It is, after all, the saint alone (and not the ordinary person) who, with any consistency and resolve, conforms themself to the ‘transcendental’.

So that when we encounter a situation where the ‘transcendentals’ (and the values they represent) conflict with our desires, we won’t always conform ourselves to those transcendentals. In fact, most of the time we will not.

For we are naturally selfish (evolution, to some extent, necessitates as much), and thus we tend to want to be conformed to ourselves, rather than to something beyond ourselves, especially when that something would give us nothing ‘material’ in return, and in fact might seem to bring suffering on us.

Difficult, because the seat of our will, or our volition (where such conforming must take place), tends to be weak, and resists sacrifice whenever that sacrifice pertains to ourselves — to the surrendering of what we desire.

Though not just any sacrifice, but the sacrifice of our own appetites and desires (or, more specifically, of the fulfilling of them). Which is why the conforming is difficult.

Which orienting, or conforming, is easier said than done. Because rarely can it be done without sacrifice.

Which is to say that they convince us of their reality, and in so doing do not allow us to ignore, in good conscience, the consequences of that fact, but to orient ourselves to it.

What they ask is that we conform ourselves to them, through a movement or an effort of our will.

Because, to be sure, something is asked of us, once we admit that such ‘transcendentals’ exist, and that they are constantly suggesting themselves to us, both directly and indirectly.

Which isn’t to say that a person who abides by their conscience is never afraid of what will then be asked of them, but only that they will abide by their conscience in spite of that fear.

And a person who will deny that ‘truth’ is ‘truth’, or that ‘beauty’ is ‘beauty’, or that ‘goodness’ is ‘goodness’, even when their conscience tells them not to, does so because they are afraid of what will be asked of them if they do otherwise.

For our conscience will always be straight with us, as it isn’t invested in the protection of our ego the way our psychology is. It always perceives things as they are, given enough information.

Of course, the prerogative of each person who experiences these things is to admit or deny that these things are what they are. But the person who would deny it (or obfuscate their answer, or procrastinate in giving that answer, or otherwise play games, as Pilate does when he says to Jesus, “What is truth?”) does so, I am certain, in violation of their own conscience.

The same might be said of ‘beauty’ and ‘goodness’. These things need no defending, or explaining, insofar as each instance of them is sufficient to communicate to any person who would experience them, or perceive them, that they are in fact what they are.

Which puts me in mind of a quote attributed to Saint Augustine: “The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”

Truth, I should add, in its ‘transcendental’ sense, will never try to possess you or persuade you or make you feel as though you’ve been cornered by it, or even needed by it. You will come to it (if you do come to it at all), but you will always be free to choose not to come to it.

(C.S. Lewis writes about this topic in his book Mere Christianity, in a chapter titled The Law of Human Nature.)

Now, some might argue that such ‘transcendentals’ are relative (as opposed to absolute), and that what a particular culture regards as ‘true’, for example, another might consider ‘untrue’. But cultural differences, while real, are never profound enough to sustain such an argument if those differences are looked at long enough, or in a sufficiently variegated light. Because the differences themselves have more to do with custom and with habit than with value; over time they will slip away, to reveal an abstract truth that is always the same. Even if that truth can be ‘felt’ more readily than it can be ‘articulated’.

In other words, they are inextricable from each other, in every instance that one of them appears; so that as long as I am intent on expressing a ‘truth’, I can be certain that I am also intent on expressing something ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’.

Meaning, if I were to revise my statement of a few moments ago, when I deprioritized ‘aesthetics’ (and seemed to make ‘beauty’ second fiddle to ‘truth’), I might say instead that beauty can never be second fiddle to truth, nor to goodness, because it is part and parcel of both of them, just as they are part and parcel of each other, and of it.