104 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



the most obvious attribute of the cosmos is its 

 impermanence. It assumes the aspect not so much 

 of a permanent entity as of a changeful process, in 

 which naught endures save the flow of energy and 

 the rational order which pervades it. 



Man, the animal, in fact, has worked his way to 

 the headship of the sentient world, and has become 

 the superb animal which he is in virtue of his 

 success in the struggle for existence. The conditions 

 having been of a certain order, man's organization 

 has adjusted itself to them better than that of his 

 competitors in the cosmic strife. In the case of 

 mankind, the self-assertion, the unscrupulous seizing 

 upon all that can be grasped, the tenacious holding 

 of all that can be kept, which constitute the essence 

 of the struggle for existence, have answered. For 

 his successful progress, throughout the savage state, 

 man has been largely indebted to those qualities 

 which he shares with the ape and the tiger ; his 

 exceptional physical organization ; his cunning, his 

 sociability, his curiosity, and his imitativeness ; 

 his ruthless and ferocious destructiveness when 

 his anger is roused by opposition. 



But, in proportion as men have passed from 

 anarchy to social organization, and in proportion 

 as civilization has grown in worth, these deeply 

 ingrained serviceable qualities have become defects. 

 After the manner of successful persons, civilized 

 man would gladly kick down the ladder by which 

 he has climbed. He would be only too pleased to 

 see "the ape and tiger die." But they decline to 

 suit his convenience ; and the unwelcome intrusion 

 of these boon companions of his hot youth into the 

 ranged existence of civil life adds pains and griefs, 

 innumerable and immeasurably great, to those which 



