Y.M. What is that?
O.M. That in both cases the man’s act
gave him no spiritual discomfort, and that he was
quite satisfied with it and got pleasure out of it.
But afterward when it resulted in pain to him,
he was sorry. Sorry it had inflicted pain upon
the others, but for no reason under
the sun except that their
pain gave him pain. Our consciences
take no notice of pain inflicted upon others
until it reaches a point where it gives pain to us.
In all cases without exception we are absolutely
indifferent to another person’s pain until his
sufferings make us uncomfortable. Many an infidel
would not have been troubled by that Christian mother’s
distress. Don’t you believe that?
Y.M. Yes. You might almost say it of the
average infidel, I think.
O.M. And many a missionary, sternly fortified
by his sense of duty, would not have been troubled
by the pagan mother’s distress—Jesuit
missionaries in Canada in the early French times, for
instance; see episodes quoted by Parkman.
Y.M. Well, let us adjourn. Where have
we arrived?
O.M. At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed
ourselves with a number of qualities to which we have
given misleading names. Love, Hate, Charity,
Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on.
I mean we attach misleading meanings to the names.
They are all forms of self-contentment, self-gratification,
but the names so disguise them that they distract our
attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled
a word into the dictionary which ought not to be there
at all—Self-Sacrifice. It describes
a thing which does not exist. But worst of all,
we ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse which
dictates and compels a man’s every act:
the imperious necessity of securing his own approval,
in every emergency and at all costs. To it we
owe all that we are. It is our breath, our heart,
our blood. It is our only spur, our whip, our
goad, our only impelling power; we have no other.
Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses;
no one would do anything, there would be no progress,
the world would stand still. We ought to stand
reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous
power is uttered.
Y.M. I am not convinced.
O.M. You will be when you think.
Instances in Point
Old Man. Have you given thought to the Gospel
of Self-Approval since we talked?
Young Man. I have.
O.M. It was I that moved you to it. That
is to say an outside influence moved you
to it—not one that originated in your head.
Will you try to keep that in mind and not forget
it?
Y.M. Yes. Why?
O.M. Because by and by in one of our talks,
I wish to further impress upon you that neither you,
nor I, nor any man ever originates a thought in his
own head. The utterer of A thought
always utters A second-hand one.
