[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
scientific friends assure us it is made of. As much as that. That is to say, practically
nothing. Your absolute God and absolute devil belong to the class of irrelevant non-
human facts. The only things that concern us are the little relative gods and devils of
history and geography, the little relative goods and evils of individual casuistry.
Everything else is non-human and beside the point; and if you allow yourself to be
influenced by non-human, absolute considerations, then you inevitably make either a fool
of yourself, or a villain, or perhaps both.'
'But that's better than making an animal of oneself,' insisted Spandrell. 'I'd rather
be a fool or a villain than a bull or a dog.'
'But nobody's asking you to be a bull or a dog,' said Rampion impatiently.
'Nobody's asking you to be anything but a man. A man, mind you. Not an angel or a
devil. A man's a creature on a tight-rope, walking delicately, equilibrated, with mind and
consciousness and spirit at one end of his balancing pole and body and instinct and all
that's unconscious and earthy and mysterious at the other. Balanced. Which is damnably
difficult. And the only absolute he can ever really know is the absolute of perfect balance.
The absoluteness of perfect relativity. Which is a paradox and nonsense intellectually.
But so is all real, genuine, living truth--just nonsense according to logic. And logic is just
nonsense in the light of living truth. You can choose which you like, logic or life. It's a
matter of taste. Some people prefer being dead.'
'Prefer being dead.' The words went echoing through Spandrell's mind. Everard
Webley lying on the floor, trussed up like a chicken. Did he prefer being dead? 'All the
same,' he said slowly,'some things must always remain absolutely and radically wrong.
Killing, for example.' He wanted to believe that it was more than merely low and sordid
and disgusting. He wanted to believe that it was also terrible and tragic. 'That's an
absolute wrong.'
'But why more absolute than anything else?' said Rampion. 'There are
circumstances when killing's obviously necessary and right and commendable. The only
absolutely evil act, so far as I can see, that a man can perform, is an act against life,
against his own integrity. He does wrong if he perverts himself, if he falsifies his
instincts.'
Spandrell was sarcastic. 'We're getting back to the' beasts again,' he said. 'Go
ravening round fulfilling all your appetites as you feel them. Is that the last word in
human wisdom?'
'Well, it isn't really so stupid as you try to make out,' said Rampion. 'If men went
about satisfying their instinctive desires only when they genuinely felt them, like the
animals you're so contemptuous of, they'd behave a damned sight better than the majority
of civilized human beings behave to-day. It isn't natural appetite and spontaneous
instinctive desire that make men so beastly--no, "beastly" is the wrong word; it implies an
insult to the animals--so all-too-humanly bad and vicious, then. It's the imagination, it's
the intellect, its principles, its tradition and education. Leave the instincts to themselves
and they'll do very little mischief. If men made love only when they were carried away by
passion, if they fought only when they were angry or terrified, if they grabbed at property
only when they had need or were swept off their feet by an uncontrollable desire for
possession--why, I assure you, this world would be a great deal more like the Kingdom of
Heaven than it is under our present Christian-intellectual-scientific dispensation. It's not
instinct that makes Casanovas and Byrons and Lady Castlemaines; it's a prurient
imagination artificially tickling up the appetite, tickling up desires that have no natural
existence. If Don Juans and Don Juanesses only obeyed their desires, they'd have very
few affairs. They have to tickle themselves up imaginatively before they can start being
casually promiscuous. And it's the same with the other instincts. It's not the possessive
instinct that's made modem civilization insane about money. The possessive instinct has
to be kept artificially tickled by education and tradition and moral principles. The money-
grubbers have to be told that money-grubbing's natural and noble, that thrift and industry
are virtues, that persuading people to buy things they don't want is Christian Service.
Their possessive instinct would never be strong enough to keep them grubbing away
from morning till night all through a lifetime. It has to be kept chronically gingered up by
the imagination and the intellect. And then, think of civilized war. It's got nothing to do
with spontaneous combativeness. Men have to be compelled by law and then tickled up
by propaganda before they'll fight. You'd do more for peace by telling men to obey the
spontaneous dictates of their fighting instincts than by founding any number of Leagues
of Nations.'
'You'd do still more,' said Burlap, 'by telling them to obey Jesus.'
'No, you wouldn't. Telling them to obey Jesus is telling them to be more than
human. And, in practice, trying to be more than human always means succeeding in
being less than human. Telling men to obey Jesus literally is telling them, indirectly, to
behave like idiots and finally like devils. Just consider the examples. Old Tolstoy--a great
man who deliberately turned himself into an idiot by trying to be more than a great man.
Your horrid little St. Francis.' He turned to Burlap.
'Another idiot. But already on the verge of diabolism. With the monks of Thebaid
you see the process carried a step further. They went over the verge. They got to the stage
of being devils. Self-torture, destruction of everything decent and beautiful and living.
That was their programme. They tried to obey Jesus and be more than men; and all they
succeeded in doing was to become the incarnation of pure diabolic destructiveness. They
could have been perfectly decent human beings if they'd just gone about behaving
naturally, in accordance with their instincts. But no, they wanted to be more than human.
So they just became devils. Idiots first and then devils, imbecile devils. Ugh! ' Rampion
made a grimace and shook his head with disgust. 'And to think,' he went on indignantly,
'that the world's full of these creatures! Not quite so far gone as St. Anthony and his
demons or St. Francis and his half-wits. But of the same kind. Different only in degree.
And all perverted in the same wayby trying to be non-human. Non-humanly religious,
non-humanly moral, non-humanly intellectual and scientific, non-humanly specialized
and efficient, non-humanly the business man, non-humanly avaricious and property-
loving, non-humanly lascivious and Don Juanesque, non-humanly the conscious
individual even in love. All perverts. Perverted towards goodness or badness, towards
spirit or flesh; but always away from the central norm, always away from humanity. The
world's an asylum of perverts. There are four of them at this table now.' He looked round
with a grin. 'A pure little Jesus pervert.' Burlap forgivingly smiled. 'An intellectual-
aesthetic pervert.' 'Thanks for the compliment,' said Philip.
'A morality-philosophy pervert.' He turned to Spandrell. 'Quite the little
Stavrogin. Pardon my saying so, Spandrell; but you really are the most colossal fool.' He
looked intently into his face.
'Smiling like all the tragic characters of fiction rolled into one! But it won't do. It
doesn't conceal the simple-minded zany underneath.' Spandrell threw back his head and
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]