Yet, the hunger and thirst many people evince for the victory of these idols is again only a product of their pride and concupiscence. This type of person is apparently enthused with selfless zeal for his idol; the idol may be an unrestrained urge-gratification, an idol of anarchy or of master morality, or of nationalism, or one of many others.

I say apparently, for actually his attitude, though formally it can be assimilated to a selfless zeal, yet, intrinsically and as far as its essential roots are concerned, is as much manifestation of pride and concupiscence as are the more unblushing forms of those vices. Nay, to kneel to an idol bom of the spirit of pride may often imply a deeper gratification of pride than the one procured by proud pursuits of a crudely personal kind. The persons in this group, then, are not beneath hunger and thirst, but they do not hunger and thirst after the right thing; they are driven by the zeal of bitterness, the zelus amaritudinis “which separates from God and leads to hell” (Rule of St. Benedict, c. 72).

Egocentric hungering after one’s own happiness

The second group under this division is made up of persons revealing a subtler kind of defect. These are filled with a thirst for genuine and noble gifts of fortune. They long for success in their work, for health and wealth, for freedom and the enjoyment of all beautiful things, for the bliss of loving and being loved, for conjugal happiness: in short, for whatever blessings life may offer. They are not dull and inert, not smug and sated; they know hunger and thirst; nor do they chase illegitimate joys or crave for specious goods.

Still, what they hunger and thirst for is not justice; what keeps them in tension is not value as such; not that aspect of creaturely goods by which they glorify God. Persons of this kind interpret happiness in terms of true and valid goods; yet in their exclusive longing for happiness—the mark of their basic egocentrism—they are ultimately incapable of fully understanding the high goods of life or, in turn, of bringing true happiness to others.

This is easiest to see with reference to the good constituted by a community of love. He alone who does not primarily seek for his happiness, as such, but forgets himself in his value-response to the beloved person—in other words, he alone who is able to give himself—can love in the full and genuine sense of that term. He alone, therefore, can experience the integral happiness of loving and of being loved—the unique mutual vision implied in a deep love-relationship. Yet, in fact the same thing is true, though less strikingly obvious, perhaps, of all high goods of life: our possession of truth, our penetration of the world of beauty (in nature and in art), and of the world of value in general.