ON MAN AND HIS DEVELOPMENT. 75 



far man may leave behind his animal and put on angelic 

 nature, still the animal remains in the depths of his being, 

 sleeping but not dead, combated it may be and reduced 

 within bounds, but never wholly conquered or subdued. 

 However desirable it might appear that men should die 

 to sense, and live only to the better life of the intellect 

 and the soul, when once they have tasted it; however 

 good it would be for the world that they should put off 

 the old Adam of self, and put on the new life of self- 

 renouncement in behalf of others and of love and labour 

 for them ; however these were to be wished, yet science 

 and experience teach that, considering the inmost nature 

 of man and his inevitable conditions on this earth, this 

 is vain to expect and impossible of achievement, beyond 

 a certain limited extent, determined by these same un- 

 changeable conditions of man, and unchangeable elements 

 of his nature. Man's nature can indeed be changed, and 

 it has been improved; but there remains something at 

 the base, and particularly the senses and the self-con- 

 serving instincts, which cannot be changed. While man 

 remains an animal, susceptible of pleasure and pain, who 

 lives by food, and must be born of woman, so long we 

 may be sure and Nature has taken especial care upon 

 this point he shall be powerfully moved by his appe- 

 tites and passions, and so long the advice and prescrip- 

 tions of Buddha and Schopenhauer to quench them will 

 remain unf ollowed or inoperative ; and' so long, again, 

 as life continues, as in some respect it must ever continue 

 a competition if not always for material divisible goods, 

 yet for ever for certain indivisible satisfactions that must 

 remain the monopoly of individuals so long must the 

 self -asserting and competitive side of man's nature exist 

 and assert itself. Like the sensual side, this too is 

 capable of reduction, and of a greater corresponding 



