To appeal to Man's higher self, when there is no higher self to appeal to,--to set before him as the supreme reward of virtue the development of his better nature, when his nature is intrinsically evil,--would be an obvious waste of labour.

And as, apart from the presumed repugnance of the "natural man" to the presumed delights of the Law, the intrinsic attractiveness of the life that legalism prescribes must needs diminish in exact proportion as the authority of the Law becomes oppressive and vexatious, and the letter of it tends to establish itself at the expense of the spirit,--it is clear that a scheme of rewards and punishments will become, in effect as well as in theory, the only weapon in the armoury of the legalist.

It is also clear that there will be much work for that one weapon to do.

The central tendencies of Man's nature, besides being _ex hypothesi_ evil, are antagonistic _de facto_ to the galling despotism and the irrational requirements of the Law; and the lawgiver, far from being able to enlist those tendencies under his banner by appealing to the highest of them--the natural leaders of the rest,--must be prepared to overcome their collective resistance by winning to his side the lowest of them, by terrifying Man's weaker self with threats, by corrupting his baser self with bribes.

The ruin of Man's nature, whether hypothetical or actual,[4] has left intact (or relatively intact) only the animal base of it.