Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



every direction in the most hopeless quandaries ; 

 and, whether the rib-story be true or not, has at 

 any rate provided no very satisfactory substitute 

 for it. And the reason of this failure is very 

 obvious. It goes with a certain defect in the 

 human mind, which, as we have pointed out 

 (note, p. 57), necessarily belongs to the Civilisa- 

 tion-period the tendency, namely, to separate 

 the logical and intellectual part of man from the 

 emotional and instinctive, and to give it a locus standi 

 of its own. Science has failed, because she has 

 attempted to carry out the investigation of nature 

 from the intellectual side alone neglecting the 

 other constituents necessarily involved in the 

 problem. She has failed, because she has attempted 

 an impossible task ; for the discovery of a per- 

 manently valid and purely intellectual representa- 

 tion of the universe is simply impossible. Such 

 a thing does not exist. 



The various theories and views of nature which 

 we hold are merely the fugitive envelopes of the 

 successive stages of human growth each set of 

 theories and views belonging organically to the 

 moral and emotional stage which has been reached, 

 and being in some sort the expression of it ; so 

 that the attempt at any given time to set up an 

 explanation of phenomena which shall be valid 

 in itself and without reference to the mental con- 

 dition of those who set it up, necessarily ends in 

 failure ; and the present state of confusion and 

 contradiction in which modern Science finds itself 

 is merely the result of such attempt. 



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