It was this very doing of the thing that _they themselves_ believed to be wrong, that constituted the chief charm of the act. Man invents sin, in order to enjoy the feeling of being naughty. Also, in order to shift the responsibility for his own acts. A Divine Father tells him what to do. And man is naughty and doesn't obey. And then shiveringly, ignoble man lets down his pants for a flogging.
If the Divine Father doesn't bring on the flogging, in this life, then Sinful Man shiveringly awaits his whipping in the afterlife.
Bah, the Divine Father, like so many other Crowned Heads, has abdicated his authority. Man can sin as much as he likes.
There is only one penalty: the loss of his own integrity. Man should _never_ do the thing he believes to be wrong. Because if he does, he loses his own singleness, wholeness, natural honour.
If you want to do a thing, you've either got to believe, sincerely, that it's your true nature to do this thing: or else you've got to let it alone.
Believe in your own Holy Ghost. Or else, if you doubt, abstain.
A thing that you sincerely believe in, cannot be wrong. Because belief does not come at will. It comes only from the Holy Ghost within. Therefore a thing you truly believe in, cannot be wrong.
But there is such a thing as spurious belief. There is such a thing as _evil_ belief: a belief that one _cannot do wrong._ There is also such a thing as a half-spurious belief. And this is rottenest of all. The devil lurking behind the cross.
So there you are. Between genuine belief, and spurious belief, and half-genuine belief, you're as likely as not to be in a pickle. And the half-genuine belief is much the dirtiest, and most deceptive thing in life.
Hester and Dimmesdale believed in the Divine Father, and almost gloatingly sinned against Him. The Allegory of Sin.
Pearl no longer believes in the Divine Father. She says so. She has no Divine Father. Disowns Papa both big and little.
What will she do, then, if she's got no god to sin against? Why, of course, she'll not be able to sin at all. She'll go her own way gaily, and do as she likes, and she'll say, afterwards, when she's made a mess: "Yes, I did it. But I acted for the best, and therefore I am blameless. It's the other person's fault. Or else it's Its fault."