V IN HUMAN SOCIETY 207 



only exactly enough before, somebody must go 

 on short rations. The Atlantis society might 

 have been a heaven upon earth, the whole nation 

 might have consisted of just men, needing no 

 repentance, and yet somebody must starve. Reck 

 less Istar, non-moral Nature, would have riven 

 the ethical fabric. I was once talking with a 

 very eminent physician l about the vis medicatrix 

 natnrce. " Stuff ! " said he ; " nine times out of 

 ten nature does not want to cure the man : she 

 wants to put him in his coffin." And Istar- 

 Nature appears to have equally little sympathy 

 with the ends of society. " Stuff ! she wants 

 nothing but a fair field and free play for her 

 darling the strongest." 



Our Atlantis may be an impossible figment, 

 but the antagonistic tendencies which the fable 

 adumbrates have existed in every society which 

 was ever established, and, to all appearance, must 

 strive for the victory in all that will be. Histor 

 ians point to the greed and ambition of rulers, 

 to the reckless turbulence of the ruled, to the 

 debasing effects of wealth and luxury, and to 

 the devastating wars which have formed a great 

 part of the occupation of mankind, as the causes 

 of the decay of states and the foundering of 

 old civilisations, and thereby point their story 

 with a moral. No doubt immoral motives of 

 all sorts have figured largely among the minor 

 1 The late Sir W. Gull. 



