Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/258

 Statutes are thus enacted, as the saying is, against all evils, great and small, and the greater the evil, of course, the greater the moral triumph expressed by the mere enactment. But because of certain contrarieties in nature and a certain obstreperous quality in human nature and a general complexity in life as a whole these legal fulminations are frequently triumphs only in theory, and in practice often intensify the very ills they seek to cure. As the witty Remy de Gourmont says: Quand la morale triomphe il se passes des choses très vilaines.

The more intensively developed specimen of the type will not overtly sin himself, but he loves to inspect those who do, and to peer at them, and to wonder how they could ever have the courage to do it; he likes to imagine their sensations, and to note each one of them as it was developed in the interesting experience. And hence the psychic lasciviousness of those who are constantly reporting plays and pictures as fit for the censor they are always clamoring for. Sometimes they go slumming as students of the evils of society. They are like pious uncles who never swear themselves under any circumstances, but relate stories of other men who do, recite their delightful experiences and roll out the awful oaths with which the profane gave vent to their feelings with a relish that is no doubt a relief to their own.

It is, I suppose, our inheritance from the Puritans, or the worst of our inheritance from the Puritans, and it is possible that it is worth while to have paid the penalty as a price for the best we derived from them, since one has to take the bad with