Where, then, is the great defect which yet continually makes our practical judgments quite wrong; which makes us, in fact, so often countenance and support evil, and discountenance and discourage good? First, it is owing to the spirit of carelessness. One of the most emphatic terms by which a good man is expressed in the language of the Greek philosophers, is that of [Greek: opdouiaos], "one who is in earnest." To be in earnest is, indeed, with, most of us, the same as to be good; it is not that we love evil, but that we are indifferent both to it and to good. Now, many of us are very seldom in earnest. By this I mean, that the highest part of our minds, and that which judges of the highest things, is generally slumbering or but half awake. We may go through, a very busy day, and yet not be, in this true sense, in earnest at all; our best faculties may, as it were, be all the while sleeping or playing. It is notorious how much this is so in the common intercourse of society in the world. Light anecdotes; playful remarks; discussions, it may be, about the affairs of the neighbourhood, or, in some companies, on questions of science or party politics; all these may be often heard; but we may talk on all these brilliantly and well, and yet our best nature may not once be called to exert itself. So again, in mere routine business, it is the same: the body may toil; the pen move swiftly; the thoughts act in the particular matter before them vigorously; and yet we our proper selves, beings understanding and choosing between good and evil, have never bestirred ourselves at all. It has been but a skirmishing at the outposts; not a sword had been drawn in the main battle. Take younger persons, and the same thing is the case even more palpably. Here there is less of business in the common sense of the term; the mind is almost always unbraced and resting. We pass through the good and evil of our daily life, and our proper self scarcely ever is aroused to notice either the one or the other.
But the worst of it is, that this carelessness is not altogether accidental: it is a carelessness which we do not wish to break. So long as it lasts, we manage to get the activity and interest of life, without a sense of its responsibility. We like exceedingly to lay the reins, as it were, upon the neck of our inclinations, to go where they take us, and to ask no questions whether we are in the right road or no. Inclination is never slumbering: this gives us excitement enough to save us from weariness, without the effort of awakening our conscience too. Therefore society, expressing in its rules the feelings of its individual members, prescribes exactly such a style of conversation as may keep in exercise all other parts of our nature except that one which should be sovereign of all, and whose exercise is employed on things eternal.