Bio-chemistry proves to be a more inhuman ethics than the ancient _Fatum_ or Calvinistic predestination. The secret of our destiny is written in our blood. We can resist neither our temperament nor our instincts: Each according to his temperament--that something which he has not made and cannot always subdue, and which may not always be subdued by others for him. Who plans the steps that lead lives on to splendid glories, or twist them into gnarled sacrifices, or make of them dark, disdainful, contentious tragedies? The soul within? And whence comes it? Of God? A dynosaur, we are told, possesses no more conscience than a lobster or a squid: That thing _conscience_, which obsesses and rides some people to destruction, did not trouble him (Cowperwood) at all. He had no consciousness of what is currently known as sin.[29] He never gave a thought to the vast palaver concerning evil which is constantly going on. There were just two faces to the shield of life--strength and weakness. Right and wrong? He did not know about those. They were bound up in metaphysical abstrusities about which he did not care to bother. Good and evil? Those were toys of clerics, by which they made money. Morality and immorality? He never considered them. But strength and weakness--oh yes! If you had strength you could protect yourself always and be something. If you were weak--pass quickly to the rear and get out of the range of the guns. He was strong, and he knew it; and somehow he always believed in his star. This elementary psychology takes us back to that familiar gospel which we used to hear from Jack London’s sea rovers. It is Nietzsche for beginners. The human being would be too easy a riddle to decipher if it were actuated only by lust and greed. Man in this case would not be more interesting than, let us say, a Robot or a Ford motor car. _Summum jus, summa injuria._ Dreiser’s psychology falls short. Frank Cowperwood may be curious as an automaton; he is not interesting, even as a rascal, despite his amorous adventures. Casanova was an artist in philandering. Cowperwood was a machine, or, if you prefer, an animal. Love is once more a branch of bio-chemistry for Dreiser. It is a blind and purely animal impulse. It is good in itself like all impulses: Whether we will or no, theory or no theory, the large basic facts of chemistry and physics remain. Like is drawn to like. Changes in temperament bring changes in relationship. Dogma may bind some minds; fear, others. But there are always those in whom the chemistry and physics of life are large, and in whom neither dogma nor fear is operative. Society lifts its hands in horror; but from age to age the Helens, the Messalinas, the Du Barrys, the Pompadours, the Maintenons, and the Nell Gwynns flourish and point a subtler basis of relationship than we have yet been able to square with our lives.