On Motes and Beams
(There is a nice article that interpret ourselves tolerance differs from others.We should inspire one with
tolerance to oneself as well as to others)
tolerance to oneself as well as to others)
It is curious that our own offenses should seem so much less heinous than the offenses of others.I
suppose the reason is that we know all the circumstances that have occasioned them and so manage to
excuse in ourselves what we cannot excuse in others.We turn our attention away from ouor own
defects,and when we are forced by untoward events to consider them,find it easy to condone them.For
all I know we are right to do this;they are part of us and we must accept the good and bad in
ourselves together.
But when we come to judge others,it is not by ourselves as we really are that we judge them,but by an
image that we have formed of ourselves for which we have left out everything that offends our vanity
or would discredit us in the eyes of the world.To take a trivial instance:how scornful we are when we
catch someone out telling a lie;but who can say that he has never told not one,but a hundred?
There is not much to choose between men.They are all a hotchpotch of greatness and littleness,of
virtue and vice,of nobility and baseness.Some have more strength ov character,or more opportunity,and
so in one direction or another give their instincts freer play,but potentially they are the same.For
my part,I do not think I am any better or any worse than most people,but I know that if I set down
every action in my life and every thought that has crossed my mind,the world would consider me a
monster of depravity.The knowledge that these reveries are common to all men should inspire one with
tolerance to oneself as well as to others.It is well also if they enable us to look upon our
fellows,even the most eminent and respectable,with humor,and if they lead us to take ourselves not too
seriously.
