Adolescence

In adolescence, in early adult life, there comes a heavy strain on these two ideas, and unless we have built as we ought, some portion of the edifice will be in danger of falling. The point is, that we must somehow manage to build these two ideas together; we must adjust and fit them together, giving[33] to each of them its due place in the house of life, not opposing but conjoining them to each other, as a builder conjoins bricks and mortar. It is a true saying, “The reasonable soul and flesh is one man.”

Please observe that they not are, but is, one man; they are so closely united that they is one man. It follows, that what we call temptation addresses itself not to the flesh alone, but also to the reasonable soul. Consider the predicament of a young man who up to now has, as we call it, “kept straight.” All round him, day after day, newspapers and books and shop windows and theatres, and other men’s talk, and the look of the crowd in the streets, are alluding to it.