The man of a refined taste is susceptible, in this respect, of a moral corruption, from which the rude child of nature is preserved by his very coarseness. In the latter, the opposite of the demands of sense and the decrees of the moral law is so strongly marked and so manifest, and the spiritual element has so small a share in his desires, that although the appetites exercise a _despotic sway_ over him, they cannot wrest his _esteem_ from him. Thus, when the savage, yielding to the superior attraction of sense, gives way to the committal of an unjust action, he may yield to temptation, but he will not hide from himself that he is committing a _fault_, and he will do homage to reason even while he violates its mandates. The child of civilization, on the contrary, the man of refinement, will not admit that he commits a fault, and to soothe his conscience he prefers to impose on it by a sophism. No doubt he wishes to obey his appetite, but at the same time without falling in his own esteem. How does he manage this? He begins by overthrowing the superior authority that thwarts his inclination, and before transgressing the law he calls in question the competence of the lawgiver. Could it be expected that a corrupt will should so corrupt the intelligence? The only dignity that an inclination can assume accrues to it from its agreement with reason; yet we find that inclination, independent as well as blind, aspires, at the very moment she enters into contest with reason, to keep this dignity which she owes to reason alone. Nay, inclination even aspires to use this dignity she owes to reason against reason itself.