ness and death?

It is not necessary, surely, to pause for proof that there is such a
retrograde principle in the being of every man. It is demonstrated by
facts, and by the analogy of all Nature. Three possibilities of life,
according to Science, are open to all living organisms--Balance,
Evolution, and Degeneration. The first denotes the precarious
persistence of a life along what looks like a level path, a character
which seems to hold its own alike against the attacks of evil and the
appeals of good. It implies a set of circumstances so balanced by choice
or fortune that they neither influence for better nor for worse. But
except in theory this state of equilibrium, normal in the inorganic
kingdom, is really foreign to the world of life; and what seems inertia
may be a true Evolution unnoticed from its slowness, or likelier still a
movement of Degeneration subtly obliterating as it falls the very traces
of its former height. From this state of apparent Balance, Evolution is
the escape in the upward direction, Degeneration in the lower. But
Degeneration, rather than Balance or Elaboration, is the possibility of
life embraced by the majority of mankind. And the choice is determined
by man's own nature. The life of Balance is difficult. It lies on the
verge of continual temptation, its perpetual adjustments become
fatiguing, its measured virtue is monotonous and uninspiring. More
difficult still, apparently, is the life of ever upward growth. Most men
attempt it for a time, but growth is slow; and despair overtakes them
while the goal is far away. Yet none of these reasons fully explains the
fact that the alternative which remains is adopted by the majority of
men. That Degeneration is easy only half accounts for it. Why is it
easy? Why but that already in each man's very nature this principle is
supreme? He feels within his soul a silent drifting motion impelling him
downward with irresistible force. Instead of aspiring to Conversion to a
higher Type he submits by a law of his nature to Reversion to a lower.
This is Degeneration--that principle by which the organism, failing to
develop itself, failing even to keep what it has got, deteriorates, and
becomes more and more adapted to a degraded form of life.

All men who know themselves are conscious that this tendency,
deep-rooted and active, exists within their nature. Theologically it is
described as a gravitation, a bias toward evil. The Bible view is that
man is co