Reason in this new theory is worse than helpless; she deserts to the side of her enemy, gives the monster propensity "edge and power," and exerts herself to exasperate the "mind's disease."[841] Such contradictions were the natural consequence of the perfunctory manner in which Pope had picked up his scraps of philosophy. The slightest acquaintance with the world is fatal to the hypothesis that an exclusive ruling passion is the universal characteristic of mankind. Each person has various appetites, desires, and affections, and it is rare to see a man in whom "one master passion has swallowed up the rest." Propensities intermingle and take their turn. Characters are notoriously complex, and every individual is not the incarnation of a single unattended passion. A desire for power may be joined with sensuality, a love of fame with covetousness, an eagerness for knowledge with affection. In the play of passions one may preponderate, but all the rest are not reduced to nullity. Allow the existence of the ruling passion, and Pope's account of its origin could not be correct. A passion which is cast in our frame from our birth, and continues thenceforward to grow with our growth, must be permanent and unalterable. The individual must be governed by the same passion in childhood and age, in the season of thoughtlessness and of wisdom, in dissoluteness and virtue, in all the possible changes of condition. This is not the scene which life presents. "Every observer," says Johnson, "has remarked, that in many men the love of pleasure is the ruling passion of their youth, and the love of money that of their advanced years."[842]