The Washington times., 1922-04-24
What we Call Weakness
May Be Strength =,

may Be SLTengCn "a.
n HE ink the train-you know him-he
makes the ink that makes the big letters that may
have come off your gloves
The ink had broken his leg in a carriage accident
He not feeling well enough to have fun, and he
felt philosophical. He said his mind full of ques-
tions and this of them:
hat is the greatest general weakness OF humanity
The ink man thinks that the greatest general weakness
is the lack of secontro He also thinks that too much
imagination is bad thing-that it gets people into
trouble
Lack of selfcontrol, like many other apparent weak
nesses, such excessive imagination, may often
In reality strength and usefulness. So the ink mans
views must be accepted with reservations.
For instance, if Christopher Columbus had combined
perfect selfcontrol with lack Of imagination, he would
have been good, useful, simple mariner, sailing close
to Europes shores until the day of his DEATH But he
adventurous, self reliant imaginative, and he could
not control the impulse to risk his life and the lives Of
others on a trip to which we much indebted.
Imagn took Dante to his Inferno, and enabled
him to build his beautiful "cathedras in words"
Imagination acting regardless of accepted thoughts
and accepted limitations, responsible for all Inventions
and all improvements.
Aristotle could not civilization without slaves
but others who followed him COULD imagine such
civilization, and we have it-or almost have it.
Certain great ones among cannot imagine civllza
ton without trust control without poverty living next
tion-MANY will imagine it, time goes by, and it
will come
I The GREATEST general weakness Of humanity, in
opinion, is INABILITY TO MAKE OURSELVES DO
WHAT WE KNOW WE OUGHT TO DO.
If you belong to the tribe of the wise advisers this
writer belongs to that tribe you know you often tell
a man that he can succeed if HE WILL DO SO AND So
He knows that just we'll you do He knows
what he OUGHT to do better than you do but he
cannot MAKE himself do what he knows he ought to do
Every of u.s. the weakest and the worst, see1
clearly SOME of his mistakes. Every of wants
to do better and wishes that he could do better Our
greatest weakness is that cannot MAKE ourselves
do what would like to do
This applies to the greatest men, well as the
smallest
Bacon with his giant intellect knew that he ought not
to take brbe that he ought not basey to desert the
man that had befriended him.
But his BRAIN certainly of the greatest
created could not make him do what he knew he ought
to do. He took the brbes, he bounded his best friend
to DEATH and suffered in consequence because he had
not the will to MAKE himself do right.
Every gambler at the track in Wall Street
laying the foundation for future failures and dsap
pointment HE knows that he ought not to gamble
you need not tell him that But he has not the WILL,
to keep from doing what he knows will hurt him.
This newspaper talks great deal about whiskey drink
ing IN the hope that young men will be warned before
the evil has taken hold upon them.
But preach rarely to the unfortunate man whom
whiskey has got by the throat He needs preaching
from anybody. He knows better than anybody else.
what he ought to do. Gladly and thankfully he would
let you cut off his right hand if in return you would
give him the strength of will which he lacks.
Our ink man thought also that there was too much
EMOTION in human beings too much sentiment and
that THEY constitute generally weakness Of humanity
But again he deluded ink Those things
indicate strength. From emotion and sentiment get
music poetry the power Of the great actors and singers
of the orator and of the preacher.
Emotion and sentiment important to human
as TO
Yes, lack of power to MAKE ourselves live up to our