ey will sacrifice all their liberty gladly.

THE DEVIL. Ay: they will never be at a loss for an excuse for killing
one another.

DON JUAN. What of that? It is not death that matters, but the fear of
death. It is not killing and dying that degrade us, but base living, and
accepting the wages and profits of degradation. Better ten dead men than
one live slave or his master. Men shall yet rise up, father against son
and brother against brother, and kill one another for the great Catholic
idea of abolishing slavery.

THE DEVIL. Yes, when the Liberty and Equality of which you prate shall
have made free white Christians cheaper in the labor market than by
auction at the block.

DON JUAN. Never fear! the white laborer shall have his turn too. But
I am not now defending the illusory forms the great ideas take. I am
giving you examples of the fact that this creature Man, who in his own
selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like
a hero. He may be abject as a citizen; but he is dangerous as a fanatic.
He can only be enslaved whilst he is spiritually weak enough to listen
to reason. I tell you, gentlemen, if you can show a man a piece of what
he now calls God's work to do, and what he will later on call by many
new names, you can make him entirely reckless of the consequences to
himself personally.

ANA. Yes: he shirks all his responsibilities, and leaves his wife to
grapple with them.

THE STATUE. Well said, daughter. Do not let him talk you out of your
common sense.

THE DEVIL. Alas! Senor Commander, now that we have got on to the subject
of Woman, he will talk more than ever. However, I confess it is for me
the one supremely interesting subject.

DON JUAN. To a woman, Senora, man's duties and responsibilities begin
and end with the task of getting bread for her children. To her, Man is
only a means to the end of getting children and rearing them.

ANA. Is that your idea of a woman's mind? I call it cynical and
disgusting materialism.

DON JUAN. Pardon me, Ana: I said nothing about a woman's whole mind. I
spoke of her view of Man as a separate sex. It is no more cynical than
her view of herself as above all things a Mother. Sexually, Woman is
Nature's contrivance for perpetuating its highest achievement. Sexually,
Man is Woman's contrivance for fulfilling Nature's behest in the most
economical way. She knows by instinct that far back in the evolutional
process she invented him, different