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, 



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