But Babbalanja, have you mortals no moral sense, as they call it ?" "We have.

But the thing you speak of is but an after-birth; we eat and drink many months before we are conscious of thoughts.

And though some adults would seem to refer all their actions to this moral sense, yet, in reality, it is not so; for, dominant in them, their moral sense bridles their instinctive passions; wherefore, they do not govern themselves, but are governed by their very natures.

Thus, some men in youth are constitutionally as staid as I am now.

But shall we pronounce them pious and worthy youths for this?
Does he abstain, who is not incited?
And on the other hand, if the instinctive passions through life naturally have the supremacy over the moral sense, as in extreme cases we see it developed in irreclaimable malefactors,--shall we pronounce such, criminal and detestable wretches?
My lord, it is easier for some men to be saints, than for others not to be sinners." "That will do, Babbalanja; you are on the verge, take not the leap! Go back whence you set out, and tell us of that other, and still more mysterious Azzageddi; him whom you hinted to have palmed himself off on you for you yourself." "Well, then, my lord,--Azzageddi still set aside,--upon that self-same inscrutable stranger, I charge all those past actions of mine, which in the retrospect appear to me such eminent folly, that I am confident, it was not I, Babbalanja, now speaking, that committed them.