reason, to understand them, to understand why they act thus and thus,
what their difficulties are, what their 'explanation' is, and how
friction can be avoided. So I ought to reflect, morning after morning,
until my brain is saturated with the cases of these individuals. Here is
a course of discipline. If I follow it I shall gradually lose the
preposterous habit of blaming, and I shall have laid the foundations of
that quiet, unshakable self-possession which is the indispensable
preliminary of conduct according to reason, of thorough efficiency in
the machine of happiness. But something in me, something distinctly
base, says: 'Yes. The put-yourself-in-his-place business over again! The
do-unto-others business over again!' Just so! Something in me is ashamed
of being 'moral.' (You all know the feeling!) Well, morals are naught
but another name for reasonable conduct; a higher and more practical
form of egotism--an egotism which, while freeing others, frees myself. I
have tried the lower form of egotism. And it has failed. If I am afraid
of being moral, if I prefer to cut off my nose to spite my face, well, I
must accept the consequences. But truth will prevail.




VIII

THE DAILY FRICTION


It is with common daily affairs that I am now dealing, not with heroic
enterprises, ambitions, martyrdoms. Take the day, the ordinary day in
the ordinary house or office. Though it comes seven times a week, and is
the most banal thing imaginable, it is quite worth attention. How does