which, when I saw the young barbarians all at play tearing and
destroying those meagre comforts, cried out so sharply: "O, ignoble! you
do not lift your finger to succor this poor man! Have shame upon you!"
Why is it that that voice still sounds in my ears? Surely it is not
selfishness. Listen to a short colloquy:
Immanuel Kant--Duty! wondrous thought, that workest neither by fond
insinuation, nor flattery, nor by any threat, but merely by holding up
thy naked law to the soul, and so extorting for thyself always
reverence, if not obedience; before whom all appetites are dumb, however
secretly they rebel; whence thy original?
The Atheist--I am glad to inform you that selfishness is the original
you seek!