Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/197

Rh Rousseau's "our morality is to blame for this wretched civilisation." Our work, unmanly social conceptions of good and evil, and their enormous ascendancy over body and mind, live at last weakened all bodies and minds and crushed all self-reliant, independent, unprejudiced people, the pillars of a strong civilisation. Wherever we still meet with bad morality, we see the last crumbling debris of these pillars. Thus let paradox fight against paradox! It is impossible that truth should be on both sides: is it really on either side? Examine for yourselves. —Amid all sorts of false, misleading names, and, in most cases, amid great uncertainty, those who do not stand committed by the existing customs and laws are non apparently making their first attempts towards organising themselves and thereby securing a right for themselves, whereas hitherto they had lived as ill-famed criminals, freethinkers, immoral folk, evil-doers, under the ban of outlawry and bad conscience, being both corrupted and corrupting. This we ought to consider, on the whole, fair and right, though it may bring danger to the coming century and make everybody shoulder arms; if only it will create a counterforce, constantly reminding us that there is no monopoly of morals, and that every morality which exclusively asserts itself destroys too much good strength and is too dearly bought by