There is yet another consideration. By the side of the intellectual element, by which we estimate our thoughts and actions, there is feeling; that is, the sensibility which modifies the judgment and enlightens the deep thought determining our responsibility. He who obeys feeling, when the latter is not subject to the control of thought, commits many errors of judgment and lets himself be guided by moods which may lead him into injustice and breach of trust. Let us not forget that justice is truth applied to the things of life. Now, it is precisely the absence of this idea of justice in the modern consciousness which brings us daily face to face with a sort of failure in moral courage, both as regards attack and defence.
Politics during the last few years have furnished us with sad examples of this weakness; letters and the arts have also given us instances, and they are very regrettable from every point of view.
Literary and musical criticism is to be noted particularly for many lapses; science itself is not exempt from dealings which reason disapproves, and it is not even to lack of education that this shortcoming is due. And we find this lack of moral courage in communities which have blindly turned liberty to a revolting slavery.
Consider parliaments, study castes, look closely at groups of individuals served by opinion, and you will see that real characters worthy to inspire the good, the beautiful, and the true are overwhelmed in the host occupied in ruining the popular conscience.
Individual moral courage is what makes the greatness of a people. This form of courage tends to disappear more and more, because everyone is losing the idea of his own responsibility, and, inspired by selfishness, troubles himself not at all to make justice and virtue respected.
How few men we see use their authority to repair an error, punish a lie or any villainy whatsoever! Weakness, hesitation, doubt, lack of initiative, indifference, have taken the place of moral courage, and that through the lack of character-training. As Emerson says: “No change of circumstances can repair a fault of character.... What have I gained ... if I quake at opinion, the public opinion, as we call it; or at the threat of assault, or contumely, or bad neighbours, or poverty, or mutilation, or at the rumour of revolution, or of murder? If I quake, what matters it what I quake at?”
Each of us, then, should in his own sphere of action become conscious of what is right, and not hesitate to struggle, even to the detriment of his private interests, against all false judgment attacking honour, every opinion concealing baseness, every action which is an insult to reason and to the liberty of the individual.