Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul.
He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural
passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such
things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else’s
music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of
life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly — that is
what each of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays.
They have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to
oneself. Of course they are charitable. They feed the hungry, and
clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage
has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror of
society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is the
secret of religion — these are the two things that govern us