is a heavy one. They comfortably jail and feed a wife-beater,
and leave his innocent wife and family to starve.
Y.M. Do you believe in the doctrine that man is equipped
with an intuitive perception of good and evil?
O.M. Adam hadn’t it.
Y.M. But has man acquired it since?
O.M. No. I think he has no intuitions of any kind. He
gets ALL his ideas, all his impressions, from the outside. I
keep repeating this, in the hope that I may impress it upon you
that you will be interested to observe and examine for yourself
and see whether it is true or false.
Y.M. Where did you get your own aggravating notions?
O.M. From the OUTSIDE. I did not invent them. They are
gathered from a thousand unknown sources. Mainly UNCONSCIOUSLY
gathered.
Y.M. Don’t you believe that God could make an inherently
honest man?
O.M. Yes, I know He could. I also know that He never did
make one.
Y.M. A wiser observer than you has recorded the fact that
“an honest man’s the noblest work of God.”
O.M. He didn’t record a fact, he recorded a falsity. It is windy,
and sounds well, but it is not true. God makes a man with honest
and dishonest POSSIBILITIES in him and stops there. The man’s
ASSOCIATIONS develop the possibilities–the one set or the other.
The result is accordingly an honest man or a dishonest one.
Y.M. And the honest one is not entitled to–
O.M. Praise? No. How often must I tell you that? HE is
not the architect of his honesty.
Y.M. Now then, I will ask you where there is any sense in
training people to lead virtuous lives. What is gained by it?
O.M. The man himself gets large advantages out of it, and
that is the main thing–to HIM. He is not a peril to his
neighbors, he is not a damage to them–and so THEY get an
advantage out of his virtues. That is the main thing to THEM.
It can make this life comparatively comfortable to the parties
concerned; the NEGLECT of this training can make this life a
constant peril and distress to the parties concerned.
Y.M. You have said that training is everything; that
training is the man HIMSELF, for it makes him what he is.
O.M. I said training and ANOTHER thing. Let that other
thing pass, for the moment. What were you going to say?
Y.M. We have an old servant. She has been with us twenty-
two years. Her service used to be faultless, but now she has
become very forgetful. We are all fond of her; we all recognize
that she cannot help the infirmity which age has brought her; the
rest of the family do not scold her for her remissnesses, but at
times I do–I can’t seem to control myself. Don’t I try? I do
try. Now, then, when I was ready to dress, this morning, no
clean clothes had been put out. I lost my temper; I lose it
easiest and quickest in the early morning. I rang; and
immediately began to warn myself not to show temper, and to be
careful and speak gently. I safe-guarded myself most carefully.
I even chose the very word I would use: “You’ve forgotten the
clean clothes, Jane.” When she appeared in the door I opened my
mouth to say that phrase–and out of it, moved by an instant
surge of passion which I was not expecting and hadn’t time to put
under control, came the hot rebuke, “You’ve forgotten them
again!” You say a man always does the thing which will best
please his Interior Master. Whence came the impulse to make
careful preparation to save the girl the humiliation of a rebuke?
Did that come from the Master, who is always primarily concerned
about HIMSELF?
O.M. Unquestionably. There is no other source for any
impulse. SECONDARILY you made preparation to save the girl, but
PRIMARILY its object was to save yourself, by contenting the
Master.
Y.M. How do you mean?
O.M. Has any member of the family ever implored you to
watch your temper and not fly out at the girl?
Y.M. Yes. My mother.