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.

It is this sham civilization, this selfish refinement of barbarous
propensities, this clashing of nervous systems instead of the
clashing of weapons, which has been largely, if not entirely, the
cause of such a variety and extent of nervous trouble throughout the
so-called civilized world. It is not confined to nervous
prostration; if there is a defective spot organically, an inherited
tendency to weakness, the nervous irritation is almost certain to
concentrate upon it instead of developing into a general nervous
break-down.

With regard to a cure for all this, no superficial remedy, such as
resting and feeding, is going to prove of lasting benefit; any more
than a healing salve will suffice to do away with a blood disease
which manifests itself by sores on the surface of the skin. No