"The life of this world or the life eternal?"
"The eternal life of this world, John. We have no quarrel with anyone's belief as to what may happen after death, that is a free field; but the glory and power of our religion is that it rests with assurance on common knowledge of the beautiful facts of life. Here is Humanity, a continuing stream of life. Its line of advance is clear. That which makes Humanity stronger, wiser and happier is evidently what is right for it to do. We do teach it to all our children."
"And they do it?"
"Of course they do it. Why shouldn't they?"
"But our evil tendencies——"
"We don't have evil tendencies, John—and never did. We have earlier and later tendencies; and it is perfectly possible to show the child which is which."
"But surely it is easier to follow the lower impulses than the higher; easier to give way than to strive."
"There's the old misconception, John, that 'striving idea.' We assumed that it was 'natural' to be 'bad' and 'unnatural' to be 'good'—that we had to make special efforts, painful and laborious, to become better. We had not seen, thirty years ago, that social evolution is as 'natural' as the evolution of the horse from the eohippus. If it was easier to be an eohippus than a horse why did the thing change?
"As to that army of 'fallen women' you are so anxious about, they just got up again, that's all, got up and went on. They had only fallen from one position; there was plenty of room left to stand and walk. Why they were not a speck on society compared to the 'fallen men.' Two hundred thousand prostitutes in the city of New York—well? How many patrons? A million, at the least. They kept on doing business, and enjoying life. I tell you, John, all the unnecessary evils of condition in the old days, were as nothing to the unnecessary evils of our foolish ideas! And ideas can be changed in the twinkling of an eye!
"As to your hoboes and bums, that invalid tramp you instanced—I can settle your mind on that point. I was an invalid tramp, John; a drunkard, a cocaine fiend, a criminal, sick, desperate, as bad as they make them."