Civilisation ; Its Cause and Cure 



prostitution sacred in the temples of antiquity, 

 trampled under foot in the gutters of our great 

 cities of to-day ; monogamy respectable in one 

 land, a mark of class-inferiority in another ; celi- 

 bacy scorned by some sections of people, accepted 

 as the highest state by others ; and so on. 



What are we to conclude from all this ? Is 

 it possible, once we have fairly faced the immense 

 variety of human life in every department of arts, 

 manners, and morals — a variety, too, existing 

 in a vast number of cases under conditions to 

 all intents and purposes quite similar — is it pos- 

 sible ever again to suppose that the particular 

 practices which we are accustomed to are very 

 much better (or, indeed, very much worse) than 

 the particular practices which others are accus- 

 tomed to ? We have been born, as I said at first, 

 into a sheath of custom which enfolds us with our 

 swaddling-clothes. When we begin to grow to 

 manhood v/e see what sort of a thing it is which 

 surrounds us. It is an old husk now. It does 

 not bear looking into ; it is rotten, it is inconsistent, 

 it is thoroughly indefensible ; yet very likely we 

 have to accept it. The caddis-worm has grown 

 to its tube and cannot leave it. A little spark of 

 vitality amid a heap of dead matter, all it can do 

 is to make its dwelling a little more convenient 

 in shape for itself, or (like the coral insect) to pro- 

 long its growth in the most favourable direction 

 for those that come after. The class, the caste, 

 the locality, the age in which we were born has 

 determined our form of life, and in that form very 



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