spiritual beings. Nature is unfit for honor. We may admire her, may
wish that our ways were like hers, and envy her great law-abiding
calm. But it would be foolish to praise her, or even to blame when her
volcanoes overwhelm our friends. We praise spirit only, conscious
deeds. Where self-directed action forces its path to a worthy goal, we
rightly praise the director.

Now, if all this is true, there seems often-times a strange
unsuitableness in praise. We may well decline to receive it. To praise
some of our good qualities, pretty fundamental ones too, often strikes
us as insulting. You are asked a sudden question and put in a
difficult strait for an answer. "Yes," I say, "but you actually did
tell the truth. I wish to congratulate you. You were successful and
deserve much praise." But who would feel comfortable under such
eulogy? And why not? If telling the truth is a spiritual excellence
and the result of effort, why should it not be praised? But there lies
the trouble. I assumed that to be a truth-teller required strain on
your part. In reality it would have required greater strain for
falsehood. It might then seem that I should praise those who are not
easily excellent, since I am forbidden to praise those who are. And
something like this seems actually approved. If a boy on the street,
who has been trained hardly to distinguish truth from lies, some day
stumbles into a bit of truth, I may justly praise him. "Splendid
fellow! No word of falsehood there!" But when I see the father of his
country bearing his little hatchet, praise is unfit; for George
Washington cannot tell a lie.

Absurd as this conclusion appears, I believe it states our soundest
moral judgment; for praise never escapes an element of disparagement.
It implies that the unexpected has happened. If I praise a man for