Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

357
THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
general prevalence of goodness that constitutes the happiness of those worlds; it will be the
same in your earth when the human race shall have been transformed, and shall rightly
comprehend and practise the law of charity."
895. Besides the defects and vices in regard to which no one can be mistaken, what is the
most characteristic sign of imperfection?
"Selfishness. Virtuous appearances are too often like gilding upon copper, that cannot stand
the application of the touchstone. A man may possess good qualities which make him pass in
the eyes of the world for virtuous, but those qualities, though proving him to have made a
certain amount of progress, may not be capable of standing trial, and the slightest disturbance
of his self-love may suffice to show his real character. Absolute disinterestedness is indeed so
rare a thing in your earth, that you may well regard it with wonder, as something phenomenal.
"Attachment to material things is a sign of inferiority, because the more a man cares for the
things of this world, the less does he understand his destiny; his disinterestedness, on the
contrary, proves that he has arrived at a wider and clearer view of the future."
896. There are persons who are generous, but without discernment, and who lavish their
money without doing any real good, from the want of a reasonable plan for its employment;
is there any merit in their action?
"Such persons have the merit of disinterestedness., but they have not that of the good they
might do. If disinterestedness be a virtue, thoughtless prodigality is always, to say the least of
it, a want of judgment. Fortune is. no more given to some persons to be thrown away than to
others to be locked up in a safe; it is a deposit of which they will have to render an account,
for they will have to answer for all the good they might have done, but failed to do, for all the
tears they might have dried with the money they have wasted on those who had no need of it."
897. Is he to blame who does good, not with a view to obtaining any reward upon the earth,
but in the hope that he will be rewarded for it in the other life, and that his situation there
will be the better for having done it? and will such a calculation act unfavourably on his
advancement?