{"id":"01KG8AM5XY6MFHRMA7WWEV2MY6","cid":"bafkreibrtnj4anwk6iksowhunielvttizjbqglkjsmbdksxniib5y4jlne","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1416,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","start_line":1355,"text":"that, I think that to try and get into X----, enter his labyrinth, and\r\nget out again, without a clue derived from some source other than what\r\nis known as _knowledge of the world_, that were hardly possible, at\r\nleast for me.’\r\n\r\n‘Why,’ said I, ‘X----, however singular a study to some, is yet human,\r\nand knowledge of the world assuredly implies the knowledge of human\r\nnature, and in most of its varieties.’\r\n\r\n‘Yes, but a superficial knowledge of it, serving ordinary purposes. But\r\nfor anything deeper, I am not certain whether to know the world and to\r\nknow human nature be not two distinct branches of knowledge, which while\r\nthey may coexist in the same heart, yet either may exist with little or\r\nnothing of the other. Nay, in an average man of the world, his constant\r\nrubbing with it blunts that fine spiritual insight indispensable to the\r\nunderstanding of the essential in certain exceptional characters,\r\nwhether evil ones or good. In a matter of some importance I have seen a\r\ngirl wind an old lawyer about her little finger. Nor was it the dotage\r\nof senile love. Nothing of the sort. But he knew law better than he knew\r\nthe girl’s heart. Coke and Blackstone hardly shed so much light into\r\nobscure spiritual places as the Hebrew prophets. And who were they?\r\nMostly recluses.’\r\n\r\nAt the time my inexperience was such that I did not quite see the drift\r\nof all this. It may be that I see it now. And, indeed, if that lexicon\r\nwhich is based on Holy Writ were any longer popular, one might with less\r\ndifficulty define and denominate certain phenomenal men. As it is, one\r\nmust turn to some authority not liable to the charge of being tinctured\r\nwith the Biblical element.\r\n\r\nIn a list of definitions included in the authentic translation of Plato,\r\na list attributed to him, occurs this: ‘Natural Depravity: a depravity\r\naccording to nature.’ A definition which though savouring of Calvinism,\r\nby no means involves Calvin’s dogma as to total mankind. Evidently its\r\nintent makes it applicable but to individuals. Not many are the examples\r\nof this depravity which the gallows and jail supply. At any rate, for\r\nnotable instances,--since these have no vulgar alloy of the brute in\r\nthem, but invariably are dominated by intellectuality,--one must go\r\nelsewhere. Civilisation, especially if of the austerer sort, is\r\nauspicious to it. It folds itself in the mantle of respectability. It\r\nhas its certain negative virtues serving as silent auxiliaries. It is\r\nnot going too far to say that it is without vices or small sins. There\r\nis a phenomenal pride in it that excludes them from anything--never\r\nmercenary or avaricious. In short, the depravity here meant partakes\r\nnothing of the sordid or sensual. It is serious, but free from acerbity.\r\nThough no flatterer of mankind, it never speaks ill of it.\r\n\r\nBut the thing which in eminent instances signalises so exceptional a\r\nnature is this: though the man’s even temper and discreet bearing would\r\nseem to intimate a mind peculiarly subject to the law of reason, not the\r\nless in his soul’s recesses he would seem to riot in complete exemption\r\nfrom that law, having apparently little to do with reason further than\r\nto employ it as an ambidexter implement for effecting the irrational.\r\nThat is to say: toward the accomplishment of an aim which in wantonness\r\nof malignity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool\r\njudgment sagacious and sound.\r\n\r\nThese men are true madmen, and of the most dangerous sort, for their\r\nlunacy is not continuous, but occasional; evoked by some special object;\r\nit is secretive and self-contained, so that when most active it is to\r\nthe average mind not distinguished from sanity, and for the reason above\r\nsuggested that whatever its aim may be, and the aim is never disclosed,\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AKFBZ25VFD37G7SXH5G3F","peer_type":"section","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AM588J0R8MRMMA138MZG2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:28.606Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:35.580Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}