But, if the infirmity is man’s, how can it be “practical” to reform his institutions and systems? You might as well begin rebuilding your palaces because your monarchs have failed you. Nor can it be argued with any cogency, at this time of day, either that the materials are not to hand for pursuing the inquiries outlined above, or that the prescriptions for a recovery of man’s lost quality have not been foreshadowed if not definitely specified. Of modern and ancient thinkers there have been enough to show, at least in broad outline, the methods that should be adopted for almost any contingency. Nobody would deny that the undertaking bristles with immense difficulties, but even if the science that will help us to accomplish it had to be created _pari passu_ with our attempts at overcoming these difficulties it would still be worth while, since it is quite possible that it is the only great alternative. So much for _man_ as the suspected primary cause of the malady of modern civilisation. If now we turn to other details (other than material and economic conditions of course) in the fabric of modern life, which would strike even the most myopic as requiring instant correction, they spring in such profusion before our eyes, that it would be impossible in the compass of this small and elementary treatise, to refer to any except the most salient. One of the most salient is the absurd [p208] attempt that society has made during the last, or commercial and industrial era, in modern Europe, to build a harmonious and united community upon the principle of _cleavage_. Doomed to failure from the start, as it was, this vice of cleavage, that is at the root of the failure of modern society, has not yet,--no, not even at this late hour,--been recognised and condemned by all. Let it be thoroughly understood what is here meant by the principle of cleavage. Cleavage is not to be confused with classification. You may subject your children or your parents to classification, while they are all hanging affectionately on each other’s necks; but if you group them by cleavage, the idea “asunder,” is bound to follow. The classification of a population, therefore, does not necessarily leave any clefts or chasms between the classes. If, however, you proceed by dividing up your population on the principle of cleavage, definite clefts or chasms between the groups are inevitable; and this is the principle upon which the commercial and industrial Age has worked.