It was
where the filaments of the roots drank deepest from the mould of a
dead past that you would have had to seek the true mouthpieces of
their philosophy.
"So the instincts which blossom out thickly over the nature of modern
man to themselves are mute. The flower exhibits itself at the tip of
the vine; the instinct develops itself at the farthest outreach of
life; and the point where it clamors for satisfaction is at the
greatest possible distance from its birthplace. For all these
instincts send their roots down through the mould of the uncivilized,
down through the mould of the primitive, down into the mould of the
underhuman--that ancient playhouse dedicated to low tragedies.
"While this may seem to you to be going far for a commencement of the
story, it is coming near to us. The kind of man and woman we are to
ourselves; the kind of husband and wife we are to each other; the kind
of father and mother we are to our children; the kind of human beings
we are to our fellow beings--the passions which swell as with sap the
buds of those relations until they burst into their final shapes of
conduct are fed from the bottom of the world's mould. You and I
to-night are building the structures of our moral characters upon
life-piles that sink into fathomless ooze.
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