THE TEMPTATION TO SEIZE THE IDEAL

 
In this world of innumerable frailties, the greatest of all frailties is the common fault of not being able to face, accept and acknowledge one's own weaknesses. This is the frailty of all frailties. It gives rise to hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is said to be the tribute which vice pays to virtue.

In contrast with the world of facts man builds out of his inspired imagination another world of ideals. Sometimes he imaginatively transports himself into the world of ideals; sometimes he reverts to his realistic world of facts; and occasionally he tries to bridge the gulf between them by actually and laboriously traversing the path with slow and bleeding steps.

The temptation to seize the ideal imaginatively and pose as having realized it is so irresistible that there are very few who do not succumb to it. This is the origin of the fraudulent saint or the spiritual jingo, who walks and talks with his nose in the air and arms akimbo as if he were somebody very special.