A comparison between his views on the "nature of man" in 1884 and in 1910 is interesting. In an essay on _The Joy of Life_, written in 1884, he greatly offended the Swedish Mrs. Grundy by the following passage: "After long centuries of the voluntary or involuntary lie, of artificialising custom and speech, a general craving for brutality is sometimes awakened, a delirious desire to throw off one's clothes and walk about naked, to reveal the indecent, to approach the repulsive, to be a happy and joyous animal." In an article on _Religion_, written in 1910, and published in _Speeches to the Swedish Nation_, he wrote: "I apply my biblical Christianity to my own personal and inner use, so as to curb my somewhat riotous nature, rendered riotous by the veterinary philosophy and animal doctrine (Darwinism) in which I was brought up. The fact that I practise, as far as I can, the Christian doctrines should not, I maintain, give people reason to complain. For it is only through religion, or the hope for something better, and the realisation of the inner meaning of life as a time of probation, a school, possibly a house of correction, that we can bear life's burden with sufficient resignation. In the understanding of the relative insignificance of external conditions of life, compared with the possession of hope and faith, one finds that moral courage to renounce everything--which the ungodly lack--to suffer everything for the sake of a mission, to speak out when others remain silent." In the same "speech" he says: "Since 1896 I call myself a Christian (see _Inferno_). I am not a Catholic, and have never been one, but during seven years' life in Catholic countries and in intimate relationship with Catholics I discovered that there was no difference between Catholicism and Protestantism, or merely an outward one, and that the schism which took place once was purely political, or was only concerned with theological points which in reality have nothing to do with religion. This was the cause of my tolerance towards Catholics which found a special expression in my _Gustavus Adolphus_, and gave rise to the fable about my being a Catholic. I am entered on the parish register as a Protestant, and shall remain one, but I am probably not orthodox, nor am I a pietist, but rather a Swedenborgian."