"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."

It seems to me that the mass of men do agree on the mass of morality, but differ disastrously about the proportions of it. In other words, all men admit the Ten Commandments, but they differ horribly about which is the first Commandment and which is the tenth. The difference between men is not in what merits they confess, but in what merits they emphasize. All the nations of the earth are troubled about many things; they only fight about what is the one thing needful. The spoilt son of some Chicago millionaire who puffs smoke in his father's face for fun will not, in so many words, deny the rightness of the commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother." He will only think it a small and somewhat laughable matter; while he will be quite solemn about the command, "Thou shalt do no murder"- all the more because he must feel that he is the kind of person whom one murders....Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable. The sins are substantially the same all over the earth. What men fight each other about is the question of which are the venial and which the mortal sins.

-October 23, 1909, Illustrated London News