"Many deceive themselves greatly and become their own seducers by imagining that they possess those virtues, the sins contrary to which they do not commit. The absence of a vice and the possession of its contrary virtue are very different things.
"To be without folly is, indeed, to have the beginning of wisdom, but it is a beginning so feeble as by itself scarcely to deserve the name of wisdom.
"Abstaining from evil is a very different thing from doing good, although this abstaining is of itself a species of good: it is like the plan of a building compared with the building itself. Virtue does not consist so much in habit as in action. Habit is in itself an indolent sort of quality, which, indeed, inclines us to do good, but does no more, unless inclination be followed by action.
"How shall he who has no one in command set over him learn obedience? He who is never contradicted, patience? He who has no superior, humility? And how shall he who, like a misanthrope, flies from intercourse with other men, notwithstanding that he is obliged to love them as himself, how shall he, I say, learn brotherly love?
"There are many virtues which cannot be practised in solitude; above all, mercy, upon the exercise of which we shall be questioned and judged at the last day; and of which it is said: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."[3]
[Footnote 1: Osee ii. 14.]
[Footnote 2: Eccle. iv. 10.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 7.]
UPON VANITY.
It is a vanity of the understanding to think ourselves more than we really are; but it is a far more dangerous vanity of the will to aspire to a condition higher than our own, and to persuade ourselves that we are deserving of it. He who thinks himself to be more than he is has in his mind some picture of content and satisfaction, and consequently some sort of tranquillity like one who finds his peace and repose in his riches.
But he who aspires to a condition more exalted than his own is in a constant state of disquietude, like the needle of the compass which trembles incessantly until it points to the north. An ancient proverb makes the happiness of this life to consist in wishing to be what we are and nothing more.
Quod sis esse velis, nihilque malis.