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 CIVILISATION : ITS 
 CAUSE AND CURE
 
 CIVILISATION : ITS 
 CAUSE AND CURE 
 
 AND OTHER ESSAYS 
 
 (newly-enlarged and complete edition) 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD CARPENTER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "towards DEMOCRACY," 
 " MY DAYS AND DREAMS," ETC. 
 
 LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. 
 RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i
 
 First Edition, June i88g ; Second Edition, December 1890 
 Third Edition, November 1893 ; Fourth Edition, yii/y 1895 
 Fifth Edition, September 1897 ; Sixth Edition, October 1900 
 Seventh Edition, July 1902 ; Eighth Edition, March 1903 
 Ninth Edition, January 1906 ; Tenth Edition, January 1908 
 Eleventh Edition, October 1910 ; Twelfth Edition, Dec. 1912 
 Thirteenth Edition, ^H^.1914 ; Fourteenth Edition, Juncigit 
 Fifteenth Edition, Sept. igiy ; Complete Edition, Jan. 1921 
 
 (ytf// rights reserved)
 
 PREFACE TO COMPLETE EDITION 
 
 (1920) 
 
 IN looking over this volume, first published 
 in 1889, with a view to a final Edition, 
 I am glad to note that after all there is not 
 much in it requiring alteration. Considering that 
 the original issue took place more than 30 years 
 ago, I had thought that the great changes in 
 scientific and philosophic thought which have 
 taken place during that period would probably 
 have rendered " out of date " a good deal of the 
 book. ' 
 
 As a matter of fact, the first paper — that on 
 Civilisation — was given as a lecture before the 
 Fabian Society, in 1888 ; and I shall not easily 
 forget the furious attacks which were made upon 
 it on that occasion. The book — published as 
 a whole in 1889 — came in for a very similar re- 
 ception from the press-critics. They slated it 
 to the top of their bent — except in those not 
 unfrequent cases when they ignored it as almost 
 beneath notice. The whole trend of the thought 
 of the time was against its conclusions ; and it 
 is perhaps worth while to recall these facts in 
 
 7
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 order to measure how far we have travelled in 
 these 30 years. For to-day (I think we may 
 say) these conclusions are generally admitted as 
 correct ; and the views which seemed so hazarded 
 and precarious at the earlier date are now fairly 
 accepted and established. 
 
 The word Civilisation has undoubtedly during 
 this period suffered an ominous change of color. 
 It is no longer an easy term denoting all that is 
 ideal and delightful in social life, but on the con- 
 trary, carries with it a sense of doubt and of cri- 
 ticism, as of something that is by no means accepted 
 yet, but is rather on its trial — if not actually con- 
 demned ! 
 
 I am sorry to note, however, that the suggestion 
 made more than once in the course of my book — 
 namely that the term (Civilisation) should properly 
 be given an historical instead of ideal value, as 
 applicable to a certain period only in the history 
 of each people, has not yet been generally taken 
 up. Yet a paper by some more competent person 
 than myself on the definite marks and signs of 
 the civilisation-period in History — their first 
 appearance in the course of human progress and 
 evolution, and their probable disappearance again 
 at a later stage — would be greatly interesting and 
 instructive. 
 
 My little essay on this subject was written at 
 the time of its composition with a good deal of 
 imaginative elan \ and is of course open to criticism 
 on that side, as being mainly enthusiastic in char- 
 acter and only slenderly supported by exact data^
 
 Preface 
 
 proofs, historical illustrations, analogies, and so 
 forth. But to largely alter or amend the essay 
 without seriously crippling it would be impossible ; 
 and though the form may be hurried or inade- 
 quate, yet as far as the actual contents and con- 
 clusions are concerned I still adhere to them 
 absolutely, and believe that time will show them 
 to be fully justified. 
 
 With regard to my views on Modern Science 
 the last quarter of a century has curiously corro- 
 borated them. For while on the one hand — as 
 expected — the progress in actual discovery and 
 application of observed facts has been enormous, 
 the theories on the other hand about all these things 
 have receded more and more into the background, 
 and have passed almost out of sight. While 
 knowing, for instance, infinitely more about elec- 
 trical actions and adaptations than we did, we 
 seem to be if anything further off than ever from 
 any valid theory of what Electricity is. The same 
 with regard to Heat and Light, to Astronomical, 
 Biological and Geological " laws," and so forth. 
 On such matters Modern Science is on the verge 
 of confessing itself bankrupt, but not wishing 
 to do that, it keeps a discreet silence. 
 
 The Atom, which I ventured (to the disgust of 
 my scientific friends) to make fun of 30 years 
 ago, has now exploded of itself as thoroughly as 
 a German *' coal-box " ; and the fixed Chemical 
 Elements of older days have of late dissolved 
 into protean vapours and emanations, ions and 
 electrons, impossible to follow through their end-
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 less transformations. As to the numerous ** Laws 
 of Nature " which in the nineteenth century 
 we were just about to establish for all eternity, 
 it is only with the greatest difficulty that any of 
 these can now be discovered — most of them 
 having got secreted away into the darkness of 
 ancient text-books : where they lead forlorn and 
 sightless existences, like the fish in the caves of 
 Kentucky. 
 
 Here again — in my chapters on Science — 
 though some expressions remain which are now 
 out of date, I have thought it best to leave them 
 as originally written : the meanings and general 
 conclusions being still valid and as they were. 
 It will be seen that the general drift of these chapters 
 is to point the moral that the true field of science 
 is to be found in Life, and that the best way to 
 knozv things is to experience their meaning and 
 to identify oneself with them through Action. 
 From a study on these principles will ultimately 
 emerge a Science truly humane and creative, 
 masterful, and capable of building a true home for 
 men — instead of the feverish, spectral and self- 
 deluding thing which has usurped the name up 
 to now. 
 
 Something the same will happen with the con- 
 ception of Morality. The abstract codes on this 
 subject, which have wrought so much havoc by 
 their fatal intrusion on the field of human Life, 
 are rapidly fliding away. These ghosts, like the 
 ghosts of Nature's " Laws," are receiving their 
 quietus. And the general outline which was sug- 
 
 10
 
 Preface 
 
 gested in ** The Defence of Criminals " has now 
 been traced more positively in the chapter on 
 ** The New Morality " inserted at the end of 
 the present volume. Morality has at last to become 
 truly human, and the real expression of our organic 
 need. Man has to be liberated from the cramps 
 and suppressions and fixations which have hitherto 
 paralysed him in the moral field. He has to 
 emerge from the swathing bands of his pupal stage 
 into the free air of heaven, and to become in 
 the highest sense self-determining and creative. 
 
 Thus three things, (i) the realisation of a new 
 order of Society, in closest touch with Nature, 
 and in which the diseases of class-domination and 
 Parasitism will have finally ceased ; (2) the realisa- 
 tion of a Science which will no longer be a mere 
 thing of the brain, but a part of Actual Life ; 
 and (3) the realisation of a Morality which will 
 signalise and express the vital and organic unity 
 of man with his fellows — these three things will 
 become the heralds of a new era of humanity — 
 an era which will possibly prefer not to call itself 
 by the name of Civilisation. 
 
 In order to corroborate and confirm the first 
 paper in the book an Appendix has now been 
 added containing notes and data on the life and 
 customs of many " uncivilised " peoples ; for 
 much of which Appendix I am indebted to the 
 assistance of my widely-read and resourceful 
 friend, E. Bertram Lloyd. 
 
 E. C. 
 
 December f 1920. 
 
 II
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Preface to Complete Edition . . .7 
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure . . 15 
 
 A^odern Science : A Criticism . . -79 
 
 The Science of the Future : A Forecast . 120 
 
 Defence of Criminals: A Criticism of Morality 143 
 
 Exfoliation: Lamarck versus Darwin . .181 
 
 Custom ...... 206 
 
 A Rational and Humane Science . .219 
 
 The New Morality .... 243 
 
 Appendix — being Notes on Some of the 
 Characteristics and Customs of Pre- 
 Civilised Peoples .... 265 
 
 13
 
 CIVILISATION : 
 
 ITS CAUSE AND CURE 
 
 The friendly and flowing savage, who is he ? Is he waiting 
 for civilisation, or is he past it, and mastering it ? — Whitman. 
 
 "TTTTE find ourselves to-day in the midst of a 
 \X/ somewhat peculiar state of society, which 
 W we call Civilisation, but which even to 
 the most optimistic among us does not seem al- 
 together desirable. Some of us, indeed, are 
 inclined to think that it is a kind of disease which 
 the various races of man have to pass through — 
 as children pass through measles or whooping 
 cough ; but if it is a disease, there is this serious 
 consideration to be made, that while History tells 
 us of many nations that have been attacked by it, 
 of many that have succumbed to it, and of some 
 that are still in the throes of it, we know of no 
 single case in which a nation has fairly recovered 
 from and passed through it to a more normal 
 and healthy condition. In other words the 
 development of human society has never yet 
 (that we know of) passed beyond a certain definite 
 
 15
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and apparently final stage in the process we call 
 Civilisation ; at that stage it has always succumbed 
 or been arrested. 
 
 Of. course it may at first sound extravagant 
 to use the word disease in connection with Civilisa- 
 tion at all, but a little thought should show that 
 the association is not ill-grounded. To take the 
 matter on its physical side first, I find that in 
 Mullhall's Dictionary of Statistics (1884) the number 
 of accredited doctors and surgeons in the United 
 Kingdom is put at over 23,000. If the extent 
 of the national sickness is such that we require 
 23,000 medical men to attend to us, it must surely 
 be rather serious ! And they do not cure us. 
 Wherever we look to-day, in mansion or in slum, 
 we see the features and hear the complaints of 
 ill-health ; the difficulty is really to find a healthy 
 person. The state of the modern civilised man in 
 this respect — our coughs, colds, mufflers, dread of 
 a waft of chill air, &c. — is anything but creditable, 
 and it seems to be the fact that, notwithstanding 
 all our libraries of medical science, our know- 
 ledges, arts, and appliances of life, we are actually 
 less capable of taking care of ourselves than the 
 animals are. Indeed, talking of animals, we are 
 — as Shelley I think points out — fast depraving 
 the domestic breeds. The cow, the horse, the sheep, 
 and even the confiding pussy-cat, are becoming 
 ever more and more subject to disease, and are 
 liable to ills which in their wilder state they knew 
 not of. And finally the savage races of the earth 
 do not escape the baneful influence. Wherever 
 
 16
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Civilisation touches them, they die like flies from 
 the small-pox, drink, and worse evils it brings along 
 with it, and often its mere contact is sufficient to 
 destroy whole races. 
 
 But the word Disease is applicable to our social 
 as well as to our physical condition. For as in 
 the body disease arises from the loss of the physical 
 unity which constitutes Health, and so takes the 
 form of warfare or discord between the various 
 parts, or of the abnormal development of individual 
 organs, or the consumption of the system by pre- 
 datory germs and growths ; so in our modern 
 life we find the unity gone which constitutes 
 true society, and in its place warfare of classes 
 and individuals, abnormal development of some 
 to the detriment of others, and consumption of 
 the organism by masses of social parasites. If 
 the word disease is applicable anywhere, I should 
 say it is — both in its direct and its derived sense — 
 to the civilised societies of to-day. 
 
 Again, mentally, is not our condition most 
 unsatisfactory ? I am not alluding to the number 
 and importance of the lunatic asylums which 
 cover our land, nor to the fact that maladies of 
 the brain and nervous system are now so common; 
 but to the strange sense of mental unrest which 
 marks our populations, and which amply justifies 
 Ruskin's cutting epigram : that our two objects 
 in life are, " Whatever we have — to get more ; 
 and wherever we are — to go somewhere else." 
 This sense of unrest, of disease, penetrates down 
 even into the deepest regions of man's being — into 
 
 17 B
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 his moral nature — disclosing itself there, as it 
 has done in all nations notably at the time of their 
 full civilisation, as the sense of Sin.^ All down 
 the Christian centuries we find this strange sense 
 of inward strife and discord developed, in marked 
 contrast to the naive insouciance of the pagan 
 and primitive world ; and, what is strangest, we 
 even find people glorying in this consciousness 
 — which, while it may be the harbinger of better 
 things to come, is and can be in itself only the 
 evidence of loss of unity, and therefore of ill-health, 
 in the very centre of human life. 
 
 Of course we are aware with regard to Civilisa- 
 tion that the word is sometimes used in a kind of 
 ideal sense, as to indicate a state of future culture 
 towards which we are tending — the implied assump- 
 tion being that a sufficiently long course of top 
 hats and telephones will in the end bring us to 
 this ideal condition ; while any little drawbacks 
 in the process, such as we have just pointed out, 
 are explained as being merely accidental and 
 temporary. Men sometimes speak of civilising 
 and ennobling influences as if the two terms were 
 interchangeable, and of course if they like to use 
 the word Civilisation in this sense they have a 
 right to ; but whether the actual tendencies of 
 modern life taken in the mass are ennobling (ex- 
 cept in a quite indirect way hereafter to be dwelt 
 upon) is, to say the least, a doubtful question. 
 
 ' It is interesting to note that the " sense of Sin " seems now 
 (1920) to have nearly passed away. And this fact probably 
 mdicates a considerable impending change in our Social Order. 
 
 18
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Any one who would get an idea of the glorious 
 being that is as a matter of fact being turned out 
 by the present process should read Mr. Kay 
 Robinson's article in the Nineteenth Century for 
 May, 1883, in which he prophesies (quite solemnly 
 and in the name of science) that the human being 
 of the future will be a toothless, bald, toeless crea- 
 ture with flaccid muscles and limbs almost in- 
 capable of locomotion 1 
 
 Perhaps it is safer on the whole not to use the 
 v/ord Civilisation in such ideal sense, but to limit 
 its use (as is done to-day by all writers on primitive 
 society) to a definite historical stage through which 
 the various nations pass, and in which we actually 
 find ourselves at the present time. Though there 
 is of course a difficulty in marking the commence- 
 ment of any period of historical evolution very 
 definitely, yet all students of this subject agree 
 that the growth of property and the ideas and 
 institutions flowing from it did at a certain point 
 bring about such a change in the structure of 
 human society that the new stage might fairly be 
 distinguished from the earlier stages of Savagery 
 and Barbarism by a separate term. The growth 
 of Wealth, it is shown, and with it the conception 
 of Private Property, brought on certain very definite 
 new forms of social life ; it destroyed the ancient 
 system of society based upon the gens^ that is, 
 a society of equals founded upon blood-relationship, 
 and introduced a society of classes founded upon 
 differences of material possession ; it destroyed 
 the ancient system of mother-right and inheritance 
 
 19
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 through the female line, and turned the woman 
 into the property of the man ; it brought with 
 it private ownership of land, and so created a class 
 of landless aliens, and a whole system of rent, 
 mortgage, interest, etc. ; it introduced slavery, 
 serfdom and wage-labour, which are only various 
 forms of the dominance of one class over another ; 
 and to rivet these authorities it created the State 
 and the policeman. Every race that we know, 
 that has become what we call civilised, has passed 
 through these changes ; and though the details 
 may vary and have varied a little, the main order 
 of change has been practically the same in all cases. 
 We are justified therefore in calling Civilisation 
 a historical stage, whose commencement dates 
 roughly from the division of society into classes 
 founded on property and the adoption of class- 
 government. Lewis Morgan in his Ancient Society 
 adds the invention of writing and the consequent 
 adoption of written History and written Law ; 
 Engels in his Ursprung der Familie, des Privat- 
 eigenthums und des Staats points out the im.- 
 portance of the appearance of the Merchant, 
 even in his most primitive form, as a mark 
 of the civilisation-period ; while the French 
 writers of the last century made a good point in 
 inventing the term nations policees (policemanised 
 nations) as a substitute for civilised nations ; for 
 perhaps there is no better or more universal 
 mark of the period we are considering, and of its 
 social degradation, than the appearance of the 
 crawling phenomenon in question. [Imagine the 
 
 20
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 rage of any decent North American Indians if 
 they had been told they required -policemen to 
 keep them in order !] 
 
 If we take this historical definition of Civilisation, 
 we shall see that our English Civilisation began 
 hardly more than a thousand years ago, and even 
 so the remains of the more primitive society lasted 
 long after that. In the case of Rome — if we 
 reckon from the later times of the early kings 
 down to the fall of Rome — we have again about a 
 thousand years. The Jewish civilisation from David 
 and Solomon downwards lasted — with breaks — 
 somewhat over a thousand years ; the Greek 
 civilisation less ; the series of Egyptian civilisa- 
 tions which we can now distinguish lasted alto- 
 gether very much longer ; but the important points 
 to see are, first, that the process has been quite 
 similar in character in these various (and numerous 
 other) cases,^ quite as similar in fact as the course 
 of the same disease in various persons ; and 
 secondly that in no case, as said before, has any 
 nation come through and passed beyond this stage ; 
 but that in most cases it has succumbed soon after 
 the main symptoms had been developed. 
 
 But it will be said, It may be true that Civilisa- 
 tion regarded as a stage of human history presents 
 some features of disease ; but is there any reason 
 for supposing that disease in some form or other 
 was any less present in the previous stage — that of 
 Barbarism } To which I reply, I think there is 
 
 I For proof I must refer the reader to Engels, or to his own 
 studies of history. 
 
 21
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 good reason. Without committing ourselves to 
 the unlikely theory that the " noble savage " was 
 an ideal human being physically or in any other 
 respect, and while certain that in many points he 
 was decidedly inferior to the civilised man, I think 
 we must allow him the superiority in some directions ; 
 and one of these was his comparative freedom from 
 disease. Lewis Morgan, who grew up among 
 the Iroquois Indians, and who probably knew 
 the North American natives as well as any white 
 man has ever done, says (in his Ancient Society^ 
 p. 45), ** Barbarism ends with the production of 
 grand Barbarians." And though there are no 
 native races on the earth to-day who are actually 
 in the latest and most advanced stage of Barbarism ; ^ 
 yet, if we take the most advanced tribes that we 
 know of — such as the said Iroquois Indians of 
 twenty or thirty years ago, some of the Kaffir 
 tribes round Lake Nyassa in Africa, now (and 
 possibly for a few years more) comparatively 
 untouched by civilisation, or the tribes along the 
 river Uaupes, thirty or forty years back, of Wallace's 
 Travels on the Amazon — all tribes in what Morgan 
 would call the middle stage of Barbarism — we 
 undoubtedly in each case discover a fine and (which 
 is our point here) healthy people. Captain Cook 
 in his first Voyage says of the natives of Otaheite, 
 ** We saw no critical disease during our stay upon 
 the island, and but few instances of sickness, which 
 were accidental fits of the colic ; " and, later on, 
 
 2 Say like the Homeric Greeks, or the Spartans of the Lycurgus 
 period. 
 
 22
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 of the New Zealanders, " They enjoy perfect 
 and uninterrupted health. In all our visits to 
 their towns, where young and old, men and women, 
 crowded about us. . . . we never saw a single person 
 who appeared to have any bodily complaint, nor 
 among the numbers we have seen naked did we 
 once perceive the slightest eruption upon the 
 skin, or any marks that an eruption had left behind." 
 These are pretty strong words. Of course diseases 
 exist among such peoples, even where they have 
 never been in contact with civilisation, but I think 
 we may say that among the higher types of savages 
 they are rarer, and nothing like so various and 
 so prevalent as they are in our modern life ; while 
 the power of recovery from wounds (which are of 
 course the most frequent form of disablement) 
 is generally admitted to be something astonishing. 
 Speaking of the Kaffirs, J. G. Wood says, '* Their 
 state of health enables them to survive injuries 
 which would be almost instantly fatal to any 
 civilised European." Mr. Frank Oates in his 
 Diary ^ mentions the case of a man who was con- 
 demned to death by the king. He was hacked 
 down with axes, and left for dead. " What 
 must have been intended for the coup de grace 
 was a cut in the back of the head, which had 
 chipped a large piece out of the skull, and must 
 have been meant to cut the spinal cord where it 
 joins the brain. It had, however, been made a 
 little higher than this, but had left such a wound 
 as I should have thought that no one could have 
 » MatabeU Land and the Victoria Falls, p. 209. 
 23
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 survived . . . when I held the lanthorn to investigate 
 the wound I started back in amazement to see a 
 hole at the base of the skull, perhaps two inches 
 long and an inch and a half wide, and I will not 
 venture to say how deep, but the depth too must 
 have been an affair of inches. Of course this 
 hole penetrated into the substance of the brain, 
 and probably for some distance. I dare say a 
 mouse could have sat in it." Yet the man was 
 not so much disconcerted. Like Old King Cole, 
 *' He asked for a pipe and a drink of brandy," 
 and ultimately made a perfect recovery ! Of 
 course it might be said that such a story only 
 proves the lowness of organisation of the brains 
 of savages ; but to the Kaffirs at any rate this would 
 not apply ; they are a quick-witted race, with 
 large brains, and exceedingly acute in argument, 
 as Colenso found to his cost. Another point 
 which indicates superabundant health is the 
 amazing animal spirits of these native races ! 
 The shouting, singing, dancing kept up nights 
 long among the Kaffirs are exhausting merely 
 to witness, while the graver North American 
 Indian exhibits a corresponding power of life in 
 his eagerness for battle or his stoic resistance of 
 pain. I 
 
 Similarly when we come to consider the social 
 
 I A similar physical liealth and power of life are also developed 
 among Europeans who have lived for long periods in more native 
 conditions. It is not to our race, which is probably superior to 
 any in capacity, but to the state in which we live that we must 
 ascribe our defect in this particular matter. 
 
 24
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 life of the wilder races — however rudimentary 
 and undeveloped it may be — the almost universal 
 testimony of students and travelers is that within 
 its limits it is more harmonious and compact than 
 that of the civilised nations. The members of 
 the tribe are not organically at warfare with each 
 other ; society is not divided into classes which 
 prey upon each other ; nor is it consumed by para- 
 sites. There is more true social unity, less of 
 disease. Though the customs of each tribe are 
 rigid, absurd, and often frightfully cruel, ^ and 
 though all outsiders are liable to be regarded as 
 enemies, yet within those limits the members live 
 peacefully together — their pursuits, their work, 
 are undertaken in common, thieving and violence 
 are rare, social feeling and community of interest 
 are strong. ** In their own bands Indians are 
 perfectly honest. In all my intercourse with them 
 1 have heard of not over half-a-dozen cases of such 
 theft. But this wonderfully exceptional honesty 
 extends no further than to the members of his 
 immediate band. To all outside of it, the Indian 
 is not only one of the most arrant thieves in the 
 world, but this quality or faculty is held in the 
 highest estimation." (Dodge, p. 64.) If a man 
 set out on a journey (this among the Kaffirs) 
 " he need not trouble himself about provisions, 
 for he is sure to fall in with some hut, or per- 
 haps a village, and is equally sure of obtain- 
 ing both food and shelter." 2 "I have lived," 
 
 1 See Col, Dodge's Our Wild Indians. 
 
 2 Wood's Natural History of Man. 
 
 25
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 says A. R. Wallace in his Malay Archipelago 
 vol. ii. p. 460)5 " with communities in South 
 America and the East, who have no laws or law 
 courts, but the public opinion of the village . . . 
 yet each man scrupulously respects the rights of 
 his fellows, and any infraction of those rights 
 rarely takes place. In such a community all are 
 nearly equal. There are none of those wide dis- 
 tinctions of education and ignorance, wealth and 
 poverty, master and servant, which are the pro- 
 duct of our civilisation." Indeed this community 
 of life in the early societies, this absence of division 
 into classes, and of the contrast between rich 
 and poor, is now admitted on all sides as a marked 
 feature of difference between the conditions of 
 the primitive and of civilised man.^ 
 
 Lastly, with regard to the mental condition of 
 the Barbarian, probably no one will be found to 
 dispute the contention that he is more easy-minded 
 and that his consciousness of Sin is less developed 
 than in his civilised brother. Our unrest is the 
 penalty we pay for our wider life. The missionary 
 retires routed from the savage in whom he can 
 awake no sense of his supreme wickedness. An 
 American lady had a servant, a negro-woman, 
 who on one occasion asked leave of absence for 
 the next morning, saying she wished to attend the 
 Holy Communion } " I have no objection," said 
 the mistress, " to grant you leave ; but do you 
 think you ought to attend Communion } You 
 know you have never said you were sorry about 
 ' See Appendix. 
 26
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 that goose you stole last week." " Lor' missus, * 
 replied the woman, " do ye think I'd let an old 
 goose stand betwixt me and my Blessed Lord 
 and Master ? " But joking apart, and however 
 necessary for man's ultimate evolution may be 
 the temporary development of this consciousness 
 of Sin, we cannot help seeing that the condition 
 of the mind in which it is absent is the most dis- 
 tinctively healthy ; nor can it be concealed that 
 some of the greatest works of Art have been pro- 
 duced by people like the earlier Greeks, in whom 
 it was absent ; and could not possibly have been 
 produced where it was strongly developed. 
 
 Though, as already said, the latest stage of Bar- 
 barism, i.e., that just preceding Civilisation, is 
 unrepresented on the earth to-day, yet we have 
 in the Homeric and other dawn-literature of the 
 various nations indirect records of this stage; and 
 these records assure us of a condition of man very 
 similar to, though somewhat more developed than, 
 the condition of the existing races I have mentioned 
 above. Besides this, we have in the numerous 
 traditions of the Golden Age,i legends of the 
 Fall, etc., a curious fact which suggests to us that 
 a great number of races in advancing towards 
 Civilisation were conscious at some point or other 
 of having lost a primitive condition of ease and 
 contentment, and that they embodied this conscious- 
 ness, with poetical adornment and licence, in 
 imaginative legends of the earlier Paradise. Some 
 people indeed, seeing the universality of these 
 I See Note at end of this chapter. 
 27
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 stories, and the remarkable fragments of wisdom 
 embedded in them and other extremely ancient 
 myths and writings, have supposed that there 
 really was a general pre-historic Eden-garden or 
 Atlantis ; but the necessities of the case hardly 
 seem to compel this supposition. That each 
 human soul, however, bears within itself some kind 
 of reminiscence of a more harmonious and perfect 
 state of being, which it has at some time experienced, 
 seems to me a conclusion difficult to avoid ; and 
 this by itself might give rise to manifold traditions 
 and myths. 
 
 II 
 
 However all this may be, the question immedi- 
 ately before us — having established the more 
 healthy, though more limited, condition of the 
 pre-civilisation peoples — is, why this lapse or 
 fall ? What is the meaning of this manifold 
 and intensified manifestation of Disease — physical, 
 social, intellectual, and moral ? what is its place 
 and part in the great whole of human evolution ? 
 
 And this involves us in a digression, which 
 must occupy a few pages, on the nature of Health. 
 
 When we come to analyse the conception of 
 Disease, physical or mental, in society or in the 
 individual, it evidently means, as already hinted 
 once or twice, loss of unity. Health, therefore, 
 should mean unity, and it is curious that the 
 history of the word entirely corroborates this idea. 
 As is well known, the words health, whole, holy, 
 
 28
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 are from the same stock ; and they indicate to us the 
 fact that far back in the past those who created this 
 group of words had a conception of the meaning 
 of Health very different from ours, and which 
 they embodied unconsciously in the word itself 
 and its strange relatives. 
 
 These are, for instance, and among others : 
 heal, hallow, hale, holy, whole, wholesome ; 
 German heilig, Heiland (the Saviour) ; Latin 
 salus (as in salutation, salvation) ; Greek kalos ; 
 also compare hail ! a salutation, and, less certainly 
 connected, the root hal^ to breathe, as in inhale, 
 exhale — French haleine — Italian and French alma 
 and ame (the soul) ; compare the Latin spiritus, 
 spirit or breath, and Sanskrit atman, breath or 
 soul. 
 
 Wholeness, holiness ..." if thine eye be single, 
 thy whole body shall be full of light." ..." thy 
 faith hath made thee whole y 
 
 The idea seems to be a positive one — a condition 
 of the body in which it is an entirety, a unity — 
 a central force maintaining that condition ; and 
 disease being the break-up — or break-down — 
 of that entirety into multiplicity. 
 
 The peculiarity about our modern conception 
 of Health is that it seems to be a purely negative 
 one. So impressed are we by the myriad presence 
 of Disease — so numerous its dangers, so sudden 
 and unforetellable its attacks — that we have come 
 to look upon health as the mere absence of the 
 same. As a solitary spy picks his way through a 
 hostile camp at night, sees the enemy sitting round 
 
 29
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 his fires, and trembles at the crackHng of a twig 
 beneath his feet — so the traveller through this 
 world, comforter in one hand and physic-bottle 
 in the other, must pick his way, fearful lest at 
 any time he disturb the sleeping legions of death — 
 thrice blessed if by any means, steering now to 
 the right and now to the left, and thinking only 
 of his personal safety, he pass by without discovery 
 to the other side. 
 
 Health with us is a negative thing. It is a 
 neutralisation of opposing dangers. It is to be 
 neither rheumatic nor gouty, consumptive nor 
 bilious, to be untroubled by head-ache, back-ache, 
 heart-ache, or any of the " thousand natural shocks 
 that flesh is heir to." These are the realities. 
 Health is the mere negation of them. 
 
 The modern notion, and which has evidently 
 in a very subtle way penetrated the whole thought 
 of to-day, is that the essential fact of life is the 
 existence of innumerable external forces, which, 
 by a very delicate balance and difficult to maintain, 
 concur to produce Man — who in consequence may 
 at any moment be destroyed again by the non- 
 concurrence of those forces. The older notion 
 apparently is that the essential fact of life is Man 
 himself ; and that the external forces, so-called, 
 are in some way subsidiary to this fact — that they 
 may aid his expression or manifestation, or that 
 they may hinder it, but that they can neither create j 
 nor annihilate the Man. Probably both ways of | 
 looking at the subject are important ; there is a I 
 man that can be destroyed, and there is a man that } 
 
 30
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 cannot be destroyed. The old words, soul and 
 body, indicate this contrast ; but like all words they 
 are subject to the defect that they are an attempt 
 to draw a line where no line can ultimately be 
 drawn ; they mark a contrast where, in fact, there 
 is only continuity — for between the little mortal 
 man who dwells here and now, and the divine and 
 universal Man who also forms a part of our conscious- 
 ness, is there not a perfect gradation of being, 
 and where (if anywhere) is there a gulf fixed ? 
 Together they form a unit, and each is necessary 
 to the other : the first cannot do without the second, 
 and the second cannot get along at all without the 
 first. To use the words of Angelus Silesius 
 (quoted by Schopenhauer), " Ich weiss dass ohne 
 mich Gott nicht ein Nu kann leben." 
 
 According then to the elder conception, and 
 perhaps according to an elder experience, man, 
 to be really healthy, must be a unit, an entirety — 
 his more external and momentary self standing in 
 some kind of filial relation to his more universal 
 and incorruptible part — so that not only the remotest 
 and outermost regions of the body, and all the 
 assimilative, secretive, and other processes belonging 
 thereto, but even the thoughts and passions of the 
 mind itself, stand in direct and clear relationship 
 to it, the final and absolute transparency of the 
 mortal creature. And thus this divinity in each 
 creature, being that which constitutes it and causes 
 it to cohere together, was conceived of as that crea- 
 ture's saviour, healer — healer of wounds of body 
 and wounds of heart — the Man within the man, 
 
 31
 
 civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 whom it was not only possible to know, but whom 
 to know and be united with was the alone salva- 
 tion. This, I take it, was the law of health — and 
 of holiness — as accepted at some elder time of 
 human history, and by us seen as thro' a glass 
 darkly. 
 
 And the condition of disease, and of sin, under 
 the same view, was the reverse of this. Enfeeble- 
 ment, obscuration, duplicity — the central radiation 
 blocked ; lesser and insubordinate centres establish- 
 ing and asserting themselves as against it ; division, 
 discord, possession by devils. 
 
 Thus in the body, the establishment of an in- 
 subordinate centre — a boil, a tumor, the introduc- 
 tion and spread of a germ with innumerable pro- 
 geny throughout the system, the enlargement 
 out of all reason of an existing organ — means 
 disease. In the mind, disease begins when any 
 passion asserts itself as an independent centre of 
 thought and action. The condition of health 
 in the mind is loyalty to the divine Man within it.^ 
 But if loyalty to money become an independent 
 centre of life, or greed of knowledge, or of fame, 
 or of drink ; jealousy, lust, the love of approbation ; 
 or mere following after any so-called virtue for 
 itself — purity, humility, consistency, or what not — 
 these may grow to seriously endanger the other. 
 They are, or should be, subordinates ; and though 
 
 I No words or theory even of morality can express or formulate 
 tliis — no enthronement of any virtue can take its place ; for all 
 virtue enthroned before our humanity becomes vice, and worse 
 than vice. 
 
 3a
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 over a long period their insubordination may be 
 a necessary condition of human progress, yet during 
 all such time they are at war with each other and 
 with the central Will ; the man is torn and tor- 
 mented, and is not happy. 
 
 And when I speak thus separately of the mind 
 and body, it must be remembered, as already 
 said, that there is no strict line between them ; 
 but probably every affection or passion of the 
 mind has its correlative in the condition of the 
 body — though this latter may or may not be 
 easily observable. Gluttony is a fever of the 
 digestive apparatus. What is a taint in the mind 
 is also a taint in the body. The stomach has 
 started the original idea of becoming itself the 
 centre of the human system. The sexual organs 
 may start a similar idea. Here are distinct threats, 
 menaces made against the central authority — against 
 the Man himself. For the man must rule or 
 disappear ; it is impossible to imagine a man 
 presided over by a Stomach — a walking Stomach, 
 using hands, feet, and all other members merely 
 to carry it from place to place, and serve its assimila- 
 tive mania. We call such a one an Hog. [And 
 thus in the theory of Evolution we see the place 
 of the hog, and all other animals, as fore-runners 
 or off-shoots of special faculties in Man, and why 
 the true man, and rightly, has authority over all 
 animals, and can alone give them their place in 
 creation.] 
 
 So of the Brain, or any other organ ; for the 
 Man is no organ, resides in no organ, but is the 
 
 33 c
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 central life ruling and radiating among all organs, 
 and assigning them their arts to play. 
 
 Disease then, in body or mind, is from this 
 point of view the break-up of its unity, its entirety, 
 into multiplicity. It is the abeyance of a central 
 power, and the growth of insubordinate centres — 
 life in each creature being conceived of as a con- 
 tinual exercise of energy or conquest, by which 
 external or antagonistic forces (and organisms) 
 are brought into subjection and compelled into 
 the service of the creature, or are thrown off as 
 harmful to it. Thus, by way of illustration, we 
 find that plants or animals, when in good health, 
 have a remarkable power of throwing off the attacks 
 of any parasites which incline to infest them ; 
 while those that are weakly are very soon eaten 
 up by the same. A rose-tree, for instance, brought 
 indoors, will soon fall a prey to the aphis — though 
 when hardened out of doors the pest makes next 
 to no impression on it. In dry seasons when the 
 young turnip plants in the fields are weakly from 
 want of water the entire crop is sometimes destroyed 
 by the turnip fly, which then multiplies enormously ; 
 but if a shower or two of rain come before much 
 damage is done the plant will then grow vigorously, 
 its tissues become more robust and resist the attacks 
 of the fly, which in its turn dies. Late investiga- 
 tions seem to show that one of the functions of the 
 white corpuscles in the blood is to devour disease- 
 germs and bacteria present in the circulation — thus 
 absorbing these organisms into subjection to the 
 central life of the body — and that with this object 
 
 34
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 they congregate in numbers toward any part of 
 the body which is wounded or diseased. Or 
 to take an example from society, it is clear enough 
 that if our social life were really vivid and healthy, 
 such parasitic products as the idle shareholder 
 and the policeman above-mentioned would simply 
 be impossible. The material on which they prey 
 would not exist, and they would either perish 
 or be transmuted into useful forms. It seems 
 obvious in fact that life in any organism can only 
 be maintained by some such processes as these — 
 by which parasitic or infesting organisms are either 
 thrown off or absorbed into subjection. To define 
 the nature of the power which thus works towards 
 and creates the distinctive unity of each organism 
 may be difficult, is probably at present impossible, 
 but that some such power exists we can hardly 
 refuse to admit. Probably it is more a subject 
 of the growth of our consciousness, than an object 
 of external scientific investigation. 
 
 In this view. Death is simply the loosening 
 and termination of the action of this power — over 
 certain regions of the organism ; a process by 
 which, when these superficial parts become hardened 
 and osseous, as in old age, or irreparably damaged, 
 as in cases of accident, the inward being sloughs 
 them off", and passes into other spheres. In the 
 case of man there may be noble and there may be 
 ignoble death, as there may be noble and ignoble 
 life. The inward self, unable to maintain authority 
 over the forces committed to its charge, declining 
 from its high prerogative, swarmed over by parasites, 
 
 35
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and fallen partially into the clutch of obscene 
 foes, may at last with shame and torment be driven 
 forth from the temple in which it ought to have 
 been supreme. Or, having fulfilled a holy and 
 wholesome time, having radiated divine life and 
 love through all the channels of body and mind, 
 and as a perfect workman uses his tools, so having 
 with perfect mastery and nonchalance used all the 
 materials committed to it, it may quietly and 
 peacefully lay these down, and unchanged (absolutely 
 unchanged to all but material eyes) pass on to other 
 spheres appointed. 
 
 And now a few words on the medical aspect 
 of the subject. If we accept any theory (even 
 remotely similar to that just indicated) to the effect 
 that Health is a positive thing, and not a mere 
 negation of disease, it becomes pretty clear that 
 no mere investigation of the latter will enable us 
 to find out what the former is, or bring us nearer 
 to it. You might as well try to create the ebb 
 and flow of the tides by an organised system of 
 mops. 
 
 Turn your back upon the Sun and go forth into 
 the wildernesses of space till you come to those 
 limits where the rays of light, faint with distance, 
 fall dim upon the confines of eternal darkness — 
 and phantoms and shadows in the half-light are 
 the product of the wavering conflict betwixt day 
 and night — investigate these shadows, describe 
 them, classify them, record the changes which 
 take place in them, erect in vast libraries these 
 records into a monument of human industry and 
 
 36
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 research ; so shall you be at the end as near to a 
 knowledge and understanding of the sun itself — 
 which all this time you have left behind you, and 
 on which you have turned your back — as the 
 investigators of disease are to a knowledge and 
 understanding of what health is. The solar rays 
 illumine the outer world and give to it its unity 
 and entirety ; so in the inner world of each individual 
 possibly is there another Sun, which illumines 
 and gives unity to the man, and whose warmth 
 and light would permeate his system. Wait 
 upon the shining forth of this inward sun, give 
 free access and welcome to its rays of love, and 
 free passage for them into the common world 
 around you, and it may be you will get to know 
 more about health than all the books of medicine 
 contain, or can tell you. 
 
 Or to take the former simile : it is the central 
 force of the Moon which acting on the great ocean 
 makes all its waters one, and causes them to rise 
 and fall in timely consent. But take your moon 
 away ; hey 1 now the tide is flowing too far down 
 this estuary ! Station your thousands with mops, 
 but it breaks through in channel and runlet! 
 Block it here, but it overflows in a neighboring 
 bay ! Appoint an army of swabs there, but to 
 what end ? The infinitest care along the fringe 
 of this great sea can never do, with all imaginable 
 dirt and confusion, what the central power does 
 easily, and with unerring grace and providence. 
 
 And so of the great (the vast and wonderful) 
 ocean which ebbs and flows within a man — take 
 
 37
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 away the central guide — and not 20,000 doctors, 
 each with 20,000 books to consult and 20,000 
 phials of different contents to administer, could 
 meet the myriad cases of disease which would 
 ensue, or bolster up into " wholeness " the being 
 from whom the single radiant unity had departed. 
 
 Probably there has never been an age, nor any 
 country (except Yankee-land ?) in which disease 
 has been so generally prevalent as in England 
 to-day ; and certainly there has never (with the 
 same exception) been an age or country in which 
 doctors have so swarmed, or in which medical 
 science has been so powerful, in apparatus, in 
 learning, in authority, and in actual organisation 
 and number of adherents. How reconcile this con- 
 tradiction — if indeed a contradiction it be ? 
 
 But the fact is that medical science does not 
 contradict disease — any more than laws abolish 
 crime. Medical science — and doubtless for very 
 good reasons — makes a fetish of disease, and 
 dances around it. It is (as a rule) only seen where 
 disease is ; it writes enormous tomes on disease ; 
 it induces disease in animals (and even men) for 
 the purpose of studying it ; it knows, to a marvelous 
 extent, the symptoms of disease, its nature, its 
 causes, its goings out and its comings in ; its 
 eyes are perpetually fixed on disease, till disease 
 (for it) becomes the main fact of the world and the 
 main object of its worship. Even what is so grace- 
 fully called Hygiene does not get beyond this 
 negative attitude. And the world still waits for 
 its Healer, who shall tell us — diseased and suffering 
 
 3«
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 as we are — what health is, where it is to be found, 
 whence it flows ; and who having touched this 
 wonderful power within himself shall not rest 
 till he has proclaimed and imparted it to men. 
 
 No, medical science does not, in the main, 
 contradict disease. The same cause (infidelity 
 and decay of the central life in men) which creates 
 disease and makes men liable to it, creates students 
 and a science of the subject. The Moon^ having 
 gone from over the waters, the good people rush 
 forth with their mops ; and the untimely inunda- 
 tions, and the mops and the mess and the pother, 
 are all due to the same cause. 
 
 As to the lodgment of disease, it is clear that this 
 would take place easily in a disorganised system — 
 just as a seditious adventurer would easily effect 
 a landing, and would find insubordinate materials 
 ready at hand for his use, in a land where the central 
 government was weak. And as to the treatment 
 of a disease so introduced there are obviously two 
 methods : one is to reinforce the central power 
 till it is sufficiently strong of itself to eject the 
 insubordinate elements and restore order ; the 
 other is to attack the malady from outside and if 
 possible destroy it — (as by doses and decoctions) 
 — independently of the inner vitality, and leaving 
 that as it was before. The first method would 
 seem the best, most durable and effective ; but 
 it is difficult and slow. It consists in the adoption 
 
 I It is curious that this word seems to have the same root as 
 the word Man, the original idea apparently being Order, or 
 Measure. 
 
 39
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 of a healthy life, bodily and mental, and will be 
 spoken of later on. The second may be characterised 
 as the medical method, and is valuable, or rather 
 I should be inclined to say, will be valuable, when 
 it has found its place, which is to be subsidiary 
 to the first. It is too often, however, regarded as 
 superior in importance, and in this way, though 
 easy of application, has come perhaps to be productive 
 of more harm than good. The disease may be 
 broken down for the time being, but, the roots 
 of it not being destroyed, it soon springs up again 
 in the same or a new form, and the patient is as 
 badly off as ever. 
 
 The great positive force of Health, and the 
 power which it has to expel disease from its neigh- 
 borhood is a thing realised, I believe, by few persons. 
 But it has been realised on earth, and will be realised 
 again when the more squalid elements of our 
 present-day civilisation have passed away. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The result then of our digression is to show that 
 Health — in body or mind — means unity, integra- 
 tion as opposed to disintegration. In the animals 
 we find this physical unity existing to a remarkable 
 degree. An almost unerring instinct and selective 
 power rules their actions and organisation. Thus 
 a cat before it has fallen (say before it has become 
 a very wheezy fireside pussy !) is in a sense perfect. 
 The wonderful consent of its limbs as it runs or 
 
 40
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 leaps, the adaptation of its muscles, the exactness 
 and inevitableness of its instincts, physical and 
 afFectional ; its senses of sight and smell, its clean- 
 liness, nicety as to food, motherly tact, the expression 
 of its whole body when enraged, or when watching 
 for prey — all these things are so to speak absolute 
 and instantaneous — and fill one with admiration. 
 The creature is '* whole " or in one piece : there 
 is no mentionable conflict or division within it.^ 
 
 Similarly with the other animals, and even with 
 the early man himself. And so it would appear 
 returning to our subject — that, if we accept the 
 doctrine of Evolution, there is a progression of 
 animated beings — which, though not perfect, possess 
 in the main the attribute of Health — from the 
 lowest forms up to a healthy and instinctive though 
 certainly limited man. During all this stage the 
 central law is in the ascendant, and the physical 
 frame of each creature is the fairly clean vehicle 
 of its expression — ^varying of course in complexity 
 and degree according to the point of unfoldment 
 which has been reached. And when thus in the 
 long process of development the inner Man (which 
 has lain hidden or dormant within the animal) 
 at last appears, and the creature consequently takes 
 on the outer frame and faculties of the human 
 being, which are only as they are because of the 
 
 ' And with regard to disease, though it is not maintained that 
 among the animals there is anything like immunity from it — 
 since diseases of a more or less parasitic character are common 
 in all tribes of plants and animals — still they seem to be rarer, 
 and the organic instinct of health greater, than in the civilised man. 
 
 41
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 inner man which they represent ; when it has 
 passed through stage after stage of animal Hfe, 
 throwing out tentative types and Hkenesses of 
 what is to come, and going through innumerable 
 preliminary exercises in special forms and faculties, 
 till at last it begins to be able to wear the full 
 majesty of manhood itself — then it would seem 
 that that long process of development is drawing 
 to a close, and that the goal of creation must be 
 within measurable distance. 
 
 But then, at that very moment, and when the 
 goal is, so to speak, in sight, occurs this failure 
 of ** wholeness " of which we have spoken, this 
 partial break-up of the unity of human nature — 
 and man, instead of going forward any longer in 
 the same line as before, to all appearance /^//j. 
 
 What is the meaning of this loss of unity ? 
 What is the cause and purpose of this fall and 
 centuries-long exile from the earlier Paradise ? 
 
 There can be but one answer. It is self-knowledge 
 — (which involves in a sense the abandonment of 
 self). Man has to become conscious of his destiny 
 — to lay hold of and realise his own freedom and 
 blessedness — to transfer his consciousness from 
 the outer and mortal part of him to the inner and 
 undying. 
 
 The cat cannot do this. Though perfect in 
 its degree, its interior unfoldment is yet incomplete. 
 The human soul within it has not yet come forward 
 and declared itself ; some sheathing leaves have 
 yet to open before the divine flower-bud can be 
 clearly seen. And when at last (speaking as a 
 
 42
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 fool) the cat becomes a man — when the human 
 soul within the creature has climbed itself forward 
 and found expression, transforming the outer 
 frame in the process into that of humanity — 
 (which is the meaning I suppose of the evolution 
 theory) — then the creature, though perfect and 
 radiant in the form of Man, still lacks one thing. 
 It lacks the knowledge of itself ; it lacks its own 
 identity, and the realisation of the manhood to 
 which as a fact it has attained. 
 
 In the animals consciousness has never returned 
 upon itself. It radiates easily outwards ; and 
 the creature obeys without let or hesitation, and 
 with little if any j(?^-consciousness, the law of its 
 being. And when man first appears on the earth, 
 and even up to the threshold of what we call 
 civilisation, there is much to show that he should 
 in this respect still be classed with the animals. 
 Though vastly superior to them in attainments, 
 phsyical and mental, in power over nature, capacity 
 of progress, and adaptability, he still in these earlier 
 stages was like an animal in the unconscious 
 instinctive nature of his action ; and on the other 
 hand, though his moral and intellectual structures 
 were far less complete than those of the modern 
 man — as was a necessary result of the absence of 
 self-knowledge — he actually lived more in harmony 
 with himself and with nature, ^ than does his 
 
 ' As to the unity of these wild races with Nature, that is a 
 matter seemingly beyond dispute ; their keenness of sense, sensitive- 
 ness to atmospheric changes, knowledge of properties of plants and 
 habits of animals, etc., have been the subject of frequent remark 5 
 
 43
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 descendant ; his impulses, both physical and social, 
 were clearer and more unhesitating ; and his un- 
 consciousness of inner discord and sin a great 
 contrast to our modern condition of everlasting 
 strife and perplexity. 
 
 If then to this stage belongs some degree of 
 human perfection and felicity, yet there remains 
 a much vaster height to be scaled. The human 
 soul which has wandered darkling for so many 
 thousand of years, from its tiny spark-like germ 
 in some low form of life to its full splendor and 
 dignity in man, has yet to come to the knowledge 
 of its wonderful heritage, has yet to become finally 
 individualised and free, to know itself immortal, 
 to resume and interpret all its past lives, and to 
 enter in triumph into the kingdom which it has 
 won. 
 
 It has in fact to face the frightful struggle of 
 self-consciousness, or the disentanglement of the 
 
 but beyond this, their strong feeling of union with the universal 
 spirit, probably only dimly self conscious, but expressing itself 
 very markedly and clearly in their customs, is most strange and 
 pregnant of meaning. The dances of the Andaman Islanders 
 on the sands at night, the wild festival of the new moon among 
 the Fans and other African tribes, the processions through the 
 forests, the chants and dull thudding of drums, the torture-dances 
 of the young Red Indian bravos in the burning heat of the sun ; the 
 Dionysiac festivals among the early Greeks ; and indeed the 
 sacrificial nature-rites and carnivals and extraordinary powers of 
 second-sight found among all primitive peoples ; all these things 
 indicate clearly a faculty which, though it had hardly become 
 self-conscious enough to be what we call religion, was yet in truth 
 the foundation clement of religion, and the germ of some human 
 powers which wait yet to be developed. 
 
 44
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 true self from the fleeting and perishable self. 
 The animals and man, unfallen, are healthy and 
 free from care, but unaware of what they are ; 
 to attain self-knowledge man must fall ; he must 
 become less than his true self; he must endure 
 imperfection ; division and strife must enter his 
 nature. To realise the perfect Life, to know what, 
 how wonderful it is — to understand that all blessed- 
 ness and freedom consists in its possession — he 
 must for the moment suffer divorce from it ; 
 the unity, the repose of his nature must be broken 
 up, crime, disease and unrest must enter in, and 
 by contrast he must attain to knowledge. 
 
 Curious that at the very dawn of the Greek 
 and with it the European civilisation we have 
 the mystic words "Know Thyself" inscribed 
 on the temple of the Delphic Apollo ; and that 
 first among the legends of the Semitic race stands 
 that of Adam and Eve eating of the tree of the 
 Knowledge of good and evil ! To the animal 
 there is no such knowledge, to the early man there 
 was no such knowledge, and to the perfected man 
 of the future there will be no such knowledge. 
 It is a temporary perversion, indicating the disunion 
 of the present-day man — the disunion of the outer 
 self from the inner — the horrible dual self-con- 
 sciousness — which is the means ultimately of a 
 more perfect and conscious union than could ever 
 have been realised without it — the death that is 
 swallowed up in victory. ** For the first man is 
 of the earth, earthy ; but the second man is the 
 Lord from heaven." 
 
 45
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 In order then, at this point in his Evolution, 
 to advance any farther, Man must first fall ; in 
 order to know, he must lose. In order to realise 
 what Health is, how splendid and glorious a 
 possession, he must go through all the long negative 
 experience of Disease ; in order to know the perfect 
 social life, to understand what power and happiness 
 to mankind are involved in their true relation to 
 each other, he must learn the misery and suffering 
 which come from mere individualism and greed ; 
 and in order to find his true Manhood, to discover 
 what a wonderful power it is, he must first lose it — he 
 must become a prey and a slave to his own passions 
 and desires — whirled away like Phaethon by the 
 horses which he cannot control. 
 
 This moment of divorce, then, this parenthesis 
 in human progress, covers the ground of all History ; 
 and the whole of Civilisation, and all crime and 
 disease, are only the materials of its immense purpose 
 — themselves destined to pass away as they arose, 
 but to leave their fruits eternal. 
 
 Accordingly we find that it has been the work 
 of Civilisation — founded as we have seen on 
 Property — in every way to disintegrate and corrupt 
 man — literally to corrupt — to break up the unity 
 of his nature. It begins with the abandonment 
 of the primitive life and the growth of the sense 
 of shame (as in the myth of Adam and Eve). 
 From this follows the disownment of the sacredness 
 of sex. Sexual acts cease to be a part of religious 
 worship ; love and desire — the inner and the 
 outer love — hitherto undifferentiated, now become 
 
 46
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 two separate things. (This no doubt a necessary 
 stage in order for the development of the conscious- 
 ness of love y but in itself only painful and abnormal.) 
 It culminates and comes to an end, as to-day, 
 in a complete divorce between the spiritual reality 
 and the bodily fulfilment — in a vast system of 
 commercial love, bought and sold, in the brothel 
 and in the palace. It begins with the forsaking 
 of the hardy nature-life, and it ends with a society 
 broken down and prostrate, hardly recognisable 
 as human, amid every form of luxury, poverty and 
 disease. He who had been the free child of 
 Nature denies his sonship ; he disowns the very 
 breasts that suckled him. He deliberately turns 
 his back upon the light of the sun, and hides him- 
 self away in boxes with breathing holes (which 
 he calls houses), living ever more and more in dark- 
 ness and asphyxia, and only coming forth perhaps 
 once a day to blink at the bright god, or to run 
 back again at the first breath of the free wind for 
 fear of catching cold ! He muffles himself in 
 the cast-ofFfurs of the beasts, every century swathing 
 himself in more and more layers, more and more 
 fearfully and wonderfully fashioned, till he ceases 
 to be recognisable as the Man that was once the 
 crown of the animals, and presents a more ludicrous 
 spectacle than the monkey that sits on his own 
 barrel organ. He ceases to a great extent to use 
 his muscles, his feet become partially degenerate, 
 his teeth wholly, his digestion so enervated that 
 he has to cook his food and make pulps of all his 
 victuals, and his whole system so obviously on 
 
 47
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 the decline that at last in the end of time a Kay 
 Robinson arises and prophesies as aforesaid, that 
 he will before long become wholly toothless, bald 
 and toeless. 
 
 And so with this denial of Nature comes every 
 form of disease ; first delicatesse, daintiness, 
 luxury ; then unbalance, enervation, huge suscepti- 
 bility to pain. With the shutting of himself 
 away from the all-healing Power, man inevitably 
 weakens his whole manhood ; the central bond 
 is loosened, and he falls a prey to his own organs. 
 He who before was unaware of the existence of 
 these latter, now becomes only too conscious of 
 them (and this — is it not the very object of the 
 process ? ) ; the stomach, the liver and the spleen 
 start out into painful distinctness before him, 
 the heart loses its equable beat, the lungs their 
 continuity with the universal air, and the brain 
 becomes hot and fevered ; each organ in turn 
 asserts itself abnormally and becomes a seat of 
 disorder, every corner and cranny of the body 
 becomes the scene and symbol of disease, and 
 Man gazes aghast at his own kingdom — whose 
 extent he had never suspected before — now all 
 ablaze in wild revolt against him. And then — all 
 going with this period of his development — sweep 
 vast epidemic trains over the face of the earth, 
 plagues and fevers and lunacies and world-wide 
 festering sores, followed by armies, ever growing, 
 of doctors — they too with their retinues of books 
 and bottles, vaccinations and vivisections, and 
 grinning death's-heads in the rear — a mad crew, 
 
 48
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 knowing not what they do, yet all unconsciously, 
 doubtless, fulfilling the great age-long destiny of 
 humanity. 
 
 In all this the influence of Property is apparent 
 enough. It is evident that the growth of property 
 through the increase of man's powers of production 
 reacts on the man in three ways : to draw him away 
 namely, (i) from Nature, (2) from his true Self, 
 (3) from his Fellows. In the first place it draws 
 him away from Nature. That is, that as man's 
 power over materials increases he creates for 
 himself a sphere and an environment of his own, 
 in some sense apart and different from the great 
 elemental world of the winds and the waves, the 
 woods and the mountains, in which he has hitherto 
 lived. He creates what we call the artificial life, of 
 houses and cities, and, shutting himself up in these, 
 shuts Nature out. As a growing boy at a certain 
 point, and partly in order to assert his independence, 
 wrests himself away from the tender care of his 
 mother, and even displays — just for the time being 
 — a spirit of opposition to her, so the growing 
 Man finding out his own powers uses them — for 
 the time — even to do despite to Nature, and to 
 create himself a world in which she shall have no 
 part. In the second place the growth of property 
 draws man away from his true Self. This is clear 
 enough. As his power over materials and his 
 possessions increases, man finds the means of 
 gratifying his senses at will. Instead of being 
 guided any longer by that continent and " whole " 
 
 49 D
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 instinct which characterises the animals, his chief 
 motive is now to use his powers to gratify this or 
 that sense or desire. These become abnormally 
 magnified, and the man soon places his main 
 good in their satisfaction ; and abandons his true 
 Self for his organs, the whole for the parts. Property 
 draws the man outwards, stimulating the external 
 part of his being, and for a time mastering him, 
 overpowers the central Will, and brings about 
 his disintegration and corruption. Lastly, Property 
 by thus stimulating the external and selfish nature 
 in Man, draws him away from his Fellows. In 
 the anxiety to possess things for himself, in order 
 to gratify his own bumps, he is necessarily brought 
 into conflict with his neighbor and comes to 
 regard him as an enemy. For the true Self of man 
 consists in his organic relation with the whole 
 body of his fellows ; and when the man abandons 
 his true Self he abandons also his true relation to 
 his fellows. The mass-Man must rule in each 
 unit-man, else the unit-man will drop off and die. 
 but when the outer man tries to separate himself 
 from the inner, the unit-man from the mass-Man, 
 then the reign of individuality begins — a false 
 and impossible individuality of course, but the 
 only means of coming to the consciousness of the 
 true individuality. With the advent of a Civilisa- 
 tion then founded on Property the unity of the 
 old tribal society is broken up. The ties of blood 
 relationship which were the foundation of the 
 gentile system and the guarantees of the old fraternity 
 and equality become dissolved in favor of powers 
 
 50
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and authorities founded on mere possession. The 
 growth of Wealth disintegrates the ancient Society ; 
 the temptations of power, of possession, etc., 
 which accompany it, wrench the individual from 
 his moorings ; personal greed rules ; " each 
 man for himself" becomes the universal motto ; 
 the hand of every man is raised against his brother, 
 and at last society itself becomes an organisation 
 by which the rich fatten upon the vitals of the poor, 
 the strong upon the murder of the weak. [It 
 is interesting in this connection to find that Lewis 
 Morgan makes the invention of a written alphabet 
 and the growth of the conception of private property 
 the main characteristics of the civilisation-period 
 as distinguished from the periods of savagery 
 and barbarism which preceded it ; for the invention 
 of writing marks perhaps better than anything else 
 could do the period when Man becomes self- 
 conscious — when he records his own doings and 
 thoughts, and so commences History proper; 
 and the growth of private property marks the 
 period when he begins to sunder himself from his 
 fellows, when therefore the conception of sin (or 
 separation) first enters in, and with it all the long 
 period of moral perplexity, and the denial of that 
 community of life between himself and his fellows 
 which is really of the essence of man's being.] 
 
 And then arises the institution of Government. 
 
 Hitherto this had not existed except in a quite 
 rudimentary form. The early communities troubled 
 themselves little about individual ownership, and 
 what government they had was for the most part 
 
 51
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 essentially democratic — as being merely a choice 
 of leaders among blood-relations and social equals. 
 But when the delusion that man can exist for himself 
 alone — his outer and, as it were, accidental self 
 apart from the great inner and cosmical self by 
 which he is one with his fellows — when this delusion 
 takes possession of him, it is not long before it 
 finds expression in some system of private property. 
 The old community of life and enjoyment passes 
 away, and each man tries to grab the utmost he 
 can, and to retire into his own lair for its consump- 
 tion. Private accumulations arise ; the natural 
 flow of the bounties of life is dammed back, and 
 artificial barriers of Law have to be constructed 
 in order to preserve the unequal levels. Outrage 
 and Fraud follow in the wake of the desire of 
 possession ; force has to be used by the possessors 
 in order to maintain the law-barriers against the 
 non-possessors ; classes are formed ; and finally 
 the formal Government arises, mainly as the ex- 
 pression of such force ; and preserves itself, as 
 best it can, until such time as the inequalities which 
 it upholds become too glaring, and the pent social 
 waters gathering head burst through once more 
 and regain their natural levels. 
 
 Thus Morgan in his " Ancient Society " points 
 out over and over again that the civilised state 
 rests upon territorial and property marks and 
 qualifications, and not upon a personal basis as 
 did the ancient ge?is^ or the tribe ; and that the 
 civilised government correspondingly takes on 
 quite a different character and function from the 
 
 52
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 simple organisation of the gens. He says (p. 124), 
 " Monarchy is incompatible with gentilism." Also 
 with regard to the relation of Property to Civilisa- 
 tion and Government he makes the following 
 pregnant remarks (p. 505) : " It is impossible to 
 over-estimate the influence of property in the 
 civilisation of mankind. It was the power that 
 brought the Aryan and Semitic nations out of bar- 
 barism into civilisation. The growth of the idea of 
 property in the human mind commenced in feeble- 
 ness and ended in becoming its master passion. 
 Governments and Laws are instituted with primary 
 reference to its creation, protection and enjoyment. 
 It introduced human slavery as an instrument in 
 its production ; and after the experience of several 
 thousand years it caused the abolition of slavery 
 upon the discovery that a freeman was a better 
 property-making machine." And in another pasage 
 on the same subject, *' The dissolution of society 
 bids fair to become the termination of a career 
 of which property is the end and aim ; because 
 such a career contains the elements of self-destruc- 
 tion. Democracy is the next higher plane. It 
 will be a revival in a higher form of the liberty, 
 equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes." 
 
 The institution of Government is in fact the 
 evidence in social life that man has lost his inner 
 and central control, and therefore must resort to 
 an outward one. Losing touch with the inward 
 Man — who is his true guide — he declines upon 
 an external law, which must always be false. If 
 each man remained in organic adhesion to the 
 
 53
 
 CIvilisasion : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 general body of his fellows, no serious dis-harmony 
 could occur ; but it is when this vital unity of the 
 body politic becomes weak that it has to be pre- 
 served by artificial means, and thus it is that with 
 the decay of the primitive and instinctive social 
 life there springs up a form of government 
 which is no longer the democratic expression of 
 the life of the whole people ; but a kind of outside 
 authority and compulsion thrust upon them by 
 a ruling class or caste. 
 
 Perhaps the sincerest, and often though not 
 always the earliest, form of Government is Monarchy. 
 The sentiment of human unity having been already 
 partly but not quite lost, the people choose — in 
 order to hold society together — a man to rule 
 over them who has this sentiment in a high degree. 
 He represents the true Man and therefore the 
 people. This is often a time of extensive warfare 
 and the formation of nations. And it is interesting 
 in this connection to note that the quite early 
 *' Kings " or leaders of each nation just prior to 
 the civilisation period were generally associated 
 with the highest religious functions, as in the 
 case of the Roman rex, the Greek basileus, the 
 early Egyptian Kings, Moses among the Israelites, 
 and Druid leaders of the Britons, and so on. 
 
 Later, and as the central authority gets more 
 and more shadowy in each man, and the external 
 attraction of Property greater, so it does in Society. 
 The temporal and spiritual powers part company. 
 The king — who at first represented the Divine 
 Spirit or soul of society, recedes into the back- 
 
 54
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 ground, and his nobles of high degree (who may 
 be compared to the nobler, more generous, qualities 
 of the mind) begin to take his place. This is the 
 Aristocracy and the Feudal Age — the Timocracy 
 of Plato ; and is marked by the appearance of 
 large private tenures of land, and the growth of 
 slavery and serfdom — the slavery thus outwardly 
 appearing in society being the symbol of the inward 
 enslavement of the man. 
 
 Then comes the Commercial Age — the Oligarchy 
 or Plutocracy of Plato. Plonour quite gives place 
 to material wealth ; the rulers rule not by personal 
 or hereditary, but by property qualifications. Parlia- 
 ments and Constitutions and general Palaver 
 are the order of the day. Wage-slavery, usury, 
 mortgages, and other abominations, indicate the 
 advance of the mortal process. In the individual 
 man gain is the end of existence ; industry and 
 scientific cunning are his topmost virtues. 
 
 Last of all the break-up is complete. The 
 individual loses all memory and tradition of his 
 heavenly guide and counterpart ; his nobler passions 
 fail for want of a leader to whom to dedicate them- 
 selves ; his industry and his intellect serve but 
 to minister to his little swarming desires. This 
 is the era of anarchy — the democracy of Carlyle ; 
 the rule of the rabble, and mob-law ; caucuses 
 and cackle, competition and universal greed, 
 breaking out in cancerous tyrannies and pluto- 
 cracies — a mere chaos and confusion of society. 
 For just as we saw in the human body, when the 
 inner and positive force of Health has departed 
 
 55
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 from it, that it falls a prey to parasites which 
 overspread and devour it ; so, when the central 
 inspiration departs out of social life, does it writhe 
 with the mere maggots of individual greed, and 
 at length fall under the dominion of the most 
 monstrous egotist who has been bred from its 
 corruption. 
 
 Thus we have briefly sketched the progress of 
 the symptoms of the " disease," which, as said 
 before, runs much (though not quite) the same 
 course in the various nations w^hich it attacks. 
 And if this last stage were really the end of all, 
 and the true Democracy, there were indeed little 
 left to hope for. No words of Carlyle could blast 
 that black enough. But this is no true Democracy. 
 Here in this " each for himself" is no rule of the 
 Demos in every man, nor anything resembling 
 it. Here is no solidarity such as existed in the 
 ancient tribes and primaeval society, but only dis- 
 integration and a dust-heap. The true Demo- 
 cracy has yet to come. Here in this present 
 stage is only the final denial of all outward and 
 class government, in preparation for the restora- 
 tion of the inner and true authority. Here in 
 this stage the task of civilisation comes to an end ; 
 the purport and object of all these centuries is 
 fulfilled ; the bitter experience that mankind had 
 to pass through is completed ; and out of this 
 Death and all the torture and unrest which accom- 
 panies it, comes at last the Resurrection. Man 
 has sounded the depths of alienation from his own 
 divine spirit, he has drunk the dregs of the cup of 
 
 56
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 suffering, he has literally descended into Hell ; 
 henceforth he turns, both in the individual and in 
 society, and mounts deliberately and consciously 
 back again towards the unity which he has lost.'' 
 And the false democracy parts aside for the dis- 
 closure of the true Democracy which has been 
 formed beneath it — which is not an external govern- 
 ment at all, but an inward rule — the rule of the 
 mass-Man in each unit-man. For no outward 
 government can be anything but a make-shift — 
 a temporary hard chrysalis-sheath to hold the grub 
 together while the new life is forming inside — a 
 device of the civilisation-period. Farther than 
 this it cannot go, since no true life can rely upon 
 
 I There is another point worth noting as characteristic of the 
 civilisation-period. This is the abnormal development of the 
 abstract intellect in comparison with the physical senses on the one 
 hand, and the moral sense on the other. Such a result might be 
 expected, seeing that abstraction from reality is naturally the great 
 engine of that false individuality or apartness, which it is the object 
 of Civilisation to produce. As it is, during this period man builds 
 himself an intellectual world apart from the great actual universe 
 around him ; the " ghosts of things " are studied in books ; the 
 student lives indoors, he cannot face the open air — his theories 
 " may prove very well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under 
 the spacious clouds, and along the landscape and flowing currents " ; 
 children are " educated " afar from actual life ; huge phantom- 
 temples of philosophy and science are reared upon the most slender 
 foundations ; and in these he lives defended from actual fact. 
 For as a drop of water, when it comes in contact with red-hot 
 iron, wraps itself in a cloud of vapor and is saved from destruction, 
 so the little mind of man, lest it should touch the burning truth 
 of Nature and God and be consumed, evolves at each point of 
 contact a veil of insubstantial thought which allows it for a time 
 to exist apart, and becomes the nurse of its self-consciousness. 
 
 57
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 an external support, and, when the true life of 
 society comes, all its forms will be fluid and spon- 
 taneous and voluntary. 
 
 IV 
 
 And now, by way of a glimpse into the future 
 — after this long digression what is the route that 
 man will take ? 
 
 This is a subject that I hardly dare tackle. 
 *' The morning wind ever blows," says Thoreau, 
 ** the poem of creation is uninterrupted — but 
 few are the ears that hear it." And how can we, 
 gulfed as we are in this present whirlpool, conceive 
 rightly the glory which awaits us ? No limits 
 that our present knowledge puts need alarm us ; 
 the impossibilities will yield very easily when the 
 time comes ; and the anatomical difficulty as to 
 how and where the wings are to grow will vanish 
 when they are felt sprouting ! 
 
 It can hardly be doubted that the tendency will 
 be — indeed is already showing itself — towards a 
 return to nature and community of human life. 
 This is the way back to the lost Eden, or rather 
 forward to the new Eden, of which the old was 
 only a figure. Man has to undo the wrappings 
 and the mummydom of centuries, by which he 
 has shut himself from the light of the sun and 
 lain in seeming death, preparing silently his glorious 
 resurrection — for all the world like the funny old 
 chrysalis that he is. He has to emerge from houses 
 
 5«
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and all his other hiding places wherein so long ago 
 ashamed (as at the voice of God in the garden) 
 he concealed himself — and Nature must once 
 more become his home, as it is the home of the 
 animals and the angels. 
 
 As it is written in the old magical formula : 
 *' Man clothes himself to descend, unclothes 
 himself to ascend." Over his spiritual or wind- 
 like body he puts on a material or earthy body ; 
 over his earth-body he puts on the skins of animals 
 and other garments ; then he hides this body in 
 a house behind curtains and stone walls — which 
 become to it as secondary skins and prolongations 
 of itself. So that between the man and his true 
 life there grows a dense and impenetrable hedge ; 
 and, what with the cares and anxieties connected 
 with his earth-body and all its skins, he soon loses 
 the knowledge that he is a Man at all ; his true 
 self slumbers in a deep and agelong swoon. 
 
 But the instinct of all who desire to deliver the 
 divine imago within them, is, in something more 
 than the literal sense, towards unclothing. And 
 the process of evolution or exfoliation itself is 
 nothing but a continual unclothing of Nature, by 
 which the perfect human Form which is at the 
 root of it comes nearer and nearer to its mani- 
 festation. 
 
 Thus, in order to restore the Health which he has 
 lost, man has in the future to tend in this direction. 
 Life indoors and in houses has to become a fraction 
 only, instead of the principal part of existence as 
 it is now. Garments similarly have to be simplified, 
 
 59
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 How far this process may go it is not necessary 
 now to enquire. It is sufficiently obvious that our 
 domestic life and clothing may be at once grea:tly 
 reduced in complexity, and with the greatest ad- 
 vantage — made subsidiary instead of being erected 
 into the fetishes which they are. And everyone may 
 feel assured that each gain in this direction is a 
 gain in true life — whether it be the head that 
 goes uncovered to the air of heaven, or the feet 
 that press bare the magnetic earth, or the elementary 
 raiment that allows through its meshes the light 
 itself to reach the vital organs. The life of the 
 open air, familiarity with the winds and waves, clean 
 and pure food, the companionship of the animals 
 — the very wrestling with the great Mother for 
 his food — all these things will tend to restore that 
 relationship which man has so long disowned ; 
 and the consequent instreaming of energy into 
 his system will carry him to perfections of health 
 and radiance of being at present unsuspected. 
 
 Of course, it will be said that many of these things 
 are difficult to realise in our country, that an indoor 
 life, with all its concomitants, is forced upon us 
 by the climate. But if this is to some small — though 
 very small — extent true, it forms no reason why 
 we should not still take advantage of every oppor- 
 tunity to push in the direction indicated. It must 
 be remembered, too, that our climate is greatly 
 of our own creation. If the atmosphere of many 
 of our great towns and of the lands for miles in 
 their neighbourhood is devitalised and deadly — 
 so that in cold weather it grants to the poor mortal 
 
 60
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 no compensating power of resistance, but compels 
 him at peril of his life to swathe himself in great- 
 coats and mufflers — the blame is none but ours. 
 It is we who have covered the lands with a pall 
 of smoke, and are walking to our own funerals 
 under it. 
 
 That this climate, however, at its best may not 
 be suited to the highest developments of human 
 life is quite possible. Because Britain has been 
 the scene of some of the greatest episodes of Civilisa- 
 tion, it does not follow that she will keep the lead 
 in the period that is to follow ; and the Higher 
 Communities of the future will perhaps take their 
 rise in warmer lands, where life is richer and fuller, 
 more spontaneous and more generous, than it 
 can be here. 
 
 Another point in this connection is the food 
 question. For the restoration of the central vigour 
 when lost or degenerate, a diet consisting mainly 
 of fruits and grains is most adapted. Animal food 
 often gives for the time being a lot of nervous 
 energy — and may be useful for special purposes ; 
 but the energy is of a spasmodic feverish kind ; 
 the food has a tendency to inflame the subsidiary 
 centres, and so to diminish the central control. 
 Those who live mainly on animal food are specially 
 liable to disease — and not only physically ; for 
 their minds also fall more easily a prey to desires 
 and sorrows. In times therefore of grief or 
 mental trouble of any kind, as well as in times of 
 bodily sickness, immediate recourse should be 
 had to the more elementary diet. The body 
 
 6i
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 under this diet endures work with less fatigue, 
 is less susceptible to pain, and to cold ; and heals 
 its wounds with extraordinary celerity ; all of 
 which facts point in the same direction. It may 
 be noted, too, that foods of the seed kind — by 
 which I mean all manner of fruits, nuts, tubers, 
 grains, eggs, etc. (and I may include milk in its 
 various forms of butter, cheese, curds, and so 
 forth), not only contain by their nature the elements 
 of life in their most condensed forms, but have 
 the additional advantage that they can be appro- 
 priated without injury to any living creature — for 
 even the cabbage may inaudibly scream when torn 
 up by the roots and boiled, but the strawberry 
 plant asks us to take of its fruit, and paints it red 
 expressly that we may see and devour it ! Both 
 of which considerations must convince us that 
 this kind of food is most fitted to develop the kernel 
 of man's life. 
 
 Which all means cleanness. The unity of our 
 nature being restored, the instinct of bodily clean- 
 ness, both within and without, which is such a 
 marked characteristic of the animals, will again 
 characterise mankind — only now instead of a 
 blind instinct it will be a conscious, joyous one ; 
 dirt being only disorder and obstruction. And 
 thus the whole human being, mind and body, 
 becoming clean and radiant from its inmost centre 
 to its farthest circumference — " transfigured " — 
 the distinction between the words spiritual and 
 material disappears. In the words of Whitman, 
 " objects gross and the unseen soul are one." 
 
 62
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 But this return to Nature, and identification in 
 some sort with the great cosmos, does not involve 
 a denial or depreciation of human life and interests. 
 It is not uncommonly supposed that there is some 
 kind of antagonism between Man and Nature, 
 and that to recommend a life closer to the latter 
 means mere asceticism and eremitism ; and un- 
 fortunately this antagonism does exist to-day, 
 though it certainly will not exist for ever. To-day 
 it is unfortunately perfectly true that Man is the 
 only animal who, instead of adorning and beautifying, 
 makes Nature hideous by his presence. The fox 
 and the squirrel may make their homes in the 
 wood and add to its beauty in so doing ; but 
 when Alderman Smith plants his villa there, the 
 gods pack up their trunks and depart ; they can 
 bear it no longer. The Bushmen can hide them- 
 selves and become indistinguishable on a slope 
 of bare rock ; they twine their naked little yellow 
 bodies together, and look like a heap of dead 
 sticks ; but when the chimney-pot hat and frock- 
 coat appear, the birds fly screaming from the trees. 
 This was the great glory of the Greeks that they 
 accepted and perfected Nature ; as the Parthenon 
 sprang out of the limestone terraces of the Acropolis, 
 carrying the natural lines of the rock by gradations 
 scarce perceptible into the finished and human 
 beauty of frieze and pediment, and as, above, it 
 was open for the blue air of heaven to descend into 
 it for a habitation ; so throughout in all their 
 best work and life did they stand in this close 
 relation to the earth and the sky and to all instinctive 
 
 63
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and elemental things, admitting no gulf between 
 themselves and them, but only perfecting their 
 expressiveness and beauty. And some day we 
 shall again understand this which, in the very 
 sunrise of true Art, the Greeks so well understood. 
 Possibly some day we shall again build our houses 
 or dwelling places so simple and elemental in 
 character that they will fit in the nooks of the 
 hills or along the banks of the streams or by the 
 edges of the woods without disturbing the harmony 
 of the landscape or the songs of the birds. Then 
 the great temples, beautiful on every height, or 
 by the shores of the rivers and the lakes, will be 
 the storehouses of all precious and lovely things. 
 There men, women and children will come to share 
 in the great and wonderful common life, the gardens 
 around will be sacred to the unharmed and welcome 
 animals ; there all store and all facilities of books 
 and music and art for every one, there a meeting 
 place for social life and intercourse, there dances 
 and games and feasts. Every village, every little 
 settlement, will have such hall or halls. No need 
 for private accumulations. Gladly will each man, 
 and more gladly still each woman, take his or her 
 treasures, except what are immediately or necessarily 
 in use, to the common centre, where their value 
 will be increased a hundred and a thousand fold 
 by the greater number of those who can enjoy 
 them, and where far more perfectly and with 
 far less toil they can be tended than if scattered 
 abroad in private hands. At one stroke half the 
 labour and all the anxiety of domestic caretaking 
 
 64
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 will be annihilated. The private dwelling places, 
 no longer costly and labyrinthine in proportion 
 to the value and number of the treasures they 
 contain, will need no longer to have doors and 
 windows jealously closed against fellow men or 
 mother nature. The sun and air will have access 
 to them, the indwellers will have unfettered egress. 
 Neither man nor woman will be tied in slavery to 
 the lodge which they inhabit ; and in becoming 
 once more a part of nature, the human habitation 
 will at length cease to be what it is now for at 
 least half the human race — a prison. 
 
 Men often ask about the new Architecture — 
 what, and of what sort, it is going to be. But 
 to such a question there can be no answer till a 
 new understanding of life has entered into people's 
 minds, and then the answer will be clear enough. 
 For as the Greek Temples and the Gothic Cathedrals 
 were built by people who themselves lived but 
 frugally as we should think, and were ready to 
 dedicate their best work and chief treasure to the 
 gods and the common life ; and as to-day when 
 we must needs have for ourselves spacious and 
 luxurious villas, we seem to be unable to design 
 a decent church or public building ; so it will 
 not be till we once more find our main interest and 
 life in the life of the community and the gods that 
 a new spirit will inspire our architecture. Then 
 when our Temples and Common Halls are not 
 designed to glorify an individual architect or patron, 
 but are built for the use of free men and women, 
 to front the sky and the sea and the sun, to spring 
 
 65 S
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 out of the earth, companionable with the trees 
 and the rocks, not alien in spirit from the sunlit globe 
 itself or the depth of the starry night — then I 
 say their form and structure will quickly determine 
 themselves, and men will have no difficulty in 
 making them beautiful. And similarly with the 
 homes or dwelling places of the people. Various 
 as these may be for the various wants of men, whether 
 for a single individual or for a family, or for groups 
 of individuals or families, v/hether to the last degree 
 simple, or whether more or less ornate and complex, 
 still the new conception, the new needs of life, 
 will necessarily dominate them and give them form 
 by a law unfolding from v/ithin. 
 
 In such new human life then — its fields, its farms, 
 its workshops, its cities — always the work of man 
 perfecting and beautifying the lands, aiding the 
 efforts of the sun and soil, giving voice to the 
 desire of the mute earth — in such new communal 
 life near to nature, so far from any asceticism or 
 inhospitality, we are fain to see far more humanity 
 and sociability than ever before : an infinite 
 helpfulness and sympathy, as between the children 
 of a common mother. Mutual help and com- 
 bination will then have become spontaneous and 
 instinctive : each man contributing to the service 
 of his neighbor as inevitably and naturally as 
 the right hand goes to help the left in the human 
 body — and for precisely the same reason. Every 
 man — think of it ! — will do the work which he 
 likes^ which he desires to do, which is obviously 
 before him to do, and which he knows will be useful, 
 
 66
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 without thought of wages or reward ; and the reward 
 will come to him as inevitably and naturally as in 
 the human body the blood flows to the member 
 which is exerting itself. All the endless burden 
 of the adjustments of labour and wages, of the war 
 of duty and distaste, of want and weariness, will 
 be thrown aside — all the huge waste of work 
 done against the grain will be avoided ; out of 
 the endless variety of human nature will spring a 
 perfectly natural and infinite variety of occupations, 
 all mutually contributive ; Society at last will be 
 free and the human being after long ages will 
 have attained to deliverance. 
 
 This is the Communism which Civilisation has 
 always /z<^/i?(^, as it hated Christ. Yet it is inevitable ; 
 for the cosmical man, the instinctive elemental 
 man accepting and crowning nature, necessarily 
 fulfils the universal law of nature. As to External 
 Government and Law, they will disappear ; for 
 they are only the travesties and transitory substitutes 
 of Inward Government and Order. Society in its 
 final state is neither a Monarchy, nor an Aristocracy 
 nor a Democracy, nor an Anarchy, and yet in another 
 sense it is all of these. It is an Anarchy because 
 there is no outward rule, but only an inward and 
 invisible spirit of life ; it is a Democracy because 
 it is the rule of the Mass-man, or Demos, in each 
 unit man ; it is an Aristocracy because there are 
 degrees and ranks of such inv/ard power in all 
 men ; and it is a Monarchy because all these ranks 
 and powers merge in a perfect unity and central 
 control at last. And so it appears that the outer 
 
 67
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 forms of government which belong to the CiviUsa- 
 tion-period are only the expression in separate 
 external symbols of the facts of the true inner life 
 of society. 
 
 And just as thus the various external forms of 
 government during the Civilisation-period find 
 their justification and interpretation in the ensuing 
 period, so will it be with the mechanical and other 
 products of the present time ; they will be taken 
 up, and find their proper place and use in the time 
 to come. They will not be refused ; but they 
 will have to be brought into subjection. Our 
 locomotives, machinery, telegraphic and postal 
 systems ; our houses, furniture, clothes, books, 
 our fearful and wonderful cookery, strong drinks, 
 teas, tobaccos ; our medical and surgical appliances ; 
 high-faluting sciences and philosophies, and all 
 other engines hitherto of human bewilderment, 
 have simply to be reduced to abject subjection to 
 the real man. All these appliances, and a thousand 
 others such as we hardly dream of, will come in 
 to perfect his power and increase his freedom ; 
 but they will not be the objects of a mere fetish-wor- 
 ship as now. Man will use them, instead of their 
 using him. His real life will lie in a region far 
 beyond them. But in thus for a moment denying 
 and " mastering " the products of Civilisation, 
 will he for the first time discover their true 
 value, and reap from them an enjoyment unknown 
 before. 
 
 The same with the moral powers. As said 
 before, the knowledge of good and evil at a certain 
 
 68
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 point passes away, or becomes absorbed into a 
 higher knowledge. The perception of Sin goes 
 with a certain weakness in the man. As long as 
 there is conflict and division within him, so long 
 does he seem to perceive conflicting and opposing 
 principles in the world without. As long as 
 the objects of the outer world excite emotions in 
 him which pass beyond his control, so long do those 
 objects stand as the signals of evil — of disorder and 
 sin. Not that the objects are bad in themselves, 
 or even the emotions which they excite, but that 
 all through this period these things serve to the 
 man as indications of his weakness. But when 
 the central power is restored in man and all things 
 are reduced to his service, it is impossible for him 
 to see badness in anything. The bodily is no 
 longer antagonistic to the spiritual love, but is 
 absorbed into it. All his passions take their places 
 perfectly naturally, and become, when the occasions 
 arise, the vehicles of his expression. Vices under 
 existing conditions are vices simply because of 
 the inordinate and disturbing influence they exer- 
 cise, but will cease again to be vices when the man 
 regains his proper command. Thus Socrates having 
 a clean soul in a clean body could drink his boon 
 companions under the table and then go out 
 himself to take the morning air — what was a blemish 
 and defect in them being simply an added power 
 of enjoyment to himself ! 
 
 The point of difference throughout (being the 
 transference of the centre of gravity of life and con- 
 sciousness from the partial to the universal man) is 
 
 69
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 symbolised by the gradual resumption of more uni- 
 versal conditions. That is to say that during the 
 civilisation-period, the body being systematically 
 wrapped in clothes, the head 9.\one represents man — 
 the little finnikin, intellectual, self-conscious man in 
 contra-distinction to the cosmical man represented 
 by the entirety of the bodily organs. The body 
 has to be delivered from its swathings in order 
 that the cosmical consciousness may once more 
 reside in the human breast. We have to become 
 " all face " again — as the savage said of himself. ^ 
 
 Where the cosmic self is, there is no more self- 
 consciousness. The body and v/hat is ordinarily 
 called the self are felt to be only parts of the true 
 self, and the ordinary distinctions of inner and 
 outer, egotism and altruism, etc., lose a good deal 
 of their value. Thought no longer returns upon 
 the local self as the chief object of regard, but con- 
 sciousness is continually radiant from it, filling 
 the body and overflowing upon external Nature. 
 Thus the Sun in the physical world is the allegory of 
 the true self. The worshiper must adore the 
 Sun, he must saturate himself with sunlight, 
 and take the physical Sun into himself. Those 
 who live by fire and candle-light are filled with 
 phantoms ; their thoughts are Will-o'-th'-wisp- 
 like images of themselves, and they are tormented 
 by a horrible self-consciousness. 
 
 And when the Civilisation-period has passed 
 away, the old Nature-religion — perhaps greatly 
 
 ' See Alonso di Ovalle's Account of the Kingdom of Chile in 
 Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 1724. 
 
 70
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 grown — will come back. This immense stream 
 of religious life which, beginning far beyond the 
 horizon of earliest history, has been deflected into 
 various metaphysical and other channels — of 
 Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, and the like 
 — during the historical period, will once more 
 gather itself together to float on its bosom all the 
 arks and sacred vessels of human progress. Man 
 will once more feel his unity with his fellows, he 
 will feel his unity with the animals, with the moun- 
 tains and the streams, with the earth itself and the 
 slow lapse of the constellations, not as an abstract 
 dogma of Science or Theology, but as a living and 
 ever-present fact. Ages back this has been under- 
 stood better than now. Our Christian ceremonial 
 is saturated with sexual and astronomical symbols ; 
 and long before Christianity existed, the sexual 
 and astronomical were the main forms of religion. 
 That is to say, men instinctively felt and wor- 
 shiped the great life coming to them through 
 Sex, the great life coming to them from the deeps 
 of Heaven. They deified both. They placed 
 their gods — their own human forms — in sex, 
 they placed them in the sky. And not only so, 
 but wherever they felt this kindred human life — 
 in the animals, in the ibis, the bull, the lamb, 
 the snake, the crocodile ; in the trees and flowers, 
 the oak, the ash, the laurel, the hyacinth ; in the 
 streams and water-falls, on the mountain-sides or 
 in the depths of the sea — they placed them. The 
 whole universe was full of a life which, though 
 not always friendly, was human and kindred to 
 
 71
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 their own, felt by them, not reasoned about, but 
 simply perceived. To the early man the notion 
 of his having a separate individuality could only 
 with difficulty occur ; hence he troubled himself 
 not with the suicidal questionings concerning the 
 whence and whither which now vex the modern 
 mind.^ For what causes these questions to be 
 asked is simply the wretched feeling of isolation, 
 actual or prospective, which man necessarily has 
 when he contemplates himself as a separate atom 
 in this immense universe — the gulf which lies 
 below seemingly ready to swallow him, and the 
 anxiety to find some mode of escape. But when 
 he feels once more that he, that he himself, is 
 absolutely indivisibly and indestructibly a part 
 of this great whole — why then there is no gulf 
 into which he can possibly fall ; when he is sen- 
 sible of the fact, why then the how of its realisation, 
 though losing none of its interest, becomes a matter 
 for whose solution he can wait and work in faith 
 and contentment of mind. The Sun or Sol, 
 visible image of his very Soul, closest and most 
 vital to him of all mortal things, occupying the 
 illimitable heaven, feeding all with its life ; the 
 Moon, emblem and nurse of his own reflective 
 thought, the conscious Man, measurer of Time, 
 mirror of the Sun ; the planetary passions wander- 
 ing to and fro, yet within bounds ; the starry 
 destinies ; the changes of the earth, and the seasons ; 
 the upward growth and unfoldment of all organic 
 life ; the emergence of the perfect Man, towards 
 ' See Notes at end of this chapter. 
 72
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 whose birth all creation groans and travails — all 
 these things will return to become realities, and 
 to be the frame or setting of his supra-mundane 
 life. The meaning of the old religions will come 
 back to him. On the high tops once more gathering 
 he will celebrate with naked dances the glory of 
 the human form and the great processions of the stars, 
 or greet the bright horn of the young moon which 
 now after a hundred centuries comes back laden 
 with such wondrous associations — all the yearnings 
 and the dreams and the wonderment of the genera- 
 tions of mankind — the worship of Astarte and of 
 Diana, of Isis or the Virgin Mary ; once more in 
 sacred groves will he reunite the passion and the 
 delight of human love with his deepest feelings of 
 the sanctity and beauty of Nature ; or in the open, 
 standing uncovered to the Sun, will adore the 
 emblem of the everlasting splendour which shines 
 within. The same sense of vital perfection and 
 exaltation which can be traced in the early and 
 pre-civilisation peoples — only a thousand times 
 intensified, defined, illustrated and purified — will 
 return to irradiate the redeemed and delivered 
 Man. 
 
 In suggesting thus the part which Civilisation 
 has played in history, I am aware that the word 
 itself is difficult to define — is at best only one of 
 those phantom-generalisations which the mind is 
 forced to employ ; also that the account I have 
 given of it is sadly imperfect, leaning perhaps too 
 
 73
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 much to the merely negative and destructive 
 aspect of this thousand-year long lapse of human 
 evolution. I would also remind the reader that 
 though it is perfectly true that under the dissolv- 
 ing influence of civilisation empire after empire 
 has gone under and disappeared, and the current 
 of human progress time after time has only been 
 restored again by a fresh influx of savagery, yet 
 its corruptive tendency has never had a quite 
 unlimited fling ; but that all dov/n the ages of its 
 dominance over the earth we can trace the tradi- 
 tion of a healing and redeeming power at work 
 in the human breast and an anticipation of the 
 second advent of the son of man. Certain institu- 
 tions, too, such as Art and the Family (though it 
 seems not unlikely that both of these will greatly 
 change when the special conditions of their present 
 existence have disappeared), have served to keep 
 the sacred flame alive ; the latter preserving in 
 island-miniatures, as it were, the ancient com- 
 munal humanity when the seas of individualism 
 and greed covered the general face of the earth ; 
 the former keeping up, so to speak, a navel-cord 
 of contact with Nature, and a means of utterance 
 of primal emotions else unsatisfiable in the world 
 around. 
 
 And if it seem extravagant to suppose that Society 
 will ever emerge from the chaotic condition of 
 strife and perplexity in v/hich we find it all down 
 the lapse of historical time, or to hope that the 
 civilisation-process which has terminated fatally 
 so invariably in the past will ever eventuate in 
 
 74
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 the establishment of a higher and more perfect 
 health-condition, we may for our consolation remem- 
 ber that to-day there are features in the problem 
 which have never been present before. In the 
 first place, to-day Civilisation is no longer isolated, 
 as in the ancient world, in surrounding floods of 
 savagery and barbarism, but it practically covers 
 the globe, and the outlying savagery is so feeble 
 as not possibly to be a menace to it. This may 
 at first appear a drawback, for (it will be said) 
 if Civilisation be not renovated by the influx 
 of external Savagery its own inherent flaws will 
 destroy society all the sooner. And there would 
 be some truth in this if it were not for the following 
 consideration, namely, that while for the first 
 time in History Civilisation is now practically 
 continuous over the globe, now also for the first 
 time can we descry forming in continuous line 
 within its very structure the forces which are destined 
 to destroy it and to bring about the new order. 
 While hitherto isolated communisms, as suggested, 
 have existed here and there and from time to time, 
 now for the first time in History both the masses and 
 the thinkers of all the advanced nations of the world 
 are consciously feeling their way towards the 
 establishment of a socialistic and communal life 
 on a vast scale. The present competitive society 
 is more and more rapidly becoming a mere dead 
 formula and husk within which the outlines of 
 the new and human society are already discernible. 
 Simultaneously, and as if to match this growth, a 
 move towards Nature and Savagery is for the first 
 
 IS
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 time taking place from within, instead of being 
 forced upon society from without. The nature 
 movement begun years ago in Hterature and art 
 is now, among the more advanced sections of the 
 civiHsed world, rapidly realising itself in actual 
 life, going so far even as a denial, among some, 
 of machinery and the complex products of Civilisa- 
 tion, and developing among others into a gospel 
 of salvation by sandals and sunbaths ! It is in 
 these two movements — towards a complex human 
 Communism and towards individual freedom and 
 Savagery — in some sort balancing and correcting 
 each other, and both visibly growing up within, 
 though utterly foreign to — our present-day 
 Civilisation, that we have fair grounds, I think, for 
 looking forward to its cure. 
 
 NOTES 
 
 (See p. 26) The following remarks by Mr. H. B. Cotterill on the 
 natives around Lake Nyassa, among whom he lived at a time, 
 1876-8, when the region was almost unvisited, may be of interest. 
 " In regard of merely ' animal ' development and well-being, 
 that is in the delicate perfection of bodily faculties (perceptive), 
 the African savage is as a rule incomparably superior to us. One 
 feels like a child, utterly dependent on them, when travelling or 
 hunting with them. It is true that many may be found (especially 
 amongst the weaker tribes that have been slave-hunted or driven 
 into barren corners) who are half-starved and wizened, but as a 
 rule they are splendid animals. In character there is a great want 
 of that strength which in the educated civilised man is secured 
 by the roots striking out into the Past and P'uture — and in spite 
 of their immense perceptive superiority they feel and acknowledge 
 the superior force of character in the white man. They are the 
 
 76
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 very converse of the Stoic self-sufficient sage — like children in 
 their ' admiration ' and worship of the Unknown. Hence their 
 absolute want of Conceit, though they possess self-command and 
 dignity. They are, to those they love and respect, faithful and 
 devoted — their faithfulness and truthfulness are dictated by no 
 ' categorical imperative,' but by personal affection. Towards an 
 enemy they can be, without any conscientious scruples, treacherous 
 and inhumanly cruel. I should say that there is scarcely any 
 possible idea that is so foreign to the savage African mind as that 
 of general philanthropy or enemy-love." 
 
 " In endurance the African savage beats us hollow (except 
 trained athletes). On one occasion my men rowed my boat with 
 lo foot oars against the wind in a choppy sea for 25 hours at one 
 go, across Kuwirwe Bay, about 60 miles. They never once stopped 
 or left their seats — just handed round a handful of rice now and 
 then. I was at the helm all the time — and had enough of it ! . . . 
 They carry 80 lbs. on their heads for 10 hours through swamps 
 and jungles. Four of my men carried a sick man weighing 14 
 stones in a hammock for 200 miles, right across the dreaded Mali- 
 kata Swamp. But for sudden emergencies, squalls, etc., they are 
 nowhere." 
 
 (See p. 27) " So lovely a scene made easily credible the sugges- 
 tion, otherwise highly probable, that the Golden Age was no mere 
 fancy of the poets, but a reminiscence of the facts of social life 
 in its primitive organisation of village and house-communities." 
 (J. S. Stuart-Glennie's Europe and Asia, ch. i. Servia.) 
 
 (See p. 72) " It was only on the up-break of the primitive 
 socialisms that the passionate desire of, and therefore belief in, 
 individual Immortality arose. With an intense feeling, not of 
 an independent individual life, but of a dependent common life, 
 there is no passionate desire of, though there may be more or less 
 of belief in, a continuance after death of individual existence." 
 {Ibid, p. 161.) 
 
 Following is an extract from a letter from my friend Havelock 
 Ellis, which he kindly allows me to reprint. The passage is 
 
 11
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 interesting as indicating cm cause, at any rate, of the failure of 
 the modern civilisations. " Your remark that you are re-publishing 
 Cwilisat'ton : its Cause and Cure has led me to read it once again, 
 and I see how well adapted it is for reissue just now when there 
 is so widespread a discontent with ' civilisation.' I do not see 
 any reason for changing the essay, though, no doubt, much might 
 be added to supplement it. What has, however, struck me is 
 that you leave out of account the reason for the greater health, 
 vigour, and high spirit of savages (when such conditions exist), 
 and that is the more stringent natural selection among savages owing 
 to the greater hardness of their life. You doubtless know ch. xvii 
 of Westermarck's Moral Ideas, where he shows how widespread 
 among savages (when they have got past the first crude primitive 
 stage), and in the ancient civilisations, was the practice of infanticide 
 applied to inferior babies and the habit of allowing sick persons 
 to die. That was evidently the secret of the natural superiority 
 of the savage and of the men of the old civilisation, for the Greeks 
 and Romans were very stringent in this m.atter. The flabbiness 
 of the civilised and the prevalence of doctors and hygienists, which 
 you make fun of, is due to the modem tenderness for human life 
 which is afraid to kill off even the most worthless specimens and 
 so lowers the whole level of ' civilised ' humanity. Introduce a 
 New Hardness in this matter and we should return to the high 
 level of savagery, while the doctors would disappear as if by 
 magic. I don't myself believe we can introduce this hardness ; 
 and that is why I attach so much importance to intelligent 
 eugenics, working through birth-control, as the only now possible 
 way of getting towards that high natural level you aim at." — 
 Havelock Ellis (1920). 
 
 78
 
 MODERN SCIENCE: 
 A CRITICISM 
 
 TTcuTi Xoyoj \6yoQ taog avTiKetrai. 
 
 IT is one of the difficulties which meet any- 
 one who suggests that modern science is 
 not wholly satisfactory, that it is immedi- 
 ately assumed that the writer is covertly defending 
 what Ingersoll calls the " rib-story," or that he 
 v/ishes to restore belief in the literal inspiration of 
 the Bible. But, religious controversy apart, and 
 while admitting that Science has done a great work 
 in cleaning away the kitchen-middens of super- 
 stition and opening the path to clearer and saner 
 views of the world, it is possible — and there is 
 already a growing feeling that way — that her 
 positive contributions to our comprehension of 
 the order of the universe have in late times been 
 disappointing, and that even her methods are only 
 of limited applicability. After a glorious burst 
 of perhaps fifty years, amid great acclamations 
 and good hopes that the crafty old universe was 
 going to be caught in her careful net. Science, it 
 must be confessed, now finds herself in almost 
 
 79
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 every direction in the most hopeless quandaries ; 
 and, whether the rib-story be true or not, has at 
 any rate provided no very satisfactory substitute 
 for it. And the reason of this failure is very 
 obvious. It goes with a certain defect in the 
 human mind, which, as we have pointed out 
 (note, p. 57), necessarily belongs to the Civilisa- 
 tion-period — the tendency, namely, to separate 
 the logical and intellectual part of man from the 
 emotional and instinctive, and to give it a locus standi 
 of its own. Science has failed, because she has 
 attempted to carry out the investigation of nature 
 from the intellectual side alone — neglecting the 
 other constituents necessarily involved in the 
 problem. She has failed, because she has attempted 
 an impossible task ; for the discovery of a per- 
 manently valid and purely intellectual representa- 
 tion of the universe is simply impossible. Such 
 a thing does not exist. 
 
 The various theories and views of nature which 
 we hold are merely the fugitive envelopes of the 
 successive stages of human growth — each set of 
 theories and views belonging organically to the 
 moral and emotional stage which has been reached, 
 and being in some sort the expression of it ; so 
 that the attempt at any given time to set up an 
 explanation of phenomena which shall be valid 
 in itself and without reference to the mental con- 
 dition of those who set it up, necessarily ends in 
 failure ; and the present state of confusion and 
 contradiction in which modern Science finds itself 
 is merely the result of such attempt. 
 
 80
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 Of course this limitation of the validity of 
 Science has been recognised by most of those 
 who have thought about the matter ; ^ but it is 
 so commonly overlooked, and latterly the notion 
 has so far gained ground that the " laws " of 
 science are immutable facts and eternal statements 
 of verity, that it may be worth while to treat the 
 subject a little more in detail. 
 
 The method of Science is the method of all 
 mundane knowledge ; it is that of limitation or 
 actual ignorance. Placed in face of the great 
 uncontained unity of Nature we can only deal 
 with it in thought by selecting certain details and 
 isolating those (either wilfully or unconsciously) 
 from the rest. That is right enough. But in 
 doing so — in isolating such and such details — we 
 practically beg the question we are in search of ; 
 and, moreover, in supposing such isolation we 
 suppose what is false, and therefore vitiate our 
 conclusion. From these two radical defects of 
 all intellectual inquiry we cannot escape. The 
 views of Science are like the views of a mountain ; 
 each is only possible as long as you limit yourself 
 to a certain standpoint. Move your position, 
 and the view is changed. 
 
 Perhaps the word " species " will illustrate our 
 meaning as well as any word ; and, in a sense, 
 the word is typical of the method of Science. I 
 
 I See note, p. 119. 
 
 » Since the above was written there has certainly been a great 
 change, and the dogmatic confidence in the verity of the scientific 
 "laws" has now (1920) almost disappeared. 
 
 81 F
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 see a dog for the first time. It is a fox-hound. 
 Then I see a second fox-hound, and a third and a 
 fourth. Presently I form from these few instances 
 a general conception of " dog." But after a time 
 I see a grey-hound and a terrier and a mastiff, 
 and my old conception is destroyed. A new one 
 has to be formed, and then a new one and a new 
 one. Now I overlook the whole race of civilised 
 dogs and am satisfied with my wisdom ; but 
 presently I come upon some wild dogs, and study 
 the habits of the wolf and the fox. Geology turns 
 me up some links, and my conception of dog 
 melts away like a lump of ice into surrounding 
 water. My species exists no more. As long as 
 I knew a few of the facts I could talk very wise 
 about them; or if I limited myself arbitrarily, 
 as we will say, to a study only of animals in England 
 at the present day, I could classify them ; but 
 widen the bounds of my knowledge, the area 
 of observation, and all my work has to be done 
 over again. My species is not a valid fact of 
 Nature, but a fiction arising out of my own 
 ignorance or arbitrary isolation of the objects 
 observed. 
 
 Or to take an instance from Astronomy. We 
 are accustomed to say that the path of the moon 
 is an ellipse. But this is a very loose statement. 
 On enquiry we find that, owing to perturbations said 
 to be produced by the sun, the path deviates con- 
 siderably from an ellipse. In fact in strict calcu- 
 lations it is taken as being a certain ellipse only 
 for an instant — the next instant it is supposed to 
 
 82
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 be a portion of another ellipse. We might then 
 call the path an irregular curve somewhat resembling 
 an ellipse. This is a new view. But on further 
 enquiry it appears that, while the moon is going 
 round the earth, the earth itself is speeding on 
 through space about the sun — in consequence of 
 which the actual path of the moon does not in the 
 least resemble an ellipse ! Finally the sun itself 
 is in motion with regard to the fixed stars, and 
 they are in movement too. What then is the path 
 of the moon } No one knows ; we have not the 
 faintest idea — the word itself ceases to have any 
 assignable meaning. It is true that if we agree 
 to ignore the perturbations produced by the sun 
 — as in fact we do ignore perturbations produced 
 by the planets and other bodies — and if we agree 
 to ignore the motion of the earth, and the flight 
 of the solar system through space, and even the 
 movement of any centre round which that may be 
 speeding, we may then say that the moon moves 
 in an ellipse. But this has obviously nothing to 
 do with actual facts. The moon does not move 
 in an ellipse — not even " relatively to the earth " 
 — and probably never has done and never will 
 do so. It may be a convenient view or fiction 
 to say that it would do so under such and 
 such circumstances — but it is still only a fiction. 
 To attempt to isolate a small portion of the 
 phenomena from the rest in a universe of 
 which the unity is one of Science's most cher- 
 ished convictions, is obviously self-stultifying and 
 useless. 
 
 83
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 But you say it can be proved by mathematics 
 that the elUpse would be the path under these 
 conditions ; to which I reply that the mathematical 
 proof, though no doubt cogent to the human mind 
 (as at present constituted in most people), is open 
 to the same objection that it does not deal with 
 actual facts. It deals with a mental supposition, 
 i.e., that there are only two bodies acting on each 
 other — a case which never has occurred and never 
 can occur — and then, assuming the law of gra- 
 vitation (which is just the thing which has to be 
 proved), it arrives at a mental formula, the ellipse. 
 But to argue from this process that the ellipse is 
 really a thing in Nature, and that the heavenly 
 bodies do move or even tend to move in ellipses, 
 is obviously a most unwarrantable leap in the 
 dark. Finally you argue that the leap is warranted 
 because, by assuming that the moon and planets 
 move in ellipses, you can actually foretell things 
 that happen, as for instance the occurrences of 
 eclipses ; and in reply to that I can only say that 
 Tycho Brah^ foretold eclipses almost as well 
 by assuming that the heavenly bodies moved in 
 epicycles, and that modern astronomers do apply 
 the epicycle theory in their mathematical formulas. 
 The epicycles were an assumption made for a 
 certain purpose, and the ellipses are an assumption 
 made for the same purpose. In some respects 
 the ellipse is a more convenient fiction than the 
 epicycle, but it is no less a fiction. 
 
 In other words — with regard to this ** path of 
 the moon " (as with regard to any other phenomenon 
 
 84
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 of Nature) — our knowledge of it must be either 
 absolute or relative. But we cannot know the 
 absolute path ; and as to the relative, why all we 
 can say is that it does not exist (any more thain 
 species exists) — we cannot break up Nature so ; 
 it is not a thing in Nature, but in our own minds 
 — it is a view and a fiction. i 
 
 Again, let us take an example from Physics 
 — Boyle's law of the compressibility of gases. 
 This law states that, the temperature remaining 
 constant, the volume of a given quantity of gas is 
 inversely proportional to its pressure. It is a 
 law which has been made a good deal of, and at 
 one time was thought to be true, i.e.^ it was thought 
 to be a statement of fact. A more extended and 
 careful observation, however, shows that it is only 
 true under so many limitations, that, like the 
 elHpse in Astronomy, it must be regarded as a 
 convenient fiction and nothing more. It appears 
 that air follows the supposed law pretty well, 
 but not by any means exactly except within very 
 narrow limits of pressure ; other gases, such as 
 carbonic acid and hydrogen, deviate from it very 
 considerably — some more than others, and some 
 in one direction and some in the opposite. It was 
 found, among other things, that the nearer a gas 
 was to its liquefying point, the greater was the 
 deviation from the supposed law, and the con- 
 clusion was jumped at that the law was true for 
 
 ^ Such fictions, however, are (I need not say) quite necessary 
 as our only means of thinking out, however imperfectly, the 
 problems before us (1920). 
 
 85
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 perfect gases only. This idea of a perfect gas of 
 course involved the assumption that gases, as they 
 get farther and farther removed from their liqui- 
 fying point, reach at last a fixed and stable condi- 
 tion, when no further change in their qualities 
 takes place — at any rate for a very long time — and 
 Boyle's law was supposed to apply to this condition. 
 Since then, however, it has been discovered that 
 there is an ultra-gaseous state of matter, and on 
 all sides it is becoming abundantly clear that the 
 change in the condition of matter from the liquid 
 state to the ultra-gaseous state is perfectly continuous 
 — through all modifications of liquidity and con- 
 densation and every degree of perfection and imper- 
 fection of gasiness to the utmost rarity of the 
 fourth state. At what point, then, does Boyle's 
 law really apply ? Obviously it applies exactly 
 at only one point in this long ascending scale — at 
 one metaphysical point — and at every other point 
 it is incorrect. But no gas in Nature remains or 
 can be maintained just at one point in the scale 
 of its innumerable changes. Consequently, all 
 we can say is that out of the innumerable different 
 states that gases are capable of, and the innumerable 
 different laws of compressibility which they there- 
 fore follow, we could theoretically find one state 
 to which would correspond the law of compressi- 
 bility called Boyle's law ; and that, if we could 
 preserve a gas in that state (which we can't), Boyle's 
 law really would be true just for that case. In 
 other words, the law is metaphysical. It has no 
 real existence. It is a convenient view or fiction, 
 
 86
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 arising in the first place out of ignorance, and only 
 tenable as long as further observation is limited 
 or wilfully ignored. 
 
 This then is the Method of Science. It con- 
 sists in forming a law or statement by only looking 
 at a small portion of the facts ; then, when the 
 other facts come in, the law or statement gradually 
 fades away again. Conrad Gessner and other 
 early zoologists began by classifying animals accord- 
 ing to the number of their horns ! Political 
 Economy begins by classifying social action under 
 a law of Supply and Demand. When people be- 
 lieved that the earth was flat, they generalised the 
 facts connected with the fall of heavy bodies into 
 a conception of " up and down." These were 
 two opposite directions in space. Heavy bodies 
 took the " downward " ; it was their nature. But 
 in time, and as fresh facts came in, it became 
 impossible to group animals any longer by their 
 horns ; " up and down " ceased to have a meaning 
 when it was known that the earth was round. Then 
 fresh laws and statements had to be formed. 
 In the last-mentioned case — it being conceived 
 that the earth was the centre of the universe — the 
 new law supposed was that all heavy bodies tended 
 to the centre of the earth as such. This was all 
 right and satisfactory for a while ; but presently 
 it appeared that the earth was not the centre of the 
 universe, and that some heavy bodies — such as 
 the satellities of Jupiter — did not in fact tend 
 to the centre of the earth at all. Another lump 
 of ignorance (which had enabled the old generalisa- 
 
 87
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 tion to exist) was removed, and a new generalisa- 
 tion, that of universal gravitation, was after a time 
 formed. But it is probable that this law is only 
 conceived of as true through our ignorance ; nay 
 it is certain that belief in its truth presents the 
 gravest difficulties. 
 
 In fact here we come upon an important point. 
 It is sometimes said that, granting the above argu- 
 ments and the partiality and defectiveness of the 
 laws of Science, still they are approximations to 
 the truth, and as each fresh fact is introduced the 
 consequent modification of the old law brings us 
 nearer and nearer to a limit of rigorous exactness 
 which we shall reach at last if we only have patience 
 enough. But is this so } What kind of rigorous 
 statement shall we reach when we have got all 
 the facts in ? Remembering that Nature is one^ 
 and that if we try to get a rigorous statement for 
 one set of phenomena (as say the lunar theory) 
 by isolating them from the rest, we are thereby 
 condemning ourselves beforehand to a false 
 conclusion, is it not evident that our limit is at all 
 times infinitely far off } If one knew all the facts 
 relating to a given inquiry except two or three, 
 one might reasonably suppose that one was near 
 a limit of exactness in one's knowledge ; but 
 seeing that in our investigation of Nature we only 
 know two or three, so to speak, out of a million, it 
 is obvious that at any moment the fresh law arising 
 from increased experience may completely upset 
 our former calculations. There is a difference 
 between approximating to a wall and approximat-
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 ing to the North Star. In the one case you are 
 tending to a speedy conclusion of your labours, 
 in the other case you are only going in a certain 
 direction. The theories of Science generally belong 
 under the second head. They mark the direction 
 which the human mind is taking at the moment 
 in question, but they mark no limits. At each 
 point the appearance of a limit is introduced — which 
 becomes, like a mirage in the desert, an object 
 of keen pursuit ; but the limit is not really there 
 — it is only an effect of the standpoint, and disap- 
 pears again after a time as the observer moves. 
 In the case of gravitation there is for the moment 
 an appearance of finality in the law of the inverse 
 square of the distance, but this arises probably 
 from the fact that the law is derived from a limited 
 area of observation only, namely the movements 
 (at great distances from each other) of some of the 
 heavenly bodies. ^ The Cavendish and Schehallien 
 experiments do not show more than that the law 
 at ordinary distances on the earth's surface does 
 not vary very much from the above ; while the so- 
 
 ' It is not generally realised how feeble a force gravitation is. 
 It is calculated (Encycl. Brit., Art. Gravitation) that two masses, 
 each weighing 415,000 tons, and placed a mile apart, would exert 
 on each other an attractive force of only one pound. If one, 
 therefore, was as far from the other as the moon is from the earth, 
 their attraction would only amount to Tygoooooooo^^ °^^ pound. 
 This is a small force to govern the movement of a body weighing 
 415,000 tons ! and it is easy to see that a shght variation in the 
 law of the force might for a long period pass undetected, though 
 in the course of hundreds of centuries it might become of the 
 greatest importance. 
 
 89
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 called molecular forces compel us (unless we make 
 the very artificial assumption that a variety of 
 attractions and repulsions co-exist in matter along- 
 side of, and yet totally distinct from, the attraction 
 of gravitation) to suppose very great modifications 
 of the law for small distances. In fact, as we 
 saw of Boyle's law before — the Newtonian law 
 is probably metaphysical — true under certain 
 limited conditions — and the appearance of finality 
 has been given to it by the fact that our observa- 
 tions have been made under such or similar condi- 
 tions. When we extend our observation into 
 quite other regions of space, the law of the 
 inverse square ceases to appear as even an 
 approximation to the truth — as, for instance, the 
 law of the inverse jijth power has been thought 
 to be nearer the mark for small molecular 
 distances. 
 
 And indeed the state of the great theories of 
 Science in the present day — the confusion in which 
 the Atomic theory of physics finds itself, the dismal 
 insufficiency of the Darwin theory of the survival 
 of the fittest ; the collapse in late times of one of 
 the fundamental theories of Astronomy, namely 
 that of the stability of the lunar and planetary 
 orbits ; the cataclysms and convulsions which 
 Geology seems just now to be undergoing ; the 
 appalling and indeed insurmountable difficulties 
 which attach to the Undulatory theory of Light ; 
 the final wreck and abandonment of the Value- 
 theory, the foundation-theory of Political Economy 
 — all these things do not seem to point to very 
 
 90
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 near limits of rigorous exactness ! An impreg- 
 nable theory, or one nearing the limit of impreg- 
 nability, is in fact as great an absurdity as an 
 impregnable armour-plate. Certainly, given the 
 cannon-balls, you can generally find an armour- 
 plate which will be proof against them ; but given 
 the armour-plate, you can always find cannon- 
 balls which will smash it up. 
 
 The method of Science, as being a method of 
 artificial limitation or actual ignorance, is curiously 
 illustrated by a consideration of its various branches. 
 I have taken some examples from Astronomy, 
 which is considered the most exact of the physical 
 sciences. Now does it not seem curious that 
 Astronomy — the study of the heavenly bodies, 
 which are the most distant from us of all bodies, 
 and most difficult to observe — should yet be the 
 most perfect of the sciences } Yet the reason is 
 obvious. Astronomy is the most perfect science 
 because we know least about it — because our ignorance 
 of the actual phenomena is most profound. Situated 
 in fact as we are, on a speck in space, with our 
 observations limited to periods of time which, 
 compared with the stupendous flights of the stars, 
 are merely momentary and evanescent, we are in 
 somewhat the position of a mole surveying a rail- 
 way track and the flight of locomotives. And 
 as a man seeing a very small arc of a very vast 
 circle easily mistakes it for a straight line, so we 
 are easily satisfied with cheap deductions and solu- 
 tions in Astronomy which a more extensive 
 experience would cause us to reject. The man 
 
 91
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 may have a long way to go along his " straight 
 line " before he discovers that it is a curve ; he 
 may have much farther to go along his curve 
 before he discovers that it is not a circle ; and 
 much farther still to go before he finds out whe- 
 ther it is an ellipse or a spiral or a parabola, or 
 none of these ; yet what curve it is will make 
 an enormous difference in his ultimate destination. 
 So with the astronomer ; and yet Astronomy is 
 allowed to pass as an exact science ! ^ 
 
 Well then, as in Astronomy we get an " exact 
 
 ' As another instance of the same thing, let me quote a passage 
 from Maxwell's Theory of Heat, p. 3 1 ; the italics are mine : 
 " In our description of the physical properties of bodies as related 
 to heat we have begun with solid bodies, as those which we can 
 most easily handle, and have gone on to liquids, which we can 
 keep in open vessels, and have now come to gases, which will 
 escape from open vessels, and which are generally invisible. This 
 is the order which is most natural in our first study of these different 
 states. But as soon as we have been made familiar with the most 
 prominent features of these different conditions of matter the most 
 scientific course of study is in the reverse order, beginning with gases, 
 on account of the greater simplicity of their laws, then advancing 
 to liquids, the more complex laws of which are much more im- 
 perfectly known, and concluding with the little that has been hitherto 
 discovered about the constitution of solid bodies." That is to 
 say that Science finds it easier to work among gases — which are 
 invisible and which we can know little about — than among solids, 
 which we are familiar with and which we can easily handle ! 
 This seems a strange conclusion, but it will be found to represent 
 a common procedure of Science — the truth probably being that 
 the laws of gases are not one whit simpler than the laws of liquids 
 and solids, but that on account of our knowing so much less about 
 gases it is easier for us io feign laws in their case than in the case 
 of solids, and less easy for our errors to be detected. 
 
 92
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 science," because the facts and phenomena are 
 on such a tremendous scale that we only see a 
 minute portion of them — just a few details so to 
 speak — and our ignorance therefore allows us to 
 dogmatise ; so at the other end of the scale in 
 Chemistry and Physics we get quasi-exact sciences, 
 because the facts and phenomena are on such a 
 minute scale that we overlook all the details and see 
 only certain general effects here and there. When 
 a solution of cupric sulphate is treated with ammonia, 
 a mass of flocculent green precipitate is formed. 
 No one has the faintest notion of all the various 
 movements and combinations of the molecules 
 of these two fluids which accompany the appearance 
 of the precipitate. They are no doubt very 
 complex. But among all the changes that are 
 taking place, one change has the advantage of 
 being visible to the eye, and the chemist singles 
 that out as the main phenomenon. So chemistry 
 at large consists in a few, very few, facts taken at 
 random as it were (or because they happen to be 
 of such a nature as to be observable) out of the 
 enormous mass of facts really concerned : and 
 because of their fewness the chemist is able to 
 arrange them, as he thinks, in some order, that 
 is, to generalise about them. But it is certain 
 as can be that he only has to extend the number of 
 his facts, or his powers of observation, to get all 
 his generalisations upset. The same may be said 
 of magnetism, light, heat, and the other physical 
 sciences ; but it is not necessary to prove in detail 
 what is sufficiently obvious. 
 
 93
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 But now, roughly speaking, there is a third 
 region of human observation — a region which 
 does not, like Astronomy (and Geology), lie so far 
 beyond and above us that we only see a very small 
 portion of it ; nor, like Chemistry and Physics, so 
 far below us and under such minute conditions of 
 space and time that we can only catch its general 
 effects ; but which lies more on a level with man 
 himself — the so-called organic world — the study 
 of man, as an individual and in society, his history, 
 his development, the" study of the animals, the 
 plants even, and the laws of life — the sciences of 
 Biology, Sociology, History, Psychology, and the 
 rest. Now this region is obviously that which 
 man knows most of. I don't say that he genera- 
 lises most about it, but he knows the facts best. 
 For one observation that he makes of the habits 
 and behaviour of the stars, or of chemical solutions 
 — for one observation in the remote regions of 
 Astronomy or Chemistry — he makes thousands 
 and millions of the habits and behaviour of his 
 fellowmen, and hundreds and thousands of those 
 of the animals and plants. Is it not curious then 
 that in this region he is least sure, least dogmatic, 
 most doubtful whether there be a law or no ? 
 Or, rather, is it not quite in accord with our con- 
 tention, namely that Science, like an uninformed 
 boy, is most definite and dogmatic just where 
 actual knowledge is least. 
 
 It will however be replied that the phenomena 
 of living beings are far more complex than the 
 phenomena of Astronomy or Physics — and that 
 
 94
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 is the reason why exact science makes so little way 
 with them. Though man knows many million 
 times more about the habits of his fellow-men than 
 about the habits of the stars, yet the former subject 
 is so many million times more complicated than 
 the latter that all his additional knowledge does 
 not avail him. This is the plea. Yet it does not 
 hold water. It is an entire assumption to say that 
 the phenomena of Astronomy are less complicated 
 than the phenomena of vitality. A moment's 
 thought will show that the phenomena of Astronomy 
 are in reality infinitely complex. Take the move- 
 ment of the moon : even with our present acquain- 
 tance with that subject we know that it has some 
 relation to the position and mass of the earth, 
 including its ocean tides ; also to the position and 
 mass of the sun ; also to the position and mass of 
 every one of the planets ; also of the comets, 
 numerous and unknown as they are ; also the 
 meteoric rings ; and finally of all the stars ! 
 The problem, as everyone knows, is absolutely 
 insoluble even for the shortest period ; but when 
 the element of Time enters in, and we consider 
 that to do anything like justice to the problem 
 in an astronomical sense we should have to solve 
 it for at least a million years — during which interval 
 the earth, sun, and other bodies concerned would 
 themselves have been changing their relative posi- 
 tions, it becomes obvious that the whole question 
 is infinitely complex — and yet this is only a small 
 fragment of Astronomy. To debate, therefore, 
 whether the infinite complexity of the movements 
 
 95
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 of the stars is greater or less than the infinite com- 
 plexity of the phenomena of life, is like debating 
 the precedence of the three persons of the Trinity, 
 or whether the Holy Ghost was begotten or pro- 
 ceeding : we are talking about things which we 
 do not understand. 
 
 Nature is one ; she is not, we may guess, less 
 profound and wonderful in one department than 
 another ; but from the fact that we live under 
 certain conditions and limitations we see most 
 deeply into that portion which is, as it were, on 
 the same level with us. In humanity we look 
 her in the face ; there our glance pierces, and we 
 see that she is profound and wonderful beyond all 
 imagination ; what we learn there is the most 
 valuable that we can learn. In the regions where 
 Science rejoices to disport itself we see only the 
 skirts of her garments, so to speak, and though we 
 measure them never so precisely, we still see them 
 and nothing more. 
 
 There is another point, however, of which much 
 is often made as a plea for the substantial accuracy 
 of the scientific laws and generalisations, namely 
 that they enable us to predict events. But this 
 need not detain us long. J. S. Mill in his " Logic " 
 has pointed out — and a little thought makes it 
 obvious — that the success of a prediction does 
 not prove the truth of the theory on which it is 
 founded. It only proves the theory was good 
 enough for that prediction. 
 
 There was a time when the sun was a god going 
 forth in his chariot every morning, and there was 
 
 96
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 a time when the earth was the centre of the universe, 
 and the sun a ball of fire revolving round it. In 
 those times men could predict with certainty that 
 the sun would rise next morning, and could even 
 name the hour of its appearance ; but we do not 
 therefore think that their theories were true. 
 When Adams and Leverrier foretold the appear- 
 ance of Neptune in a certain part of the sky, they 
 made a brief prediction to an unknown planet 
 from the observed relations of the movements of 
 the known planets ; that does not show, however, 
 that the grand generalisation of these movements, 
 called the " law of gravitation," is correct. It 
 merely shows that it did well enough for this very 
 brief step — brief indeed compared with the real 
 problems of Astronomy, for which latter it is 
 probably quite inadequate. 
 
 Tycho Brahe, excellent astronomer as he was, 
 kept as we saw to the epicycle theory. He imagined 
 that the moon's path round the earth was a fixed 
 combination of cycle and epicycle. Kepler in- 
 troduced the conception of the ellipse. Later 
 on the motion of the perigee and other deviations 
 compelled the abandonment of the ellipse and the 
 supposition of an endless curve, similar to an ellipse 
 at any one point, and maintaining a fixed mean 
 distance from the earth, but never returning on 
 itself or making a definite closed figure of any 
 kind. Finally the researches of Mr. George 
 Darwin have destroyed the conception of the fixed 
 mean distance, and introduced that of a continually 
 enlarging spiral. Certainly no four theories could 
 
 97 G
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 well be more distinct from each other than these ; 
 yet if an eclipse had to be calculated for next year 
 it would scarcely matter which theory was used. 
 The truth is that the actual problem is so vast that 
 a prediction of a few years in advance only touches 
 the fringe of it so to speak; yet if the fulfilment of 
 the prediction were taken as a proof of the theory 
 in each of these different cases, it would lead in 
 the end to the most hopelessly contradictory 
 results. 
 
 The success of a prediction therefore only 
 shows that the theory on which it is founded has 
 had practical value so far as a working hypothesis. 
 As working hypotheses, and as long as they are 
 kept down to brief steps which can be verified^ 
 the scientific theories are very valuable — indeed 
 we could not do without them ; but when they 
 are treated as objective facts — when, for instance, 
 the '' law of gravitation " — derived as it is from a 
 brief study of the heavenly bodies — has a universal 
 truth ascribed to it, and is made to apply to pheno- 
 mena extending over millions of years, and to 
 warrant unverifiable prophecies about the plane- 
 tary orbits, or statements about the age of the earth 
 and the duration of the solar system — all one 
 can say is that those who argue so are flying off 
 at a tangent from actual facts. For as the tangent 
 represents the direction of a curve over a small 
 arc, so these theories represent the bearing of 
 facts well enough over a small region of observa- 
 tion ; but as following the tangent we soon lose 
 the curve, so following these theories for any dis- 
 
 98
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 tance beyond the region of actual observation we 
 speedily part company with facts. ^ 
 
 To proceed with a few more words about the 
 general method of Science. Science passes from 
 phenomena to laws, from individual details v/hich 
 can be seen and felt to large generalisations of an 
 intangible and phantom-like character. That is 
 to say, that for convenience of thought we classify 
 objects. How is this classification effected ? It 
 is effected through the perception of identity amid 
 difference. Among a lot of objects I perceive 
 certain attributes in common ; this group of 
 common attributes serves, so to speak, as a band 
 to tie these objects together with — into a bundle 
 convenient for thought. I give a name to the 
 band, and that serves to denote any unit of the 
 bundle by. Thus perceiving common attributes 
 among a lot of dogs — as in an example already 
 given — I give the name foxhound to this group 
 of attributes, and thenceforth use the name fox- 
 hound to connect these objects by in my mind ; 
 again perceiving other common attributes among 
 
 I All our thoughts, theories, " laws," etc., may perhaps be 
 said to touch Nature — as the tangent touches the curve — at a point. 
 They give a direction — ^and are true — at that point. But make 
 the slightest move, and they all have to be reconstructed. The 
 tangents are infinite in number, but the curve is one. This may 
 not only illustrate the relation of Nature to Science, but also of 
 Art to the materials it uses. The poet radiates thoughts : but 
 he sets no store by them. He knows his thoughts are not true 
 in themselves, but they touch the Truth. His lines are the envelope 
 of the curve which is his poem. 
 
 99
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 other similar objects, I invent the word greyhound 
 to denote these latter by. The concept foxhound 
 differs from the objects which it denotes, in this 
 respect that these latter are (as we say) real dogs 
 with thousands and thousands of attributes each : 
 one of them has a broken tooth, another is nearly 
 all white, another answers to the name " Sally," 
 and so on ; while the concept is only an imaginary 
 form in my mind, with only a few attributes and 
 no individual peculiarities — a kind of tiny G.C.M. 
 arising from the contemplation of a long row of 
 big figures. 
 
 Now having created these concepts " foxhound," 
 ** greyhound," and a lot of other similar ones, 
 I find that they in their turn have a few attributes 
 in common and thus give rise to a new concept 
 '* dog." Of course this " dog " is more of an 
 abstraction than ever, the concept of a concept. 
 In fact the peculiarity of this whole process is 
 that, as sometimes stated, the broader the generalisa- 
 tion becomes the less is its depth ; or in other 
 words and obviously, that as the number of objects 
 compared increases, the number of attributes 
 common to them all decreases. Ultimately as 
 we saw at the beginning, when a sufficient number 
 of objects are taken in, the concept (" dog " or 
 whatever it may be) fades away and ceases to have 
 any meaning. This therefore is the dilemma of 
 Science and indeed of all human knowledge, 
 that in carrying out the process which is peculiar 
 to it, it necessarily leaves the dry ground of reality 
 for the watery region of abstractions, which ab- 
 
 100
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 stractions become ever more tenuous and ungrasp- 
 able the farther it goes, and ultimately fade into 
 mere ghosts. Nevertheless the process is a quite 
 necessary one, for only by it can the mind deal 
 with things. 
 
 To dwell for a moment over this last point : 
 it is clear that every object has relation to every 
 other object in the world — exists in fact only in 
 virtue of such relation to other objects ; it has 
 therefore an infinite number of attributes. The 
 mind consequently is powerless to deal with such 
 object — it cannot by any possibility think it. In 
 order to deal with it, the mind is forced to single 
 out a few of its attributes (the method of ignorance 
 or abstraction already alluded to) — that is a few 
 of its relations to other objects, and to think them 
 first. The others it will think afterwards — all 
 in good time. In thus stripping or abstracting 
 the great mass of its attributes from our object, 
 and leaving only a few, which it combines into a 
 concept, the mind practically abandons the real 
 article and takes up with a shadow ; but in return 
 for this it gets something which it can handle, 
 which is light to carry about, and which, like 
 paper-money, for the time and under certain 
 conditions does really represent value. The only 
 danger is lest it — the mind — carried away by 
 the extensive applicability of the partial concept 
 which it has thus formed, should credit it with 
 an actual value — should project it on the back- 
 ground of the external world and ascribe to it 
 that reality which belongs only to objects them- 
 
 lOI
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 selves, i.e., to things embodying an infinite range 
 of attributes. 
 
 The peculiar method of Science is now clear to 
 us, and can be abundantly illustrated from modern 
 results. Our experience consists in sensations, we 
 feel the weight of heavy bodies, we see them fall 
 when let go, we have sensations of heat and cold, 
 light and darkness, and so forth. But these sensa- 
 tions are more or less local and variable from 
 man to man, and we naturally seek to find some 
 common measure of them, by which we can talk 
 about and describe them exactly, and independently 
 of the peculiarities of individual observers. Thus 
 we seek to find some common phenomenon which 
 underlies (as we say) the sensations of heat and 
 cold, or of light and darkness, or something which 
 explains (i.e. is always present in) the case of 
 falling bodies — and to do this we adopt the method 
 of generalisation above described, i.e., we observe 
 a great number of individual cases and then see 
 what qualities or attributes they have in common. 
 So far good. But it is just here that the fallacy 
 of the ordinary scientific procedure comes in ; 
 for, forgetting that these common qualities are 
 mere abstractions from the real phenomena we 
 credit them with a real existence, and regard the 
 actual phenomena as secondary results, ** effects " 
 or what-not of these " causes." This in plain 
 language is putting the cart before the horse — or 
 rather the shadow before the man. Thus finding 
 that a vast number of variously shaped and coloured 
 bodies tend to fall towards the earth, we erect this 
 
 102
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 common attribute of falling into an independent 
 existence which we call " attraction " or " gravita- 
 tion " — and ultimately posit a universal gravitation 
 acting on all bodies in Nature 1 — or finding that a 
 number of different substances, such as water, 
 air, wood, etc., convey to us the sensation we call 
 sound, and that in all these cases the common 
 element is vibration, we detach the attribute 
 vibration, credit it with a separate existence, and 
 speak of it as the cause of sound. But though we 
 may thus think of the shadow as separate from 
 the man, the shadow cannot be separate from the 
 man ; and though we may try to think of the 
 falling or the vibration as separate from the wood 
 or the stone, such falling and vibration cannot 
 exist apart from these and other such materials, 
 and the effort to speak of it as so existing ends in 
 mere nonsense. More strange still is the fatuity, 
 when, as in the case of the undulatory Theory 
 of light or the Atomic theory of physics, the con- 
 cepts thus erected into actualities are composed 
 of purely imaginary attributes — of which no one 
 has had any experience — an undulatory ether in 
 the one case, a hard and perfectly elastic atom in 
 the other. The total result is of course — just 
 what we see — Science landing itself in pure absurdi- 
 ties in every direction. Beginning by detaching 
 the attribute of falling from the bodies that fall 
 — beginning that is by an abstraction, which of 
 course is also a falsity — it generalises and generalises 
 this abstraction till at last it reaches a perfectly 
 generalised absurdity and thing without any 
 
 J 03
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 meaning — the law of gravitation. ^ The statement 
 that ** every particle in the universe attracts every 
 other particle with a force proportional to the mass 
 of the attracting particle and inversely proportional 
 to the square of the distance between the two " 
 is devoid of meaning — the human mind can give 
 no definite meanings to the words " mass," 
 *' attract," and " force," which do not overlap 
 and stultify each other. The law in every way 
 baffles intelligence. Newton, who invented it, 
 declared that no philosophic mind would suppose 
 that bodies could thus act on one another "without 
 the mediation of anything else by and through 
 which their action might be conveyed ; " scientific 
 men to-day are fain to see that a material mediation 
 of this kind would only make the law still more 
 remote from our comprehension than it already is, 
 while, on the other hand, an immaterial mediation 
 or a fourth-dimensional mediation, such as some 
 propose, would simply remove the problem out 
 of the regions of scientific analysis.^ Again, the 
 
 ' See the report of the joint meeting of the Royal Society and 
 the Royal Astronomical Society, November 6, 1919, when Ein- 
 stein's theory was discussed. 
 
 2 It is obvious that the Einstein theory, in which Time enters 
 as a kind of fourth dimension in relation to Space, removes us 
 at once out of the whole field of ordinary scientific reasoning and 
 lands us, so to speak, in a new world. The nature of Space (or 
 of the universal medium, whatever it is) in any region — its 
 possible fundamental accelerations there, its " curvature " or non- 
 Euclidean character, and so forth — is supposed, according to this 
 theory, to vary with the amount of matter in, or density of, 
 that region ; and the movements of bodies arc consequently 
 
 J 04
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 form of the law is declared to be the inverse square of 
 the distance ; but this is the law by the nature 
 of space itself of any perfect radiation, and if 
 true of gravitation involves the conclusion that that 
 radiation of force (whatever its nature may be) 
 takes place without loss or dissipation of any kind. 
 This would make gravitation absolutely unique 
 among phenomena. More than this, its propaga- 
 tion is supposed to be instantaneous over the most 
 enormous distances of space, and to take place 
 always unhindered and unretarded, whatever be 
 the number or the nature of the bodies between ! 
 What can be more clear than that the law is simply 
 metaphysical — a projection into a monstrous uni- 
 versality and abstraction, of partially understood 
 phenomena in a particular region of observation — 
 a Brocken-shadow on the background of Nature of 
 the observer's own momentary attitude of thought } 
 Again, the undulatory theory of Light. Study- 
 ing the phenomena of a vast number of coloured 
 
 supposed to take on the characters (accelerations, etc.,) which 
 we ascribe to the action of Gravitation. Gravitation in fact 
 in any region is the manifestation in Time of the attributes of 
 the universal Medium in that region — which latter again is 
 dependent on the degree of Matter present. Thus, Matter, 
 Time, and Space are one phenomenon. 
 
 The whole Einstein theory, in fact, is a device to present 
 these three Protean and variable elements of all material exist- 
 ence (Matter, Time and Space) as so far involved and inter- 
 laced in each other that they form always an absolute and 
 complete unity. As such the theory is no doubt suggestive, 
 and along the line of future speculation : but it awaits corro- 
 boration. If corroborated it will point the way to a new 
 conception of the Universe. 
 
 105
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and bright bodies, Science finds that it can think 
 about these phenomena — can generaUse and tie 
 them into bundles best by assuming that the bodies 
 are all in a state of vibration ; a vibration so 
 minute that (unlike the vibrations connected with 
 Sound) it cannot be directly perceived. So far 
 good. There is no harm in the assumption of 
 vibration, as long as it is understood to be a mere 
 assumption for a temporary convenience of thought. 
 But now Science goes farther than this, and not 
 only supposes a common attribute to all visible 
 bodies, but credits this common attribute with 
 a real existence independent of the visible bodies 
 in which it was supposed to inhere — and makes 
 this the cause of their vi3ibility ! Obviously now 
 a common and universal medium is required for 
 this common and universal assumed vibration (just 
 as Newton required a medium for his universal 
 ** falling ") — and so, hey presto ! we have the 
 Undulatory Ether. And having got it we find 
 that to fulfil our requirements it must have a 
 pressure of 17 million million pounds on the 
 square inch, and yet be so rare and tenuous as not 
 to hinder the lightest breath of air ; that while 
 it is thus rare enough to surpass all our powers of 
 direct scrutiny, its vibrations must yet be capable 
 of agitating and breaking up the solidest bodies ; 
 that it must pass freely through some dense and 
 close structures like glass, and yet be excluded 
 by some light and porous, like cork, and so on and 
 on! In fact we find that it is unthinkable. Against 
 this adamantine, impalpable Ether, as against 
 
 106
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 this instantaneous, untranslatable gravitation, 
 Science bangs its devoted head in vain. Flaving 
 created these absurdities by the method of " per- 
 sonification of abstractions " ^ or the " reification 
 of concepts," 2 it seriously and in all good faith 
 tries to understand them ; having dressed up its 
 own Mumbo Jumbo (which it once jeered at 
 religion for doing) it piously shuts its eyes and 
 endeavours to believe in it. 
 
 The Atomic Theory affords a good example 
 of the " method of ignorance." When we try 
 to think about material objects generally — to 
 generalise about them — that is, to find some attribute 
 or attributes common to them, we are at first 
 puzzled. They present such an immense variety. 
 But after a time, by dint of stripping off or abstract- 
 ing all such attributes or qualities as we think we 
 perceive in one body and not in another — as for 
 example, redness, blueness, warmth, saltness, life, 
 intelligence, or v/hat not — we find an attribute 
 left, namely resistance to touch, which is common 
 to all material bodies. This quality in the body 
 we call " mass," and since it is only known by 
 motion, mass and motion become correlative 
 attributes which we find useful to class bodies by, 
 not because they represent the various bodies 
 particularly well, but because they are found in 
 all bodies ; just as you might class people by their 
 boots — not because boots are a very valuable 
 method of classification, but simply because every 
 
 1 J. S. Mill. 
 
 2 See Stallo's excellent Concepts of Modern Physics. 
 
 107
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 one wears boots of one kind or another. So far 
 there is no great harm done. But now having 
 by the method of ignorance thought away all the 
 qualities of bodies, except the two correlatives of 
 mass and motion, we set about to explain the pheno- 
 mena of Nature generally by these two " thinks " 
 that are left. We credit these " thinks " (mass 
 and motion) with an independent existence and 
 proceed to derive the rest of phenomena from 
 them. The proceeding of course is absurd, and 
 ends by exposing its own absurdity. Thinking 
 of mass and motion as existing in the various bodies 
 apart from colour, smell, and so forth — which of 
 course is not the case — we combine the two attributes 
 into one concept, the atom, which we thus assume 
 to exist in all bodies. The atom has neither colour, 
 smell, warmth, taste, life or intelligence ; it has 
 only mass and motion ; for it came by the method 
 of divesting our thought of everything hut mass 
 and motion. It is a projection of a " think " 
 upon the background of nature. And it is an 
 absurdity. No such thing exists in all the wide 
 universe as mass and motion divested from colour, 
 smell, warmth, life and intelligence. The atom 
 is unthinkable. It is perfectly hard and it is per- 
 fectly elastic — which is the same as saying that it 
 bends and it doesn't bend at the same time ; it 
 has form, and it hasn't form ; it has affinities and 
 yet is perfectly indifferent. To justify to men 
 the wa)'S of their Mumbo Jumbo has sorely exer- 
 cised the votaries of the Atom. One philosopher 
 says that it is mere matter, passive, exercising no 
 
 1 08
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 force but resistance ; another says that it is a centre 
 of force, without matter ; a third suggests that it is 
 not itself matter, but only a vortex in other matter ! 
 All agree that it is not an object of sense, and there 
 remains no conclusion but that it is nonsense ! ^ 
 
 ' See, for instance, the last new thing in this style — the Helm- 
 holtz molecule as improved upon by Sir William Thomson ; 
 it is described as follows : " A heavy mass connected by massless 
 springs with a massless enclosing shell ; or there may be several 
 shells enclosing each other connected by springs with a dense mass 
 in the centre (far more dense than the ether)." It is not, of course, 
 seriously maintained that this nonsensical creation exists — but that 
 if it did exist it would account for certain unexplained phenomena 
 in the disperson of light, etc. 
 
 Later still (1920) we have the following delightful verdict 
 on the Structure of the Atom, given by Sir Ernest Rutherford — 
 and which I commend to all lovers of clear thinking : — 
 
 "The Bakerian Lecture was delivered yesterday before the Royal 
 Society by Sir Ernest Rutherford, whose subject was ' The Nuclear 
 Construction of the Atom.' He said that during recent years 
 much attention had been paid to the nature and structure of atoms. 
 The atomic theory of matter had been definitely proved. The 
 mass of the individual atoms, and the number in any given weight 
 of matter, were now known with considerable accuracy. Not 
 only was matter known to be made up of atoms, but electricity 
 was also atomic in nature, and there was a definite unit of electrical 
 charge which could not further be subdivided. The negative 
 electron, which was a constituent of all atoms of matter, was 
 probably nothing more than an isolated unit of negative electricity, 
 and its small mass was electrical in origin. It had long been con- 
 sidered probable that the atom is an electrical structure, consisting 
 of positive and negative particles, held in equilibrium by electric 
 or magnetic forces. In recent years evidence had accumulated 
 that an atom consists of a positively charged nucleus surrounded at 
 a distance by a distribution of electrons to make it electrically 
 neutral." (From The Morning Post of June 4, 1920.) 
 
 109
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 And so on in all directions. Human thought 
 flying off at its tangents from Nature lands itself 
 in infinite nothings afar off, poor ghostly skeletons 
 and abstractions from Nature — which indeed is 
 all right, for human thought as yet can only see 
 ghosts and not realities ; but let there be no 
 mistake, let these ghosts not be mistaken for 
 realities — for they are not even compatible with 
 each other. The Atom that suits the physicist 
 does not suit the chemist. The Ether that does 
 for the vehicle of Light will not do for the vehicle 
 of universal Gravitation. 
 
 It would be hardly worth while entering into 
 these criticisms, were it not evident that Science 
 in modern tinies, either tacitly or explicitly, has 
 been seeking, as I said at the beginning, to enounce 
 facts independent of Man, the observer. Seeing 
 that the ordinary statements of daily life are obviously 
 inexact and relative to the observer — charged 
 with human sensation in fact — Science has naturally 
 tried to produce something which should be 
 exact and independent of human sensation ; but 
 here it has of course condemned itself beforehand 
 to failure ; for no statement of isolated phenomena 
 or groups of phenomena ca>i be exact except by 
 the method of ignorance aforesaid, and no statement 
 obviously can be really independent of human 
 sensation. When a man says // is cold^ his state- 
 ment, it must be confessed, is deplorably human 
 and vague. // — what is that ? Is — do you mean 
 is ? or do you mean jcels^ appears ? Cold — in what 
 
 no
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 sense ? Cold to yourself, or to other people, or 
 to polar bears, or by the thermometer ? And so 
 on. Science therefore steps in with an air of 
 authority and sets him right. It says the tempera- 
 ture is 30<' Fahrenheit^ as if to settle the matter. 
 But does this really settle the matter } Temperature 
 — who knows what that is } What is the scientific 
 definition of it } I find (Clerk-Maxwell's Theory 
 of Heat, p. 2.) " the temperature of a body is a 
 quantity which indicates how hot or how cold the 
 body is." This sounds very much like saying, 
 " the colour of a body is a quantity which indicates 
 how blue, red, or yellow the body is." It does 
 not bring us much farther on our way. But 
 in the next paragraph Maxwell shows the object 
 of his definition (which of course is only preliminary) 
 by saying, " By the use, therefore, of the word 
 temperature, we fix in our minds the conviction 
 that it is possible not only to feel, but to measure^ 
 how hot a body is." That is to say he clearly 
 maintains that it is possible to find an absolute 
 standard of hotness or coldness — or rather of the 
 unknown thing called temperature — outside of 
 ourselves and independent of human sensation. 
 When the man said he was cold he was probably 
 just describing his own sensations, but here Science 
 indicates that it is in search of something which 
 has an independent existence of its own, and which 
 therefore when found we can measure exactly 
 and once for all. W^hat then is that thing } 
 What is temperature } say, what is it } 
 
 We cudgel our brains in vain. Perhaps the 
 III
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 remainder of the sentence will help us. ** The 
 temperature is 30° Fahrenheit." ** The unknown 
 thing is thirty degrees." What then is a degree ? 
 That is the next question. When the Theory of 
 Heat went out from sensation and left it behind, 
 one of its first landing places was in the expansion 
 of liquids — as in thermometer tubes. Here for 
 some time was thought to be a satisfactory register 
 of " temperature." But before long it became 
 apparent that the degree — Fahrenheit, Reaumur, 
 or what-not — was an entirely arbitrary thing, 
 also that it was not the same ^ thing at one end 
 of the scale as the other, and finally that the scale 
 itself had no starting point ! This was awkward, 
 so a move was made to the air thermometer, and 
 there was some talk about an absolute zero and 
 absolute temperatures ; it was thought that the 
 Unknown thing showed itself most clearly and 
 simply in the expansion of air and other gases, 
 and that the " degree " might fiirly be measured 
 in terms of this expansion. But in a little time 
 this kind of thermometer — chiefly because no 
 gas turned out to be " theoretically perfect " — 
 broke down, absolute zero and all, and another 
 step had to be made — namely, to the dynamical 
 theory. It was announced that the Unknown 
 thing might be measured in terms of mechanical 
 energy, and Joule at Manchester proclaimed that 
 
 * The very fact alone that the degrees on a thermometer are 
 ffua/ space divisions shows that they must bear a varying relation 
 to the total volume of liquid as that expands from one end of the 
 tube to the other. 
 
 I 12
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 the work done by any quantity of water falling 
 there a distance of 772 feet is capable of raising 
 that water one degree Fahrenheit.^ Here seemed 
 something definite. To measure temperature by 
 mass and velocity, to measure a degree by the 
 flight of a stone, or the heat in the human body 
 by the fall of a factory chimney — if rather round- 
 about and elusive of the main question — seemed 
 at any rate promising of exact results 1 Unfortu- 
 nately the difficulty was to pass from the theory 
 to its application. The complicated nature of 
 the problem, the " imperfection " of the gases 
 and other bodies under consideration, the latent 
 and specific heats to be allowed for, the elusive 
 nature of heat in experiment, and the variable 
 value of the degree itself — all render the con- 
 clusions on this subject most precarious ; and the 
 general equations connecting the Fahrenheit or 
 other temperatures with a thermo-dynamic scale 
 — while they become so unwieldy as to be practi- 
 cally useless — are themselves after all only approxi- 
 mate. 
 
 Finally, to give a last form to the mechanical 
 theory of heat, the conception of flying atoms or 
 molecules was introduced, and a number of neat 
 generalisations were deduced from dynamical 
 considerations. Of course it was inevitable, having 
 once started with a mechanical theory, that one 
 should arrive at the Atom some time or other — 
 and (from what has already been said) it was also 
 
 I A statement obviously applying — from what has been already 
 said — at only one point in the scale. 
 
 113 H
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 inevitable that the result should be unsatisfactory. 
 It is sufficient to say that the molecular theory of 
 heat is not in accordance with facts. Such things 
 as the law of Charles and the law of Boyle, which 
 according to it should be strictly accurate and of 
 general application, are known to be true only 
 over a most limited range. This failure of the 
 theory may be said to arise partly from its being 
 pursued by the statistical method ; but if, on 
 the other hand, we were to try and follow out the 
 individual movement of each molecule we should 
 be landed in a problem far exceeding in complexity 
 the wildest flights of Astronomy, and should 
 have exchanged for the original difficulty about 
 *' temperature " a difficulty far greater. 
 
 The result of all this has been that notwithstand- 
 ing the talk about energy and atoms. Science has 
 sadly to confess that it can still give no valid mean- 
 ing to the word temperature : the unknown thing 
 is still unknown, the independent existence 
 round the corner still escapes us. By the very 
 effort to arrive at something independent of human 
 sensation. Science has, in a roundabout way, 
 arrived at an absurdity. When the man said 
 he was cold, his statement — deplorably vague as 
 it certainly was — had some meaning ; he was 
 describing his feelings, or possibly he had seen 
 some snow or some ice on the road ; but when, 
 in the endeavour to leave out the human and to 
 say something absolute, Science declared that 
 the temperature was thirty degrees, it committed 
 itself to a remark which possibly was exact in 
 
 114
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 form, but to which it has never given and never 
 can give any definite meaning. ^ 
 
 Similarly with other generalities of Science : 
 the " law " of the Conservation of Energy, the 
 " law " of the Survival of the Fittest — the more 
 you think about them the less possible is it to give 
 any really intelligible sense to them. The very 
 word Fittest really begs the question which is 
 under consideration, and the whole Conservation 
 law is merely an attenuation of the already much 
 attenuated " law " of Gravitation. The Chemical 
 Elements themselves are nothing but the pro- 
 jection on the external world of concepts consisting 
 of three or four attributes each : they are not 
 more real, but very much less real than the indi- 
 vidual objects which they are supposed to account 
 for ; and their " elementary " character is merely 
 fictional. It probably is in fact as absurd to speak 
 of pure carbon or pure gold, as of a pure monkey 
 or a pure dog. There are no such things, except 
 as they may be arrived at by arbitrary definition 
 and the method of ignorance. 
 
 In the search for exactness, then, Science has 
 been continually led on to discard the human and 
 personal elements in phenomena, in the hope 
 of finding some residuum as it were behind them 
 
 I I am not, of course, here arguing against the use of ther- 
 mometers or other instruments for practical purposes. This is 
 certainly the legitimate field of Science. But (as in the case of 
 prediction before mentioned) the exactness of results obtained is 
 a very different matter from the truth of the generalities which 
 are supposed to underlie these results. In using a thermom.eter 
 you need not even mention the word " temperature." 
 
 115
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 which should not be personal and human but 
 absolute and invariable. And the tendency has 
 been (hitherto) in all the sciences to get rid of 
 such terms as blue, red, light, heavy, hot, cold, 
 concord, discord, health, vitality, right, wrong, 
 etc., and to rely on any less human elements dis- 
 coverable in each case ; as for instance in Sound, 
 to deal less and less with the judgments and sen- 
 sations of the ear, and to rely more and more on 
 measurements of lengths of strings, numbers of 
 vibrations, etc. Each science has been (as far 
 as possible) reduced to its lowest terms. Ethics 
 has been made a question of utility and inherited 
 experience. Political Economy has been exhausted 
 of all conceptions of justice between man and man, 
 of charity, affection, and the instinct of solidarity ; 
 and has been founded on its lowest discoverable 
 factor, namely self-interest. Biology has been 
 denuded of the force of personality in plants, 
 animals, and men ; the " self" here has been set 
 aside, and the attempt made to reduce the science 
 to a question of chemical and cellular affinities, pro- 
 toplasm, and the laws of osmose. Chemical affinities, 
 again, and all the wonderful phenomena of Physics 
 are emptied down into a flight of atoms ; and the 
 flight of atoms (and of astronomic orbs as well) 
 is reduced to the laws of dynamics — which the 
 student sitting in his chamber may write down on 
 a piece of paper. Thus the idea, formulated by 
 Comte, of a great scale of sciences arising from 
 the simplest to the most complex, has tacitly under- 
 lain modern scientific work. It — Science — has 
 
 ii6
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 sought to " explain " each stage by reference to 
 a lower stage — " blueness " by vibrations, and 
 vibrations by flying atoms — the human always 
 by the sub-human. Going out from humanity 
 dissatisfied, it has wandered through the animal 
 and vegetable kingdoms, through the regions of 
 Chemistry and Physics, into that of Mechanics. 
 ** Here at last, in Mechanics, is something outside 
 humanity, something exact in itself, something 
 substantial," it has said. ** Let us build again on 
 this as on a foundation, and in time we shall find 
 out what humanity is." This I say has been the 
 dream of Modern Science ; yet the fallacy of it 
 is obvious. We have not got outside the human, 
 but only to the outermost verge of it. Mass 
 and motion, which in this process are taken to 
 be real entities and the first progenitors of all 
 phenomena, are simply the last abstractions of 
 sensible experience, and our emptiest concepts. 
 The material explanation of the universe is simply 
 an attempt to account for phenomena by those 
 attributes which appear to us to be common to 
 them all — which is, as said before, like accounting 
 for men by their boots : — it may be possible to 
 get an exact formula this way, but its contents have 
 little or no meaning. 
 
 The whole process of Science and the Comtian 
 classification of its branches — regarded thus as 
 an attempt to explain Man by Mechanics — is 
 a huge vicious circle. It professes to start with 
 something simple, exact, and invariable, and from 
 this point to mount step by step till it comes to 
 
 117
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Man himself ; but indeed it starts with Man. 
 It plants itself on sensations low down (mass, 
 motion, etc.), and endeavours by means of them 
 to explain sensations high up, which reminds one 
 of nothing so much as that process vulgarly 
 described as " climbing up a ladder to comb 
 your hair." In truth Science has never left the 
 great world, or cosmos, of Man, nor ever really 
 found a locus standi without it ; but during the 
 last two or three centuries it has gone in this 
 direction^ outwards, continually. Leaving the 
 central basis and facts of humanity as too vast and 
 unmanageable, and also as apparently variable 
 from man to man and therefore affording no 
 certain consent to work upon, it has wandered 
 gradually outwards, seeking something of more 
 definite and universal application Discarding thus 
 one by one the interior phases of sensation — as 
 the sense of personal relationship, the sense of 
 justice, duty, fitness in things or what-not (as too 
 uncertain, or perhaps developed to an unequal 
 degree in different persons, embryonic in one and 
 matured in another), drifting past the more special- 
 ised bodily senses, of colour, sound, taste, smell, 
 etc., as for similar reasons unavailable — Science 
 at last in the primitive consciousness of muscular 
 contraction and its abstraction " mass " or ** matter " 
 comes to a pause. Here in this last sense, common 
 probably to man and the lowest animals, it finds 
 its widest, most universal ground — its farthest 
 limit from the Centre. It has reached the outer- 
 most shell, as it were, of the great Man-cosmos. 
 
 ii8
 
 Modern Science : A Criticism 
 
 Even this shell is partially human ; it is not 
 entirely osseous, and so far not entirely exact 
 and invariable ; but Science can go no farther — 
 and there, for the present, it may remain 1 
 
 Some day perhaps, when all this showy vesture 
 of scientific theory (which has this peculiarity 
 that only the learned can see it) has been quasi- 
 completed, and Humanity is expected to walk 
 solemnly forth in its new garment for all the 
 world to admire — as in Anderssen's story of the 
 Emperor's New Clothes — some little child standing 
 on a door-step will cry out : " But he has got 
 nothing on at all," and amid some confusion it 
 will be seen that the child is right. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 " I fear I have very imperfectly succeeded in expressing my 
 strong conviction that, before a rigorous logical scrutiny, the Reign 
 of Law will prove to be an unverified hypothesis, the Uniformity 
 of Nature an ambiguous expression, the certainty of our scientific 
 inferences to a great extent a delusion." (Stanley Jevons, Principles 
 of Science, p. ix.) 
 
 119
 
 THE SCIENCE OF THE FUTURE : 
 A FORECAST 
 
 Once let that [the human ideal] slip out of the thought, and 
 science is of no more use than the invocations in the Egyptian 
 papiri. — Richard Jefferies. 
 
 IT would appear then, from the preceding 
 paper, that in some sense a mistake has 
 been made in the method of modern 
 scientific work ; not that the vast amount of 
 labour expended in it has been altogether wasted, 
 for in return for this there is a mass of practical 
 results and detailed observations to shov/ ; but 
 that in attempting to solve the problem of science 
 by the intellect alone, a radical mistake has been 
 made which could only land us in absurdity, and 
 that this mistake has for the time being also vitiated 
 the results that have been attained. For — in 
 reference to this last point — the divorce of the 
 intellectual from the emotional has caused a great 
 portion of our scientific observations to become 
 merely pedantic and trifling ; while it has turned 
 the practical results — as industrial and military 
 machinery, etc. — into engines of evil as often as 
 into engines of good. 
 
 120
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 Science in searching for a permanently valid 
 and purely intellectual representation of the uni- 
 verse has, as already said, been searching for a 
 thing which does not exist. The very facts of 
 Nature, as we call them, are at least half feeling. 
 If we try to clean the feeling out of a fact and to 
 produce a statement v/hich shall be devoid of the 
 human or sense element, it simply amounts to 
 cleaning the meaning out ; and though our resulting 
 statement may be exact it is nugatory and of no 
 value. We might as well try to take the clay 
 out of a brick. It must never be forgotten that 
 the logical processes — important as they are — 
 cannot stand by themselves, have no standing 
 ground of their own. They presuppose assump- 
 tions and are the expression of things that are 
 unreasoning, perhaps illogical. The strictest 
 logic is a mere hooking together of links in a chain, 
 and the last link is of no use — you can put no 
 stress on it — unless the first is secured some- 
 where. The strength of the intellectual chain is 
 no greater than that of the staple from which it 
 hangs — and that is a human feeling The strength 
 of Euclid is no greater than that of the axioms — 
 and they are feelings ; they are unreasoning state- 
 ments of which all that we can say is, " I jeel 
 like that." In fact all the propositions of Geo- 
 metry are nothing but the analysis and elaborate 
 expression, so to speak, of these primary convictions 
 — and the Geometry-structure stands and falls 
 with them. There is no such thing as intellectual 
 truth — that is, I mean, a truth which can be stated 
 
 121
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 as existing apart from feeling. If, for instance, 
 a proposition in Geometry can be really shown to 
 be based on the axioms, it is true, not intellectually 
 or absolutely, but as an expression of my primary 
 Geometrical sense ; and if my giving a few pence 
 to a crossing sweeper is based not on a mere im- 
 pression of duty, or an anxiety to appear charitable, 
 or wish to escape his importunity, but on genuine 
 regard for the man, then it is true, not in any absolute 
 signification, but just as an expression of what it 
 professes to represent — namely my primary sense 
 of humanity. Indeed the truest truth is that 
 which is the expression of the deepest feeling, 
 and if there is an absolute truth it can only be 
 known and expressed by him who has the absolute 
 feeling or Being within himself. 
 
 This being so — and the nature of the intellec- 
 tual processes being, like the links in a chain, 
 transitional — it becomes obvious that the intellec- 
 tual results may figure as a 7neans but never as 
 an end in themselves. To hang any weight of 
 reliance on them in the latter sense is like the 
 Chinese Trick — described by Marco Polo — of 
 throwing a rope's end up in the air and then 
 climbing up the rope. Hence it appears that 
 our scientific theories are perfectly legitimate, as 
 long as they are formed as a means towards 
 ■practical applications. In that sense they are 
 transitional ; they are formed, not as substantial 
 truths, but merely as links in a chain towards some 
 definite practical result. For this purpose we may 
 form whatever theories are convenient : if we 
 
 122
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 are calculating the strength of bridges, we may 
 adopt what generalisations we like concerning 
 mechanical structure, as long as they give us actual 
 and practical results ; if we are predicting eclipses, 
 we may make use of any theory that will do. The 
 theory does not matter, as long as it hauls the prac- 
 tical result after it, just as it does not matter whether 
 your cable is of iron or hemp or silk, as long as 
 you can get your ship into dock with it. In this 
 sense our Modern Science is, I conceive, admirable. 
 For practical results and brief predictions it affords 
 a quantity of useful generalisations — shorthand 
 notes and conventional symbols and pocket 
 summaries of phenomena — which bear about the 
 same relation to the actual world that a map does 
 to the country it is supposed to represent. It 
 cannot be said to have any resemblance to the real 
 thing — but, when you understand the principle 
 on which it is formed, it is exceedingly useful for 
 finding your way about. As long as Science 
 therefore keeps the practical end in view, and 
 starting from sense seeks to return to sense again, 
 its intermediate theorising is perfectly legitimate ; 
 but the moment it credits its theory with a positive 
 and authoritative existence, as an actual repre- 
 sentation of facts — and endeavours to pass by means 
 of it into unverifiable and abstract regions, as of 
 invisible germs or atoms, or far distances of space, 
 or the remote past or future — it is simply throw- 
 ing its rope's end into the sky and trying to climb 
 up 1 That " the wish is father to the thought " 
 is in its wide sense profoundly true. In the indivi- 
 
 123
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 dual, feeling precedes thinking — as the body 
 precedes the clothes. In history, the Rousseau 
 precedes the Voltaire. There is, I believe, a 
 physiological parallel ; for behind the brain and 
 determining its action stands the great sympathetic 
 nerve — the organ of the emotions. In fact here 
 the brain appears as distinctly transitional. It 
 stands between the nerves of sense on the one 
 hand and the great sympathetic on the other. 
 
 Change the feeling in an individual, and his whole 
 method of thinking will be revolutionised ; change 
 the axiom or primary sensation in a science, and 
 the whole structure will have to be re-created. 
 The current Political Economy is founded on the 
 axiom of individual greed ; but let a nev/ axiomatic 
 emotion spring up (as of justice or fair play 
 instead of unlimited grab), and the base of the 
 science will be altered, and will necessitate a new 
 construction. 
 
 So when people argue (on politics, morality, art, 
 etc.) it will generally be found that they differ at 
 the base ; they go out, perhaps quite unconsciously, 
 from different axioms and hence they cannot agree. 
 Occasionally of course a strict examination will 
 show that, while agreeing at the base, one of them 
 has made a false step in deduction ; in that case 
 his thought does not represent his primary feeing, 
 and when this is pointed out he is forced to alter 
 it. But more often it is found that the difference 
 lies deep down at a point beyond the reach of 
 reason ; and they disagree to the end. In this 
 case neither is right and neither is wrong. 
 
 124
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 They simply feel differently ; they are different 
 persons. 
 
 The Thought then is the expression, the out- 
 growth, the covering of underlying Feeling. And 
 in the great life of Man as a whole, as in the lesser 
 life of the individual, his continual new birth 
 and inward growth causes his thought-systems also 
 continually to change and be replaced by new ones. 
 Like the bud-sheaths and husks in a growing 
 plant or tree they give form for a time to the life 
 within ; then they fall off and are replaced. The 
 husk prepares the bud underneath, which is to 
 throw it off. The thought prepares and protects 
 the feeling underneath, which growing will in 
 evitably reject it ; and when a thought has been 
 formed it is already jalse^ i.e.^ ready to fall. 
 
 We are now, then, in a position to come back 
 to the question of a genuine Science, truly so- 
 called. 
 
 As there is no invariable and absolute datum 
 on the fringe of Humanity — no definable flying 
 atom on which we can found our reasonings — 
 and as Modern Science, considered as an actual 
 representation of the universe, falls miserably to 
 pieces in consequence — is it possible that we have 
 made a mistake in the direction in which we have 
 sought for our datum ; and may it be that we should 
 look for that in the very Centre of Humanity in- 
 stead of in its remotest circumference } In that 
 direction evidently, if we could penetrate, we 
 should expect to find, not a shadowy intellectual 
 generalisation, but the very opposite of that — an 
 
 125
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 intense immutable feeling or state, an axiomatic 
 condition of Being. Is it possible that here, 
 blazing like a sun (if we could only see it — and 
 the sun is its allegory in the physical world), 
 there exists within us absolutely such a thing 
 — the one fact in the universe, of which all else 
 are shadows, to which everything has relation, 
 and round which, itself unanalysable, all thought 
 circles and all phenomena stand as indirect modes 
 of expression ? 
 
 Is it possible ? That is the question — the 
 question wh'ch each one of us has to solve. At 
 any rate, let us throw this out as a suggestion. 
 Let us suggest that as we have got nothing satis- 
 factory by cleaning the sense-element out of 
 phenomena, we should take the opposite course 
 and put as much sense into them as we can 1 
 
 " Facts " are, at least, half feelings. Let us 
 acknov/ledge this and not empty the feeling out 
 of them, but deepen and enlarge that which we 
 already have in them. Who knows whether 
 we have ever seen the blue sky ? Who knows 
 whether we have ever seen each other } Is it 
 not a commonplace to say that one man sees in 
 the common objects of Nature what another is 
 wholly unconscious of? "The primrose on 
 the river's brim a yellow primrose is to him — and 
 nothing more.' To what extent may the facts 
 of Nature thus be deepened and made more 
 substantial to us — and whither will this process 
 lead us .'' 
 
 Do wc not want to feel more^ not less, in the 
 126
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 presence of phenomena — to enter into a living 
 relation with the blue sky, and the incense-laden 
 air, and the plants and the animals — nay, even 
 with poisonous and hurtful things to have a keener 
 sense of their hurtfulness ? Is it not a strange 
 kind of science, that which wakes the mind to 
 pursue the shadows of things, but dulls the senses 
 to the reality of them — which causes a man to 
 try to bottle the pure atmosphere of heaven and 
 then to shut himself in a gas-reeking, ill-ven- 
 tilated laboratory while he analyses it ; or allows 
 him to vivisect a dog, unconscious that he is 
 blaspheming the pure and holy relation between 
 man and the animals in doing so ? Surely the 
 man of Science (in its higher sense, that is) should 
 be lynx-eyed as an Indian, keen-scented as a 
 hound — with all senses and feelings trained by 
 constant use and a pure and healthy life in close 
 contact with Nature, and with a heart beating in 
 sympathy with every creature. Such a man 
 would have at command, so to speak, the key- 
 board of the universe ; but the mechanical, un- 
 healthy, indoor-living student — is he not really 
 ignorant of the facts ? — Certainly, since he has not 
 felt them, he is. 
 
 The process of the true Science consists first 
 in the naming and defining of phenomena (/.^., 
 the facts of human consciousness), and secondly, 
 in the discovery of the true relation of these 
 phenomena to each other ; and since the defini- 
 tions of phenomena and their relations keep vary- 
 ing with the standpoint of the observer, the process 
 
 127
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 evidently involves all experience, and ultimately 
 the discovery of that last fact of experience to 
 which and through which all the other facts are 
 related. It is therefore an age-long process, and 
 has to do with the emotional and moral part of 
 man as v/ell as with the logical and intellectual. 
 It is, in fact,' the discovery of the nature of Man 
 himself, and of the true order of his being. 
 
 Modern Science — though seeking for a unity 
 in Nature — fails to find it, because, from the 
 nature of the case, any large body of knowledge 
 in which all people will agree is limited to certain 
 small regions of human experience — regions in 
 which very likely no unity is discoverable. It 
 takes the emerald, and breaks it up ; treats of its 
 colour and light-refracting qualities on the one 
 hand ; of its crystalline structure and hardness 
 on the other ; of its weight and density ; and of 
 its chemical properties ; all separately, and pro- 
 ducing long strings of generalisation from each 
 aspect of the subject. But how all these qualities 
 are conjoined together, what their relation is 
 which constitutes the emerald — yea, even the 
 smallest bit of emerald dust — it (wisely) does not 
 attempt to say. It takes the man and dissects 
 him ; treats of his blood, his nerves, his bones, 
 his brain ; of his senses of sight, of touch, of 
 hearing ; but of that which binds these together 
 into a unity, of their true relation to each other 
 in the man, it is silent. 
 
 Yet the man knows of himself that he is a unity ; 
 he knows that all parts of his body have relation 
 
 128
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 to hirn^ and to each other ; he knows that his 
 senses of sight and hearing and touch and taste 
 and smell are conjoined in the focus of his indivi- 
 dual life, in his " I am ; " he knows that all his 
 faculties and powers, however much they may- 
 belong to different planes, spiritual or material, 
 or may come under the inquisition of different 
 Sciences, have an order of their own among each 
 other — that there is an ultimate Science of them 
 — even though he be not yet wholly versed in 
 it. And he knows, moreover, that in a grain of 
 dust, or in an emerald, or in an orange, or in any 
 object of Nature, the different attributes of the 
 object — which the Sciences thus treat of separ- 
 ately — are only the reflexion of his different senses ; 
 so that the problem of the conjunction of different 
 attributes in a body comes back to the same pro- 
 blem of the union of various senses and powers 
 in himself — each individual object being only 
 a case, externalised as it were, and made a matter 
 of consciousness, of the general relation to each 
 other of his own sensations and feelings. Know- 
 ing all his — I say — he sees that the understanding 
 of Nature in general and of the laws or relations 
 which he thinks he perceives among external 
 things must always depend on the relations and 
 laws which he tacitly assumes, or which he is 
 directly conscious of, as existing between the 
 various parts of his own being ; and that the 
 ultimate truth which Science — the divine Science — 
 is really in search of is a moral or psychologic Truth 
 — an understanding of what man is, and the discovery 
 
 129 I
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 of the true relation to each other of all his 
 faculties — involving all experience, and an exer- 
 cise of every faculty physical, intellectual, emo- 
 tional and spiritual, instead of one set of faculties 
 only. 
 
 Not till we know the law of ourselves, in fact, 
 shall we know the law of the emerald and the 
 orange, or of Nature generally ; and the law of 
 ourselves is not learnt, except subordinately, 
 by intellectual investigation ; it is mainly learnt 
 by life. The relation of gravity to vitality is 
 learnt not so much by outer experiment in a 
 laboratory as by long experience within ourselves 
 from the day when as infants we cannot lift our- 
 selves above the floor, through the years of the 
 proud strength of manhood scaling the loftiest 
 mountains, to the hour when our disengaged spirits 
 finally overcome and pass beyond the attraction 
 of the earth ; and just as the sense of weight — 
 which first appears as a quite external sensation 
 — is thus at last found to stand in most pregnant 
 relation with our deepest selves, so of the other 
 senses which feed the individual life — the senses 
 of light, of warmth, of taste, of sound, of smell. 
 Taste, which begins as it were on the tip of the 
 tongue, becomes ultimately, if normally developed, 
 a sense which identifies itself with the health 
 and well-being of the whole body ; the pleasure 
 of taste becomes vastly more than a mere surface 
 pleasure, and its discrimination of food more than 
 a mere regard for the nutrition of the ordinary 
 corporeal functions. The sense of Light, which 
 
 130
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 begins in the material eye, grows and deepens 
 inwardly till the consciousness of it pervades 
 the whole body and mind with a kind of inward 
 illumination or divine Reason, showing the 
 places of all things and enfolding the sense 
 of beauty in itself. The sense of Warmth in 
 the same mannre is related to and leads up to 
 Love ; and Sound, in the voices of our friends or 
 the divine chords of music, has passed away from 
 being an external phenomenon and has established 
 itself as the language of our most tender and inti- 
 mate emotions. 
 
 All the senses thus, as they develop and deepen, 
 are found to unite in the very focus of individual 
 life. Slowly, and through long experience, their 
 relation to each other, their very meaning unfolds, 
 or will unfold ; and as this process takes place 
 the man knows himself one^ a unity, of which the 
 various faculties are the different manifestations. 
 Then further through his less localised feelings 
 or more glorified senses the individual finds his 
 relation to other individuals. Through his loves 
 and hatreds, through his senses of attraction, 
 repulsion, cohesion, solidarity, order, justice, 
 charity, right, wrong and the rest — these feelings, 
 each like the others deepening back more and 
 more as time goes on — he gradually discovers 
 his true and abiding relationship to other indi- 
 viduals, and to the divine society of which they 
 all form a part — and so at last, if we may venture to 
 say so, his relationship to the absolute and uni- 
 versal. At present, since our most important 
 
 131
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 relation to each other Is conceived of as one of 
 rivalry and Competition, we of course think of 
 the objects of Nature as being chiefly engaged 
 in a Struggle for Existence with each other ; but 
 when we become aware of all our senses and feelings, 
 and of ourselves as individuals, as having relation 
 to the Absolute and universal, proceeding from 
 it, as the branches and twigs of a tree from the 
 trunk — then we shall become aware of a Divine 
 or absolute science in Nature ; we shall at last 
 understand that all objects have a permanent 
 and indissoluble relation to each other, and 
 shall see their true meaning — though not till 
 then. 
 
 Is it possible then that Science, having hitherto 
 — and we shall see in time that this process has 
 been really most valuable and important — gone 
 outwards from the centre towards the very fringe 
 of Humanity — emptying facts as far as possible 
 as it went of all feeling, and reducing itself at 
 last to the most shadowy generalisations on the 
 very verge of sense and nonsense — is it possible, 
 I say, that it will now return, and first filling up 
 facts with feeling as far as practicable (that is, 
 by direct and the most living contact with Nature 
 in every form, learning to enter into direct per- 
 sonal sense-relationship with every phenomenon 
 and phase), will so gradually ascend to the great 
 central fact and feeling, and then at last and for 
 the first time become fully conscious of a vast 
 organisation — absolutely perfect and intimately knit 
 from its centre to its utmost circumference — 
 
 132
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 (the true cosmos of Man — the conceptions of 
 man and god combined) — existing inchoate or 
 embryonic in every individual man, animal, plant, 
 or other creature — the object of all life, experience, 
 suffering, and toil — the ground of all sensation, 
 and the hidden, yet proper, theme of all thought 
 and study ? 
 
 For this is it possible that Science will, speaking 
 broadly, have to leave the laboratory and become 
 one with Life ; or that the great currents of human 
 life will have to be turned on into these often 
 Augean stables of intellectual pruriency ? — the 
 investigation of Nature no longer a matter of the 
 intellect alone, but of patient listening and the 
 quiet eye, and of love and faith, and of all deep 
 human experience, bearing not superciliously its 
 weight towards the interpretation of the least 
 phenomenon — every " fact " thus deepened to 
 its utmost — all experience (rather than experi- 
 ment) courted, and filial walking with Nature, 
 rather than tearing of veils aside — the life of the 
 open air, and on the land and the waters, the 
 companionship of the animals and the trees and 
 the stars, the knowledge of their habits at first 
 hand and through individual relationship to them, 
 the recognition of their voices and languages, and 
 listening well what they themselves have to say ; 
 the keenest education of the senses towards the 
 physical powers and elements, and the acceptance 
 of all human experience, without exception — 
 till Science become a reality. 
 
 Is it possible that in some sense, instead of 
 133
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 reducing each branch of Science to its lowest 
 terms, we shall have to read it in the light of its 
 highest factors, and " take it up " into the Science 
 above — that we shall have to take up the mechani- 
 cal sciences into the physical, the physical into 
 the vital, the vital into the social and ethical, and 
 so forth, before we can understand them ? Is 
 it possible that the phenomena of Chemistry 
 only find their due place and importance in their 
 relation to living beings and processes ; that the 
 phenomena of vitality and the laws of Biology 
 and Zoology — Evolution included — can only be 
 " explained " by their dependence on self-hood — 
 both in plants and animals ; that Political Economy 
 and the Social Sciences (which deal v/ith men as 
 individual selves) must, to be undertstood aright, 
 be studied in the light of those great ethical principles 
 and enthusiasms, which to a certain extent over- 
 ride the individual self ; and that, finally. Ethics 
 or the study of moral problems is only compre- 
 hensible when the student has become aware of a 
 region beyond Ethics, into which questions of 
 morality and immorality, of right and wrong, 
 do not and cannot enter ? 
 
 Of this reversal of the ordinary scientific method 
 Ruskin has given a great and signal instance in 
 his treatment of Political Economy ; it remains, 
 perhaps, for others to follow his example in the 
 other branches of Science. ^^ 
 
 ' Thus the study of Geometry would be primarily an education 
 of the eye, and the mind's eye, to the perception of geometrical 
 forms and facts, the judgment of angles, etc. — and secondarily
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 With regard to the absolute datum question 
 we have seen that Science has two alternatives 
 before it — either to be merely intellectual and to 
 seek for its start-point in some quite external 
 (and imaginary) thing like the Atom, or to be 
 divine and to seek for its absolute in the innermost 
 recesses of humanity. We have two similar 
 alternatives in the doctrine of Evolution, which 
 looks either to one end of the scale or the other 
 for its interpretation — either to the amoeba or to 
 the man — to something it knows next to nothing 
 of, or to that which it knows most of. Goethe, 
 when gazing at a fan-palm at Padua, conceived 
 the idea of leaf-metamorphosis, which he after- 
 wards enunciated in the now accepted doctrine 
 that all parts of a plant — seed-vessel, pistil, stamens, 
 petals, sepals, stalk, etc. — may be regarded as 
 modifications of a leaf or leaves. In this view 
 the distinctions between the parts arc effaced, and 
 we have only one part instead of many — but the 
 question is *' what is that part ? " It is of course 
 arbitrary to call it a leaf, for since it is continually 
 varying it is at one time a leaf, and at another a 
 stalk, and then a petal or a sepal, and so forth. 
 
 only a process of deductive reasoning — a body of empirical know- 
 ledge strengthened and tied together by bands of logic ; the study 
 of Natural History would be primarily an affectionate intimacy 
 with the habits of animals and plants, and classification would be 
 treated as a secondary matter and as a help to the former ; Physiology 
 would be studied in the first place by the method of Health — 
 the pure body — becoming gradually transparent with all its organs 
 to the eye of the mind — and dissection would be used to corroborate 
 and correct the results thus attained ; and so on.
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause aud Cure 
 
 What then is it ? For the moment we are 
 baffled. 
 
 So with the doctrine of Evolution as applied 
 to the whole organic kingdom up to man. Like 
 the doctrine of leaf-metamorphosis it obliterates 
 distinctions. Geoffroy St. Hilaire proposed to 
 show the French Academy that a Cephalopod 
 could be assimilated to a Vertebrate by supposing 
 the latter bent backwards and walking on its 
 hands and feet. There is a continuous variation 
 from the mollusc to the man — all the lines of 
 distinction run and waver — classes and species 
 cease to exist — and Science, instead of many, sees 
 only one thing. What then is that one thing ? 
 Is it a mollusc, or is it a man, or what is it } Are 
 we to say that man may be looked upon as a varia- 
 tion of a mollusc or an amoeba, or that the amoeba 
 may be looked on as a variation of man } Here 
 are two directions of thought ; which shall we 
 choose } But the plain truth is, the Intellect can 
 give no satisfactory answer. Whichever, or 
 whatever, it chooses, the choice is quite arbitrary 
 — just as much so as the choice of the "leaf" 
 in the other case. There is no answer to be given. 
 And thus it is that the appearance of the doctrine 
 oj Evolution is the signal of the destruction of Science 
 (in the ordinary acceptation of the word). For 
 Evolution is the successive obliteration of the 
 arbitrary distinctions and landmarks which by 
 their existence constitute Science, and as soon 
 as Evolution covers the whole ground of Nature 
 inorganic and organic (as before long it will do) 
 
 136
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 — the whole of Nature runs and wavers before 
 the eye of Science, the latter recognises that its 
 distinctions are arbitrary, and turns upon and 
 destroys itself. This has happened before, I 
 believe — ages back in the history of the human 
 race — and probably will happen again. 
 
 The only conceivable answer to the question, 
 " What is that which is now a mollusc and now a 
 man and now an inorganic atom ^ " ^ is given 
 by man himself — and his answer is, I fear, not 
 •' scientific." It is " I Am." " I am that which 
 varies." And the force of his answer depends 
 on what he means by the word " I." And so 
 also the only conceivable answer to the absolute 
 datum question is to be found in the meaning 
 of the word " I " — in the deepening back of 
 consciousness itself. Man is the measure of all 
 things. If we are to use Science as a minister 
 to the most external part of man — to provide 
 him with cheap boots and shoes, etc. — then we 
 do right to seek our absolute datum in his external 
 part, and to take his foot as our first measure. We 
 found a science on feet and pounds, and it serves 
 its purpose well enough. But if we want to 
 find a garment for his inner being — or, rather, 
 one that shall fit the whole man — to wear which 
 will be a delight to him and, as it were, a very inter- 
 pretation of himself — it seems obvious that we 
 must not take our measure from outside, but 
 from his very most central principle. The whole 
 
 I Compare the Sphinx-riddle : What is that which goes on 
 four legs, etc.
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 question is, whether there is any absolute datum 
 in this direction or not. There have been men 
 through all ages of history (and from before) 
 who have declared that there is. They have 
 perhaps been conscious of it in themselves. On 
 the other hand there have been men who, starting 
 from their feet, declared that consciousness itself 
 was a mere incident of the human machine — 
 as the whistle of the engine — and thus the matter 
 stands. On the whole, at the present day, the 
 feet have it, and (notwithstanding their variety 
 in size and boot-induced conformation) are 
 generally accepted as the best absolute datum 
 available. 
 
 Under the foot regime the universe is generally 
 conceived of as a medley of objects and forces, 
 more or less orderly and distinct from man, in 
 the midst of which man is placed — the purpose 
 and tendency of his life being ** adaptation to his 
 environment." To understand this we may im- 
 agine Mrs. Brown in the middle of Oxford Street. 
 'Buses and cabs are running in different directions, 
 carts and drays are rattling on all sides of her. 
 This is her environment, and she has to adapt 
 herself to it. She has to learn the laws of the 
 vehicles and their movements, to stand on this 
 side or on that, to run here and stop there, con- 
 ceivably to jump into one at a favourable moment, 
 to make use of the law of its movement, and so get 
 carried to her destination as comfortably as may 
 be. A long course of this sort of thing " adapts " 
 Mrs. Brown considerably, and she becomes more 
 
 n8
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 active, both in mind and body, than before. That 
 is all very well. But Mrs. Brown has a destina- 
 tion. (Indeed how would she ever have got into 
 the middle of Oxford Street at all, if she had not 
 had one } and if she did get there with no des- 
 tination at all, but merely to skip about, would 
 there be any Mrs. Brown left in a short time T) 
 The question is, " What is the destination of 
 Man } " 
 
 About this last question unfortunately we hear 
 little. The theory is (I hope I am not doing it 
 injustice) that by studying your environment 
 sufficiently you will find out — that is, that by 
 investigating Astronomy, Biology, Physics, Ethics, 
 etc., you will discover the destiny of man. But 
 this seems to me the same as saying that by studying 
 the laws of cabs and 'buses sufficiently you will find 
 out where you are going to. These are ways 
 and means. Study them by all means, that is 
 right enough ; but do not think they will tell you 
 where to go. You have to use them, not they 
 you. 
 
 In order therefore for the environment to act, 
 there must be a destination. This I suppose is 
 expressed in the biological dictum, " organism 
 is made by function as well as environment." 
 What then is the function of Man } And here 
 we come back again to the meaning of the word 
 
 Nothwithstanding then the prevalence of the 
 foot regime, and that the heathen so furiously rage 
 together in their belief in it, let us suggest that 
 
 139
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 there is in man a divine consciousness as well as 
 a foot-consciousness. For, as we saw that the 
 sense of taste may pass from being a mere local 
 thing on the tip of the tongue to pervading and 
 becoming synonymous with the health of the whole 
 body ; or as the blue of the sky may be to one 
 person a mere superficial impression of colour, 
 and to another the inspiration of a poem or picture, 
 and to a third — as to the " god-intoxicated " 
 Arab of the desert — a living presence like the an- 
 cient Dyaus or Zeus ; so may not the whole of 
 human consciousness gradually lift itself from a 
 mere local and temporary consciousness to a divine 
 and universal ? There is in every man a local 
 consciousness connected with his quite external 
 body ; that we know. Are there not also in 
 every man the makings of a universal conscious- 
 ness ? That there are in us phases of con- 
 sciousness which transcend the limit of the bodily 
 senses, is a matter of daily experience ; that 
 we perceive and know things which are not 
 conveyed to us by our bodily eyes or heard by 
 our bodily ears, is certain ; that there rise in us 
 waves of consciousness from those around us, 
 from the people, the race, to which we belong, 
 is also certain ; may there not then be in us the 
 makings of a perception and knowledge which 
 shall not be relative to this body which is here and 
 now, but which shall be good for all time and every- 
 where ? Does there not exist, in truth, as we 
 have already hinted — an inner Illumination — of 
 which what we call light in the outer world is the 
 
 140
 
 Science of the Future : A Forecast 
 
 partial expression and manifestation — by which 
 we can ultimately see things, as they are^ beholding 
 all creation, the animals, the angels, the plants, 
 the figures of our friends and all the ranks and 
 races of human kind, in their true being and order 
 — not by any local act of perception but by a cosmical 
 intuition and presence, identifying ourselves with 
 what we see ? Does there not exist a perfected 
 sense of Hearing — as of the morning-stars singing 
 together — an understanding of the words that are 
 spoken all through the universe, the hidden meaning 
 of all things, the word which is creation itself — 
 a profound and far pervading sense, of which our 
 ordinary sense of sound is only the first novitiate 
 and initiation ? Do we not become aware of an 
 inner sense of Health and of Holiness — the transla- 
 tion and final outcome of the external sense of 
 taste — which has power to determine for us abso- 
 lutely and without any ado, without argument 
 and without denial, what is good and appropriate 
 to be done or suffered in every case that can 
 arise ? 
 
 And so on ; it is not necessary to say more. 
 If there are such powers in man, then there is 
 indeed an exact science possible. Short of it 
 there is only a temporary and phantom science. 
 *' Whatever is known to us by (direct) con- 
 sciousness," says Stuart Mill in his System of 
 Logic, " is known to us beyond possibility of 
 question ; " what is known by our local and 
 temporary consciousness is known for the moment 
 beyond possibility of question ; what is known 
 
 141
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 by our permanent and universal consciousness 
 is permanently known beyond possibility of 
 question. I 
 
 ' See for continuation of this subject the chapter on " A Rational 
 and Humane Science," p. 219 injra. 
 
 142
 
 DEFENCE OF CRIMINALS : 
 A CRITICISM OF MORALITY 
 
 The State is the actually existing realised moral life. For it 
 is the unity of the universal essential Will with that of the individual, 
 and this is " Morality." — Hegel. 
 
 A CRIMINAL is literally a person accused 
 — accused, and in the modern sense of 
 the word convicted, of being harmful 
 to Society. But is he there in the dock, the patch- 
 coated brawler or burglar, really harmful to Society ? 
 is he more harmful than the mild old gentleman 
 in the wig who pronounces sentence upon him .'' 
 That is the question. Certainly he has infringed 
 the law : and the law is in a sense the consolidated 
 public opinion of Society : but if no one were to 
 break the law, public opinion would ossify, and 
 Society would die. As a matter of fact Society 
 keeps changing its opinion. How then are we 
 to know when it is right and when it is wrong ? 
 The Outcast of one age is the Hero of another. 
 In execration they nailed Roger Bacon's manu- 
 scripts out in the sun and rain, to rot crucified 
 upon planks — his bones lie in an unknown and 
 
 143
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 unhonoured grave — yet to-day he is regarded as 
 a pioneer of human thought. The hated Chris- 
 tian holding his ill-famed love-feasts in the darkness 
 of the catacombs has climbed up to the throne 
 of S. Peter and the world. The Jew money- 
 lender whom Front-de-Bceuf could torture with 
 impunity is become a Rothschild — guest of 
 princes and instigator of commercial wars ; and 
 Shylock is now a highly respectable Railway 
 Bondholder. And the Accepted of one age is 
 the Criminal of the next. All the glories of Alex- 
 ander do not condone in our eyes for his cruelty 
 in crucifying the brave defenders of Tyre by 
 thousands along the sea-shore ; and if Solomon 
 with his thousand wives and concubines were 
 to appear in London to-morrow, even our most 
 frivolous circles would be shocked, and Brigham 
 Young by contrast seem a domestic model. The 
 judge pronounces sentence on the prisoner now, 
 but Society in its turn and in the lapse of years 
 pronounces sentence on the judge. It holds 
 in its hand a new canon, a new code of morals, 
 and consigns its former representative and the 
 law which he administered to a limbo of con- 
 tempt. 
 
 It seems as if Society, as it progresses from point 
 to point, forms ideals — just as the individual does. 
 At any moment each person, consciously or un- 
 consciously, has an ideal in his mind toward which 
 he is working (hence the importance of literature). 
 Similarly Society has an ideal in its mind. These 
 ideals are tangents or vanishing points of the direc- 
 
 144
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 tion in which Society is moving at the time. It 
 does not reach its ideal, but it goes in that direc- 
 tion — then, after a time, the direction of its move- 
 ment changes, and it has a new ideal. 
 
 When the ideal of Society is material gain or 
 possession, as it is largely to-day, the object of its 
 special condemnation is the thief — not the rich 
 thief, for he is already in possession and therefore 
 respectable, but the poor thief. There is nothing 
 to show that the poor thief is really more immoral 
 or unsocial than the respectable money-grubber ; 
 but it is very clear that the money-grubber has 
 been floating with the great current of Society, 
 while the poor man has been swimming against 
 it, and so has been worsted. Or when, as to-day. 
 Society rests on private property in land, its counter- 
 ideal is the poacher. If you go in the company of 
 the county squire-archy and listen to the after- 
 dinner talk you will soon think the poacher a 
 combination of all human and diabolic vices ; 
 yet I have known a good many poachers, and 
 either have been very lucky in my specimens or 
 singularly prejudiced in their favour, for I have 
 generally found them very good fellows — but 
 with just this one blemish that they invariably 
 regard a landlord as an emissary of the evil one ! 
 The poacher is as much in the right, probably, 
 as the landlord, but he is not right for the time. 
 He is asserting a right (and an instinct) belonging 
 to a past time — when for hunting purposes all 
 land was held in common — or to aUime in the 
 future when such or similar rights shall be restored. 
 
 145 K
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Caesar says of the Suevi that they tilled the ground 
 in common and had no private lands, and there is 
 abundant evidence that all early human communi- 
 ties, before they entered on the stage of modern 
 civilisation, were communistic in character Some 
 of the Pacific Islanders to-day are in the same 
 condition. In those times private property was 
 theft. Obviously the man who attempted to 
 retain for himself land or goods, or who fenced 
 off a portion of the common ground and — like 
 the modern landlord — would allow no one to till 
 it who did not pay him a tax — was a criminal of 
 the deepest dye. Nevertheless the criminals 
 pushed their way to the front, and have become 
 the respectables of modern Society. And it is 
 quite probable that in like manner the criminals 
 of to-day will push to the front and become the 
 respectables of a later age. 
 
 The ascetic and monastic ideal of early Christian 
 and mediaeval ages is now regarded as foolish, 
 if not wicked ; and poverty, which in many times 
 and places has been held in honour as the only 
 garb of honesty, is condemned as criminal and 
 indecent. Nomadism — if accompanied by poverty 
 — is criminal in modern Society. To-day the 
 gipsy and the tramp are hunted down. To have 
 no settled habitation, or worse still, no place to 
 lay your head, are suspicious matters. We close 
 even our outhouses and barns against the son of 
 man, and so to us the son of man comes not. 
 And yet — at one time and in one stage of human 
 progress — the nomadic state is the rule ; and the 
 
 146
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 settler is then the criminal. His crops are fired 
 and his cattle driven off. What right has he 
 to lay a limit to the hunting grounds, or to spoil 
 the wild free life of the plains with his dirty agri- 
 culture ? 
 
 As to the marriage relation and its attendant 
 moralities, the forms are numerous and notorious 
 enough. Public opinion seems to have varied 
 through all phases and ideals, and yet there is no 
 indication of finality. Modern investigations 
 show that in primitive human societies the affinities 
 admitted or barred in marriage are most various 
 — the relation of brother and sister being even 
 in cases allowed ; in the present day such a bond 
 as the last-mentioned v/ould be considered inhuman 
 and monstrous. I Polyandry prevails among one 
 people or at one time, polygyny prevails among 
 another people or at another time. In Central 
 Africa to-day the chief offers you his wife as a 
 mark of hospitality, in India the native Prince 
 keeps her hidden even from his most intimate 
 guest. Among the Japanese, public opinion holds 
 young women — even of good birth — singularly 
 free in their intercourse with men, //// fhey are 
 mart led ; at Paris they are free after. In the 
 Greek and Roman antiquity marriage seems, with 
 
 I Yet there is no doubt that lasting and passionate love may 
 exist between two persons thus nearly related. The danger to 
 the health of the offspring from occasional in-breeding of the 
 kind appears to arise chiefly from the accentuation of infirmities 
 common to the two parents. In a state of society free from the 
 diseases of the civilisation-period, such a danger would be greatly 
 reduced. 
 
 H7
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 some brilliant exceptions, to have been a prosaic 
 affair — mostly a matter of convenience and house- 
 keeping — the woman an underling — little of 
 the ideal attaching to the relationship of man and 
 wife. The romance of love went elsewhere. 
 The better class of free women or Hetairai were 
 those who gave a spiritual charm to the passion. 
 They were an educated and recognised body, 
 and possibly in their best times exercised a healthy 
 and discriminating influence upon the male youth. 
 The respectful treatment of Theodota by Socrates 
 and the advice which he gives her concerning her 
 lovers : to keep the insolent from her door, and 
 to rejoice greatly when the accepted succeed 
 in anything honourable, indicates this. That 
 their influence was at times immense the mere 
 name of Aspasia is sufficient to show ; and if 
 Plato in the Symposium reports correctly the word 
 of Diotima, her teaching on the subject of human 
 and divine love was probably of the noblest and 
 profoundest that has ever been given to the 
 world. 
 
 With the influx of the North-men over Europe 
 came a new ideal of the sexual relation, and the 
 wife mounted more into equality with her husband 
 than before. The romance of love, however, still 
 went mainly outside marriage, and may, I believe, 
 be traced in two chief forms — that of Chivalry, 
 as an ideal devotion to simple Womanhood ; and 
 that of Minstrelsy, which took quite a different 
 hue, individual and sentimental — the lover and 
 his mistress (she in most cases the wife of another),. 
 
 J48
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 the serenade, secret amour, etc. — both of which 
 forms of Chivalry and Minstrelsy contain in 
 themselves something new and not quite familiar 
 to antiquity. 
 
 Finally in modern times the monogamic union 
 has risen to pre-eminence — the splendid ideal of 
 an equal and life-long attachment between man 
 and wife, fruitful of children in this life, and 
 hopeful of continuance beyond — and has become 
 the great theme of romantic literature, and the 
 climax of a thousand novels and poems. Yet 
 it is just here and to-day, when this ideal after 
 centuries of struggle has established itself, and 
 among the nations that are in the van of civilisa- 
 tion — that we find the doctrine of perfect liberty 
 in the marriage relationship being most success- 
 fully preached, and that the communalisation of 
 social life in the future seems likely to weaken 
 the family bond and to relax the obligation of 
 the marriage tie. 
 
 If the Greek age, splendid rs it was in itself 
 and in its fruits of human progress, did not hold 
 marriage very high, it was partly because the ideal 
 passion of that period, and one which more than 
 all else inspired it, was that of comradeship, or 
 male friendship carried over into the region of 
 love. The two figures of Harmodius and Aristo- 
 giton stand at the entrance of Greek history as 
 the type of this passion, bearing its fruit (as Plato 
 throughout maintains is its nature) in united self- 
 devotion to the country's good The heroic 
 Theban legion, the *' sacred band," into which 
 
 149
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 no 'man might enter without his lover — and which 
 was said to have remained unvanquished till 
 it was annihilated at the battle of Chseronaea — 
 proves to us hov/ publicly this passion and its place 
 in society were recognised ; while its universality 
 and the depth to which it had stirred the Greek 
 mind are indicated by the fact that whole treatises 
 on love, in its spiritual aspect, exist, in which no 
 other form of the sentiment seems to be contem- 
 plated ; and by the magnificent panorama of 
 Greek statuary, which was obviously to a large 
 extent inspired by it. In fact the most remarkable 
 Society known to history, and its greatest men, 
 cannot be properly considered or understood 
 apart from this passion ; yet the modern world 
 scarcely recognises it, or if it recognises, does so 
 chiefly to condemn it. ^ 
 
 Other instances might be quoted to show how 
 differently moral questions are regarded in one 
 age and another — as in the cases of Usury, Magic, 
 Suicide, Infanticide, etc. On the v/holc we pride 
 ourselves (and justly I believe) on the general 
 advance in humanity ; yet we know that to-day 
 the merest savages can only shudder at a civilisa- 
 tion whose public opinion allows — as among us 
 — the rich to wallow in their wealth, while the 
 
 * Modern writers fixing their regard on the physical side of 
 this love (necessary no doubt here, as elsewhere, to define and 
 corroborate the spiritual) have entered their protest as against 
 the mere obscenity into which the thing fell — for instance in the 
 days of Martial — but have missed the profound significance of 
 the heroic attachment itself. It is, however, with the ideals 
 that we are just now concerned and not with their disintegration. 
 
 150
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 poor are systematically starving ; and it is certain 
 that the vivisection of animals — which on the 
 whole is approved by our educated classes (though 
 not by the healthier sentiment of the uneducated) 
 — would have been stigmatised as one of the 
 most abominable crimes by the ancient' Egyptians '^ 
 — if, that is, they could have conceived such a 
 practice possible at all. 
 
 But not only do the moral judgments of man- 
 kind thus vary from age to age and from race 
 to race, but — v/hat is equally remarkable — they 
 vary to an extraordinary degree from class to class 
 of the same society. If the landlord class regards 
 the poacher as a criminal, the poacher, as already 
 hinted, looks upon the landlord as a selfish ruffian 
 who has the police on his side ; if the respectable 
 shareholder, politely and respectably subsisting 
 on dividends, dismisses navvies and the frequenters 
 of public-houses as disorderly persons, the navvy 
 in return despises the shareholder as a sneaking 
 thief. And it is not easy to see, after all, which is 
 in the right. It is useless to dismiss these dis- 
 crepancies by supposing that one class in the nation 
 possesses a monopoly of morality and that the other 
 classes simply rail at the virtue they cannot attain 
 to, for this is obviously not the case. It is almost 
 a commonplace, and certainly a fact that cannot 
 be contested, that every class — however sinful 
 or outcast in the eyes of others — contains within 
 its ranks a large proportion of generous, noble, 
 
 I In the /aier Egyptian centuries vivisection apparently became 
 an approved practice. 
 
 151
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 self-sacrificing characters ; so that the pubHc 
 opinion of one such class, however different from 
 that of others, cannot at least be invalidated on 
 the above ground. There are plenty of clergy- 
 men at this moment who are models of pastors — 
 true shepherds of the people — though a large 
 and increasing section of society persist in regarding 
 priests as a kind of wolves in sheep's clothing. 
 It is not uncommon to meet with professional 
 thieves who are generous and open-handed to 
 the last degree, and ready to part with their last 
 penny to help a comrade in distress ; with women 
 living outside the bounds of conventional morality 
 who are strongly religious in sentiment, and 
 who regard atheists as really wicked people ; with 
 aristocrats who have as stern material in them as 
 quarry-men ; and even with bondholders and 
 drawing-room loungers who are as capable of 
 bravery and self-sacrifice as many a pitman or 
 ironworker. Yet all these classes mentioned have 
 their codes of morality, differing in greater or 
 lesser degree from each other ; and again the 
 question forces itself upon us : Which of them 
 all is the true and abiding code ? 
 
 It may be said, with regard to this variation of 
 codes within the same society, that, though various 
 codes may exist at the same time, one only is 
 really valid, namely, that which has embodied 
 itself in the law — that the others have been rejected 
 because they were unworthy. But, when we 
 come to look into this matter of law, we see that 
 the plea can hardly be maintained. Law re- 
 
 152
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 presents from age to age the code of the dominant 
 or ruHng class, slowly accumulated, no doubt, 
 and slowly modified, but always added to and 
 always administered by the ruling class. To-day 
 the code of the dominant class may perhaps best 
 be denoted by the word Respectability — and 
 if we ask why this code has to a great extent over- 
 whelmed the codes of the other classes and got 
 the law on its side (so far that in the main it char- 
 acterises those classes who do not conform to it 
 as the criminal classes), the answer can only be : 
 Because it is the code of the classes who are in 
 power. Respectability is the code of those who 
 have the wealth and the command, and as these 
 have also the fluent pens and tongues, it is the 
 standard of modern literature and the press. It 
 is not necessarily a better standard than others, 
 but it is the one that happens to be in the ascendant ; 
 it is the code of the classes that chiefly represent 
 modern society ; it is the code of the Bourgeoisie. 
 It is difl:erent from the Feudal code of the past, 
 of the knightly classes, and of Chivalry ; it is 
 different from the Democratic code of the future — 
 of brotherhood and of equality ; it is the code 
 of the Commercial age — and its distinctive watch- 
 word is property. 
 
 The respectability of to-day is the respectability 
 of property. There is nothing so respectable 
 as being well-off. The Law confirms this : 
 everything is on the side of the rich ; justice is 
 too expensive a thing for the poor man. Offences 
 against the person hardly count for so much as 
 
 153
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 those against property. You may beat your 
 wife within an inch of her Hfe and only get three 
 months ; but if you steal a rabbit, you may be 
 " sent " for years. So again, gambling by thou- 
 sands on Change is respectable enough, but pitch 
 and toss for half-pence in the streets is low, and 
 must be dealt with by the police ; while it is a 
 mere commonplace to say that the high-class 
 swindler is " received " in society from which 
 a more honest but patch-coated brother would 
 infallibly be rejected. As Walt Whitman has it, 
 " There is plenty of glamour about the most 
 damnable crimes and hoggish meannesses, special 
 and general, of the feudal and dynastic world 
 over there, with its personnel of lords and queens 
 and courts, so well-dressed and handsome. But 
 the people are ungrammatical, untidy, and their 
 sins gaunt and ill-bred." 
 
 Thus we see that though there are, for instance 
 in the England of to-day, a variety of classes and 
 a variety of corresponding codes of public opinion 
 and morality, one of these codes, namely that of 
 the ruling class whose watchword is property, 
 is strongly in the ascendant. And we may fairly 
 suppose that in any nation from the time when 
 it first becomes divided into well-marked classes 
 this is or has been the case. In one age — the 
 commercial age — the code of the commercial or 
 money-loving class is dominant ; in another — 
 the military — the code of the warrior class is 
 dominant ; in another — the religious — the code 
 of the priestly class ; and so on. And even 
 
 154
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 before any question of division into classes arises, 
 while races are yet in a rudimentary and tribal 
 state, the utmost diversity of custom and public 
 opinion marks the one from the other. 
 
 What, then, are v^^e to conclude from all these 
 variations (and the far greater number which 
 I have not mentioned) of the respect or stigma 
 attaching to the same actions, not only among 
 different societies in different ages or parts of the 
 world, but even at any one time among different 
 classes of the same society ? Must we conclude 
 that there is no such thing as a permanent moral 
 code valid for all time ; or must we still suppose 
 that there is such a thing — though society has 
 hitherto sought for it in vain ? 
 
 I think it is obvious that there is no such thing 
 as a permanent moral code — at any rate as apply- 
 ing to actions. Probably the respect or stigma 
 attaching to particular classes of actions arose 
 from the fact that these classes of actions v/ere 
 — or v>^ere thought to be — beneficial or injurious 
 to the society of the time ; but it is also clear that 
 this good or bad name once created clings to the 
 action long after the action has ceased in the 
 course of social progress to be beneficial in the 
 one case, or injurious in the other ; and indeed 
 long after the thinkers of the race have discovered 
 the discrepancy. And so in a short time arises 
 a great confusion in the popular mind between 
 what is really good or evil for the race and what 
 is reputed to be so — the bolder spirits who try 
 to separate the two having to atone for this con- 
 
 155
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 fusion by their own martyrdom. It is also pretty 
 clear that the actions which are beneficial or injuri- 
 ous to the race must by the nature of the case vary 
 almost indefinitely with the changing conditions 
 of the life of the race — what is beneficial in one 
 age or under one set of conditions being injurious 
 in another age or under other circumstances — so 
 that a permanent or ever-valid code of moral 
 action is not a thing to be expected, at any rate 
 by those who regard morality as a result of social 
 experience, and as a matter of fact is not a thing 
 that we find existing. And, indeed, of those who 
 regard morals as intuitive, there are few who have 
 thought about the matter who would be inclined 
 to say that any act in itself can be either right or 
 wrong. Though there is a superficial judgment 
 of this kind, yet when the matter comes to be 
 looked into, the more general consent seems to 
 be that the rightness or wrongness is in the motive. 
 To kill (it is said) is not wrong, but to do so with 
 murderous intent is ; to take money out of another 
 person's purse is in itself neither moral nor immoral 
 — all depends upon whether permission has been 
 given, or on what the relations between the two 
 persons are ; and so on. Obviously there is no 
 mere act which under given conditions may not 
 be justified, and equally obvious there is no 
 mere act which under given conditions may not 
 become unjustifiable. To talk, therefore, about 
 virtues and vices as permanent and distinct classes 
 of actions is illusory : there is no such distinction, 
 except so far as a superficial and transient public 
 
 156
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 opinion creates it. The theatre of morality is 
 in the passions, and there are (it is said) virtuous 
 and vicious passions — eternally distinct from each 
 other. 
 
 Here, then, we have abandoned the search for 
 a permanent moral code among the actions ; on 
 the understanding that we are more likely to find 
 such a thing among the passions. And I think 
 it would be generally admitted that this is a move 
 in the right direction. There are difficulties 
 however here, and the matter is not one v/hich 
 renders itself up at once. Though, vaguely 
 speaking, some passions seem nobler and more 
 dignified than others, we find it very difficult, 
 in fact impossible, to draw any strict line which 
 shall separate one class, the virtuous, from the 
 other class, the vicious. On the whole we place 
 Prudence, Generosity, Chastity, Reverence, Courage 
 among the virtues — and their opposites, as 
 Rashness, Miserliness, Incontinence, Arrogance, 
 Timidity, among the vices ; yet we do not seem 
 able to say that Prudence is always better than 
 Rashness, Chastity than Incontinence, or Reverence 
 than Arrogance. There are situations in which 
 the less honoured quality is the most in place ; 
 and if the extreme of this is undesirable, the extreme 
 of its opposite is undesirable too. Courage, it 
 is commonly said, must not be carried over into 
 foolhardiness ; Chastity must not go so far as the 
 monks of the early Church took it ; there is a limit 
 to the indulgence of the instinct of Reverence. In 
 fact the less dignified passions are necessary some- 
 
 ^S1
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 times as a counterbalance and set-off to the more 
 dignified, and a character devoid of them would 
 be very insipid ; just as among the members of 
 the body, the less honoured have their place as 
 well as the more honoured, and could not well 
 be discarded. 
 
 Hence a number of writers, abandoning the 
 attempt to draw a fixed line between virtuous 
 and vicious passions, have boldly maintained that 
 vices have their place as well as virtues, and that 
 the true salvation lies in the golden mean. The 
 tiruiKfia and (T(t)(j)po<jvvii of the Greeks seem 
 to have pointed to the idea of a blend or 
 harmonious adjustment of all the powers as the 
 perfection of character. Plutarch says {Essay on 
 Moral Virtue)^ " This, then, is the function of 
 practical reason following nature, to prevent our 
 passions either going too far or too short. . . . 
 Thus setting bound to the emotional currents, 
 it creates in the unreasoning part of the soul moral 
 habits which are the mean between excess and 
 deficiency." 
 
 The English word " gentleman " seems to have 
 once conveyed a similar idea. And Emerson, 
 among others, maintains that each vice is only 
 the " excess or acridity of a virtue," and says 
 " the first lesson of history is the good of evil." 
 
 According to this view rightness or wrongness 
 cannot be predicated of the passions themselves, 
 but should rather be applied to the use of them, 
 and to the way they are proportioned to each other 
 and to circumstances. As, farther back, we left 
 
 158
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 the region of actions to look for morality in the 
 passions that lie behind action, so now we leave 
 the region of the passions to look for it in the power 
 that lies behind the passions and gives them their 
 place. This is a farther move in the same direc- 
 tion as before, and possibly will bring us to a more 
 satisfactory conclusion. There are still difficulties, 
 however, the chief ones lying in the want of 
 definiteness which necessarily attaches to our 
 dealings with these remoter tracts of human 
 nature ; and in our own defective knowledge of 
 these tracts. 
 
 For these reasons, and as the subject is a complex 
 and difficult one, I would ask the reader to dwell 
 for a few minutes longer on the considerations 
 which show that it is really as impossible to draw 
 a fixed line between moral and immoral passions 
 as it is between moral and immoral actions, and 
 which therefore force us, if we are to find any 
 ground of morality at all, to look for it in some 
 further region of our nature. 
 
 Plato in his allegory of the soul, in the Phaedrus, 
 though he apparently divides the passions which 
 draw the human chariot into two classes, the 
 heavenward and the earthward — figured by the 
 white horse and the black horse respectively — 
 does not recommend that the black horse should 
 be destroyed or dismissed, but only that he (as 
 well as the white horse) should be kept under 
 due control by the charioteer. By which he 
 seems to intend that there is a power in man 
 which stands above and behind the passions, 
 
 159
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and under whose control alone the human being 
 can safely move. In fact, if the fiercer and so- 
 called more earthly passions were removed, half 
 the driving force would be gone from the chariot 
 of the human soul. Hatred may be devilish at 
 times — but, after all, the true value of it depends 
 on what you hate, on the use to which the passion 
 is put. Anger, though inhuman at one time, is 
 magnificent at another. Obstinacy may be out 
 of place in a drawing-room, but it is the latest 
 virtue on a battle-field, when an important position 
 has to be held against the full brunt of the enemy. 
 And Lust, though maniacal and monstrous in its 
 aberrations, cannot in the last resort be separated 
 from its divine companion. Love. To let the 
 more amiable passions have entire sway notoriously 
 does not do : to turn your cheek, too literally, 
 to the smiter, is (j)ace Tolstoi) only to encourage 
 smiting ; and when society becomes so altruistic 
 that everybody runs to fetch the coal-scuttle, we 
 feel sure that something has gone wrong. The 
 white-washed heroes of our biographies, with their 
 many virtues and no faults, do not please us. We 
 have an impression that the man without faults 
 is, to say the least, a vague, uninteresting being — 
 a picture without light and shade — and the con- 
 ventional semi-pious classification of character 
 into good and bad qualities (as if the good might 
 be kept and the bad thrown away) seems both 
 inadequate and false. v 
 
 What the student of human nature rather 'has 
 to do is not to divide the virtues (so-called) from, 
 
 1 60
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 the vices (so-called), not to separate the black 
 horse and the white horse, but to find out what 
 is the relation of the one to the other — to see the 
 character as a whole, and the mutual interdepen- 
 dence of its different parts — to find out what 
 that power is which constitutes it a unity, whose 
 presence and control makes the man and all his 
 actions " right," and in whose absence (if it is 
 really possible for it to be entirely absent) the 
 man and his actions must be " wrong." 
 
 What we call vices, faults, defects, appear often 
 as a kind of limitation : cruelty, for instance, as 
 a limitation of human sympathy, prejudice as a 
 blindness, a want of discernment ; but it is just 
 these limitations — in one form or another — which 
 are the necessary conditions of the appearance of 
 a human being in the world. If we are to act or 
 live at all we must act and live under limits. There 
 must be channels along which the stream is forced 
 to run, else it will spread and lose itself aimlessly 
 in all directions — and turn no mill-wheels. One 
 man is disagreeable and unconciliatory — the direc- 
 tions in which his sympathy goes out to others are 
 few and limited — yet there are situations in life 
 (and everyone must know them) when a man who 
 is able and zvilling to make himself disagreeable 
 is invaluable : when a Carlyle is worth any number 
 of Balaams. 
 
 Sometimes again vices, etc., appear as a kind 
 of raw material from which the other qualities have 
 to be formed, and without which, in a sense, they 
 could not exist. Sensuality, for instance, underlies 
 
 i6i I,
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 all art and the higher emotions. Timidity is 
 the defect of the sensitive imaginative tem.pera- 
 ment. Bluntness, stupid candor, and want of 
 tact are indispensable in the formation of certain 
 types of Reformers. But what would you have ? 
 Would you have a rabbit with the horns of a cow, 
 or a donkey with the disposition of a spaniel .'' 
 The reformer has not to extirpate his brusqueness 
 and aggressiveness, but to see that he makes good 
 use of these qualities ; and the man has not to 
 abolish his sensuality, but to humanise it. 
 
 And so on. Lecky, in his " History of Morals," 
 shows how in society certain defects necessarily 
 accompany certain excellences of character. 
 " Had the Irish peasants been less chaste they 
 woulci have been more prosperous," in his blunt 
 assertion, which he supports by the contention 
 that their early marriages (which render the said 
 virtue possible) " are the most conspicuous proofs 
 of the national improvidence, and one of the m.ost 
 fatal obstacles to industrial prosperity." Similarly 
 he says that the gambling table fosters a moral 
 nerve and calmness " scarcely exhibited in equal 
 perfection in any other sphere " — a fact which 
 Bret Harte has .finely illustrated in his character 
 of Mr. John Oakhurst in the " Outcasts of Poker 
 Flat ; " also that " the promotion of industrial 
 veracity is probably the single form in which the 
 growth of manufactures exercises a favorable 
 influence upon morals ; " while, on the other hand, 
 " Trust in Providence, content and resignation in 
 extreme poverty and suffering, the most genuine 
 
 162
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 amiability, and the most sincere readiness to 
 assist their brethren, an adherence to their religious 
 opinions which no persecutions and no bribes 
 can shake, a capacity for heroic, transcendent, 
 and prolonged self-sacrifice, may be found in some 
 nations, in men who are habitual liars and habitual 
 cheats." Again he points out that thriftiness 
 and forethought — which, in an industrial civilisa- 
 tion like ours, are looked upon as duties " of 
 the very highest order " — have at other times 
 (when the teaching was " take no thought for the 
 morrow ") been regarded as quite the reverse, 
 and concludes with the general remark that as 
 society advances there is some loss for every gain 
 that is made, and with the special indictment 
 against " civilisation " that it is not favorable to 
 the production of " self-sacrifice, enthusiasm, 
 reverence, or chastity." 
 
 The point of all which is that the so-called vices 
 and defects — whether we regard them as limita- 
 tions or whether we regard them as raw materials 
 of character, whether we regard them in the 
 individual solely or whether we regard them 
 in their relation to society — are necessary elements 
 of human life, elements without which the so-called 
 virtues could not exist ; and that therefore it is 
 quite impossible to separate vices and virtues into 
 distinct classes with the latent idea involved that 
 one class may be retained and the other in course 
 of time got rid of. Defects and bad qualities 
 will not be treated so — they clamour for their 
 rights and will not be denied ; they effect a lodg- 
 
 163
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 ment in us, and we have to put up with them. 
 Like the grain of sand in the oyster, we are forced 
 to make pearls of them. 
 
 These are the precipices and chasms which 
 give form to the mountain. Who wants a mountain 
 sprawHng indifferently out on all sides, without 
 angle or break, like the oceanic tide-wave of which 
 one cannot say whether it is a hill or a plain ? 
 And if you want to grow a lily, chastely white 
 and filling the air with its fragrance, will you not 
 bury the bulb of it deep in the dirt to begin 
 with ? 
 
 Acknowledging, then, that it is impossible to 
 hold permanently to any line of distinction between 
 good and bad passions, there remains no course 
 for us but to accept both, and to make use of them 
 — redeeming them, both good and bad, from their 
 narrowness and limitation by so doing — to make 
 use of them in the service of humanity. For as 
 dirt is only matter in the wrong place, so evil in 
 man consists only in actions or passions which 
 are uncontrolled by the human within him, and 
 undedicated to its service. The evil consists 
 not in the actions or passions themselves, but in 
 the fact that they are inhumanly used. The 
 most unblemished virtue erected into a barrier 
 between one self and a suffering brother or sister 
 — the whitest marble image, howsoever lovely, 
 set up in the Holy Place of the temple of Man, 
 where the spirit alone should dwell — becomes 
 blasphemy and a pollution. 
 
 Wherein exactly this human service consists 
 164
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 is another question. It may be, and, as the reader 
 would gather, probably is, a matter which at the 
 last eludes definition. But though it may elude 
 exact statement, that is no reason why approxi- 
 mations should not be made to the statement of 
 it ; nor is its ultimate elusiveness of intellectual 
 definition any proof that it may not become a real 
 and vital force within the man, and underlying 
 inspiration of his actions. To take the two con- 
 siderations in order. In the first place, as we saw 
 from the beginning, the experience of society is 
 continually leading it to classify actions into 
 beneficial and harmful, good and bad ; and thus 
 moral codes are formed which eat their way from 
 the outside into the individual man and become 
 part of him. These codes may be looked upon 
 as approximations in each age to a statement of 
 human service ; but, as we have seen, they are 
 by the nature of the case very imperfect ; and 
 since the very conditions of the problem are con- 
 tinually changing, it seems obvious that a final 
 and absolute solution of it by this method is im- 
 possible. The second way in which man works 
 towards a solution is by the expansion and growth 
 of his own consciousness, and is ultimately by 
 far the most important — though the two methods 
 have doubtless continually to be corrected by each 
 other. In fact, as man actually forms a part of 
 society externally, so he comes to know and feel 
 himself a part of society through his inner nature. 
 Gradually, and in the lapse of ages, through the 
 development of his sympathetic relation with his 
 
 165
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 fellows, the individual man enters into a wider 
 and wider circle of life ; the joys and sorrows, 
 the experiences, of his fellov/s become his own 
 joys and sorrows, his own experiences ; he passes 
 into a life which is larger than his own individual 
 life ; forces flow in upon him which determine 
 his actions, not for results which return to him 
 directly, but for results which can only return to 
 him indirectly and through others ; at last the 
 ground of humanity, as it v/ere, reveals itself within 
 him, the region of human equality — and his actions 
 come to flow directly from the very same source 
 which regulates and inspires the whole movement 
 of society. At this point the problem is solved. 
 The growth has taken place from within ; it is 
 not of the nature of an external compulsion, but 
 of an inwarci compunction. By actual conscious- 
 ness the man has taken on an ever-enlarging life, 
 and at last the life of humanity, v/hich has no fixed 
 form, no ever-valid code ; but is itself the true 
 life, surpassing definition, yet inspiring all actions 
 and passions, all codes and forms, and determining 
 at last their place. 
 
 It is the gradual growth of this supreme life in 
 each individual which is the great and indeed 
 the only hope of Society — it is that for which 
 Society exists : a life which so far from dwarf- 
 ing individuality enhances immensely its power, 
 causing the individual to move with the weight 
 of the universe behind him — and exalting what 
 were once his little peculiarities and defects into 
 the splendid manifestations of his humanity. 
 
 1 66
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 To return then for a moment to the practical 
 bearing of this on the question before us, we 
 see that so soon as we have abandoned all codes 
 of morals there remains nothing for us but to put 
 all our qualities and defects to human use, and 
 to redeem them by so doing. Our defects are our 
 entrances into life, and the gateway of all our dealings 
 with others. Think what it is to be plain and 
 homely. The very word suggests an endear- 
 ment, and a liberty of access denied to the faultlessly 
 handsome. Our very evil passions, so called, are 
 not things to be ashamed of, but things to look 
 straight in the face and to see what they are good 
 for — for a use can be found for them, that is 
 certain. The man should see that he is worthy 
 of his passion, as the mountain should rear its 
 crest conformable to the height of the precipice 
 which bounds it. Is it women } let him see 
 that he is a magnanimous lover. Is it ambition } 
 let him take care that it be a grand one. Is it 
 laziness } let it redeem him from the folly of unrest, 
 to become heaven-reflecting, like a lake among 
 the hills. Is it closefistedness } let it become 
 the nurse of a true economy. 
 
 The more complicated, pronounced, or awkward 
 the defect is the finer will be the result when it 
 has been thoroughly worked up. Love of appro- 
 bation is diflicult to deal with. Through sloughs 
 of duplicity, of concealment, of vanity, it leads 
 its victim. It sucks his sturdy self-life, and 
 leaves him flattened and bloodless. Yet once 
 mastered, once fairly torn out, cudgeled, and left 
 
 167
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 bleeding on the road (for this probably has to be 
 done with every vice or virtue some time or other), 
 it will rise up and follow you, carrying a magic 
 key round its neck, meek and serviceable now, 
 instead of dangerous and demoniac as before. 
 
 Deceit is difficult to deal with. In some sense 
 it is the worst fault that can be. It seems to 
 disorganise and ultimately to destroy the character. 
 Yet I am bold to say that this defect has its uses. 
 Severely examined perhaps it will be found that 
 no one can live a day free from it. And beyond 
 that — is not " a noble dissimulation " part and 
 parcel of the very greatest characters : like Socrates, 
 " the white soul in a satyr form " ? When the 
 divine has descended among men has it not always, 
 like Moses, worn a veil before its face ? and what 
 is Nature herself but one long and organised system 
 of deception ? 
 
 Veracity has an opposite effect. It knits all 
 the elements of a man's character — rendering 
 him solid rather than fluid ; yet carried out too 
 literally and pragmatically it condenses and solidi- 
 fies the character overmuch, making the man 
 woodeny and angular. And even of that essential 
 Truth (truth to the inward and ideal perfection) 
 which more than anything else perhaps constitutes 
 a man — it is to be remembered that even here 
 there must be a limitation. No man can in act 
 or externally be quite true to the ideal — though 
 in spirit he may be. If he is to live in this world 
 and be mortal, it must be by virtue of some partiality, 
 some defect. 
 
 1 68
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 And so again — since there is an analogy between 
 the Individual and Society — may we not conclude 
 that as the individual has ultimately to recognise 
 his so-called evil passions and find a place and a 
 use for them, society also has to recognise its so- 
 called criminals and discern their place and use ? 
 The artist does not omit shadows from his canvas ; 
 and the wise statesman will not try to abolish the 
 criminal from society — lest haply he be found 
 to have abolished the driving force from his social 
 machine.^ 
 
 From what has now been said it is quite clear 
 that in general we call a man a criminal, not be- 
 cause he violates any eternal code of morality — 
 for there exists no such thing — but because he 
 violates the ruling code of his time, and this 
 depends largely on the ideal of the time. The 
 Spartans appear to have permitted theft because 
 they thought that thieving habits in the com- 
 munity fostered military dexterity and discouraged 
 the accumulation of private wealth. They looked 
 upon the latter as a great evil. But to-day the 
 accumulation of private wealth is our great good 
 and the thief is looked upon as the evil. When 
 however we find, as the historians of to-day teach 
 us, that society is now probably passing through 
 a parenthetical stage of private property from 
 a stage of communism in the past to a stage of 
 more highly developed communism in the future, 
 
 ' The derivation of the word " wicked " seems uncertain. 
 May it be suggested that it is connected with " wick " or " quick," 
 meaning alive } 
 
 169
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 it becomes clear that the thief (and the poacher 
 before-mentioned) is that person who is protesting 
 against the too-exclusive domination of a passing 
 ideal. Whatever should we do without him ? 
 He is keeping open for us, as Hinton I think 
 expresses it, the path to a regenerate society, and 
 is more useful to that end than many a platform 
 orator. He it is that makes Care to sit upon 
 the Crupper of Wealth, and so, in course of 
 time, causes the burden and bother of private 
 property to become so intolerable that society 
 gladly casts it down on common ground. Vast 
 as is the machinery of Law, and multifarious 
 the ways in which it seeks to crush the thief, 
 it has signally failed, and fails ever more and 
 more. The thief v/ill win. He v/ill get what 
 he wants, but (as usual in human life !) in a 
 way and in a form very different from v/hat he 
 expected. 
 
 And when we regard the thief in himself, we 
 cannot say that we find him less human than 
 other classes of society. The sentiment of large 
 bodies of thieves is highly communistic among 
 themselves ; and if they thus represent a survival 
 from an earlier age, they might also be looked 
 upon as the precursors of a better age in the future. 
 They have their pals in every town, with runs and 
 refuges always open, and are lavish and generous 
 to a degree to their own kind. And if they look 
 upon the rich as their natural enemies and fair 
 prey, a view which it might be difficult to gainsay, 
 many of them at any rate are animated by a good 
 
 170
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 deal of the Robin Hood spirit, and are really 
 helpful to the poor. 
 
 I need not I think quote that famous passage 
 from Lecky in which he shows how the prostitute, 
 through centuries of suffering and ill-fame, has 
 borne the curse and contempt of Society in order 
 that her more fortunate sister might rejoice in 
 the achievement of a pure marriage. The ideal 
 of a monogamic union has been established in a 
 sense directly by the slur cast upon the free woman. 
 If, however, as many people think, a certain 
 latitude in sexual relations is not only admissible 
 but, in the long run, and within bounds, desir- 
 able, it becomes clear that the prostitute is that 
 person who against heavy odds, and at the cost of 
 a real degradation to herself, has clung to a tradi- 
 tion which, in itself good, might otherwise have 
 perished in the face of our devotion to the splendid 
 ideal of the exclusive marriage. There has been 
 a time in history when the prostitute (if the word 
 can properly be used in this connection) has been 
 glorified, consecrated to the temple-service and 
 honoured of men and gods (the hierodouloi of 
 the Greeks, the kodeshoth and kodeshim of the 
 Bible, etc.) There has also been a time when 
 she has been scouted and reviled. In the future 
 there will come a time when, as free companion, 
 really free from the curse of modern commercialism, 
 and sacred and respected once more, she v/ill 
 again be accepted by society and take her place 
 with the rest. 
 
 And so with other cases. On looking back 
 171
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 into history we find that almost every human 
 impulse has at some age been held in esteem 
 and allowed full play ; thus man came to recognise 
 its beauty and value. But then, lest it should 
 come (as it surely would) to tyrannise over the 
 rest, it has been dethroned, and so in a later age 
 the same quality is scouted and banned. Last 
 of all it has to find its perfect human use and to 
 take its place with the rest. Up to the age of 
 Civilisation (according to writers on primitive 
 Society) the early tribes of mankind, though 
 limited each in their habits, were essentially 
 democratical in structure. In fact, nothing had 
 occurred to make them otherwise. Each member 
 stood on a footing of equality with the rest ; 
 individual men had not in their hands an arbitrary 
 power over others ; and the tribal life and standard 
 ruled supreme. And when, in the future and on 
 a much higher plane, the true Democracy comes, 
 this equality which has so long been in abeyance 
 will be restored, not only among men but also, 
 in a sense, among all the passions and qualities 
 of manhood : none will be allowed to tyrannise 
 over others, but all will have to be subject to the 
 supreme life of humanity. The chariot of Man 
 instead of two horses will have a thousand ; but 
 they will all be under control of the charioteer. 
 Meanwhile it may not be extravagant to suppose 
 that all through the Civilisation-period the so- 
 called criminals are keeping open the possibility 
 of a return to this state of society. They are 
 preserving, in a rough and unattractive husk 
 
 172
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 it may be, the precious seed of a life which is to 
 come in the future ; and are as necessary and 
 integral a part of society in the long run as the 
 most respected and most honoured of its members 
 at present. 
 
 The upshot then of it all is that " morals " as 
 a permanent code of action have to be discarded. 
 There exists no such permanent code. One age, 
 one race, one class, one family, may have a code 
 which the users of it consider valid, but only they 
 consider it valid, and then only for a time. The 
 Decalogue may have been a rough and useful 
 ready-reckoner for the Israelites ; but to us it 
 admits of so many exceptions and interpretations 
 that it is practically worthless. " Thou shalt not 
 steal." Exactly ; but who is to decide, as we saw 
 at the outset, in what " stealing " consists ? The 
 question is too complicated to admit of an answer. 
 And when we /lave caught our half-starved tramp 
 " sneaking " a loaf, and are ready to condemn him, 
 lo ! Lycurgus pats him on the back, and the 
 modern philosopher tells him that he is keeping 
 open the path to a regenerate society ! If the 
 tramp had also been a philosopher, he would per- 
 haps have done the same act not merely for his 
 own benefit but for that of society, he would 
 have committed a crime in order to save man- 
 kind. 
 
 There is nothing left but Humanity. Since 
 there is no ever-valid code of morals we must 
 sadly confess that there is no means of proving 
 ourselves right and our neighbours wrong. In
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 fact the very act of thinking whether we are right 
 (which implies a sundering of ourselves, even in 
 thought, from others) itself introduces the element 
 of wrongness ; and if we are ever to be " right " 
 at all, it must be at some moment when we fail 
 to notice it — when we have forgotten our apartness 
 from others and have entered into the great region 
 of human equality. Equality — in that region 
 all human defects are redeemed ; they all find their 
 place. To love your neighbour as yourself is the 
 whole law and the prophets ; to feel that you are 
 " equal " with others, that their lives are as your 
 life, that your life is as theirs — even in what tri- 
 fling degree we may experience such things — is 
 to enter into another life which includes both sides; 
 it is to pass beyond the sphere of moral distinctions, 
 and to trouble oneself no more with them. Be- 
 tween lovers there are no duties and no rights ; 
 and in the life of humanity, there is only an instinctive 
 mutual service expressing itself in whatever way 
 may be best at the time. Nothing is forbidden, 
 there is nothing which may not serve. The 
 law of Equality is perfectly flexible, is adaptable 
 to all times and places, finds a place for all the 
 elements of character, justifies and redeems them 
 all without exception ; and to live by it is perfect 
 freedom. Yet not a law : but rather as said, a 
 new life, transcending the individual life, work- 
 ing through it from within, lifting the self into 
 another sphere, beyond corruption, far over the 
 world of Sorrow. 
 
 The effort to make a distinction between acting 
 174
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 for self and acting for one's neighbor is the basis 
 of " morals." As long as a man feels an ultimate 
 antagonism between himself and society, as long 
 as he tries to hold his own life as a thing apart 
 from that of others, so long must the question arise 
 whether he v/ill act for self or for those others. 
 Hence flow a long array of terms — distinctions of 
 right and wrong, duty, selfishness, self-renuncia- 
 tion, altruism, etc. But when he discovers that 
 there is no ultimate antagonism between himself 
 and society ; when he finds that the gratification 
 of every desire which he has or can have may be 
 rendered social, or beneficial to his fellows, by 
 being used at the right time and place, and on 
 the other hand that every demand made upon 
 him by society will and must gratify some portion 
 of his nature, some desire of his heart — why, 
 all the distinctions collapse again ; they do not 
 hold water any more. A larger life descends 
 upon him, which includes both sides, and prompts 
 actions in accordance with an unwritten and un- 
 imagined law. Such actions will sometimes be 
 accounted " selfish " by the world ; sometimes 
 they will be accounted ** unselfish " ; but they 
 are neither, or — if you like — both ; and he who 
 does them concerns himself not with the names 
 that may be given to them. The law of Equality 
 includes all the moral codes, and is the stand- 
 point which they cannot reach, but which they 
 all aim at. 
 
 Judged by this final standard then, it may 
 doubtless fairly be said — since we all fall short 
 
 ^7S
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 of it — that we are all criminals, and deserve a 
 good hiding ; and even that some of us are greater 
 criminals than others. Only of this real 
 criminality the actual moral and legal codes afford 
 but ineffectual tests. I may be a far worse or 
 more self-included (" idiotic " or brutal) man 
 than you, but the mere fact that I have violated 
 the laws and been clapped into prison does not 
 prove it. There may be, probably is, a real and 
 eternal difference represented by the words Right 
 and Wrong, but no statement that we can make 
 will ever quite avail to define it. One use, however, 
 of all these laws and codes in the past, imperfect 
 though they were, may have been to gradually 
 excite the consciousness in the individual of his 
 opposition to society, and so prepare the way for 
 a true reconcilement. As Paul says, " I had not 
 known sin, but by the law," and, if we had not 
 been cudgeled and bruised for centuries by this 
 rough bludgeon of social convention, we should 
 not now be so sensitive as we are to the effect of 
 our actions upon our neighbours, nor so ready for 
 a social life in the future which shall be superior 
 to law. 
 
 Of course, the ultimate reconcilement of the 
 individual with society — of the unit Man with 
 the mass-Man — involves the subordination of the 
 desires, their subjection to the true self. And 
 this is a most important point. It is no easy lapse 
 that is here suggested, from morality into a mere 
 jungle of human passion, but a toilsome and long 
 ascent — involving for a time at any rate a deter- 
 
 176
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 mined self-control — into ascendancy over the 
 passions ; it involves the complete mastery, one 
 by one, of them all, and the recognition and allow- 
 ance of them only because they are mastered. 
 And it is just this training and subjection of the 
 passions — as of winged horses which are to draw 
 the human chariot — which necessarily forms such 
 a long and painful process of human evolution. 
 The old moral codes are a part of this process ; 
 but they go on the plan of extinguishing some of 
 the passions — seeing that it is sometimes easier 
 to shoot a restive horse than to ride him. We 
 however do not want to be lords of dead carrion, 
 but of living powers ; and every steed that we can 
 add to our chariot makes our progress through 
 creation so much the more splendid, providing 
 Phoebus indeed hold the reins, and not the incap- 
 able Phaeton. 
 
 And by becoming thus one with the social self, 
 the individual, instead of being crushed, is made 
 far vaster, far grander than before. The re- 
 nunciation (if it must be so called) which he has 
 to accept in abandoning merely individual ends 
 is immediately compensated by the far more 
 vivid life he now enters into. For every force 
 of his nature can now be utilised. Planting him- 
 self out by contrast he stands all the firmer because 
 he has a left foot as well as a right, and when he 
 acts, he acts not half-heartedly as one afraid, but, 
 as it were, with the whole weight of Humanity 
 behind him. In abandoning his exclusive in- 
 dividuality he becomes for the first time a real 
 
 177 M
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and living individual ; and in accepting as his 
 own the life of others he becomes aware of a life 
 in himself that has no limit and no end. That 
 the self of any one man is capable of an infinite 
 gradation from the most petty and exclusive exis- 
 tence to the most magnificent and inclusive seems 
 almost a truism. The one extreme is disease and 
 death, the other is life everlasting. When the 
 tongue for example — which is a member of the 
 body — regards itself as a purely separate existence 
 for itself alone, it makes a mistake, it suffers an 
 illusion, and descends into its pettiest life. What 
 is the consequence ? Thinking that it exists 
 apart from the other members, it selects food just 
 such as shall gratify its most local self, it endeavours 
 just to titillate its own sense of taste ; and living 
 and acting thus, ere long it ruins that very sense 
 of taste, poisons the system with improper food, 
 and brings about disease and death. Yet, if healthy, 
 how does the tongue act ? Why, it does not 
 run counter to its own sense of taste, or stultify 
 itself. It does not talk about sacrificing its own 
 inclinations for the good of the body and the other 
 members ; but it just acts as being one in interest 
 with them and they with it. For the tongue 
 is a muscle, and therefore what feeds it feeds all 
 the other muscles ; and the membrane of the 
 tongue is a prolongation of the membrane of 
 the stomach, and that is how the tongue knows 
 what the stomach will like ; and the tongue is 
 nerves and blood, and so the tongue may act for 
 nerves and blood all over the body, and so on. 
 
 178
 
 Defence of Criminals 
 
 Therefore the tongue may enter into a wider life 
 than that represented by the mere local sense of 
 taste, and experiences more pleasure often in the 
 drinking of a glass of water which the whole 
 body wants, than in the daintiest sweetmeat which 
 is for itself alone. 
 
 Exactly so man in a healthy state does not act 
 for himself alone, practically cannot do so. Nor 
 does he talk cant about " serving his neighbors," 
 etc. But he simply acts for them as well as for 
 himself, because they are part and parcel of his 
 life — bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh ; and 
 in doing so he enters into a wider life, finds a more 
 perfect pleasure, and becomes more really a man 
 than ever before. Every man contains in him- 
 self the elements of all the rest of humanity. They 
 lie in the background ; but they are there. In 
 the front he has his own special faculty developed 
 — his individual facade, with its projects, plans 
 and purposes : but behind sleeps the Demos- 
 life with far vaster projects and purposes. Some 
 time or other to every man must come the con- 
 sciousness of this vaster life. 
 
 The true Democracy, wherein this larger life 
 will rule society from within — obviating the need 
 of an external government — and in which all 
 characters and qualities will be recognised and 
 have their freedom, waits (a hidden but necessary 
 result of evolution) in the constitution of human 
 nature itself. In the pre-Civilisation period these 
 vexed questions of " morals " practically did not 
 exist ; simply because in that period the individual 
 
 179
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 was one with his tribe and moved (unconsciously) 
 by the larger life of his tribe. And in the post- 
 Civilisation period, when the true Democracy is 
 realised, they will not exist, because then the man 
 will know himself a part of humanity at large, 
 and will be consciously moved by forces belonging 
 to these vaster regions of his being. The moral 
 codes and questionings belong to Civilisation, 
 they are part of the forward effort, the struggle, 
 the suffering, and the temporary alienation from 
 true life, which that term implies.^ 
 
 I For further on the same subject see the last chapter, infroy 
 on "The New Morality." 
 
 i8o
 
 EXFOLIATION 
 
 " Creation's incessant unrest, exfoliation." 
 
 Whitman. 
 
 I THINK it may perhaps be agreed, once for 
 all, that the human mind is incapable of 
 really defining even the smallest fact of 
 nature. The simplest thing, or event, baffles 
 us at the last. It is like trying to look at the 
 front and back of a mirror at the same time. The 
 utmost squinting avails not. The ego and the 
 non-ego dance eluding through creation. To 
 catch them both in any mortal object and pin them 
 there, surpasses our powers. And yet they are 
 there. Montaigne quotes somewhere the words 
 of S. Augustine : Modus quo corporibus adhaerent 
 spiritus . . . omnino mirus est^ nee comprehendi 
 ab homine potest; et hoc ipse homo est. "The 
 manner whereby spirits adhere to bodies is alto- 
 gether wonderful, and cannot be conceived of by 
 men ; and yet this is man." Man himself 
 contains, or rather is, the reconcilement of 
 this and numberless other contradictions. We 
 actually every day perform and exhibit miracles 
 which the mental part of us is utterly powerless 
 
 i8i
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 to grapple with. Yet the solution, the intelli- 
 gent solution and understanding of them is 
 in us ; only it involves a higher order of 
 consciousness than we usually deal with — 
 a consciousness possibly which includes and 
 transcends the ego and the non-ego, and so can 
 envisage both at the same time and equally — a 
 fourth-dimensional consciousness to whose gaze 
 the interiors of solid bodies are exposed like mere 
 surfaces — a consciousness to whose perception 
 some usual antitheses like cause and effect, matter 
 and spirit, past and future, simply do not exist. 
 I say these higher orders of consciousness are in 
 us waiting for their evolution ; and, until they 
 evolve, we are powerless really to understand any- 
 thing of the world around us. 
 
 Meanv/hile, since we must have formulae and 
 generalisations to think by, we are fain to accept 
 our local views, and look on the world from this 
 side or from that. Sometimes we are idealists, 
 sometimes we are materialists ; sometimes we 
 believe in mechanics, sometimes in human or 
 spiritual forces. The science of the last fifty years 
 has, as pointed out in a preceding paper, looked 
 at things more from the mechanical than the 
 distinctively human side — from the point of view 
 of the non-ego, rather than of the ego. Reacting 
 from an extreme tendency towards a subjective 
 view of phenomena, which characterised the older 
 speculations, and fearing to be swayed by a kind 
 of partiality towards himself, the modern scientist 
 has endeavoured to remove the human and con- 
 
 182
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 scious element from his observations of Nature. 
 And he has done valuable work in this way — but 
 of course has been betrayed into a corresponding 
 narrowness. 
 
 In fact the main scientific doctrine of the day, 
 Evolution, is obviously suffering from this treat- 
 ment, and the following remarks are merely a few 
 notes by way of suggestion of some things which 
 may be said on its more specially human side. 
 For since each man is a part of nature, and in 
 that sense a part also of the evolution-process, 
 his own subjective experience ought at least 
 to throw some light on the conditions under 
 which evolution takes place, and to contribute 
 something towards an understanding of the 
 problem. 
 
 If the question is : What is the cause of Varia- 
 tion among animals ? some approximation towards 
 an answer ought to be got by each person asking 
 himself, " Why do I vary ? " Why — he might 
 say — am I a different person from what I was ten 
 years ago, or when I was a boy ? Why have I 
 varied in one direction and my brothers and 
 sisters from the same nest in other directions ? 
 Though my individual consciousness only covers 
 the small ground of my own life, and does not 
 extend back to that of my father or forward to 
 that of my son, still the intimate knowledge that 
 I have of the forces acting on me during that short 
 period may help me to an understanding of the 
 forces that bring about the modification of men 
 and animals at large, and the discovery of some 
 
 183
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 laws of my own growth may reveal to me the laws 
 of race-growth. 
 
 In answer to such a question, it would speedily 
 appear that there were two general causes deter- 
 mining direction of change or growth in the 
 individual, which might be conveniently dis- 
 tinguished from each other — an external and an 
 internal. In the first place the supposed person 
 might say, " External conditions forced me along 
 these lines. My father was a town artisan, but 
 he apprenticed me to a farmer. I grew up a far- 
 mer's boy, and became an agricultural type as you 
 see. I did not particularly care for farming, 
 sometimes indeed I would have been glad to be 
 out of it ; but practically I succumbed to cir- 
 cumstances, and here I am." But in the second 
 place he might answer thus : — " My father was 
 himself a farmer ; I was early used to the craft, 
 and should no doubt have grown up in it, had 
 I not hated it like poison. I loved music, broke 
 away from home, joined a band, got on the musical 
 staff of a small theatre, and am now a professional 
 musician. My frame is comparatively slight, and 
 my hands are of the nervous type, as you see. Of 
 course, I have some of the old agricultural stock 
 left in me, but I feel that that is dying out." 
 The one cause would be a change of external 
 conditions, forcing the man to accommodate him- 
 self to them ; the other would be a change of 
 internal conditions, an inward growth, expressing 
 itself first in the form of an intense desire, and 
 compelling the man to change himself and pro- 
 
 184
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 bably also his environment in obedience to it. 
 Two such general sets of causes, I say, could be 
 roughly distinguished from each other ; and 
 probably indeed are recognised less or more dis- 
 tinctly by everyone as acting to modify his life. 
 Nor can the life of a man at any time be said to 
 be ruled by one of these forces alone. No man 
 is modified by external conditions alone, with- 
 out any play or reaction of inner needs and desires 
 and growth from within ; nor is any man trans- 
 formed in obedience to an inner expansion without 
 sundry lets and hindrances from without. The 
 two forces are in constant play upon one another ; 
 but in some ways that would appear to be the 
 more important which proceeds from the Man 
 (or creature) himself, since this is obviously vital 
 and organic to him, and therefore the most con- 
 sistent and reliable factor in his modification, 
 while the external force — arising from various 
 and remote causes — must rather be regarded 
 as discontinuous and accidental. 
 
 I propose, therefore, in these few pages to 
 consider especially this inner force producing 
 modification in man and animals — to try and 
 find out of what nature it is, what is the law, and 
 what are the limits of its action — premising always, 
 as already suggested, that this distinction between 
 " inner " and " outer," which is convenient and 
 easy to handle on certain planes of thought, may 
 ultimately, and in the last resort, prove very 
 difficult or even impossible to maintain. 
 
 It is often said by Biologists \.}\2it function precedes 
 185
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 organisation — that is, man fights with his fellows 
 before he makes weapons to fight with ; the 
 rudimentary animal digests food (as in the case 
 of the amoeba) before it acquires a stomach or 
 organ of digestion ; it sees or is sensitive to light 
 before it grov/s an eye ; in society letters are carried 
 by private hands before an organised postal system 
 is created. Such facts properly considered are 
 of vital importance. They show us, as it were by 
 a sign-post, the direction of creation. They show 
 how any new thing or modification of an old thing 
 may come into being. They may be supplemen- 
 ted by a second statement — namely that desire 
 precedes function. That is, man desires to injure 
 his fellow before he actually fights with him ; he 
 experiences the wish to communicate with distant 
 friends before ever he thinks of sending such a 
 thing as a letter ; the amoeba craves for food 
 first, and circumvents its prey afterwards. Desire, 
 or inward change, comes first, action follows, 
 and organisation or outward structure is the 
 result. 
 
 In man this " order of creation," if it may so 
 be called, i.e.^ from within outwards, is very marked. 
 Whenever a man creates anything new he pursues 
 it ; when he builds a house, for instance, or com- 
 poses a poem or piece of music, or designs an 
 Alpine tunnel, or whatever it may be. The 
 order seems to be : first, a feeling — a dim want 
 or desire ; then the feeling becomes conscious 
 of itself, takes shape in thought ; the thought 
 becomes more defined and issues in a distinct plan ; 
 
 186
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 the plan is committed to paper, models are made, 
 etc. ; and finally the actual work is begun and 
 completed. The process appears as a movement 
 from within outwards — the earliest and most 
 authentic discernible source of the movement 
 being a feeling — (though there may lie something 
 behind that). Even in ordinary action the same 
 order is manifest ; for, though of course every 
 action is not preceded by desire — since we know 
 that actions soon become habitual and more or 
 less unconscious — still a vast number of them are 
 immediately so preceded ; and in the case of any 
 action that is nevo^ either to the individual or to 
 the race, its inception is generally accompanied 
 by effort so painful that it would not be exerted 
 unless the desire were very strong. The difficulty 
 which a man experiences in learning any new art, 
 and the records of the many failures, struggles, 
 oppositions, persecutions, etc., which have at- 
 tended every new invention or innovation of 
 any kind in human history, afford plenty of evi- 
 dence of this last point. Certainly the effort that 
 accompanies a new action is not always faced so 
 much from sheer desire of the new thing itself 
 as from fear perhaps of something else — as it 
 may be contended that monkeys did not take 
 to climbing trees because they loved trees, but 
 because they feared the beasts below, or that the 
 giraffe did not stretch its neck because it particu- 
 larly desired to feed on leaves, as because it could 
 not get food any other way — but still, even in 
 these cases the desire may be said to exist, though 
 
 187
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 it is secondary — being founded upon another 
 and more elementary desire — the desire namely 
 of escaping pain or obtaining food. In either 
 case a desire of some kind is a precedent condition 
 of the new action. And so as we know of no 
 case of a new action coming into play without 
 being preceded by desire, we seem to be justified 
 in supposing that all our actions when they were 
 first initiated (in our forefathers, if not in ourselves) 
 were so preceded. If this is so, then, since function 
 is always preceded by desire, and organisation is 
 preceded by function, organisation must necessarily 
 be preceded by desire. And if this is the order 
 of creation in man, should we not reasonably 
 look in this direction for the key to the variation 
 of animals and the order of creation in general ? ^ 
 If a farmer's son is occasionally born who hates 
 farming and loves music, and who ultimately 
 through the force of his desire (driving him into 
 oppositions and difficulties and penurious strug- 
 gles) transforms himself into a musician, is it 
 not also likely that occasionally an animal is born 
 who hates the customs of his tribe, and at last 
 (also through struggles) transforms himself into 
 something else ? Even if he does not succeed 
 (the animal) in entirely transforming himself, 
 he likely transmits the desire in some degree to 
 
 ' This does not, of course, preclude the action of external 
 conditions, or imply that organisation is determined by desire 
 alone. In fact organisation may be regarded as the expression 
 of desire acting under conditions — as in the cases of the monkey 
 and giraffe above. 
 
 i88
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 his descendants, and the transformation is thus 
 carried on and completed later. For everywhere 
 among the animals there is desire, of some kind 
 or another, obviously acting ; and if in man, by 
 our own experience, desire is the precursor and 
 first expression of growth, is there any reason 
 why it should not also be so among animals ? 
 Lamarck gives the instance — among others — 
 of a gasteropod ; how the need or desire of touch- 
 ing bodies in front of it as it crawled along would 
 result in the formation of tentacles. The gaste- 
 ropod, he says, would keep making efforts to feel 
 with the front of its head, and the determination 
 of consciousness that way would be accompanied 
 by a supply of nervous and other fluids, which would 
 nourish the part and cause growth there — the 
 form of the growth continuing in the same way 
 to be determined by need — till at last two or more 
 tentacles would appear. True, the inward deter- 
 minations of consciousness may not be so vivid 
 and varied in animals as they are in men ; but 
 they are persistent, and by the very cumulative 
 force of habit which is so strong in animals, must 
 at length penetrate down through function into 
 organisation and external form. Who shall say 
 that the lark, by the mere love of soaring and 
 singing in the face of the sun, has not altered the 
 shape of its wings, or that the forms of the shark 
 or of the gazelle are not the long-stored results 
 of character leaning always in certain directions, 
 as much as the forms of the miser or the libertine 
 
 are among men } 
 
 189
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Such modification as this is very different from 
 the " survival of the fittest " of the Darwinian 
 evolution theory. We may fairly suppose that 
 both kinds of modification take place ; but the 
 latter is a sort of easy success won by an external 
 accident of birth — a success of the kind that would 
 readily be lost again ; while the former is the uphill 
 fight of a nature that has grown inwardly and 
 wins expression for itself in spite of external obstacles 
 — an expression which therefore is likely to be 
 permanent. If the progenitors of man took to 
 going upright on tv/o legs instead of on all fours, 
 merely because a few of them by chance were 
 born with a talent for that position, which enabled 
 them to escape the fanged and pursuing beasts, 
 then when this danger was removed they might 
 have plumped down again into the old attitude ; 
 but if the change was part and parcel of a true 
 evolution, the fulfilment of a positive desire for 
 the upright position, a true unfolding of a higher 
 form latent within — an organic growth of the 
 creature itself, then, though the moment of the 
 evolution of this particular faculty might be deter- 
 mined by the fanged beasts, the fact of such evolu- 
 tion could not be determined by them. Besides, 
 are we to suppose that Man, the lord and ruler 
 of the animals, came merely by way of escape 
 from the animals } Do lords and rulers generally 
 come so ? Was it fear that made him a man .'' 
 Were it not likelier that in that case he would 
 have turned into a worm } He would have escaped 
 better perhaps that way. Is it not rather probable 
 
 190
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 that It was some nobler power that worked trans- 
 forming — some dim desire and prevision of a 
 more perfect form, the desire itself being the 
 first consciousness of the urge of growth in that 
 direction — that prompted him to push in the one 
 direction rather than the other when he had to 
 hold his own against the tigers ? In fact is it not 
 thus to-day, when a man has to meet danger, that 
 the ideal which he has within him determines 
 how he shall meet that danger, and others like it, 
 and so ultimately determines the whole attitude 
 and carriage of his body ? 
 
 On the whole then, judging from man himself 
 (and it seems most cautious and scientific to derive 
 our main evidence from the being that we are 
 best acquainted v/ith), it certainly seems to me 
 that, though the external conditions are a very im- 
 portant factor in Variation, the central explana- 
 tion of this phenomenon should be sought in an 
 inner law of Growth — a law of expansion more or 
 less common to all animate nature. Partly because, 
 as said before, the unfolding of the creature from 
 its own needs and inward nature is an organic 
 process, and likely to be persistent, while its 
 modification by external causes must be more 
 or less fortuitous and accidental and sometimes 
 in one direction and sometimes in another ; partly 
 also because the movement from within outwards 
 seems to be most like the law of creation in general. 
 Under this view the external conditions would 
 be considered a secondary — though important 
 cause of modification ; and regarded rather as 
 
 191
 
 Civilisation ; Its Cause and Cure 
 
 the influences that give form and detail to the 
 great primal impulse of growth from within ; 
 while the creature's own ingenuity and good luck 
 would occupy the ground between the two — as 
 the means whereby the external conditions in 
 each individual case would be turned to account 
 to satisfy the inner needs, or the inner life would 
 be accommodated to the external conditions. 
 
 If we take the external view of Variation — which 
 is the one most favoured by modern science — 
 modification or race-growth appears as an uncon- 
 scious or accretive process, similar to the forma- 
 tion of a coral reef. There is no line of growth 
 native in the race itself, but at any moment it 
 is supposed to have an equal tendency to vary 
 in any direction. Surrounding conditions act 
 selectively ; and by a process of weeding out 
 certain types survive ; small successive modi- 
 fications are thus accumulated ; and gradually 
 and in the lapse of ages a more pliable and differ- 
 entiated creature, and more adaptable to a variety 
 of conditions, is produced — in whom however 
 mind is incidental, and has played but small part 
 in the creature's evolution. This in the main 
 is the Darwinian-evolution theory. 
 
 If we take the internal view, growth is from 
 the first eminently conscious. Every change 
 begins in the mental region — is felt first as a desire 
 gradually taking form into thought, passes down 
 into the bodily region, expresses itself in action 
 (more or less dependent on conditions), and 
 finally solidifies itself in organisation and structure. 
 
 192
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 The process is not accretive, but exfoliatory — 
 a continual movement from within outwards. 
 When the desire or mental condition, which at 
 first was painfully conscious, has overcome opposi- 
 tion and established itself in altered bodily structure, 
 it has done its work, and becomes unconscious — 
 — the bodily function continuing for a long period 
 to act automatically, till finally it is thrown off 
 to make room for some later development. Thus 
 race-growth or Variation is a process by which 
 change begins in the mental region, passes into 
 the bodily region where it becomes organised, 
 and finally is thrown off like a husk. This may 
 be called the theory of Exfoliation. 
 
 To illustrate our meaning. Let us take the 
 development of an eye. In the amoeba there 
 is a dim pervasive sensitiveness to light over the 
 whole body, but there is no eye, nothing that 
 we should call vision. Still this vague sensitive- 
 ness is of use to the amoeba. The shadow of its 
 prey falling upon the creature and exciting a 
 sensation hardly yet differentiated from touch 
 helps to guide its movements. On this dim sen- 
 sation it relies to some extent ; its attention is 
 directed towards it. Gradually, and in some 
 descendant form, there comes to be a point on 
 the body on which this attention is most specially 
 concentrated. The faculty is localised ; and from 
 that moment a change is effected there, a differen- 
 tiation and a special structure ; everything that 
 favours sensitiveness is encouraged at that place, 
 everything that dulls it is removed ; and before 
 
 193 N
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 long — there is a rudimentary eye. To-day we 
 use our perfected eyes, and are hardly conscious 
 that we are doing so ; but every power of vision 
 that we have was thus won for us by some lowUer 
 creature, step by step, with effort and with con- 
 centration. Or to take an illustration from society. 
 To-day society is ill at ease ; a dim feeling of 
 discontent pervades all ranks and classes. A new 
 sense of justice, of fraternity, has descended 
 among us, which is not satisfied with mere chatter 
 of demand and supply. For a long time this new 
 sentiment or desire remains vague and unformed, 
 but at last it resolves itself into shape ; it takes 
 intellectual form, books are written, plans formed ; 
 then after a time definite new organisations, for 
 the "distinct purpose of expressing these ideas, 
 begin to exist in the body of the old society ; and 
 before so very long the whole outer structure of 
 society will have been reorganised by them. After 
 a few centuries the ideas for whose realisation 
 we now fight and struggle with an intense con- 
 sciousness will have become commonplace, accepted 
 institutions, more or less effete and ready to 
 succumb before fresh mental births taking place 
 from within. 
 
 The modern evolution theory would maintain 
 that among many amoebas and descendant forms, 
 one would at last by chance be born having the 
 usual sensitiveness localised in a particular spot, 
 and, surviving by force of this advantage, would 
 transmit this " eye " to its posterity ; or that in 
 the progress of society, new economic conditions 
 
 194
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 having arisen, that people would prosper best 
 which most effectually and rapidly adapted itself 
 to them. But though there is doubtless truth 
 in this view, yet it seems, when all has been said, 
 to be inadequate and even feeble ; it omits at least 
 one half of the problem. If we look at ourselves, 
 as already pointed out, we see the two forces — 
 the inner and the outer — acting and re-acting 
 on each other. May it not be so in animals ? 
 Lamarck, poorly off, blind, derided, was a true 
 poet. " Animals vary from low and primitive 
 types chiefly by dint of wishing " — and the world 
 laughed and still laughs. But it was his deep 
 sympathy even with the worms and insects (which 
 he studied till he could discern them with his 
 mortal eyes no longer) that led Lamarck to see 
 the human nature and the human laws that moved 
 within them ; and as his outward sight grew dim 
 there arose before him the inward vision of the 
 true relationship which binds together all living 
 creatures — which was indeed a vision of divine 
 things, and as different from the mere mechanism- 
 theory of the survival of the fittest as the sight 
 of the starry heavens is different from a governess's 
 lesson on the use of the globes. 
 
 On the theory of Exfoliation, which was practi- 
 cally Lamarck's theory, there is a force at work 
 throughout creation, ever urging each type onward 
 into new and newer forms. This force appears 
 first in consciousness in the form of desire. Within 
 each shape of life sleep needs and wants without 
 number, from the lowest and simplest to the most 
 
 195
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 complex and ideal. As each new desire or ideal 
 is evolved, it brings the creature into conflict 
 with its surroundings, then gaining its satisfac- 
 tion externalises itself in the structure of the creature, 
 and leaves the way open for the birth of a new ideal. 
 If then we would find a key to the understanding 
 of the expansion and growth of all animate creation, 
 such a key may exist in the nature of desire itself 
 and the comprehension of its real meaning. It 
 is not certain that it can be found here ; but it 
 may be. 
 
 What then is desire in Man ? Here we come 
 back again, as suggested at the outset, to Man 
 himself. Though we see pretty clearly that desire 
 is at work in the animals, and that it is the same 
 in kind as exists in man, still, among the animals 
 it is but dim and inchoate, while in man it is deve- 
 loped and luminous ; in ourselves, too, we know it 
 immediately, while in the animals only by inference. 
 For both reasons, therefore, if we want to know 
 the nature of desire — even to know its nature 
 among animals — we should study it in Man. 
 What then is this desire in Man, which seems to 
 be the instigation and origin of all his growth 
 and development ? At first it seems a hydra- 
 headed senseless thing without rhyme or reason ; 
 but the more one regards it the more clearly one 
 sees that even in its lowest forms it is steadily 
 building up and liberating all the functions of 
 the human being. In its most perfect form — 
 as in what we call Love — it is the sum and solution 
 of human activities, that in which they converge, 
 
 196
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 for which they all exist, and without which they 
 would be considered useless. The more you 
 look into this matter, the plainer it becomes. 
 The lesser desires — the self-preservation desires — 
 hunger, thirst, the desire of power — exist, but 
 when they are satisfied they empty themselves 
 into this one ; they find their interpretation in 
 it. The other desires are nothing by themselves 
 — the most absorbing, avarice, ambition, desire 
 of knowledge, taken alone, stultify themselves 
 — but love perpetuates itself : it is a flame which 
 uses all the rest as its fuel. And this Love, 
 which is the culmination of desire, does it not 
 appear to us as a worship of and desire for the 
 human form ? In our bodies a desire for the 
 bodily human form ; in our interior selves a 
 perception and worship of an ideal human form, 
 the revelation of a Splendour dwelling in others, 
 which — clouded and dimmed as it inevitably 
 may come to be — remains after all one of the most 
 real, perhaps the most real, of the facts of exist- 
 ence ? Desire, therefore — as it exists in man, 
 look at it how you will — as it unfolds and its ulti- 
 mate aim becomes clearer and clearer to itself, 
 is seen to be the desire and longing for the deliver- 
 ance and expression of the real human Being. 
 May it not, must it not, be the same thing in 
 animals and all through creation ? Beginning 
 in the most elementary and dim shapes, does it 
 not grow through all the stages of organic life 
 clearer and more and more powerful, till at last 
 it attains to self-consciousness in humanity and 
 
 197
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 becomes avowedly the leading factor in our develop- 
 ment ? 
 
 The desire which runs through creation is one 
 desire. Rudimentary at first and hardly con- 
 scious of itself, throwing out a tentacle here, a 
 foot there, developing an eye, a claw, a nostril, 
 a wing, it seeks in innumerable shapes and with 
 ever partial success to realise the image it has 
 dimly conceived. The animal kingdom is the 
 gymnasium, the school, the antechamber, of human- 
 ity ; to walk through a zoological garden is to 
 see the inchoate types of man, perched on branches, 
 or browsing grass, or boring holes in the ground ; 
 it is to witness a grand rehearsal of some stupen- 
 dous part, whose character we do not even yet 
 fully see or understand. From such half-con- 
 scious beginnings the desire grows, its aim be- 
 comes clearer, till in the higher animals — the horse, 
 the dog, the elephant, the bird, and many others 
 — it becomes a marked and unmistakable force 
 drawing them close to man, uniting them to him 
 in a kind of acknowledged kinship, and as obviously 
 at work modifying their structure as can be. 
 Finally in man himself it becomes an absorbing 
 power ; love becomes a conscious worship of the 
 divine form ; generation itself is the means where- 
 by, in time, the supreme object of desire is realised. 
 When at last the perfect Man appears, the key to 
 all nature is found, every creature falls into its 
 place and finds its Interpreter, and the purpose 
 of creation is at last made manifest. 
 
 The Theory of Exfoliation then differs from 
 198
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 that very specialised form of Evolution which 
 has been adopted by modern science, in this 
 particular among others : that it fixes the atten- 
 tion on that which appears last in order of Time, 
 as the most important in order of causation, rather 
 than on that which appears first ; and recalls 
 to us the fact that often in any succession of pheno- 
 mena, that which is first in order of precedence 
 and importance is the last to be externalised. 
 Thus in the growth of a plant we find leaf after 
 leaf appearing, petal within petal — a continual 
 exfoliation of husks, sepals, petals, stamens and 
 what-not ; but the object of all this movement, 
 and that which in a sense sets it all in motion, 
 namely the seed, is the very last thing of all to be 
 manifested. Or when a volcano breaks out — 
 first of all we have a cracking and upheaval of 
 superficial layers of ground, then of layers below 
 these, then the outflow of lava, and last of all the 
 uprush of the inner fires and forces which set 
 it all agoing. What appears first in time, or in 
 the outer world is — in the case of the building of 
 a house, the making of bricks ; in the case of 
 the flower, the outermost bracts ; in the case of 
 a volcano, the stirring of the surface of the ground ; 
 and in the case of Life on the Earth, the appear- 
 ance of protoplasms and primordial cells. The 
 bricks are not the cause of the house (if indeed 
 the word " cause " should be used here at all) 
 but rather the house — or the conception of the 
 house — is the cause of the bricks ; and the cells 
 fi.re not the origin of Man, but Man is the original 
 
 199
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 of the cells. The rationale of sea-anemones and 
 mud-fish and flying foxes and elephants has to 
 be looked for in man : he alone underlies them. 
 And man is not a vertebrate because his ancestors 
 were vertebrate ; but the animals are vertebrate, 
 because or in so far as they are forerunners and 
 offshoots of Man. 
 
 It has been frequently said that great material 
 changes are succeeded by intellectual and finally 
 by moral revolutions — as the conquests of Alexan- 
 der passed on into the literary expansion of the 
 Alexandrian schools and thence into the estab- 
 lishment of Christianity, or as the mechanical 
 developments of our own time have been followed 
 by immense literary and scientific activities, and 
 are obviously passing over now into a great social 
 regeneration ; but a reconsideration of the matter 
 might, I take it, lead us not so much to look on 
 the later changes as caused by the earlier, as to look 
 on the earlier as the indications and first outward 
 and visible signs of the coming of the later. When 
 a man feels in himself the upheaval of a new moral 
 fact, he sees plainly enough that that fact cannot 
 come into the actual world all at once — not with- 
 out first a destruction of the existing order of 
 society — such a destruction as makes him feel 
 Satanic ; then an intellectual revolution ; and 
 lastly only, a new order embodying the nev/ impulse. 
 When this new impulse has thoroughly materialised 
 itself, then after a time will come another inward 
 birth, and similar changes will be passed through 
 again. So it might be said that the work of each 
 
 200 
 
 M
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 age is not to build on the past, but to rise out of 
 the past and throw it off ; only of course in such 
 matters where all forms of thought are inadequate 
 it is hard to say that one way of looking at the 
 subject is truer than another. As before, we 
 should endeavour to look at the thing from different 
 sides. 
 
 We are obliged to use images to think by — e.g. 
 the opening of a flower or the accretive growth 
 of a coral reef — and possibly it would save a good 
 deal of trouble if we did not disguise by long words 
 the truth that all our theories in science and philo- 
 sophy are simply metaphors of this kind — but 
 the fact still lies behind and below them. 
 
 Perhaps, if we are to use the word Cause at 
 all, we should do well to use it in the old sense in 
 which the final cause and the efficient cause are 
 one (the eidos of Aristotle) — to use it not so much 
 to link phenomena or externals to each other as 
 to link each phenomenon in a group to the thought 
 or feeling which underlies that group. The notes 
 in the Dead March in Saul, for instance. We 
 cannot say that one note is the cause of another, 
 but we might say that each note stands in a causal 
 subordination to the feeling which inspired the 
 piece — which is the origin of the piece and the 
 result of its performance — the alpha and omega 
 of it. Similarly, the ground floor in a house 
 is not the cause of the first floor, nor the first floor 
 of the second floor, nor that of the roof ; but these 
 actualities and the whole house itself stand in 
 strict relationship to a mental something which is 
 
 201
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 not in the same plane with them at all, nor an 
 actuality in the same sense. 
 
 According to this view the notion that one 
 configuration of atoms or bodies determines the 
 next configuration turns out to be illusive. Both 
 configurations are determined by a third something 
 which does not belong to quite the same order of 
 existence as the said atoms or bodies. Chance 
 ** laws " of succession may doubtless be found 
 among physical events, and are valuable for prac- 
 tical purposes, but at any moment — owing to their 
 superficiality — they may fail. Thus, an insect 
 observing the expansion of the petals of a chry- 
 santhemum might frame a law of their order 
 of succession in size and colour, which would be 
 valid for a time, but would fail entirely when the 
 stamens appeared. Or, to take another illus- 
 tration, physical science acts like a man trying 
 to find direct causal relations between the various 
 leaves of a tree, without first finding the relations 
 of these to the branches and trunk — and so solving 
 the problem indirectly. It deals only with the 
 surface of the world of Man. 
 
 In thinking about such matters, Music, as 
 Schopenhauer shows, is wonderfully illustrative, 
 because in creating music man recognises that 
 he is creating a world of his own — apart from 
 and not to be confused with that other world of 
 Nature (in which he does not recognise any of 
 his handiwork). Supposing a non-musical person 
 were to examine and analyse the score of a Beet- 
 hoven symphony, he would be in the same posi- 
 
 202
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 tion as a man examining and analysing Nature 
 by purely scientific or intellectual methods. He 
 would discover the recurrence of certain groups 
 among the notes, he would establish laws of their 
 sequences, would make all kinds of curious generali- 
 sations about them, and point out some remark- 
 able exceptions, would even very likely be able 
 to predict a bar or two over the page ; his treatise 
 would be very learned, and from a certain point 
 of view interesting also, but how far would he be 
 from any real understanding of his subject ? 
 Let him change his method : let him train his ear, 
 let him hear the symphony performed, over and 
 over, till he understands its meaning and knows 
 it by heart ; and then he will know at any rate 
 something of why each note is there, he will see 
 its fitness and feel in himself the " law " of its 
 occurrence, and possibly in some new case will 
 be able to predict several bars over the page 1 
 The symphony is not understood by examination 
 and comparison of the notes alone, but by experi- 
 ence of their relation to deepest feelings ; and 
 Nature is not explained by laws, but by its be- 
 coming — or rather being felt to be — the body 
 of Man ; marvellous interpreter and symbol 
 of his inward being. 
 
 There is a kind of knowledge or consciousness 
 in us — as of our bodily parts, or affections, or 
 deep-seated mental beliefs — which forms the base of 
 our more obvious and self-conscious thought. This 
 systemic knowledge grows even while the brain 
 sleeps. It is not by any means absolute or infalli- 
 
 203
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 ble, but it affords, at any moment in man's history, 
 the axiomatic ground on which his thought- 
 structures, scientific and other, are built. Thus 
 the axioms of EucHd are part of our present sys- 
 temic knowledge, and afford the ground of all 
 our geometry structures. But as the systemic 
 consciousness grows, the ground shifts and the 
 structures reared upon it fall. All our modern 
 science, for instance, is founded on the accepta- 
 tion of mechanical cause and effect as a basic 
 fact of consciousness ; but when that base gives 
 way the entire structure will cave in, and a new 
 edifice will have to be reared. Similarly, when 
 the human form becomes distinctly visible to us 
 in the animals — as an unavoidable part of our 
 consciousness — this consciousness will form a new 
 base or axiom for all our thought on the subject, 
 and the theory of evolution, as hitherto con- 
 ceived by science, will be entirely transformed. 
 
 Thus, although the experimental investigatory 
 coral-reef accretion method of modern science 
 is very valuable within its range, it must not be 
 forgotten that the human mind does not progress 
 more than temporarily by this method — that its 
 progression is a matter of growth from within, 
 and involves a continual breaking away of the 
 bases of all thought-structures ; so that, while 
 this latter — i.e.^ the progression of the systemic 
 consciousness of man — is necessary and continuous, 
 the rise and fall of his thought-systems is accidental, 
 so to speak, and discontinuous. 
 
 It is then finally in Man — in our own deepest 
 204
 
 Exfoliation 
 
 and most vital experience — that we have to look 
 for the key and explanation of the changes 
 that we see going on around us in external 
 Nature, as we call it ; and our understanding of 
 the latter, and of History, must ever depend from 
 point to point on the exfoliation of new facts in 
 the individual consciousness. Round the ulti- 
 mate disclosure of the essential Man all creation 
 (hitherto groaning and travailing towards that 
 perfect birth) ranges itself, as it were, like some 
 vast flower, in concentric cycles ; rank beyond 
 rank ; first all social life and history, then the 
 animal kingdom, then the vegetable and mineral 
 worlds. And if the outer circles have been the 
 first in fact to show themselves, it is by this last 
 disclosure that light is ultimately thrown on the 
 whole plan ; and, as in the myth of the Eden- 
 garden, with the appearance of the perfected human 
 form that the work of creation definitely completes 
 itself. 
 
 205
 
 CUSTOM 
 
 " Whatever is off the hinges of custom is believed to be also 
 ofF the hinges of reason ; though how unreasonably, for the most 
 part, God knows." — Montaigne. 
 
 EVERY human being grows up inside a 
 sheath of custom, which enfolds it as 
 the swathing clothes enfold the infant. 
 The sacred customs of its early home, how fixed 
 and immutable they appear to the child 1 It 
 surely thinks that all the world in all times has 
 proceeded on the same lines which bound its tiny 
 life. It regards a breach of these rules (some of 
 them at least) as a wild step in the dark, leading 
 to unknown dangers. 
 
 Nevertheless its mental eyes have hardly opened 
 ere it perceives, not without a shock, that whereas 
 in the family dining-room the meat always pre- 
 cedes the pudding, below-stairs and in the cottage 
 the pudding has a way of coming before the 
 meat ; that, whereas its father puts the manure 
 on the top of his seed-potatoes in spring, his 
 neighbor invariably places his potatoes on top 
 of the manure. All its confidence in the sanctity 
 
 206
 
 Custom 
 
 of its home life and the truth of things is upset. 
 Surely there must be a right and a wrong way 
 of eating one's dinner or of setting potatoes, 
 and surely, if any one, " father " or " mother " 
 must know what is right. The elders have always 
 said (and indeed it seems only reasonable) that 
 by this time of day everything has been so thor- 
 oughly worked over that the best methods of 
 ordering our life — food, dress, domestic practices, 
 social habits, etc., have long ago been determined. 
 If so, why these divergencies in the simplest and 
 most obvious matters ? 
 
 And then other things give way. The sacred 
 seeming-universal customs in which we were 
 bred turn out to be only the practices of a small 
 and narrow class or caste ; or they prove to be 
 confined to a very limited locality, and must be 
 left behind when we set out on our travels ; or 
 they belong to the tenets of a feeble religious sect ; 
 or they are just the products of one age in history 
 and no other. And the question forces itself 
 upon us, Are there really no natural boundaries ? 
 has not our life anywhere been founded on reason 
 and necessity, but only on arbitrary habit .'' What 
 is more important than food, yet in what human 
 matter is there more unaccountable divergence of 
 practice ? The Highlander flourishes on oatmeal, 
 which the Sheffield ironworker would rather starve 
 than eat ; the fat snail which the Roman country 
 gentleman once so prized now crawls unmolested 
 in the Gloucestershire peasant's garden ; rabbits 
 are taboo in Germany ; frogs are unspeakable 
 
 207
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 in England ; sauer-kraut is detested in France ; 
 many races and gangs of people are quite certain 
 they would die if deprived of meat, others think 
 spirits of some kind a necessity, while to others 
 again both these things are an abomination. 
 Every country district has its local practices in 
 food, and the peasants look with the greatest 
 suspicion on any new dish, and can rarely be 
 induced to adopt it. Though it has been abun- 
 dantly proved that many of the British fungi 
 are excellent eating, such is the force of custom 
 that the mushroom alone is ever publicly recog- 
 nised, while curiously enough it is said that in some 
 other countries where the claims of other agarics 
 are allowed the mushroom itself is not used ! 
 Finally, I feel myself (and the gentle reader probably 
 feels the same) that I would rather die than subsist 
 on insects^ such is the deep-seated disgust we 
 experience towards this class of food. Yet it is 
 notorious that many races of respectable people 
 adopt a diet of this sort, and only lately a book 
 has been published giving details of the excellent 
 provender of the kind that we habitually over- 
 look — tasty morsels of caterpillars and beetles, 
 and so forth 1 And indeed, when one comes to 
 think of it, what can it be but prejudice which 
 causes one to eat the periwinkle and reject the 
 land-snail, or to prize the lively prawn and pro- 
 scribe the cheerful grasshopper } 
 
 It is useless to say that these local and other 
 divergencies are rooted in the necessities of the 
 localities and times in which they occur. They 
 
 208
 
 Custom 
 
 are nothing of the kind. For the most part they 
 are mere customs, perhaps grown originally out 
 of some necessity, but now perpetuated from simple 
 habit and inherent human laziness. This can 
 perhaps best be illustrated by going below the 
 human to the kingdom of the animals. If cus- 
 toms are strong among men they are far stronger 
 among animals. The sheep lives on grass, the 
 cat lives on mice and other animal food. And 
 it is generally assumed that the respective diets 
 are the most " natural " in each case, and those 
 on which the animals in question will readiest 
 thrive, and indeed that thev could not well live 
 on any other. But nothing of the kind. For 
 cats can be bred up to live on oatmeal and milk 
 with next to no meat ; and a sheep has been 
 known to get on very comfortably on a diet of port 
 wine and mutton chops ! Dogs, whose " natural " 
 food in the wild state is of the animal kind, are 
 undoubtedly much healthier (at any rate in the 
 domestic state) when kept on farinaceous sub- 
 stances with little or no meat, and indeed they take 
 so kindly to a vegetable diet that they sometimes 
 become perfect nuisances in a garden — eating 
 strawberries, gooseberries, peas, etc., freely off 
 the beds when they have once learned the habit. 
 Any one, in fact, who has kept many pets knows 
 what an astonishing variety of food they may be 
 made to adopt, though each animal in the wild 
 state has the most intensely narrow prejudices 
 on the subject, and will perish rather than over- 
 step the customs of its < tribe. Thus pheasants 
 
 209 o
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 will eat fern-roots in winter when snow covers 
 the ground, but the grouse " don't eat fern-roots," 
 and die in consequence. A wolf of an inquiring 
 turn of mind would probably find strawberries 
 and peas as good food as a dog does, but it is 
 practically certain that any ordinary member of the 
 genus would perish in a garden full of the same 
 if deprived of his customary bones. 
 
 All this seems to indicate what an immensely 
 important part mere custom plays in the life of 
 men and animals. The main part of the power 
 which man acquires over the animals depends 
 upon his establishing habits in them v/hich, once 
 established, they never think of violating : and 
 the almost insuperable nature of this force in animals 
 throws back light on the part it plays in hum.an 
 Hfe. 
 
 Of course, I am not contending in the above 
 remarks upon food that there is no physiological 
 difference between a dog and a sheep in the matter 
 of their digestive organs, and that the one is not 
 by the nature of its body more fitted for one kind 
 of food than the other ; but rather that we should 
 not neglect the importance of mere habit in such 
 matters. Custom changed first ; the change of 
 physiological structure followed slowly after. 
 What happened was probably something like 
 this. Some time in the far back past a group of 
 animals, driven perhaps by necessity, took to 
 hunting in packs in the woods ; it developed a 
 modified physical structure in consequence, and 
 special habits which in the course of time became 
 
 210
 
 Custom 
 
 deeply fixed in the race. Another group saved 
 its life by taking to grazing. Grass is poor food ; 
 but it was the only chance this group had, and 
 in time it got so accustomed to eating grass that 
 it could not imagine any other form of diet, and at 
 first would refuse even oysters when placed in 
 its way 1 Another group saw an opening in trees ; 
 it developed a long neck and became the giraffe. 
 But the fact that the giraffe lives on leaves, and 
 the sheep on grass, and the wolf on animal matter, 
 and that custom is in each so strong that at first 
 the creature will refuse any other kind of diet, 
 does not of itself prove that that diet is the best 
 or most physiologically suitable for it. In other 
 words, it is an assumption to suppose that " adap- 
 tation to environment " is the sole or even the 
 main factor in the constitution of well-marked 
 varieties or genera ; for this is to neglect (among 
 other things) the force of mere use or wont, which 
 has about the same import in race-growth that 
 momentum has in dynamics ; and causes the race, 
 once started in any direction, to maintain its line 
 of movement — and often in despite of its environ- 
 ment — even for thousands of years. 
 
 Returning to man we see him enveloped in a 
 myriad customs — local customs, class customs, 
 race customs, family customs, religious customs ; 
 customs in food, customs in clothing, customs in 
 furniture, form of habitation, industrial production, 
 art, social and municipal and national life, etc. ; 
 and the question arises. Where is the grain of 
 necessity which underlies it all ? How much 
 
 211
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 in each case is due to a real fitness in nature, and 
 how much to mere otiose habit ! The first thing 
 that meets my eye in glancing out of the window 
 is a tile on a neighboring roof. Why are tiles 
 made S-shaped in some localities and flat in others ? 
 Surely the conditions of wind and rain are much 
 the same in all places. Perhaps far back there 
 was a reason, but now nothing remains but — 
 custom. Why do we sit on chairs instead of 
 on the floor, as the Japanese do, or on cushions like 
 the Turk ? It is a custom, and perhaps it suits 
 with our other customs. The more we look into 
 our life and consider the immense variety of 
 habit in every department of it — even under 
 conditions to all appearances exactly similar — 
 the more are we impressed by the absence of any 
 very serious necessity in the forms we ourselves 
 are accustomed to. Each race, each class, each 
 section of the population, each unit even, vaunts 
 its own habits of life as superior to the rest, as 
 the only true and legitimate forms ; and peoples 
 and classes will go to war with each other in asser- 
 tion of their own special beliefs and practices ; 
 but the question that rather presses upon the 
 ingenuous and inquiring mind is, whether any 
 of us have got hold of much true life at all ? — 
 whether we are not rather mere multitudinous 
 varieties of caddis-worms shuffled up in the cast- 
 off skins and clothes and debris of those who have 
 gone before us, and with very little vitality of 
 our own perceptible within ? How many times 
 a day do we perform an action that is authentic 
 
 212
 
 Custom 
 
 and not a mere mechanical piece of repetition ? 
 Indeed, if our various actions and practices were 
 authentic and flowing from the true necessity, 
 perhaps we shouldn't quarrel with each other 
 over them so often as we do. 
 
 And then to come to the subject of morals. 
 These also are customs — divergent to the last de- 
 gree among different races, at different times, 
 or in different localities ; customs for which 
 it is often difficult to find any ground in reason 
 or the " fitness of things." Thieving is supposed 
 to be discountenanced among us, yet our present- 
 day trade-morality sanctions it in a thousand dif- 
 ferent forms ; and the respectable usurer (who 
 can hardly be said to be other than a thief) takes 
 a high place at the table of life. To hunt the 
 earth for game has from time immemorial been 
 considered the natural birthright and privilege 
 of man, until the landlord class (whom wicked 
 Socialists now denounce !) invented the crime 
 of poaching and hanged men for it. As to 
 marriage customs, in different times and among 
 different peoples, they have been simply innum- 
 erable. And here the sense of inviolability in 
 each case is most powerful. The severest penalties, 
 the most stringent public opinion, biting deep 
 down into the individual conscience, enforce the 
 various codes of various times and places ; yet 
 they all contradict each other. Polygamy in 
 one country, polyandry in the next ; brother and 
 sister marriage allowed at one time, marriage 
 with your mother's cousin forbidden at another ; 
 
 213
 
 Civilisation ; Its Cause and Cure 
 
 prostitution sacred in the temples of antiquity, 
 trampled under foot in the gutters of our great 
 cities of to-day ; monogamy respectable in one 
 land, a mark of class-inferiority in another ; celi- 
 bacy scorned by some sections of people, accepted 
 as the highest state by others ; and so on. 
 
 What are we to conclude from all this ? Is 
 it possible, once we have fairly faced the immense 
 variety of human life in every department of arts, 
 manners, and morals — a variety, too, existing 
 in a vast number of cases under conditions to 
 all intents and purposes quite similar — is it pos- 
 sible ever again to suppose that the particular 
 practices which we are accustomed to are very 
 much better (or, indeed, very much worse) than 
 the particular practices which others are accus- 
 tomed to ? We have been born, as I said at first, 
 into a sheath of custom which enfolds us with our 
 swaddling-clothes. When we begin to grow to 
 manhood v/e see what sort of a thing it is which 
 surrounds us. It is an old husk now. It does 
 not bear looking into ; it is rotten, it is inconsistent, 
 it is thoroughly indefensible ; yet very likely we 
 have to accept it. The caddis-worm has grown 
 to its tube and cannot leave it. A little spark of 
 vitality amid a heap of dead matter, all it can do 
 is to make its dwelling a little more convenient 
 in shape for itself, or (like the coral insect) to pro- 
 long its growth in the most favourable direction 
 for those that come after. The class, the caste, 
 the locality, the age in which we were born has 
 determined our form of life, and in that form very 
 
 214
 
 Custom 
 
 likely we must remain. But a change has come 
 over our minds. The vauntings of earlier days 
 we abandon. We^ at any rate, are no better than 
 anybody else, and at best, alas ! are only half 
 alive. 
 
 If these, then, are our conclusions, is it not 
 with justice that children and early races keep 
 so rigidly to the narrow path that custom has made 
 for them ? Have they not an instinctive feeling 
 that to forsake custom would be to launch out on 
 a trackless sea where life would cease to have any 
 special purpose or direction, and morality would 
 be utterly gulfed ? Custom for them is the line 
 of their growth ; it is the coral-branch from the 
 end of which the next insect builds ; it is the 
 hardening bark of the tree-twig which determines 
 the direction of the growing shoot. It may be 
 merely arbitrary, this custom, but that they do 
 not know ; its appearance of finality and necessity 
 may be quite illusive ; but the illusion is necessary 
 for life, and the arbitrariness is just what makes 
 one life different from another. Till he grows 
 to manhood^ the human being, he cannot do without 
 it. 
 
 And when he grows to manhood, what then } 
 Why he dies, and so becomes alive. The caddis- 
 fly leaves his tube behind and soars into the upper 
 air ; the creature abandons its barnacle existence 
 on the rock and swims at large in the sea. For 
 it is just when we die to custom that, for the first 
 time, we rise into the true life of humanity ; it 
 is just when we abandon all prejudice of our own 
 
 215
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 superiority over others, and become convinced 
 of our entire indefensibleness, that the world opens 
 out with comrade faces in all directions ; and 
 when we perceive how entirely arbitrary is the 
 setting of our own life, that the whole structure 
 collapses on which our apartness from others 
 rests, and we pass easily and at once into the great 
 ocean of freedom and equality. 
 
 This is, as it were, a new departure for man, 
 for which even to-day the old world, overlaid with 
 myriad customs now brought into obvious and 
 open conflict with each other, is evidently preparing. 
 The period of human infancy is coming to an 
 end. Now comes the time of manhood and true 
 vitality. 
 
 Possibly this is a law of history, that when 
 man has run through every variety of custom a 
 time comes for him to be freed from it — that is, 
 he uses it indifferently according to his require- 
 ments, and is no longer a slave to it ; all human 
 practices find their use, and none are forbidden. 
 At this point, whenever reached, " morals " come 
 to an end and humanity takes its place — that is to 
 say, there is no longer any code of action, but 
 the one object of all action is the deliverance of 
 the human being and the establishment of equality 
 between oneself and another, the entry into a new 
 life, which new life when entered into is glad and 
 perfect, because there is no more any effort or 
 strain in it ; but it is the recognition of oneself 
 in others, eternally. 
 
 Far as custom has carried man from man, 
 216
 
 Custom 
 
 yet when at last in the ever-branching series the 
 complete human being is produced, it knows at 
 once its kinship with all the other forms. " I 
 have passed my spirit in determination and com- 
 passion round the whole earth, and found only 
 equals and lovers." More, it knows its kinship 
 with the animals. It sees that it is only habit, 
 an illusion of difference, that divides ; and it 
 perceives after all that it is the same human creature 
 that flies in the air, and swims in the sea, or walks 
 biped upon the land. 
 
 217
 
 The two following chapters — though not part of 
 the original work — are included in the present edition 
 because they form continuations or expansions of the 
 chapters which criticise modern Science and modern 
 Morality respectively. The chapter entitled " A 
 Rational and Humane Science " is in fact a re- 
 print of an address given before the Humanitarian 
 League in London in 1896. // was first included 
 in the present volume in 1906. The chapter entitled 
 ''The New Morality " is^ with slight alterations ^ 
 a reprint of an article which appeared in the Albany 
 Review in September^ 1907, under the title " Morality 
 under Socialism " ; and it now appears in the present 
 book for the first time. 
 
 218
 
 A RATIONAL AND HUMANE 
 SCIENCE 
 
 IN bringing before you this subject of a 
 Rational and Humane Science you will 
 perhaps forgive me if I dwell for a few 
 moments on some points of personal history in 
 relation to it. After reading mathematics for 
 some four years at Cambridge, it happened to me 
 for the next ten years or so to be engaged in the 
 study of the physical sciences, and in lectures on 
 these subjects. Naturally, during the earlier part 
 of this period I accepted the current methods and 
 conclusions without any question. But as time 
 went on I became aware of a certain dissatisfac- 
 tion ; I felt that many of the laws of Science, 
 enounced as universal truths, were of very limited 
 application only, that many of the conclusions, so 
 strongly insisted on, were of quite doubtful validity ; 
 and at last this increasing dissatisfaction cul- 
 minated in a rather violent attack or criticism of 
 Modern Science which I wrote and published 
 about the year 1884.^ 
 
 ' Afterwards reprinted in a modified form, as " Mcdein Scitrce 
 —a Criticism," in the first edition (i?S9) cf the present lock. 
 
 219
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Now, looking back, at this interval of time, 
 though I admit that my attack was somewhat 
 hasty and crude in detail, I feel that in its main 
 contention it was thoroughly justified, and I do 
 not feel the least inclined to withdraw it. 
 
 What was that main contention ? It was as 
 follows. Modern Science is an attempt (and no 
 doubt it would accept this definition of itself) 
 to survey and classify the phenomena of the world 
 in the pure dry light of the intellect, uncoloured 
 by feeling ; and so far is an effort to separate the 
 intellectual in man from the merely perceptive, 
 the emotional, the moral, and so forth. It was 
 in this very fact that my criticism lay ; for I con- 
 tended that such a separation was in the long run 
 quite impossible. 
 
 But before proceeding to defend this position, 
 let me admit at once that this attempt of Modern 
 Science to get rid of human feeling and to look 
 at everything in the dry light of the intellect was 
 in some respects a very grand one. When you 
 consider what the Old-time Science was, with its 
 fancies and prejudices, its dragons pasturing upon 
 the sun and moon in eclipses, its immolations of 
 hundreds of human beings to appease some god 
 of pestilence or earthquake, its panics, its super- 
 stitions, and its incapability of regarding anything 
 except from the point of view of that thing's in- 
 fluence on man's own comfort and his little hopes 
 and fears, it was indeed a grand advance to try 
 and see fac/s, uncoloured and for themselves alone. 
 It was an effort of Man as it_were to rise above 
 
 220
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 himself, to which I accord the fullest credit and 
 honour. 
 
 And yet, during the time spoken of, it kept 
 growing on me : first, that the attempt was an 
 impossible one ; secondly, that the Science so-called 
 was not a true Science ; and thirdly, that in its 
 pretence to an intellectual exactitude which it 
 did not really possess, this Modern Science was 
 leading to a narrow-mindedness and a dogmatism 
 as bad as the old. 
 
 There is in fact (so I think) a fallacy in the attempt. 
 But how shall I describe it ? Our relations to 
 the world may, quite roughly speaking, be divided 
 into three groups — those that are sensuous and 
 perceptional, those that are purely intellectual, 
 and those that are of an emotional and moral order. 
 Take any object of Nature — a bird, for instance. 
 We may look upon the bird as an object of sense- 
 perceptions — its form, its colour, its song, and 
 so forth. Some people attain to extraordinary 
 skill and quickness in this department, recognising 
 in a moment the note or even the flight of a songster. 
 Then again we may look upon the bird from the 
 intellectual side — we may study it in relation to 
 its surroundings — the form of its wings, the length 
 of its leg, the character of its beak, and their adap- 
 tation to its habits, to its locality, to its food, and 
 so forth. Thus we may get a whole series of 
 purely intellectual results — relations of the bird 
 to the world in which it lives. This is the special 
 field of the present-day Science. But, again, we 
 may regard the bird in its emotional and moral 
 
 221
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 relations to us. One man at the sight of it may 
 be affected with admiration of its beauty, with 
 tenderness towards it, or sympathy ; another 
 may be stimulated to wonder whether he can kill 
 it, or v/hether it is good to eat ! Modern Science 
 is indifferent to what this last set of relations may 
 be ; it does not concern itself much with the first ; 
 but it takes the middle term, the purely intellec- 
 tual, and seeks to abstract that from the others, 
 to study the bird, or whatever the object may 
 be, in the one aspect only. But can that really 
 be done ? The answer is, of course, No. 
 
 To show my general meaning, and why I 
 consider the claim an impossible one, let us 
 imagine a little cell — one of the myriads which 
 constitute the human body — professing in the same 
 sort of way to stand outside the body and explain 
 the laws of the other cells and the body at large. 
 It is obvious that the little cell, swept along in 
 the currents of the body and swayed by its emotions, 
 in close proximity and contact with some portions 
 of the organism, and far remote from others, 
 cannot possibly pretend to any such impartial 
 judgment. It is obvious not only that it would 
 not have all the clues of the problem at its command, 
 but that its own needs and experiences would 
 prejudice it frightfully in the interpretation of 
 such clues as it had. Yet man is such a little 
 cell in the body of Nature, or, if you like, in 
 the body of the Society of which he forms a 
 part, 
 j^^ There is, however, one way, it seems to me, 
 
 222
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 in which a cell in the human body might come 
 to an adequate understanding of the body ; and 
 that would be rather through experience than 
 through direct reasoning. It is conceivable that 
 there might be some cell in the body which, through 
 the nerves, etc., was in actual touch and sym- 
 pathetic relationship with every other cell. Then 
 it certainly would have the materials of the required 
 solution. Every change in other parts of the 
 body would register itself in this particular cell ; 
 and its little brain (if it had one), without exactly 
 making any great effort, would reflect sympatheti- 
 cally the structure of the whole body — would 
 become, in fact, a mirror of it. This will perhaps 
 give you the key to my notion of what a true 
 Science might be. 
 
 But before proceeding to that, I want to go a 
 little more in detail into the fallacy of the absolute 
 intellectual view of Science. I say, first, that a 
 complete summary of any object or process in 
 Nature is impossible ; secondly, that such sum- 
 mary as we do make is, and must inevitably and 
 necessarily be, coloured by the underlying feeling 
 with which we approach that phase of Nature. 
 
 To take the first point. You say, Why is a 
 complete summary not possible } A watch or 
 other machine may be completely described and 
 defined ; why should not (with a little more 
 knowledge) a fir-tree, or the human eye, or 
 the solar system, be completely described and 
 defined .'* 
 
 And this brings us to what may be called the 
 223
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Machine-view of Science. It is curious (and yet 
 I think it will presently be seen that it is quite 
 what might have been expected) that during this 
 century or so, in which Machinery has played 
 such an important part in our daily and social life, 
 mechanical ideas have come to colour all our 
 conceptions of Science and the Universe. Modern 
 Science holds it as a kind of ideal (even though 
 finding it at times difficult to realise) to reduce 
 everything to mechanical action, and to show each 
 process of Nature intelligible in the same sense 
 as a Machine is intelligible. Yet this conception, 
 this ideal, involves a complete fallacy. For the 
 moment you come to think of it, you see that 
 no part of Nature really even resembles a 
 machine. 
 
 What is a machine in the ordinary sense } It is 
 an aggregation of parts put together to fulfil 
 certain definite actions and no others. A sewing- 
 machine fulfils the purpose of sewing, a watch 
 fulfils that of keeping time, and they fulfil those 
 purposes only. All their parts subserve those 
 actions, and in that sense may be completely 
 described — as far as just their mechanical action 
 is concerned — the same by a thousand mechanicians. 
 But I make bold to say that no object in Nature 
 fulfils just one action, or series of actions, and no 
 others. On the contrary, every object fulfils an 
 endless series of actions. 
 
 Let us take the Human Eye. And I choose 
 this as an instance most adverse to my position, 
 for there is no doubt that the Human Eye is one 
 
 224
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 of the most highly specialised objects in creation. 
 Helmholtz, as you know, is said to have remarked 
 concerning it that if an Optician had sent him an 
 instrument so defective he should have returned 
 it with his compliments. Helmholtz was a great 
 man, and I will not do him the injustice to suppose 
 that he did not know what he was saying. He 
 knew that, regarded as a machine for focussing 
 rays of light, the eye was decidedly defective ; 
 but then he knew well enough, doubtless, zvhy 
 it was defective — namely, because it is by no 
 means merely such a machine, but a great deal 
 more. 
 
 The Eye, in fact, not only fulfils the action of 
 focussing rays of light — like an Opera Glass or 
 a Telescope — but it might be compared to another 
 instrument, a Photographic Camera, in respect 
 of the fact that it forms a picture of the outer world 
 which it throws on a sensitive plate at the back 
 — the Retina. But then, again, it is unlike any 
 of these " machines," in the fact that it was never 
 made by any Optician, human or divine, for any 
 one definite purpose. On the contrary, as we 
 know, it has grown, it has evolved ; it has come 
 down to us over the centuries, and over thousands 
 and thousands of centuries, from dim beginnings 
 in the lowliest organisms who first conceived the 
 faculty of Sight, continually modified, continually 
 shapen by small increments in various directions, 
 in accordance with the myriad needs of a myriad 
 creatures, living, some of them in water, some 
 of them in air, requiring some of them to see at 
 
 225 p
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 close quarters, some at great distances, some by 
 one kind of light, some by another, and so forth. 
 So that to-day it not only contains a great range 
 of inherited, yet latent, faculties, but it is actually, 
 in its complex structure, an epitome and partial 
 record of its own extraordinary history. 
 
 As an instance of this last point, let me remind 
 you that Sight was originally a differentiation of 
 Touch. The light, the shadows, falling on the 
 sensitive general surface of a primitive organism 
 provoke a tactile irritation. In the course of evolu- 
 tion this sense specialises itself at some point of 
 the surface into what we call Sight. Now, to-day, 
 when the little picture formed by the fore-part 
 of the Human Eye falls upon the Retina at the 
 back, it falls upon a screen formed by the myriad 
 congregated finger-tips, so to speak, of the optic 
 nerve — the rods and cones, so-called — which cover 
 like a mosaic the whole ground of the Retina, and 
 jeel with their sensitive points the images of the 
 objects in the outer world. And so Sight is still 
 Touch — it is the power of feeling or touching at 
 a distance — as one sometimes in fact becomes 
 aware in looking at things. 
 
 But then again on and beyond all these things 
 — beyond the focussing and photographing of 
 rays, beyond the latent adaptations to the needs 
 of innumerable creatures, and the epitomising of 
 ages of evolution — the Human Eye has faculties 
 even more far-reaching perhaps and wonderful. 
 It is the marvellous organ of human Expression. 
 By the dilatations and contractions of the iris, by 
 
 226 
 
 1'
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 the altering convexities of the lens and the eye- 
 ball, and in a hundred other ways, it manages 
 somehow to convey intelligence of Command, 
 Control, Power, of Pity, Love, Sympathy, and all 
 those myriad emotions which flit through the 
 human mind — an endless series — a perfect encyclo- 
 paedia. It is difficult even to imagine the eye 
 without this power of language. And what other 
 functions it may have it is not necessary to inquire. 
 Highly specialised though it is, it is already 
 obvious enough that to call it a Machine for 
 focussing rays of light is monstrously and ludi- 
 crously inadequate — even as it would be to call 
 the Heart (the very centre of emotion and life, 
 and the symbol of human love and courage) a 
 common Pump. 
 
 Nature is an infinitude, and can at no point be 
 circumscribed by the human intellect. Nor ob- 
 viously is there any sense in taking one little portion 
 of Nature and isolating it from the rest, and then 
 describing it exhaustively as if it really were so iso- 
 lated. A thousand mechanicians will agree, as 
 I have said, in their description of a machine, 
 because in fact they will agree to view the machine 
 just in the one aspect of its particular action ; 
 but ask a thousand people to describe one and the 
 same face — or, better still, get a thousand por- 
 trait-painters, skilled in their art, to paint portraits 
 of the same face — and you know perfectly well 
 that all the likenesses will be different. And why 
 will they be different } Simply because every face, 
 however rude, has infinite sides, infinite aspects, 
 
 227
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and each painter selects what he paints from his 
 own point of view. And the same is true of every 
 object and process in Nature. 
 
 Then if these things are true (you ask again) how 
 is it that scientific men do arrive at definite con- 
 clusions, and do agree with each other so far as 
 they do ? 
 
 It is, and obviously must be, by the method of 
 isolation ; by the method of selecting certain aspects 
 of the problems presented to them, and ignoring 
 others. For since all the relations of any pheno- 
 menon of Nature cannot possibly be compassed, 
 the only way must be to ignore some and concentrate 
 attention on others ; and when there is a kind of 
 tacit agreement as to which aspects shall be passed 
 over and which considered, there is naturally an 
 agreement in the results. Thus by this method, 
 waiving all other aspects of the problem, the 
 Eye may be described and defined as an optical 
 instrument, the Heart as a common Pump, and 
 the Solar System as a neat illustration of certain 
 mechanical laws discovered by Galileo and 
 Newton. 
 
 On the subject of the Solar System and Astron- 
 omy I will dwell for a few moments, as here — in 
 this great example of the perfection of Modern 
 Science — we have again a case apparently most 
 adverse to my contention. The generalisations 
 by v/hich Newton established the nature of the 
 planetary orbits has been a wonder to succeeding 
 generations ; the positions of the planets can 
 be foretold, eclipses can be calculated with 
 
 228
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 amazing accuracy. Yet every tyro in Mathe- 
 matics knows that the equations which give these 
 results can only be solved by what is called 
 " neglecting small quantities " — that is, the prob- 
 lems cannot be solved in their entirety, but by 
 leaving out certain terms and elements, which do 
 not appear important, a solution can be approached. 
 And naturally it has been an important point to 
 show that these small quantities may be safely 
 neglected. In the case, for instance, of the orbits 
 of the planets round the sun, and of the moon 
 round the earth, it was for a long time taken as 
 proved that the small variations in the shape and 
 position of each elliptic orbit would never be 
 accompanied by any permanent increase or dimi- 
 nution in its size — that is, that the mean distances 
 of the planets from the sun, and of the moon from 
 the earth, would always remain within certain 
 limits. Of late years however Professor George 
 Darwin, taking up one of these poor little neglected 
 quantities in the theory of the moon, found that 
 it indicated after all very vast and very permanent, 
 though of course very slow, changes in her mean 
 distance from the earth ; so that now it appears 
 probable that the Moon's true orbit, instead of being 
 a limited ellipse, is a continually though gradually 
 enlarging Spiral, which may some day carry the 
 Moon to a great distance from the earth. If an 
 eclipse were calculated for twenty years in advance 
 on the Elliptic theory or the Spiral theory, it would 
 probably — so slow would be the divergence — make 
 no perceptible difference ; but in a hundred 
 
 229
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 centuries the two theories would lead to results 
 utterly different. 
 
 Thus the certitude of Astronomy as a Science 
 arises largely from the fact that our times are so 
 brief compared with Celestial periods. The 
 proper periods of Celestial changes are to be 
 reckoned by thousands, perhaps millions, of years ; 
 but we, ignoring that aspect of the problem, fix 
 our observations on one little point of time, and 
 are quite satisfied with the result ! 
 
 As another illustration of my meaning, consider 
 the Fixed Stars, so-called. These stars in their 
 groups and clusters, which we know so well by 
 sight, have remained apparently in the very same, 
 or nearly the same, relative positions during all 
 the 2,000 or 3,000 years that we have any record 
 of the shapes of the Constellations. Yet now by 
 minute telescopic and spectroscopic examination 
 we know that they are moving, and have been 
 moving all the time, in various differing directions 
 with great velocities, amounting to miles per second, 
 Nevertheless, so great are the spaces concerned, 
 so great the times, that all this long period has 
 not sufficed to bring them into any greatly changed 
 attitude with regard to each other ! What would 
 you think of an intelligent foreigner who, coming 
 to England to study the game of cricket, remained 
 on the cricket field for a quarter of a minute — 
 during which time the players would have hardly 
 changed their positions — and having noted a few 
 points, went away and wrote a volume on the 
 kws of the game } And what are we to think of 
 
 230
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 poor little Man who, having noted the stars for 
 a few centuries, is so sure that he understands 
 their movements, and that he is versed in all the 
 " ordinances of heaven." 
 
 Thus it would appear that every Nature-problem 
 is so enormously complex that it can only be got at 
 by what we have called the Method of Ignorance. 
 Let us take a practical Science problem like that 
 of Vaccination. The question here, put in its 
 simplest terms, seems to be. Whether Vaccination, 
 with calf or human lymph, prevents or alleviates 
 Smallpox ; and if it does, whether it does so without 
 engendering other evils at least as great. At 
 first sight this may appear to you a very simple 
 question, and easy to solve ; but the moment you 
 come to think about it, you see its extreme com- 
 plexity. In the first place, it is obvious that in 
 a question like this, individual cases afford no 
 test. It is obvious that the fact that A. is vacci^ 
 nated and has not taken small-pox proves nothing, 
 for there is nothing to show that he would have 
 taken it if he had not been vaccinated. And 
 when you have got people vaccinated by the hundred 
 and the thousand, you still are not certain ; for 
 these people may belong to a certain class, or a 
 certain locality, or may have certain habits and 
 conditions of life, which may account for their 
 comparative immunity, and these causes must 
 be eliminated before any definite conclusion can 
 be reached. Thus it is not till the great mass 
 of the population is vaccinated that we can expect 
 reliable statistics. But the introduction of a praq^ 
 
 231
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 tice of this kind on so great a scale necessarily 
 takes a long period of years, and meanwhile 
 changes are taking place in the habits of the 
 people, Sanitation is being improved, customs 
 of Diet are altering, possibly (as so often happens 
 in the history of an epidemic) the disease, having 
 run its course, is beginning spontaneously to decline. 
 And thus another series of possible causes has 
 to be discussed. 
 
 Then, supposing the question, notwithstanding 
 all these difficulties, to be so far settled in favour 
 of the present system — there still arises that 
 whole other series of difficulties with regard to 
 the possibility of the spread of other diseases by 
 the practice, and with regard to the extent of such 
 spread, before we can arrive at any finale. This 
 series of questions is almost as complex as the 
 other ; and it includes that great element of 
 uncertainty — the question what interval of time 
 may elapse between inoculation with a disease 
 and its actual appearance. For if in several 
 cases children break out with erysipelas immedi- 
 ately after vaccination, of course there is a certain 
 presumption that vaccination has been the cause ; 
 but if the erysipelas only appears some years 
 after, its connection with the operation may, though 
 real, be impossible to trace. 
 
 The matter standing thus, it seems to us almost 
 a mystery how it was that the medical authorities 
 of the early days of Jennerism were so cocksure 
 of their conclusions — until we remember that 
 in arriving at those conclusions they practically 
 
 232
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 ignored all these other points that I have mentioned, 
 like changes of Sanitation, spontaneous decline 
 of Small-pox, the spread of other diseases, etc., 
 and simply limited themselves to one small aspect 
 of the problem. But now, after this interval of 
 time, when the neglected facts and aspects have 
 meanwhile forced themselves on our attention, how 
 remarkable is the change of attitude as evidenced 
 by the finding of the late Royal Commission I 
 (1896). 
 
 From all this do not understand me to deride 
 Science — for I have no intention of doing that ; 
 on the contrary, I think the debt we owe to modern 
 investigation quite incalculable ; but I only wish 
 to warn you how complex all these problems 
 are, how impossible that notion of settling even 
 one of them by a cut-and-dried intellectual 
 formula. 
 
 But you will ask (for this is the second point 
 I mentioned some little time back) hozv people's 
 emotions and feelings come in to colour their 
 scientific conclusions } And the answer is — very 
 simply, namely by directing their choice as to 
 what aspects of the problem they will ignore and 
 what aspects they will envisage ; by determining 
 their point of view, in fact. To return to that 
 illustration of several portrait-painters painting 
 the same face ; just as each painter is led by his 
 feeling, his sympathies, his general temperament, 
 to select certain points in the face and to pass over 
 others, so each group of scientific men in each 
 generation is led by its sympathies, its idiosyn- 
 
 233
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 crasies, to envisage certain aspects of the problems 
 of the day and to ignore others. 
 
 The whole history of Science illustrates this. 
 We are all familiar with the way in which the 
 predilections of religious feeling in the time of 
 Copernicus and Galileo retarded the progress 
 of astronomical Science. As long as people 
 believed that a divine drama of redemption had 
 been enacted on this earth alone, they naturally 
 concluded that this earth was the centre of the 
 universe, and refused to look at facts which con- 
 tradicted their conclusion. When Galileo turned 
 his newly-made telescope on Jupiter and saw it 
 circled by its satellites, he saw in this an image 
 of the Copernican system and of the planets circling 
 round the central Sun ; but when he asked others 
 to share his observation and his inference, they 
 would not. " O, my dear Kepler," he writes in 
 a letter to his fellow astronomer, " how I wish we 
 could have one hearty laugh together. Here at 
 Padua is the principal Professor of Philosophy, 
 whom I have repeatedly and urgently requested 
 to look at the moon and planets through my glass ; 
 but he pertinaciously refuses to do so. What 
 shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious 
 folly ! " 
 
 And though we laugh at the folly of those before 
 us, we do the same things ourselves to-day. Take 
 the science of Political Economy. A revolution 
 has taken place in that, almost comparable to the 
 change from the geocentric to the heliocentric 
 view in Astronomy. During the distinctively
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 commercial period of the last loo years, the leading 
 students of social science, being themselves filled 
 with the spirit of the time, have been fain to look 
 upon the acquisition of private wealth as the one 
 absorbing motive of human nature ; and so it 
 has come about that the economists, from Adam 
 Smith to John Stuart Mill, have founded their 
 science on self-seeking and competition, as the 
 base of their analysis. To-day another series 
 of economists coming to the front — their minds 
 preoccupied with the great facts of Community 
 of life and Co-operation — have discovered that 
 Society is in the main an illustration of these 
 latter principles, and have evolved a quite new 
 phase of the science. It is not that Society has 
 changed so much during this period, as that the 
 altered point of view of the students of Society 
 has caused them simply to fix their attention on 
 a different aspect of the problem and a different 
 range of facts. 
 
 I have alluded already to the way in which 
 the prevalent use of Machinery in practical life 
 has affected our mental outlook on the world. 
 It is curious that during this mechanical age of 
 the last lOO years or so, we have not only come to 
 regard Society in a mechanical light, as a concourse 
 of separate individuals bound together by a mere 
 cash-nexus, but have extended the same idea 
 to the universe at large, which we look upon 
 as a concourse of separate atoms, associated to- 
 gether by gravitation, or possibly by mere mutual 
 impact. Yet it is certain that both these views 
 
 ^35
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 are false, since the individuals who compose 
 Society are not separate from each other ; and 
 the theory that the universe, in its ultimate analysis, 
 is composed of a vast number of discrete atoms 
 is simply unthinkable. 
 
 When we come to a practical and modern ques- 
 tion like Medicine, the influence of the spirit in 
 which it is approached on the course of the science 
 is very easy to see. For if the science of Medicine 
 is approached (as it perhaps mostly is to-day) 
 in a spirit of combined Fear and Self-indulgence 
 — fear for one's own personal safety, combined 
 with a kind of anxiety to continue living in the 
 indulgence of habits known to be unhealthy — 
 if it is approached in this uncomfortable and 
 contradictory state of mind, it is pretty obvious 
 that its course will be similarly uncomfortable : 
 that it will consist for the most part in a search for 
 drugs which shall, without effort on our part, 
 palliate the effects of our misconduct ; in the 
 discovery, as in a kind of nightmare, that the air 
 round us is full of billions of microbes ; in a terri- 
 fied study of these messengers of disease, and in 
 a frantic effort to ward them off by inoculations, 
 vaccinations, vivisections, and so forth, without 
 end. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the science is approached 
 from quite a different side — from that of the 
 love of Health, and the desire to make life lovely, 
 beautiful and clean ; if the student is filled not 
 only with this, but with a great belief in the essential 
 power of Man, and his command in creation, to 
 
 236
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 control not only all these little microbes whose 
 name is Legion, but through his mind all the 
 processes of his body ; then it is obvious enough 
 that a whole series of different facts will arise 
 before his eyes and become the subject of his 
 study — facts of sanitation, of the laws of cleanly 
 life, diet, clothing and so forth, methods of control, 
 and the details and practice of the influence of 
 the mental upon the physical part of man — 
 facts quite equally real with the others, equally 
 important, equally numerous perhaps and com- 
 plex, but forming a totally different range of 
 science. 
 
 In conclusion, you begin to see doubtless that 
 I do not believe in a science of mere Formulas, 
 which can be poured from one brain to another 
 like water in a pot. I believe in something more 
 organic to Humanity — which shall combine Sense, 
 Intellect and Soul ; which shall include the keenest 
 training of the Senses, the exactest use of the 
 Brain, and the subordination of both of these to 
 the finest and most generous attitude of Man 
 towards Nature. 
 
 To come to quite practical aspects, I think that 
 Physical Science, and for that matter Natural 
 History too, ought to be founded on the closest 
 observation and actual intimacy with Nature. 
 It is notorious that in many respects the per- 
 ceptions, the Nature-intuitions, of savage races 
 far outdo those of civilised man. We have let 
 that side go slack, and too often the man of science 
 when he comes out of his study is a mere baby 
 
 ^Z7
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 in the external world. I look back with a kind 
 of shame when I think that I studied the mathema- 
 tical side of Astronomy for three or four years 
 at Cambridge and absolutely at the time hardly 
 knew one star from another in the sky. But 
 such are the methods of teaching that have been 
 in use. They ought however to be reversed, 
 and practical acquaintance with the facts should 
 come a long way first, and then be succeeded by 
 inductive and deductive reasoning when the diffi- 
 culties of the subject have forced themselves on 
 the student's mind. 
 
 Then in Natural History and Botany I think 
 that we have hitherto not only neglected the 
 perceptive side, but also what may be called the 
 intuitive and emotional aspects. If any one will 
 attend to the subject, I believe they will perceive 
 that there are dormant in the mind the finest in- 
 tuitions and instincts of relationship to the various 
 animals and plants — intuitions which have played 
 a far more important part in the life of barbaric 
 races than they do to-day. ^ Primitive peoples 
 have a remarkable instinct of the medicinal and 
 dietetic uses of herbs and plants — an instinct 
 which we also find well developed among animals 
 — and I believe that this kind of knowledge would 
 grow largely if, so to speak, it were given a chance. 
 
 ' Elisee Reclus, in his remarkable paper, La Grande Famille, 
 points out the wide-reaching Friendship, and free alliance for 
 various purposes, of primitive man with the animals, existing 
 long before the so-called " domestication " of the latter. See 
 Humane Reviezv, January, 1906. 
 
 238
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 The formal classification of animals and plants 
 — which now forms the main part of these 
 sciences — would then come in simply as an aid 
 and an auxiliary to the more direct and human 
 study. 
 
 Again, let us take the science of Physiology. 
 At present this is mainly carried on by means 
 of Dissection or Vivisection. But both these 
 methods are unsatisfactory. Dissection, because 
 it amounts to studying the organisation of a 
 living creature by the examination of its dead 
 carcase ; and Vivisection, because it is not only 
 open to a similar objection, but because it necessarily 
 violates the highest relation of man to the animal 
 he is studying. There is, I believe, another 
 method — a method which has been known in the 
 East for centuries, though little regarded in the 
 West — which may perhaps be called the method 
 of Health. It consists in rendering the body, 
 by proper habits of life, pure and healthy, till 
 it becomes, as it were, transparent to the inner 
 eye, and then projecting the consciousness inward 
 so as to become almost as sensible of the structure 
 and function of the various internal organs, as 
 it usually is of the outer surface of the body. Of 
 course this is a process which cannot be effectu- 
 ated at once, and which may need help and cor- 
 roboration by external methods of study, but I 
 believe it is one which will lead to considerable 
 results. There is no doubt that many of the 
 Yogis of India attain to great skill in it. 
 
 Similarly, from what we have already said 
 239
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 about Political Economy, it is obvious that satis- 
 factory results in that science must depend im- 
 mensely on the high degree of social instinct and 
 feeling with which the student approaches it, 
 and on the thoroughness of his acquaintance with 
 the actual life of a people ; and that the develop- 
 ment of these factors is fully as important a 
 part of the science as that which consists in the 
 logical ordering and arrangement of the material 
 obtained. 
 
 I need not, I think, go any further into detail 
 of new methods in each Science. You remem- 
 ber what I said at the beginning about the Cell 
 studying the Body of which it formed a part. We 
 may imagine, if we like, three stages in this process. 
 In the first stage the Cell regards the other cells 
 and the Body simply from the point of view of 
 how they affect //, and its comfort and safety. 
 This might be taken to correspond to the Old- 
 time Science. In the second stage the Cell, with 
 its tiny experience of the other cells and the small 
 part of the body in which it is placed, becomes 
 highly intellectual, and professes to lay down the 
 laws of the structure of the body generally. This 
 corresponds to the attitude of Modern Science. 
 In the third stage the Cell, growing and evolving, 
 and coming daily into closer sympathetic relation- 
 ship with all parts of the body, begins to find its 
 true relation to the other cells, not to use them^ 
 but to fulfil its part in the whole. Gradually 
 drawing all the threads together and coming 
 more and more, so to say, into a central position, 
 
 240
 
 A Rational and Humane Science 
 
 it at last in its little brain spontaneously and in- 
 evitably reflects the whole, and becomes the mirror 
 of it. This would answer to what we have called 
 a really rational and humane Science. 
 
 Man has to find and to feel his true relation to 
 other creatures and to the whole of which he is 
 a part, and has to use his brain to further this. 
 Science zV, as we all know, the search for Unity. 
 That is its ideal. It unites innumerable pheno- 
 mena under one law ; and then it unites many 
 laws under one higher ; always seeking for the 
 ultimate complete integration. But (is it not 
 obvious ?) Man cannot find that unity oj the 
 Whole until he feels his unity with the Whole. 
 To found a Science of one-ness on the murderous 
 Warfare and insane Competition of men with each 
 other, and on the Slaughter and Vivisection of 
 animals — the search for unity on the practice of 
 disunity — is an absurdity, which can only in the 
 long run reveal itself as such. 
 
 I do not know whether it seems obvious to 
 you, but it does to me, that Man will never find 
 in theory the unity of outer Nature till he reaches 
 in practice the unity of his own. When he has 
 learnt to harmonise in himself all his powers, 
 bodily and mental, his desires, faculties, needs, 
 and bring them into perfect co-operation — when 
 he has found the true hierarchy of himself — 
 then somehow I think that Nature round him 
 will reflect this order, and range itself in clear 
 and intelligible harmony about him. 
 
 But I can say no more. I have dragged you 
 
 241 Q
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 by the neck, as it were, through a recondite and 
 difficult subject ; and even so I do not feel that 
 I have by any means done justice to it. But it is 
 possible, perhaps, that I have cast the germ of an 
 idea among you, which, if you think over it at 
 leisure, may develop into something of value. 
 
 7 yz
 
 THE NEW MORALITY 
 
 THE tendency of the Evolution Theory, 
 as it penetrates human thought, is to rub 
 out lines — the old lines of formal classi- 
 fication. We no longer now put in a class apart 
 those animals which have horns or cloven hooves, 
 because we find that continuous descent and close 
 kinship weave relations which are not bounded 
 by horns or hooves. And, for a not dissimilar 
 reason, modern thought, based on the theory 
 of evolution, is tending to rub out the hard and 
 fast lines between moral Right and Wrong — the 
 old formal classifications of actions as some in their 
 nature good, and some in their nature bad. 
 
 The Eastern, or at least Indian, thought and 
 religion rubbed out these lines long ago. Its 
 philosophy indeed was founded on a theory 
 of Evolution — the continuous evolution or 
 emanation of the Many from the One. It 
 could not therefore regard any class of beings 
 or creatures as essentially bad, or any class of 
 actions as essentially wrong, since all sprang 
 from a common Root. The only essential evil 
 was ignorance (avidya) — that is, the fact of the 
 
 '243
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 being or creature not knowing or perceiving its 
 emanation from, or kinship with, the One — 
 and of course any action done under this condi- 
 tion of avidya^ however outwardly correct, was 
 essentially wrong ; while on the other hand all 
 actions done by beings fully realising and con- 
 scious of their union with the One were necessarily 
 right. 
 
 Of this attitude towards Right and Wrong 
 there are abundant instances in the Upanishads. 
 The choice of the path does not lie between Good 
 and Bad, as in the Pilgrim s Progress^ but it lies 
 above and in a region transcending them both. 
 " By the serenity of his thoughts a man blots 
 out all actions, whether good or bad.''^ " He 
 does not distress himself with the thought, Why 
 did I not do what is good ? Why did I do what 
 is bad ? " 2 All religions indeed, by the very 
 fact of their being religions, have indicated a 
 sphere above morality, to which their followers 
 shall and must aspire. What else is St. Paul's 
 reiterated charge to escape from the dominion of 
 sin and law, into the glorious liberty of the chil- 
 dren of God ? And in all ages the great mystics 
 — those who stand near the fountain-sources of 
 evolution and emanation — have seen and said the 
 same. Says Spinoza : — " With regard to good 
 and evil, these terms indicate nothing positive 
 in things considered in themselves, nor are they 
 anything else than modes of thought, or notions 
 
 I Mattra-jana-Brahmana-lJpanishad, vi. 34, 4. 
 * Taittiriyaka-Up, ii. 9, etc. 
 244
 
 The New Morality 
 
 which we form from the comparison of one thing 
 with another. For one and the same thing may 
 at the same time be both good and evil, or in- 
 different." I 
 
 Here indeed, in these pregnant words, we 
 come upon the very root of the matter. A thing, 
 an action, may be called good or bad in respect to 
 a certain purpose or object ; but in itself, No. 
 Wine may be good for the encouragement of 
 sociability, but may be bad for the liver. The 
 Sabbath-day may be pronounced a beneficial 
 institution from some points of view, but not from 
 others. A scrupulous respect for private property 
 may certainly be a help to settled social life ; but 
 the practice of thieving — as recommended by 
 Plato — may be very useful to check the lust of 
 private riches. To speak of wine as in its nature 
 good or bad is manifestly absurd ; and the same 
 of a pious respect for private property or the 
 Sabbath-day. These things are good under 
 certain conditions or for certain purposes, and 
 bad under other conditions or for other purposes. 
 But of course it belongs and goes with the brute 
 externalising tendency of the mind, to stereotype 
 the actual material thing — which should be only 
 the vehicle of the spirit — and give /'/ a character 
 and a cult as good or bad. The Sabbath ceases 
 to be made for man, and man is made for the 
 Sabbath. Law, Custom, Pharisaism, and Self- 
 righteousness spring up and usurp the sphere 
 of morality, and all the histories of savage 
 
 I Spinoza's Etkic, part iv. 
 245
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 and civilised nations, with their endless fetishes 
 and taboos and superstitions and ceremonies, and 
 caste-marks and phylacteries, and petty regulations 
 and proprieties, — including bitter scorn and per- 
 secution of those who do not fulfil them, — are 
 but illustrations of this process. 
 
 All the prophets and saviours of the world have 
 been for the Spirit as against the letter — and the 
 teachings of all religions have in their turn become 
 literalised and fossilised 1 Perhaps there has been 
 no greater anti-literal than Jesus of Nazareth, 
 and yet perhaps no religion has become more a 
 thing of forms and dogmas than that which passes 
 under his name. Even his counsels of Gentle- 
 ness and Love — which one would indeed have 
 thought might escape this process — have been 
 corrupted into mere prescriptions of morality, 
 such as those of Non-resistance, and of philan- 
 thropic Altruism. 
 
 It seems strange indeed that so great a man 
 as Tolstoy should have lent himself to this process 
 — to the pinning down of the excellent spirit of 
 Christ (who by the way was man enough to 
 drive the money-changers out of the Temple) 
 to a mere formula, as one might pin a dragon-fly 
 to a labelled card — TJiou shall not use Violence : 
 thou shalt not Resist ! And all the while to cleave 
 to a formula only means to admit the evil in some 
 other shape which the formula does not meet 
 — to forswear the stick only means to resort to 
 rebuke and sarcasm in self-defence, which may 
 inflict more pain and a deeper scar, and in some 
 
 246
 
 The New Morality 
 
 cases more injury, than the stick ; or if self- 
 defence in any shape is quite forsworn then that 
 only means to resign and abandon one's place in 
 the world completely. 
 
 And the same of the somev/hat spooney Altruism, 
 which was at one time much recommended as the 
 maxim of conduct. For all the while it is notorious 
 that the specially altruistic people are as a rule 
 painfully dull and uninteresting, and afford far 
 less life and charm to those around them than many 
 who are frankly egotistic ; and so by following 
 a formula of Altruism it seems they wreck the very 
 work they set before themselves to do — namely, 
 that of making the world brighter! 
 
 Against these weaknesses of Christianity 
 Nietzsche was a healthy reaction. It was he 
 insisted on the terms " good " and " bad " being 
 restored to their proper use, as terms of relation — 
 *' good " for what ? " bad " for what ? But his re- 
 action against maudlin altruism and non-resistance 
 led him towards a pitfall in the opposite direction, 
 towards the erection of the worship of Force 
 almost into a formula. Thou s/iaU use Violence, 
 thou shaU Resist. His contempt for the feeble 
 and the spooney and the knock-kneed and the 
 humbug is very delightful and entertaining, and, 
 as I say, healthy in the sense of reaction ; but 
 one does not get a very clear idea what the strength 
 which Nietzsche glorifies is for, or whither it is 
 going to lead. His blonde beasts and his laugh- 
 ing lions may represent the Will to Power ; but 
 Nietzsche seems to have felt, himself, that this 
 
 247
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 latter alone would not suffice, and so he passed 
 on to his discovery or invention of the Beyond- 
 man, — i.e. of a childlike being who, without argu- 
 ment, affirms and creates, and before whom institu- 
 tions and conventions dissolve, as it were of their 
 own accord. I This was a stroke of genius ; but 
 even so it leaves doubtful what the relation of 
 such Beyond-men to each other may be, and 
 whether, if they have no common source of life, 
 their actions will not utterly cancel and destroy 
 each other. 
 
 The truth is that Nietzsche never really pene- 
 trated to the realisation of that farther state of 
 consciousness in which the deep underlying unity 
 of man with Nature and his fellows is perceived 
 and felt. He saw apparently that there is a life 
 and an inspiration of life beyond all technical 
 good and evil. But for some reason — partly 
 because of the natural difficulty of the subject, 
 partly perhaps because the Eastern outlook was 
 uncongenial to his mind — he never found the 
 solution which he needed ; and his outline of 
 the Superman remains cloudy and uncertain, 
 vague and variously interpreted by followers and 
 critics. 
 
 The question arises. What do we need ? We 
 are to-day, in this matter, in a somewhat parlous 
 state. The old codes of Morality are moribund ; 
 the Ten Commandments command only a very 
 
 ' It must be remembered that Nietzsche supposes three stages 
 of the spirit — (i) the Camel, (2) the Lion, and (3) the Child. 
 And the Beyond-man properly corresponds to the last stage, 
 
 248
 
 The New Morality 
 
 qualified assent ; the Christian religion as a real 
 inspiration of practical life and conduct is dead ; 
 the social conventions and Mrs. Grundy remain, 
 feebly galling and officious. What are we to 
 do ? Are we to bolster up the old codes, in 
 which we have largely ceased to believe, merely 
 in order to have a code ? — or are we to let 
 them go ? 
 
 Of course, if we have decided what the final 
 purpose or life of Man is, then we may say that 
 what is good for that purpose is finally " good," 
 and what is bad for that purpose is finally " evil." 
 The Eastern philosophy, as I have said, deciding 
 that the final purpose of Man is identification with 
 Brahm, declares a// actions to be evil (even the 
 most saintly) which are done by the self as separate 
 from Brahm ; and all actions as good which are 
 done in the condition of vidya or conscious union. 
 But here, though a final good and evil are allowed 
 and acknowledged, as existing respectively in 
 the conditions of vidya or avidya, those condi- 
 tions altogether escape any external rule or classi- 
 fication. 
 
 Mr. Gilbert Chesterton, taking up this subject 
 not long ago in a criticism ^ of Mr. Orage's little 
 book on Nietzsche, said that all this talk about 
 ** beyond good and evil " was nonsense ; that 
 we must have some code ; and that in effect, any 
 code, even a bad one, was better than none. And 
 one sees what he means. It is perfectly true, 
 in a sense, that the harness, the shafts, and the 
 ^ Dai/y News, December 29, 1906. 
 249
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 blinkers keep a large part of the world on the 
 beaten road and out of the ditch, and that 
 folk are alv/ays to be found who, rather than 
 use their higher faculties, will rely on these 
 external guides ; but to encourage this kind of 
 salvation by blinkers seems the very reverse 
 of what ought to be done ; and one might even 
 ask whether salvation by such means is sal- 
 vation at all — whether the ditch were not 
 better 1 
 
 Besides, what can we do ? It is not so much 
 that we are deliberately abandoning the codes 
 as that they are abandoning us. With the gradual 
 infiltration of new ideas, of Eastern thought, of 
 Darwinian philosophy, of customs and creeds of 
 races other than our own, with Bernard Shaw 
 lecturing on the futility of the Ten Command- 
 ments, and so forth, it is not difficult to see that 
 in a short while it will be impossible to rehabilitate 
 any of the ancient codes or to give them a sanction 
 and a sense of awe in the public mind. If with 
 Gilbert Chesterton we should succeed in bolster- 
 ing up such a thing for a time — well, it will 
 only be for a time. 
 
 And the question is, whether the time has not 
 really come for us to stand up — like sensible men 
 and women — and do without rules ; whether we 
 cannot trust ourselves at last to throw aside the 
 blinkers. The question is whether we cannot 
 realise that solid and central life which underlies 
 and yet surpasses all rules. For truly, if we cannot 
 do this, our state is pitiable — having ceased to 
 
 250
 
 The New Morality- 
 believe in the letter of Morality, and yet unable to 
 find its spirit ! 
 
 It is here, then, that the New Morality comes 
 in, as more or less clearly understood and ex- 
 pressed by the progressive sections to-day. Modern 
 Socialism, in effect, taking up a position in its way 
 somewhat similar to that of Eastern philosophy, 
 says : Morality in its essence is not a code, but 
 simply the realisation of the Common Life ; ^ 
 and that is a thing which is not foreign and alien 
 to humanity, but very germane and natural to it — 
 a thing so natural that without doubt it would be 
 more in evidence than it is, did not the institu- 
 tions and teachings of Western civilisation tend 
 all along to deny and disguise it. To liberate 
 this instinct of the Common Life, freeing it from 
 hard and cramping rules, and to let it take its own 
 form or forms — grafted on and varied of course 
 by the personal and selective element of Affection 
 and Sympathy — is the hope that lies before the 
 world to-day for the solution of all sorts of moral 
 and social problems. 
 
 And the more this position is thought over, 
 the more, I believe, will it commend itself. The 
 sense of organic unity, of the common welfare, the 
 instinct of Humanity, or of general helpfulness, 
 are things which run in all directions through the 
 very fibre of our individual and social life — just 
 as they do through that of the gregarious animals. 
 
 I I need hardly say that this does not mean, as Nietzsche so 
 often and sardonically suggests, the realisation of the coT/imon-p/ace 
 life, but something very different. 
 
 251
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 In a thousand ways : through heredity and the 
 fact that common ancestral blood flows in our 
 veins — though we be only strangers that pass 
 in the street ; through psychology, and the 
 similarity of structure and concatenation in our 
 minds ; through social linkage, and the necessity 
 of each and all to the others' economic welfare ; 
 through personal affection and the ties of the 
 heart ; and through the mystic and religious 
 sense which, diving deep below personalities, 
 perceives the vast flood of universal being — in 
 these and many other ways does this Common 
 Life compel us to recognise itself as a fact — per- 
 haps the most fundamental fact of existence. 
 
 To teach this simple foundational fact and 
 what flows from it to every child — not only as 
 a theory, but as a practical habit and inspiration 
 of conduct — is not really difficult, but easy. Chil- 
 dren, having this sense woven into their very being, 
 grow up in the spirit and practical habitude of 
 it, and from the beginning possess the inspira- 
 tion of what we call Morality — far more effectu- 
 ally indeed than copy-book maxims can provide. 
 Respect for truth, consideration towards parents 
 and elders, respect for the reasonable properties, 
 dignities, conveniences of others, as well as for 
 one's own needs and dignities, become perfectly 
 natural and habitual. And that this is no mere 
 hypothesis the example of Japan has lately shown 
 where every young thing is brought up so far 
 drenched in the sentiment of community that 
 to give one's life for one's country is looked upon 
 
 252 
 
 f'
 
 The New Morality 
 
 as a privilege. I The general lines, I say, of 
 morality would be secure, and much more secure 
 than they now are, if we could only bring the 
 children up in an educational and practical at- 
 mosphere of that solidarity which as a matter of 
 fact is demanded to-day by socialism and the 
 economic movement generally. 
 
 And on this ground-work, as I have hinted, 
 Personal Affection and Sympathy would build 
 a superstructure of their own ; they would outline 
 a society as much more beautiful, powerful and 
 closely knit than the present one founded on the 
 Cash-nexus, as, say, the Athenian society of the 
 time of Pericles was superior to that of the 
 Lapithae who first bitted and bridled the horse. 
 
 While the general Life, equal, pervasive, and 
 in a sense undifferentiated, is a great fact which 
 has to be acknowledged ; so this personal Love 
 and Affection, choosing, selecting, and giving 
 outline and form to that life, is equally a fact, 
 equally undeniable, equally sacred — and one 
 which has to be taken in conjunction with the 
 other. 
 
 I say equally sacred : because there has been 
 a tendency (no doubt due to certain causes) to 
 look upon personal affection, in its various phases 
 from slight inclinations of sympathy to the stronger 
 compulsions of passion, as something rather dubi- 
 
 * Many Japanese committed suicide on account of not being 
 allowed to join in the Russian War. See also Lafcadio Hearn's 
 description of the habitual dignity and courtesy of the youth of 
 Japan, — Life and Letters, vol. i, pp. 12, 113. 
 
 253
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 ous in character, at best an amiable weakness not 
 to be encouraged. Tolstoy, in one of his writings, 
 figures the case of a little household in days of 
 famine not really having bread enough for their 
 own wants. Then a stranger child comes to the 
 door and pleads for food. Tolstoy suggests that 
 the mother ought to take the scanty crust from 
 her own child to feed the stranger withal, or at 
 least to share the food equally between the two 
 children. But such a conclusion seems to me 
 doubtful. 
 
 Whatever ** ought " may mean in such a 
 connexion, we know pretty well that such never 
 will be the rule of human life, we may almost 
 say never can be ; perhaps we should be equally 
 justified in saying, never " ought " to be. For 
 obviously there must be preferences, selections. 
 Our affections, our affinities, our sympathies, 
 our passions, are not given us for nothing. It 
 is not for nothing that every individual person, 
 every tree, every animal has a shape^ a shape of 
 its own. If it were not so the world would be 
 infinitely, inconceivably, dull. Yet to ask that a 
 mother should in all cases treat strange children 
 exactly the same as her own, that a man from the 
 oceanic multitude should single out no special 
 or privileged friends, but should love all alike, 
 is to ask that these folk in their mental and moral 
 nature should become as jellyfish — of no distinct 
 shape or satisfaction to themselves or any one 
 else. Profound and indispensable as is the Law 
 of Equality — the law, namely, that there is a 
 
 254
 
 The New Morality 
 
 region within all beings where they touch to 
 a common and equal life — the other law, that 
 of Individual predilection, is equally indispensable. 
 Try to reduce all to the one motive of the general 
 interest, and you might have a perfect morality, 
 but a morality woodeny, hard and dull, without 
 form and feature. Try to dispense with this, 
 and to found society on individual affection and 
 love, and on individual initiative, without morals, 
 and you would have a flighty, unstable thing, 
 without consistency or backbone. 
 
 My contention, then, is that our hope for the 
 future society lies in its embodiment of these 
 two great principles jointly : (i) the recognition 
 of the Common Life as providing the foundation- 
 element of general morality, and (2) the recogni- 
 tion of Individual Affection and Expression — 
 and to a much greater degree than hitherto — as 
 building up the higher groupings and finer forms 
 of the structure. And in proportion as (i) pro- 
 vides a solider basis of morals than we have hitherto 
 had, so will it be possible to give to (2) a width 
 of scope and freedom of action hitherto untried 
 or untrusted. Conjointly with the strengthening 
 of these principles of Solidarity and Affection 
 in society must of course come the strengthening 
 of Individuality — the right and the desire of every 
 being to preserve and develop its own proper 
 shape^ and so to add to the richness and interest 
 of life — and this involves the right of Resistance, 
 and (once more) the relegation of the formula of 
 non-resistance into the background.
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure ' 
 
 These considerations, however, are leading us 
 too far afield, and away from the special subject 
 of our paper. I mention them chiefly in order 
 to show that while wc are considering Morality 
 as a foundation-element of Society, it must never 
 be lost sight of that it is not the only element, 
 and that it would be comparatively senseless and 
 useless unless grafted on and complemented and 
 completed by the others. 
 
 The method of the New Morality, then, will 
 be to minimise formulae, and (except as illustra- 
 tions) to use them sparely ; and to bring children 
 up — and so indirectly all citizens — in such con- 
 ditions of abounding life and health that their 
 sympathies, overflowing naturally to those around, 
 will cause them to realise in the strongest way 
 their organic part in the great whole of society 
 — and this not as an intellectual theory, so much 
 as an abiding consciousness and foundation-fact 
 of their own existence. Make this the basis 
 of all teaching. Make them realise — by all sorts 
 of habit and example — that to injure or deceive 
 others is to injure themselves — that to help others 
 somehow satisfies and fortifies their own inner 
 life. Let them learn, as they grow up, to regard 
 all human beings, of whatever race or class, as 
 ends in themselves — never to be looked upon as 
 mere things or chattels to be made use of. Let 
 them also learn to look upon the animals in the 
 same light — as beings, they too, who are climbing 
 the great ladder of creation — beings with whom 
 also we humans have a common spirit and interest, 
 
 25^
 
 The New Morality 
 
 And let them learn to respect themselves as worthy 
 and indispensable members of this great Body. 
 Thus will be established a true Morality — a morality 
 far more searching, more considerate of others, 
 more adaptive and more genuine than that of 
 the present day — a morality, we may say, of 
 common-sense. 
 
 For it may indeed be said that Morality — taking 
 a downright and almost physiological view of it — 
 is simply abundance of life. That is, that when a 
 man has so abounding and vital an inner nature 
 that his sympathies and activities overflow the 
 margin of his own petty days and personal ad- 
 vantage, he is by that fact entering the domain 
 of morality. Before that time and while limited 
 to the personal organism, the creative life in each 
 being is either non-moral like that of the animals, 
 or simply selfish like that of the immature man ; 
 but when it overflows this limit it necessarily becomes 
 social, and moves to the support and considera- 
 tion of the neighbour. Having formerly found 
 its complete activity in the sustentation of the 
 personal self it now spreads its helpful energies 
 into the lives of the other selves around. Altru- 
 ism, in fact, in its healthy forms, is the overflow 
 of abounding vitality. It is a morality without 
 a code, and happily free fron limiting formulae.^ 
 
 1 This morality, indeed, may be said to be implicit in much 
 of the teaching of Christ ; yet, curiously enough, it has never 
 been seriously adopted by the Churches. And as to the regard 
 for animals as ends in themselves, the Reman Catholic Church, 
 I believe, positively repudiates any such attitude,
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 And if it be again said that a morality of this 
 kind, which rests on a principle and a mental 
 attitude only, is a danger, let us pause for a mo- 
 ment to consider how much more dangerous is 
 one which rests on formulas. If morality with- 
 out a code is a serious matter, how much more 
 serious is one which is nailed up within a code ! 
 For looking back on history it would sometimes 
 seem that the black-and-white, the this-thing- 
 right-and-that-thing-wrong morality has been the 
 most wicked thing in the world. It has been 
 an excuse for all the most devilish deeds 
 and persecutions imaginable. A formula of the 
 Sabbath-day, a formula about Witchcraft, a 
 formula of Marriage (regardless of the real human 
 relation), a formula concerning Theft (regardless 
 of the dire need of the thief) — and burnings, 
 hangings, torturings without mercy! The terrible 
 thing about this Right-and- Wrong morality is 
 not only that it leads to these dreadful reprisals ; 
 but that it brands upon the victim as well as upon 
 the oppressor the fatuous notions that a certain 
 thin^j^ is right or wrong, and that what one has 
 to do is to save oneself — two notions both of which 
 are directly contrary to true Morality. A boy 
 tells a verbal lie — perhaps through fear, perhaps 
 through inadvertence. He has broken a formula 
 and is immediately caned. Moral : he will 
 keep to verbal truth afterwards — however mean 
 or insidious it may be — and be pharisaically self- 
 satisfied ; but he will never realise that the im- 
 portance of truth and lies rests not in the words, 
 
 258
 
 The New Morality 
 
 but in the confidence and mutual trust which 
 they either create or destroy. The peculiarly 
 English worship of Duty is open to the same 
 objection. " Lilies that fester smell far worse 
 than weeds," and splendid as is the conception 
 and practice of Duty, as a self-oblivious inspira- 
 tion and enthusiasm, it becomes a truly revolting 
 thing when it takes the all-too-common form 
 " I have done my Duty, I'm all right ! " "I 
 am going to do my Duty, whatever becomes of 
 you." Can anything be imagined more dis- 
 integrating to society, more certain to split it 
 up into a dustheap of self-regarding units, than 
 a formula of this kind ? " It is my painful Duty 
 to condemn you to be hanged by the neck until 
 you are dead," says the Judge to the wretched 
 girl who, in a frenzy of despair, has drowned her 
 baby. What he really means is that while he 
 perfectly recognises the monstrosity of the Law 
 which he has sworn to administer, and the soul- 
 killing effect on the girl which his sentence may 
 have, yet in order to save himself from the risk or 
 the wrong of breaking that Law, he is willing and 
 ready to pronounce that sentence. " It is my 
 duty to burn you," says the Inquisitor to the heretic ; 
 and the implication is really, " I am afraid that if 
 I do not burn you I shall get burnt myself, in the 
 next world." 
 
 The sooner an end can be made of this sort of 
 morality, the better — which under the cloak of 
 public advantage or benefit is only thinking about 
 self-promotion and self-interest, either in this 
 
 259
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 world or the next, and which truly is calculated 
 not to further human solidarity but to destroy it. 
 It runs and trickles through all of modern society, 
 poisoning the well-springs of affection, this morality 
 which, having paid its domestic servants their 
 regular wages, is quite satisfied with itself, and 
 expects them to do their duty in return, but is 
 silent about their real needs and welfare ; which 
 treats its wage-workers as simple machines for 
 the grinding out of profits, and lifts its eyebrows 
 in serene surprise when they retaliate against such 
 treatment ; which can only regard a criminal 
 as a person who has broken a formula, and in return 
 must be punished according to a formula ; and 
 a pig as an animal for which you provide reason- 
 able provender and a stye, and which in return 
 you are entitled to eat. Pharisaical, self-centred 
 and self-interested, materialistic to the last degree, 
 and really senseless in its outlook, this current 
 morality is indeed, and very seriously, a public 
 peril. 
 
 Thou shalt not steal : an empty feat, 
 When it's so lucrative to cheat. 
 
 Keep within the code, within the letter ; always 
 speak the nominal truth (whoever may suffer 
 thereby) ; keep up the accepted formulae of 
 marriage and the sex-relation (though hearts may 
 be bleeding and perishing) ; pay every respect 
 to property, and so forth ; and you may have 
 the gratification of being looked upon as a bul- 
 wark of society. But none the less it is probable 
 
 260
 
 The New Morality 
 
 that you are undermining and corrupting that 
 society to the core. Your outlook is merely on 
 the surface, while you are condoning deep-seated 
 ill. 
 
 Of course the New Morality — to look within^ 
 to feel and refer to the needs of others almost 
 as instinctively as to one's own, to refuse to regard 
 any thing as in itself good or bad, and to look upon 
 all beings, oneself included, as ends in them- 
 selves and not as a means of personal self-advance- 
 ment and glorification — while it is the more natural, 
 is also the more difficult in a sense, as providing 
 no set pattern or rule. But surely the time has 
 arrived for its adoption. It is the morality which 
 must underlie the freer, more varied forms of the 
 society of the future ; and it is the only escape 
 from the corruption of the old order. 
 
 To take particular examples. Truth, in word 
 or act, is — we all feel — very important, very 
 fundamental. It is the basis of the common 
 understanding of which I have spoken. It is 
 the basis of the expression of oneself, and of the 
 recognition of others. Any one who is deeply 
 imbued with the consciousness of the common 
 life will necessarily have a deep respect for the 
 Truth ; he will also have a deep respect for the 
 Life, the Property, the good Name, the Affec- 
 tions, and so forth, of others, as well as for his 
 own similar attributes. He will not be able to 
 say, as a formula : I will never deceive another 
 (tell a lie) ; I will never take the life of others, 
 man or animal (kill) ; and so on, because he knows 
 
 261
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 there are situations in which that very Life arising 
 within him, or even his own absolute necessity, 
 will demand such actions, will compel him to 
 the performance of them ; but all the same he will 
 in his ordinary existence carry out the principle 
 which underlies these formulas, and much more 
 thoroughly, probably, than the formulas themselves 
 would demand. 
 
 Similarly about such matters as sexual morality. 
 There are outcries against Lady-Godiva-shows 
 and living statuary — apparently because folk are 
 afraid of such things rousing the passions. No 
 doubt the things may act that way. But why, 
 we may ask, should people be afraid of rousing 
 passions which, after all, are the great driving 
 forces of human life ? Clearly it is because they 
 think the other forces which should guide these 
 passions or give them a helpful and useful direction 
 are too weak. And in this last respect they are 
 right. The guiding and inhibiting forces in our 
 present society are feeble — because they consist 
 only in a few conventional formulae, which are 
 rapidly being undermined. We are generating 
 steam in a boiler which is already cankered 
 with rust. The cure is not to cut off the 
 passions, or to be weakly afraid of them, but to 
 find a new, sound, healthy engine of general 
 morality and common-sense within which they 
 will work. And this is what in the future we 
 must try to do. 
 
 This morality, this organic, vital, almost phy- 
 siological morality of the common life — which 
 
 262
 
 The New Morality 
 
 means a quick response of each unit to the needs 
 of the other units, and much the same in the body 
 politic as health means in the physical body — 
 must underlie and be the basis of the societies 
 of the future. It will mean the liberation of 
 a thousand and one instincts, desires and capa- 
 cities which since our childhood's days have 
 lain buried within us, concealed and ignored because 
 we have thought them wrong or unworthy, when 
 really all they have wanted has been recognition 
 and the opportunity to become healthy by 
 recognition — by the process in fact of balancing 
 against each other, and against opposing and com- 
 plementary elements, and so finding their places 
 in the Whole. On this new Morality of accept- 
 ance and recognition and wide-reaching redemp- 
 tion, it will be possible, as I have already said, to 
 graft not only a stronger expression of indivi- 
 duality all round, but also a higher and more varied 
 and more gracious life of personal affection — 
 which now alas ! lies like a thing wounded and 
 half dead. Its establishment will, I take it, mean 
 the oncoming of a society which will liberate 
 personal affection and love — will liberate forces 
 hitherto artificially crippled because their libera- 
 tion would tear our current morality of formulae 
 to mere rags and tatters. It means, I take it, 
 the oncoming of a society whose main motive will 
 no longer be the struggle for Bread (since that is 
 ruled out by the enormous growth of our wealth- 
 producing powers), but the desire for the satisfac- 
 tion of the Heart — thus preparing no doubt new 
 
 263
 
 The New Morality 
 
 and unforeseen difficulties and sufferings, yet 
 filling life with such beautiful things that the motives 
 of greed and the mean pursuit of money, which 
 now weigh upon the world, will be like an evil 
 nightmare of the Past from which the dawn 
 delivers us. 
 
 ] 
 
 264 
 
 i- 
 
 i
 
 APPENDIX
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 AS the author's attacks in the body of this book 
 upon the Civih'sation peoples have sometimes been 
 regarded as extreme and unjustified, it has been 
 thought appropriate, here in the Appendix, to 
 collect a few notes from reliable authorities on the 
 characteristics and customs of pre-civilised men — not so 
 much of course with the object of proving the latter 
 always superior to the former, as of bringing to light 
 the many admirable virtues of the early peoples, which a 
 cheap modern civilisation has neglected or somewhat con- 
 temptuously ignored. 
 
 No one would deny that there are many cases of primitive 
 folk — folk unclean and ignorant and absurdly superstitious 
 — who can hardly be said to command our admiration. 
 On the other hand there are a vast number of cases of 
 an opposite sort — cases which present to us the realisation 
 of some remarkable human characteristic or social capacity 
 well worthy of consideration or even of imitation. If our 
 Civilisation is ever to move on to some form better than 
 the present, it is these latter cases which ought to be of 
 assistance ; for they not only direct our attention to human 
 possibilities, but by showing what has been realised in the 
 past assure us that such ideals are by no means unattainable 
 now. 
 
 It is therefore with a view to cases of this kind that 
 the following Appendix has been framed. 
 
 E. C. 
 267
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Civilisation does not Engross all the Virtues. 
 
 Quotations from Herman Melville's Typee, pp. 225, etc. 
 (John Murray, 1861.) 
 
 " Civilisation does not engross all the virtues of humanity : 
 she has not even her full share of them. They flourish 
 in greater abundance and attain greater strength among 
 many barbarous people. The hospitality of the wild Arab, 
 the courage of the North American Indian, and the faithful 
 friendships of some of the Polynesian nations, far surpass 
 anything of a similar kind among the polished communities 
 of Europe. If truth and justice, and the better principles 
 of our nature, cannot exist unless enforced by the statute- 
 book, how are we to account for the social condition of 
 the Typees ? So pure and upright were they in all the 
 relations of life, that entering their valley, as I did, under 
 the most erroneous impressions of their character, I was 
 soon led to exclaim in amazement : ' Are these the fero- 
 cious savages, the bloodthirsty cannibals of whom I have 
 heard such frightful tales ! They deal more kindly with 
 each other, and are more humane, than many who study 
 essays on virtue and benevolence, and who repeat every 
 night that beautiful prayer breathed first by the lips of 
 the divine and gentle Jesus.' I will frankly declare, that 
 after passing a few weeks in this valley of the Marquesas, 
 I formed a higher estimate of human nature than I had 
 ever before entertained. But alas ! since then I have 
 been one of the crew of a man-of war, and the pent-up 
 wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all 
 my previous theories. 
 
 How little do some of these poor islanders comprehend, 
 when they look around them, that no inconsiderable part 
 
 268
 
 Appendix 
 
 of their disasters originate in certain tea-party excitements, 
 under the influence of which benevolent-looking gentlemen 
 in white cravats solicit alms, and old ladies in spectacles, 
 and young ladies in sober russet low gowns, contribute 
 sixpences towards the creation of a fund, the object of 
 which is to ameliorate the spiritual condition of the Polyne- 
 sians, but whose end has almost invariably been to accomplish 
 their temporal destruction I 
 
 " Let the savages be civilised, but civilise them with 
 benefits, and not with evils ; and let heathenism be des- 
 troyed, but not by destroying the heathen. The Anglo- 
 Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part 
 of the North American continent ; but with it they have 
 likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. 
 Civilisation is gradually sweeping from the earth the 
 lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the 
 shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers. 
 
 " Among the islands of Polynesia, no sooner are the 
 images overturned, the temples demolished, and the idolaters 
 converted into nominal Christians, than disease, vice, and 
 premature death make their appearance. The depopulated 
 land is then recruited from the rapacious hordes of enlightened 
 individuals who settle themselves within its borders, and 
 clamorously announce the progress of the Truth. Neat 
 villas, trim gardens, shaven lawns, spires, and cupolas arise, 
 while the poor savage soon finds himself an interloper in 
 the country of his fathers, and that too on the very site of 
 the hut where he was born. 
 
 " During my whole stay on the island I never witnessed 
 a single quarrel, nor any thing that in the slightest degree 
 approached even to a dispute. The natives appeared to 
 form one household, whose members were bound together 
 by the ties of strong affection. The love of kindred I 
 
 269
 
 1 
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 did not so much perceive, for it seemed blended in the 
 general love ; and v^^here all were treated as brothers and 
 sisters, it was hard to tell who were actually related to each 
 other by blood. 
 
 " Let it not be supposed that I have overdrawn this 
 picture. I have not done so. Nor let it be urged that 
 the hostility of this tribe to foreigners, and the hereditary 
 feuds they carry on against their fellow-islanders beyond 
 the mountains, are facts which contradict me. Not so : 
 these apparent discrepancies are easily reconciled. By 
 many a legendary tale of violence and wrong, as well as 
 by events which have passed before their eyes, these people 
 have been taught to look upon white men with abhorrence. 
 The cruel invasion of their country by Porter has alone 
 furnished them with ample provocation ; and I can sympa- 
 thize in the spirit which prompts the Typee warrior to 
 guard all the passes to his valley with the point of his levelled 
 spear, and, standing upon the beach, with his back turned 
 upon his green home, to hold at bay the intruding European." 
 
 Influences of " Civilisation " 
 
 From R. L. Stevenson's In the South Seas, p. 43. (Chatto 
 and Windus, 1908.) 
 
 [It is asked] " Was not the Polynesian always unchaste { 
 Doubtless he was so always : doubtless he is more so since 
 the coming of his remarkably chaste visitors from Europe. 
 Take the Hawaiian account of Cook : I have no doubt 
 it is entirely fair. Take Krusenstern's candid, almost 
 innocent description of a Russian man-of-war at the 
 Marquesas ; consider the disgraceful history of missions 
 in Hawaii itself . . . add the practice of whaling fleets 
 to call at the Marquesas and carry off a complement of 
 
 270
 
 Appendix 
 
 women for the cruise . . . and bear in mind how it was 
 the custom of the adventurers, and we may almost say the 
 business of the missionaries, to deride and infract even the 
 most salutary tapus (taboos)." 
 
 Captain Cook at Owyhee in 1799 
 
 From his Life and Voyages^ p. 379. (George Newnes, 
 1904.) 
 
 " In the progress of the intercourse which was maintained 
 between our voyagers and the natives, the quiet and inoffen- 
 sive behaviour of the latter took away every apprehension 
 of danger, so that the Engh'sh trusted themselves among 
 them at all times and in all situations. The instances of 
 kindness and civility which our people experienced from 
 them were so numerous that they could not easily be re- 
 counted. A society of priests, in particular, displayed a 
 generosity and munificence of which no equal example 
 had hitherto been given : for they furnished a constant 
 supply of hogs and vegetables to our navigators, without 
 ever demanding a return, or even hinting at it in the most 
 distant manner." Of the island of Wateeoo (p. 309), 
 " the inhabitants are very numerous, and many of the young 
 men were perfect models in shape." 
 
 Natives of Tahiti 
 
 From Havelock Ellis' Sex in relation to Society^ p. 148. 
 (1910.} 
 
 " The example of Tahiti is instructive as regards the 
 prevalence of chastity among peoples of what we generally 
 consider low grades of civilisation. An early explorer, 
 
 271
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 11 
 
 J. R. Forster (^Observations made on a voyage round the 
 World, 1778), speaks of the fine climate and the beauty 
 of the females, as inviting powerfully to the enjoyments 
 and pleasures of love. Yet he is over and over again im- 
 pelled to set down facts which bear testimony to the virtues 
 of these people. Though rather effeminate in build they 
 are athletic, he says. Moreover in their wars they fight 
 with great bravery and valour. They are, for the rest, 
 hospitable. He remarks that they treat their married women 
 with great respect, and that women generally are nearly 
 the equals of men, both in intelligence and social position ; 
 he gives a charming description of the women. ' In short 
 their character,' he concludes, ' is as amiable as that of any 
 nation that ever came unimproved out of the hands of 
 Nature '[!]" . . . 
 
 " When Cook," continues Ellis, " who visited Tahiti 
 many times, was among this ' benevolent, humane ' people, 
 he noted their esteem for chastity, and found that not only 
 were betrothed girls strictly guarded before marriage, but 
 that men also who had refrained from sexual intercourse 
 for some time before marriage were believed to pass at death 
 immediately into the abode of the blessed." 
 
 Radack — one of the Caroline Islands 
 
 From Chamisso's Reise urn die Welt^ p. 183. (Leipzig.) 
 
 " Thus we made acquaintance with a people who have 
 endeared themselves to me more than any others of the 
 children of Earth. The very weaknesses of the Radack 
 folk removed mistrust on our side ; their very gentleness 
 and goodness caused them to be trustful towards us, the 
 all-powerful strangers ; we became declared friends. I 
 found among them simple, unsophisticated manners, charin, 
 
 272
 
 Appendix 
 
 natural grace, and the pleasant bloom of modesty. In 
 the matter, certainly, of strength and manly independence 
 the O-Waihier [OwyheesJ are greatly their superiors. 
 My friend, Kadu, who, though not belonging to this island- 
 group, attached himself to us, was one of the finest characters 
 I have ever met and one of the most dear to me of human 
 beings ; and he afterwards became my instructor with 
 regard to Radack and the Caroline Islands." 
 
 Adaptation of Early Peoples to Surroundings 
 
 The Dinkas (Central Africa) : from Grogan's Cape to 
 Cairo, p. 278. (Hurst & Blackett, 1900.) 
 
 " Every one in Dinka-Iand carries a long spear, or 
 pointed fish-spear, and a club made of a heavy purple 
 wood, while the more important gentlemen wear enormous 
 ivory bracelets round their upper arm ; strict nudity is 
 the fashion, and a marabout feather in the hair is the 
 essence of chic. They are all beautifully built, having 
 broad shoulders, small waist, good hips, and well-shaped 
 legs. The stature of some is colossal. It was most curious 
 to see how these Dinkas, living as they do in the marshes, 
 approximate to the type of the waterbird. They have 
 much the same walk as a heron, picking their feet up very 
 high and thrusting them well forward ; while their feet 
 are enormous. Their colossal height is indeed a great 
 advantage in the reed grown country in which they live. 
 The favourite pose of a Dinka (on one foot, with the 
 other foot resting on the knee) is in reality the favourite 
 pose of a w^ter bird. . . . They are the complete antithesis 
 of the pigmy, as the country in which they live is the 
 complete antithesis of the dense forest which is the home 
 of the dwarfs. . . . Our camp was near a large village 
 
 273 S
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 where there were at least 1,500 head of cattle, besides sheep 
 and goats, and the chief brought me a fine fat bull-calf — 
 which settled the nervous question of food for two days. . , . 
 The rambling village with its groups of figures and long lines 
 of home-coming cattle, dimly seen in the smoke of a hundred 
 fires as I approached at sunset, was very picturesque." 
 
 The Pigmies : from Cape to Cairo, pp. 144 and 161. 
 
 " The pigmies have no settled villages, nor do they 
 cultivate anything. They live the life of the brute in 
 the forests, perpetually wandering in search of honey or 
 in pursuit of elephant ; v/hen they succeed in killing 
 anything, they throw up a few grass shelters and remain 
 there till all the meat is either eaten or dried. They 
 depend upon the other natives for the necessary grain, 
 which they either steal or barter for elephant meat or honey. 
 All their knives, spearheads and arrow-heads they likewise 
 purchase from other people, but they make their own 
 bows and arrows. So well are these made that they are 
 held in great esteem by the surrounding people." . . . 
 " An hour later I met an elderly pigmy in the forest and 
 managed to induce him to talk. He was a splendid little 
 fellow, full of self-confidence, and gave me most concise 
 information, stating that the white man with many belong- 
 ings had passed near by two days before, and had then gone 
 down to the lake-shore, where he was camped at that 
 moment. These people must have a wonderful code of 
 signs and signals, as despite their isolated and nomadic 
 existence they always know exactly what is happening 
 everywhere. He was a typical pigmy as found on the 
 volcanoes — squat, gnarled, proud, and easy of carriage. 
 His beard hung down over his chest, and his thighs and 
 chest were covered with wiry hair. He carried the usual 
 pigmy bow made of two pieces of cane spliced together 
 
 274
 
 Appendix 
 
 with grass, and with a string made of a single strand of 
 a rush that grows in the forests. The pigmies are splendid 
 examples of the adaptability of Nature to her surroundings; 
 the combination of strength and conciseness enabling them 
 to move with astonishing rapidity in the pig-runs that 
 form the only pathway through the impenetrable growth, 
 and to endure the fatigue of elephant-hunting." 
 
 Natives in Ruanda (near Lake Kivu) : Cape to Cairo, 
 p. 1x8. 
 
 " Society in Ruanda is divided into two castes, the 
 Watusi and the Wahutu. The Watusi are the descend- 
 ants of a great wave of Galla invasion that reached even 
 to Tanganyika. They still retain their pastoral instinctf, 
 and refuse to do any other work than the tending of cattle ; 
 and so great is their affection for their beasts, that rather 
 than sever com.pany they will become slaves, and do the 
 menial work of their beloved cattle for the benefit of their 
 conquerors. This is all the more remarkable when one 
 takes into account their inherent pride of race and contempt 
 for other peoples, even for the white man. . . . Many 
 signs of superior civilisation, observable in the peoples 
 with whom the Watusi have come into contact, are traceable 
 to this Galla influence. 
 
 " The hills are terraced, thus increasing the area of 
 cultivation, and obviating the denudation of fertile slopes 
 by torrential rains. In many cases irrigation is carried 
 out on a sufficiently extensive scale, and the swamps are 
 drained by ditches. Artificial reservoirs are built with side 
 troughs for watering cattle. The fields are in many cases 
 fenced in by planted hedges of euphorbia and thorn, and 
 similar fences are planted along the narrow parts of the 
 main cattle tracks, to prevent the beasts from straying or 
 trampling down the cultivation. 
 
 275
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 " There is also an exceptional diversity of plants culti- 
 vated, such as hungry rice, maize, red and vs^hite millet, 
 several kinds of beans, peas, bananas, and the edible arum. 
 Some of the higher growing beans are even trained on 
 sticks planted for the purpose. Pumpkins and sweet 
 potatoes are also common ; and the Watusi own and tend 
 enormous herds of cattle, goats and sheep. Owing to the 
 magnificent pasturage the milk is of excellent quality, 
 and they make large quantities of butter. They are ex- 
 ceedingly clever with their beasts, and have many calls 
 which the cattle understand. At milking time they light 
 smoke-fires to keep the flies from irritating the beasts. . . . 
 They are tall slightly built men of graceful nonchalant 
 carriage, and their features are delicate and refined. I 
 noticed many faces that, bleached and set in a white collar, 
 would have been conspicuous for character in a London 
 drawing-room. The legal type was especially pro- 
 nounced." . . . 
 
 " The Wahutu are their absolute antithesis. They are 
 the aborigines of the country, and any pristine originality 
 or character has been effectually stamped out of them. 
 Hewers of wood and drawers of water, they do all the 
 hard work, and unquestioning in abject servility give up 
 the proceeds on demand. Their numerical proportion to 
 the Watusi must be at least a hundred to one, yet they 
 defer to them without protest ; and in spite of the obvious 
 hatred in which they hold their over lords, there seems to 
 be no friction." 
 
 Natives of the Andaman Islands 
 
 The following extracts, about the Andaman-islanders 
 of the Bay of Bengal, the Bushmen of South Africa, and 
 the Ebkimo tribes of Northern latitudes, arc specially inter- 
 
 276
 
 Appendix 
 
 esting because they deal with peoples whose present-day 
 culture is undoubtedly on a par with, and in all probability 
 directly inherited from, the peoples of a long-past Stone 
 Age. Thus we get indirectly a glimpse of what the culture 
 of the Stone Ages was — both in its material acquisitions 
 and its grade of social and psychological evolution. 
 
 From In the Andamans and Nicobars, p. 1 84, by C. Boden 
 Kloss. (Murray, 1903.) 
 
 " The Andaman Islands are inhabited by people of pure 
 Negrito blood, members of perhaps the most ancient race 
 remaining on the earth, and standing closest to the primitive 
 human type. ... It would be impossible to find anywhere 
 a race of purer descent than the Andamanese, for ever 
 since they peopled the islands in the Stone Age, they have 
 remained secluded from the outer world. ... In stature 
 they are far below the average height ; but although they 
 have been called dwarfs and pygmies, these words must 
 not be understood to imply anything in the nature of a 
 monstrosity. Their reputation for hideousness, like their 
 poisoned arrows and cannibalism, has long been a fallacy 
 which, though widely popular, should now be exploded. 
 The average heights of the men and women are found to 
 be 4 feet lof inches, and 4 feet 7^ inches respectively, 
 and their figures, which are proportionately built, are very 
 symmetrical and graceful. Although not to be described as 
 muscular, they are of good development, the men being 
 agile, yet sturdy, with broad chests and square shoulders,'* 
 
 From E. H. Man on The Aborigines of the Andaman Islands^ 
 p. 14. (Triibner, 1883.) 
 
 " No idiots, maniacs or lunatics have ever yet been 
 observed among them, and this is not because those so 
 
 277
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 afflicted are killed or confined by their fellows, for the 
 greatest care and attention are invariably paid to the sick, 
 aged and helpless." 
 
 Mr. Man also remarks {^ourn. Anthrop. Inst. XII, 92): 
 '■ It has been observed with regret by all interested in the 
 race, that intercourse with the alien population has, generally 
 speaking, prejudicially affected their morals ; and that the 
 candour, veracity, and self-reliance they manifest in their 
 savage and untutored state are, when they become asso- 
 ciated with foreigners, to a great extent lost, and habits 
 of untruthfulness, dependence and sloth engendered." 
 
 The Bushmen 
 
 Extract from F. C. Selous' African Nature-Notes, pp. 344 
 and 347. (1908.) 
 
 " When I met with the first Bushmen I ever saw, on 
 the banks of the Orange River in 1872, I was a very young 
 man, and, regarding them with some repugnance, wrote 
 in my diary that they appeared to be removed by a very 
 few steps from the brute creation. That was a very foolish 
 and ignorant remark to make, and I have since found out 
 that though Bushmen may possibly be to-day in the same 
 backward state of material development and knowledge as 
 once were the palaeolithic ancestors of the most highly 
 cultured European races in prehistoric times, yet funda- 
 mentally there is very little difference between the natures 
 of primitive and civilised men, so that it is quite possible 
 for a member of one of the more cultured races to live 
 for a time quite happily and contentedly amongst beings 
 who are often described as degraded savages, and from whom 
 he is separated by thousands of years in all that is implied 
 by the word 'civilisation.' I have hunted a great deal 
 with Bushmen, and during 1884 I lived amongst these 
 
 278
 
 Appendix 
 
 people continuously for several months together. On 
 many and many a night I have slept in their encampments 
 without even any Kafir attendants, and though I was 
 entirely in their power I always felt perfectly safe among 
 them. As most of the men spoke Sechwana I was able 
 to converse with them, and found them very intelligent, 
 good-natured companions, full of knowledge concerning the 
 habits of all the wild animals inhabiting the country in 
 which they lived. ... I have never seen their women 
 and children ill-treated by them, and I have seen both the 
 men and the women show affection for their children." 
 
 Elsewhere Selous speaks of "John " — a member of the 
 close-related Korana clan — who was in his service, as 
 " of a pale yellow-brown colour, beautifully proportioned, 
 with small delicately made hands and feet." 
 
 From preface by Henry Balfour to the book Bushmen 
 Paintings Copied, by Helen Tongue. 
 
 "It is certain that the designs representing animals, etc., 
 which are painted upon the walls of their caves and rock- 
 shelters, frequently exhibit a realism and freedom in treat- 
 ment which are quite remarkable in the art of so primitive 
 a people. The skill with which many of the characteristic 
 South African animals are portrayed testifies not only to 
 unusual artistic efficiency, but also to a close observance 
 of and an intimate acquaintanceship with the habits and 
 peculiarities of the animals themselves. . . . The paintings 
 are remarkable not only for the realism exhibited by so 
 many, but also for a freedom from the limitation to delinea- 
 tion in profile which characterises for the most part the 
 drawings of primitive peoples, especially where animals are 
 concerned. Attitudes of a kind difficult to render were 
 ventured upon without hesitation, and an appreciation even 
 of the rudiments of perspective is occasionally to be noted." 
 
 279
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Note from the same book, by S. Bleek, daughter of the 
 well-known Dr. Bleek, of the Grey Library at Cape 
 Town (1870). 
 
 " Bushmen are called liars and thieves all over the Colony, 
 but all those who stayed with us were truthful and very 
 honest. On no occasion did they steal even a pocket-knife 
 lost in the garden, or fruit from the trees. They might 
 have taken sheep from hostile farmers, but they would 
 never rob a friend or neighbour. They were cleanly in 
 their habits, and most particular about manners. ... As 
 a people they were grateful and revengeful, independent 
 in spirit, excellent fighters — who preferred death to cap- 
 tivity. . . . Captives were sometimes made servants, but 
 not often well-treated, nor did they take to a settled life 
 easily. Even kind masters found their longing for freedom 
 hard to conquer." 
 
 The Nechilli Eskimo 
 
 From Amundsen's North West Passage, vol. i, p. 294. 
 (Constable, 1908.) 
 
 " We were suddenly brought face to face here with 
 a people from the Stone Age : we were abruptly carried 
 back several thousand years in the advance of human 
 progress, to people who as yet knew no other method of 
 procuring fire than by rubbing two pieces of wood together, 
 and who with great difficulty managed to get their food 
 just lukewarm, over the seal-oil flame on a stone slab, 
 while we cooked our food in a moment with our modern 
 cooking apparatus. We came here, with our most in- 
 genious and most recent inventions in the way of firearms, 
 to people who still used lances, bows and arrows of reindeer 
 horn. . . However, we should be wrong if from the 
 
 280
 
 Appendix 
 
 weapons, implements, and domestic appliances of these 
 people we were to argue that they were of low intelligence. 
 Their implements, apparently so very primitive, proved 
 to be as well adapted to their existing requirements and 
 conditions as experience and the skilful tests of many 
 centuries could have made them." 
 
 Ugpi, an Eskimo 
 
 From Amundsen vol. i, p. 190. 
 
 " Ugpi or Uglen (the ' Owl ') as we always called him, 
 attracted immediate attention by his appearance. With his 
 long black hair hanging over his shoulders, his dark eyes 
 and frank honest expression, he would have been good- 
 looking if his broad face and large mouth had not spoilt 
 his beauty from a European standpoint. There was 
 something serious, almost dreamy, about him. Honesty 
 and truthfulness are unmistakably impressed on his features, 
 and I would never have hesitated for a moment to entrust 
 him with anything. During his association with us he 
 became an exceptionally clever hunter both for birds and 
 reindeer. He was about thirty years old and was married 
 to Kabloka, a very small girl of seventeen." 
 
 Eskimo and Civilisation 
 
 From Amundsen vol. ii, p. 48. 
 
 " During the voyage of the Gjoa^ we came into contact 
 with ten different Eskimo tribes in all . . . and I must 
 state it as my firm conviction that the Eskimo living abso- 
 lutely isolated from civilisation of any kind are undoubtedly 
 
 281
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 the happiest, healthiest, most honorable and most contented 
 among them. It must therefore be the bounden duty of 
 civilised nations who come into contact with the Eskimo 
 to safeguard them against contaminating influences, and 
 by laws and stringent regulations protect them against 
 the many perils and evils of so-called civilisation. Unless 
 this is done they will inevitably be ruined. . . My sincerest 
 wish for our friends the Nechilli Eskimo is that Civili- 
 sation may never reach them." 
 
 High Standard of Tribal Morality among the Aleoutes 
 
 Witnessed to by the Russian missionary, Veniaminoff. 
 See Mutual Atd^ pp. 99 and 100, by P. Kropotkin. 
 
 The high standard of the tribal morality of the Eskimos 
 has often been mentioned in general literature. Never- 
 theless the following remarks upon the manners of the 
 Aleoutes — nearly akin to the Eskimos — will better illustrate 
 savage morality as a whole. They were written, after a 
 ten years' stay among the Aleoutes, by a most remarkable 
 man — the Russian missionary, Veniaminoff. I sum them 
 up, mostly in his own words : — 
 
 Endurability (he wrote) is their chief feature. It is 
 simply colossal. Not only do they bathe every morning 
 in the frozen sea, and stand naked on the beach, inhaling 
 the icy wind, but their endurability, even when at hard 
 work on insufficient food, surpasses all th.at can be imagined. 
 During a protracted scarcity of food, the Aleoute cares 
 first for his children ; he gives them all he has, and himself 
 fasts. They are not inclined to stealing ; that was remarked 
 even by the first Russian immigrants. Not that they 
 never steal j every Aleoute would confess having sometime 
 
 282
 
 Appendix 
 
 stolen something, but it is always a trifle ; the whole is 
 so childish. The attachment of the parents to their children 
 is touching, though it is never expressed in words or pettings. 
 The Aleoute is with difficulty moved to make a promise, 
 but once he has made it he will keep it whatever may happen. 
 (An Aleoute made VeniaminofF a gift of dried fish, but it 
 was forgotten on the beach in the hurry of the departure. 
 He took it home. The next occasion to send it to the 
 missionary was in January ; and in November and 
 December there was a great scarcity of food in the 
 Aleoute encampment. But the fish was never touched 
 by the starving people, and in January it was sent to 
 its destination.) 
 
 Home Life of the Eskimo 
 
 By Villialm Stefannson. F rom Harper s Mo/2th/)\ October, 
 1908. 
 
 Stefansson lived for thirteen months in the household 
 of a Chief, Ovaynak, on the IVlackcnzie River, and knew 
 his subject well. He says : — 
 
 " With their absolute equality of the sexes and perfect 
 freedom of separation, a permanent union of uncongenial 
 persons is well-nigh inconceivable. But if a couple find 
 each other congenial enough to remain married a year or 
 two, divorce becomes exceedingly improbable, and is much 
 rarer among the middle-aged than among us. People of 
 the age of twenty-five and over are usually very fond of 
 each other, and the family — when once it becomes settled 
 — appears to be on a higher level of aflFection and mutual 
 consideration than is common among us. In an Eskimo 
 home I have never heard an unpleasant word between a 
 
 283
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 man and his wife, never seen a child punished, nor an old 
 person treated inconsiderately. Yet the household affairs 
 are carried on in an orderly way, and the good 
 behaviour of the children is remarked by practically 
 every traveller. 
 
 " These charming qualities of the Eskimo home may 
 be largely due to their equable disposition and the general 
 fitness of their character for the communal relations ; 
 but it seems reasonable to give a portion of the credit to 
 their remarkable social organisation ; for they live under 
 conditions for which some of our best men are striving — 
 conditions that with our idealists are even yet merely 
 dreams." 
 
 Religious Beliefs among the Eskimos 
 
 From Rasmussen's People of the Polar North, pp. 125 and 
 127. (1908.) 
 
 " Their religious opinions do not lead them to any sort 
 of worship of the supernatural, but consist — if they are to 
 be formulated in a creed — of a list of commandments and 
 rules of conduct controlling their relations with unknown 
 forces hostile to man." 
 
 " A wise and independent thinking Eskimo, Otag the 
 Magician, said to me of death : ' You ask, but I know 
 nothing of death ; I am only acquainted with life. I 
 can only say what I believe : either death is the end of 
 life, or else it is the transition into another mode of life. 
 In neither case is there anything to fear. Nevertheless I 
 do not want to die, because I consider that it is good to 
 live.' This calm way of envisaging death is not unusual ; 
 I have seen many pagan Eskimos go to meet certain death 
 without a trace of fear." 
 
 284
 
 Appendix 
 
 Periodical Distributions to Obviate Accumulations of 
 
 Wealth 
 
 From Kropotkin's Mutual Aid^ p. 97. (Heinemann, 
 1908.) 
 
 " (The Eskimos) have an original means for obviating 
 the inconveniences arising from a personal accumulation 
 of wealth — which would soon destroy their tribal unity. 
 When a man has grown rich he convokes the folk of his 
 clan to a great festival, and after much eating, distributes 
 among them all his fortune. On the Yukon river Dall 
 saw an Aleoute family distributing in this way ten guns, 
 ten full fur dresses, two hundred strings of beads, numerous 
 blankets, ten wolf furs, two hundred beavers and five 
 hundred zibellines. After that they took off their festival 
 dresses, and putting on old ragged furs, addressed a few 
 words to their kinsfolk, saying that, though they are now 
 poorer than any one of them, they have won their friend- 
 ship. ^ Like distributions of wealth appear to be a regular 
 habit with the Eskimos, and to take place at a certain season, 
 after an exhibition of all that has been obtained during the 
 year. In my (Kropotkin) opinion, these distributions 
 reveal a very old institution, contemporaneous with the 
 first apparition of personal wealth ; they must have been 
 a means for re-establishing equality among the members 
 of the clan, after it had been disturbed by the enrichment 
 of the few. The periodical redistribution of land and the 
 periodical abandonment of all debts, which took place in 
 historical times with so many different races (Semites, 
 Aryans, etc.), must have been a survival of that old 
 custom." 
 
 » Dall, Alaska and ils Resources, Cambridge, U.S., 1870. 
 285
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 The Samoyedes 
 
 From Icebound on the Kolguev^ p. 384, by A, Trevor-Battye, 
 (Constable, 1895.) 
 
 " Family affection among the Samoyeds is very strongly 
 developed. It would be impossible to find greater evidence 
 of this among any people. Another extremely marked 
 character among them is family order. All everyday offices 
 and occupations are carried out by a well-defined method 
 and subdivision of labour. I never saw a single instance 
 of anything approaching a family quarrel. , . . They are 
 very handy sailors, patient and successful hunters and fisher- 
 men, and admirable workmen with such tools as they 
 understand. No man can repair a damaged boat more 
 quickly than a Samoyed, and from the roughest drift-wood 
 (such as an English carpenter would throw on the fire), 
 they fashion bows, arrows, sleighs, spoons, drinking- 
 cups, bullet-moulds, and a variety of articles of everyday 
 use." 
 
 The Belle of Kolguev 
 
 From Icebound on the Kolguev, p. 130. 
 
 " Her sister-in-law Ustynia w.is really, if you accept 
 the type, a pretty girl. , . . Her eyes were bright, and a 
 pleasant smile played about her lips. When she laughed 
 — and these people are always laughing — she betrayed the 
 most perfectly beautiful teeth it is possible to imagine. 
 Indeed all these people, even old Uano, had most wonderful 
 teeth — white, regular and perfectly shaped. On her fingers 
 Ustynia wore heavy rings of white and yellow metal, 
 and her hands, like those of all Samoyeds, were faultless in 
 
 286
 
 Appendix 
 
 shape and extraordinarily supple. If you add to this a 
 dress reaching to the knees, formed of young reindeer 
 skin, worked in many stripes of white and brown, the 
 skirt banded with scarlet cloth and dogskin fur, and foot 
 and leg coverings of soft patterned skin reaching above 
 the knee — there you have Ustynia, the belle of Kolguev." 
 
 The Tod as 
 
 Quoted from The Todas^ by W. H. Rivers (1906}. 
 
 These people live on a very lofty and isolated plateau 
 of the Nilgiri Hills in South India ; and are especially 
 interesting to us because till 1 81 2 "they were absolutely 
 unknown to Europeans," and developed their own customs 
 untouched by Western civilisation. " They are a purely 
 pastoral people, limiting their activities almost entirely to 
 the care of their buffaloes and to the complicated ritual 
 Vv'hich has grown up in association with these animals." 
 (p. 6) . . . They have a completely organised and definite 
 system of polyandry. When a v/oman marries a man, it 
 is understood that she becomes the wife of his brothers 
 at the same time. When a boy is married to a girl, not 
 only are his brothers usually regarded as also the husbands 
 of the girl, but any brother born later will similarly be 
 regarded as sharing his older brother's rights." (p. 515.) 
 
 " The men are strong and very agile ; the agility being 
 most in evidence when they have to catch their infuriated 
 buffaloes at the funeral ceremonies. They stand fatigue 
 well, and often travel great distances. ... In going from 
 one part of the hills to another a Toda always travels as 
 nearly as possible in a straight line, ignoring altogether 
 the influence of gravity, and mounting the steepest hills 
 with no apparent effort. In all my work with the men 
 
 287
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 it seemed to me they were extremely intelligent. They 
 grasped readily the points of any enquiry on which I entered, 
 and often showed a marked appreciation of complicated 
 questions. ... I can only record my impression, after 
 several months' intercourse with the Todas, that they were 
 just as intelligent as one would have found any average 
 body of educated Europeans. . . . The characteristic note 
 in their demeanour is their absolute belief in their own 
 superiority over the surrounding races. They are grave 
 and dignified, and yet thoroughly cheerful and well-disposed 
 towards all." (pp. 18-23.) 
 
 Nudity 
 
 The Pelew Islands : from J. G. Wood (vol. America^ 
 p. 447). See Captain H. Wilson, who was wrecked 
 there in 1783. 
 
 " The inhabitants are of a dark copper colour, well- 
 made, tall, and remarkable for their stately gait. They 
 employ the tattoo in rather a curious manner, pricking the 
 patterns thickly on their legs from the ankles to a few 
 inches above the knees, so that they look as if their legs 
 were darker in colour than the rest of their bodies. They 
 are cleanly in their habits, bathing frequently and rubbing 
 themselves with coco-nut oil, so as to give a soft and glossy 
 appearance to the skin. . . . The men wear no clothing, 
 not even the king himself having the least vestige of rai- 
 ment, the tattoo being supposed to answer the purposes of 
 dress. ... In spite, however, of the absence of dress, the 
 deportment of the sexes towards each other is perfectly 
 nKjdest. For example, the men and women will not 
 bathe at the same spot, nor even go near a bathing place 
 of the opposite sex unless it be deserted." 
 
 288
 
 Appendix 
 
 Natives of the Amazon Region 
 
 Alfred Russell Wallace, in his Travels on the Ama'zon 
 (1853), speaks most warmly about the aborigines of that 
 district — both as to their grace of form, their quickness 
 of hand, and their goodnatured inoffensive disposition. 
 He says (chap, xvii) : " Their figures are generally superb ; 
 and I have never felt so much pleasure in gazing at the finest 
 statue as at these living illustrations of the human form." 
 In his My Life^ vol. ii, p. 288, he says : " Their whole 
 aspect and manner were different (from the semi-civilised 
 tribes) ; they walked with the free step of the independent 
 forest-dweller . . original and self-sustaining as the wild 
 animals of the forest . . . living their own lives in their 
 own way, as they had done for countless generations before 
 America was discovered. The true denizen of the Ama- 
 zonian forests, like the forest itself, is unique and not to 
 be forgotten." 
 
 From The Putumayoj or DeviPs Paradise. By W. E. 
 Hardenburg (19 12), 
 
 " The Huitotos are a well-formed race, and although 
 small, are stout and strong, with a broad chest and a promi- 
 nent bust ; but their limbs, especially the lower, are but 
 little developed. . . . That repugnant sight, a protruding 
 abdomen, so common among the ' whites ' and half-breeds 
 on the Amazon, is very rare among these aborigines. . . . 
 Notwithstanding some defects it is not rare to find among 
 these women many who are really beautiful — so magnifi- 
 cent are their figures, and so free and graceful their move- 
 ments." (p. 152). 
 
 *' Unions are considered binding among the Huitotos, 
 and it is very rarely that serious disagreements arise between 
 
 289 T
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 husband and wife. The women are naturally chaste, and 
 it was not till the advent of the rubber collectors that 
 they began to lose this primitive virtue — so generally met 
 with among people not yet in contact with white men" 
 
 (p. 154). 
 
 [N.B. — These were some of the people so villainously 
 tortured — men, women and children — for the collection 
 of rubber, by commercial scoundrels, whose atrocities were 
 exposed by Roger Casement and others. E.C.J 
 
 Fine Figures and Features of the Dyaks 
 
 Quotations from Beccar's In the Forests of Borneo^ pp. 
 325 and 329. (Constable 1904.) 
 
 " On the morning of October 19, as previously arranged, 
 Ladja, with eight other Dyaks, came to the fort duly 
 equipped for the journey. Ladja was a handsome young 
 man, tall like most of his companions, slender, and beauti- 
 fully made. His profile was nearly regular, the nose 
 perfectly straight, but the cheek bones rather too prominent 
 and the chin rather pointed. His complexion was very 
 light." ..." Our Arno boatmen in Florence always 
 pole where the river is shallow, and use their poles exactly 
 as the Dyaks do theirs, only they certainly cannot compare 
 with the latter in the length of the journeys thus performed 
 with their light canoes. Ours literally flew over the water 
 handled with incomparable dexterity by my six young 
 savages. There is to my mind no lighter and more 
 pleasant mode of progression, and certainly no kind of 
 work displays so well the elegant movements and perfect 
 proportions of these young Dyaks, who, practically un- 
 encumbered with clothing, are truly splendid specimens 
 of humanity." 
 
 290
 
 Appendix 
 
 From Ida Pfeiffer's book Me'me zweite Weltreise^ vol, i, 
 p. 1 1 6. (Vienna, 1856.) 
 
 " I must confess that I would gladly have journeyed 
 longer among the free Dayaks. I found them wonderfully 
 honourable, gentle and modest ; indeed in these respects 
 I put them above any people that I have as yet become 
 acquainted with. I could leave all my things about, and 
 go away for hours together, and never was the least thing 
 missing. They begged me occasionally for many an object 
 they saw, but immediately gave way when I explained that 
 I needed it myself. They were never over-pressing or 
 tiresome. It will be said, in denial of this, that the beheading 
 of corpses and preservation of skulls does not look exactly 
 like gentleness ; but it must be remembered that this sad 
 custom is chiefly the result of rude and ignorant superstition. 
 I stick to my opinion, and as a further proof, would cite 
 their domestic and thoroughly patriarchal mode of life, 
 their morals and manners, the love that they have for 
 their children, and the respect their children show to 
 them." 
 
 A Rodiya Boy 
 
 Ernst Haeckel in his Visit to Ceylon^ describes the devo- 
 tion to him of his Rodiya serving-boy at Belligam near 
 Galle, The keeper of the rest-house there was an old 
 man whom Haeckel, from his likeness to a well-known 
 head, called by the name of Socrates. And Haeckel con- 
 tinues : " It really seemed as though I should be pursued 
 by the familiar aspects of classical antiquity from the first 
 moment of my arrival at my idyllic home. For as Socrates 
 led me up the steps of the open central hall of the rest- 
 house, I saw before me, with uplifted arms in an attitude 
 
 291
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 of prayer, a beautiful naked brown figure, which could 
 be nothing else than the famous statue of the ' Youth 
 Adoring.' How surprised I was when the graceful bronze 
 statue suddenly came to life, and dropping his arms fell 
 on his knees, and after raising his black eyes imploringly 
 to mine bowed his handsome face so low at my feet that 
 his long black hair fell on the floor ! Socrates informed 
 me that this boy was a Pariah, a member of the lowest 
 caste, the Rodiyas, who had lost his parents at an early 
 age. He was told off to my exclusive service, and in answer 
 to the question what I was to call my new body-servant, 
 the old man informed me that his name was Gamameda. 
 Of course I immediately thought of Ganymede, for the 
 favorite of Jove himself could not have been more finely 
 made, or have had limbs more beautifully proportioned 
 and moulded. 
 
 " Among the many beautiful figures which move in 
 the foreground of my memories of the Paradise of Ceylon, 
 Ganymede remains one of my dearest favorites. Not 
 only did he fulfil his duties with the greatest attention and 
 conscientiousness, but he developed a personal attachment 
 and devotion to me which touched me deeply. The poor 
 boy, as a miserable outcast of the Rodiya caste, had been 
 from his birth the object of the deepest contempt of his 
 fellow-men, and subjected to every sort of brutality and 
 ill-treatment! He was evidently as much surprised as 
 delighted to find me willing to be kind to him from the 
 first, ... I owe many beautiful and valuable contributions 
 to my museum to Ganymede's unfailing zeal and dexterity. 
 With the keen eye, the neat hand, and the supple agility 
 of the Cinghalesc youth, he could catch a fluttering moth 
 or a gliding fish with equal promptitude ; and his nimble- 
 ness was really amazing when, out hunting, he climbed 
 the tall trees like a cat, or scrambled through the densest 
 jungle to recover the prize I had killed." (p. 200,) 
 
 292
 
 Appendix 
 
 Second Sight 
 
 Native "diviners" in South Africa, from The Spiritualism 
 of the Zulu^ by C. H. Bull, of Durban. 
 
 " Many years ago I was riding transport between Durban 
 and the Umzimkulu. I checked my loads at Durban 
 and found them correct with the waybill, but when I 
 reached my destination I discovered that I was one case 
 short, for which I had to pay. On my return to my farm, 
 I mentioned the fact to my brother, who proposed, more 
 in the spirit of fun than anything else, that we should visit 
 a diviner, and endeavour to discover what had become of it. 
 I consented, and together we repaired to a native diviner. 
 He immediately informed us of the object of our visit, 
 although, so far as I can tell, it was morally impossible for 
 him to have known it through any ordinary channels, 
 and then he went on speaking as though in a dream: ' I 
 see a waggon loaded with cases climbing up the Umgwababa 
 Hill ; there has been a lot of rain and the roads are slippery. 
 Half way up the hill the rains have washed a gully ; into 
 this the waggon lurches, displacing a small case, which 
 falls to the ground, but the driver, who is busy urging his 
 team up the hill, does not notice it. Now the waggon 
 has passed out of sight, but I see a Kaffir coming up the hill. 
 When he reaches the spot where the case is lying, he stops 
 for a few moments to examine it, and then proceeds to 
 the top of the hill, where he stands for a few moments 
 shading his eyes with his hand, as though looking beyond. 
 Now he returns to where the case is lying, and lifting it 
 up, crosses the road, and pushing his way through some 
 tall tambootie grass, he reaches a large indonie tree ; under 
 the tree there is a stunted clump of wild bananas. He places 
 the case in the centre of the clump, and after concealing it 
 
 293
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 with some of the dry leaves, he goes on his way. The 
 case is still there.' 
 
 " Though wholly incredulous of the truth of the vision, 
 I sent two ' boys ' to the spot indicated, and they returned 
 bringing with them the lost case, having found it exactly 
 where the diviner said that he saw it." 
 
 The Zulus 
 
 The Zulus : Quotations from General Sir W. Butler's 
 Naboth's Fineyardy p. 263 (given in Blyden's African 
 Life and Customs, p. 43). 
 
 "In all the sad history of South Africa few things are 
 sadder than the Zulu question. Where the Zulu came 
 (in those days), no lock or key were necessary. No man 
 who knew the Zulu — not even the white colonist, whose 
 rage was largely the result of his being unable to get servile 
 labour from him — could say that he had not found the 
 Zulu honest, truthful, faithful ; that the white wife and 
 child had not been entirely safe from insult or harm at 
 the hands of this black man ; or that money and property 
 were not immeasurably more secure in Zulu charge than 
 in that of Europeans or Asiatics." 
 
 From Blyden's African Life and Customs, p. 37. 
 
 " There are to-day hundreds of so-called civilised Africans 
 who are coming back to themselves. They have grasped 
 the principles underlying the European social and economic 
 order and reject them as not equal to their own as means 
 of making adequate provision for the normal needs of all 
 members of society both present and future — from birth 
 all through life to death. They have discovered all the 
 
 294
 
 Appendix 
 
 waste places, all the nakedness of the European system, 
 both by reading and travel. The great wealth can no 
 longer dazzle them, or conceal from their view the vast 
 masses of the population living under what they once 
 supposed to be the ideal system — who are of no earthly 
 use to themselves or to others. . . . Under the African 
 system of communal property and co-operative effort, every 
 member of a community has a home and a sufficiency of 
 food and clothing and other necessaries of life — and for 
 life ; and his children after him have the same advantages. 
 In this system there is no workhouse and no necessity for 
 such an arrangement." 
 
 Over-government 
 
 From Wallace's Malay Archipelago^ p. 336. (i 894 edition.) 
 
 " This motley, ignorant, bloodthirsty, thievish popu- 
 lation (Papuans, Javanese, Chinese, etc.), live here without 
 the shadow of a government, with no police, no courts, 
 and no lawyers ; yet they do not cut each other's throats ; 
 do not plunder each other day and night ; do not fall into 
 the anarchy such a state of things might be supposed to 
 lead to. It is very extraordinary ! It puts strange thoughts 
 into one's head about the mountain-load of government 
 under which people exist in Europe, and suggests the idea 
 that we may be over-governed. Think of the hundred 
 Acts of Parliament annually enacted to prevent us, the 
 people of England, from cutting each other's throats, or 
 from doing to our neighbours as we would not be done by. 
 Think of the thousands of lawyers and barristers whose 
 whole lives are spent in telling us what the hundred Acts 
 of Parliament mean, and one would be led to infer that 
 if Dobbo has too little law England has too much." 
 
 295
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 Society without Government 
 
 From Morley's Rousseau^ vol. ii, p. 227, note. (Eversley 
 edition, 19 10.) 
 
 " Jefferson, who was American minister in France from 
 1784 to 1789, and absorbed a great many of the ideas 
 then afloat, writes in words that seem as if they were 
 borrowed from Rousseau : ' I am convinced that those 
 societies (as the Indians), which live without government, 
 enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree 
 of happiness than those who live under European govern- 
 ments. Among the former public opinion is in the state of 
 law, and restrains morals as powerfully as laws ever did any- 
 where. Among the latter, under pretence of government, 
 they have divided the nation into two classes, wolves and 
 sheep, I do not exaggerate ; this is a true picture of 
 Europe.' " (From Tucker's Life ofjeffersoriy vol. i, p. 255.) 
 
 Security without Government 
 
 From Tafilet^y p. 353. By W. B. Harris. (Blackwood, 1895.) 
 
 " The Moors have a proverb, and it is a very true one, 
 that safety and security can only be found in the districts 
 where there is no government — that is to say, where the 
 government is a tribal one," 
 
 Degradation through " Civilisation ** 
 
 From The Spiritualism oj the Zulu. By C. H. Bull, or 
 Durban. 
 
 ** Thirty-two years ago, I lived for some time in a district 
 in Natal, then thickly populated with natives, still con- 
 
 296
 
 Appendix 
 
 forming to the primitive customs of their race, yet honest, 
 manly and intelligent people, with very definite ideas in 
 regard to moral questions. After an absence of thirty 
 years, just prior to my sailing for England, I again visited 
 the district and was amazed to observe the change which 
 had taken place in the people ; their habits, characters and 
 physique. Sordid poverty, dressed in mean rags or tawdry 
 finery, suggestive of service to vice, had displaced the old 
 dignity, born of conscious physical strength and symmetry 
 of form, which once, though attired only in the trappings 
 that simple art could devise from the rough products ot 
 nature, was characteristic ; whilst drunkenness, dishonesty 
 and immorality sought shelter under the meagre cloaks 
 of the religion dispensed by the different sections of belief, 
 established in the little iron, or wattle and daub churches, 
 which everywhere disfigured the country side. The 
 change was complete and deplorable, nor were the natives 
 unconscious of their degradation, or without regret for 
 the passing of the old days." 
 
 Slavery 
 
 From Waltz's Anthropologic der Naturvolker, vol. ii, p. 281, 
 (Leipzig, i860.) 
 
 " One finds that the fate of Slaves among the ruder 
 peoples is much happier than among the civilised ; indeed 
 it seems to grow worse and worse in proportion to the 
 civilisation of the ruling folk. Strange and incredible as 
 at first sight this seems, the following facts establish it 
 beyond doubt. And indeed it is not difficult to explain. 
 The chief reason is that with the increase of merely 
 material culture^ Time and Labour-force are more and 
 more prized, and consequently always more violently and 
 
 297
 
 Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 
 
 unscrupulously exploited, while on the contrary among 
 primitive people in general a lesser value is placed on 
 these things." 
 
 The Fraud of Western Civilisation 
 
 Extract from " A Letter to a Chinese Gentleman," by 
 Leo Tolstoy. (Published in Saturday Review^ Decem- 
 ber I, 1906.) 
 
 " Amongst all these Western nations there unceasingly 
 proceeds a strife between the destitute exasperated working 
 people and the government and wealthy, a strife which is 
 restrained only by coercion on the part of deceived men 
 who constitute the army ; a similar strife is continually 
 waging between the different states demanding endlessly 
 increasing armaments, a strife which is any moment ready 
 to plunge into the greatest catastrophes. But however 
 dreadful this state of things may be, it does not constitute 
 the essence of the calamity of the Western nations. Their 
 chief and fundamental calamity is that the whole life of 
 these nations who are unable to furnish themselves with 
 food is entirely based on the necessity of procuring means 
 of sustenance by violence and cunning from other nations, 
 who like China, India, Russia and others still preserve a 
 rational agricultural life. 
 
 " Constitutions, protective tariffs, standing armies, all 
 this together has rendered the Western nations what they 
 are — people who have abandoned agriculture and become 
 unused to it, occupied in towns and factories in the production 
 of articles for the most part unnecessary, people who with 
 their armies are adapted only to every kind of violence 
 and robbery. However brilliant their position may appear 
 at first sight it is a desperate one, and they must inevitably 
 perish if they do not change the whole structure of their 
 
 298
 
 Appendix 
 
 life founded as it now is on deceit and the plunder and 
 pillage of the agricultural nations." 
 
 From O'Brien's White Shadows in the South Seas. (New 
 York, 1 91 9.) 
 
 " A hundred years ago there were 160,000 Marquesans 
 in these [South Sea] Islands. To-day their total number 
 does not reach 2,100." O'Brien describes the bad effects 
 of Christianity on these "savages." For he says the so- 
 called superstitions of these races had a great vitalising 
 influence. Their dancing, their tattooing, their religious 
 rites, their chanting and their warfare gave them a zest in 
 life. But " to-day all Polynesians from Hawaii to Tahiti 
 are dying because of the suppression of the play-instinct 
 that had its expression in most of their customs and 
 occupations." And they are now " nothing but joyless 
 machines " and " tired of life." 
 
 Failure of Our Civilisation 
 
 For a searching comparison between our social conditions 
 and those of the many savage communities visited by him 
 — and much to the general advantage of the latter — see 
 A. R. Wallace's Malay Archipelago (ist ed. 1869), pp. 
 456, 7 (ed. 1894). And he ends the book by saying : 
 
 " Until there is a more general recognition of this failure 
 of our civilisation — resulting mainly from our neglect to 
 train and develop more thoroughly the sympathetic feelings 
 and moral faculties of our nature, and to allow them a 
 larger share of influence in our legislation, our commerce, 
 and our whole social organisation — we shall never, as 
 regards the whole community, attain to any real or import- 
 ant superiority over the better class of savages. This is 
 the lesson I have been taught by my observations of un- 
 civilised man. 
 
 " I now bid my readers — Farewell ! " 
 299
 
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