Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



and civilised nations, with their endless fetishes 

 and taboos and superstitions and ceremonies, and 

 caste-marks and phylacteries, and petty regulations 

 and proprieties, — including bitter scorn and per- 

 secution of those who do not fulfil them, — are 

 but illustrations of this process. 



All the prophets and saviours of the world have 

 been for the Spirit as against the letter — and the 

 teachings of all religions have in their turn become 

 literalised and fossilised 1 Perhaps there has been 

 no greater anti-literal than Jesus of Nazareth, 

 and yet perhaps no religion has become more a 

 thing of forms and dogmas than that which passes 

 under his name. Even his counsels of Gentle- 

 ness and Love — which one would indeed have 

 thought might escape this process — have been 

 corrupted into mere prescriptions of morality, 

 such as those of Non-resistance, and of philan- 

 thropic Altruism. 



It seems strange indeed that so great a man 

 as Tolstoy should have lent himself to this process 

 — to the pinning down of the excellent spirit of 

 Christ (who by the way was man enough to 

 drive the money-changers out of the Temple) 

 to a mere formula, as one might pin a dragon-fly 

 to a labelled card — TJiou shall not use Violence : 

 thou shalt not Resist ! And all the while to cleave 

 to a formula only means to admit the evil in some 

 other shape which the formula does not meet 

 — to forswear the stick only means to resort to 

 rebuke and sarcasm in self-defence, which may 

 inflict more pain and a deeper scar, and in some 



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