isolation gives them a certain pride in themselves and an inevitable
ignorance of others. They are secluded by their constitutional
_daimon_ from life; they are repelled from the pursuits which others
care for; they are alarmed at the amusements which others enjoy. In
consequence, they trust in their own thoughts; they come to magnify
both them and themselves,--for being able to think and to retain them.
The greater the nature of the man, the greater is this temptation. His
thoughts are greater, and in consequence the greater is his tendency to
prize them, the more extreme is his tendency to overrate them. This
pride, too, goes side by side with a want of sympathy. Being aloof
from others, such a mind is unlike others; and it feels, and sometimes
it feels bitterly, its own unlikeness. Generally, however, it is too
wrapped up in its own exalted thoughts to be sensible of the pain of
moral isolation; it stands apart from others, unknowing and unknown.
It is deprived of moral experience in two ways,--it is not tempted
itself, and it does not comprehend the temptations of others. And this
defect of moral experience is almost certain to produce two effects,
one practical and the other speculative. When such a man is wrong, he
will be apt to believe that he is right. If his own judgment err, he
will not have the habit of checking it by the judgment of others: he
will be accustomed to think most men wrong; differing from them would
be no proof of error, agreeing with them would rather be a basis for
suspicion. He may, too, be very wrong, for the conscience of no man is
perfect on all sides. The strangeness of secluded excellence will be
sometimes deeply shaded by very strange errors. To be commonly above
others, still more to think yourself above others, is to be below them
every now and then, and sometimes much below. Again, on the
speculative side, this defect of moral experience penetrates into the
distinguishing excellence of the character,--its brooding and
meditative religion. Those who see life under only one aspect can see
religion under only one likewise. This world is needful to interpret
what is beyond; the seen must explain the unseen. It is from a tried
and a varied and a troubled moral life that the deepest and truest idea
of God arises. The ascetic character wants these; therefore in its
religion there will be a harshness of outline,--a bareness, so to
say,--as well as a grandeur. In life we may