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A WIDER VIEW OF VICE: For a majority of people vice is usually associated with such controversial or taboo subjects as hard-drug addiction, alcoholism, cigarette smoking, pot smoking, prostitution, masturbation, sodomy, pederasty, gambling, idleness, lechery, vandalism, hooliganism, and foul language - a list which, though by no means exhaustive, suffices to indicate the general trend of popular thinking. Now in accepting this rather narrow view of vice, it seems quite unlikely that many people will come to realize how loquacity, temperance, exuberance, lethargy, chastity, sociability, conscientiousness, athleticism, art fanaticism, political fanaticism, inquisitiveness, acquisitiveness, pomposity, presumption, superstition, piety, ambition, reclusion, or anything else which might ordinarily be regarded as a fairly innocuous if not praiseworthy inclination often degenerate, when pushed beyond a certain point of intensity or duration, into some of the most lethal vices of all!

Who, for instance, could seriously deny that religious superstition or fanaticism of one kind or another has caused more death and suffering, over the centuries, than hard-drug addiction, alcoholism, and cigarette smoking put together? Similarly, isn't the phrase 'excessive political fanaticism' likely to engender rather painful connotations when one cares to reflect upon world history, and most especially upon recent European history? And even prolonged chastity - what a terrible vice that can be for making various people more argumentative, spiteful, dissatisfied, intolerant, etc., than they would otherwise have been, if permitted a normal, healthy sex-life!

But, in saying all this, let us not kid ourselves that vice can or indeed should be completely eradicated. For, in all probability, one would first have to eradicate human life. Either that, or one would have to turn one's back on life to such an extent that it inevitably took revenge upon one by becoming absolutely hellish, an inclination, alas, which would seem to have possessed a perverse charm for considerable numbers of obdurate, would-be ascetics ever since the dawn of civilization, and one which in no way appears destined to be discarded or outgrown while man retains a semblance of his innate and altogether indispensable predilection for virtue.