450 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. XIV. 



Here, again, the effect may be very different according 

 to the mode in which the sensation of grief is applied, and 

 the result is rendered complicated on account of the identity 

 between the punisher and the punished. 



The legitimate application of the emotion of grief is of 

 course to the wrong act, so as to associate the act and all 

 that belongs to it with this painful emotion, and so diminish 

 the tendency to repeat the act. 



But the association may not be strong enough, or the 

 emotion of grief may altogether miss its mark, and may 

 concentrate attention on itself, and so become transformed 

 into self-pity, a very complex emotion, in which the sweet 

 is so mingled with the bitter, that its ultimate effect on our 

 conduct becomes very uncertain ; the most probable result, 

 however, being that on future occasions what should have 

 been contrition passes still more easily into self-pity, and 

 the whole performance assumes the character of a graceful 

 play of feelings which we enjoy rather than suffer. 



But though such perversions of feeling may occur, there 

 is no doubt that men do make successful use of self-inflicted 

 discipline as a means of influencing their own conduct. The 

 lower degrees of such discipline are put in practice when- 

 ever we have to change our habits in the most minute 

 particular. Without it we could not improve our pro- 

 nunciation or our handwriting. 



The great difficulty, however, in providing for the 

 punishment being applied in the right quarter, when the 

 punisher is identical with the punished person, has led to 

 the adoption of various imperfect solutions of the problem of 

 penance, in some of which the discipline is inflicted by the 

 arms on some other part of the body, and in others hunger 

 is brought into play by abstaining from food. But in no 

 sacrament is the intention of the administrator of such vital 

 importance as in self-penance. Spenser tells us how the 

 Red-Cross Knight underwent discipline under the directions 

 of Patience. 



But yet the cause and root of all his ill, 

 Inward corruption and infected sin, 



