The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE

I N the consideration of the faculties and impulses -
of the prima mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room for a propensity which,
although obviously existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all
the moralists who have preceded them. In the pure
arrogance of the reason, we have all overlooked it. We
have suffered its existence to escape our senses, solely
through want of belief, - of faith, - whether it be
faith in Revelation, or faith in the Kabbala. The
idea of it has never occurred to us, simply because of
its supererogation. We saw no need of the impulse
-for the propensity. We could not perceive its
necessity. We could not understand, that is to say,
we could not have understood, had the notion of this
primum mobile ever obtruded itself; we could not
have understood in what manner it might be made to
further the objects of humanity, either temporal or
eternal. It cannot be denied that phrenology, and in
great measure, all metaphysicianism, have been concocted a priori. The intellectual or logical man,
rather than the understanding or observant man, set
himself to imagine designs —to dictate purposes to
God. Having thus fathomed to his satisfaction the
intentions of Jehovah, out of these intentions he built
his innumerable systems of mind. In the matter of
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