The Hawaiian gazette., 1894-05-25
TIE STATE OF NATURE.

readers. Mr.. Boeter is one Of those
persons common enough a hundred
years ago, but rarer now, who
ascribe all the ills of life TO civiliZa-
ton itself. He thinks that nothing
is required to secure a condition Of
perfect virtue and happiness but to
discard everything which savors Of
the arts and usages Of cultivated
life, to eat nothing but the fruits
which grow without asking, and
drink, if anything at all, nothing
but the waters Of the crisped
spring" Do this, and passion will
cease, disease Will vanish, life will
stretch out into s succession Of
happy generations, and the world
Of misery and conflict will be
transformed into a Paradise Of
sweet content"
1t is very easy to laugh at the
obvious yagaries of q theory like
this, but he must be of a poor and
shallow spirit, who cannot find in
them food for thought as well as
laughter.
The opinions which Mr.. BOeter
processes with such earnest enthu-
siasm contain a great deal Of truth.
They involve, it may be, d general
conception of the universe far less
erroneous than that Of many per-
sons whose opinions pass unnoticed.
What marks them is not so much
that they present false picture Of
the world, as that they present one
very different from that which
passes current as true.
Herr Boeter's most eccentric
ideas contain abundant truth. Take
for instance his somewhat startling
opinion on the subject of clothes.
To the person who takes the world
strictly as he finds it, who never
sees farther than the end Of his
nose, who knows no distinction be-
tween the conventionally proper and
the eternally fit, such ideas are
nothing short of monstrous. If,
however, We study nature and re-
view history, compare the customs
of diverse ages, races and societies,
contrast the veil Of a Turkish beau
ty with the ball dress of the Homo
lulu belle, We shall find an infinite
variety of incongruities, contradic-
tions and absurdities. In the face
of these, in the face of the profound
and natural morality taught by
the Christian religion, he would be
a bold man who should undertake
to foretell the future Of clothes, or
say whether they will have any fu-
ture at all.
So too, the protest Of enthusiasts
ike Boeter against the great abuses
Of modern civilized life, against its
luxuries, its artifcialities, its dead
ly atmosphere Of lies, its injustice
and misery, is well founded pro-
test, and is entitled to respect and
not derision. The difficulty here
is not with the diagnosis, but with
the panacea. The state Of nature
which is e1tolled is a pure abstrac-
ton, and a very unnatural one at
that. 1t cannot be returned to-"
for it never existed. At the end of
the last century, when the minds
Of men were full of the ideas of
Rousseau, they imagined the state
Of primitive man TO be one of pure
bliss, and travellers, Of course, saw
what they wanted and expected to
see. The nineteenth century has
changed all that. Il found out
the noble red man" and exposed
him. The investigations Of mod
ern ethnology have shown that
Eden is a myth, and that early
man is everywhere the same super
stitious, cunning and brutal saw
age.
There is no broad road to social
The world can only be
-egenerated by the slow and pa
.ient processes of the ages, the in