(See p. 72) "It was only on the up-break of the primitive socialisms that the passionate desire of, and therefore belief in, individual Immortality arose. With an intense feeling, not of an independent individual life, but of a dependent common life, there is no passionate desire of, though there may be more or less of belief in, a continuance after death of individual existence." (_Ibid_, p. 161.) Following is an extract from a letter from my friend Havelock Ellis, which he kindly allows me to reprint. The passage is interesting as indicating _one_ cause, at any rate, of the failure of the modern civilisations. "Your remark that you are re-publishing _Civilisation: its Cause and Cure_ has led me to read it once again, and I see how well adapted it is for reissue just now when there is so widespread a discontent with 'civilisation.' I do not see any reason for changing the essay, though, no doubt, much might be added to supplement it. What has, however, struck me is that you leave out of account the _reason_ for the greater health, vigour, and high spirit of savages (when such conditions exist), and that is _the more stringent natural_ selection among savages owing to the greater hardness of their life. You doubtless know ch. xvii of Westermarck's _Moral Ideas_, where he shows how widespread among savages (when they have got past the first crude primitive stage), and in the ancient civilisations, was the practice of infanticide applied to inferior babies and the habit of allowing sick persons to die. That was evidently the secret of the natural superiority of the savage and of the men of the old civilisation, for the Greeks and Romans were very stringent in this matter. The flabbiness of the civilised and the prevalence of doctors and hygienists, which you make fun of, is due to the modern tenderness for human life which is afraid to kill off even the most worthless specimens and so lowers the whole level of 'civilised' humanity. Introduce a New Hardness in this matter and we should return to the high level of savagery, while the doctors would disappear as if by magic. I don't myself believe we _can_ introduce this hardness; and that is why I attach so much importance to _intelligent_ eugenics, working through birth-control, as the only _now possible_ way of getting towards that high natural level you aim at."--HAVELOCK ELLIS (1920). FOOTNOTES: [1] It is interesting to note that the "sense of Sin" seems now (1920) to have nearly passed away. And this fact probably indicates a considerable impending change in our Social Order. [2] For proof I must refer the reader to Engels, or to his own studies of history. [3] Say like the Homeric Greeks, or the Spartans of the Lycurgus period. [4] _Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls_, p. 209.