ttributes as to refuse them,
standing there twiddling his horsehair watch-chain, and speaking from the
profundity of his knowledge with, at his elbow, a huge army of facts,
instances, and cases, not one of which did not support his logical
deductions.

I wish I could print his lecture in full. I can only give some few
sentences taken at haphazard from the peroration.

"The fundamental basis of all morality can be expressed by the words
Left--or Right. 'Shall I take the path to the right, when my child is
being threatened with death by a pterodactyl, or shall I take the path to
the left when a mastodon is threatening to put a foot on my dinner?'

"The prehistoric man asking himself that question in the dawn of time laid
the foundation of the world's morality. Do we know how he answered it?
Yes--undoubtedly he saved his dinner.

"The prehistoric woman crouching in the ferns, wakened from sleep by the
cries of her child on the left and the shouting of her man on the right,
found herself face to face with the question, 'Shall I court
self-destruction in attempting to save _It_, or shall I seek safety with
_Him_?' Do we know how she answered that question? Undoubtedly she took
the path to the left.

"The woman's Right was the man's Left, and she took it not from any motive
of goodness but just because her child appealed to her as powerfully as
his dinner appealed to the man. And which was the nobler instinct? In
prehistoric times, gentlemen, they were both equally noble, for the
instinct of the man was as essential to the fact that you and I are here
gathered together in enlightened Paris, as the instinct of the woman.

"Right or Left? That is still the essence of morals--all the rest is
embroidery. Whilst I am talking to you now, service is being held at the
Madeleine, the Bourse is closed (looking at his watch), but other gaming
houses are opening. The _Cafe de Paris_ is filling, the Little Sisters of
the Poor are visiting the sick.

"We feel keenly that some people are doing good and some people are doing
evil. We wonder at the origin of it all, and the answer comes from the
prehistoric forest.

"'I am Determination. I can choose the Right or I can choose the Left.
Whilst dwelling in the man's heart my choice lies _that_ way, in the
woman's heart _that_ way.

"'I am not religion, but between the man and the woman I have created an
essential antagonism of motive which will be the basis of all future
religions an