Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



they congregate in numbers toward any part of 

 the body which is wounded or diseased. Or 

 to take an example from society, it is clear enough 

 that if our social life were really vivid and healthy, 

 such parasitic products as the idle shareholder 

 and the policeman above-mentioned would simply 

 be impossible. The material on which they prey 

 would not exist, and they would either perish 

 or be transmuted into useful forms. It seems 

 obvious in fact that life in any organism can only 

 be maintained by some such processes as these 

 by which parasitic or infesting organisms are either 

 thrown off or absorbed into subjection. To define 

 the nature of the power which thus works towards 

 and creates the distinctive unity of each organism 

 may be difficult, is probably at present impossible, 

 but that some such power exists we can hardly 

 refuse to admit. Probably it is more a subject 

 of the growth of our consciousness, than an object 

 of external scientific investigation. 



In this view, Death is simply the loosening 

 and termination of the action of this power over 

 certain regions of the organism ; a process by 

 which, when these superficial parts become hardened 

 and osseous, as in old age, or irreparably damaged, 

 as in cases of accident, the inward being sloughs 

 them off, and passes into other spheres. In the 

 case of man there may be noble and there may be 

 ignoble death, as there may be noble and ignoble 

 life. The inward self, unable to maintain authority 

 over the forces committed to its charge, declining 

 from its high prerogative, swarmed over by parasites, 



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