was always dirty. These are typical examples of how the sound
instincts of the child are dulled. It was a spontaneous
utterance: of the childish heart when a small boy, after an
account of the heaven of good children, asked his mother
whether she did not believe that, after he had been good a
whole week in heaven, he might be allowed to go to hell on
Saturday evening to play with the bad little boys there.

The child felt in its innermost consciousness that he had a
right to be naughty, a fundamental right which is accorded to
adults; and not only to be naughty, but to be naughty in peace,
to be left to the dangers and joys of naughtiness.

To call forth from this "unvirtue" the complimentary virtue is
to overcome evil with good. Otherwise we overcome natural
strength by weak means and obtain artificial virtues which will
not stand the tests which life imposes.

It seems simple enough when we say that we must overcome evil
with good, but practically no process is more involved, or more
tedious, than to find actual means to accomplish this end. It
is much easier to say what one shall not do than what one must
do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into
prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness
into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by
recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or
perverse, is as natural and indispensable as the good, and that
it becomes a permanent evil only through its one-sided
supremacy.