I suppose that you will not have the audacity to deny this. And if
you admit it, and still devote no part of your day to the deliberate
consideration of your reason, principles, and conduct, you admit
also that while striving for a certain thing you are regularly
leaving undone the one act which is necessary to the attainment of
that thing.
Now, shall I blush, or will you?
Do not fear that I mean to thrust certain principles upon your
attention. I care not (in this place) what your principles are.
Your principles may induce you to believe in the righteousness of
burglary. I don't mind. All I urge is that a life in which conduct
does not fairly well accord with principles is a silly life; and
that conduct can only be made to accord with principles by means of
daily examination, reflection, and resolution. What leads to the
permanent sorrowfulness of burglars is that their principles are
contrary to burglary. If they genuinely believed in the moral
excellence of burglary, penal servitude would simply mean so many
happy years for them; all martyrs are happy, because their conduct
and their principles agree.
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