222 THE WHENCE AND THE WHITHER OF MAN 



failure to choose is ruin. The man has preferred 

 degradation ; it is only right that he should have it to 

 satiety. 



But man is not, and never can be, pure spirit. He 

 may " let the ape and tiger die," but he must always 

 retain the animal with its natural appetites. Moreover, 

 his higher mental capacities increase their power. 

 Memory recalls past gratifications as it never does to 

 the animal ; imagination paints before him vivid pictures 

 of similar future enjoyments, and mental keenness and 

 strength of will tell him that they can all be his. But 

 if he yields himself a slave to these appetites, if he 

 seeks to be an animal rather than a spiritual being, he 

 becomes not an animal but a brute ; and the only genu- 

 ine brute is a degenerate man. And thus after conquer- 

 ing the world man's very structure compels him to join 

 battle with himself. For here, as everywhere else, 

 to attempt to go backward to a plane of life once 

 passed is to surely degenerate. The time when the 

 prize of pre-eminence could be won by mere physical 

 superiority was passed before man had a history. 

 Physical superiority must be maintained, and every 

 advance in art and science, considered here as minis- 

 tering to man's physical comfort, is advantageous just 

 so far as these allow man freedom and aid to pursue 

 the mental and moral line which is the only true path 

 left open to him. But when even these are allowed to 

 minister only to the animal, or to tempt to luxurious 

 ease and indifference to any higher aims, in a word, in 

 so far as they fail to minister to mental and moral 

 advancement, they are in great danger of becoming, if 

 they have not already become, a curse rather than a 

 blessing. And we all know that this has been proven 



