But Morality does not possess the sanction of punishment alone, it has
also the more amiable one of reward. We have seen that by strengthening
the faculty of inhibition it raises the individual to a higher level of
organic development, that by the inculcation of consideration and
neighbourly kindness it affords the community the possibility of working
together peacefully and profitably. But it does more than that. It gives
life an incomparably higher value than when it is dull and uniform, by
enriching and beautifying it with heroism and with ideals.
Ideals and heroism are direct creations of Morality and inconceivable
without it. The ideal is a conception of perfection; the thought of
attaining it is accompanied by the most pleasurable emotions, and the
individual regards it as his life's task to strive for it. The struggle
for the ideal implies effort at all times, renunciation of the ease of a
thoughtless and care-free existence, an endless series of difficult
victories over appetites clamouring for immediate satisfaction, that is,
constant work in the service of Morality. He who has an ideal is never
troubled by the problem of the meaning of life. His life has an aim and
significance. He knows whither he goes, why he lives, for what he works.
He knows nothing of the doubts of the aimless wanderer, of the
discouraging consciousness of one's own uselessness, and his assurance,
his conviction that his efforts are useful and worthy come very near to
happiness. Heroism is the noblest victory of a thinking and volitional
personality over selfishness; it is altruism which rises to
self-sacrifice, the proud subjugation by Reason of the most primitive
and powerful of all instincts, that of self-preservation. It is the
highest achievement of which Morality is capable. It is never developed
for the profit of an individual, but always for that of a community, for
a thought, for an ideal. His heroic conduct raises the hero out of the
rut of his existence, liberates him from the trammels of his
individuality and enlarges this to represent a community, its longings,
its resolutions, its determination. At the moment of his heroic action
the hero lives innumerable lives, the lives of all for whom he risks his
own, and if death reaches him, it can destroy only his single person,
but cannot put an end to the dynamic activity of the community which is
included in the hero, while he is magnificently elevated far above
himself. The faculty of forming an ideal of existence and activity, and
of rising to the heights of heroism, is the royal reward of Morality
which the perfect subjection of animal instincts to the rule of human
Reason has achieved. Its punishment for those retrograde individuals who
never learn to control their instinctive reflex actions is that they are
denied the sight of the glory of the ideal, that heroism is unknown and
incomprehensible to them, that they lead their lives fettered and
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