contrary, mechanically 
 determined, and dependent one upon another like 
 to the endless links of a chain then, my life were an 
 absurdity, and free-will a chimera. 
 
 And so, we plunge anew into the deceptive theory 
 iust set forth, with its doctrine of the radical power- 
 lessness of the will to modify inherent instinct. 
 
 It is one thing to exact, in the case of every
 
 12 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 individual, a minimum of liberty, whereby he may 
 not be confounded with the brute, or the machine, 
 and quite another thing to regard free-will in all 
 men as the absolute, unfettered in its expansion, 
 and able to solve life's problems with disconcert- 
 ing ease. 
 
 Experience. How far from freedom, in this degree, 
 are most of us ! Freedom that is, free-will is in 
 nowise a weapon bestowed on us at birth, and its 
 deft exercise at the service of all when occasion 
 suggests. Freedom is indeed a weapon, but one 
 that we, ourselves, must forge each in the work- 
 shop of our consciousness ; and one, further, whose 
 peculiar quality it is to become tempered, and 
 hardened, in the contest. Leave it inactive for a 
 while, and, as soft iron, it is rendered pliable and 
 useless anew. There is no sheath made that can 
 preserve it against rust and corrosion. Let us 
 estimate, then, from personal experience, in what 
 measure we are, actually, free, when we find our- 
 selves confronted with this metaphysical theory 
 that asserts it. 
 
 It should be understood that, by freedom, I mean 
 self-mastery, and the sway of moral ideas and lofty 
 sentiments over mere animal instincts. And, this 
 self-mastery, which, in fact, is the vital essence of 
 freedom, must be won solely at the point of the 
 sword, and in continuous warfare. 
 
 Every individual is endowed at birth with a sum 
 of capacities, tendencies, passions, defects, all of 
 which act as a force of inertia of passive resistance 
 impeding free activity. To ignore so palpable 
 a fact, and to endeavour to overthrow this natural
 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER 13 
 
 barrier by violent methods, were either to risk 
 destruction of the will itself, or at least to discourage 
 the best-intentioned. 
 
 Having made my appeal to reason, it is to faith 
 that I now turn. 
 
 In the supernatural order, as in the natural order, 
 the laws of heredity weigh heavily upon our 
 shoulders. As we have inherited the ills of our 
 parents, so we inherit the infirmity of sin. All are 
 aware of this malady, and have suffered by reason 
 of it. It is named concupiscence, and the name has 
 become a classic by force of repetition. It is a fever 
 that consumes and dismays the stoutest heart ; 
 unless God's grace, supporting our personal effort, 
 comes in timely aid, and its fatal consequences 
 are averted. 
 
 11 Lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, the pride of 
 life "... in these energetic terms does St. John 
 denounce this moral plague. All have, more or less, 
 been its victims. Sinners as we are, in our glance 
 there is desire, and we no longer see purely. Beauty 
 is no attraction in itself, but solely in relation to the 
 sensual enjoyment to be anticipated from it. Each 
 circumstance of our lives seems marked by the 
 traces of sensuality imprinted in us by original sin, 
 as with those persons for whom every object is 
 coloured alike, their vision having been defective 
 from birth, and their colour-sense impaired. 
 
 The eyes are, so to speak, the windows of the 
 soul. Thence, it is by means of the eyes, that the 
 flesh finds chiefest occasion for transgression, and 
 for the satisfaction of a depraved craving for pleasure. 
 Our senses are ever caught by the snares of volup-
 
 14 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 tuousness. Our flesh resists the dictates of reason 
 and faith, when it should most submit to and 
 acknowledge their reign. 
 
 Reason and faith may spread wide their wings, 
 that thereby we be carried nearer to the regions of 
 the ideal : it is our flesh that resists, and like some 
 colossal weight impeding progress, paralyses all 
 effort. Reason, ultimately, is darkened and obscured 
 by sensuality ; its inner fire that consumes our flesh, 
 and courses through our veins, seems to emit dense 
 vapours. Henceforth, our vision blinded, we grope 
 in the darkness for a guiding hand. 
 
 These, in brief, are the chief effects of that moral 
 fever, whose deadly germs have been deposited in 
 us by original sin. 
 
 Is it possible to conceive that, in the name of the 
 ideal, towards which we all aspire, we shall, without 
 any kind of struggle, and by some sort of magical 
 decree, succeed in circumventing so dire a reality ? 
 Is there a student who has not become painfully 
 aware of the lack of proportion between his wish to 
 act rightly, and the weakness of his will ? If there 
 be such an one, he has my compassion, since it 
 would show him to be ignorant of life, and of the 
 difficulties which the struggle for life holds ever in 
 reserve. 
 
 I say this, not with any intention to discourage, but 
 rather that so our young wayfarers may be spared 
 the pains of disillusionment. Inasmuch as I have 
 declared the education of character to be a possible 
 achievement, it would be a matter of reproach 
 against me, were I to encourage the notion that this 
 achievement is an easy one. At the first rebuff, I
 
 THE WILL AND CHARACTER 15 
 
 should be charged, and with reason, with having 
 cruelly misled them. Youth, invariably, is allied to 
 generosity and goodwill. What, then, do difficulties 
 signify, when these are shown to be surmountable ? 
 No man is free, it has been said, who does not 
 deserve to be so. Therefore, let our youth prove 
 they merit their liberty, as soon as they have 
 acquired the secret of its conquest.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT AND THE EDUCATION 
 OF CHARACTER 
 
 IF against the normal intervention of the will in the 
 education of character there were opposed such 
 theories alone as have been dealt with in the 
 preceding chapter, the evil, while still considerable, 
 would in no sense be beyond control. To demolish 
 these, the wisest method, if we would convince the 
 upright mind, desirous above all things of the 
 truth, is to lay bare the sophisms and subtleties that 
 fallaciously envelop them, for the seduction of the 
 simple and pleasure-loving alike. 
 
 Unhappily, there are certain conditions of modern 
 existence for which we are in no way responsible, 
 that are a permanent obstacle, more alarming than 
 any theories, to the education of character. Let us 
 consider the chief of these : in this fashion, our 
 path will be cleared, and we may proceed to attack 
 boldly the question in hand. 
 
 I. THE ELEMENTS OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Character, as we have seen, is recognisable by 
 these two distinctive marks : unity and stability. 
 An individual may be said to have "character," 
 when, by sheer force of will, he has succeeded in 
 massing together his scattered energies as into a 
 
 16
 
 SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT 17 
 
 living sheai, in disposing them according to the ideal 
 imposed on him as a man, and a Christian when, 
 in a word, he has brought some amount of order 
 and equilibrium into his daily life. 
 
 And, it will be readily understood, the work of 
 dominion and self-conquest is not achieved in a 
 day. There is an infinite amount of time required. 
 Time, then, is an essential factor in the education 
 of character. The more there is demanded, the 
 longer will endure this work of moral persuasion. 
 Towards the ultimate end must the vision be for 
 ever directed, without undue concern, for the 
 manifold realities with which we are brought into 
 contact. 
 
 Under these conditions and these alone may 
 we infuse into our lives this indispensable unity 
 and stability of purpose. 
 
 Nor can it be denied that modern manners by 
 which I mean the existing mode of viewing life in 
 all its aspects are such, that the best intentions 
 become paralysed thereby, and so are hindered from 
 complying with the aforesaid conditions. In the 
 first place, we do not allow ourselves the time to 
 live, because we wish to live too rapidly ; further, 
 in our wild race after happiness, instead of pursuing 
 assiduously the direct path traced out by Providence 
 we blunder this way and that, dissipating our 
 forces feverishly, in a dozen directions, and without 
 any preconceived plan whatsoever. Clearly, on 
 such lines, the education of character is rendered an 
 impracticable undertaking.
 
 18 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 TI. SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT. 
 
 Intellectual Life. We will now proceed to con- 
 sider intellectual life, at the present time. We, as a 
 whole, although in divers degrees, are consumed 
 with the thirst after knowledge. Now, science is 
 an excellent thing, and as I hope to emphasise 
 later, it represents one of the main factors in moral 
 education, but much depends on the method ot 
 application. 
 
 Renan pointed out on one occasion, that " Truth 
 must not be sought after too ardently," and that 
 " Indifference in this regard more often insures 
 success."* 
 
 Here Renan speaks as a dilettante. To my think- 
 ing, one may possess, in the highest degree, a passion 
 for truth and yet avoid expending in the pursuit 
 of it a too feverish and unbridled nervous excite- 
 ment which serves not only to hinder the full 
 expansion of the intellect, but, as well, that profound 
 stirring of the heart, which truth in its perception 
 should ever arouse. At the present day, a student, 
 if he would be respected, or what is more essential 
 if he would be sure of his daily bread, must, at 
 twenty years of age, have already accomplished his 
 intellectual circuit. He has to do so, breathlessly, 
 and at express speed. " To the child, there is 
 allowed no longer a period of tranquil development ; 
 at the first awakening of his intelligence, his memory 
 is overcharged with notions and facts, his brain is 
 forced, as flowers are forced in a hothouse. Soon, 
 
 * Renan, " Discours pour la Reception de Pasteur a 1' Academic 
 Fran?aise."
 
 SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT 19 
 
 an artificial curriculum is imposed upon him, a 
 curriculum devoid of any sense of proportion or 
 reason, wherein are crammed, pell-mell, all the 
 sciences, literature, history, languages ; the examina- 
 tion season springs upon him with all its anxieties, 
 its expectations, its surprises, its whole attendant 
 accessories of violent emotion, and overwhelming 
 effort."* 
 
 What place can the education of character con- 
 ceivably occupy in a life thus absorbed, and that, 
 unhappily, at the critical age, when it is most 
 expedient to lay sound foundations? For, is it 
 not obvious how this system of life must needs 
 consume the entire mental and physical activity of 
 the student, and how lamentable a disproportion 
 there results between the too vigorous culture of 
 the mind and the slack tending of the will forces ? 
 The intellectual atmosphere we breathe is, as it 
 were, traversed by lightning and electric currents 
 blinding and confusing us. 
 
 The Ethical Life. There exists another, and equally 
 formidable obstacle to the training of character, and 
 it lies in our conception of the ethical life. To con- 
 cede for a single instant that the furbishing of our 
 minds represents the limit of duty, is to be poorly 
 penetrated by the Christian spirit. Who has not 
 observed that along with the passion for study go 
 other and less worthy passions, craving a satisfac- 
 tion that study can by no means afford? How allay 
 these passions, if we may not go so far as to destroy 
 
 * Janvier, " Les Passions." (Lethielleux, Paris : 1905.) Gustave 
 Le Bon, "Psychologic de 1'Education," chap, ii., pp, 30-49. 
 (Flammarion, Paris : 1906.)
 
 20 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 them ? Experience has abundantly shown us that 
 the task of appeasing them is supremely an interior 
 slow t and progressive task, effected simultaneously 
 by reflection, meditation, and sustained effort. In 
 these days, this truth seems little apprehended, for 
 the axis itself of our moral life would appear to 
 have shifted, revolving exteriorly, rather than 
 interiorly. 
 
 Whereas it is at home, in our inmost soul, that 
 the great conflict over passion must be waged, yet, 
 it is to the outer life we are devoted, and forget or 
 overlook the rest. So, in our brief moments of 
 leisure, our studies once concluded, our time is 
 given over to the organising of social functions, or 
 it may be in work of one kind or another, that is 
 entirely excellent in itself, and that, in its multiplicity, 
 in its absorption of our energies creates the illusion 
 that this is life, and life in its fullest sense. And, true 
 enough, from outward seeming, the student life 
 would appear to be conspicuously well filled. 
 Nevertheless, once the course of study is completed, 
 and circumstances, in removing a youth from the 
 University environment with its restricted liberty, 
 land him face to face with himself, is there no risk 
 of a reawakening of the passions slumbering for a 
 while, but hardly suppressed ? I fear this is so. 
 Therefore, while fully appreciating the goodwill of 
 the greater number, I venture to urge upon all our 
 students so to act that their Christian life that 
 inward life as opposed to the outward life that life 
 where will and entity become subordinated to the 
 exigencies of the Faith, as opposed to that other, 
 dependent on external works that life derived from
 
 SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT 21 
 
 the light of reflection that permeates it, rather than 
 one which accommodates itself to forgetfulness and 
 neglect may be intense and deep, in such measure, 
 as that scattered and collective life is diversified and 
 shallow. 
 
 Material Life. Let me add another word in regard 
 to that which in material life, at the present time, 
 acts as a bar to the education of character. 
 
 Any close observer, if he but take the trouble, 
 will readily perceive a common attitude of foolish 
 irresponsibility, and unbridled craving after every 
 kind of extravagance. 
 
 In the first place, owing to our marvellous facili- 
 ties for communication, we have annihilated distance ; 
 and further, by the ingenious application of scientific 
 discovery, we have unravelled the secret of multi- 
 plying sensation, and have so arrived at a state of 
 super-refinement in every department of existence. 
 On all sides there is set a feast for the eyes, for the 
 hearing, for the senses. Given the means, we may, 
 in a day, scale the entire gamut of pleasure. The 
 torment of Tantalus is now but a pretty fable, 
 having lost, little by little, its fine symbolism. For 
 us, the tempting cup is offered perpetually to our 
 lips, and we may, according to our appetites and 
 caprices, assuage our thirst. Are there, then, no 
 penalties incurred in this same thirst after distrac- 
 tion, when indulged in, as it is by us all ? No man 
 can with impunity live two lives : that of the body, 
 and that of the soul. Sooner, or later, the equilibrium 
 becomes disturbed, and this is so, invariably, at the 
 soul's expense. However decisive may be the 
 promptings of the will, these are overcome by the
 
 22 
 
 force of inertia exercised by matter, like to the 
 tumultuous waves of the sea, breaking upon the 
 sands. 
 
 For this reason, then, it has seemed to me neces- 
 sary to solicit the attention of our young men to 
 this particular. For so it is, that these when drawn 
 into the social whirlpool are in danger of becoming 
 submerged in it, and thus are they drifted leewards 
 by the currents of factitious life, that cross it con- 
 tinuously in one or other direction unless, at times, 
 a friendly word of counsel comes to arouse them 
 from their apathy. 
 
 This counsel is proffered here whole-heartedly, 
 and in the earnest hope, if they will but give heed 
 to it, that it may serve as a source of illumination 
 and activity, and lead them to the betterment and 
 uplifting of their daily lives.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND THE EDUCATION OF 
 CHARACTER 
 
 THE education of character is a work that may be 
 likened to that of the sculptor. We, in effect, like 
 the sculptor, have to carve out from the virgin 
 block, which is our moral being, not by the exercise 
 of the chisel, but by that of our volition, a lifelike 
 and active statue of colossal dimensions. 
 
 To this end, primarily, we must study, on broad 
 lines at" least, the nature of this moral being ; we 
 must analyse its power of resistance, its degree of 
 plasticity. It must be noted, in a word, whether, as 
 some assert, there is no scope for manipulation, for 
 the co-operation of the chisel, or the polisher, or 
 whether, on the contrary, the thing presents herein, 
 no difficulty whatever. 
 
 That difficulties there are, is manifest. I, myself, 
 have pointed out a few special to this age. Never- 
 theless, the education of character is, in no wise, a 
 chimerical undertaking. And, since thousands have 
 attempted and have succeeded history and experi- 
 ence prove it why should not we, in like degree, 
 succeed ? 
 
 We can, if we will, modify considerably our natural 
 propensities. Self-education is always the most 
 fruitful and enduring because of the effort entailed, 
 
 23
 
 24 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 and the stamp all such effort leaves upon the soul. 
 But most essential in this labour of self-reform is it 
 for the reformer, in accordance with the Socratic 
 precept, wholly to know himself, to make no step 
 forward without first having tested his strength, 
 estimated his resources, realised his weakness, made 
 the round, in short, of his little world. Then, once 
 this task is completed, or rather since it can never 
 be complete concurrently with this task, must he 
 search after the ideal to be aimed at, and realised. 
 
 And in proportion as he draws nearer to that 
 ideal, so, if he would enhance the semblance, must 
 he pursue it unceasingly ; he must ever be ready to 
 retouch, to repair if need be to cut ruthlessly into 
 the quivering flesh. 
 
 I. EXTERNAL SOLITUDE. 
 
 To begin with, we must have self-knowledge. 
 Whereas, the majority of us have no knowledge of 
 self whatever. 
 
 Self-knowledge presupposes a tendency to intro- 
 spection, and solitude, of which young men, as a 
 whole, are incapable. By solitude, I do not infer 
 external solitude merely, or that solitude which 
 consists in withdrawing oneself from the world, in 
 living remote from the society of one's fellows, shut 
 up in one's student quarters alone. 
 
 I do not despise this kind of solitude. For ex- 
 ternal solitude is, as it were, the court of honour in 
 the castle of the soul, where internal solitude must 
 reign. But the moral value of solitude, and its 
 effects on the education of character, are largely 
 dependent on the motives inducing it. When a
 
 SELF-KNOWLEDGE 25 
 
 young man seeks isolation out of misanthropy, or 
 merely in order to escape the restraints that social 
 life entail, he not only impairs that chance afforded 
 for his own moral strengthening, but panders to a 
 cowardly instinct. He skulks behind difficulties, 
 when he should face and overthrow them. Infinitely 
 more praiseworthy is that other student, wjio 
 although timid and apprehensive, flings himself 
 boldly into the fray, foregathers with his comrades, 
 getting his angles well rounded in the process, and 
 ends by accommodating himself to the exigencies of 
 social existence. He is on the high road to develop- 
 ing character, notwithstanding that his heart may 
 be seared with passion. 
 
 Master of himself in one essential, he is apt for 
 self-mastery in all. External solitude then, is not, 
 in itself, a means of education, nor of moral dis- 
 cipline, and is so, solely when its object is to further 
 that closer self-knowledge which a withdrawal from 
 outside distractions tends to promote. It is at 
 interior solitude we must aim. And yet, here too, 
 we may easily find ourselves misled. 
 
 II. INTERIOR SOLITUDE. 
 
 Interior solitude may exist, in a certain measure, 
 in conjunction with outside distraction, whereas it 
 is wholly incompatible with that inward distraction 
 that is of the spirit. 
 
 There are students who, wellnigh habitually, 
 bide in their own studies, and do so, not in the 
 guise of misanthropes, neither in the desire to 
 escape in cowardly manner from the inseparable 
 pitfalls of social life. Rather, is it not through
 
 26 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 devotion to learning ? Indeed, I am glad to believe 
 that a number do actually embrace solitude with 
 this object. Yet, alas ! encompassed though he 
 may be by the four walls of his room, the student 
 does not, invariably, study. If we except the few 
 truly intellectual temperaments with whom study 
 amounts to a passion, and is pursued as valuable in 
 itself, we find it is at the examination season solely, 
 that the majority of students are wont to isolate 
 themselves for the purposes of study, when they 
 make frantic attempts to recover time previously 
 lost, by overloading the memory with notions and 
 facts barely heeded throughout the year, and, once 
 the degree or certificate is secured, instantly for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Certainly, it is not possible, in periods of enforced 
 isolation like these, for a young man's mind to be 
 occupied with self-inspection. When, then, shall it 
 be so ? If the hours of freedom accorded in his 
 student life be computed, it would appear there is 
 time and to spare. Unhappily, the tyranny of 
 inward distractions overpowers him more com- 
 pletely than do actually those of the outside world. 
 It must not be forgotten that he is twenty years old, 
 this lad, and brimful of vitality and enthusiasm ; 
 that life, for many reasons and there are physio- 
 logical ones on which I need not dwell demands 
 expenditure. And he finds himself precipitated 
 headlong, from one day to the next, into town life 
 far from the ken of relations, or of official super- 
 vision, without any immediate obligatory work ; 
 indeed, without any defined work at all. Let us 
 frankly admit that the temptation is severe. These
 
 SELF-KNOWLEDGE 27 
 
 hours of entire desolation, of utter idleness and 
 enervation, are they not bound to multiply ? 
 
 If, now, our subject takes refuge in solitude can 
 we suppose that it will be to apply himself to a 
 practical, slow and searching self-analysis; to the 
 discerning of the good and evil tendencies pre- 
 dominating within him, to the locating of the 
 diseased regions of his moral being, which he 
 especially needs to watch over, and to combat by 
 the persistent exercise of his volition ? 
 
 Reverie. Would that I could be convinced of it, 
 whereas I am wholly convinced of the contrary. 
 For, though I do not see him, when in his room, in 
 the company of any other person, yet he is not 
 alone there ; nor, to speak truly, is he there himself. 
 He is transported in imagination, far hence, into the 
 realm of sentimentality and dreams. And of what 
 does he dream ? It is easy to guess, and I may be 
 dispensed from precise conjecture. What does a 
 youth aged twenty dream about when, unoccupied, 
 he imposes no curb upon his imagination, and the 
 impulses of his heart ? 
 
 So he dreams : that is to say, he spends his time 
 in the pursuit of chimeras, in defiance of reality, in 
 living exteriorly, instead of interiorly. 
 
 Thus, as he should profit by the hours of com- 
 parative solitude at his disposal for complete self- 
 analysis and introspection that he may determine 
 from the moral standpoint, whether he has advanced 
 or retrograded ; if his passions have been lulled, or 
 he is their slave ; if he is ennobled by his affections, 
 or debased by them ; if his will withstands the on- 
 slaught, or bends beneath it so he does none of
 
 28 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 these things. He strives to compile his romance of 
 adventure ; he works at it continually ; it absorbs 
 his mind. It is the breath of life to him, or rather, 
 it is the instrument of death. 
 
 For how, indeed, can any young man, however 
 well endowed, if fostered on a regime of intellectual 
 and moral lawlessness, escape its enfeebling and 
 depraving effects ? Let us suppose that he pos- 
 sesses, on leaving the University, some smattering 
 of philosophy, of mathematics, of history, that he 
 can speak several modern languages more or less 
 well, that he can use his scalpel more or less skil- 
 fully, it is a no less certain and heart-breaking fact 
 that he has for several years skated along life's edge 
 rather than entered therein ; that, in self-knowledge 
 he is totally lacking, that, in respect of the education 
 of character, he has not yet learnt its ABC. 
 
 Recollection. Yet, it would be a simple matter for 
 a youth to acquire from the outset a certain amount 
 of self-perception. His moral uplifting depends 
 on it. We ought all, it is true, to realise the goal 
 towards which we must aspire; but how attain 
 thereto if, from the outset, we ignore the measure of 
 its remoteness ? Clearly, while our gaze should be 
 continuously directed towards our destination, still 
 must we continuously revert to the starting-point. 
 For if our destination in the journey of life be 
 identical for us all, if a common ideal be set for us, 
 as men and Christians, conversely, the starting-point 
 diverges widely in the case of each individual. 
 
 To the one ideal we more or less approximate, in 
 accordance with temperament, inherited tendency 
 our early education, the social environment in which
 
 SELF-KNOWLEDGE 29 
 
 we were reared in our natural inclinations, in our 
 passions, in our innate or acquired habits, in the 
 strength or weakness of our volition. 
 
 Hence, it is necessary we should all be enlightened 
 on these points, and that we should wholly know 
 ourselves; and this can be brought about in one 
 only way, by introspection and reflection. We 
 must enter into our inmost selves, into the secret 
 recesses of our souls. 
 
 Reflection should develop into a habit, an instinct, 
 an indispensable need. It should accommodate 
 itself to our ordinary course of existence ; it should 
 be carried on incessantly. Wherever we find our- 
 selves, whatever may be the act performed, it is our 
 inner consciousness that should reveal to us, almost 
 subconsciously, the motives inspiring our conduct. 
 When this has been our practice for some years 
 there will assuredly be evidence that we are alter- 
 ing, at any rate, to a certain degree. And, while 
 on the surface, our life may appear to be losing 
 something, thereby, as we shall squander less of 
 ourselves externally, so shall our life gain in depth 
 and intensity. There will be produced in us, per- 
 chance unconsciously, that gradual crystallisation 
 of our energies to which I have earlier alluded. 
 Healthy and sound habits of life will follow in the 
 wake of our disciplined will ; and, thence will issue 
 that measure of moral equilibrium, which, in making 
 us masters of ourselves, also will make of us men of 
 character.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE IDEAL AND THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 CHARACTER, as I have said, is by no means a simple 
 element as might appear, considered superficially. 
 It, on the contrary, is a very complex sum of ideas, 
 tendencies, passions, sensibilities, and habits, that 
 have to be disciplined, organised, unified in view of 
 an end to be attained, of an ideal to be realised. It 
 cannot be disputed, then, that it behoves us, in- 
 dividually, to survey the several elements of which 
 our character consists, before we may aspire to 
 bringing these into harmony, and so to combine, 
 and construct therewith a rampart that shall with- 
 stand the attacks of temptation from within and 
 without. There is no general conceivable, who 
 desirous of victory will launch his troops into action 
 without first having thoroughly studied them. 
 
 How then shall this self-knowledge and analysis 
 of our moral energies further us if, at the same time, 
 we have failed to lay hold of the ideal to which we 
 must adhere that which is to be our guiding light 
 as we labour at the living synthesis of those same 
 energies. In other words, self-knowledge, if it be not 
 wholly sterile, must of necessity issue in self- 
 dominion. And how to be master of oneself, how 
 to produce and develop character, in relation to the 
 Christian ideal, it will be my object henceforth to 
 make manifest. 
 
 30
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER si 
 
 I. THAT AN IDEAL is NECESSARY. 
 
 History teaches us that a people without ideals 
 are incapable of progress. So it is with individuals. 
 The moral quality of a man depends, in large 
 degree, on the ideal that is his controlling incentive. 
 
 "The idea of the highest good," writes a con- 
 temporary philosopher,* "is, for us, the means of 
 realising the highest good. . . ." The intellect 
 finishes by orientating all things with reference to 
 certain ends. And, as these ends, far from being in- 
 different, possess an ethical value, character appears 
 from this higher standpoint as a final order, or, as 
 Emerson describes it, " A moral order," introduced 
 into the nature of the individual by the reaction of 
 his intelligent volition, so that our fully developed 
 intelligence, in respect of moral and social concerns, 
 while permitting of the continuous evolution of 
 character, tends likewise to an ever-increasing 
 advance in morality itself. Socrates (not to cite 
 founders of creeds) in his life, as in his death, con- 
 forms with his principles, and this, notwithstanding, 
 according to his own testimony, certain conflicting 
 tendencies of temperament. He, who passed a 
 chaste life, has admitted that he was a prey to the 
 onslaughts of passion, and that the physiognomist, 
 Zopyrus, was justified in attributing to him sensual 
 proclivities, although these were kept in check by 
 the force of his will. 
 
 How consistent, too, was Kant throughout his 
 life to his principle of the categorical imperative. 
 " I slept," says he, " and I dreamed that life is beauty ; 
 
 * Fouillee, " Le Caractere et 1' Intelligence," pp. 749-751.
 
 32 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 I awoke, and I perceived that it is duty." How 
 was he awakened if not by the action of the idea ? 
 An Augustine, also attracted by reason of his 
 temperament towards the indulgence of his appetites, 
 is no less capable of evolving under the influence 
 of an ideal conceived and cherished, a type of 
 highest sanctity. 
 
 So great, then, is the influence of the ideal in the 
 education of character, that it may be maintained 
 without a paradox, that, in many instances, the 
 philosophical quality of such, or such ideal, is of 
 trifling import. Some there are who may maintain, 
 on scientific grounds, this ideal to be illusory ; it is, 
 none the less, an undeniable fact, that by its light 
 certain souls have transformed themselves. In the 
 ideal, as a moral influence, there is a distinct analogy 
 to certain scientific hypotheses, in that these must 
 not, primarily, be estimated at their theoretical 
 value, but rather by their practical and utilitarian 
 worth. I say this by way of confuting the objections 
 of certain pseudo-scientists, who renounce all con- 
 sideration of the Christian ideal, as being in its very 
 theoretical nature, outside the scope of science, and 
 not admissible within the narrow framework of 
 their a priori conceptions. 
 
 Our care should be to prove to these that, to this 
 selfsame ideal is due the moral metamorphosis of 
 mankind, from the day when Christ came to reveal 
 it to the world. And before this fact they must 
 needs bow down, although, or rather, because they 
 are, at least in their own estimation, men of science. 
 Before facts all men must bow down. 
 
 Further, it would be no difficult task to prove to
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 33 
 
 them if they but bring to bear upon the question an 
 open mind, that the practical value of the Christian 
 ideal is itself in direct ratio to its theoretical value ; 
 that, scientifically speaking, its existence is beyond 
 dispute. Moreover, without conceding its super- 
 natural nature, how is it possible to account for its 
 marvellous ascendency over mankind ? But of 
 what avail is it to launch into polemics ? I am not 
 making my appeal to men of science, but to be- 
 lievers. It is enough, then, for me to recall to these, 
 briefly, what constitutes the Christian ideal, so that 
 they may devote all their energies to actualising 
 it in themselves, and in endeavouring to live up 
 to it. 
 
 II. THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL. 
 
 In the first place, to be a Christian one must be 
 an upright man; and the best means of becoming 
 an upright man, in the truest sense of the term, is to 
 live the life of a Christian; the supernatural ideal holds 
 good, in its entirety, in respect of both propositions. 
 
 In order to be a Christian, one must first be an 
 upright man. What, then, is an upright man ? 
 
 The Superman. Much has been said of late years 
 about the ethics of the Superman. The word has 
 proved a fortune in itself. Do we, however, grasp 
 quite clearly, the meaning of the word " superman," 
 as apprehended by Nietzsche, when he invented it ? 
 Here it is : One of the characteristics which most 
 clearly distinguishes the morality of the superman 
 from the morality of man, as generally conceived 
 to-day, is, that the latter appeals to all men without 
 distinction, whereas the former by its very essence 
 remains the appanage of the select few. 
 
 3
 
 34 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Natural morality that of man is uncompromis- 
 ingly democratic, in this sense, that it imposes the 
 same ideal of life upon all men, be they young or 
 old, rich or poor, learned or ignorant. The realisa- 
 tion of this ideal is, doubtless, subject to degrees ; 
 still, in all essentials, it remains identical for all. 
 Nietzsche, on the contrary, believed in the necessary 
 inequality of men, even in regard to their moral 
 code. The morality of the superman is essentially 
 aristocratic. In a society divided into well-defined 
 castes, each having its privileges, rights, and obliga- 
 tions, there is no place for the lower caste, that of 
 small and mediocre individuals, whose natural voca- 
 tion it is to be a cog in the great social machine. 
 
 The morality of the superman is not the morality 
 of small folk, of slaves, of the " exploited ones," or 
 those at whose cost the higher castes are maintained. 
 It is the morality of the Masters, of the " creators of 
 values," of those who give impetus to the whole 
 social organism, and who must enact among men 
 on earth, the role performed by God in the universe, 
 as we Christians or philosophers conceive it. It is 
 for the Masters, and for them alone, that the morality 
 of the superman has been made. 
 
 This morality is not only aristocratic, but it is anti- 
 idealistic, in that the superman does not accept, as 
 we do, a ready-made ideal, and therewith conform 
 to it ; he, on the contrary, creates his ideal for him- 
 self in all freedom and independence, Heedless of 
 good or evil, of truth or of error, he creates his own 
 morality.* 
 
 * Lichtenberger, H., " La Philosophic de Nietzsche," pp. 150-199. 
 (Alcan, Paris: 1905.)
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 35 
 
 I have already pointed out that the morality of 
 man as commonly understood is the utter Antipodes 
 of this aristocratic morality. It is, moreover, an 
 idealistic morality, in that it conforms to an ideal not 
 created by man, but by nature, that is, coming from 
 God, through nature's intermediary. 
 
 The Upright Man. In what does this ideal con- 
 sist ? Not assuredly in the making of others a 
 pedestal for one's own self-aggrandisement, but in 
 indefinitely rising superior to oneself. Man's moral 
 universe is constituted within himself; it has its own 
 laws, its splendours and its shadows, its storms and 
 its ensuing calms, its periods of sunshine and of rain. 
 This universe is not a void. The light of truth 
 permeates it, yet is it overswept by passion. Can 
 passion's clouds obscure the luminous way of truth, 
 or shall not, rather, truth dispel the clouds ? 
 
 The ideal is to establish in this moral realm the 
 sovereignty of truth and of reason over the disorders 
 arising from that lower region. The ideal is to 
 diffuse with light and warmth every nook and 
 cranny where cold and darkness reign. The ideal 
 is to make this world attain to a state of perfect 
 equilibrium. For thus, indeed, do we become the 
 masters, not of others, not of those who dwell with- 
 out, but masters of ourselves, of all that dwells 
 within us, and so, ultimately, shall we produce men 
 of " character." 
 
 The Christian. Here is the ideal of the upright 
 man. And, as I before observed, the chiefest means 
 of expressing the upright man, the self-mastered, is 
 to live the life of a Christian. How so ? Because 
 it is by the Christian ideal being superimposed upon
 
 36 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 the human ideal that man is enabled to conform to 
 this last in fullest measure.* 
 
 Inasmuch as we have self-knowledge, and are 
 aware of the ideal to be fought for, are we then ade- 
 quately equipped for the realisation of the Christian 
 type ? It would be a very grave error to think it. 
 
 It is one thing, when starting on a voyage, to have 
 ascertained one's right destination, and it is quite 
 another thing to get there, more especially when 
 obstacles innumerable intervene. The ancient philo- 
 sophers early maintained that the ideal of man, of 
 the Sage, in attaining to self-dominion, in the subjec- 
 tion of his animal instincts to the sway of intelli- 
 gence and high aspiration, consists in likeness to 
 the Divine. 
 
 God, verily, is supreme intelligence. Thanks to 
 intelligence, God is master alike of Himself and of 
 the universe. Yet for our guidance this Divine ideal 
 so presented, appears to us too much in the abstract, 
 whereas it is the concrete ideal that we have need 
 of. So it is to the marvels of Christianity that we 
 owe this concrete ideal, expressed in flesh and blood 
 in the person of Christ, the Man-God. God so 
 made Himself Man, that mankind thereby might 
 become like unto God. 
 
 III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE IDEAL AND THE 
 EDUCATION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Having extolled the Christian ideal, it is assuredly 
 not my intention to decry it. Yet it must be con- 
 
 * Vide " La Virilite Chretienne " (4 mille). (Desclee, Lille: 1909.) 
 The whole of the first portion of this work is devoted to specify- 
 ing the objective substance of the Christian ideal, in regard to 
 which, alone, the human or natural aspect is here treated of.
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 37 
 
 ceded that given the moral elevation to which, as 
 bidden, we must climb, such an ideal, on first in- 
 spection, looks somewhat discouraging. Now, the 
 blunder committed by many modern educators is to 
 imagine that it suffices to hold up before our youth 
 an ideal, captivating to the mind, and these will 
 forthwith become ethically converted. It is a false 
 principle, both in theory and practice. 
 
 Education and Instruction. Long ago, Socrates 
 had declared, for the first time, before the youth of 
 Athens, his eager listeners, that the practice of 
 morality is synonymous with the knowledge of 
 morality ; that the Good once perceived is imposed 
 upon the will ; that it is enough to be aware wherein 
 lies the chief good effectually to strive after it. 
 
 If we-are to credit Socrates and his disciple Plato, 
 "All virtue is a science";* "The wicked man does 
 not that which he desires, but rather that which 
 seems good to him";t "Wisdom can never be sepa- 
 rated from wise conduct."! 
 
 Both these philosophers asserted that true per- 
 ception of the Good entails its practice, that the 
 Better once conceived is our inevitable determinator, 
 and that virtue is identical with this necessary 
 determination of our will by our intellectual con- 
 ception of the Better. 
 
 Leibnitz, whose optimism in this regard is well 
 known, lays down the same doctrine. 
 
 In the eighteenth century we see that the philo- 
 sophers of the famous " Encyclopedic" revived, in less 
 
 * Aristotle, " Nicomachean Ethics," Z 13, 1144, p. 29. 
 
 t Plato, " Protagoras," 358 c. 
 
 J Xenophon, " Memorabilia," III. 9.
 
 38 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 metaphysical form, this brilliant but paradoxical 
 doctrine. They maintained, these rabid ideologists, 
 that it is for the law to reform habits and not for 
 habit to reform the law, that by the mere curtailing 
 or amplifying of a code there will forthwith result 
 the moral metamorphosis of a people. 
 
 Of these philosophers one,* and the most nai've 
 among them, as I imagine, has put the question : 
 Does the diversity existing among the individuals 
 of the human race arise from the difference of 
 the education received? Further, can virtue, like 
 philosophy or mathematics, be taught ? 
 
 One would imagine that modern thought would 
 have given slight heed to such Utopian ideas. 
 Rather, we see the contrary. In our University 
 centres at the present time, we still find it generally 
 promulgated that the education of character can be 
 accomplished by the aid of manuals, and precepts 
 learnt by heart. Hardly are they beginning to 
 recognise their error and to seek out the best sub- 
 stitute for the moral primer. Meanwhile, they are 
 content to proclaim out loud with huge outpourings 
 of eloquence, and in more or less polished periods, 
 the incalculable benefits of a sound education. 
 
 Experience. It is high time things were ordered 
 better, and I, for one, shall congratulate myself 
 should I succeed in convincing even a few amongst 
 my readers in this regard. 
 
 In the first place, can it be truly laid down that 
 whenever knowledge of the good comes to a young 
 man, its adoption follows as a necessary conse- 
 quence ? 
 
 * Helv&ius.
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 39 
 
 I am aware that the theory of idea-force has long 
 been propounded, and that many have attempted to 
 show by means of subtle argument that the pure 
 idea, if withal it be of the higher order, and that 
 which constitutes an ideal, becomes by its own 
 existence a cogent, if not omnipotent, agent in 
 the education of character. 
 
 There exists, ethically regarded, no more per- 
 nicious theory. I can clearly perceive that the idea 
 in itself may be a light, but I do not conceive of it as 
 a force. The idea is as a lighthouse illuminating the 
 coast, yet will the storm-tossed mariner have confi- 
 dence that the mere sight of its beacon will bring 
 him safely to shore ? 
 
 Ever at the mercy of the tempest are we, who 
 aspire to lead moral, and, above all, Christian lives. 
 Ever prone are we to be carried adrift by the 
 currents of our passions. And shall we escape 
 scatheless if we but recollect the sublime ideal 
 offered for our adherence ? Alas ! if we have not 
 within ourselves some power of reaction, if we can- 
 not battle with the waves, the contemplation of this 
 ideal will rather paralyze our energies, and cause 
 us, from lassitude, to drop the oars before we can 
 make use of them as means of safety. 
 
 If the pure idea, even the idea of what is good, 
 were actually an idea-force, it would, necessarily, by 
 its radiant light communicate energy to our will 
 and quell the unbridled impulses of appetite. But 
 it is not so. The idea, without doubt, attracts us, 
 inclines us to the act of willing, but it does not, in 
 itself, engender volition ; else, how account for the 
 fact that the Christian ideal has had its martyrs,
 
 40 
 
 and, simultaneously, its dilettanti ; that the former 
 have consented to die for it, whereas the latter, 
 while admiring and exalting it, have refused even 
 to live by it ? 
 
 The ideal, however elevated, is not only powerless 
 in itself to act upon our will, but it also can avail 
 nothing against the brutality of instinct. " Let us 
 compare, for example, the purely intellectual belief 
 of the provincial or middle-class individual with the 
 felt belief of a Carthusian. This one, because he 
 feels religious truths, is able wholly to immolate self 
 and to forgo all the world prizes, to willingly 
 embrace poverty, mortification, and the most rigor- 
 ous mode of life imaginable. The bourgeois, whose 
 belief is of the intellect, hears Mass, it is true, but 
 does not recoil from the most hideous manifestations 
 of egotism. He exploits unmercifully some wretched 
 servant, whom he perpetually underfeeds and over- 
 works."* 
 
 An ideal man must have : there is no difficulty as 
 to that. But how must this ideal be conditioned in 
 order effectually to influence the education of our 
 character : here is the thing to be taken account of. 
 No I repeat it an ideal has no power in itself to 
 modify conduct, so long as we rest content merely 
 to contemplate it. 
 
 It is St. Paul, I believe, who makes that terrific 
 assertion that if God had not revealed His Law unto 
 the world, men had not sinned !t 
 
 The knowledge pure and simple of the Divine 
 Law, so far from giving life, has begotten death. 
 
 * Payot, " 1'Education de la Volonte," p. 41. 
 t Cf. Rom. v. 13-20 (Trans.).
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 41 
 
 Are we ourselves I appeal to common every- 
 day experience always ready to do the thing we 
 perceive to be good ? Do we throughout keep the 
 resolutions we have made, solely because we have 
 made them ? 
 
 Is there one amongst us, who at the very moment 
 when his reason and his faith spreading wide their 
 wings have urged him upwards towards the summits 
 of the Ideal is there one who has not found his 
 lofty impulses rudely checked, and he, himself, 
 perhaps dragged downwards into the abyss of evil, 
 and of sin, by the mere weight of his animal self? 
 We are not intelligence alone; we are, as well, 
 made up of matter. And, in so far as we have not 
 yet arrived at dominion over our material selves ; 
 in so far as we have not yet succeeded by sustained 
 effort, daily renewed, in impregnating matter with 
 the essence of the ideal, that our faith propounds 
 and imposes upon us, in moulding and habitua- 
 ting matter to its requirements, so we shall have 
 done little or nothing towards the education of 
 character. 
 
 God does not demand of us, merely, that we shall 
 burn incense before the altar of the Ideal. What He 
 demands is, that we shall immolate ourselves at its 
 shrine, that the Ideal shall be incarnate in us, and, 
 so assimilated by us, that we shall in pure gaiety of 
 heart, sacrifice thereto all that which might tarnish 
 its radiance. And for this it is not enough to be 
 conscious of it; one must, imperatively, be enamoured 
 of it. To be so, in the truly practical and not the 
 platonic sense, is, in the active order, the primary 
 essential in the education of character.
 
 42 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Idea-Light and Idea-Force. The most elevated 
 ideal, if we are content with its bare contemplation, 
 has no power to further the reform of conduct, or the 
 building-up of character. None the less is an ideal 
 incumbent upon the individual, who would endeavour 
 to put his moral life in order, to establish a hierarchy 
 of his passions and predilections, to affirm the 
 domination of his will over his senses. It is common 
 experience. How, then, resolve the problem ? 
 Theoretically, its solution presents no difficulty ; 
 practically, as I shall show later, it has quite another 
 aspect. For the present I will confine myself to the 
 theoretical point of view; and will endeavour to 
 estimate, generally, the conditions, whereby it is 
 possible to ensure the sovereignty of the ideal in 
 the education of character. 
 
 Idealists and Materialists. It is with education as 
 with instruction, as soon as reform is hinted at, so 
 persons are found ready to rush from one extremity 
 to the other. Under pretext, for instance, that the 
 perception of an ideal does not necessarily involve 
 submission to its influence, there are found many 
 educators who, thence, refuse altogether to take 
 notice of it. And this is their mode of reasoning : 
 We have at our disposal but two means of ethical 
 training: the mind and the body; intellectual and 
 physical exercises. Given the inefficacy of the first, 
 we have to fall back on the second. Hence, the 
 ever-increasing importance accorded in the Uni- 
 versity curriculum to physical exercises, and to 
 sports of every description. 
 
 Doubtless, there is some value in their conclusions. 
 I, for my part, fully agree that the body ought to be
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 43 
 
 given its share, and a considerable share, in ethical 
 reform. We shall see later the reason for this. 
 Meanwhile, I may be permitted to observe that 
 corporal gymnastics, however prudently regulated, 
 cannot, unaided, solve the very complex problem of 
 ethical education. 
 
 "One can build up a Herculean race by means 
 of sound gymnastic exercises, but it is impossible to 
 discern in what way such exercises can materially 
 develop the qualities that need to be fostered by 
 education initiative, perseverance, judgment, self- 
 mastery, will-power, etc."* 
 
 Between idealists on the one side, and materialists 
 on the other; between those who hold paramount 
 the teaching of ethics by means of books, and those 
 who place their confidence solely in sports, can a 
 middle course be steered ? 
 
 I believe so, and I hope to prove it. To develop 
 character we must be strengthened and enlightened 
 at one and the same time ; we first must be aware of 
 the direction towards which our energies ought to 
 converge, and then be enabled to effect this conver- 
 gence. That the ideal, in itself, enlightens us is not 
 disputed. Every idea is a light ; but is it not possi- 
 ble to transform the idea-light into an idea-force?! 
 
 * GustaveLe Bon, " Psychologic de 1'Education," Part I. (II ?), 
 chap, vi., p. 165. 
 
 t I have pointed out elsewhere that every idea and sensation 
 tends to become actualised in the corresponding act, whenever 
 no obstacle intervenes. This is not a contradiction of the present 
 assertion, but rather its completion. For, if the idea engenders 
 the act, it is the natural appetite (voluntary or sensitive), awakened 
 and energised by its representation, that is the channel of trans- 
 mission, and not the representation itself. (Vide " Devoir et 
 Conscience," Parts II. and III.)
 
 44 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Idea-Force. Theoretically, there is nothing more 
 simple ; it suffices to desire it, or in other words to 
 love it. Our strength lies finally in our will. Let 
 us presume, then, that once illumined by the 
 Christian ideal, we are no longer content merely to 
 contemplate it, but bring to bear upon it all the 
 impetus of our will to the point of assimilating it, of 
 living in it, of permeating with it our moral organism. 
 So, in these conditions, may we not believe that this 
 ideal, without ceasing to be a light unto us, will 
 simultaneously become a force ? 
 
 The idea-force, then, is not only the idea perceived, 
 as some psychologists mistakenly declare, but the 
 idea willed. It is the desired, the cherished ideals, 
 that supply in the aggregate the inspiration and 
 support of all sustained activity in a given direction. 
 Let us consider the sun. It plays, in nature, the 
 r6le allotted to the idea-force in the education of 
 character. Its light illumines all things, while, at 
 the same time, its heat gives them life. Deprived 
 of the light of the sun, nature would remain en- 
 veloped in the grim pall of darkness. 
 
 But let us suppose that, although illumined by the 
 sun, and mantled in some sort by its rays, nature 
 should derive no heat therefrom. Thence, would 
 speedily follow death that is, a perpetual winter. 
 All energy nurtured within its bosom, and seeking 
 expansion, would rapidly suffer exhaustion and 
 ultimate extinction. 
 
 And this applies, with due reservations, to the 
 Christian ideal in relation to our moral nature. If 
 this ideal be permitted to project its chill rays even 
 into our innermost recesses, while withholding there-
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 45 
 
 from the warmth of its beams, there may be revealed 
 to us the state of our soul still shall we be left 
 powerless to remedy it. We are not put into the 
 world merely that we may be guided to self-know- 
 ledge by the light of the Christian ideal, but so that 
 we may live according to that ideal, and that by its 
 fire our actions may be enkindled. And, seeing that 
 the only means of transforming its light into heat is 
 to desire it, and to love it, we must, with all the 
 force of our emotions, desire, love, embrace it, that 
 it may not escape us. 
 
 Christian Experience. All this is, I admit, very 
 pretty in theory, but, in practice, how are we to bring 
 about the descent of the Christian ideal from the 
 serene elevation of the intelligence to the pulsating 
 region of the heart ? 
 
 As to this there must be no false illusions, nor 
 must we regard the achievement as easy. It is far 
 from being so. 
 
 We should recall what happened on the very 
 morrow of the Creation. The fall of our first parents 
 is a fact dominating the entire history of humanity, 
 and so mournful is its echo in our consciousness 
 that we are driven to seek its analysis and to draw 
 therefrom a practical lesson.* 
 
 The Faith teaches us that Adam and Eve were so 
 created in a state of moral equilibrium, that their 
 
 * Christian experience based on the fact of the Fall merely 
 accentuates natural experience. For this reason, I dwell upon it 
 here. Naturally, with a moral organism, where spirit has to over- 
 come flesh, there is entailed the incessant intervention of the will 
 in the control of the senses. The light of the ideal does not 
 suffice for their spiritualisation, and volitional forces must neces- 
 sarily be requisitioned for man and Christian alike.
 
 46 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 volition, enlightened by their intelligence, experi- 
 enced no' kind of difficulty in keeping their flesh 
 in subjection. Issuing unscathed from the hands 
 of their Maker, they were immune from the laws of 
 heredity, and the dangers of evil suggestion. With 
 their gaze riveted upon the Christian ideal, and 
 their souls still expanding with the creative Breath, 
 it would appear they had, by the help of their wings, 
 only to soar above the miseries we sink under to- 
 day, and inhale the life-giving air of the Divine 
 spheres. This, at any rate, would happen, we 
 imagine, were we in their place. Ah, how ill we 
 comprehend the complexity of human nature ! The 
 history of the first Fall is with us henceforward to 
 make manifest that man, however closely he pursues 
 his ideal, however nearly he approaches to it, can 
 never be wholly secure against backsliding. What, 
 then, shall be said of the feeble, the pusillanimous, 
 the craven ? 
 
 We must always remember that, side by side 
 with the knowledge of good, there is set the know- 
 ledge of evil ; alongside the sky there is the earth. 
 If, in our hearts, we aspire upwards to the heights, 
 by the weight of our bodies are we dragged down- 
 wards into the depths. Seen too remotely, the earth 
 hides its harshness from our eyes; wafts unto us 
 the subtle perfume of its flowers, and conceals from 
 us their thorns. Lured by the false glamour of evil, 
 we are intoxicated, dazed, vacillating, we lose our 
 balance; with fluttering wings we cleave the air, and 
 descend headlong down into some obscure corner. 
 
 This, in brief, is the actual history of the original 
 Fall. We must not forget that we have inherited
 
 IDEAL AND EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 47 
 
 the dread consequences of the Fall. By reason of it, 
 our will, the crux of our spiritual organism, has lost 
 its natural power. The mainspring is not broken, 
 but it is bent, and it is a difficult task to repair 
 this spring, to restore its original tensity the tensity 
 of steel so that the disturbed equilibrium may be 
 re-established in us, and so that, ultimately, the ideal 
 may obtain sway over our retrograde instincts. 
 
 Truly, grace is with us always. Yet, grace is 
 unavailing without our personal co-operation. We 
 must, while given grace, act as though we had it 
 not, and so shall we most reap its benefits. How, 
 then, must we act ? An ideal of itself is wholly 
 futile. Its light may be shed upon our will, but 
 there is no heat in it. It is, then, our will that must 
 communicate its own heat, by fastening upon it, by 
 adhering to it with all imaginable fervour. Now, 
 our will, on the one hand, is enfeebled and ener- 
 vated ; while our sensible powers, profiting thereby, 
 tend to wrench asunder their bonds, and scatter 
 their forces, to the impairing of that complete ideal, 
 the fulfilment of which is incumbent upon our super- 
 natural activities. 
 
 Who shall find a remedy for this interior anarchy? 
 Who shall re-establish the shattered equilibrium ? 
 Here we are confronted with the most delicate part 
 of our analysis. It is not my purpose, for the 
 present, to offer a definite solution, but I venture to 
 proffer a glimpse of it. 
 
 The remedy lies nearer home than we should 
 suppose. I find it in the very heart of the trouble. 
 We observe that our volition is a sentimental 
 element. Our will asks no better than to obey, but
 
 48 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 has no fancy for cold, reasoned decrees. These 
 must be tempered with emotion, coloured with 
 passion's impelling force. The impetus must come, 
 therefore, from the seat of our passions themselves. 
 Set between the ideal, and irradiated with its light, 
 and the passions whence it derives a portion of its 
 impulses, the will's function consists in welding 
 these dissimilar elements, in linking them one to 
 another, in transforming the idea-light into the idea- 
 force ; in marshalling in array all that is emotional, 
 sentimental, and impassioned in our moral being. 
 
 " Strong feeling," writes J. Stuart Mill, " is the 
 instrument and element of strong self-control, but 
 it requires to be cultivated in that direction. When 
 it is, it forms not the heroes of impulse only, but 
 those also of self-conquest. History and experience 
 prove that the most passionate characters are the 
 most rigid in their feelings of duty, when their 
 passion has been trained to act in that direction."* 
 
 * Stuart Mill, " Assujettissement des Femmes," p. 150, etc. ; 
 Ribot, " Maladies de la Volonte," p. 117. (Alcan, Paris : 1897.)
 
 PART II 
 
 THE PASSIONS AND CHARACTER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PASSIONS AND THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL 
 
 IT may possibly be of some advantage, in embarking 
 upon the second and more important section of this 
 work, to make a survey of the precise boundaries 
 limiting, provisionally, the intricate problem of the 
 education of character. 
 
 On the one side, we are in possession of an ideal 
 to be attained. But this ideal confines itself after 
 the manner of a powerful reflector to pointing out 
 the way by the casting of its beams upon our path. 
 On the other side, there exist in the dark and 
 turbulent region of the senses conflicting and 
 violent forces, which, unquelled, would drive us 
 into a hundred random channels. 
 
 If the ideal, as conceived by us, were able to over- 
 throw the disturbing elements, to bring them by its 
 influence under control, then the problem of the 
 education of character were speedily solved. But 
 experience shows us that the idea of itself, even 
 the Christian Idea, is robbed of its efficacy when 
 confronted with the brutality of instinct. 
 
 Here it is incumbent upon the will to intervene ; 
 
 49 4
 
 50 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 for, undeniably, it is our will that is designed to 
 actualise in us the Christian ideal. 
 
 And how is this to be done? Alienated at birth 
 from this ideal by the consequences of original sin, 
 our common heritage, our will, at the outset, neither 
 is drawn to it nor has affection for it. In order to 
 adhere to it, to desire it, and to love it, there is 
 needed the Divine aid of grace. But grace alone is 
 insufficient, and each of us, individually, has to help. 
 Restored by baptism, we yet remain infirm for a 
 while, and our enfeebled powers can be strengthened 
 solely by the recuperative force of action. Now, 
 what kind of action is capable of arousing the will 
 from its lethargic state, of imparting vigour to its 
 impulses, of intensifying its affection for the ideal, 
 ever solicitous of it ? 
 
 The action of the ideal, perhaps? But we have 
 seen that the ideal has no more power over volition, 
 to compel it to will, than over the brute part of our 
 nature. 
 
 So, then, are we lured into a road without a 
 turning, and do we find the education of character 
 to be a decoy? Not so, for the way out actually 
 confronts us. 
 
 Our will, let me insist anew, is an emotional 
 power. Love is its basis, and love incites love. In 
 the place of clear but chill commands, the will 
 should be assailed with emphatic passion-inflamed 
 behests, and its heart-whole submission will inevit- 
 ably follow. Is it not possible to link strong passions 
 to the Christian ideal, to urge the will to more 
 effective action by the influence of generous 
 emotions? Surely the means exist, and the will
 
 itself has the power to actualise them. It is merely 
 a question of tactics, or what Aristotle describes as 
 the "Art of philosophising" with the passions. 
 Before I proceed to dissect this art, it seems advis- 
 able to say a word or two concerning the nature of 
 passion. 
 
 I. THE PASSIONS. 
 
 Practically regarded, the passions are the pleasur- 
 able or displeasing emotions, arising from the sen- 
 sible region of the soul. When we speak of the fire 
 of passion, we are referring to a violent state of the 
 emotions. Very little suffices, at times, to kindle this 
 fire a chance encounter, a recollection, an image, 
 just as a. spark will blow up a powder magazine. 
 Moralists are prone to attach an unfavourable mean- 
 ing to the term " passion "that of depravity or 
 excess. There are, it is true, passions that may, 
 when abused, become depraved and inordinate. 
 Still, there is no justification for the anathemas 
 levied indiscriminately at passion. As even the best 
 things are liable to abuse, so, on this principle, 
 nothing that is good would remain on earth. 
 
 The passions, then, are the pleasurable or dis- 
 pleasing emotions of the sensibility. Emotions are 
 apt to work out, roughly, as follows : 
 
 Self-love is the fundamental basis of all the pas- 
 sions. It is the source whence comes a continuous 
 stream, and there is no single passion that does not 
 nourish itself therefrom. " The hatred that one ex- 
 periences in regard to some object," writes Bossuet, 
 " arises from the love felt for some contrary object. 
 I have an aversion against some individual merely
 
 52 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 because he stands in the way of my possessing that 
 which I love. 
 
 11 Desire is merely the love of the good thing not 
 possessed. 
 
 "Joy is the love attached to the good thing pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 "Abhorrence and sorrow are, respectively, the love 
 shrinking from and deploring the evil, whereby 
 good is banished. 
 
 "Daring is a love which attempts the impossible 
 in order to frustrate the loss of the loved object; 
 and fear is a love despairing of that which it has 
 eternally lost, whence prostration results, and there 
 can be no recovery. 
 
 "Anger is a love irritated by a wrong done, and 
 desirous of avenging itself on the guilty. In short, 
 take away love, and there are no passions ; let love 
 stand, and it begets them all."* 
 
 Love, desire, joy, hatred, abhorrence, sorrow, 
 daring and fear, hope, despair, anger these may be 
 described as the scale of the passions. But, as with 
 the notes of the musical scale, there may be made 
 good or bad music, so with these notes of passion, 
 these may be played upon for good or evil from the 
 moral standpoint. All depends on the morality of 
 the object towards which our passions urge us. In 
 themselves, indeed, passions are neither good nor 
 evil, since goodness or moral malice is initiated with 
 the intervention of the intelligent volition. "Just 
 as," says St. Gregory, "the iron thrust into the 
 furnace takes the form the artificer intends, and 
 moulding itself to the usage destined becomes a 
 
 * Bossuet, " De la Connaissance de Dieu ct de Soi-meme," 
 chap i., p. 6.
 
 THE PASSIONS AND CHRISTIAN IDEAL 53 
 
 common tool or a noble sword, so it is with the pas- 
 sions." Subject to the will of man, these are ren- 
 dered instruments of virtue or of vice, according as 
 he subordinates them to Reason or suffers them to 
 reign over Reason. 
 
 If it be advantageous to have sound health, good 
 sight, solid muscles, and a well-balanced brain, no 
 less is it to possess a warm heart, an ardent disposi- 
 tion, a passionate soul, provided always, be it under- 
 stood, that the passions, however vehement, are 
 content to serve and do not attempt to command. 
 It is young men, especially, who experience the fires 
 of passion, and so much the better, if they but rele- 
 gate them to a worthy service. For these sensitive 
 emotions that appertain, primarily, to virile youth 
 may develop into the vital mainsprings of conduct. 
 Intelligently directed, the passions operate on the 
 man of character as an impelling force that suffers 
 no resistance. This state of effervescence, produced 
 in love by the introduction of this sensitive ingre- 
 dient passion is a powerful motive force of the 
 will, and one of virtue's most valuable auxiliaries. 
 
 II. SENTIMENT AND PASSION. 
 
 As a condition to this, and a determining factor 
 in the whole question of the education of character, 
 there must first be ascertained the possible link of 
 connection between the passions and the volitional 
 sentiments. 
 
 The will, indeed, furnishes a scale of sentiments 
 corresponding to that of the passions. The will 
 loves, desires, enjoys, hates, recoils, suffers, is 
 fearful or audacious, placid or irritable. But,
 
 54 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 whereas the passions, whether prompting to laughter 
 or tears, to song or lamentation, have to seek out, 
 blindly, inspiration, from any kind of good that the 
 imagination and the senses may present to them in 
 glowing colours, the sentiments or emotions of the 
 will are directly guided to their prey by the light of 
 the intellect. Clearly, the will, whenever it turns 
 from the Christian ideal as the determining factor of 
 its activity, may be led to batten on sensible gratifi- 
 cations : it may, to be explicit, in the role of inter- 
 mediary, steep the body in animal pleasures at the 
 expense of the soul ; still this, when done, is done 
 freely and consciously, if not reasonably. And thus, 
 prompted by our volition, whether for or against the 
 Christian ideal, our passions derive therefrom their 
 moral impress ; they are rendered good or evil by 
 contact with its object, and by a swift rebound they 
 responsively impart to its sentiments the good or 
 evil received in a more intense form. 
 
 The question then is, in what measure enfeebled 
 Christian sentiments, neutral in character, such as 
 appertain to our inert volition, can let in the 
 quickening breath of passion, and, so stimulated, 
 enable the regenerate will, held fast by the Christian 
 ideal, to exercise sway over our entire energies. 
 
 Our soul may be likened to an organ having two 
 manuals, the one formed of the sensitive passions, 
 and the other of the volitional sentiments. 
 
 Are we able to make use of a technical term so 
 to couple these two manuals that with an emotional 
 note of the sensibility, there shall be sounded, simul- 
 taneously, the corresponding note of the will, and 
 vice versa ? If the answer be in the affirmative,
 
 THE PASSIONS AND CHRISTIAN IDEAL 55 
 
 then is the education of character a feasible under- 
 taking. For the character, as I have earlier observed, 
 is the harmony of the soul, and to produce this 
 harmony the will and sensibility must mutually 
 accord. Whenever, then, by force of intelligence 
 and perseverance, we have succeeded in acquiring 
 a complete mastery over our instrument, in bringing 
 certain of our more virile passions into unison with 
 our Christian sentiments, in assuring by means of 
 regulated habit their wellnigh automatic detach- 
 ment, then we need no longer fight shy of difficulties. 
 Our fingers will fly, independently, as it were, over 
 the double manuals ; concords ever more rich and 
 melodious will multiply ; our entire life will prove 
 one long succession of harmonious actions related 
 one to the other, and producing by their continuity 
 the great poem of character. 
 
 III. THE PASSIONS AND THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL. 
 
 The passions, then, are the movements of our 
 non-rational nature which, in the guise of love or 
 hate, desire or aversion, fear or daring, joy or 
 sorrow, bring us spontaneously into touch with 
 sensible good, or deter us therefrom. 
 
 And before we can realise whether our volition is 
 capable of binding these emotional feelings to the 
 Christian ideal, so that the love of it may be 
 strengthened and quickened within us, and its 
 reign over us may be made absolute, there is a 
 preliminary difficulty to be confronted. So far 
 from compromising with our passions, is it not 
 rather incumbent upon the Christian ideal, as its 
 supreme function, totally to suppress them, and
 
 56 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 so establish its empire upon their ruins ? Since, 
 surely, the Christian ideal consists in living a 
 divine life, in living the supernatural life, in its 
 essence, and thus increasingly detached from matter. 
 And we know the objects of the passions are 
 wholly material, occupied throughout with the 
 senses, and, the more the sensitive emotion excited 
 in us, thereby, is spontaneous and vehement, the 
 further we are removed from those divine alti- 
 tudes, whereon shines resplendent the Christian 
 ideal. Answers, widely divergent, have been forth- 
 coming in the course of the centuries to the present 
 inquiry. I venture to recall the more remarkable 
 amongst these, and primarily those that appear the 
 most compatible with Catholic doctrine. 
 
 The Stoic Ideal. The Stoics, of old, for reasons 
 that need not at present be discussed, maintained 
 that the passions are radically evil, and that man's 
 ideal a fortiori, the Christian ideal is to drain 
 them dry, so to speak, at their source. 
 
 According to Zeno of Citium and his disciples, 
 the Sage, while emphatically he should attain to 
 self-conquest, ought not to arrive thereat in the 
 manner of a peacemaking monarch reforming his 
 unruly subjects, and so securing their submission, 
 but rather in the guise of a tyrant who reduces them 
 to impotence, and ruthlessly mows them down. 
 
 The true Stoic turns his back on the sensitive 
 passions, on their joys and pains, he hardens him- 
 self against their influences, he does not attempt 
 their reformation, he suppresses them, and his dream 
 is to attain to impassibility. 
 " Before the frivolity of his people, the debauchery
 
 THE PASSIONS AND CHRISTIAN IDEAL 57 
 
 and treason of his captains, the desertion of his sol- 
 diers, the misdeeds of his wife, the death of his 
 children, the villainy of his son Commodus, the 
 degradation of character, the prostitution of mar- 
 riage, the insurrection of the powers, the decay of 
 valour, the public apathy, the growth of super- 
 stition ; in the face, in a word, of the destruction 
 and disgrace of his army, his family, and his 
 Empire, Marcus Aurelius withheld himself from 
 anger and grief alike ; it was a source of pride to 
 him that like some unshakable promontory, against 
 which the tempests beat in vain, he was able to live 
 ' exempt from pain, insensible to the blow which 
 strikes at him to-day, inaccessible to the fear of that 
 which threatens him to-morrow.'"* 
 
 This radical and inhuman solution of the problem 
 of passion called forth, inevitably, another no less 
 radical, while diametrically opposed to it. I will 
 not waste time on its history this is dealt with in 
 every ethical treatise. 
 
 The Epicurean Ideal, Epicurus is its father, and 
 Rousseau its sponsor. Its tenets are reducible to 
 this : Human nature in its foundations is excellent. 
 Every tendency which wells up from its source as 
 from any pure running stream shares its excellence. 
 It is evil and contrary to nature to desire to set 
 limits to its expansion. Obviously, this doctrine, in 
 that it panders to our appetites, has been acclaimed 
 with enthusiasm by the crowd. 
 
 " The passions were elevated by the pagans into 
 gods, and had their temples, and their feast-days. 
 Their allotted function was not only to offer unto 
 * Janvier, " Les Passions," 3* Conf., p. 3. (Lethielleux, Paris : 1905.)
 
 58 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 men the spectacle of scandalous vice, but, as well, 
 to propagate licentiousness as personified in them- 
 selves. As though corrupt nature were not of 
 itself sufficiently prone to overstepping the limits, 
 there was spread out before them, in the form of 
 Bacchanalian and Saturnalian festivals, a vast 
 horizon of debauchery ; the immortals coming down 
 from the heavens to incite revolted consciences, for 
 their own greater honour, to orgies, whereof they 
 were the actual promoters."* 
 
 If we substitute the word science for that of god, 
 it is not hard to recognise a certain doctrine cur- 
 rent to-day, that preaches the triumph of the pas- 
 sions. What the pagans extolled in the name of 
 their idols, spurious philosophers worship to-day, 
 in the name of science. 
 
 Between these two contradictory theses, of which 
 the one exalts the passions beyond measure, and the 
 other condemns them in the same degree, what is 
 the line to be adopted by a Catholic ? 
 
 The Christian Ideal. It must be frankly conceded 
 that Zeno and Epicurus both have won disciples, 
 although unconscious ones, from amongst sages and 
 Christians alike. 
 
 How frequently do we hear promulgated in circles 
 where, nevertheless, Catholic doctrine is admitted, 
 such disconcerting sophisms pronounced to cloak 
 over deplorable vice : " Youth must have its day." 
 If this is not Epicureanism, what is ? " Youth must 
 have its day!" Practically, this implies that a 
 young man, uniquely because he is young, and not 
 because he is a man, is to let loose his passions, 
 * Janvier, " Les Passions," 3* Conf., p. 5. (Lethielleux, Paris.)
 
 THE PASSIONS AND CHRISTIAN IDEAL 59 
 
 without any attempt at their restraint or direction 
 into the channel of a higher ideal. That the passions 
 may be restive when one is young, is not the point ; 
 we have to consider whether the mere fact of youth 
 entitles their free exercise. Surely nothing could 
 be further opposed to the teaching of Reason and 
 of the Faith. Wherewith are we to produce the 
 men of the future, if not from the youth of to-day ? 
 When, then, man's ideal is to consist in mastering 
 his passions, can it be conceivably anticipated that 
 from one day to the next, as soon as he chooses to 
 decree that his youth is spent, a young man shall be 
 found able by the simple fiat of his will, to erect an 
 impregnable barrier, and so stem the tumultuous 
 floods he has voluntarily let loose ? 
 
 These are the woeful results of a system of ethics 
 drawn from books, which blithely sacrifices reality 
 to the abstract principle. No, a hundred times no, 
 youth must not have its day, in the sense appre- 
 hended by the worldly. The education of character 
 is not, as we have seen, the work of a day. If we 
 remain passion's slaves throughout twenty years 
 and more, it does not rest with ourselves alone to 
 throw off, at will, the yoke, and assume the mastery. 
 Have we, then, in virtue of the Christian ideal, to 
 strive after a state of impassibility that is purely 
 chimerical, to stifle our passions in the germ, and in 
 this way attain to self-government? This stoical 
 attitude, like the one preceding it, has nothing of 
 the human element in it ; it is, indeed, contrary to 
 nature. " He who would construct an angel fashions 
 a beast," so writes Pascal, and experience sufficiently 
 confirms him. The entire force and attraction of
 
 60 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 the Christian ideal is derived from its being at the 
 same time the human ideal par excellence. Grace is 
 given us solely for the perfecting of our inherent 
 nature. All that is contrary to nature is at the same 
 time anti-Christian. 
 
 I seek no better proof than the example of Jesus 
 Christ, our universal model. It is enough to 
 glance at the Gospel, to be aware that the Son of 
 Man, Himself, was not devoid of passion. The 
 sellers in the Temple, the Pharisees, the exploiters 
 of the people, excited His anger; He wept over 
 faithless Jerusalem; He shed tears at the tomb 
 of His friend Lazarus; He was assailed during His 
 Agony with acute sensations of fear; He evinced, at 
 the Last Supper, feelings of passionate tenderness 
 towards certain of His disciples ; He yearned with 
 an ardent desire to partake of His Easter repast in 
 their midst; He loved suffering; He committed 
 finally the superb folly of the Cross. 
 
 Is it not clear, therefore, that passion, in itself, is 
 not reprehensible, that the human ideal made in- 
 carnate in Christ does not make its appeal, solely, to 
 the intellectual will, but, as well, to the brain, the 
 n.erves, the muscles and the heart, to the flesh and 
 blood, and the entire physical forces with which we 
 are endowed. 
 
 Nor must it be imagined that every passion is 
 worthy, whatever the channel of its expression, or 
 degree permitted. Only those passions are worthy 
 which are serviceable in our aspirations towards the 
 ideal, as embodied in the Faith; evil, wholly, are 
 those passions that deter us therefrom, and paralyse 
 our will. This is the Catholic doctrine in regard to
 
 THE PASSIONS AND CHRISTIAN IDEAL 61 
 
 the passions. And it is neither too narrow nor too 
 wide; it is circumscribed by Truth. It is truth 
 that tells us how passion, lusty as we find it in 
 youth, when discreetly directed, and firmly linked 
 by our volition to the Christian ideal, may aid us in 
 our ascent upwards. Passion fires our glance, and 
 enframes with a flaming aureole our brow, so that 
 all mankind is seduced thereby; passion lends 
 courage to the most cowardly, and animates the 
 most insensible amongst us. By no means, there- 
 fore, ought we to show contempt for passion, since 
 its divers manifestations serve us as a spring- 
 board whence we are launched to the conquest of 
 character. There are, doubtless, certain conditions 
 necessary for victory, certain tactics to be employed ; 
 but these are already half mastered with the know- 
 ledge, that the Christian life cannot issue from 
 a corpse, and that it is not required first to slay the 
 human within us to have the right to name ourselves 
 Christians.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL IN REGARD TO 
 THE PASSIONS 
 
 THE Christian ideal, then, does not consist in ex- 
 tinguishing the fires of passion, but rather in stirring 
 the flame to good purpose. Psychologists com- 
 monly agree that it is passion's mission, when 
 wisely disciplined, to whet the intellect and increase 
 tenfold the volitional impulse. 
 
 According to Pascal, there is no great thing 
 achieved without the stimulus of passion. It is the 
 source of all noble performance, of the finest dis- 
 coveries, the most heroic self-sacrifice. And still* 
 conversely, passion, misdirected, blinds the intelli- 
 gence. By it, the imagination is exalted to the 
 detriment of the judgment, the powers of reflection 
 become paralysed, the perception dulled. Further, 
 the will falls victim to its dominating influence, and 
 is reduced from the controlling force it should be 
 to a state of bondage. And, too, there is always the 
 ultimate risk that an overwhelming passion may so 
 affect the nervous system it shatters, and the 
 organism it undermines, that there may result 
 therefrom the dire consequences that culminate in 
 insanity or even death. 
 
 It has already been pointed out that the moral 
 quality of the passions is entirely determined by 
 
 62
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL 63 
 
 their orientation. In the case of a Christian soul, 
 for example, there is scope for chaste love as for 
 legitimate aversion ; for vehement desire as for holy 
 anger ; for lawful joys as for permissible griefs ; for 
 sublime daring and salutary fear. 
 
 It is for us to ascertain in what degree, precisely, 
 these contrary passions may be reconciled with the 
 Christian ideal, so that the impulses of the will may 
 be strengthened and our power over it increased. 
 It is an undeniable fact that, whenever an idea such 
 as the Christian idea falls into a soul eager to 
 welcome it, it attracts to itself by a mutual and 
 mysterious phenomenon of osmosis, which we shall 
 study later the passions which are needed to 
 ensure its germination. By these, it is in some sort 
 nourished and strengthened, while, on the other 
 hand, the defmiteness of the idea finds expression 
 in the passions, and these owe to it, not their 
 ardour, but their means of orientation. Clearly, 
 this power of attraction does not appertain to the 
 pure idea, but to the idea willed. Nor do the 
 passions, unassisted, attach themselves to the idea ; 
 their primary object, in that it refers directly to the 
 senses, is wholly opposed. It is requisite for the 
 will, therefore, to bring about this alliance. In 
 virtue of its initial love for the divine Good, the will 
 draws from the living Fount of the passions the 
 stimulus needful for its increase. Here is an 
 immense reserve of energy ready for all claims 
 upon it. Insensible to the faint representations of 
 a shadowy ideal, it is through the medium of the 
 passions, that the will, enkindled, shall cause the 
 ideal to spring into vivid life. Or, to make use of
 
 64 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 an earlier comparison, I may say that it behoves the 
 will so to couple the manual of the passions with 
 that of personal feeling that, inspired by their 
 spontaneous and thrilling notes swelling forth to 
 the praise of the Christian ideal, it may vibrate in 
 unison with them, and its every manifestation be as 
 so many harmonic progressions, whose uninter- 
 rupted succession go to form the great composition 
 of character. 
 
 I. THE WILL AND THE PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS 
 OF PASSION. 
 
 But has the will, actually, such power of orienta- 
 tion over the passions as we have alleged? Here 
 is the question to be elucidated. 
 
 First, it may be admitted that the spontaneity and 
 vehemence characteristic of any cases of intense 
 emotional excitement tend to deny the efficacy of 
 the will in this regard. It appears most difficult for 
 a furious man to master his emotion, on the instant. 
 Similarly, when sensuality is awakened for the first 
 time, there would seem to be no more foolhardy 
 action than to attempt its suppression by a frontal 
 attack. We do not gather from history that our 
 forbears, when they shot their arrows at the storm, 
 as if to flout it, were in the least successful in avert- 
 ing its violence and fatal effects. 
 
 It is with passion, aggravated to intensity, as with 
 a river, "That one might more easily turn back 
 than deflect from its straight course." * 
 
 This tells us that the direct power of the will, if 
 
 * Bossuet, " De la Connaissance de Dieu et de Soi-meme," 
 chap, iii., p. 19.
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL 65 
 
 it may be assumed at all, is but slight. But there 
 may exist an alternative influence, which, to com- 
 prehend, we must first distinguish between the 
 physiological effects by which passion ordinarily 
 reveals itself, and the manifold causes upon which 
 it is dependent. Physiologically regarded, passion 
 is an " organic shock " a disturbance in the circula- 
 tion of the blood, in the respiratory movements, in 
 the heart's action. This disturbance is shown in 
 demonstrations of gesture, voice, or physical work- 
 ings of one kind or another. 
 
 Over the essentially physiological material of 
 passion that includes wellnigh all those organs that 
 are not subject to modification by the will con- 
 spicuously the heart we have, through psycho- 
 logical agencies, no direct control whatever; our 
 sole means of action are external, and entail recourse 
 to therapeutic aids. These need not be indicated 
 here. 
 
 It is quite otherwise, however, when, by the 
 influences of emotion, the muscles are called into 
 play. 
 
 "When stirred by the impulses of emotion, we 
 may endeavour to restrain its outward exhibition. 
 Anger, for instance, calls forth for its expression, 
 certain sympathetic muscular movements causes 
 the jaws to tighten, the fists to clench themselves, the 
 muscles of the face to contract, the breath to come 
 in gasps : Quos ego ! I may command my muscles to 
 relax, my lips to smile ; I may be able to moderate my 
 respiratory movements. Yet, if I have not essayed to 
 check, in its earliest manifestations, the symptoms 
 of emotional excitement if I have given rein to it, 
 
 5
 
 66 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 my later efforts are likely to prove abortive, unless, 
 interiorly, my will brings other emotions into 
 operation, such as the motives of personal dignity, 
 of decorum, and so forth."* 
 
 II. THE WILL AND THE CAUSES OF PASSION. 
 
 Moreover, any influence we may possess over the 
 passions operates rather on their causes than their 
 effects. And among these causes, which are mani- 
 fold, it is expedient to distinguish between im- 
 mediate and remote causes. 
 
 Remote Causes. These are of twofold description. 
 There are external causes, such as physical and 
 moral environment : " Certain passions are, indeed, 
 the natural product of certain climates." f 
 
 Further, in virtue of the law of Contagion, which 
 governs the diffusion of the emotions, there is pro- 
 vided in education, in example and association, 
 a constant source of nourishment. It is to internal 
 causes our attention must be chiefly directed. As a 
 matter of fact, we all, alike, carry within us the germ 
 of the various passions ; while, too, the infant may, 
 at birth, inherit certain tendencies more pronounced 
 than others that favour the predominance of one of 
 these. Such tendencies are often the fruit of 
 heredity, the outcome of the natural law of atavism, 
 and a proof of the solid link binding us to our 
 ancestry. 
 
 This predisposition, whether physical or moral, 
 occasionally slumbers for a generation or more, and 
 then, uncontrollably, reappears. 
 
 * Payot, " L'Education de la Volonte," p. 63. 
 
 f Montesquieu, " Esprit des Lois," L. xiv., chap. ii.
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILT, 67 
 
 From this standpoint, the direct power of our 
 volition appears to be nil, since we, assuredly, are 
 not at liberty to select our ancestors. Solely, then, 
 by diligent effort, wisely directed, are we able to 
 temper these transmitted influences and neutralise 
 their evil effects. So, too, with regard to the will 
 in its dealings with individual physical tempera- 
 ment. According to the predominance of certain 
 organic elements, a temperament is predisposed to 
 this or that peculiar passion. Predisposition is a 
 fact independent of the subject. Quite beyond our 
 sphere of control are the visitations of a bilious, 
 a nervous, a sanguine, or lymphatic habit of body ; 
 to be prone to anger, sloth, cowardice, or sensuality, 
 melancholy, or exuberant gaiety, lies not within 
 the ruling of our direct purpose. 
 
 How, then, can the will acquire control over the 
 passions if all these internal and external causes are 
 its antagonists ? 
 
 Immediate Causes. The powers of volition should 
 not be lightly regarded. Just as the organic elements 
 in the physical temperament combine to produce 
 the individual physiognomy, so our inherited ten- 
 dencies cannot be identified with the passions, 
 in their proper signification, but are merely disposi- 
 tions more or less remotely inclining to this or that 
 single passion. I regard these as so many powder 
 magazines : withhold the spark, and there will be no 
 explosion. 
 
 Unhappily, there are too frequent cases occurring, 
 when the careless breeze, in conjunction with chance 
 circumstance, carries the spark within the danger 
 zone. An explosion inevitably follows, and, in a
 
 68 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 moment, our moral organism is shattered, and we 
 are buried beneath the ruins. 
 
 More frequently, however, the task of firing the 
 powder is ours, and so, with due precaution, we are 
 free to explode, and disperse, together with the 
 dynamite, the sundry obstacles that block the way 
 between our will and the Christian ideal. How 
 is this to be done ? We first must impose a defined 
 boundary upon our sensible and imaginative per- 
 ceptions, and, too, upon our ideas; since, unde- 
 niably, it is these perceptions and ideas that, by 
 means of the images to which they refer, play 
 a leading r6le in the evocation of passion that, 
 indeed, of the spark igniting unawares the gun- 
 powder reserves, or other inflammable properties. 
 Suddenly, there are flashed in lively colours before 
 our fancy the objects that attract or repel us, that 
 incite our desire or aversion, provoke our love or 
 hatred, that inspire us with joy or affliction, with 
 hope or despair, with daring or resentment. 
 
 Experience teaches that, in the main, we ourselves, 
 are the instigators of the sensible perceptions, of our 
 imaginative faculties, of, above all, those ideas that 
 contain within them the fire requisite to set the 
 passions aflame. 
 
 For example, I bear resentment against a person 
 who, for the time being, is not in the very least in 
 possession of my thoughts. Unexpectedly, I meet 
 him at a street corner. The sight of him makes me 
 start ; I shake my fist ; I strike out at him ; I give 
 vent to my anger. 
 
 No voluntary action of mine has called forth this 
 meeting. I was, actually, not even thinking of my
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL 69 
 
 enemy. Still, should he happen to reside in the 
 same locality as myself, it rests wholly with me, if I 
 am acquainted with his habitual movements, to spare 
 myself a further encounter. 
 
 Or, let us say, I see displayed, in the windows of 
 a bookshop, a number of improper picture cards I 
 was not previously aware of them, but their contem- 
 plation awakens in me a sudden access of sensual 
 desire for which I am, clearly, not responsible. 
 I can, however, on the morrow, change my route, 
 and so avoid the spectacle of this display; and I 
 am not compelled to purchase these undesirable 
 images in order that I may hang them on my walls 
 or treasure them in a drawer. And so with every 
 imaginative representation that is likely to reawaken 
 passions that lie dormant, or are only partially sup- 
 pressed. 
 
 We may reason thus with regard to the flow of 
 ideas. While thought, naturally, is subject to a 
 constant shifting movement, it is still perfectly 
 simple for any young man, who is sufficiently 
 serious-minded, and observant, to assume a very 
 real control in this direction. He becomes aware 
 that one single idea, having before its view certain 
 images or impressions by which it is sustained, 
 evokes in the region of feeling, certain irresistible 
 emotions that, indulged, result in moral deteriora- 
 tion to a notable degree. It rests with him to pass 
 on to some other idea, or to create a diversion by 
 throwing his energies into a game, a walk, some 
 intellectual occupation, or by seeking fresh company. 
 
 Thus, by the power of our will over our per- 
 ceptions and ideas, our passions, engendered by
 
 70 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 those ideas and perceptions (so acting as immediate 
 causes), are kept in check. 
 
 More is not required to solve the problem raised 
 at the opening of this chapter : Is our will capable 
 of forming an alliance between the Christian ideal, 
 and such sensible emotions as may determine its 
 corresponding sentiments, and so secure for this 
 ideal a complete victory over our conflicting 
 energies? 
 
 It is evident that if we do, indeed, largely control 
 our perceptions and ideas, it would suffice to cement 
 to the Christian idea those perceptive ideas that 
 may be termed impassioned since thus is the 
 manifestation of passion provoked in order to 
 infuse into it their vigour, their animating breath, 
 and, at the same time, inflame the will in its favour. 
 In this is expressed the art of " philosophising " 
 with the passions. It is an art that entails the 
 exercise of close reflection and activity. 
 
 III. THE UTILISATION OF THE PASSIONS. 
 
 In virtue of the fact that our ideas and perceptions 
 are under obedience to its directions, a very real, 
 albeit indirect, mastery is exercised by the will over 
 our passions. We may liken its power to that of 
 any common-sense man over the house he inhabits. 
 He is quite capable of preventing its destruction by 
 fire, if he will but take the trouble to look closely 
 after its safety. 
 
 Now, it is by no means requisite to extinguish 
 the flame of passion, burning interiorly, any more 
 than it is essential to forgo the comforts of a fire, in 
 order to avert a conflagration. What is incumbent
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL 71 
 
 upon all is to keep under inspection their smoulder- 
 ing passions, and so prevent a disastrous outburst. 
 
 To this end, our passions must be steered into 
 some direct course; they must be applied to the 
 needs of our daily life, just as the mistress of a 
 house utilises her fire for innumerable kinds of 
 domestic service. 
 
 It is this, I repeat, in which consists the art of 
 "philosophising" with the passions. We have to 
 consider how we may best identify this art with the 
 Christian ideal, and we shall find that the result 
 of this consideration will furnish the key to the 
 problem of the education of character. 
 
 The Problem. Let us suppose the case of a 
 student who, newly launched upon life, determines 
 to achieve something. Indeed, is it possible to con- 
 jecture that any student, fresh from his University 
 course, will start his career with the intention of 
 doing nothing in particular in the future ? His 
 desire maybe is to become a doctor, or a lawyer, to 
 qualify for a professorship, or to study for the Bar. 
 The one particular thing that he aspires to do, 
 assumes for him the value of an ideal, and not merely 
 an ideal perceived, that allures the imagination, but 
 an ideal willed and cherished. 
 
 Now, what happens with each one of us, whenever 
 we come face to face with that ideal, or when cir- 
 cumstances conjure up its recollection in our minds? 
 Do we not instantly wax hot and ardent in its 
 pursuit? There tends, indeed, to concentrate 
 around this cherished ideal the sum of our vital 
 forces pre-eminently, of our passions. In virtue 
 of the love we bear it, we are urged upwards
 
 72 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 beyond the plane of those earthly and sensual 
 affections that hold us captive, and paralyse our 
 keenest energies. 
 
 If, by temperament or heredity, we are prone to 
 anger, we find it quite easy to divert this emotional 
 current just as by providing an outlet one stems 
 the violent rush of a torrent and so conduct its 
 energies, that these may serve such constantly 
 recurring difficulties as block our Christian pro- 
 gress. 
 
 If, on the contrary, we are, by nature, timid and 
 fearful, little by little, through a species of self- 
 suggestion, by dint of reflecting on the joys of 
 success and the shame of failure, we grow to show 
 proof of courage. The hope of success sustains us, 
 and its effect is evident in our work and throughout 
 life. In a word, the will to achieve something, to gain 
 a position in the world, to create for ourselves a 
 place in the sun, plays in regard to the passions, 
 the same role as that of the magnet, acting on the 
 innumerable currents induced in a bar of soft iron. 
 The will attracts to itself those passions proper for 
 its fertilisation. " It (the will) drives them (the 
 passions) in the same direction, while it destroys 
 the repelling forces, so that from what was chaos, 
 there is produced a regulated current of a hundred- 
 fold additional strength."* 
 
 For, clearly, the will must vibrate, in its turn, in 
 unison with the passions it has evoked, and attracted 
 towards the ideal to be realised. 
 
 The Method. And we have to remember how 
 hard it is for the will (nerveless and feeble as we find 
 * Payot, " L' Education de la Volonte," p. 40.
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL 73 
 
 it at the outset), if it would walk hand in hand with 
 the ideal, to furnish the needful stimulus. As soon, 
 however, as the favourable passions have operated 
 in this direction, every action of ours falls into line. 
 Aroused from its apathy, the will restores to the 
 passions, in the form of radiant and continuous 
 energy, all that these have conveyed to it through 
 the impact, so to speak, of blind and incoherent 
 forces. 
 
 In other words, we do, voluntarily, and by the aid 
 of our intelligence, that which previously had been 
 performed instinctively, and under the impulse of 
 violent but fugitive emotion. In this manner, our 
 life acquires unity and comparative stability. 
 
 How many students there are who have suc- 
 ceeded in passing, wellnigh scathlessly, this perilous 
 period of their youth, by virtue of that wondrous 
 power possessed by the will of bringing strong 
 passion into union with a definite ideal ! 
 
 In this regard, it must not be overlooked that 
 man's ideal does not consist in vain ambition, and the 
 acquisition of some kind of worldly dignity. He 
 has to aspire towards individuality and the de- 
 velopment of " character." 
 
 If, indeed, the human ideal were represented by 
 a code of social advancement, by the occupation of 
 one or other lucrative or highly estimated post, 
 then, its realisation would be well within the reach 
 of a number who, for the purpose, could devote the 
 sum of their least worthy energies in order to 
 achieve their end. 
 
 It is certain that nothing in this world can be 
 attained save by exertion. He who would carve
 
 74 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 out his path in life must perforce put his hand to 
 the plough. For success, he must be energetic and 
 capable, but it is by no means essential that he be 
 moral. The morality of the parvenu, of the time- 
 server, who holds in restraint certain of his pas- 
 sions that those he most cherishes may flourish, 
 recalls the attitude of a man who, attacked by 
 gangrene, consents willingly to the removal of one 
 limb, for the safety of the rest, and the preservation 
 of his life. 
 
 If, on the contrary, a higher and worthier am- 
 bition is at stake, and a man aims at true distinction, 
 then aptitude and energy do not suffice there is 
 needed the leaven of morality. For, self-interest 
 has no sway here. To master self, to erect a barrier 
 against the encroachments of enfeebling passions, 
 and to place those that are worthy alongside of 
 reason, is the desired goal. 
 
 A man can become a something by the expendi- 
 ture of prudence, justice, sobriety, and other sympa- 
 thetic virtues ; he can never be a somebody unless 
 he conscientiously practises their entire number, as 
 embodied in the Christian code. 
 
 An austere ideal like this does not, it is obvious, 
 possess charms for the majority, even the well- 
 disposed. It behoves its promoters, therefore, to 
 urge its cause with some adroitness. 
 
 Let us consider in this light our young student, 
 who, while he wishes to become a something, 
 aspires likewise to be a somebody. 
 
 In the beginning, the first aspiration predominates, 
 since it represents self-interest. Cost what it may, 
 to attain to it is his chief aim. Let us suppose,
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL 75 
 
 then, that one fine day, after reflection, he perceives 
 that the simplest way of becoming a something is to 
 be a somebody, that the possession of self is the short- 
 cut to the possession of place, fortune, and position. 
 Then, on the instant, the idea of being a somebody 
 joins forces with that other idea of becoming a 
 something, and the emotions excited by the first are 
 at once communicated to the second. The result 
 does not immediately issue in perfection, since the 
 student in question subordinates the highest ideal 
 to material ends. 
 
 Nevertheless, we must take human nature as it is. 
 It were better to attain to " character " by devious 
 ways, than pass one's life in bewailing those 
 obstacles that eternally intervene between us and 
 the direct route. 
 
 Once master of himself, it becomes easy for the 
 student to shift his outlook. The higher satisfac- 
 tion he experiences once he has succeeded in tran- 
 scending self, in his effort to surpass his fellows, 
 tends to make him .despise the rest, or, at any rate, 
 appraise things at their true value. 
 
 Shall we, then, show ourselves more exacting 
 than is God Almighty, who creates good out of evil, 
 and transforms sinners into upright men ! We 
 should disregard these puritanical spirits, who, con- 
 temptuous of the proofs that experience affords, 
 presume to condemn everyone on the strength of 
 their own tenets. 
 
 Indisputably, it were preferable to reach the 
 summit by the direct route, and not by the side- 
 track of a lesser ambition and more ignoble ideal. 
 If, however, by a rash leap into the unknown, I risk
 
 76 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 breaking my neck, shall I suffer condemnation if I 
 rather chose to ascend, circumspectly, those steps that 
 will bring me to my destination in safety, although 
 their direction may be tortuous and broken ? 
 
 The essential is to advance continuously, and so 
 to use to good purpose the gifts God and nature have 
 bestowed. It is by no means reprehensible to aim 
 after distinction; it is, on the contrary, a worthy 
 ambition. We have but to utilise this desire as a 
 means of vanquishing the brute within us, of con- 
 quering self, so that "character," which is indi- 
 viduality, asserts itself by sure degrees, and thus 
 our future becomes assured. 
 
 The Solution. All, thenceforth, follows inevit- 
 ably. Having faith, we are aware of the Christian 
 ideal. Now, the Christian ideal is identical with 
 the human ideal, transposed, completed ; it is, in a 
 word, the human ideal rendered capable of realisa- 
 tion by natural and supernatural agencies. There- 
 fore, it becomes impossible when we contemplate 
 the one to ignore the other. 
 
 And if personality be induced by a simple act of 
 the will, by whose decree certain passions and 
 feelings are brought into touch with this ideal, how 
 shall it be with us when, by the light of faith, we 
 perceive, that real individuality can be fostered alone 
 by untiring and fervent aspiration towards the ideal 
 set for Christian attainment. 
 
 Here we find exhibited those magnetic properties 
 previously analysed. The Christian idea will 
 attract to itself these various forces, will organise 
 and control them ; while, in its turn, the will, aided 
 by Divine love, deriving strength and support there-
 
 THE TACTICS OF THE WILL 77 
 
 from, will restore in supernatural energy, in the 
 form of sentiments, the sum of that lesser natural 
 force communicated to the will in the form of 
 passions. 
 
 Thus, the sublime poem of character attains fulfil- 
 ment. We rejoice the more over its harmonious 
 rendering, as we become aware of the labour its 
 composition has entailed.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CONCERNING THE INTELLECT AND ITS RELATION 
 TO THE PASSIONS AND FEELINGS IN THE EDU- 
 CATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 IF I have dwelt at length upon the will's function in 
 regard to the passions as affecting the education of 
 character, I have done so in order the better to 
 emphasise that which appertains to the intelli- 
 gence. For, as was pointed out in an earlier 
 chapter, the will is the highest form of human 
 activity, of self-conscious activity as opposed to 
 instinct, that is unconscious and inevitable activity. 
 And reflection from which all self-conscious action 
 springs is pre-eminently a characteristic of the 
 intelligence. 
 
 Our powers of reflection are determined by our 
 powers of intellect. Now, the task imposed upon 
 the will is to bind fast to the Christian ideal the 
 beneficent passions and sentiments, and estrange 
 therefrom those that are hostile ; and this, clearly, 
 is a task accomplished by reflection. 
 
 Primarily, it is necessary to be disposed toward 
 reflection if this desired union is to be effected 
 hence the leadership granted to the will in the 
 training of character and then also it is necessary to 
 know how to pursue this habit of reflection, and this 
 lies with the intelligence. 
 
 78
 
 CONCERNING THE INTELLECT 79 
 
 Let us consider, then, the role played by medita. 
 tive reflection as regards the sensitive passions, 
 or the volitional sentiments, in the education of 
 character. And, first, let it be seen in what this 
 role consists. 
 
 I. 
 
 To begin with, meditative reflection must not be 
 confounded with study, properly so described. 
 The mode of procedure is similar, but its aim is 
 widely different. 
 
 Let us recall what has been written on this 
 subject by a contemporary psychologist : 
 
 " By meditative reflection, we do not, it is evident, 
 infer the state of reverie, or that loose mental habit 
 so disastrous to self-conquest, and against which we 
 have to wrestle continuously. For, whereas, in this 
 state, the attention slumbers, and the conscience 
 is perpetually a prey to the shifting scene, or mood, 
 that colours our sentiments or ideas, reflection, on 
 the contrary, leaves nothing to chance. Moreover, 
 reflection differs from study which aims con- 
 spicuously at the acquisition of some specific know- 
 ledge in that it tends not to the 'furnishing of the 
 soul,' but to its ' moulding.' " * 
 
 " When we study, as a matter of fact, we seek 
 primarily to know ; when we reflect, we have quite 
 another intention. Our aim is to awaken in the soul, 
 sensations either of hatred or of love."t 
 
 All this is perfectly true, but our psychologist 
 goes beyond this : " In study, we are dominated by 
 
 * Montaigne, III. 3. 
 
 f Payot, " L' Education de La Volonte," p. 92.
 
 80 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 the pursuit after truth ; in meditative reflection, the 
 truth matters not at all. We prefer a useful lie to 
 an inconvenient truth : our research is entirely 
 governed by the motive of utility." 
 
 I emphatically deny this. Truth, I think, is as 
 important in reflection as in study. With this 
 distinction : in study, we aim at speculative and 
 scientific truth ; in reflection, we aspire after 
 practical and vital truth. 
 
 What, then, constitutes the difference between 
 speculative and practical truth ? 
 
 There exists a very real difference, and upon it 
 the education of character will be seen actually to 
 depend. Let me explain. What is the object enter- 
 tained by the University student when he enters upon 
 his course of study ? It is, I imagine, to raise him- 
 self to the intellectual level of his day, to acquire a 
 knowledge, both profound and precise, of philosophy, 
 mathematics, history, law, or medicine. His other 
 and ulterior aim is to secure a position in the world, 
 and make profitable use of his acquired learning. 
 Yet, strangely enough, this general motive of utility 
 in no wise modifies the speculative nature of his 
 acquired knowledge. Rather, indeed, is his ultimate 
 success regulated by the degree of learning attained 
 in philosophy, or the mathematical, historical, or 
 medical sciences. 
 
 The speculative truth aimed at in his University 
 studies consists, then, in a thorough acquaintance 
 with the reality that claims his attention. This 
 truth is absolute, and the same for all. He may 
 quit one University for another, yet wherever he 
 may go his course of study, if it be profound, will
 
 81 
 
 lead invariably to the same result. Possibly, the 
 identical system of philosophy may not be followed, 
 but a system of philosophy is not philosophy, and 
 fundamentally, all systems run on parallel lines, 
 since all are concerned uniquely with the discovery 
 of the truth, in its absolute form. 
 
 The theories of hyper-space and of metageometry 
 may allure the imagination for an instant, but I am 
 not aware of any existing University where any 
 attempt has been made to apply these theories to our 
 universe, nor to refute the theorem of the square 
 described on the hypothenuse. 
 
 To sum up, all speculative truth is independent 
 of the practical object in view ; as, too, of the sub- 
 jective nature of our search after it. 
 
 Whatever our ambition, whatever our tempera- 
 ment, we cannot hinder two and two from amounting 
 to four, no more than to use a classic simile we 
 can cause a door to open and close simultaneously. 
 There exists nothing less susceptible of modification 
 at the dictates of caprice speaking speculatively 
 than the contradictory proposition. By denial, its 
 opposers become perforce its adherents as they seek 
 its aid to justify their negation. 
 
 So it is with speculative truth, as learning reveals 
 it. In regard to it we may not say, as did Pascal : 
 "Truth on this side of the Pyrenees, error on the 
 other side." Truth, indeed, is, and remains, absolute. 
 It has influenced I fully concede it the progress 
 of mankind. It is to the thinkers among men that 
 we owe all great and lasting achievement ; it is the 
 inventors in science, in philosophy, in art, and 
 letters, who are the actual heroes of history, rather 
 
 6
 
 82 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 than the popular agitators, the blusterers, the 
 politicians, or even the most famous among the 
 world-conquerors. 
 
 It cannot be denied, however, that speculative 
 truth is not able to claim one moral convert, is 
 wholly incapable of ethically reforming a people or 
 an individual, or of begetting " character," whether 
 in a race or a unit. 
 
 II. 
 
 To do this, Truth must no longer be speculative it 
 must be practical. Truth must consent to be trans- 
 ported from the plane of the Absolute over which 
 it reigns, to the Relative that there it may have 
 dominion. In other words, instead of contem- 
 plating truth from without, we must afford it a 
 habitation within us ; instead of worshipping truth 
 with our intelligence alone, we must above all wor- 
 ship it with our spirit, and with its quickening 
 breath vitalise each action of our daily life. 
 
 But how complex is this spirit of ours, if by it we 
 apprehend the sum of our energies, intellect, will, 
 and sensibility, modified in each one of us by the 
 tempering influences of heredity, temperament, 
 education, environment, or acquired habit ! May not 
 truth itself be menaced when assimilated by such 
 unlike and conflicting forces ? Speculatively, it 
 may be : practically, not so, provided always we 
 look to it that our manner of life can be brought 
 into proportion with it. For it is eminently charac- 
 teristic of absolute truth that it can be adapted to the 
 relative exigencies of life. It loses nothing thereby ; 
 and we gain infinitely. It may happen it often
 
 CONCERNING THE INTELLECT 88 
 
 does happen that we are misled ; that while intent 
 upon truth, we snatch headlong at error. Even so, 
 truth is in nowise injured, if it be practical truth, 
 since what we have been led to do, mistakenly, has 
 been done in truth's name, and with its service in 
 view. 
 
 For truth is not infallibly revealed to us, whether 
 we regard it from the speculative or practical stand- 
 point. Its infallibility may be our aspiration, whether 
 we seek merely to locate it or possess it ; but we 
 shall attain thereto by degrees only, by laborious 
 stepping-stones, after repeated rebuffs, and effort 
 incessantly renewed. Hence, the prominent part 
 allotted to meditative reflection. It does not suffice 
 to be aware, generally, of the demands truth makes 
 on our moral existence. We have, personally, to 
 ascertain how best to conform to these demands 
 having before us the special conditions in which we 
 live, the environment in which we are set, our pre- 
 disposition to this or that propensity, our hereditary 
 tendencies, our age and bodily capacity, our tastes 
 or profession. If truth is to attain to empire, if we 
 are to exhibit the true Christian characteristics, we 
 have, necessarily, to undergo this process of mental 
 dissection; we have to make ourselves acquainted 
 with natural science as applied to our special case ; 
 to determine the exact relations of its various 
 phenomena ; to estimate their reciprocal influence, 
 and state of dependence on external or internal sug- 
 gestion. And all this can be achieved by reflection, 
 and by the exercise of a keen and subtle observa- 
 tion. By constant introspection, we are able to 
 induce motives from which the higher passions get
 
 84 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 their being; and these we have to devote to the 
 fostering of the Christian idea, and thence to the 
 conversion of these abstract ideas into sensible 
 virtues. As our instructor, reflection will teach us 
 the technique of our instrument, how to play upon 
 it, how to renew the melodies, to complete the 
 harmonies, to increase or diminish the tone as our 
 nature shall surrender itself to, or withstand the 
 active operations of grace. By reflection, in a word, 
 we can be transfigured into beings of " character," 
 knowing the Way and pursuing it, in full possession 
 of self, because self is indwelt by Divine Truth.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE RELATIONS OF GRACE TO THE PASSIONS 
 
 WE have arrived so far in our inquiry. We have 
 seen that there are three elements, very unlike, yet 
 all essential to the education of character : these are 
 the intelligence, the will, and the passions. 
 
 The intelligence shows us the goal to be reached, 
 the ideal to be realised. Independently, the will 
 strains after this ideal, but lacks the strength to 
 enforce its sway over the entire domain of our sen- 
 sitive nature. For there rages within this domain, 
 as the result of sin's incursion, a terrible tumult. 
 The disparity existing between the Christian ideal, 
 and the emotions stirred into activity by the breeze 
 of passion, is great, and yields to influence but 
 slowly, and, as it were, by constraint. By this, I do 
 not imply that the will is wholly impotent to stem 
 the 'onrush of passion, if it but prove alert on the 
 track not of the multitude, but of the isolated 
 offender else our liberty were destroyed at its 
 very roots. Nevertheless, we have to realise that 
 the labour involved is neither slight nor easy, and 
 successfully to fulfil our task we must exert a care- 
 ful discretion. Our passions, as we have seen, are 
 the spontaneous and violent manifestations of our 
 sensitive organism, engendered by various hered- 
 itary or acquired tendencies, and encouraged by 
 
 85
 
 86 
 
 the play of the senses, imagination, or ideas. Were 
 not our control over our ideas and sensitive percep- 
 tions infinitely superior to that possessed over 
 inherent instinct, inclining us to this or that specific 
 passion, then wholly futile would it be to struggle 
 after morality. But, it is a fact, happily, that we are 
 able to direct our sensations, and the trend of our 
 imaginative faculties, into divers channels, as we 
 are aided thereto by the psychological laws touching 
 association and atmosphere. Hence, we are able 
 directly to divert the passions at their source, and 
 so determine their output and disposition. It rests 
 thenceforward with discretion, the offspring of 
 reflection, to inculcate some idea, relatively insigni- 
 ficant it may be, but capable of transforming mere 
 passion into lofty and inspired sentiment. 
 
 A multiplicity of kindred links are forged by this 
 process of reflection when illuminated by the Chris- 
 tian ideal ; and, in so far as the passions cohere to 
 this ideal, so, simultaneously, the half-won allegi- 
 ance of the will is confirmed an hundredfold. By 
 contact with the passions, Christian sentiments are 
 strengthened; correspondingly, the passions become 
 spiritualised and chastened in the mutual encounter. 
 By such an exchange of light and force there is 
 established within us that moral equilibrium upon 
 which the development of character so conspicu- 
 ously depends. From the moral standpoint, we find 
 presented other considerations that call for notice. 
 I will endeavour, therefore, at this juncture, to 
 recall the part grace is destined to play over the 
 passions in relation to the education of character.
 
 RELATIONS OF GRACE TO THE PASSIONS 87 
 
 NATURE AND GRACE. 
 
 Let me once more lay stress upon the point that 
 the human ideal and the Christian ideal are prac- 
 tically identical that the Christian ideal is, in truth, 
 but the human ideal, transposed, perfected, aug- 
 mented with a Divine accession of light and power, 
 drawing us irresistibly upwards into nearness to it. 
 Naturally considered, our intelligence is bestowed 
 upon us that, so enlightened, we may, by unloosing 
 the directing principles of conduct, bring about the 
 purifying of our passions. No doubt this necessary 
 preliminary to moral conquest is not easy of achieve- 
 ment. For the passions, like all instinctive forces, 
 are frequently refractory to light ; and the most 
 earnest and exemplary of moral seekers are con- 
 strained to admit that, in spite of high principle, and 
 their painful striving after its true perception, they 
 are, at certain moments, and when the fight is at its 
 height, blinded by the furious onrush of the senses, 
 encumbering their path, without pause or respite. 
 In moments of extremity like these, we may be com- 
 pared to certain travellers, who have determined 
 upon returning, at nightfall, along a difficult track 
 previously traversed in daylight. They are not 
 unacquainted with the route indeed, all its various 
 stages are imprinted upon their memories ; they are 
 aware that at this point there is a precipice to be 
 avoided at another, a milestone to be consulted. 
 Nevertheless, they find that the deepening gloom 
 will deceive even eyes that are keen and accustomed 
 to the darkness. The thick veil of night spreads 
 itself over all that surrounds them ; hides from their
 
 88 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 vigilance the yawning abyss, and wipes out from 
 view the guiding landmarks. Thus disabled, these 
 travellers, if they be prudent, have no other alterna- 
 tive than to go back the way they came, or else 
 secure some means of lighting their journey. Now, 
 in our case, whenever it falls to us to pursue the 
 path of duty amid the obscuring darkness of our 
 passions, there can be no question of retracing our 
 steps, since we are compelled ever to advance. 
 Our only safe course is to seek out for guidance the 
 pure light of natural principle, as we may find it 
 best adapted to our peculiar needs. But we resem- 
 ble in our weakness and lack of resistance, a fragile 
 morsel of porcelain, and this light, by which we 
 are to find life, is constantly at the mercy of the 
 rude winds. So that, at times, the slender flame 
 will be seen to burn unsteadily, to flicker, and, per- 
 chance, to go out. 
 
 Faith. When this happens, what were likely to 
 befall us, were not the Divine light cast by Faith 
 given us for our assistance? For this light, en- 
 kindled from above, is not extinguished in an 
 instant. God only asks of us goodwill, and given 
 that, we are abidingly illumined. 
 
 And what do we perceive by the light of Faith ? 
 Assuredly, our eyes are not ready, as yet, for the full 
 glory of the day, with its majesty of the sun radi- 
 ating light ; neither are we left to grope farther in 
 the darkness of night. Faith soars above the sun 
 of Reason that occasionally suffers eclipse, and 
 often disappears behind the cloud of passion-fed 
 emotion. Faith is the bright ever-twinkling star 
 that casts its tiny light full on the way of life ; shows
 
 RELATIONS OF GRACE TO THE PASSIONS 89 
 
 in relief the moral laws incumbent upon man ; warns 
 him of the precipices that have to be bridged, the 
 turnings to be taken, the examples to be followed ; 
 displays the depth of his weakness, and indicates 
 the measure of his strength. How penetrating is 
 this light bestowed by Faith, when we have once 
 consented to expose our being to its rays ! At the 
 outset, truly, it would seem as if its radiance cannot 
 attain to us, as if we must ever remain oppressed 
 by the presence of night; but, little by little, the 
 eye of the soul adapts itself to these spiritual 
 shadows ; then fastens its gaze on the star of Faith 
 to follow whither it shall lead. And where indeed 
 shall it lead us? No longer into the abstract by- 
 ways of, philosophy, but into the actual regions of 
 the Christian life. As formerly with the Magi, it 
 conducts us to the Crib, that there we may contem- 
 plate the ideal of the Christian made incarnate in 
 the person of the Son of God. Thence we are shown 
 the path by which Christ Himself elected to travel, 
 and along which He commands us to follow Him ; 
 we witness our Lord's combat with the passions ; 
 and we behold Him obedient to the Will of His 
 Father even unto death. And so, when the Saviour 
 has ascended into Heaven, still we see the star of 
 Faith continues to shine ; it reveals to us the saints 
 those living exemplars of Jesus Christ ; it pene- 
 trates to the uttermost recesses of our conscience, 
 and dispels the misunderstandings, the inconsist- 
 encies, the pettinesses that are in possession there. 
 For by Faith are we urged to reflection, to a self- 
 knowledge, that has no mercy on our blindness or 
 our infirmity. By Faith and this is its mightiest
 
 90 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 weapon we are taught that whereas, through sin, 
 without God we can do nothing ; with God, on the 
 contrary, we can achieve all. Divine light calls 
 forth Divine strength ; charity is synonymous with 
 Faith. Having Faith, we are made aware, infallibly, 
 and lastingly, of what we must and can do : having 
 charity we are given the power to do it. How so ? 
 
 Charity. When St. Paul was driven to lament 
 that he was beset by the violence of his passions, 
 being, as he alleged, buffeted by Satan, God made 
 answer to him : " My grace is sufficient for thee."* 
 
 In truth, God's grace is sufficient for us all ! For 
 grace is God, in so far as we entertain Him ; grace 
 is the Divine activity enveloping, while not destroy- 
 ing ours, with its infinite energies ; grace is the 
 Hand of the all-powerful Friend laying hold of ours, 
 and so aiding us to attain to Him. And if God be 
 with us, who shall be against us ? Hearken to this 
 noble challenge uttered by St. Paul : " Who shall 
 separate me from the charity of Christ ?" 
 
 Assuredly, there existed no power in the world, 
 neither in the heavens, nor upon the earth, capable 
 of separating the Apostle from his Master. For his 
 will was one with the Divine Will ; and partook of 
 its omnipotence, and shared in its infinite forces. 
 So, too, shall it be with us, if we but desire it. It 
 is expedient, however, that we take heed while we 
 avail ourselves of God's force, in order to attain to 
 the Christian ideal, we are not thereby dispensed 
 from drawing as well upon the force supplied by 
 the passions, when properly directed. It is God's 
 Will that we should act as though His presence were 
 
 * Cf. 2 Cor. xii. 7-9 (Trans.).
 
 RELATIONS OF GRACE TO THE PASSIONS 91 
 
 withheld from us, albeit that this Divine gift is con- 
 ferred on us always. He permits His grace to 
 work upon our nature, while, at the same time, He 
 ordains that our nature shall act in concert with 
 grace. He lends us supernatural aids, but, at the 
 same time, He does not intend that these shall 
 wholly supersede natural ones. 
 
 When we have done all that is possible, in nature, 
 in order to discipline our passions, then there is 
 the consolation bestowed that we are not called 
 upon to labour unaided at this ungrateful task. 
 God is with us. He acts in us; we move but 
 through Him. 
 
 It seems to me that this consciousness of the 
 presence of God within us, this assurance of the 
 real support He grants us in our interior conflict, 
 must suffice to lend courage to the most faint-hearted 
 amongst us. 
 
 How efficacious is the example of a virtuous friend 
 when we are on the verge of falling into some sin ! 
 Yet this kind of support is derived from without, 
 and its confines reach but the threshold of our 
 conscience. How then shall it be when God is with 
 us and within us, encouraging us in all circum- 
 stances can we then lack confidence that victory 
 lies within our grasp, that the reform of character, 
 the conquest of self, our entire supremacy, in a 
 word, over moral life, is a foregone conclusion ? 
 To doubt this, for one instant, were the very 
 essence of cowardice; for I repeat it if God be 
 with us, who shall be against us ?
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 
 
 THE realm of passion is a turbulent realm that, left 
 to itself, obeys no law. Our divers passions, like so 
 many eccentric comets, would appear to revolve at 
 random, and without reference to their neighbours. 
 But this is simply an optical illusion. In reality, our 
 passions may be expressed in terms of one of their 
 number, towards which the rest perpetually gravi- 
 tate as the centre of attraction. I mean the passion 
 of egoism. There is hardly a word in our vocabulary 
 so ill-sounding as this one, and such is the influence 
 of words on the direction of thought, that it has 
 become difficult to differentiate between egoism and 
 egoism, and to admit that it is possible to be egoistic 
 in a favourable sense. Can, then, this term be 
 interpreted favourably as well as unfavourably? 
 Yes, indeed, for by the side of an egoism that is 
 detestable, there exists an egoism that is lovable ; 
 alongside of the egoism that is an evil passion, 
 there may be set an egoism that is a virtue, 
 and which is just an intelligent transposition of the 
 first. Why, it may be asked, is passionate egoism 
 a- detestable quality ? Because all that which moves 
 but to draw things unto itself, which views persons 
 and things from the restricted standpoint of its own 
 caprices, which appreciates the world in the measure 
 
 92
 
 EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 93 
 
 alone of self-advancement, is detestable in the last 
 degree. Whereas, on the other hand, virtuous egoism 
 is worthy of love, because, in spite of appearances, it 
 is generous, and the basis of all disinterested action. 
 In drawing this comparison, let it not be imagined 
 that I am straining after a paradox. The paradox, 
 if there be one, is contained in the words, not in the 
 ideas propounded. I will try to explain myself. 
 
 I. PASSIONATE EGOISM. 
 
 In the first place, we have to remember that we 
 have a dual existence : an animal self and a reason- 
 ing self, a carnal self and a spiritual self. Both 
 appertain to our actual personality, and from k their 
 co-existence our nature draws its true origin. It 
 does not suffice to say these selves exist we must 
 go farther rather, they are incorporate, they are 
 made one, in the inviolable unity of the conscious- 
 ness, or ego. So, in common, they solicit our 
 affection, while their claim to it is not identical. 
 For the animal within us is under the domination 
 of Self, and the flesh is subservient to the lawful 
 sway of the Spirit. Hence, the diversity just 
 indicated between passionate egoism and virtuous 
 egoism. When we yield to the passion of egoism 
 we foster the animal self the brute I. We allow 
 no other horizon to our desire than pleasure, pure 
 and simple, in whatever form, however base and 
 degraded. When, on the contrary, we cultivate the 
 virtue of egoism we promote the reasoning Self, 
 the real human I ; we carve out from the shapeless 
 block of our moral energies the living statue of a 
 man of the man of character, who exalts himself
 
 94 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 above the beast, and from a thing gradually evolves 
 into a personality. 
 
 Of these two forms of egoism, which, can it be 
 said, is peculiar to youth ? Experience best answers 
 this question. We are aware, through experience, 
 that a youth has passions before he is able to attain 
 to the acquisition of virtue. For to be possessed 
 by the passions, he has merely to give ear to the 
 impulses of his senses ; whereas virtue is won but 
 by the conscious and persistent intervention of his 
 volition. Virtue, without doubt, has for its object 
 the elevation and purification of the passions ; and 
 this being so, is an added proof that the passions 
 have a certain priority over virtue. Hence the 
 conclusion, that a young man, in virtue of his youth, 
 and because time has not been given him for the 
 conversion of his passions into virtue, is prone to 
 the passion of egoism, which, as we have seen, 
 contains the germs of every other passion. 
 
 Yet youth is, by reputation, generous. How, 
 then, are we to reconcile generosity with this 
 quality of egoism ? Youth, it is true, does appear 
 to exhibit generosity, of a sort, but, in many respects, 
 this attractive quality exists in appearance rather 
 than in reality. If egoism assumes at times this 
 aspect of generosity, it is due to the deceptive charm 
 youth invests it with, by reason of its infectious 
 enthusiasm for life, and its exuberant manifestation 
 of that enthusiasm. Like all vital force in the 
 intense degree, egoism is subject to a double move- 
 ment : that exercised by centrifugal force, by virtue 
 of which it battens and grows fat upon the world 
 outside of it ; and second, that of centripetal force,
 
 EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 95 
 
 whereby it tends to draw all things unto itself. In 
 this the impassioned egoist is analogous to the 
 octopus, that stretches out its tentacles in order to 
 seize its prey, and contracts them to feed upon it. 
 And both these movements are but two phases of 
 the same passion. A young man, precisely by 
 reason of his youth, has not yet made his survey of 
 life. His intelligence, his heart and sensibility, are 
 all untried faculties demanding contact with actuality 
 in order to feed upon it, and so satiate their appetite. 
 Youth is ready for every experience, and pounces 
 greedily upon every chance sensation. It needs to 
 feel, to feel intensely, and its sensitive organism, like 
 the strings of a harp, responds to the lightest touch, 
 and so produces wondrous harmonies. Because there 
 is something seductive in the fire and spontaneity of 
 youth, its contemplation at times misleads the super- 
 ficial onlooker. Young men will often appear to give, 
 when, unconsciously to themselves even, their sole 
 aim is to take : they seem utterly detached from self, 
 when and quite naturally they but seek to attach 
 others to themselves. Thus does the passion of 
 egoism, in youth, readily don the mask of generosity. 
 It is somewhat as with a person who, stricken with 
 blindness, has recently undergone an operation for 
 cataract. In default of experience, based on observa- 
 tion, all that the young gaze upon seems to stand in 
 the same proportion ; they have yet to acquire that 
 knowledge of perspective which, later, when life's 
 obstacles have to be confronted, will enable them 
 properly to estimate values, and so to establish a 
 hierarchy over the things of their desire. Are we 
 to blame them ? Certainly not, for to do so were to
 
 96 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 condemn their youth. It were well, indeed, to give 
 warning that youth must not outstay its destined 
 term ; it were well to show that egoism as revealed 
 in the young may, transmuted, become virtue if all 
 thought and action are directed to, and serve, the 
 ideal set for the attainment of the upright Christian. 
 
 II. VIRTUOUS EGOISM. 
 
 Now let us find out the best means of arriving at 
 this conversion. 
 
 Those passions that urge us to seek satisfaction 
 in animal gratification must be linked to that desire 
 often futile, yet none the less genuine and pure 
 which most of us cherish after a higher plane of 
 existence. Every being, unless he be hopelessly 
 degenerate from birth, has the ambition to achieve 
 something, to enlarge his course of life, to widen 
 indefinitely his horizon. And how shall he achieve 
 anything, unless he strives to actualise in himself 
 an elevated ideal; how enlarge his human nature, 
 unless he attain supremacy over its animal side; 
 how secure for his soul's expansion a wider horizon 
 than that which the Christian life stretches infinite, 
 and immeasurable, before him ? 
 
 We have passions that crave utterance, we thirst 
 after life, we yearn to increase our stature by an 
 arm's length or more. Let it be so- We are in no- 
 wise called upon to stifle our passions in the bud, 
 to annihilate every egoistic manifestation. Let us 
 love self with all our force, but let our love befit its 
 object. We are told that charity, well ordered, be- 
 gins at home. Let us then love in ourselves all that 
 exalts, and not all that debases; let us love duty,
 
 EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 97 
 
 and not pleasure ; let us submit self to the yoke of 
 reason and faith, and not to the tyranny of the flesh. 
 We must not drift with the tide, we must endeavour 
 to stem it; we must not allow ourselves to sink into 
 the muddy stream of sensuality, we must plunge 
 manfully into the deep river of virtue. If we would 
 rise to the surface, there will, no doubt, be difficul- 
 ties innumerable to overcome, and our muscles will 
 have to stand a rude test. But sport like this is 
 well worth the effort. We can bring our spiritual 
 muscles into play, and so utilise those faculties that, 
 rightly exercised, bring within our grasp the fine 
 reward of sound and moral habits. 
 
 It is these same moral habits, otherwise named 
 virtue, that are, in fact, to the soul what vigorous 
 muscles are to the body. The more the soul aims 
 at the strengthening and developing of these, the 
 more sure are the chances of safety. 
 
 III. FALSE SOLIDARITY. 
 
 "Charity, well-ordered, begins at home." When 
 I quoted, in an earlier column, this first principle of 
 the Christian life, I confined myself to pointing out 
 that the best way of loving our fellows is to com- 
 mence by rightly loving self. For what, actually, 
 fosters unsociability, and confines us to the sphere 
 of self-interest to the cost of solidarity? Why, 
 surely, self-love that is to say, the species of self- 
 love that circles round the animal self, the mere 
 brute Ego. Whenever personal gratification repre- 
 sents the limit of our moral horizon, it follows quite 
 logically that others are created but to pander to 
 that gratification, to serve us, rather than that we 
 
 7
 
 98 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 should serve them ; to bestow rather than that we 
 should give. And, yet, there exist individuals who 
 still prattle of solidarity in this very connection. 
 It is, then, a counterfeit solidarity having its 
 charlatans, as the true solidarity has its disciples. 
 Its final goal is not to complete the man in us, 
 but to satisfy the animal ; its ideal is in nowise to 
 love our fellows for their sake, but to love them for 
 our own. 
 
 It is the inevitable outcome of their egoistic 
 standpoint, that, in youth, men are led to confound 
 this spurious solidarity with the real thing; to mis- 
 take for altruism what is, in truth, at bottom, egoism 
 pure and simple ; to imagine that mere neighbourly 
 proximity is synonymous with the fusion of souls. 
 We have to dispel this illusion as speedily as maybe, 
 by demonstrating the vast gulf that exists between 
 exterior "comradeship," and the interior "friend- 
 ship," of that single-minded solidarity as we Chris- 
 tians conceive of it. 
 
 One of the chief obstacles, as one of the main 
 resources of student life all depends on the point ot 
 view entertained is, precisely, the life in common. 
 In every University it happens that certain young 
 men are brought into mutual association. But there 
 are different kinds of association. There is a 
 species of official association, furthered by influences 
 of race, language, education, ideas, and so forth. 
 
 In this regard I have nothing to say, since it is 
 entirely advantageous, and, rightly pursued, acts as 
 an individual stimulus. There is, however, another 
 kind of association of an unofficial nature as to 
 which I am less confident, when I take into con-
 
 EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 99 
 
 sideration the reasons actuating it. A young man 
 enters the University. His first impression, on 
 arrival there, is, that he is out of his element. 
 Instinctively, he thereupon seeks out amid the fresh 
 faces that he scans some kindred spirit. He in- 
 variably finds one more than one even in this 
 land of exile, for this very desire of his begets them. 
 Thence he is launched, on the instant, into a circle 
 of associates whose tastes, manners, and mode of 
 life are, in a way, imposed upon him. These may, 
 possibly, be all that is desirable and becoming ; so 
 much the better. But if the reverse be the case 
 what then ? Occasionally, this happens, and so the 
 student finds himself surrounded, under the guise of 
 friends, by his enemies. This lad is, maybe, simple- 
 minde'd as many are at twenty years of age a 
 trifle vain, and easily influenced. What follows, in- 
 evitably ? His vanity makes him at once the slave 
 of public opinion of opinion, that is, as entertained 
 by his "emancipated" fellows, whose numbers he 
 helps to swell. And he is, henceforth, eminently 
 the slave of the worst among these of those, most 
 generally, whose vicious qualities give them ascend- 
 ancy over the shallow and feeble-minded who 
 govern in virtue of their overpowering swagger, 
 their air of confidence, their oratorical tirades against 
 " priggishness" and " sanctimonious " observance. 
 
 Little by little, such evil example makes way, the 
 conscience suffers a species of cauterisation, and at 
 last, accepts blindly, as the ideal life the unique life 
 for the self-respecting student a mode of existence 
 more stupid, enervating, and void than can be easily 
 conceived by the imagination. If intermittently
 
 100 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 his conscience awakens, and flames up like a par- 
 tially extinct volcano, he forthwith stifles it. His 
 tastes may perchance not lie in the direction of vice, 
 but he yields, none the less, in deference to those of 
 his associates whom he admires, or who intimidate 
 him to such a degree, that he becomes their servile 
 imitator ; so that, ultimately, his intellect, spirit, and 
 even physical health are given over to them. 
 
 Is this a solidarity that becomes I will not say 
 the Christian but the upright man? I know, of 
 course, that this state of affairs is not, thank God, 
 typical of every student environment, as a whole, or 
 of the individual student either, who through ill- 
 luck has been drawn into it. But at least, there are 
 a vast number of students who, arriving at a Univer- 
 sity with the express purpose of enlarging their 
 mental and spiritual outlook, are forthwith subjected 
 to the contrary and restricting process. It seems 
 justifiable, then, to attempt a warning. " To shine, 
 as young men, who lead a life of pleasure, desire to 
 shine," wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son, " is to 
 shine like a decaying forest in the darkness."* 
 
 I sincerely wish to make all allowance for the 
 weakness and inherent defects of our complex and 
 fallen nature. The great majority of young men 
 who lead a life of pleasure, do so just because they 
 lack proper direction. They are drawn, heedless, 
 into the vortex, by exterior circumstances ; they are, 
 too often, the victims of an unhealthy, or, at least, 
 superficial method of upbringing. As for the " well- 
 bred " student, who goes astray with the rest, he, 
 
 * " Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son," September to 
 October, 1748.
 
 EGOISM AND ALTRUISM 101 
 
 too, at the outset, is probably entirely unsuspicious 
 of harm. If he be intelligent, however, he is bound 
 speedily to discover his error, to estimate at their 
 right value the influences that encompass him, and 
 when at last he does accurately fathom these, surely, 
 then noblesse oblige / If my companions foster 
 notions that are as injurious, as they are senseless, 
 am I bound to submit my better judgment to theirs ; 
 to sacrifice my freedom, my health, my glad delight 
 in work, and the "good life," merely that I may 
 avoid their sarcasms, or win their admiration ? 
 
 Why is it that amongst all these intelligent 
 defaulters there are to be found so few who dare to 
 maintain their independence, to stand firm against 
 silly suggestions, to exchange for this life of empty 
 pleasure that of real and effectual happiness ? It is 
 because for this there is effort entailed ; the stout 
 wall of prejudice has to be attacked with a vigorous 
 stroke from the shoulder, and the passion of egoism, 
 not, as yet, become virtue, renders our muscles inert 
 and unequal to the effort demanded. It is so much 
 easier to take refuge behind make-belief, to imagine 
 that one is giving oneself to one's friends, when one 
 is actually taking from these all that is evil. So long 
 as the shell appears to hold, why worry about the 
 interior? So long as we have the semblance of life, 
 of what moment is it if, by contact, we are incurring 
 a moral death ? 
 
 I see but one remedy for this situation: it is, as I 
 have said, to convert passionate egoism into virtuous 
 egoism into that well-ordered charity which will 
 save us, and in saving us will also ensure the sal- 
 vation of our comrades.
 
 102 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 IV. TRUE SOLIDARITY. 
 
 We must acknowledge that by the side of this 
 false solidarity, which is but the counterfeit of 
 egoism, there is room in the heart of the young for 
 a solidarity that is sound and high-principled. 
 Youth is the age for the formation of the ideal 
 friendship whose influence extends throughout life. 
 But to interpret rightly friendship's obligations, to 
 be able to love another with a generous, disinterested 
 love, it is first expedient that a young man entertain 
 a like affection towards himself, that he should love 
 self with generosity and disinterestedness ; in other 
 words, that he subordinate his animal self to his 
 reasoning self the brute to the man. 
 
 Human Solidarity, Between individual human 
 good and social human good there is no kind of dis- 
 cord, there is harmony. Without doubt, social good 
 is human good, affecting humanity at large, and not 
 the individual alone ; still the fact remains that it is 
 human good, and that only. It is an ideal in its 
 complete realisation, built up by man; it is the 
 highest happiness, as humanly conceived. All self- 
 development, it is certain, is dependent on, and 
 determined, to a certain degree, by our relations 
 towards our fellows. All mankind are inter- 
 dependent It follows, then, that self-love, if it be 
 reasonable, if it lead me to obey the dictates of my 
 conscience, if it tends to a heartwhole devotion to 
 duty such love of oneself can materially contribute 
 to the good of others. So that, if others act in the 
 same way as myself, if they are faithful to their 
 vocation as men, social welfare is secured, and we
 
 EGOISM AND ALTttUtSM 10S 
 
 nearly approach to the construction of an ideal 
 society. I am, then, justified in asserting that self- 
 love is not incompatible with generosity, that it is, 
 indeed, the living source whence springs the 
 sentiment of a genuine and noble solidarity. 
 
 Nor is this the end. Not only does the fact of 
 self-love, humanly pursued, contribute to the 
 happiness of others, without my being aware even 
 that I entertain such an emotion in their regard 
 but if, in reality, it is the man that I love in me, and 
 not the animal, human dignity, and not the vileness 
 of the beast, I shall inevitably feel sympathy towards 
 another possessing this dignity in common with 
 myself; his image, wherever it may confront me, 
 must -naturally excite my affection. It will be as 
 though I encountered myself, incarnate in another. 
 So I will be led to love others in the same measure 
 as I love myself, and not for my sake, but for theirs 
 or, better still, for the sake of the human ideal 
 enveloping us. 
 
 Christian Solidarity. And while we aspire to this 
 elevated, but still human ideal, we must not forget 
 that above this ideal there soars another more 
 austere and infinitely perfected the ideal set for us 
 by Christ Himself. Human solidarity bids us love 
 our brothers as ourselves, by reason of our common 
 humanity; Christian charity decrees that we love 
 these by reason of the divinity in which we alike 
 participate. Human solidarity demands of us that 
 we help others to realise in themselves the ideal of 
 the upright man ; Christian charity imposes on us 
 the duty of aiding others to become not manly 
 alone, but God-like. Once more, human solidarity
 
 104 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 visualises all things from the bounds of the earthly 
 horizon, and aims at the victory of manhood ; 
 Christian charity opens up for us the heavenly 
 horizon, and would have us, through this human 
 victory, win God for others, and for ourselves. 
 
 Surely, these ends are of sufficient moment to 
 release any well-intentioned young man from the 
 galling yoke of his egoism. Since, after all, it is he 
 who is concerned, it is his happiness that is primarily 
 in the balance it will not be hard for him to trans- 
 form his egoism, to cement to this high ideal every 
 passion and feeling urging him to self-pursuit, to 
 press these into the service of his desire, his love 
 for the Divine Good. 
 
 Thus will he become the nucleus of a higher 
 activity towards which feebler and more timid 
 spirits will be led to gravitate. Not casting out 
 one of these from the sphere of his charitable 
 endeavour, he will, none the less, be able to select 
 and discriminate; to form worthy friendships and 
 augment the circle of his intimates. His own 
 dictator, he is able to dictate to others not by the 
 exertion of a supremacy asserting itself by violence, 
 and so exposing itself to attack, but dominating 
 rather, by that power of attraction, that inevitably 
 gains adherents in virtue of the charm emanating 
 from it.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SENSUALITY 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have seen that it is 
 expedient to establish a distinction between the 
 egoism that is a passion, and the egoism that may 
 lawfully lay claim to being a virtue. We have fully 
 inquired into the respective merits or demerits of 
 these two varieties : and the choice of adoption 
 lies with us. 
 
 For my part, and with the sole aim of facilitating 
 this choice, I desire to complete this second portion 
 of my work with an analysis, brief but thorough, of 
 one of the forms, the most disastrous and debasing, 
 of passionate egoism. It is sensuality respecting 
 which, the most charitable charge that can be made 
 is, that it endangers social life, in that it attacks the 
 vital powers of the individual. I will endeavour, in 
 the first place, to point out its nature and its causes, 
 and in this way make manifest its fatal effects. 
 These once appreciated, it should prove an easy 
 task to indicate the remedies incumbent upon every 
 young man, who respects himself, and has regard 
 for the happiness of others. 
 
 I. ITS NATURE. 
 
 Old men are wont to extol the days of their 
 youth ; they lived, it would seem, in the golden age, 
 as we live in the iron age. Laudator temporis acti. 
 
 105
 
 106 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 I have this advantage over the veteran if advan- 
 tage it be that I can speak but of my own time. 
 And, it seems to me, my time merits praise and 
 blame both. Inasmuch as it has exalted and fur- 
 thered humanitarian sentiments and devotion to 
 one's neighbour, it is worthy of all praise. All 
 mankind would appear to be overridden at the 
 present time by the great incoming tide of solidarity, 
 and thus men are brought into closer communion 
 one with another. Nevertheless, by one of those 
 strange anomalies, by which the surest logic is put 
 to rout, it happens, that at no epoch, has the cult of 
 individualism, and morbid self-analysis, so flourished 
 as to-day. Individualism and socialism I appre- 
 hend, here, socialism in its widest sense are clearly 
 defined as the two poles around which modern 
 thought circulates. Hence, that state of unstable 
 equilibrium characteristic of all contemporary socie- 
 ties. If one would aim at the spread of generous 
 ideas in theory, one must apply oneself to their 
 demonstration in practice. Now, in practice, the 
 cult of individualism is merely the brutal negation 
 of all notions of solidarity ; for morbid self-analysis 
 is one of the ills that must surely undermine all 
 effort after social regeneration. Wholly inefficient 
 are the lives of those who, instead of seeing to it 
 that they exist for the betterment of their fellows, 
 exist but to watch themselves. 
 
 Youth, in particular, is a prey to that state of soul 
 described by a psychologist of discernment and 
 repute as " emotional egoism " one, as he points 
 out, that must be sedulously guarded against: 
 " That perilous appetite for emotion, that greed for
 
 SENSUALITY 107 
 
 complicating the heart's sensations in order to evoke 
 some new thrill, that tendency to vivisect the soul, 
 out of curiosity, premature satiety, and because of 
 the incapacity to procure from life any fresh or 
 lasting impression."* 
 
 The sensual forms in which, in the case of a young 
 man, emotional egoism may be clothed, are number- 
 less. Lacordaire, in alluding to the effects of that 
 which he styles "The depraved sense," has por- 
 trayed " Those men, who in the flower of their age, 
 already exhibit the ravages of time; who, degenerate 
 before having attained the full birth of their being, 
 display a brow that is prematurely lined, eyes that 
 are vague and sunken, lips that seem powerless to 
 represent goodness they drag on, under a sun 
 hardly risen, a worn-out existence." f 
 
 With vice more than anything else lies the 
 responsibility of wrecking human existence, of 
 reducing it to the condition of a corpse. 
 
 Vice, in its many phases, has its origin in a 
 ferocious egoism. In yielding to his depraved 
 inclinations, a young man has, in the beginning, no 
 idea of the corruption and ruin that encompass him, 
 and for which he is too often responsible. Accus- 
 tomed to regarding self alone, he loses, little by 
 little, the respect of persons, and tramples over all 
 that opposes itself to the satisfaction of his appetite 
 and desires. Occasionally, he imagines that he 
 loves, whereas he loves himself exclusively ; amor- 
 ous words are on his lips, and he, already, has no 
 
 * Paul Bourget, preface to " L'Accalmie," a novel by Pierre 
 Gerard. (Francis Laur, Paris.) 
 f Lacordaire, " Conf . de Notre-Dame," 1844, 22 e Conf.
 
 108 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 heart to love with. " How much suffering can a 
 man of this disposition inflict on others ! With 
 what haste does he attach and detach himself! 
 How incapable he is of giving himself, or of faith in 
 another !"* 
 
 I will not waste time in depicting in detail the 
 varied forms of sensuality as generated by emotional 
 egoism. These are known to all, and the literature 
 of to-day abounds in their description. What is 
 supremely important is to inquire into the causes 
 of vice, the effects of which we must be made aware 
 of in order to find a cure. 
 
 II. CAUSES OF SENSUALITY. 
 
 Personal Causes. The first is not difficult to trace: 
 every system contains the seeds, and is predes- 
 tined to suffer from the ravages, of concupiscence, 
 as inherited from our first parents. Here, religion 
 and experience are united in bewailing the miseries 
 of the soul enchained to this " body of corruption." 
 Though it may, unhappily, be true that our moral 
 temperament is, unavoidably, a prey to it, that not 
 one amongst us can escape its attack, there can yet 
 be no doubt that in the case of a people or an 
 individual, sensuality has its violent and its more 
 controlled periods. Respecting, in particular, the 
 crisis of youth : " Whenever nature awakens in a 
 young man not controlled by Christian principle, 
 there occurs within him a wholesale revolution of 
 his physical forces, which subject him to what 
 Father Gratry expressively terms, ' the trial by 
 fire.' Sensuality stirs and overwhelms him; the 
 * Paul Bourget, op. tit.
 
 SENSUALITY 109 
 
 heart feels a hunger, hitherto unknown, excited by 
 a desire that is at times vague, at others, alarmingly 
 insistent. There are moments, as Bossuet vigor- 
 ously asserts, when a human being feels himself 
 wholly flesh. Thought abdicates in favour of the 
 self-assertive flesh ; the body stifles the soul ; the 
 senses overthrow the spirit, and its interior lamp is 
 extinguished sometimes for the moment only 
 sometimes, alas ! for a while sometimes never to 
 be re-lit. It is the moral sun eclipsed by its satel- 
 lites, the intelligence by the body, the psychical life 
 by the physical organism made to minister to it."* 
 
 Social Causes. This crisis as it occurs in youth, 
 reflects, in its sensual manifestations, the ideas of 
 the time and social environment that witness it. 
 While public taste persistently stirs up the mud 
 that is the main constituent of our nature; while 
 literature in its divers phases fiction, the drama, 
 the daily Press helps in its diffusion ; while the 
 very streets assist in besmirching the passers-by 
 with their scandalous display of improper posters, 
 photographs, picture-cards, etc. ; while unbridled 
 extravagance sheds thereon the rays of its illusive 
 light, and the odour of its artificial perfumes ; while, 
 in short, so-called right-minded folk shut their eyes 
 on, or wink at its ravages how can we marvel at 
 the fate of those young lads of twenty, thus flung on 
 their own resources, without guide of any kind, 
 who yet are not withheld from perceiving, from 
 hearing, or inhaling in great gulps the insidious 
 delight of this poisoned atmosphere ? 
 
 * Sertillanges, " Nos Vrais Ennemis," p. 219. (Lecoffre, Paris : 
 1902.)
 
 110 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 " The premature and wholly intellectual revela- 
 tion of the sentimental realm has no part whatever 
 in touching, so to speak, his heart. Ill-directed and 
 random reading, uncontrolled conversation, un- 
 restricted companionship; a too sedentary regime 
 that gives rise to nervous irritability all these 
 things conspire to the precocious awakening of the 
 imagination, against which religious restraint can 
 alone prevail. . . . The result is that the adolescent 
 becomes mentally initiated in all the ardours, the 
 subtleties, and perversions of passion-fed existence, 
 and that, at an age, when he has, as yet, experienced 
 but the puerile emotions of school-life."* 
 
 Let us suppose such a school-boy, in his subse- 
 quent University career, falling into a circle where 
 wholesale tolerance in regard to vice finds currency, 
 can we not foresee the disastrous results ? Or, let 
 us say, he falls under the sway of a wealthy set, the 
 members of which, having no cares as to livelihood, 
 and spoilt by home indulgence, spend their days in 
 assuring for themselves the impotence of their riper 
 years ; or again, he may consort with enfeebled 
 pessimists with those who lose heart ere yet they 
 are on the battle-field, or with the idle of every 
 variety, or with the worn-out ingenuous dilettante 
 who exhorts him to do nothing, diligently, who 
 conducts him to the wine-shop, and helps him, with 
 enthusiasm, to every kind of debauch. 
 
 These, briefly scanned, are the immediate and 
 
 remote causes that give birth, in our contemporary 
 
 youth, to emotional egoism, and deliver them up 
 
 without mercy to the tyranny of the flesh. There 
 
 * Paul Bourget, op. cit.
 
 SENSUALITY 111 
 
 remains the task of noting the chief effects of such sen- 
 suality, and thence we shall arrive at the remedies 
 likely to overcome these, and prevent their renewal. 
 
 III. THE EFFECTS OF SENSUALITY. 
 
 Sensuality is, undeniably, an anti-social crime. 
 The moral value of society is dependent on the 
 morality of its members. If these are corrupt, how 
 shall the society itself escape corruption ? Add a 
 zero to another zero and you get no numerical 
 result. On the other hand, it may occur it 
 frequently does that individual corruption is the 
 outcome of social causes. I have alluded earlier to 
 those modern conditions of life that are hostile to 
 the education of character. And it is evident to 
 every understanding, that social causes of corrup- 
 tion have multiplied, in our day, in alarming 
 proportions. It is deplorable to have to state that 
 the moral evil springing from these social causes 
 may be referred rather to our advancement than 
 our retrogression. 
 
 In the promotion of knowledge for solely utili- 
 tarian ends, we have come to look upon it, little by 
 little, as a mere instrument for our pleasure, an 
 eternal fount for our gratification. At once, thereby, 
 the axis of morality becomes displaced. It is 
 perfectly true that at no time has there been so 
 much talk of the value of altruism, self-abnegation, 
 solidarity, as at present; there is not a public 
 speaker who does not feel himself bound, at meet- 
 ings or official gatherings of any description, to 
 enunciate this sentiment ; and particularly on those 
 occasions when it is expedient to impress the crowd
 
 112 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 with big-sounding phrases and stereotyped formulae. 
 But let us more closely inspect, let us grasp within 
 our fingers, this humanitarian mask, and we shall be 
 horror-stricken at the amount of egoism it disguises. 
 I do not by any means wish to allege that these 
 pronouncements in regard to devotion and neigh- 
 bourly obligation are throughout insincere and 
 false ; on the contrary, I do believe in the sincerity 
 of the greater number. But how illusive, how 
 distressingly futile, are these generous impulses, 
 when conceived by those who in practice totally 
 frustrate all that they in theory most cherish ! I ask 
 the reader to forgive me if I again lay stress on this 
 point, and to permit me to demonstrate once again 
 its importance, as I proceed to dwell on the anti- 
 social effects of sensual egoism. 
 
 Physical Effects. We owe ourselves, body and 
 soul, to society ; it has the right to draw upon our 
 forces, and to demand of us that we rightly econo- 
 mise these. Sensuality is a terrible squanderer of 
 force ; no vice so surely undermines the body, dim- 
 inishes the intelligence, and atrophies the heart so 
 rapidly. Sensuality is, for this reason, conspicuously, 
 an anti-social vice. It must be remembered for in 
 such matters clearness is incumbent upon us that 
 there is sensuality and sensuality. I make no 
 account of those fugitive weaknesses to which 
 physical temperament, our fallen nature, and our 
 environment so largely contribute all such may 
 be overcome by the exercise of prudence and 
 energetic determination. The kind of sensuality 
 I denounce is that to which a young man yields 
 without a struggle, which he cultivates for itself,
 
 SENSUALITY 113 
 
 denying himself no kind of satisfaction that quality 
 of sensuality that may be likened to a foul worm 
 that attacks, for choice, the freshly opening bud, 
 sucks from it its vital juices, and devours it down to 
 its stem. It is enough to observe attentively those 
 youths who are its victims. In despite of the artifices 
 they employ to hide from others their shattered con- 
 dition, this is easily discernible in their enfeebled 
 bodies, in their listless gait, in their clouded aspect. 
 What expectation can society reasonably found 
 on such a contribution to their strength? They 
 can only be injurious to it first, in depriving it 
 of the capital of individual energy to which it is 
 entitled, and then, in bequeathing by instalments 
 a heritage of impoverished blood, of offspring 
 destined, from birth, to wither in corruption. To 
 whom shall these young voluptuaries go, to offer 
 the dregs of their shattered selves ? They may, by 
 a miracle, marry a wife who has escaped from the 
 general contamination, and if so, such neutralisation 
 of force by weakness is sad to contemplate. If, on 
 the contrary, a mate be chosen who, herself, is the 
 victim of this depraved habit, it can be foreseen 
 what will follow from this union of dead organisms 
 that aim at generating life : there will be no issue, 
 or worse there will be given to society beings 
 from whom vice, like a vampire, will have sucked 
 before birth their life-blood, and put out for all time 
 the light in their eyes. Go then, and talk of social 
 regeneration to men whose existence is one slow 
 suicide, who daily resign themselves to death at the 
 expense of others, on the sole condition that they 
 may be allowed to live for themselves ! 
 
 8
 
 114 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Intellectual Effects. That the intellectual effects of 
 sensualism, in a youth, are no less deplorable than 
 the physical ones; that the senses are satisfied at 
 the cost of the mind ; that the dissolute body dis- 
 solves the energies of the soul all these facts are 
 attested by common experience. The intellect 
 requires for its expansion physical tranquillity, 
 sound functions, untainted blood, and controlled 
 nerves. The body is the natural instrument of the 
 intellect, and whenever I contemplate their relations, 
 I am reminded of an ^Eolian harp, which, suspended 
 according to the legend on the branches of some 
 willow-tree, would produce sweet vibrations as the 
 fresh gusts of an April morning, or the gentle 
 breezes of an autumnal evening, breathed upon it. 
 If peace reigns within him and without, if his flesh 
 be not disturbed by the agitating storms of passion, 
 then can the intellect, thrown, as some light current 
 of air, on the sensitive fibres of this wondrous 
 instrument, call forth full, sweet harmonies, whose 
 depths and tunefulness help largely to temper the 
 harsh and hollow accents of sensualism. 
 
 Were it otherwise, and the body a prey to the 
 violent winds of voluptuousness then, those 
 thousand and one sensitive fibres that constitute it, 
 would be strained or split up ; intellect may do its 
 uttermost, not one sound will be forthcoming. 
 
 Bodily enjoyment is wholly incompatible with 
 intellectual joys ; that which relies upon the flesh is 
 incapable of working on the spirit. "The young 
 man who returns to his student quarters at the 
 close of an evening of pleasure, does so in a state of 
 mental disruption ; the contrast of the lights, of the
 
 SENSUALITY 115 
 
 dances, of the seductions of beauty, in all its trap- 
 pings, that he has left behind, with the simple sur- 
 roundings that confront him is fatal to his mental 
 well-being. He is tremendously discouraged, for he 
 has not learnt, as yet, how rightly to estimate these 
 fictitious joys. Full of illusion, as of energy, he is, 
 so far, incapable of perceiving reality. He con- 
 structs for himself his exterior world, and the 
 persons that fill it, and the hallucination created is 
 so vivid that it hides from him all that is actual. Is 
 it astonishing that, by comparison, his calm, unen- 
 cumbered student-life really so happy should 
 appearto him intolerably monotonous andgloomy?"* 
 How many youthful pessimists are begotten by 
 this life of pleasure! Starting their career as 
 students, brimful of fine aspirations and high 
 intention, the future smiles on them; some day 
 they will evolve into men of science, a credit to 
 society, and to their country. For a year or 
 possibly two all goes well, then, gradually, their 
 ardour cools. After all, they tell themselves, their 
 body has its rights as well as their mind ! They 
 will observe all moderation and discretion at the 
 start then, passion, fed daily with infinitesimal 
 doses, plays havoc with discretion ; it is the cancer 
 that ravages the organism, and finally devours it ; 
 it is a tide which slowly uproots the sea-wall and 
 carries all along with it. So are these carried along; 
 the flesh claims anew from them its asserted rights 
 over the spirit, and thus, in the place of healthy, 
 hard-working, intelligent youths, their gifts the 
 rightful assets of their country, we gather the 
 * Payot, op. cit., p. 207.
 
 116 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 withered fruit of a body precociously exhausted, 
 an intelligence dulled, a will enfeebled, a heart that 
 is atrophied. For, not content with blighting the 
 intelligence and destroying the will, sensuality dries 
 up the heart and shrivels it like a withering leaf. 
 
 Moral Effects. " I maintain," says Lacordaire, 
 "that I have never encountered tenderness in a 
 libertine. I have never met a loving spirit but in 
 those who were either ignorant of evil, or were 
 struggling against it. Because, once habituated to 
 violent emotions, how can the heart, that is so 
 delicate a plant, that is nourished by the dew 
 falling from heaven, that is swayed by the lightest 
 breath, made happy for days by the remembrance 
 of the spoken word, by the glance bestowed, by 
 the encouragement given to it by the lips of a 
 mother, or the hand-grasp of a friend ; how shall 
 that which has so calm a movement, that which, 
 naturally, is almost insensible, because of its very 
 sensibility, and its alarm lest one breath of love 
 should break it, if God had made it less profound- 
 how, I say, can this heart oppose its gentle and 
 frail joys to those coarse emotions of the depraved 
 sense? The one is selfish, the other generous; the 
 one lives for self, the other outside of self: of these 
 two tendencies, one must prevail. If the depraved 
 sense has its way, the heart decays little by little it 
 loses its capacity for simple joys, it tends no longer 
 towards others, it finally pulsates only in relation to 
 the course of the blood, and marks the hours of that 
 sshmeless time, the flight of which is hastened by 
 debauchery."* These, briefly summed up, are a 
 * " Conf. de Notre-Dame," 1844, 22* Conf.
 
 SENSUALITY 117 
 
 few of the anti-social effects of sensual egoism in the 
 young. I propose now to make known a certain 
 specific for the disease. 
 
 IV. THE CURE FOR SENSUALITY. 
 
 Let me insist again : The remedy is to be found 
 in the very heart of the evil. The evil arises, solely, 
 from the fact that we do not love ourselves in the 
 right way. To effect a cure, therefore, we have 
 not to hate self but to love self, rightly. And what 
 do I mean, when I talk of loving "rightly"? Why, 
 this : To love in self all that which exalts, and not 
 that which degrades ; to love the man, and not the 
 beast ; to love the Christian, rather than the man ! 
 
 Sensibility. It is, in no sense, forbidden that we 
 should have affection for our bodies; what is for- 
 bidden is, that we should cherish Body at the ex- 
 pense of Soul. But, just suppose for an instant, that 
 it were permissible to give the body an exclusive 
 love without having regard to the necessary sub- 
 servience of the flesh to the laws of the spirit. Even 
 in this absurd hypothesis it is not evident, in any 
 way, that sensual egoism is the last word of wisdom. 
 Epicurus, himself, taught that it is most prudent to 
 choose those pleasures that are refined and lasting, 
 rather than the transient and gross pleasures of vice. 
 So that, affection rightly understood even if con- 
 fined to the body alone is not consistent with sen- 
 suality. What shall be said, then, when far from con- 
 sidering the Body as an independent reality, having 
 a separate existence, we regard it, solely, in relation 
 to the Soul ? From this standpoint we see, that 
 even legitimate bodily gratifications that affect our
 
 118 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 physical health, the harmonious action of our organs, 
 the shades and complexities of our nervous system, 
 do not represent an end in themselves, but are sub- 
 ordinate to the higher joys of the heart and intelli- 
 gence. Therefore, all that is calculated to lessen 
 these joys, or encroach upon them, must be imme- 
 diately abandoned. It is not permissible that a 
 young man should see, hear, read, and do everything, 
 but it is essential that he should hear, read, see, and 
 perform all those things that are bound to elevate 
 his intelligence, and enlarge his heart. 
 
 Intellectual Culture. It is our duty, as Christians 
 and upright men, to develop our minds ; there is no 
 human perfection attainable without this. We do 
 not all, alike, possess the intellectual vocation, nor 
 can we all pursue learning for its own sake, that is 
 certain ; we all, however, have the vocation to be as 
 intellectual as lies within our power. If, then, 
 study, for its own sake, has no attraction for us, we 
 can at least pursue it in view of an honourable 
 future. Every student conceives this ambition, and 
 it is, in itself, a sure preventive against sensual 
 indulgence. For ambition has this peculiarity, that 
 it attracts the energies necessary for its fertilisation, 
 and casts off those that are inimical to it. Chaste 
 for the sake of his ambition, a youth will, surely, in 
 the end, court chastity for its own sake when once 
 he has tasted its indescribable charm. 
 
 Moral Culture. But chastity must not be pursued 
 with the sole design of safeguarding our intellect ; 
 it is needful to be chaste with the high resolve of 
 amplifying our hearts. An upright man therefore, 
 more imperatively, a Christian should be virtuous
 
 SENSUALITY 119 
 
 in all essentials ; that is to say, his goodness must 
 have no other limits than those assigned to it by 
 reason and faith. If, then, it be acknowledged that 
 only by a disinterested love for others can we stifle 
 an interested love for self, we may allow, further, 
 that out of a chaste and unselfish love for self, there 
 can alone spring an unselfish love for others ; when 
 we serve our brother rather than self, we can love 
 him, for his sake, rather than for our own. I have 
 alluded, earlier, to the wife who, one day, is to share 
 the domestic hearth. I know of young men for whom 
 the mere vague conception of such a future relation 
 suffices to keep them chaste and high-living. Having 
 such a motive exclusively does not, doubtless, 
 make chastity meritorious in a Christian. Never- 
 theless, even this motive, if sincere, helps to carry 
 him step by step into closer approximation with the 
 supreme and, pre-eminently, purifying ideal. 
 
 Frankly, we are not angels, and due allowance 
 must be made for this fact. Better is it, so at least 
 I think, to attain to God by such winding paths as 
 can lead us to Him, than to stand, hesitating, be- 
 cause we dare not attempt to clear, at a bound, the 
 distance separating us. In this sense we find that 
 the love of mankind, of all those who share with us 
 in one human and divine brotherhood, helps us to 
 the love of God. One may belong to one's time in 
 seeking to further that solidarity which is a sign of 
 it, in cherishing others, because of our common 
 humanity; and one can outstrip one's time in 
 cherishing those others because, before all reasons, 
 of the divinity that envelops them and us, alike. If 
 we attain so far, we have but a step to reach upwards
 
 120 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 to the love of God, for Himself, and in the supreme 
 degree. Thus, do we find salvation ; for, loving God 
 for Himself, we proceed thence to the love of others 
 and self, for His sake. 
 
 Thence, we are enabled to descend with ease the 
 slopes up which we have climbed so painfully. In 
 that we have tasted of celestial joys, we are able to 
 rightly value earthly ones ; in that we have ap- 
 proached nigh unto the heavens, the earth seems 
 puny ; in that we thirst for the higher world, we can 
 no longer hunger after the lower. We may be 
 likened to a traveller who, spurred on by his love 
 for the mountains, has succeeded in scaling their 
 lofty peaks. As he does so, instantaneously, all is 
 enlarged before his eyes, the sky is more profound, 
 the horizon limitless. At his feet extend the hills 
 and silent forests. He hears the hum of the cities 
 beneath, as the murmur of many voices. He is filled 
 with an extraordinary sense of joy the joy of find- 
 ing himself, for the moment, detached from earthly 
 things, and, in the august solitude, of dominating all 
 within the compass of his vision.
 
 PART III 
 
 ACTION AND CHARACTER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HABIT 
 
 WE have now dealt with the part played by the 
 Ideal and the Passions in the education of character. 
 We have seen that, given energy and discretion, 
 it is possible for the will to unite, practically, the 
 impassioned and sentimental emotions to the 
 Christian ideal, so that, thereby, its own love for the 
 ideal may be quickened and confirmed, and its 
 absolute empire over our sensitive realm ensured. 
 We have seen, further, that the task of training 
 character is not the task of a day, but one calling 
 for time and patience ; that it is not enough to know 
 that our passions and sentiments can be pressed 
 into the service of the ideal imposed upon us, but 
 that our highest duty lies in effectually performing 
 this service in reality, and with unremitting zeal. 
 How is this to be done ? By action. Now, action 
 has a twofold nature : it is natural and supernatural.* 
 
 * There are some who question the distinction drawn between 
 natural and supernatural action. These revert, in practice, to the 
 distinction that we, for analytical purposes, maintain in theory. 
 In practice, the upright m^n and the Christian are one and the 
 
 121
 
 122 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Natural action should issue in the creation of 
 sound moral habit that, once acquired, materially 
 aids our task and renders it agreeable. Super- 
 natural action, on the other hand with all that it 
 implies of grace, the exercise of prayer, the use of 
 the sacraments, the performance of charity, in its 
 many phases will afford us invaluable support, 
 since, indisputably, we find that grace in nowise 
 frustrates nature, but perfects it; that it does not 
 diminish man, but exalts him; that it does not 
 weaken, but fortifies him. 
 
 We will confine ourselves, at present, with re- 
 viewing the part played by natural action in the 
 education of character to return later to, and 
 complete the survey of that allotted to supernatural 
 action.* 
 
 The whole end of natural action is to place us in 
 possession of sound moral habits which, intelligently 
 grouped around the axis of the will, help to produce 
 men of character. What do I mean by "moral 
 habits," and in what, actually, consists their 
 morality? I will attempt an answer to these two 
 preliminary questions. 
 
 I. THE NATURE OF HABIT. 
 
 Everyone understands the general significance of 
 the word "habit" it means, a tendency acquired 
 by the repetition of certain acts to reproduce 
 
 same. But, just as one may distinguish in the Christian ideal a 
 human aspect and a Divine aspect, so, in the realisation of this 
 ideal, Christian action has a natural and a supernatural quality. 
 Both are derived from grace, but their claims to it are divergent. 
 * " La Virilite Chretienne." (Desclee, Lille : 1909.)
 
 HABIT 123 
 
 analogous acts with ease and satisfaction. So that, 
 moral habit must, necessarily, imply the tendency 
 to reproduce readily, and gracefully, moral acts, 
 in virtue, uniquely, of the fact of their repetition. 
 To simplify the meaning of this definition I need 
 only indicate as briefly as may be the significance of 
 habit in relation to our moral organism. 
 
 The Significance of Habit. Let us consider a child, 
 arrived at years of discretion at that given moment 
 when it behoves him, as a Christian, to perform 
 acts compatible with human and Divine laws. His 
 psychic state is not so simple as might be antici- 
 pated. By which I do not mean his intelligence, in 
 that, hardly as yet awakened to the truth, it assimil- 
 ates only that measure of its light as he is capable 
 of absorbing, and such as suffices to start his first 
 footsteps, but does not dispense him from the need 
 of assistance in their guidance. I would treat 
 rather of his volition. A child's will, as we know f 
 is a fragile and delicate element that has been for 
 some years swathed in the bonds of sensibility, and 
 proceeds to regain its liberty, painfully. Its power 
 is not paralysed, but it is benumbed. And just as 
 the limbs of a child become nimble only through 
 use, so his volition can alone be rendered active by 
 the stimulus of desire. By force of desire in other 
 words, by the act of willing he is able, by degrees, to 
 possess volition. 
 
 We must not labour under the mistaken idea, that 
 a child, because he is young, and, therefore, as yet 
 unspoilt by time, is in a state of pure spirit, whose 
 desire after the Divine Good encounters no kind of 
 resistance. Such a conclusion would involve the
 
 124 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 premises that his will has been already determined, 
 at birth, and further, that his senses are naturally 
 orientated in the direction of God. 
 
 And we have clearly perceived that such is not 
 the case. A child's will becomes gradually formed, 
 by dint of persistent effort, and countless acts of 
 energy. Similarly, his sensible faculties will submit 
 themselves to the yoke of an austere ideal, such as 
 the Christian ideal, only when these have undergone 
 a lengthy preparation at the hands of the will ; for 
 the ethical training of the sensibilities is, in the 
 highest degree, a matter of self-conscious repre- 
 sentation and effort. Of course, I am aware that 
 numbers are born, endowed with qualities of 
 temperament, that considerably favour ethical 
 training. But these may be accounted the excep- 
 tion. It is also evident, that those most favoured in 
 this respect, are not dispensed thereby from action. 
 It is one thing to be disinclined to evil as the out- 
 come of natural attributes, and quite another to be 
 disposed to good, as the outcome of will and energy. 
 There are beings who remain virtuous, in that they 
 are incapable of vice ; whereas there are others 
 who become virtuous, notwithstanding a predis- 
 position to vice. These have character; the first 
 have none. Hence, I conclude, that a child, arrived 
 at that period of his growth when he is called upon 
 to act in accordance with Reason and Faith, finds 
 himself, inevitably, at a disadvantage precisely 
 because he is a child. What should cut asunder 
 the sensible ropes that hold him fast to the earth 
 and so set free his aspiring spirit that, like a captive 
 balloon, is thus deprived of its power of flight? It
 
 HABIT 125 
 
 is the will's function, but it appertains to the active 
 will that which pursues, unremittingly, its obliga- 
 tions, and slowly, but surely, becomes nourished 
 and strengthened by its own acts. 
 
 Similar principles are involved in the education of 
 character and in the education of the intellect. " If a 
 child is unable to make practical use of a grammatical 
 rule," declares Kant, "it is of little moment that he 
 can say it by rote he does not know it. That child 
 who has the capacity to apply its rule knows it 
 infallibly, and it matters little whether he is able, in 
 addition, to quote it correctly. . . . The best means 
 of understanding is to perform. One learns most 
 thoroughly and lastingly that which has been 
 learned in some sort independently." How should 
 it benefit a child that he knows, and can recite by 
 heart, his moral catechism, if he put not into prac- 
 tice the rules it prescribes. I have come across 
 winners of a " First prize in religious instruction," 
 who have subsequently developed into famous 
 materialists. The best-known moral precepts are 
 those that are oftenest practised ; a man, who is 
 really chaste, is better acquainted with the whole 
 subject of chastity however illiterate he may be 
 than the writer of genius, who is a sensualist, 
 albeit that he expatiates, untiringly, on the incom- 
 parable charm of that virtue he does not possess. 
 Action plays, in respect of education, the leading 
 r6le, and one that is superior to the most enlightened 
 and highly literary of treatises. If a portion of the 
 work accomplished by a child takes the form of 
 impressions inscribed on its memory, so, too, are 
 active habits inscribed as a result of activity.
 
 126 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Nothing is wasted in our psychological life : nature 
 is a scrupulous accountant Whatever our actions, 
 however seemingly insignificant, these renewed, go 
 to mount up in the course of weeks, months, years, 
 an alarming total, inscribed on the organic memory 
 in the form of ineradicable habit. Time, that pre- 
 cious ally of our enfranchisement, works with the 
 same steady obstinacy against us, unless we con- 
 strain it to work for us. He utilises for, or 
 against us, that dominating psychological law, the 
 law of habit. Victor, and sure of its victory, habit 
 advances with deliberate and insidious strides, 
 aware, as it would seem, that slow action, indefi- 
 nitely repeated, is prodigiously efficacious. The 
 initial act once accomplished, already, its repetition 
 costs less : Repeat it a third, and a fourth time, and 
 the effort entailed gradually becomes lessened and, 
 finally, is non-existent. How can it be non-existent? 
 What is painful exertion at the outset develops 
 gradually into a need, and, if irksome in the begin- 
 ning, causes, in the end, discomfort only when left 
 unperformed."* 
 
 Fundamentally, the true object of moral habit is 
 to strengthen the natural weakness of our active 
 faculties, to increase a hundredfold their activity, 
 and, this done, to advance, as it were, mechanically, 
 toward good. In this sense is habit, actually, 
 second nature. But while our first nature is be- 
 stowed upon us ready-made, and without our per- 
 sonal co-operation, habit is essentially our work ; 
 we become, by its acquisition, our own creators. 
 And this brings me to the discussion of the degree 
 of morality entailed in moral habits. 
 * Payot, op. cit., p. 135.
 
 HABIT 
 
 II. THE MORALITY OF HABIT. 
 
 Some philosophers there are who contest the 
 morality of moral habits. This may appear para- 
 doxical ; none the less is it a fact. If virtue is 
 the habit of right performance, in the long run it 
 becomes a sort of routine, whence all freedom is 
 banished. By the diminution of effort, there follows 
 a diminution of merit, and thus the morality of 
 our actions is threatened. 
 
 Conclusion : let us acquire the least possible sum of 
 good habits. Here, anew, are we presented with 
 one of those paper theories, against which we 
 cannot too strongly protest, so enervating is their 
 influence. It is, perfectly true that a virtuous action 
 is the more praiseworthy inasmuch as it demands 
 effort, and is the product of liberty. That, however, 
 is not the question. It is, to ascertain whether it is 
 possible for a rightly intentioned person, spurred on 
 by his notions of duty, to continue to expend with 
 unflagging persistence the same amount of effort 
 that was incumbent upon him at the outset of his 
 ethical life. To this, universal experience replies : 
 No, it is not possible. To assert the contrary were 
 evidence either of blindness to facts, or else, that 
 one has never been called upon to wrestle, per- 
 sonally, with a rebellious temperament, to overcome 
 violent temptation, to grapple with adverse circum- 
 stance. The prospect of a continuous renewal of the 
 same conflict, and under the same conditions, would 
 discourage the most valiant. 
 
 Habit and Liberty. Moreover, in the opinion of 
 leading psychologists, the maintenance of good
 
 128 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 habits, far from curtailing our liberty, rather aug- 
 ments it. " They are greatly mistaken," one writes, 
 " who assert that it (habit) substitutes for moral 
 effort alone meritorious an automatic virtue, 
 actually valueless, and but a species of useful and 
 pleasant routine. It is the reverse that occurs. 
 This acquired or, rather, conquered infallibility 
 represents the highest degree of merit, and is the 
 highest liberty."* 
 
 No one is free, I repeat it, but he who deserves to 
 be so. By moral habit he acquires the right. Habit 
 is, literally, the mainspring of free activity, in that it 
 is founded on voluntary action incessantly repeated, 
 and also, in that, under its beneficent influence, we 
 assume daily an increased possession of self that 
 which admittedly is the ultimate object in training 
 character. It may be objected that, notoriously, 
 habit, in relieving effort, at the same time relieves 
 the conscience ; and so we are reduced to a per- 
 formance of duty that is merely instinctive and 
 mechanical. This is not a new objection, and, while 
 I deal with it, I will not venture so far as to main- 
 tain, as do some, that it lies with the education of 
 character to superintend this, that all such educa- 
 tion is incomplete until conscious performance has 
 evoked unconscious performance until, in other 
 words, one has attained to that degree of skill in the 
 manipulation of the keyboard of the virtues, which 
 enables an accomplished musician to perform upon 
 his instrument, having his eyes shut ; the qualities 
 of character, will-power, initiative, etc., are not the 
 offspring of abstract reasoning, and cannot be learnt 
 
 * Marion, " La Solidarite Morale," p. 106. (Alcan, Paris.)
 
 HABIT 129 
 
 from books ; they become habits entirely apart from 
 the sphere of reason.* 
 
 Now, in truth, a morality which discusses itself is 
 but a poor sort of morality, and the man of scruples 
 who passes his life in dissecting his least actions is, 
 frequently, the very antithesis of the man of action. 
 But there is a vast gulf between this attitude and 
 that which alleges that the conscious practice of 
 duty must, in the end, issue in the total elimination 
 of conscious morality ! The very complexity of the 
 ethical life stands opposed to this notion. If virtuous 
 action were presented to us, invariably, under like 
 aspect and conditions, one might entertain the hope 
 that, after ten or twenty years' practice, its perform- 
 ance would finally grow mechanical. But such, 
 emphatically, is not the case. There are a thousand 
 ways in which the same individual may from day 
 to day, nay, from one hour to the next, practise 
 prudence, charity, temperance, chastity, humility. 
 The paths of virtue cross one another, endlessly. 
 We may liken ourselves to the traveller who 
 traverses a virgin forest and encounters surprises 
 at every turn. Beneath every moral action, as 
 beneath every forest leaf, there may be concealed 
 a reptile : that we have escaped its fangs for twenty 
 years is no sure guarantee that we shall do so in 
 the future. So, there is not an instant in our lives, 
 however habit may flourish, when the conscience is 
 not bound to remain on the alert. The keyboard of 
 virtue has no analogy, actually, with that of a musical 
 instrument, in that it has not a determined number 
 of notes and scales. We have, however, acquired a 
 
 * Le Bon, op. cit., p. 204. 
 
 9
 
 130 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 certain virtuosity, having learned from early child- 
 hood how to produce various concords ; but, seeing 
 that their combination is inexhaustible, it is neces- 
 sary to continue to study incessantly. The saints, 
 those supreme artists in the moral order, never relax 
 their vigilance, but perpetually augment effort, 
 while it grows less and merit accrues. Thence, I 
 gather, that moral habit, the equivalent of virtue, is 
 the highest degree of merit, and the highest form of 
 liberty.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE LAWS OF HABIT 
 
 IT seems to me unsatisfactory to treat of habit, as 
 many psychologists are prone to do, as the mere 
 product of action, and its development in direct pro- 
 portion to its repetition. What is of moment is to 
 ascertain, to what laws this repetition is itself sub- 
 servient in order to have effect. Now, these laws 
 are of two kinds, according as they bear upon the 
 hygiene of the soul, or regulate the exercise of the 
 faculties. There can be no more important, neither 
 interesting subject, from this double standpoint, 
 and, at the same time, there is none to which less 
 consideration has been given. I venture, therefore, 
 to devote this chapter to its discussion. 
 
 I. THE SOUL'S HYGIENE. 
 
 Physiological Hygiene. The laws of bodily hygiene, 
 if rightly understood and regarded, are calculated 
 to secure and preserve physical health ; such, too, is 
 the case with the laws of moral hygiene in relation 
 to the spiritual health. Just as bodily health may 
 be defined as the equilibrium of its physiological 
 functions, so, I imagine, the health of the soul may 
 be defined as the equilibrium of its moral functions. 
 This being so, we have but to glance at the methods 
 by which the laws of bodily hygiene should be
 
 132 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 applied, so as to insure the perfect equilibrium of 
 the functions in regard to our physical organism, in 
 order, simultaneously, to arrive at the correct atti- 
 tude to be adopted if we would safeguard our spiri- 
 tual organism. Let me hasten to assure my readers 
 that I am not contemplating here a lecture on 
 hygiene. I merely intend, since one cannot judge 
 of the soul's existence without drawing analogies 
 from that of the body, to direct attention to certain 
 details respecting the proper working of organic 
 life, that it may be better understood how we may 
 more prudently regulate the faculties of the soul. 
 Now, if we are to credit the physiological experts, 
 the health of the body is dependent, largely, on the 
 equilibrium of two functions, that of respiration and 
 nutrition. There can be no physical well-being, 
 unless we assimilate, by means of our lungs, pure 
 air, and by means of the stomach, wholesome food. 
 At first sight, it may be imagined that there can be 
 nothing easier of accomplishment than to provide 
 the body with these " principles of life." It is not 
 so. That we are not lacking in the means of 
 securing fresh air and wholesome food is certain; 
 what we do, mostly, lack, is a proper conception of 
 the laws of hygiene that guarantee us these. A 
 student, let us say, is in temporary occupation of 
 his room, the windows of which have been tightly 
 closed since the previous day. He sits down to his 
 work. After a short interval, he realises that he is 
 making no progress, he is not in the vein, his head 
 is hot and heavy. How is he to mend matters? 
 Very likely, he needs but to throw open his windows 
 for a while, and so renew the vitiated atmosphere.
 
 THE LAWS OF HABIT 133 
 
 But to do this would cost him an effort, he would 
 have to interrupt his work, or his reading, or cut 
 the thread of some sentimental course of thought 
 which is of far greater moment than the provision 
 of pure air for his lungs. So he prefers to remain in 
 discomfort rather than disturb himself, or, if he is to 
 be disturbed well then, he gets up for good and all, 
 and goes out of doors, and so squanders yet a little 
 more of his time. And he could have quite easily 
 satisfied his need of fresh air. By this victory over 
 self in overcoming natural indolence, his physical 
 well-being would have been restored, his intelli- 
 gence revived, his will confirmed. But we ever 
 disdain what is simple; we despise, on account of 
 their apparent triviality, countless little acts accom- 
 plished a hundred times in a day, by the one who 
 devotes a healthy temperament to the service of a 
 healthy soul : metis sana in corpore sano. And it 
 would be well for all to realise that bodily health, 
 like spiritual health, depends upon it. 
 
 I have just dealt with the hygiene of respiration ; 
 the same may be said in regard to the hygiene of 
 diet. All who concern themselves with this ques- 
 tion, agree, that we eat and drink to excess, and that 
 the enormous work thus thrown upon the organs is 
 most injurious to the organism as a whole, and 
 thence reacts in the weakening of the intellectual 
 and moral systems. 
 
 Are we, then, called upon to espouse vegetarianism 
 to enroll ourselves as teetotallers, and partake, 
 exclusively, of "hygienic" beverages? These, 
 surely, are violent remedies, and not for universal 
 application, nor especially adapted to the young.
 
 134 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 In my opinion, there exist remedies more efficacious, 
 and which are too little regarded by the advocates 
 of " stringent cures." These consist in a discreet 
 supervision of one's daily diet ; in eating and drink- 
 ing with due regard to one's physical condition, to 
 the intellectual strain that has to be sustained, and 
 to needful repose. To this species of discipline our 
 slack volition cares little to accommodate itself. We 
 dislike to be compelled to live "by rule," even 
 though its interpretation be generous ; to do so is a 
 tax upon our inertia ; and to live by rule is the con- 
 trary of " living one's life." At twenty, one craves 
 to " live one's life " one is carried away by the 
 exuberance of temperament, by disregard of the 
 morrow, by one's associates, and the thousand and 
 one incidents of social existence that appear to 
 authorise every kind of licence to the detriment of 
 the most elementary forms of hygiene. 
 
 Moral Hygiene. If we pass from the physiological 
 domain to the moral domain, we encounter the same 
 prejudice. The soul, to a greater degree than the 
 body, requires to breathe a pure atmosphere, to 
 pursue a wholesome diet, since the effects of 
 spiritual infirmities are infinitely graver than those 
 attendant on bodily ones. Further, the physique of 
 the soul is more frail the slightest thing can upset 
 it, and with lasting consequences. Yet, many there 
 are who pass the greater part of their days, and their 
 nights too, in an atmosphere that is morally stifling, 
 heavy with the miasma of scepticism and sensuality ! 
 There, where the doctrine of the easy life is most 
 appreciated, these gather in largest numbers ; and 
 the major portion of their spiritual energy becomes
 
 THE LAWS OF HABIT 135 
 
 dissipated in the pursuit of empty pleasure. Not 
 that they desire evil for evil's sake : the majority 
 will admit, in their candid moments, that this mode 
 of existence palls grievously, that their convictions 
 belie it, that their hearts are chilled by it, and their 
 spirit stifled. To cast off these social constraints, 
 to emancipate self from these habits of inveterate 
 sloth, needs real effort. They have not the necessary 
 courage. If, by way of antidote, they would 
 but endeavour to nourish intellect and heart with 
 the healthy food of clean thoughts and purifying 
 sentiments! But behold them at their task ! They 
 pursue, interiorly, the enervating and random 
 system of their exterior existence. There are many 
 who do not work at all, or work, half-heartedly, 
 for a couple of months prior to the examination 
 period. As a compensation, they devour all 
 that comes their way all the current rubbish 
 of fact or fiction. When they should satisfy 
 their heart's hunger by allowing themselves only 
 such affections as are lawful and ennobling, 
 and so furthering the work of moral regenera- 
 tion, in view of their future functions of husband 
 and father, they elect rather to indulge in dreams, 
 to multiply shallow relations, and squander in 
 chance encounters the provision of fine and 
 generous emotions fostered in early life. And 
 thus, because it costs something to struggle against 
 nascent passions, to hinder ease, to observe minute 
 precautions to live, in a word, by rule, and so 
 nourish the intelligence upon truth, and the heart 
 upon manly sentiment. 
 There are those, I am aware, who postpone until
 
 136 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 a later period, their edifying conversion. Then, 
 under the pressure of circumstance, and in view of 
 the exigencies of life, they will proceed to " reform " 
 themselves, as they describe it. They will reverse 
 the machine, and astonish mankind by their virtuous 
 behaviour, and the force of their convictions. What 
 an Utopian scheme is this ! It involves the destruc- 
 tion of body and soul alike. When youth has been 
 passed in undermining self, in living within a 
 pernicious circle, in daily intoxication with besotting 
 draughts of pleasure; when it has disturbed in 
 every possible way the equilibrium of the functions 
 essential to life, it is not possible to reconstruct self 
 from one day to the next, nor to re-establish the 
 disturbed equilibrium. 
 
 II. THE GYMNASTICS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 It is advantageous, if one would foster sound 
 health, to pay due attention to bodily hygiene. 
 This, however, is not all that is required ; we must, 
 as everyone acknowledges, add thereto muscular 
 exercise. But what kind of exercise ? Here, opinion 
 largely differs. Should such exercise be limited to 
 that moderate and regular use of the muscles which, 
 in rendering them pliant and vigorous, facilitates 
 the working of the organs essential to life, and 
 maintains the health in a state of perfect balance 
 or, should recourse be had to violent sports which, 
 immoderately practised, while they increase the 
 muscular forces tenfold, do so, but too often, to the 
 detriment of the general economy? The fact is, 
 at the present time, there is some misapprehension 
 in regard to those' opposed elements health and
 
 THE LAWS OF HABIT 137 
 
 muscular force. Such confusion could, I imagine, be 
 easily avoided by a closer contemplation of the 
 problem to be resolved, which amounts simply to 
 this : Has bodily health an independent value ; or, 
 on the contrary, merely a relative value derived 
 uniquely from its close relation to the health of the 
 soul ? 
 
 Sports. I am not, for my part, of those who 
 regard the object of life attained so long as one 
 enjoys good health, and can rival the professional 
 athlete in muscular force. If this were the case, 
 there would, of course, be no difficulty in the kind 
 of exercise to be adopted ; the simplest would be 
 the best, provided that it conduced to the expansion 
 of the breathing capacities of the lungs, facilitated 
 the course of the blood, and aided digestion. 
 
 The primary law of muscular exercise is, what I 
 may not inaptly style, the law of infinitesimals. In 
 virtue of this law, it is not at all incumbent upon a 
 young man, rightly regardful of his health, to indulge 
 in complicated and violent forms of exercise, save on 
 occasion for his own diversion. Rather should he 
 abide by simple methods, having due regard to 
 natural laws, and which, systematically pursued, are 
 likely to be conducive to health. For, to the law of 
 infinitesimals, whereby the matter of bodily exercise 
 is determined, there must adhere the law of continuity 
 which regulates their form. This law represents the 
 spirit of corporal gymnastics. If one relinquishes 
 exercise, from weariness; if one relaxes, however 
 slightly, one's efforts before attaining the desired end, 
 there follows, inevitably, a diminution of the reserves 
 of energy that have been so long accumulating. If, on
 
 138 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 the contrary, one perseveres, and, on a system, these 
 exercises, far from causing fatigue, will, in the long 
 run, become a habit, a need, a second nature. 
 
 It is with intention that I lay stress on this 
 question. In that it concerns so conspicuously our 
 physical health, it is of the greatest import. More- 
 over, in the building-up of character, simple, but 
 properly regulated, gymnastics play a prominent 
 part. Some have described gymnastics as " the 
 primary school for the will." Gymnastics for the 
 body may serve as model for gymnastics for the soul, 
 whose health is subject, with due reservation, to the 
 same laws as those controlling the body. 
 
 The Law of Infinitesimals. Every psychologist is 
 in agreement as to the necessity for spiritual exer- 
 cise. But where they differ is, as to the nature of 
 the exercise to be adopted. I remember a time 
 when spiritual exercise was represented, exclusively, 
 by the daily reading of a chapter on piety or asceti- 
 cism. It seems to me, however, that true spiritual 
 exercise should be of the nature of action, rather 
 than of reading, and that, further, this action should 
 be unremitting. 
 
 The soul has faculties somewhat as the body has 
 members. If, then, moral habits are to the spiritual 
 faculties what muscles are to the body's members, 
 it is imperative that these be strengthened. Their 
 development will assist the soul in those moral 
 functions of respiration and nutrition, previously 
 alluded to. Assuredly, if a young man be in the 
 grip of sound, healthy habits, he will, without 
 difficulty, rise superior to demoralising environ- 
 ment, and will hunger, instinctively, after a moral
 
 THE LAWS OF HABIT 139 
 
 sustenance that is capable of fortifying him. But 
 how develop such habits ? How, indeed, save by 
 the persistent daily observance of quite simple, 
 though entirely rigid laws, and, pre-eminently, of 
 the law of infinitesimals. 
 
 In the moral realm, the student will not have to 
 seek far ; his daily task is clearly defined ; his duty 
 as a Catholic plainly mapped out, day by day, hour 
 by hour. Given the inclination to acquire good 
 habits or what is termed a virtuous disposition 
 and there is nothing easier than to profit by and 
 develop this inclination ; or suppose, on the other 
 hand, that he be prone to vice, then it becomes a 
 question merely of personal initiative and common 
 sense, in neutralising any such propensities and sub- 
 stituting for them worthier ones. 
 
 The Law of Continuity. Conceive a student who 
 is, naturally, predisposed to temperance. It will be 
 quite simple for him, on this hypothesis, to orientate 
 all such tendencies into proximity with the Christian 
 ideal and so, to the confirming of his will, which in its 
 turn, inspired by the same ideal, will impart to these 
 natural attributes its moral impress, and transmute 
 them into virtues. Another, may be sensually 
 addicted, whether encouraged by antecedents or 
 accidental circumstance. How should he be dealt 
 with ? Some will advocate, in like instances, strin- 
 gent remedies, and go so far as to suggest the cowl 
 and cloister. Theoretically, this would be a noble 
 solution ; it is not, however, always practicable. 
 There are remedies as efficacious, although less 
 attractive such as the transforming of this passion 
 into virtue, and converting a self-love that is base
 
 140 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 into a self-love that is worthy. This is a task that 
 has to be unremittingly pursued ; the law of infini- 
 tesimals calls forth the law of continuity. Not by 
 superhuman struggles at once wearing and dis- 
 heartening, but by effort sustained and undaunted 
 by discerning, moreover, the original cause of our 
 daily backsliding. Does it lie in our reading? 
 Then must we cease to read, or read less, or alter its 
 nature. What of the theatres we patronise ? Let 
 us wait awhile before again resorting to these, and 
 allow our moral health to reassert itself. Does it 
 concern the company we frequent ? Then we must 
 be bold enough to seek other company. Perhaps, it 
 is but a question of temperament ? In this case, we 
 have to consult our physician as well as our con- 
 fessor. But let this be held ever in remembrance : 
 that temperament which is morally diseased like 
 to physical temperament cannot be changed in a 
 day, and by means of violent reaction, but by time 
 alone, and action indefinitely renewed. Whilst we 
 can remove the immediate causes of our downfall, 
 we must, as well, take positive steps to acquire and 
 develop the corresponding virtues. If we happen 
 to be sensually bent ; if, in short, we are apt to 
 cultivate that passionate form of egoism which is 
 sensuality, there must be awakened in us the idea 
 of a superior egoism, a worthier self-love. Around 
 this idea there may be congregated the motives 
 most likely to amplify it, from that of personal 
 interest, ever regardful of the individual future, to 
 that selfless one, embodying virtue, human dignity, 
 devotion to humanity, and the glory of God. By 
 fostering these higher considerations, the passion of
 
 THE LAWS OF HABIT 141 
 
 sensual appetite will become detached from the 
 lower motive inspiring its gratification. Little by 
 little, spirit will overcome matter, while not ceasing 
 to love self, rather with increased love of self, 
 augmented with the leaven of infinite charity. So 
 can will-power be enlarged tenfold, and, quickened 
 by the stimulus lent by all ardent emotion, it can 
 restore in moral fibre and enduring energy whatever 
 it has received of blind and transitory force. But 
 what of the perpetual martyrdom here involved ? 
 In truth, in this individual death, this continuous 
 annihilation of self, there are contained the precious 
 germs of creation or individual life. In virtue of 
 the law of continuity which governs the growth of 
 moral habit, reiterated action brings about a cor- 
 responding diminution of effort. Where at the 
 outset fatigue was most evident, there remains only 
 felicity. Repose comes of action itself. The more 
 we act, in this sense, the more we feel the need of 
 action and the satisfaction of this need, as we per- 
 sonally experience it, will appear to us the last word 
 in the health of the soul, facilitating its expansion, 
 as the bud of youth expands into the flower.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 CHARACTER AND MORAL HABITS 
 
 FROM the preceding inquiry, we have arrived at the 
 defining of character as " The sum of moral habits 
 intelligently grouped around the axis of the will." 
 The reader can confirm the accuracy of this defini- 
 tion, allowing that it be true, on the one side, 
 that a man of "character" is recognisable by the 
 unity and stability of his moral attitude, and, on the 
 other side, that, indisputably and we hope to prove 
 this moral habits, rightly understood, are the 
 truest guarantee of the unity and stability of this 
 attitude. What habit is, in the constant state, so in 
 the transient state, are the acts that have contributed 
 to its acquisition. It remains to be ascertained how 
 moral habits can be grouped to assist in the forma- 
 tion of character, and how a young man can best 
 preside at this manoeuvre on his own account. 
 
 I. MORAL EQUILIBRIUM. 
 
 Ostensibly, countless are those moral habits 
 favourable to the formation of character. This is 
 evident from a glance at any description of moral 
 treatise, and the particular chapter that deals with 
 the classification of the virtues. In philosophical 
 phraseology, virtues and moral habits are synony- 
 mous. Hence comes this disturbing and pressing 
 
 142
 
 CHARACTER AND MORAL HABITS 143 
 
 question : Am I to select from their number those 
 most appropriate to my individual needs, to my 
 temperament, and mental condition; or, am I 
 bound, as matter of conscience, to entertain all ? 
 Theoretically, it is not permissible to make a 
 choice of moral habits; in practice, it must be 
 admitted, no person can, conceivably, lay claim to 
 their entire number. 
 
 The Relations of the Virtues. In moral concerns, it 
 is readily understood there can be no attempt at 
 selection. The man of "character" is indeed, in 
 virtue of the fact, the man of duty : his goal is to 
 realise, in its plenitude, the ideal of life incumbent 
 upon his free energies. Now, human duty can omit 
 no single virtue from its sphere of obligation. Duty 
 is the converging point around which the virtues 
 concentrate, the luminous centre, whence they are 
 enkindled, the sun whose rays they are. To desire, 
 of set purpose, and from mere personal preference, 
 to extinguish this or that ray, were to threaten the 
 sun itself, to assail the centre. No one has the 
 right to do so. Moreover, experience demonstrates 
 the folly of such an attempt. The youth who 
 resolves to be strong, without at the same time 
 determining to be temperate, can be neither the one 
 nor the other, because, viewed practically, the one 
 attribute is dependent for its existence on the other. 
 Its strength, in any case, will have but the semblance 
 of the strength that is a virtue. For, supposing that 
 the exercise of this virtue is brought into conflict 
 with the exigencies of temperance, he, by reason of 
 his conscious intemperateness, will be beset by, and 
 the prey of, his weakness. Theoretically regarded,
 
 144 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 then, we cannot favour one section of the virtues to 
 the exclusion of the other. And, as I have said, it 
 is, nevertheless, impossible to practise them all. A 
 beggar is not able to bestow alms ; a married man 
 cannot be a celibate ; a man incapable of learning is 
 not able to study. Whence we are led to the con- 
 clusion that there do exist virtues, or moral habits, 
 the acquisition of which is not indispensable to 
 the building-up of character. What is indispensable 
 is, to have the intention, should the need arise, to 
 concede a loyal service to all. 
 
 Are there not, however, a number of virtues in- 
 cumbent upon the youth who would develop into 
 the man of character ? Doubtless, seeing that we 
 have, in common, an obligation towards ourselves, 
 towards our brethren, towards God; and that, 
 further, the fulfilment of this obligation is subordin- 
 ate to the systematic practice of the corresponding 
 virtues. 
 
 Prudence. The primary duty of a reasonable man 
 is to act reasonably. We must not imagine that, if 
 reason be once awakened, and the formulae of 
 conduct learnt by heart, this depends solely on 
 self. In the laboratory of the conscience, the moral 
 reaction of the intelligence over the sluggish will 
 and violent passions is not subservient to the same 
 laws as chemical reaction. It is not controlled by 
 certain set formulae. One reacts, morally, on one- 
 self through reflection and the exercise of energy, 
 and subject to the accidents of personality, time, 
 environment, and education, all of which impart 
 their moral colouring to our free acts. Here, again, 
 we are in the grip of habit. We may describe
 
 CHARACTER AND MORAL HABITS 145 
 
 as we please this habit of acting in accord- 
 ance with reason; we may give it the name of 
 Prudence, as do the Masters of Philosophy : the fact 
 remains that its formation and development are 
 controlled by the two laws regulating the formation 
 and development of every habit ; I mean the law of 
 infinitesimals and the law of continuity. The man 
 of character, then, is, before all, the man of reason, 
 who utilises prudence as a lighthouse with its 
 revolving and intermittent lights, whereby the 
 horizon of morality becomes illumined, and he is no 
 longer plunged, blinded and bewildered, amidst the 
 gathering mists of his propensities. By the light of 
 this virtue, all others are revealed to him, and, 
 conspicuously, those capable of adjusting the 
 spontaneous promptings of his sensibility to the 
 lasting exigencies of the human ideal. Plainly, I 
 refer to strength and temperance. 
 
 By specific acts, indefinitely and systematically 
 repeated, these virtues are produced and nourished. 
 Not that their end is to suppress all sensibility; 
 on the contrary, they aim rather at intensify- 
 ing and spiritualising its impulses, and so further- 
 ing the growth of our reasoning faculties. As we 
 are not, in fact, mere mind, so neither are we mere 
 animal. Our life has to exhibit that measure of 
 moral balance which, whilst conceding to reason its 
 - absolute rights, at the same time recognises the pro- 
 portionate share that should be allotted to appetite. 
 
 The establishment of this moral equilibrium 
 between the constant relations of the body and the 
 spirit, is, rightfully, the work of the selfsame virtues 
 of temperance and fortitude. Temperance hinders 
 
 10
 
 146 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 pure sensibility from degenerating into sensuality ; 
 fortitude converts into a conscious possession of self 
 all such primary emotions of the sensible order, as, by 
 their violence and spontaneity, unconsciously uproot 
 and dispossess self. So we see clearly that he who 
 desires to attain to " character " must perforce first 
 lay hold of these virtues. Yet we perceive further 
 that, while these virtues are indispensable to the 
 building-up of character, they are not all-sufficing. 
 The upright man, in the integral development of 
 his personality, has to look to the fulfilment of 
 obligations other than those having personal 
 reference ; there are as well social ones, and 
 especially at this epoch when the problem of 
 " social ethics " tends to the wholesale absorption 
 of "individual ethics." So that, social obligation 
 entails the practice of the necessary social virtues. 
 And hence, of recent times, we find a new vocabu- 
 lary has been created for the characterisation of 
 these attributes, and we hear of social justice, 
 solidarity, altruism, and humanitarianism. Here the 
 question arises : Have we sufficiently endeavoured 
 to further the realities that correspond to these 
 terms ? Alas ! I fear not. There are, in particular, 
 only too many Catholics who, in these days, are 
 victims of traditional prejudices in regard to the 
 moral life which, in their conception, touches merely 
 the personal conscience, and as to which they are 
 accountable to their God alone. So they guard 
 against all risks of impure contact and contemporary 
 contagion, by retiring from the conflict and living 
 their restricted lives apart, in tranquillity and 
 relative probity, regardless of the social progress
 
 CHARACTER AND MORAL HABITS 147 
 
 they dread, and the movements of civilisation they 
 condemn. They are just, in a degree, towards their 
 fellows in order to escape the lash of justice; they 
 show charity uncharitably, and by bestowing alms, 
 think themselves dispensed from the bestowal of self, 
 whole and entire, body and soul, upon another. 
 Let us not imitate these whom the fear of life has 
 rendered distraught, and who in nowise merit its 
 gifts. Life is not won without travail, neither can 
 it be developed without exertion. It is not possible 
 to pursue life, while clinging in spirit to a dead past; 
 one lives, doubly, by laying up lessons from the past 
 to profit increasingly by those of the present. 
 And since, to-day, humanity evinces an ever-growing 
 thirst after justice ; that, from every portion of the 
 globe, men draw nigh unto one another with the 
 common object of mutual support, marching hand in 
 hand towards an ideal, increasingly approximating 
 to the human ideal, let us not remain detached from 
 such a movement ; rather it befits us, urged forward 
 by the force of conviction and the ardour of youth, 
 to march in advance of it. And we have to realise 
 that, for this end, it is not enough to pronounce 
 fiery sentiments and organise violent meetings. It 
 is chiefly expedient to brace our will by the culti- 
 vation of sound habits that conduce to righteous- 
 ness and solidarity. And, again, I insist, these 
 habits can be acquired and developed by daily acts 
 alone; by the constant reaction on our inherent 
 egoism, of an ideal desired and cherished ; by the 
 sacrifice of that detestable ego, ever intervening 
 between desire and reality. These are the moral 
 principles, that the man of character is bound to
 
 148 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 nurture before he can hope to merit the name. If 
 I do not allude to the Christian virtues, it is with 
 design. I hope, at a later date, to devote further 
 pages to the question of the Christian education of 
 character and the virtues that appertain to it. My 
 sole aim here is to solicit the attention of my young 
 brethren to the close relation existing between 
 moral habits otherwise styled virtues and char- 
 acter. The man of character is, pre-eminently, a 
 virtuous man one with whom the realisation of 
 the ideal has become a need, a second nature, 
 whether in regard to its general or civil application. 
 That he actually possesses character is proved by 
 the unity and stability of his attitude when con- 
 fronted by duty. Now, without this combination 
 of moral habits just noted, such unity and stability 
 would be instantly compromised. Essentially, 
 therefore, these contribute, as a combination, to 
 form character. 
 
 II. UNITY AND STABILITY OF MORAL CHARACTER. 
 
 Its Unify. Of the oneness of the ideal we have 
 incontestable evidence. Its realisation may, of 
 course, be susceptible to the variations caused by 
 varying temperament, surroundings, time, and educa- 
 tion. But, in essentials, it is the same for all. It is 
 a species of indivisible whole that cannot be deliber- 
 ately disintegrated without risk of injury or destruc- 
 tion. How is it, then, that so many men and 
 Christians, whilst keenly wishful to actualise this 
 ideal to the full, fail, lamentably, therein, and, in the 
 place of a life of unity, whose every act is on the 
 side of duty, offer us the lamentable spectacle of a
 
 CHARACTER AND MORAL HABITS 149 
 
 scattered and unbalanced existence, devoid of orien- 
 tation, and at the mercy of every chance gust of 
 scepticism and immorality blown in its direction. 
 The reason is not hard to discern. It lies in the 
 senseless notion that to be aware of an ideal is to 
 realise it forthwith, and to evince good intention in 
 its regard is, at once, to acquire the will-power 
 necessary for its attainment. I have shown, on the 
 contrary, that an ideal, however elevated, indeed, by 
 reason of this attribute, is impotent, in itself, to 
 dominate our frail volition and brute instinct. To 
 develop into a vital principle, it has to be not only 
 known, but desired not only an idea-light, but an 
 idea-force. Now, in final analysis, what is an idea- 
 force if not virtue that is, moral habit, created 
 under the benign influence of the ideal, desired and 
 cherished ? Who tells of virtue, tells of light and 
 force : light, in that virtue is acquired under the 
 enlightenment of reason alone ; force, in that it is 
 free activity, concentrated, a deposit of energy, 
 stored up within our various powers by voluntary 
 acts, indefinitely repeated. So that, when a man 
 has arrived at the formation of such moral habits as 
 are imposed by the ideal, in its closest approxima- 
 tion, his moral life reflects, enforcedly, the unity of 
 that ideal. He is, himself, the ideal in concrete 
 form. As he actualises the ideal, so it becomes 
 incarnate in him ; he becomes a man of balance and 
 character. 
 
 Its Stability. Supremely, this unity of life, this 
 moral equilibrium, which is the hall-mark of all great 
 characters, is, thanks to virtue, otherwise virtuous 
 habit, a stable and immutable element. What can
 
 150 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 there be more stable than inherent tendency ? And 
 habit is its created equivalent a kind of second 
 nature. It inspires in us a need for activity, in the 
 direction of the ideal activity, that begets it ; and 
 virtuous habit, thus formed, develops speedily into a 
 requisite. Hence the stability of moral conduct. 
 And so we are led to the conclusion that charac- 
 ter, of which stability and unity are the distinctive 
 marks, may be accurately and strictly defined as : 
 the sum of moral habits intelligently grouped around 
 the axis of the will.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 INTELLECTUAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 
 
 IN the preceding chapter we have dealt with the 
 question, Do we aim at producing character ? 
 Having in some way replied to this, and indicated 
 the path along which we have to travel in quest of 
 this attribute, I will now pose a further question, 
 addressing it especially to students : By what 
 natural and sure methods can they acquire and 
 develop such characteristics as befit them not merely 
 as men, but as Christians ? The answer is plain : 
 By the thorough and conscientious performance of 
 their present duties, by serious study and effort in 
 the pursuit of knowledge, by maintaining the educa- 
 tion of their will abreast with the education of their 
 intelligence. 
 
 I. ETHICS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 In reality, the question under discussion concerns 
 the much-debated one of the relations existing 
 between science and morality. Two prejudices are 
 rife, in this regard, the one being as pernicious as 
 the other. The first is reducible to this barren 
 formula : Multiply knowledge, and you at the same 
 time multiply virtue ; make instruction obligatory ; 
 thus only can you manufacture the scholar and the 
 man. The other prejudice, whilst equally na'fve, is
 
 152 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 formulated in more circumspect fashion. Its ad- 
 herents do not venture so far as to say : Suppress 
 knowledge that virtue may flourish. But acting on 
 the principle (if principle it amounts to) that know- 
 ledge inflates (scientia inflat\ they advocate ignorance 
 that humility may thrive, being persuaded that this 
 quality, which admittedly belittles man, represents, 
 nevertheless, his highest virtue. I repeat, these 
 are pernicious notions that cannot survive the light. 
 To construct creatures of " character," in the virile 
 sense of the term, it is not enough to enforce 
 instruction, neither to forbid it. One finds " martyrs 
 to duty" in every degree of the social scale, 
 amongst the ignorant and amongst the cultured It 
 would be more reasonable more human therefore 
 to discover in what measure and under what con- 
 ditions the education of the intelligence can, and does, 
 actually contribute to the education of the will. That 
 it does contribute considerably, and under relatively 
 simple conditions, is, as I think, undeniable. 
 
 We find, in truth, frequently, that knowledge 
 inflates, but this property is not peculiar to it alone 
 In this direction, ignorance (by which I mean 
 "affected" ignorance) concedes herein nothing to 
 knowledge indeed, surpasses it. We know, from 
 experience, that the truly learned are humble- 
 minded, and the completely imbecile vainglorious- 
 As a matter of fact, knowledge inflates only those 
 whose mind it least occupies, thus leaving consider- 
 able room for vanity. God Almighty is not vain- 
 glorious, in that, precisely, He is all knowledge. 
 Further, knowledge and humility spring from the 
 same source. Both are the offspring of Truth.
 
 INTELLECTUAL HABITS 153 
 
 How, then, should these kindred attributes dwell in 
 mutual disharmony ? Whereas, affected ignorance 
 is the child of deception, and can but assume 
 humility as a mask. Closely investigated, it will be 
 seen that, in nine cases out of ten, the humility of the 
 ignorant consists in humiliating the learned. It is 
 quite easy to be humble where there exists no 
 excuse for pride ; but rightly to appraise this 
 humility, it has to be identified with wounded pride, 
 or what is vulgarly styled " pique." We are bound 
 not to hearken to those who would dissuade us, 
 under such fallacious pretexts, from the pursuit of 
 learning. A religion, like the Catholic religion, 
 which rests wholly on truth, need take no alarm 
 at representations [of the like, no matter whence 
 they emanate. The same St. Paul, who was the 
 first to warn us that knowledge " puffeth up,"* has 
 exhorted us likewise to have a reasonable faith, 
 (rationabile obsequium) based on truth. 
 
 At the same time, we must not push this reasoning 
 method too far, and, with some optimists, assert, con- 
 cerning moral education, that the will is sufficiently 
 stimulated by the adequate training of the intellect; 
 that, once the University degree is conferred, there 
 forthwith evolves, as it were by enchantment, the 
 man of character. Alas ! experience proves the 
 contrary. In educational matters, a diploma ol 
 efficiency is not by any means as easily won as in 
 matters scholastic. In the work of self-mastery 
 there are years of toil demanded, and the conscience 
 calls for examination on many more occasions than 
 once in the year. 
 
 * I Cor. viii. I (Trans.).
 
 154 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 Here, then, yet another question arises for us : 
 In what measure, and under what conditions, are 
 intellectual habits, otherwise called knowledge, 
 calculated to advance the integral development of the 
 personality of the moral man ? 
 
 Personal Purification. To begin with, it is clear, 
 that the intercourse of elevated thoughts safeguards 
 us from the low company of enervating suggestions. 
 Such time as we devote to the research after truth 
 cannot be squandered in the gratification of the 
 animal appetites. This is one important advance 
 upon the enemy. If man is not purely mind, he is, 
 pre-eminently, mind. In this he differs from the 
 brute, and in that his flesh can be moulded to the 
 exigencies of reason, as clay can be moulded by the 
 potter's fingers. From this standpoint, alone, know- 
 ledge is a fertile element in the purification of 
 morals. It acts as a drag on sensuality, by depriving 
 it of the time and opportunity for indulgence. It is 
 quite permissible to pursue knowledge, for its own 
 sake, but we can, as well, utilise it for the reforming 
 of our passions, inasmuch as reformed passion 
 can, by reaction, promote the highest intellectual 
 culture. In the necessary slavery of the flesh, we 
 obtain the ransom for the redemption of the 
 spirit. 
 
 Social Purification. The moral effects of know- 
 ledge are far-reaching. Knowledge is not only an 
 excellent channel for the uplifting of the individual, 
 it furthers, in addition, the production of the social 
 virtues. To make my meaning plain, I may declare 
 that a Catholic student should not study for personal 
 reasons or advancement alone, but, as well, in view
 
 INTELLECTUAL HABITS 155 
 
 of public utility ; he should cultivate knowledge for 
 the sake of others as well as for his own ; he should 
 ever bear in mind that to be diligent is rightly to 
 interpret the obligations of justice and charity. 
 
 And, primarily, it is an obligation of justice. In 
 saying this, I have chiefly in mind those students 
 whose object is to acquire proficiency in law, 
 science, medicine, and so forth, in view of a future 
 liberal career. Have they ever given a thought to 
 the responsibility they assume, when, instead of 
 studying, they waste their time in trivialities that 
 lead to nothing, or worse than nothing? Have 
 they reflected on the day to come, when their 
 brethren in humanity will, in the grip of trouble, 
 whether physical or mental, consult them, as 
 arbiters, in some measure, of their destiny, and 
 that then, they can afford such counsel and service 
 only, in proportion to the intellectual capital they 
 have amassed during the period of study ? There 
 are, I am convinced, only too many students who 
 utterly fail to appreciate this. They imagine, in 
 fact, that their degrees are all-sufficing. Yet, an 
 infirm person cannot be made sound by a mere 
 flourish of parchment qualifications and high- 
 sounding titles. He can be cured by that one, 
 alone, whose knowledge is on a level with the 
 requirements of his profession ; and to meet such 
 requirements, it is necessary to have devoted thereto 
 long years of patient study. Justice, strictly defined, 
 imposes this obligation. It is one, analogous to that 
 of the father of a family, who has to till the ground, 
 to sow the grain, and to harrow, if he would pro- 
 vide bread for his little ones who have a right to
 
 156 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 expect it of him. What would be thought of this 
 father were he, in winter-time, to fold his arms, and 
 wait to put his hand to the plough until a couple of 
 months before the harvest, and then marvel that 
 the reaping was a poor one! Would the regrets of 
 the sluggard absolve him for his negligence, and his 
 repentance, however sincere, preserve his wife and 
 children from hunger? So shall it be with those 
 other idlers who choose pleasure rather than study. 
 They can never be abreast of their vocation as men, 
 neither of their profession. Conscientious study 
 fortifies the will as it disciplines the mind. The 
 student who works, normally, develops, simul- 
 taneously, a pair of virtues : an intellectual virtue, 
 that enables him to store up a provision of know- 
 ledge, which he can draw upon in the future, and a 
 moral virtue, whereby he is aided to fulfil the 
 obligations that may be entailed upon him in the 
 course of his career. So we see that knowledge 
 plays an effective r6le in regard to conduct. With- 
 out it, there can be no true interpretation of social 
 obligation, and, in particular, of that prime virtue of 
 charity embodied therein. 
 
 The greater number of Catholic students known 
 to me seem, in these days, to hold much commerce 
 one with another, and I rejoice that this is so. The 
 breath of unity stirring humanity, to-day, animates 
 these likewise. Their love for their neighbour 
 reacts upon themselves. Catholics above all, their 
 dream is to succour those of their brethren as have 
 strayed into error or scepticism; to illumine their 
 darkened spirit with the sun of truth. Some there 
 are who, filled with apostolic fervour, ask no better
 
 INTELLECTUAL HABITS 157 
 
 than to seek out the humble and preach unto them 
 good tidings. Theoretically, who can desire better, 
 given the means ? And the means are within reach. 
 Let them in virtue of their love for humanity, store 
 up the precious gifts science bestows. Let them 
 drink from the springs of knowledge and of faith, 
 but, as a condition of their mental well-being, they 
 must do so, deliberately. Then, arrived at man's 
 estate, they can convince the world at large, and 
 especially the ignorant and the erring, by testify- 
 ing in their own person to the harmony existing 
 between science and belief. So can they lay the 
 sound foundations of faith ; and when these poor 
 wanderers perceive that the learned and skilled, to 
 whose pronouncements even the elect give ear, are 
 the same who bend their knee to the God, they 
 themselves have worshipped in their youth, that 
 they congregate in His temples and kneel side by 
 side at His Holy Table, then Truth shall prevail 
 with these, also, and its dominion be established. 
 And, after God, it is through the young that light 
 will have attained to them through such, at least, 
 who, faithful in the discharge of their obligations 
 as Catholic students, prove themselves to be true 
 apostles, those whom the multitude and the indivi- 
 dual are impelled to follow, those who are apostles 
 in virtue of deed and example. 
 
 Knowledge, then, as we have come to perceive, is 
 a reforming element above all. Through its forces 
 the violent promptings of appetite are overcome, 
 and the empire of justice and charity established. 
 But to be in possession of it, we must know how to 
 acquire it. The method of its pursuit can assist,
 
 158 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 equally with knowledge itself, in the education 
 of the mind, and favour, in like degree, that of the 
 will. 
 
 II. WORK AND RELAXATION. 
 
 The majority of students entertain strange illu- 
 sions in this respect ; many have not the least notion 
 how to study. They work as they play, by fits and 
 starts, and without any kind of system. They pre- 
 pare for their examinations, as they prepare for a 
 general confession that is to say, at the last 
 possible moment. Then, one sees them poring, 
 feverishly, over their books, just as a nervous and 
 scrupulous penitent does over his conscience. And 
 they present themselves for examination, in the same 
 confusion of mind, as they do for their confession. 
 Their nerves are strained, their memory paralysed, 
 and incapable of action ; they experience immense 
 difficulty in replying to plain questions whenever, 
 in short, they are called upon to dispense in small 
 doses what has been compounded in an instant. 
 This kind of "instantaneous "preparation invariably 
 proves fatal, in that no time has been conceded for 
 the full and normal assimilation of the instruction 
 received. The best means of getting creditably 
 through an examination consists in preparing for it 
 by daily systematic study, not in view, mainly, of 
 the examination itself, but in view of the acquire- 
 ment of knowledge. The intellectual life, like the 
 moral life, is a matter of habit, its development being 
 subject to the law of infinitesimals and the law of 
 continuity. I maintain that a student who devotes 
 two or three hours of each day, throughout the
 
 INTELLECTUAL HABITS 159 
 
 year, to serious work, will not be called upon within 
 the last three months prior to his examinations, 
 grievously to overtax his brain-power. He will have 
 had leisure to digest all that he has consumed ; and 
 even should he, at the last moment, put on steam, 
 this extra effort will stimulate rather than exhaust 
 him. For there is real advantage in traversing, at 
 express speed, a path, whose difficulties one has 
 surveyed, at leisure, during eight or ten months. 
 
 Studiousness. And, morally, he will have gained 
 enormously. The virtue of Studiousness, which 
 such application helps to foster, is acquired just as 
 are the other virtues. Its acquirement entails the 
 constant intervention of the will, that, like it, feeds 
 on, and is strengthened by, its own acts. How is it 
 that the ordinary student so rarely works at stated 
 hours, and for any fixed period of time ? Solely, 
 because to do this would cost him somewhat ; he 
 would have to wrestle with his own indolence, 
 mortify his caprices and his ease, and place in danger 
 what he pompously styles his "liberty." Instead 
 of working when it is expedient, he works when 
 it pleases him ; and it pleases him only when other 
 things that call for no exertion do not please him 
 more. If the prospect of an examination drives him 
 to study, it is not that the prospect invites him on 
 its own merits, it is rather, that certain consequences 
 have to be faced in the event of failure or success. 
 In what can the intellectual and moral life culminate, 
 when, mental study is contemplated in this light? 
 They culminate in nought. 
 
 On the other hand, the student who persists man- 
 fully in his daily application will be astonished at
 
 the gratifying results. At the start, he may work 
 but a few minutes each day; but he must do so, 
 consistently, at a fixed hour; thus he imposes a 
 certain bent upon his will, and this is what is 
 wanted; he has to be perfectly inflexible on this 
 point ; he must not change the hour appointed 
 under any kind of pretext. When he has thus 
 acquired the habit of work let us say, a quarter of 
 an hour each morning and such a habit is easily 
 formed he will, little by little, enlarge the period 
 to half an hour daily, and so on, by degrees, until 
 he will find himself capable of the amount of work 
 incumbent upon a youth of his age, who is in good 
 health, and aspires to some worthy achievement in 
 the future. This regime of study is the proper one 
 for the average mind, and the only one calculated to 
 train the will-power, adequately, in the case of every 
 student. 
 
 Relaxation. Much the same may be said in regard 
 to the relaxation obligatory on all serious workers. 
 The art of relaxation is a fine art ; it is, so to speak, 
 the reverse side of the art of work. It must not be 
 confounded with sloth, neither with idleness. A 
 sluggard and an idler both abjure study. It is, on 
 the contrary, that he may study the more, that a 
 student has to relax study a while. Wise relaxation 
 should be organised on the same lines as study ; I 
 do not, of course, mean on such rigorous lines, but 
 with equal regularity. The best method is to vary 
 the nature of one's work. At the same time, of 
 course, other distractions, such as travel, harmless 
 entertainment, the cultivation of the graceful arts, 
 and so forth, are all perfectly allowable. All,
 
 INTELLECTUAL HABITS 161 
 
 indeed, that may contribute to the vigour of our 
 mental powers, to the freshness of the imagination, 
 and is not injurious to the senses nor the will, can be 
 indulged in without fear. Whenever relaxation of 
 this description is pursued, it represents, in itself, 
 action, that is parallel in its moral effects with work, 
 which, after all, is only another form of relaxation. 
 
 I might digress further on this topic, but will 
 content myself with recommending its earnest 
 consideration to all young men. If they, one and 
 all, follow on the lines here advocated, I can, with 
 conviction, answer for their present success as 
 students, and their future as men. Apart from the 
 fact that the high delights of mental exercise, and 
 the satisfaction of a good conscience, are valuable 
 assets at the moment, they are bound and I venture 
 on this prediction without arrogating to myself the 
 functions of a prophet to promote qualities that will 
 make of them, in the days to come, not only men of 
 principle, but Christians of character, and the pride 
 of their Church and country. 
 
 11
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SUPERNATURAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 
 
 I. THE HUMAN IDEAL. 
 
 LET me recall the terms of the problem set for 
 solution. Our intelligence, under the dual light 
 shed by reason and faith, builds up an ideal we have 
 to realise : the ideal of the upright man. By its 
 aid, the goal is clearly indicated, and the way of 
 approach plainly mapped out for us. But its place 
 is defined within these limits. Intelligence is the 
 lighthouse that illumines the coast. Its luminous 
 beams are the precious mainstay of our course, but 
 they cannot effect our safe landing. To reach the 
 shore, it is not enough that its outlines are clearly 
 revealed, there is strength needed to convey us 
 thither. We have, it is true, every kind of energy 
 at our service, but it requires to be disciplined. 
 And this is the will's function ; it, and it alone, can, 
 when enlightened by the ideal, carry out this work. 
 By which we mean, that the ideal, in that it has to 
 effectually influence conduct, must be willed and not 
 merely perceived; that from the idea-light of which it 
 is the essence, there must issue idea-force. 
 
 Thus entertained, the ideal, willed and cherished, 
 attracts to it those passionate and sentimental 
 energies requisite for its maintenance. Once pene- 
 
 162
 
 SUPERNATURAL HABITS 163 
 
 trated by these instinctive and blind forces, the 
 ideal responds, on the instant, by restoring to them 
 their equivalent in the form of moral and enlightened 
 principles. So with time, and under the influence 
 of repeated acts of volition, there are formed habits 
 such as, by their intelligent grouping around the 
 axis of the will, constitute moral character. 
 
 II. THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL. 
 
 How many times have I insisted that the neces- 
 sary preliminary to becoming a Christian is to be 
 an upright man ! It is not my purpose, in these my 
 final remarks, to gainsay this. I will merely amend 
 this assertion by adding, further, that to be a 
 Christian of character it is needful to contribute, 
 over and above all the natural virtues that become 
 the upright man, those supernatural ones that 
 express the superman ; that into what is human in 
 our actions there must be infused the element of 
 the Divine. Supernatural virtues are, in fact, Divine 
 virtues, in their origin, in their development, in 
 their effects. It is God alone who bestows them in 
 bestowing upon us grace ; He alone augments them 
 in accordance with our merits ; and, finally, by their 
 co-operation alone, are we made sons of God. The 
 supernatural virtues, whilst divinely inculcated, are 
 none the less determined in their manifestations by 
 the acquirement and growth of the corresponding 
 natural virtues. As an illustration, let us picture 
 two basilicas, one superposed on the other, the roof 
 of the first serving as a base for the second ; whereas 
 the first has its foundations in the lowly earth, the 
 spire of the other soars to the lofty heavens. None
 
 164 THE EDUCATION OF CHARACTER 
 
 the less, it is a certain fact, that the beauty of the 
 second basilica is at the mercy of the solidity of the 
 first; remove this, and you, at once, shatter the 
 other. So is it with supernatural virtues in relation 
 to the natural ones. These Divine virtues un- 
 deniably possess marvellous forces; but for their 
 full effectiveness they depend upon the stout 
 buttress of the natural virtues. Once again, then, I 
 return to my earliest formula : Do we desire to be 
 Christians of character? Then, let us begin by 
 being upright men. 
 
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