Y.M. After so--
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.
Y.M. Then what do you mean?
O.M. That comes under the head of the Moral Sense. It is a large
question. Let us finish with what we are about now, before we take it
up.
Y.M. Very well. You have seemed to concede that you place Man and the
rat on A level.
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