should never shirk a problem that must be decided, but let us always
wait a reasonable time for it to decide itself first. The solving
that is done for us is invariably better and clearer than any we
could do for ourselves.

It will be curious, too, to see how many apparently serious
problems, relieved of the importance given them by a strained
nervous system, are recognized to be nothing at all. They fairly
dissolve themselves and disappear.



XV.

SUMMARY.

THE line has not been clearly drawn, either in general or by
individuals, between true civilization and the various perversions
of the civilizing process. 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