Man is not merely an evolution but rather a revolution. That he has a backbone or other parts upon a similar pattern to birds and fishes is an obvious fact, whatever be the meaning of the fact. But if we attempt to regard him, as it were, as a quadruped standing on his hind legs, we shall find what follows more fantastic and subversive than if he were standing on his head.

We are currently trying to do the impossible - namely, build a civilization without an agreed civil tradition and [in] the absence of a moral consensus.

Soon they will be twisting necks to suit clean collars, and hacking feet to fit new boots. It never seems to strike them that the body is more than [clothing]; that the Sabbath was made for man; that all institutions shall be judged and damned by whether they have fitted the normal flesh and spirit.

We are not like children who have lost their paintbox and are left alone with a gray lead-pencil. We are like children who have mixed all the colors in the paintbox together and lost the paper of instructions. Even then (I do not deny) one has some fun.nNow this abundance of colors and loss of color scheme is a perfect parable of all that is wrong with our modern ideals.

Now this is the attitude which I attack. It is the huge heresy of Precedent. It is the view that because we have got into a mess we must grow messier to suit it; that because we have taken a wrong turn some time ago we must go forward and not backwards; that because we have lost our way we must lose our map also; and because we have missed our ideal, we must forget it.