“But suppose he be known? How few worshippers crowd to his shrine, and what millions to that of the other!”
“And those few, my son, who are they? The wise of the earth, the enlightened patriot, the discerning philosopher. And who are the millions? The ignorant, the prejudiced, and the idle. Nor yet, let us so wrong the reason of our species, as to say, that they always give honor to the mischievous rather than the useful—gratitude to their oppressors, rather than their benefactors. In instances they may be blind, but in the gross they are just. The splendor of action, the daring of enterprise, or the glitter of majesty, may seize their imagination, and so drown their judgment, but never is it the tyranny of power, the wantonness of cruelty, the brutality of vice, which they adore, any more than it is the innocence and usefulness of virtue, which they despise. The united experience of mankind has pronounced virtue to be the great good: nay, so universal is the conviction, that even those who insult her in their practice, bow to her in their understanding. Man is for the most part more fool than knave, more weak than depraved in action, more ignorant than vicious in judgment; and seldom is he so weak and so ignorant, as not to see his own interest, and value him who promotes it. But say, that he often slanders the virtuous, and persecutes the wise; he does it more in error than from depravity. He is credulous, and on the report of malice, takes virtue for hypocrisy:—he is superstitious, and some of the truths of wisdom appear to him profane. Say he does homage to vice;—you will find when he does it, he believes her to be virtue. Hypocrisy has masked her deformity, or talent decked her with beauty. Is here, then, subject for wrath? Rather, surely, for compassion. Is here matter for disgust? Rather, surely, for exertion. The darker the ignorance, the more praise to the sage who dispels it;—the deeper the prejudice, more fame to the courage which braves it. But may the courage be vain? May the sage fall the victim of the ignorance he combats?—He may; he often has. But ere he engage, knows he not the risk?—The risk is to himself; the profit to mankind. To a benevolent soul, the odds is worth the throw; and though it be against him at the present, he may win it in the future. The sage, whose vision is cleared from the mists of prejudice, can stretch it over the existing age, to the kindling horizon of the succeeding, and see, perhaps, unborn generations weeping the injustice of their fathers, and worshipping those truths which they condemned. Or is it otherwise? Lives he in the old age of the world, and does he see the stream of time flowing through a soil yet more rank with prejudice and evil? Say, then,—were the praise of such a world a fit object of his ambition, or shall he be jealous of the fame which ignorance yields to the unworthy? But any way, my son, it is not the voice of fame that we should seek in the practice of virtue, but the peace of self-satisfaction. The object of the sage is to make himself independent of all that he cannot command within himself. Yet, when I speak of independence, I mean not indifference; while we make ourselves sufficient for ourselves, we need not forget the crowd about us. We are not wise in the contempt of others, but in calm approbation of ourselves.”
“Still dost thou drop thy head, my son?” said the gentle philosopher, laying a hand on the shoulder of his young friend.
“Your words sink deep into my soul,” replied Theon; “yet they have not chased the melancholy they found there. I have not such a world in myself as to be independent of that about me, nor can I forgive the offences of my fellows, merely because they commit them from ignorance. Nay, is not their very ignorance often a crime, when the voice of truth is whispering in their ear?”
“And if they do not hear her whisper in the one ear, it is because prejudice is crying aloud into the other.”
“Prejudice! I hate prejudice,” said Theon.
“And so do I,” said the Master.
“Yes, but I am provoked with it.”
“I suspect that will not remove the evil.”
“Nothing will remove it. It is inherent in men’s nature.”