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LONDON:

PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,

MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.c.

THOUGHTS OF A PHYSICIAN.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-DECEPTION.

Two men may be alike in habitually failing to act up to the promptings of their higher and better life, but so differ in self-knowledge as to be different characters. The one, with clear self-knowledge, knows with painful accuracy the amount of his deviations, regrets them constantly, and does not amend. Evil inclinations are too strong for his sense of duty, and his will becomes the servant of his baser nature. He does not resist, although he knows he shall suffer for it. He does not attempt to palliate himself to himself; he is not self-deceived; he understands his weakness much better than his friends know it; and if regret, and shame, and melancholy, and remorse, were sufficient punishment, he would expiate his faults even here. But, with all

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