In theory, no reason
      can be more unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none more
      strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes
      absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe,
      than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is
      often the one unconquerable _force_ which impels us, and alone
      impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency
      to do wrong for the wrong’s sake, admit of analysis, or
      resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive
      impulse—elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we
      persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them,
      our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily
      springs from the combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will
      show the fallacy of this idea. The phrenological combativeness
      has for its essence, the necessity of self-defence. It is our
      safeguard against injury. Its principle regards our well-being;
      and thus the desire to be well is excited simultaneously with its
      development. It follows, that the desire to be well must be
      excited simultaneously with any principle which shall be merely a
      modification of combativeness, but in the case of that something
      which I term perverseness, the desire to be well is not only not
      aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment exists. An appeal to one’s own heart is, after all, the best reply to the
      sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and
      thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the
      entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more
      incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some
      period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire
      to tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware
      that he displeases; he has every intention to please, he is
      usually curt, precise, and clear; the most laconic and luminous
      language is struggling for utterance upon his tongue; it is only
      with difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he
      dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet,
      the thought strikes him, that by certain involutions and
      parentheses this anger may be engendered. That single thought is
      enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire,
      the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the
      deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of
      all consequences) is indulged. We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We
      know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important
      crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy
      and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence
      the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our
      whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day,
      and yet we put it off until to-morrow; and why? There is no
      answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no
      comprehension of the principle. To-morrow arrives, and with it a
      more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very
      increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively
      fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving
      gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is
      at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within
      us,—of the definite with the indefinite—of the substance with the
      shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the
      shadow which prevails,—we struggle in vain. The clock strikes,
      and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the
      chanticleer-note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It
      flies—it disappears—we are free. The old energy returns. We will
      labor now. Alas, it is too late! We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we
      grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the
      danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and
      dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable
      feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud
      assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which
      arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud
      upon the precipice’s edge, there grows into palpability, a shape,
      far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet
      it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills
      the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight
      of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our
      sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a
      height. And this fall—this rushing annihilation—for the very
      reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of
      all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering
      which have ever presented themselves to our imagination—for this
      very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our
      reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the
      most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
      demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the
      edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge, for a
      moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for
      reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say,
      that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we
      fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the
      abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed. Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them
      resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate
      them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this
      there is no intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem
      this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it
      not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good. I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
      question—that I may explain to you why I am here—that I may
      assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect
      of a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting
      this cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might
      either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble,
      have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am
      one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse. It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a
      more thorough deliberation.