Self-control and how to secure it = (L'éducation de soi-même) / by Paul Dubois ; Authorized translation by Harry Hutcheson Boyd.

  • Paul Charles Dubois
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Self-control and how to secure it = (L'éducation de soi-même) / by Paul Dubois ; Authorized translation by Harry Hutcheson Boyd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    And while our scholar and his companions, and all who may. have heard this tale, may- look twice before jumping a ditch, we, on the contrary, seldom profit morally by our own experience, or by that of others; it seems as if we took pleasure in rolling in the mud. A scalded cat dreads cold water,1 we quote sententiously. Man does not seem to be as logical as the cat, or, if he is in theory, he rarely puts logic into practise. He alone, in spite of evident superiority, loses his way, falls into the same mistakes after having been punished a hundred times, and, when he suf- fers for his fault, accuses events, or his un- lucky star, or reproaches others with having destroyed his happiness. The physician—the most intimate of con- fessors—daily verifies this incredible blind- ness. Whatever may be his capacity for understanding evil, whatever his knowledge of the world, and what his accompanying scepticism in regard to virtue, he goes from wonder to amazement in hearing these confi- dences, and asks himself if he is dreaming. i The English equivalent proverb would be '' A burnt child dreads the fire. [10]