Those who by some misfortune of character or upbringing are incapable of
this practice must make up their minds to face the abuse which their
successful practice of inconsistency will entail. They will not, if they
are wise, cultivate hypocrisy, not because the practice will damage them
in the esteem of their colleagues and neighbours, for, on the contrary,
it will enhance their repute, but because it will damage their own
self-respect. They would know that they were right in following fact and
fortune, and yet would be making a public admission that they were
wrong.



XIII


PREJUDICE


The most common, and, perhaps, the most serious of vices is prejudice.
It is a thing imbibed with one's mother's milk, fortified by all one's
youthful surroundings, and only broken through, if at all, by experience
of the world and a deliberate mental effort.

Prejudice is, indeed, a vice in the most serious sense of the term. It
is more damaging and corroding in its effects than most of the evil
habits which are usually described by that term. It is destructive of
judgment and devastating in its effect on the mentality because it is a
symptom of a narrowness of outlook on the world. The man who can learn
to outlive prejudice has broken through an iron ring which binds the