Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



interesting as indicating one cause, at any rate, of the failure of 

 the modern civilisations. " Your remark that you are re-publishing 

 Civilisation : its Cause and Cure has led me to read it once again, 

 and I see how well adapted it is for reissue just now when there 

 is so widespread a discontent with ' civilisation.' I do not see 

 any reason for changing the essay, though, no doubt, much might 

 be added to supplement it. What has, however, struck me is 

 that you leave out of account the reason for the greater health, 

 vigour, and high spirit of savages (when such conditions exist), 

 and that is the more stringent natural selection among savages owing 

 to the greater hardness of their life. You doubtless know ch. xvii 

 of Westermarck's Moral Ideas, where he shows how widespread 

 among savages (when they have got past the first crude primitive 

 stage), and in the ancient civilisations, was the practice of infanticide 

 applied to inferior babies and the habit of allowing sick persons 

 to die. That was evidently the secret of the natural superiority 

 of the savage and of the men of the old civilisation, for the Greeks 

 and Romans were very stringent in this matter. The flabbiness 

 of the civilised and the prevalence of doctors and hygienists, which 

 you make fun of, is due to the modern tenderness for human life 

 which is afraid to kill off even the most worthless specimens and 

 so lowers the whole level of ' civilised ' humanity. Introduce a 

 New Hardness in this matter and we should return to the high 

 level of savagery, while the doctors would disappear as if by 

 magic. I don't myself believe we can introduce this hardness ; 

 and that is why I attach so much importance to intelligent 

 eugenics, working through birth-control, as the only now possible 

 way of getting towards that high natural level you aim at." 

 HAVELOCK ELLIS (1920). 



