Page:Points of View (1924).pdf/61



A few of our great thinkers have gone out, out—out beyond good and evil. When it comes to definitions and specific cases, the rest of us may differ sharply. But with reference to the abstract principle we are still within shouting distance of one another. We have preserved our 'illusions.' We have not yet learned to look upon words as merely patterns made in a child's game of letters. We believe that there are important values represented by such symbols as 'good taste' and 'decency.' We may quarrel about standards of decency; but we agree—I hope that I do not generalize from insuffcient data—we agree that persons who have 'lost all sense of decency' are undesirable, unfragrant, and perhaps imbecile and unsafe to be abroad in the community.

Our common sense accordingly takes measures to provide against destruction of the sense of decency by perverts who subsist on the propagation of vice, or who, as mere amateurs of depravity, find their delight in corrupting the minds of the young. Our common sense does not attempt to legislate with reference to highly disputable points of taste, but