Civilisation : Its Cause and Cure 



world or the next, and which truly is calculated 

 not to further human solidarity but to destroy it. 

 It runs and trickles through all of modern society, 

 poisoning the well-springs of affection, this morality 

 which, having paid its domestic servants their 

 regular wages, is quite satisfied with itself, and 

 expects them to do their duty in return, but is 

 silent about their real needs and welfare ; which 

 treats its wage-workers as simple machines for 

 the grinding out of profits, and lifts its eyebrows 

 in serene surprise when they retaliate against such 

 treatment ; which can only regard a criminal 

 as a person who has broken a formula, and in return 

 must be punished according to a formula ; and 

 a pig as an animal for which you provide reason- 

 able provender and a stye, and which in return 

 you are entitled to eat. Pharisaical, self-centred 

 and self-interested, materialistic to the last degree, 

 and really senseless in its outlook, this current 

 morality is indeed, and very seriously, a public 

 peril. 



Thou shalt not steal : an empty feat, 

 When it's so lucrative to cheat. 



Keep 'within the code, within the letter ; always 

 speak the nominal truth (whoever may suffer 

 thereby) ; keep up the accepted formulae of 

 marriage and the sex-relation (though hearts may 

 be bleeding and perishing) ; pay every respect 

 to property, and so forth ; and you may have 

 the gratification of being looked upon as a bul- 

 wark of society. But none the less it is probable 



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