Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



fact the very act of thinking whether we are right 

 (which implies a sundering of ourselves, even in 

 thought, from others) itself introduces the element 

 of wrongness ; and if we are ever to be " right " 

 at all, it must be at some moment when we fail 

 to notice it — when we have forgotten our apartness 

 from others and have entered into the great region 

 of human equality. Equality — in that region 

 all human defects are redeemed ; they all find their 

 place. To love your neighbour as yourself is the 

 whole law and the prophets ; to feel that you are 

 " equal " with others, that their lives are as your 

 life, that your life is as theirs — even in what tri- 

 fling degree we may experience such things — is 

 to enter into another life which includes both sides; 

 it is to pass beyond the sphere of moral distinctions, 

 and to trouble oneself no more with them. Be- 

 tween lovers there are no duties and no rights ; 

 and in the life of humanity, there is only an instinctive 

 mutual service expressing itself in whatever way 

 may be best at the time. Nothing is forbidden, 

 there is nothing which may not serve. The 

 law of Equality is perfectly flexible, is adaptable 

 to all times and places, finds a place for all the 

 elements of character, justifies and redeems them 

 all without exception ; and to live by it is perfect 

 freedom. Yet not a law : but rather as said, a 

 new life, transcending the individual life, work- 

 ing through it from within, lifting the self into 

 another sphere, beyond corruption, far over the 

 world of Sorrow. 



The effort to make a distinction between acting 

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