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 



