of Good and Evil into the world. That’s a second as-yet-unhealed fracture in
the structure of Existence. That’s the transformation of Being itself into a
moral endeavour—all attendant on the development of sophisticated self-
consciousness.
Only man could conceive of the rack, the iron maiden and the thumbscrew.
Only man will inflict suffering for the sake of suffering. That is the best
definition of evil I have been able to formulate. Animals can’t manage that,
but humans, with their excruciating, semi-divine capacities, most certainly
can. And with this realization we have well-nigh full legitimization of the
idea, very unpopular in modern intellectual circles, of Original Sin. And who
would dare to say that there was no element of voluntary choice in our
evolutionary, individual and theological transformation? Our ancestors chose
their sexual partners, and they selected for—consciousness? And self-
consciousness? And moral knowledge? And who can deny the sense of
existential guilt that pervades human experience? And who could avoid
noting that without that guilt—that sense of inbuilt corruption and capacity
for wrongdoing—a man is one step from psychopathy?
Human beings have a great capacity for wrongdoing. It’s an attribute that
is unique in the world of life. We can and do make things worse, voluntarily,
with full knowledge of what we are doing (as well as accidentally, and
carelessly, and in a manner that is willfully blind). Given that terrible
capacity, that proclivity for malevolent actions, is it any wonder we have a
hard time taking care of ourselves, or others—or even that we doubt the value
of the entire human enterprise? And we’ve suspected ourselves, for good
reason, for a very long time. Thousands of years ago, the ancient
Mesopotamians believed, for example, that mankind itself was made from the
blood of Kingu, the single most terrible monster that the great Goddess of
Chaos could produce, in her most vengeful and destructive moments.^58 After
drawing conclusions such as that, how could we not question the value of our
being, and even of Being itself? Who then could be faced with illness, in
himself or another, without doubting the moral utility of prescribing a healing
medicament? And no one understands the darkness of the individual better
than the individual himself. Who, then, when ill, is going to be fully
committed to his own care?