How far is Man still from his goal? How sexual, foul in word and thought, naively hedonistic! How little of spirit is in him! How clumsily his mind struggles in the darkness! How far he is still from his goal!--This is a cry which the believer in Original Sin cannot understand, because he accepts all this imperfection as inevitable, as the baleful heritage of Man, from which he cannot escape. The feeling of pure joy in life, the feeling that Life is a sacrament--that also is forever denied to the believer in Original Sin. For Life is not a sacrament to him, but a sin of which joy itself is only an aggravation. 48 _The Eternal Bluestocking_ The bluestocking is as old as mankind. Her original was Eve, the first dabbler in moral philosophy. 49 _The Sin of Intellectualism_ The first sin, the original sin was that of the intellectuals. The knowledge of Good and Evil was not an instantaneous "illumination"; it was the result of long experiment and analysis: the apple took perhaps hundreds of years to eat! Before that, in the happy day of innocence, Good and Evil were not, for instinct and morality were one and not twain. As time passed, however, the physically lazy, who had been from the beginning, became weaker and wiser. Enforced contemplation, the contemplation of those who were not strong enough to hunt or to labour, made them more subtle than their simple brethren; they formed themselves into a priesthood, and created a theology. In these priests instinct was not strong: they were invalids with powerful reason. But they had the lust for power; they wished to conquer by means of their reason; therefore, they said to themselves, belittle instinct, tyrannize over instinct, discover an absolute "good" and an absolute "evil," become moral. Morality, which had in the days of innocence been unconscious, the harmony of the instincts, was now given a separate existence. The cry was morality against the instincts. Thus triumphed the priests, the intellectuals, by means of their reason. Original Sin was their sin--the result of the analysis by which they had separated morality and the instincts. If we are to speak of Original Sin at all, let it be in this manner. 50 _Once More_ The belief in Original Sin--that was itself Man's original sin. 51 _Apropos Gautier_ He had just read "Mlle. de Maupin," "What seduction there is still for Man in the senses!" he exclaimed. "How much more of an animal than a spirit he must be to be charmed and enslaved by this book!" Yet, what ground had he to conclude that because the sensual intoxicates Man, therefore Man is more sensual than spiritual? For we are most fatally attracted by what is most alien to us. 52 _Psychology of the Humble_