O.M. Having found the Truth; perceiving that beyond question man has but one moving impulse—the contenting of his own spirit—and is merely a machine and entitled to no personal merit for anything he does, it is not humanly possible for me to seek further. The rest of my days will be spent in patching and painting and puttying and caulking my priceless possession and in looking the other way when an imploring argument or a damaging fact approaches.
1. The Marquess of Worcester had done all of this more than a century earlier.
VI
Instinct and Thought
Young Man. It is odious. Those drunken theories of yours, advanced a while ago—concerning the rat and all that—strip Man bare of all his dignities, grandeurs, sublimities.
Old Man. He hasn’t any to strip—they are shams, stolen clothes. He claims credits which belong solely to his Maker.
Y.M. But you have no right to put him on a level with a rat.
O.M. I don’t—morally. That would not be fair to the rat. The rat is well above him, there.
Y.M. Are you joking?
O.M. No, I am not.