Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



time taking place from within, instead of being 

 forced upon society from without. The nature 

 movement begun years ago in Hterature and art 

 is now, among the more advanced sections of the 

 civiHsed world, rapidly realising itself in actual 

 life, going so far even as a denial, among some, 

 of machinery and the complex products of Civilisa- 

 tion, and developing among others into a gospel 

 of salvation by sandals and sunbaths ! It is in 

 these two movements — towards a complex human 

 Communism and towards individual freedom and 

 Savagery — in some sort balancing and correcting 

 each other, and both visibly growing up within, 

 though utterly foreign to — our present-day 

 Civilisation, that we have fair grounds, I think, for 

 looking forward to its cure. 



NOTES 



(See p. 26) The following remarks by Mr. H. B. Cotterill on the 

 natives around Lake Nyassa, among whom he lived at a time, 

 1876-8, when the region was almost unvisited, may be of interest. 

 " In regard of merely ' animal ' development and well-being, 

 that is in the delicate perfection of bodily faculties (perceptive), 

 the African savage is as a rule incomparably superior to us. One 

 feels like a child, utterly dependent on them, when travelling or 

 hunting with them. It is true that many may be found (especially 

 amongst the weaker tribes that have been slave-hunted or driven 

 into barren corners) who are half-starved and wizened, but as a 

 rule they are splendid animals. In character there is a great want 

 of that strength which in the educated civilised man is secured 

 by the roots striking out into the Past and P'uture — and in spite 

 of their immense perceptive superiority they feel and acknowledge 

 the superior force of character in the white man. They are the 



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