A Mummer's Tale

Excerpt: ...they produce innumerable currents which we call our passions, our thoughts, our joys, our sufferings, our desires, our fears, and our will. We believe that we are our own masters, while a mere drop of alcohol stimulates, and then benumbs the very elements by which we feel and will." Constantin Marc interrupted the physician: "Excuse me! Since you are speaking of the action of alcohol, I should like your advice on the subject. I am in the habit of drinking a small Pg 121 glass of Armagnac brandy after each meal. That's not too much, is it?" "It's a great deal too much. Alcohol is a poison. If you have a bottle of brandy at home, fling it out of the window." Pradel was pondering. He considered that in suppressing will and responsibility in all human things Dr. Socrates was doing him a personal injury. "You may say what you like. Will and responsibility are not illusions. They are tangible and powerful realities. I know how the terms of my contract bind me, and I impose my will on others." And he added with some bitterness: "I believe in the will, in moral responsibility, in the distinction between good and evil. Doubtless these are, according to you, stupid ideas." "They are indeed stupid ideas," replied the physician, "but they are very suitable to us, since we are mere animals. We are for ever forgetting this. They are stupid, venerable, wholesome ideas. Men have felt that, without these ideas, they would all go mad. They had only the choice between stupidity and madness. Very reasonably they chose stupidity. Such is the foundation of moral ideas." "What a paradox!" exclaimed Romilly. Pg 122 The physician calmly proceeded: "The distinction between good and evil in human societies has never emerged from the grossest empiricism. It was constituted in a wholly practical spirit and as a simple convenience. We do not trouble ourselves about it where cut-glass or a tree is concerned. We practise moral indifference with regard to animals. We practise it...