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 



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