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, 



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