Poe, Edgar Allen / 2008-06-05 00:00:00

1850
THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE
by Edgar Allan Poe
IN 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.
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