If
you are a coward, you must not volunteer to lead a forlorn hope. The
advantage of self-knowledge is that it enables us to prescribe for
ourselves the contemplation of such principles and motives as we
need. If our thought is narrow and our fancy cold, we should study the
maxims that instruct,--as, "Joys are wings, sorrows are spurs." If
our heart is faint and our will weak, we should study the maxims that
inspire,--as, "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it."
The instructive maxim opens a vista of truth to the intellect, as when
Goethe said, "A man need not be an architect in order to live in a
house." The inspiring maxim strikes a martial chord in the soul,
as when Alexander said to his Greeks, shrinking at the sight of
the multitudinous host of Persians, "One butcher does not fear many
sheep." The evil of self-ignorance is, that it permits men to choose
as their favorite and guiding maxims those adages which express and
foster their already rampant propensities, leaving their drooping
deficiencies to pine and cramp in neglect. The miser pampers his
avarice by repeating a hundred times a day, "A penny saved is a penny
gained": as if that were the maxim _he_ needed! The spend-thrift
comforts and confirms himself in his prodigality by saying, "God
loveth a cheerful giver": as if that were not precisely the saying
he ought never to recall! Audacity and arrogance constantly say to
themselves, "Be bold, be bold, and evermore be bold.
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