Now in these unimaginable surroundings of safety and peace, summing up
the total of my experience in the Siberian taiga, I make the following
deductions. In every healthy spiritual individual of our times,
occasions of necessity resurrect the traits of primitive man, hunter and
warrior, and help him in the struggle with nature. It is the prerogative
of the man with the trained mind and spirit over the untrained, who does
not possess sufficient science and will power to carry him through. But
the price that the cultured man must pay is that for him there exists
nothing more awful than absolute solitude and the knowledge of complete
isolation from human society and the life of moral and aesthetic
culture. One step, one moment of weakness and dark madness will seize
a man and carry him to inevitable destruction. I spent awful days of
struggle with the cold and hunger but I passed more terrible days in
the struggle of the will to kill weakening destructive thoughts. The
memories of these days freeze my heart and mind and even now, as I
revive them so clearly by writing of my experiences, they throw me
back into a state of fear and apprehension. Moreover, I am compelled
to observe that the people in highly civilized states give too little
regard to the training that is useful to man in primitive conditions, in
conditions incident to the struggle against nature for existence. It is
the single normal way to develop a new generation of strong, healthy,
iron men, with at the same time sensitive souls.

Nature destroys the weak but helps the strong, awakening in the soul
emotions which remain dormant under the urban conditions of modern life.


CHAPTER VI