=Negative Phase=:--Self-control. A negative aspect of self-control, restraint, inhibition is everywhere involved.[186] It is not, however, desire, or appetite, or passion, or impulse, which has to be checked (much less eliminated); it is rather that tendency of desire and passion so to engross attention as to destroy our sense of the other ends which have a claim upon us. This moderation of pretension is indispensable for every desire. In one direction, it is modesty, humility; the restraint of the tendency of self-conceit to distort the relative importance of the agent's and others' concerns; in another direction, it is chastity; in another, "temperance" in the narrower sense of that word--keeping the indulgence of hunger and thirst from passing reasonable bounds; in another, it is calmness, self-possession--moderation of the transporting power of excitement; in yet another, it is discretion, imposing limits upon the use of the hand, eye, or tongue. In matters of wealth, it is decent regulation of display and ostentation. In general, it is prudence, control of the present impulse and desire by a view of the "long run," of proximate by remote consequences.[187] =Positive Phase: Reverence.=--The tendency of dominant passion is to rush us along, to prevent our thinking. The one thing that desire emphasizes is, for the time being, the most important thing in the universe. This is necessary to heartiness and effectiveness of interest and behavior. But it is important that the thing which thus absorbs desire should be an end capable of justifying its power to absorb. This is possible only if it expresses the entire self. Otherwise capacities and desires which will occur later will be inconsistent and antagonistic, and conduct will be unregulated and unstable. The underlying idea in "temperance" is then a care of details for the sake of the whole course of behavior of which they are parts; heedfulness, painstaking devotion. Laxness in conduct means carelessness; lack of regard for the whole life permits temporary inclinations to get a sway that the outcome will not justify. In its more striking forms, we call this care and respect _reverence_; recognition of the unique, invaluable worth embodied in any situation or act of life, a recognition which checks that flippancy of surrender to momentary excitement coming from a superficial view of behavior. A sense of momentous issues at stake means a sobering and deepening of the mental attitude. The consciousness that every deed of life has an import clear beyond its immediate, or first significance, attaches dignity to every act. To live in the sense of the larger values attaching to our passing desires and deeds is to be possessed by the virtue of temperance.