"
"But," I said, "there are a good many people who attain to a sensible,
well-balanced kind of temperance, after perhaps a few failures, from a
purely prudential motive. What is the worth of that?"
"Very small indeed," said my teacher. "In fact, the prudential morality,
based on motives of health and reputation and success, is a thing that
has often to be deliberately unlearnt at a later stage. The strange
catastrophes which one sees so often in human life, where a man by one
act of rashness, or moral folly, upsets the tranquil tenor of his
life--a desperate love-affair, a passion of unreasonable anger, a piece
of quixotic generosity--are often a symptom of a great effort of the
soul to free itself from prudential considerations. A good thing done
for a low motive has often a singularly degrading and deforming
influence on the soul. One has to remember how terribly the heavenly
values are obscured upon earth by the body, its needs and its desires;
and current morality of a cautious and sensible kind is often worse than
worthless, because it produces a kind of self-satisfaction, which is the
hardest thing to overcome.
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