The Ideal State 297 



essentially free and therefore responsible." We have 

 here a concrete statement of man's essential nature 

 which must be borne in mind throughout the whole of 

 this argument. How, then, do we explain man's 

 preference for evil ? How is it that dirt and ugliness 

 seem most congenial to many people ? It is without 

 doubt due to the fact that their circumstances — an evil 

 environment — have habituated them to the bad. They 

 have never known the better, and therefore they 

 assimilate the inferior. They are unwillingly deprived 

 of the better environment, and as long as they adhere 

 to the evil their nature is divided against itself. The 

 unwillingness may not have risen into clear conscious- 

 ness, but it is seen in the unhappiness that comes from 

 the division in their life. If we looked merely to man's 

 nature as it appears on the surface, it would be quite as 

 true to say that it is essentially bad. A contradiction 

 of this kind is found in every creature undergoing 

 evolution. If you take it at any particular stage there 

 is always much in its actual condition that is alien to 

 its real nature and ultimate end. 



It is not necessary to demonstrate here that " crime " 

 is almost invariably the result of a bad environment. 

 That is why the criminal classes are to be found largely 

 in the slums of our big cities ; and with the amelioration 

 of social conditions and better surroundings we know 

 that crime will suffer gradual diminution. But thus far 

 we must realise we have only made a beginning. Man 

 has still to fight the cravings of the flesh, and most of 

 all " greed " — the vice of acquisitiveness — the morbid 

 development of the primeval instinct of self-preserva- 

 tion. It is a necessity of existence that he must seek 

 food and housing, but when he makes it his aim to 

 acquire more than he needs, and seeks after " many 

 possessions," then the natural instinct becomes a vice, 

 and the essential nature — the spirit — "though finite 



