If we train our wills to be passive or active, as the need may be,
in little things, that prepares us for whatever great work may be
before us. just as in the training of a muscle, the daily gentle
exercise prepares it to lift a great weight.
Whether in little ways or in great ways, it is stupid and useless to
expect to gain real strength, unless we are working in obedience to
the laws that govern its development. We have a faculty for
distinguishing order from disorder and harmony from discord, which
grows in delicacy and strength as we use it, and we can only use it
through refusing disorder and choosing order. As our perception
grows, we choose more wisely, and as we choose more wisely, our
perception grows. But our perceptions must work in causes, not at
all in effects, except as they lead us to a knowledge of causes. We
must, above all, train our wills as a means of useful work. It is
impossible to perfect ourselves for the sake of ourselves.
It is a happy thing to have been taught the right use of the will as
a child, but those of us who have not been so taught, can be our own
fathers and our own mothers, and we must be content with a slow
growth. We are like babies learning to walk. The baby tries day
after day, and does not feel any strain, or wake in the morning with
a distressing sense of "Oh! I must practise walking to-day.
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