Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



it is secondary — being founded upon another 

 and more elementary desire — the desire namely 

 of escaping pain or obtaining food. In either 

 case a desire of some kind is a precedent condition 

 of the new action. And so as we know of no 

 case of a new action coming into play without 

 being preceded by desire, we seem to be justified 

 in supposing that all our actions when they were 

 first initiated (in our forefathers, if not in ourselves) 

 were so preceded. If this is so, then, since function 

 is always preceded by desire, and organisation is 

 preceded by function, organisation must necessarily 

 be preceded by desire. And if this is the order 

 of creation in man, should we not reasonably 

 look in this direction for the key to the variation 

 of animals and the order of creation in general ? ^ 

 If a farmer's son is occasionally born who hates 

 farming and loves music, and who ultimately 

 through the force of his desire (driving him into 

 oppositions and difficulties and penurious strug- 

 gles) transforms himself into a musician, is it 

 not also likely that occasionally an animal is born 

 who hates the customs of his tribe, and at last 

 (also through struggles) transforms himself into 

 something else ? Even if he does not succeed 

 (the animal) in entirely transforming himself, 

 he likely transmits the desire in some degree to 



' This does not, of course, preclude the action of external 

 conditions, or imply that organisation is determined by desire 

 alone. In fact organisation may be regarded as the expression 

 of desire acting under conditions — as in the cases of the monkey 

 and giraffe above. 



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