and cannot help being affected by what
we do?

If by any chance you are deficient in this feeling yourself, or confused
about it, you have only to look about any where, at any time, and you
will find it in evidence among normal individuals from the days of early
childhood.

A little girl likes to be pretty, to dance well, to sew neatly, to be
helpful to her mother, to be petted, loved, approved.

A little boy wants to be a fast runner, a fine swimmer, a good
fighter--he wants to be strong and brave and self-reliant and many other
things, besides. He admires these qualities in other boys; a feeling of
his inner nature, in accord with his conscience, tells him he would
like to be that kind of a boy, himself. He feels it is the kind that
every one ought to want to be.

And if he is a normal, healthy boy, this feeling arises within him just
as naturally and spontaneously as the feeling which comes to a sensitive
soul in the presence of a sunset, or musical harmonies and tells it they
are beautiful. It is quite apart from any far-sighted calculations of
the intellect concerning the practical use which those qualities may, or
may not, have in after life.

The same thing is true of the little girl and what she admires and
aspires to.

As the youngsters grow up to be men and women, they are still
susceptible to the same sort of feeling, in spite of the fact that many
other more practical and material considerations are liable to creep in
and confuse it, alter it, distort it.

Somewhere, in the inner nature of almost everybody, there persists a
feeling of admiration for the fine and noble qualities of mankind. Some
of those qualities, experience may have demonstrated, are beyond our
personal strength and reach--others may have practical disadvantages,
which our self-interest and our reason over-rule, but as long as the
feeling is there, it keeps whispering to us, however faintly, that we
ought to try to live up to the best that is in us and not be satisfied
with less.

Let us take care to note that this differs completely from another sort
of feeling which cold-blooded cynics are apt to confuse it with. This
other feeling is inspired by greed and controlled by selfish
calculation, and tells certain individuals that by closing their eyes to
what is beautiful and admirable in human nature, and by taking advantage
of any and every opportunity, they may obtain a greater portion of
worldly goods and material pleasures.