It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. All that it
really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past,
and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times,
and with joy.

It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only
method by which one could arrive at any scientific analysis
of the passions; and certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made
to his hand, and seemed to promise rich and fruitful results.
His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane was a psychological phenomenon
of no small interest. There was no doubt that curiosity had much
to do with it, curiosity and the desire for new experiences,
yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex passion.
What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of boyhood
had been transformed by the workings of the imagination,
changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote
from sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous.
It was the passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves
that tyrannized most strongly over us. Our weakest motives
were those of whose nature we were conscious. It often happened
that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were
really experimenting on ourselves.

While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the door,
and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for dinner.
He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had smitten into
scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. The panes glowed
like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a faded rose.
He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and wondered how it was
all going to end.