But in order that
it may in any wide extent receive this impress of personal life, we
must summon to our aid agencies other than spiritual. The more we
mechanize conduct the better. That is what maturing ourselves means.
When we say that a man has acquired character, we mean that he has
consciously surveyed certain large tracts of life, and has decided
what in those regions it is best to do. There, at least, he will no
longer need to deliberate about action. As soon as a case from this
region presents itself, some electric button in his moral organism is
touched, and the whole mechanism runs off in the surest, swiftest,
easiest possible way. Thus his consciousness is set free to busy
itself with other affairs. For in this third stage we do not so much
abandon consciousness as direct it upon larger units; and this not
because smaller units do not deserve attention, but because they have
been already attended to. Once having decided what is our best mode of
action in regard to them, we wisely turn them over to mechanical
control.
IV
Such is the nature of moral habit. Before goodness can reach
excellence, it must be rendered habitual. Consideration, the mark of
the second stage, disappears in the third. We cannot count a person
honest so long as he has to decide on each occasion whether to take
advantage of his neighbor.
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