assume--disguises which are not infrequently borrowed from ethics or
from religion. Thus a primitive desire for revenge often masquerades as
justice, and an unedifying interest in personal safety can be discerned
in at least some interpretations of atonement, and some aspirations
towards immortality.[65]

I now go on to a second point. It will already be clear that the modern
conception of the many-levelled psyche gives us a fresh standpoint from
which to consider the nature of Sin. It suggests to us, that the essence
of much sin is conservatism, or atavism: that it is rooted in the
tendency of the instinctive life to go on, in changed circumstances,
acting in the same old way. Virtue, perfect rightness of correspondence
with our present surroundings, perfect consistency of our deeds with our
best ideas, is hard work. It means the sublimation of crude instinct,
the steady control of impulse by such reason as we possess; and
perpetually forces us to use on new and higher levels that machinery of
habit-formation, that power of implanting tendencies in the plastic
psyche, to which man owes his earthly dominance. When our unstable
psychic life relaxes tension and sinks to lower levels than this, and
it Is always tending so to do, we are relapsing to antique methods of
response, suitable to an environment which is no longer there. Few
people go through life without knowing what it is to feel a sudden, even
murderous, impulse to destroy the obstacle in their path; or seize, at
all costs, that which they desire. Our ancestors called these uprushes
the solicitations of the devil, seeking to destroy the Christian soul;
and regarded them with justice as an opportunity of testing our
spiritual strength. It is true that every man has within him such a
tempting spirit; but its characters can better be studied in the
Zoological Gardens than in the convolutions of a theological hell.
"External Reason," says Boehme, "supposes that hell is far from us. But