O.M. Oh, a million unnoticed influences—for good or bad: influences
which work without rest during every waking moment of a man’s life,
from cradle to grave.
Y.M. You have tabulated these?
O.M. Many of them—yes.
Y.M. Will you read me the result?
O.M. Another time, yes. It would take an hour.
Y.M. A conscience can be trained to shun evil and prefer good?
O.M. Yes.
Y.M. But will it for spirit-contenting reasons only?
O.M. It _can’t_ be trained to do a thing for any _other_ reason. The
thing is impossible.
Y.M. There _must_ be a genuinely and utterly self-sacrificing act
recorded in human history somewhere.
O.M. You are young. You have many years before you. Search one out.
Y.M. It does seem to me that when a man sees a fellow-being struggling
in the water and jumps in at the risk of his life to save him—
O.M. Wait. Describe the _man_. Describe the _fellow-being_. State if
there is an _audience_ present; or if they are _alone_.
Y.M. What have these things to do with the splendid act?
O.M. Very much. Shall we suppose, as a beginning, that the two are
alone, in a solitary place, at midnight?
Y.M. If you choose.
O.M. And that the fellow-being is the man’s daughter?
Y.M. Well, n-no—make it someone else.
O.M. A filthy, drunken ruffian, then?
Y.M. I see. Circumstances alter cases. I suppose that if there was no
audience to observe the act, the man wouldn’t perform it.
O.M. But there is here and there a man who _would_. People, for
instance, like the man who lost his life trying to save the child from
the fire; and the man who gave the needy old woman his twenty-five
cents and walked home in the storm—there are here and there men like
that who would do it. And why? Because they couldn’t _bear_ to see a
fellow-being struggling in the water and not jump in and help. It would
give _them_ pain. They would save the fellow-being on that account.
_They wouldn’t do it otherwise_. They strictly obey the law which I
have been insisting upon. You must remember and always distinguish the
people who _can’t bear_ things from people who _can_. It will throw
light upon a number of apparently “self-sacrificing” cases.
Y.M. Oh, dear, it’s all so disgusting.
O.M. Yes. And so true.
Y.M. Come—take the good boy who does things he doesn’t want to do, in
order to gratify his mother.
O.M. He does seven-tenths of the act because it gratifies _him_ to
gratify his mother. Throw the bulk of advantage the other way and the
good boy would not do the act. He _must_ obey the iron law. None can
escape it.