We are all of us great-great-grandchildren of the beasts. We carry the bestial attributes in our blood: some more, some less. Who amongst us is so pure and exalted that he has never been conscious of the bestial taint? Who amongst us has not fought with wild beasts—not at Ephesus, but in his own heart?
Some of our ancestors wore tails! Is it strange that some of our descendants should have what Winwood Reade called "tailed minds"? The ghosts of old tragedies haunt the gloomy vestibules of many human minds. The Bottom Dog may often be possessed of ancestral devils.
He that is without inherited taint among us, let him cast the first stone.
CHAPTER FOUR—THE BEGINNINGS OF MORALS
|WHAT do we mean by the words "sin" and "vice," and "crime"?
Sin is disobedience of the laws of God.
Crime is disobedience of the laws of men.
Vice is disobedience of the laws of nature.