V IN HUMAN SOCIETY. 207 



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. Reckless Istar, non-moral 

 Nature, would have riven the ethical fabric. I 

 was once talking with a very eminent physi- 

 cian * about the vis medicatrix naturce. " 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. His- 

 torians 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 civilizations, and thereby point their story 

 with a moral. No doubt immoral motives of 

 all sorts have figured largely among the minor 

 causes of these events. But beneath all this 

 * The late Sir W. Gull. 



