The sixth Deadly Sin is named by
the Church Acedia or Sloth. In the world it calls itself
Tolerance; but in hell it is called Despair. It is the accomplice of the
other sins and their worst punishment. It is the sin which believes in
nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing,
enjoys nothing, loves nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing.
lives for nothing, and only remains alive because there is nothing it would
die for. We have known it far too well for many years. The only thing
perhaps that we have not known about it is that it is mortal sin.
The war has jerked us pretty
sharply into consciousness about this slug-a-bed sin of Sloth, and perhaps
we need not say too much about it. But two warnings are rather necessary.
First, it is one of the
favourite tricks of this Sin to dissemble itself under cover of a whiffling
activity of body. We think that if we are busily rushing about and doing
things, we cannot be suffering from Sloth. And besides, violent activity
seems to offer an escape from the horrors of Sloth. So the other sins
hasten to provide a cloak for Sloth: Gluttony offers a whirl of dancing,
dining, sports, and dashing very fast from place to place to gape at
beauty-spots; which when we get to them, we defile with vulgarity and
waste. Covetousness rakes us out of bed at an early hour, in order that we
may put pep and hustle into our business: Envy sets us to gossip and
scandal, to writing cantankerous letters to the papers, and to the
unearthing of secrets and the scavenging of dustbins; Wrath provides (very
ingeniously) the argument that the only fitting activity in a world so full
of evildoers and evil demons is to curse loudly and incessantly "Whatever
brute and blackguard made the world"; while Lust provides that round of
dreary promiscuity that passes for bodily vigour. But these are all
disguises for the empty heart and the empty brain and the empty soul of
Acedia.
Let us take particular notice of
the empty brain. Here Sloth is in a conspiracy with Envy to prevent people
from thinking. Sloth persuades us that stupidity is not our sin, but our
misfortune: while Envy at the same time persuades us that intelligence is
despicable—a dusty, highbrow, and commercially useless thing.
And secondly, the War has jerked
us out of Sloth: but wars, if they go on very long, induce Sloth in the
shape of war-weariness and despair of any purpose. We saw its
effects in the last peace, when it brought all the sins in its train. There
are times when one is tempted to say that the great, sprawling, lethargic
sin of Sloth is the oldest and greatest of the sins and the parent of all
the rest.
