7. If you desire something so much that you feel you can not restrain yourself, do not trust yourself. It is untrue that a man can not restrain himself from anything. Only he can not restrain himself who has in advance convinced himself that he can not restrain himself.
8. Let every man, even a mere youth, examine his life; and if you regret but once having refrained from doing even that which is good and which you ought to do, there will be hundreds of instances causing you to regret having done that which is not good and which you oi^ht not to have done.
II. Consequences of Unrestraint
1. Less harm results from not doing that which we ought to do than from failing to forbear doing that which we ought not to do.
2. Lack of restraint in one action weakens our power of restraint in another. The habit of unrestraint is a secret current beneath the foundation of a house. Such a structure is bound to collapse.
3. It is worse to overdo than not to do enough. It is worse to be hasty than to be tardy.
The pangs of conscience are keener for what you have done than for what you have failed to do.
4. The more difficult is a situation the less action it calls for. It is by activity that we generally spoil that which is commencing to mend.
5. The majority of men known as mean have become so through accepting their evil temper as something lawful and through yielding to it without making an effort to restrain themselves.
6. If you feel that you have not the strength to restrain yourself from a physical craving, the cause will be found in the fact that you failed to restrain yourself when you could and the craving has become a habit.
III.
Not All Activity is Worthy of Respect
1. It is a great error to think that activity as such, without taking into consideration what it consists of, is something honorable and worthy of esteem. The question is wherein does this activity consist and under what conditions does the person concerned refrain from action.
2. People frequently proudly abstain from innocent amusements saying that they have no time for them, that they are busy. Yet apart from the fact that a goodnatured and merry game is more needful and important than many kinds of business, the very business for the sake of which they forego pleasure is frequently of such nature that it were better left undone.
3. Fussy superficial activity is not only unnecessary, but is directly harmful to the genuine progress of life. Without the distractions afforded by the labors of others, doing nothing is a most painful condition (if it be not filled with inner labors), and therefore if a man lives outside*of a state of luxury which is furnished by the labor of others,
he will not be idle. The principal harm does not come from idleness but from doing that which is unnecessary and is injuriouB.
IV.
Man Can Only Then Restrain Himself From Evil Habits When He Realizes That He is a Spiritual and
Not a Physical Being
1. In order to learn restraint man must learn to divide himself into a physical and a spiritual man and to compel the physical man to do not that he desires but that which the spiritual man desires.
2. When the soul is asleep and inactive, the body irresistibly obeys the manifestation of those feelings which are evoked in it by the actions of the people around. When these people yawn, it yawns also; when they are excited, it also becomes excited; when they are angry, it also is stngry; when they are moved and weep, it also sheds tears.
This involuntary subjection to outward stimulations is the cause of many evil actions which are out of harmony with the dictates of the conscience. Watch out against these external influences and refuse to yield to them.
3. Only if you have trained the physical man from childhood to obey the spiritual man will you find it easy to restrain yourself from your desires. The man who has learned to restrain himself from his desires will find life in this world joyful and easy.
V.
The More You Combat Unrestraint the Easier the
Struggle Becomes
1. Between man's reason and his passions there exists a state of civil war. Man could have a little rest if he had
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THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 57
reason without passions or even passion without reason. But having both, he can not escape a struggle, he can not be at peace with the one without fighting against the other. He is always at war within himself. And this war is a necessity: it is life. Pascal
2. In order to esteem others as ourselves, and to do unto them as we would that they do unto us (and herein is the principal concern in life) we must be master of our own self, and in order to be master of our own self, we must train ourselves for it.
3. Every time that you greatly desire to do anything, stop and think: is that which you so greatly desire truly good?
4. In order not to commit any evil act, it is not enough to abstain from the act itself; learn to abstain from evil conversation, and especially refrain from evil thoughts. As soon as you observe that a conversation is evil—^if you ridicule, condemn or abuse another—stop, be silent, don't listen. Do the same when evil thoughts enter your head: are you thinking evil of your neighbor (it is all the same whether your neighbor is deserving of criticism or not), stop and try to think of something else.
Only when you learn to abstain from evil words and evil thoughts will you have strength to abstain from evil deeds.
5. No matter how often you fall without attaining victory over your passions, do not lose courage. Each effort of the struggle lessens the power of passion and facilitates victory over it.
6. The driver does not abandon his reins because he fails to stop his horses at once, but continues to hold them— and the horses halt. Even so with our passions: if yoii i^\V
once, keep on struggling, and finally you will be the master and not your passions.
7. Every passion in the heart of man is first a suppliant, then a guest and finally the master of the house. Try and repel such a suppliant, do not open before him the doors of your heart.
VI.
Tfie Value of Restraint to Individuals and to the
Human Race
1. If you would be free, teach yourself to restrain your desires.
2. Who is wise? He who learns a little from everybody. Who is rich ? He who is content with his lot. Who is strong? He who restrains himself. Talmud.
3. Some say that Christianity is the doctrine of weakness because it does not prescribe acts but mainly the refraining from acts. Christianity a doctrine of weakness! A fine doctrine of weakness, the founder of which died a martyr on the cross rather than be untrue to himself, and among whose followers there are numbered thousands of martyrs, the only people who boldly faced the evil and withstood it. The tyrants of old who put Christ to death, and the present day tyrants know full well what sort of a doctrine of weakness it is, and they dread this doctrine above all things. They feel instinctively that this doctrine alone will most surely destroy and uproot that order of things which they maintain. Much more strength is required to abstain from evil than to perform the most difficult act which we account good.
4. All distinctions of our wordly estate are as nothing compared with the dominion of man over self. If a man fall into the sea, it does not matter whence he fell or into
what sea. The only essential thing is can he swim or not. Strength is not in external conditions but in the art of self-mastery.
5. True strength is not in him who overcomes others but in him who overcomes himself, who does not let the animal in him have mastery over his soul.
6. He who yields himself up to passionate desires, he who seeks gratification, his passions gather ever new strength and ultimately bind him with chains. He who succeeds in overcoming his passions bursts his chains.