we have no need to seek commands from on
high. Let us look down to the ground; let us consider man in himself, as
he appears in the eyes of the naturalist, namely, an organized body, a
sensitive animal possessing wants, appetites and instincts. Not only
are these indestructible but they are legitimate. Let us throw open the
prison in which prejudice confines them; let us give them free air and
space; let them be displayed in all their strength and all will go well.
According to Diderot,[3317] a lasting marriage is an abuse, being
"the tyranny of a man who has converted the possession of a woman into
property." Purity is an invention and conventional, like a dress;[3318]
happiness and morals go together only in countries where instinct is
sanctioned; as in Tahiti, for instance, where marriage lasts but a
month, often only a day, and sometimes a quarter of an hour, where, in
the evening and with hospitable intent, a host offers his daughters and
wife to his guests, where the son espouses his mother out of politeness,
where the union of the sexes is a religious festivity celebrated in
public.--And, pushing things to extremes, the logician ends with five
or six pages calculated "to make one's hair stand on end,"[3319] himself
avowing that his doctrine is "neither suited for children nor for
adults."--With Diderot, to say the least, these paradoxes have their
correctives. In his pictures of modern ways and habits, he is the
moralist. He not only is familiar with all the chords of the human
keyboard, but he classifies each according to its rank. He loves fine
and pure tones, and is full of enthusiasm for noble harmonies; his
heart is equal to his genius.[3320] And better still, on the question
of primitive impulses arising, he assigns, side by side with vanity,
an independent and superior position to pity, friendship, kindness and
charity; to every generous affection of the heart displaying sacrifice
and devotion without calculation or personal benefit.--But associated
with him are others, cold and narrow, who form moral systems according
to the mathematical methods of the ideologists, [3321] after the style
of Hobbes. One motive alone satisfies these, the simplest and most
palpable, utterly gross, almost mechanical, completely physiological,
the natural animal tendency of avoiding pain and seeking pleasure:

"Pain and pleasure," says Helvetius, "form the only springs of the moral
universe, while the sentiment of vanity is th