in force as the pyramid enlarges
downward. It is the pyramidal bulk of human nature with its finest
brain, true to anatomic principles, at the top. That radiance at the
summit is the delight and the aspiration of all below. As it rises as
slowly as growth of a coral reef it increases the courage of those
below in proportion as they are near.

But the whole bulk is alive with the bacteria of animalism, under
increasing control as it rises, still with the ferocity, rapacity and
selfish passions of the gloomy mass at the bottom and forever in
revolt. Is this not proved by history, written and unwritten? Is it
not proved by the ghastly secrets of individual introspection that men
never reveal or admit to others; secrets guarded by a system of
conventions so impenetrable and vast that to attempt to personalize it
in the sneaking figure of Hypocrisy would be as absurd as to try to
enlarge the significance of an ivory chessman by setting it up on a
lady's jewel box and naming it Moloch. All men feel how much of them
is brute and how much is reason; but it is the unimpartable secret of
human society whose betrayal has been rendered impossible by universal
denials in advance, enacted in to what we call criminal laws, under
which admissions are denied by the brand of proportionate infamies, to
demonstrate that the traitor who has acted or spoken has not put into
expression the secrets of the mass. Great armies and constabularies
are kept to commit upon a large scale the murders and violence which,
when committed upon a small scale, they punish.

What is the record of the officialism of public opinion? There has
been nothing so abhorrent and cruel, so sordid, mean, frivolous,
indecent or insane, that the representative fashion and respectability
of some splendid civilization has not justified, approved and
sustained it. It has licensed every wanton passion of the body. It has
even indulged, contemptuously at times, those individuals inspired
through the mysterious selection of immortal genius to safeguard the
slender flame of spiritual light and life. But those indulged have
always been made to feel that they were secure only as long as their
performances excited jaded appetites as a novelty. If dwarfs and
monstrosities staled; if dancing girls palled; if gladiators wearied;
if there were no new games invented--then bring in a poet or
artist--some queer fellow who had discovered something that he called
truth or beauty, and let