Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



relations to us. One man at the sight of it may 

 be affected with admiration of its beauty, with 

 tenderness towards it, or sympathy ; another 

 may be stimulated to wonder whether he can kill 

 it, or whether it is good to eat ! Modern Science 

 is indifferent to what this last set of relations may 

 be ; it does not concern itself much with the first ; 

 but it takes the middle term, the purely intellec- 

 tual, and seeks to abstract that from the others, 

 to study the bird, or whatever the object may 

 be, in the one aspect only. But can that really 

 be done ? The answer is, of course, No. 



To show my general meaning, and why I 

 consider the claim an impossible one, let us 

 imagine a little cell one of the myriads which 

 constitute the human body professing in the same 

 sort of way to stand outside the body and explain 

 the laws of the other cells and the body at large. 

 It is obvious that the little cell, swept along in 

 the currents of the body and swayed by its emotions, 

 in close proximity and contact with some portions 

 of the organism, and far remote from others, 

 cannot possibly pretend to any such impartial 

 judgment. It is obvious not only that it would 

 not have all the clues of the problem at its command, 

 but that its own needs and experiences would 

 prejudice it frightfully in the interpretation of 

 such clues as it had. Yet man is such a little 

 cell in the body of Nature, or, if you like, in 

 the body of the Society of which he forms a 

 part. 



There is, however, one way, it seems to me, 

 222 



