MORBID SENSIBILITY 193 



without attempting to prevent, the slow, re- 

 lentless murder of a race. But the black- 

 guard's back — that is something sacred; the 

 mere idea of its being defiled by the richly de- 

 served lash fills us with horror. The divine 

 force of indignation which is in the heart of 

 every man, — a holy thing when used for the 

 right purpose — is thus wasted, dissipated — 

 fired off at a straw dummy held aloft, as it were, 

 by Commercialism for the purpose of drawing 

 our attention from its own foul works. 



And if we came to honestly examine our own 

 feelings on the subject we should find that it 

 was not so much the blackguard who was in 

 question as our own morbid sensibility. We — 

 that is the ones who live on the labour of 

 others, — the small minority who, feasting on 

 the deck of the ship of western civilisation 

 which is being steered straight for the abyss — 

 have sunk into what Schiller called " der 

 weichlicken Schoss der Verfeinerung "; our 

 hyperaesthesia has grown so morbid that every 

 stripe we see administered raises a weal on 

 ourselves. This is a condition perilously near 

 that in which the contemplation of suffering 

 becomes the sole channel of pleasure, for mor- 

 bid sensibility and cruelty have usually hob- 

 nobbed at the same inn. It is the healthy man 



M 



