66 
was impossible to do wrong contrary to its dictates.* This con- 
clusion, however strange it may seem to those who have never 
considered the subject, is positively true. That state of moral 
wickedness which Milton has attributed to the devil, when he 
puts into the mouth of Satan the words, “ Evil, be thou my 
good, 3 ’ is not possible to man as long as he retains his human 
nature. His constitution compels him to will his own happi- 
ness ; and he cannot deliberately will his own misery. It is 
therefore impossible for him to pursue a course of action as 
long as he retains a clear conviction, in active energy, that 
it is destructive of his own happiness. It is necessary to 
destroy the conviction before this evil course can be entered 
on. The truth of this will be admitted if we carefully ana- 
lyse what invariably takes place, whenever a temptation 
is yielded to. The mind plays off a sophism on itself, the 
inclinations impelling it to do so. It knows that a particular 
act is wrong. Before it can perform this act, it is necessary 
either to destroy the conviction or make it become latent. 
This forms the first step in the process of yielding to tempta- 
tion. We either persuade ourselves that the act is not so 
great a violation of the moral law as w e took it to be j or that 
though it may be abstractedly a violation, it is not so under 
the particular circumstances. We then persuade ourselves 
that the observance of the moral law is not only not essential 
to our happiness, but that in restraining us from the par- 
ticular gratification it is subversive of it. When we have 
arrived at this stage the act becomes a possibility, but nofc till 
then. Let us take as an example the case of a man who 
yields through temptation to the solicitations of intemperance. 
He has a conviction that drunkenness is contrary to his well- 
being, As long as this exists as an active conviction in his 
mind, he is withheld from the gratification. Such a conviction, 
in the language of Christianity, is faith. He knows, however, 
that the particular act will be pleasant. Before he can yield 
he is compelled to extinguish the conviction by contemplating 
the pleasure of the particular act. The power of resistance, 
or the contrary, is determined by the degree in which the 
conviction or the particular act is contemplated by the mind. 
The one is the victory of faith, and the other of vice. The 
strength of the desire acquires additional force by the act of 
contemplation, until our moral vision becomes darkened, and 
practises on itself a deliberate act of self-deception. 
45. This analysis of temptation, which is strictly in con- 
* Such was the conclusion arrived at both by Plato and Aristotle. 
