MAN AND ENVIRONMENT 103 



kinds of amusements. All these tyrannize over him. He is 

 becoming the slave of things. 



Nature is idealized as a fairy godmother, or valued as a 

 mass of exploitable material. Science is encouraged not so 

 much as a means of truth as a provider of comforts and lux- 

 uries, and an ally in despoiling nature. He has barred out 

 nature so far as he can; becomes weak and unhealthy in mind 

 and body. Complete conformity to artificial environment and 

 repletion have cost him his vigor and powers of endurance. 

 He glories in his over-specialization and seems in a fair way 

 to become a '' reversed cripple." Men have invented and 

 made — we might almost say created — vast military, politi- 

 cal or economic machines and trusted in them. The machine 

 catches and crushes them in its wheels and then breaks dov/n 

 because of its weight and complexity. Is not this the his- 

 tory of every ancient " successful " civiHzation? Why should 

 we be an exception? 



Can we fail to notice the same tendency in all social life 

 with its opportunities for mutual help and improvement, and 

 wealth of enjoyment, its training in manners, which are or 

 should be a branch of morals; its correction of our individual 

 one-sidedness and weaknesses and egoism; its power of public 

 opinion; its conventions, fashions, tyranny, futility and empti- 

 ness? We make the political machine, it rules us, and we wor- 

 ship it. This looks like either fetichism or " graft," or both. 



In all such cases we allow the " cake of custom " to thicken 

 and harden around us and tearfully mourn that we cannot 

 break it.^ The confession, if true, explains, justifies and 

 seals our doom. 



'' We wrestle in our present state 

 With bonds ourselves have forged and call it fate." 



There is, as Huxley has well said, a natural and an artificial 

 system of education. Our artificial system should prepare us 

 to receive gladly and use wisely the education of nature and 

 life. Is it suited to teach men and women how to live, to 



5 T. 201. 



