It is always possible to gain an immediate advantage by disregarding the rules that limit other people, but in so doing one defies the deeper forces of life and sets the mills of the gods at work grinding out his downfall. He may cheat in fulfilling a contract or in a college examination, but he does this at the expense of his own character and standing. “Look at things as they are,” we read in the Republic of Plato, “and you will see that the clever unjust are in the case of runners, who run well from the starting-place to the goal, but not back again from the goal; they go off at a great pace, but in the end only look foolish, slinking away with their ears down on their shoulders, and without a crown; but the true runner comes to the finish and receives the prize and is crowned.” Montaigne held with Plato, and said: “I have seen in my time a thousand men of supple and ambiguous natures, and that no one doubted but they were more worldly-wise than I, ruined where I have saved myself: _Risi successu carere dolos_.”[22] I recall being told by a man of business experience that “sharpness” in a young man was not a trait that promised substantial success, because he was apt to rely upon it and fail to cultivate more substantial qualities. Saint Louis, who was the exemplar of all the virtues of his age, enlarged his dominions, withstood aggression and built up his administration all the more successfully for his saintly character. “He was as good a king as he was a man,” and his unique position as the first prince in Europe “was due not so much to his authority and resources as to the ascendancy won by his personal character and virtues.”[23] Apparently the world is full of injustice; men often get and keep places to which they have no moral right, as judged by the way they function; but the unconscious forces inevitably set to work to correct the wrong, and as a rule, and in due time, the apparent success is revealed as failure. It is a wound against which the moral organism gradually asserts its recuperative energy. Again, wrong-doing is often associated with uncommon ability, which is the real cause of a success that would probably be greater, certainly of a higher kind, if the man were righteous. We cannot expect that a merely passive morality—not to cheat, swear, steal, or the like—should suffice for an active success. That requires positive qualities, like energy, enterprise and tenacity, which are indeed moral forces of the highest order, but may be associated with dishonesty or licentiousness. We might easily offset Saint Louis with a list of great men, more in the style of Napoleon, whose personal behavior was not at all edifying. Since life is a process, and the great thing is to help it along, it is only just that active qualities should succeed.