Page 422 - of-human-bondage-

ends, trampling upon him if he thwarts it, rewarding him
with medals, pensions, honours, when he serves it faithful-
ly; THIS, strong only in his independence, threads his way
through the state, for convenience’ sake, paying in money or
service for certain benefits, but with no sense of obligation;
and, indifferent to the rewards, asks only to be left alone. He
is the independent traveller, who uses Cook’s tickets because
they save trouble, but looks with good-humoured contempt
on the personally conducted parties. The free man can do no
wrong. He does everything he likes—if he can. His power is
the only measure of his morality. He recognises the laws of
the state and he can break them without sense of sin, but if
he is punished he accepts the punishment without rancour.
Society has the power.
But if for the individual there was no right and no wrong,
then it seemed to Philip that conscience lost its power. It was
with a cry of triumph that he seized the knave and flung him
from his breast. But he was no nearer to the meaning of life
than he had been before. Why the world was there and what
men had come into existence for at all was as inexplicable
as ever. Surely there must be some reason. He thought of
Cronshaw’s parable of the Persian carpet. He offered it as a
solution of the riddle, and mysteriously he stated that it was
no answer at all unless you found it out for yourself.
‘I wonder what the devil he meant,’ Philip smiled.
And so, on the last day of September, eager to put into
practice all these new theories of life, Philip, with sixteen
hundred pounds and his club-foot, set out for the second
time to London to make his third start in life.

1