lies in the perpetual struggle of the higher against the lower self, the
spirit against the flesh, and that the success of the flesh is
damnation. We take down Horace and Rabelais and we admit that the body
also has its claims. We have no power to dominate both sets of books,
and consequently they supersede one another alternately. Perhaps life
is too large for any code we can as yet frame, and the dissolution of
all codes, the fluid, unstable condition of which we complain, may be a
necessary antecedent of new and more lasting combinations. One thing is
certain, that there is not a single code now in existence which is not
false; that the graduation of the vices and virtues is wrong, and that
in the future it will be altered. We must not hand ourselves over to a
despotism with no Divine right, even if there be a risk of anarchy. In
the determination of our own action, and in our criticism of other
people, we must use the whole of ourselves and not mere fragments. If
we do this we need not fear. We may suppose we are in danger because
the stone tables of the Decalogue have gone to dust, but it is more
dangerous to attempt to control men by fictions. Better no chart
whatever than one which shows no actually existing perils, but warns us
against Scylla, Charybdis, and the Cyclops. If we are perfectly honest
with ourselves we shall not find it difficult to settle whether we ought
to do this or that particular thing, and we may be content. The new
legislation will come naturally at the appointed time, and it is not
impossible to live while it is on the way.



AN APOLOGY