Carstairs smiled. "If you'd lived in Scotland you'd know that the first thing the Scotch working man does is to flatly contradict you to your face; then he argues the point, if you let him. The Scotchman is naturally mathematical, he is not willing to accept your word that you're the boss, he wants proof. I like the Scotch."
"They offer unlimited possibilities of a row."
"I don't like rows; I like to appeal to a man's reason."
Darwen drove one fist with a bang into the palm of his other hand. "The logic of the Englishman," he said.
"It seems to me that's the bed rock of all logic. I think that it was you who told me that Herbert Spencer and Ruskin both arrived at the same conclusion."
"Perhaps I did; I forget. But anyway, all of you people make the mistake of dividing people into types, classes and creeds. 'Nature recognizes neither kingdoms nor classes, no orders, no genera, no sub-genera, nature recognizes nothing but individuals.' That's Lamarck."
"Is it? Well, I hope he won't do it again, because he upsets all your elaborate theories about Saxons, Celts, and so on."
"Not at all; he doesn't say that they don't run in types, that large classes and races of men are not as like as two peas in almost all respects, he simply says that nature makes no effort to preserve them as they are, or, because of their numbers, to save them from annihilation. A whole class, a whole creed, or a whole race may exist simply for the benefit, and to assist in the development of, one individual, and when he ceases to have need of them, puff! they are wiped out."
"A creed formerly known as Kingcraft, I think."
"Exactly. 'The King can do no wrong' simply means that if he does wrong, he ceases to be a king, and the only proof that he has done wrong is the fact that he has failed to keep his crown. That is the teaching of old Nick, and personally I expand the theorem to embrace all humanity, every man should be a little king unto himself. That is to say, he must use his brains and control his passions."