B642 <=> B644 (BTG XXXIV Russia, p. 643)

“Why of course . . . my dear boy. In the course of long centuries of their existence, and among them as everywhere on planets where beings arise who spend likewise part of the time of their existence simply in the ordinary process, many customs and also what are called ‘moral habits,’ at times very good and useful for their ordinary existence, were also gradually formed, and even at the present time are sometimes formed among several of their groupings; but herein lies the evil, that such a being-welfare as becomes fixed in the process of ordinary existence from the flow of time alone, and which improves thanks to transmission from generation to generation, also soon either entirely disappears or is changed to such a direction that these happy achievements of theirs are transformed of their own accord into ‘unhappy’ ones and increase the number of those small factors maleficent for them, the totality of which year by year ‘dilutes,’ more and more, both their psyche as well as their very essence.

“If they were even to possess and were to use at least those ‘trifles’ worthy of the three-brained beings, then this would already be to the good for them, or as they themselves would say, ‘would-in-any-case-be-better-than-nothing.’

“Of course, if at least any of these good customs, fixed by them in the process of their existence, and already automatized ‘moral habits’ could have survived and been transformed by inheritance into the mode of existence of their subsequent generations, then thanks at least to this, their, in the objective sense, ‘desolate’ existence would have seemed to be, to an outside impartial observer, at least a little reconcilable.

“The causes of the complete destruction and change of even this being-welfare for their tolerable existence achieved by time, both of good customs as well as ‘moral usages,’ are of course also engendered by these abnormal conditions for the ordinary being-existence around them established by them themselves.