This is mainly because we do not fairly
face the fact that the process of civilization is entirely according
to Nature, and that the perversions which purport to be a direct
outcome of civilization are, in point of fact, contradictions or
artificialities which are simply a going-over into barbarism, just
as too far east is west.
If you suggest "Nature" in habits and customs to most men nowadays,
they at once interpret you to mean "beastly," although they would
never use the word.
It is natural to a beast to be beastly: he could not be anything
else; and the true order of his life as a beast is to be respected.
It is natural to a man to govern himself, as he possesses the power
of distinguishing and choosing, With all the senses and passions
much keener, and in their possibilities many degrees finer, than the
beasts, he has this governing power, which makes his whole nervous
system his servant just in so far as through this servant he loyally
obeys his own natural laws. A man in building a bridge could never
complain when he recognized that it was his obedience to the laws of
mechanics which enabled him to build the bridge, and that he never
could have arbitrarily arranged laws that would make the bridge
stand. In the same way, one who has come to even a slight
recognition of the laws that enable him to be naturally civilized
and not barbarously so, steadily gains, not only a realization of
the absolute futility of resisting the laws, but a growing respect
and affection for them.
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