It is more necessary than ever to direct attention to this method in
our times, when men hope to produce more effect on the mind with soft,
tender feelings, or high-flown, puffing-up pretensions, which rather
wither the heart than strengthen it, than by a plain and earnest
representation of duty, which is more suited to human imperfection and
to progress in goodness. To set before children, as a pattern, actions
that are called noble, magnanimous, meritorious, with the notion of
captivating them by infusing enthusiasm for such actions, is to defeat
our end. For as they are still so backward in the observance of the
commonest duty, and even in the correct estimation of it, this means
simply to make them fantastical romancers betimes. But, even with
the instructed and experienced part of mankind, this supposed spring
has, if not an injurious, at least no genuine, moral effect on the
heart, which, however, is what it was desired to produce.
All feelings, especially those that are to produce unwonted
exertions, must accomplish their effect at the moment they are at
their height and before the calm down; otherwise they effect
nothing; for as there was nothing to strengthen the heart, but only to
excite it, it naturally returns to its normal moderate tone and, thus,
falls back into its previous languor.
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