MORAL BIAS IN HUMAN NATURE 75 



Son of God. What was implied in that testi- 

 mony? That He had creative power. Then, turn 

 these stones into bread : for His hunger furnished 

 a real occasion. If He be the Son of God, then 

 it is very desirable that some unmistakable sign 

 should be given to the people that they might be- 

 lieve it. Then, cast Thyself down from a pin- 

 nacle of the temple and let the people see that 

 angels from heaven bear Thee up and no harm 

 comes to Thee. If He be the Son of God, it is 

 very necessary that all of earth's forces, evil as 

 well as good, shall unite in the formation of His 

 Kingdom. Then fall down at the feet of Satan; 

 make some compromise with evil ; seek an alliance 

 with the powers of a degenerate world, and they 

 will all join in bringing the world to Thy feet. 

 All the objects presented in these temptations are 

 legitimate. All of them Jesus sincerely desired 

 to encompass, and His desire was commensurate 

 in intensity with the passion of His nature. But 

 the means in each case was illegitimate, and the 

 moral divergence of means and end furnished to 

 Him, and the same divergence may furnish to 

 us, an intense conflict, a fierce temptation. 



We then have to do in normal human nature 

 with the double impulse one toward sensuous 

 gratification, and one toward spiritual or tem- 

 peramental exaggeration. The flesh says : indulg- 

 ence without limit; the mind says: indulgence as 

 a means toward a higher purpose only. One of 

 the elements of the spirit says : let me develop re- 



