But after all, we must live with ourselves; and it pays
to aim to please not only the evanescent impulses whose disapproval
will soon be forgotten, but that more deeply rooted and insistent
judgment that cannot wholly be stilled. Regret and remorse are among
the greatest poisoners of happiness, and prospective ideals must bear
that truth in mind. "No matter what other elements in any moment of
consciousness may tend to give it agreeable tone, if there is not the
element of approval, there is not yet any deep, wide, and lasting
pleasantness for consciousness. A flash of light here, a casual word
there, and it is gone. "Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-
touch; A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus ending
from Euripides, And that's enough" to bring the shock of disapproval,
and with it disagreeable feeling- tone continues till disapproval is
removed or approval is won. If there be won this approval, other
elements of disagreeableness, however great, can be endured. The
massive movement of the complex unified consciousness of a Socrates
drinking hemlock, of a Jesus dying on the cross, whatever strong eddies
of pain there be in it, is still toned agreeably, as it makes head
conqueringly toward that end which each has ideally constructed as
fit." [Footnote: H. G. Lord, in Essays Philosophical and Psychological
in Honor of William James, p. 388-89.] No reference has been made,
in this summary of the factors which determine our estimate of the
worth of personal ideals, to the bearing of these ideals upon other
people's lives.
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