Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



every direction in the most hopeless quandaries ; 

 and, whether the rib-story be true or not, has at 

 any rate provided no very satisfactory substitute 

 for it. And the reason of this failure is very 

 obvious. It goes with a certain defect in the 

 human mind, which, as we have pointed out 

 (note, p. 57), necessarily belongs to the Civilisa- 

 tion-period — the tendency, namely, to separate 

 the logical and intellectual part of man from the 

 emotional and instinctive, and to give it a locus standi 

 of its own. Science has failed, because she has 

 attempted to carry out the investigation of nature 

 from the intellectual side alone — neglecting the 

 other constituents necessarily involved in the 

 problem. She has failed, because she has attempted 

 an impossible task ; for the discovery of a per- 

 manently valid and purely intellectual representa- 

 tion of the universe is simply impossible. Such 

 a thing does not exist. 



The various theories and views of nature which 

 we hold are merely the fugitive envelopes of the 

 successive stages of human growth — each set of 

 theories and views belonging organically to the 

 moral and emotional stage which has been reached, 

 and being in some sort the expression of it ; so 

 that the attempt at any given time to set up an 

 explanation of phenomena which shall be valid 

 in itself and without reference to the mental con- 

 dition of those who set it up, necessarily ends in 

 failure ; and the present state of confusion and 

 contradiction in which modern Science finds itself 

 is merely the result of such attempt. 



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