s which incline to infest them;
while those that are weakly are very soon eaten up by the same. A
rose-tree, for instance, brought indoors, will soon fall a prey to
the aphis, though when hardened out of doors the pest makes next to
no impression on it. In dry seasons when the young turnip plants in
the field are weakly from want of water, the entire crop is
sometimes destroyed by the turnip-fly, which then multiplies
enormously; but if a shower or two of rain comes before much damage
is done, the plant will then grow vigorously, its tissues become
more robust and resist the attacks of the fly, which in its turn
dies. Late investigations seem to show that one of the functions of
the white corpuscles of the blood is to devour disease-germs and
bacteria present in the circulation,--thus absorbing these
organisms into subjection to the central life of the body,--and
that for this object they congregate in numbers toward any part of
the body which is wounded or diseased.

XII. CARPENTER'S FALSE REMEDY

To cast Carpenter's metaphor, according to which civilization is a
thing to be cured, into the form of an analogy, we might say that the
civilizing process has been to man what the bringing indoors is to a
rose-tree, or the coming of a drought to the turnips in a field. And I
ask you to assume with me that this is so; as it will help me to get on
with my argument, which, as it advances, will reveal more and more
whether it be inherently weak or strong. Nor do I anticipate much
opposition to Carpenter's mere indictment of civilization. At least it
is only when he outlines his remedy that my own protest is aroused. And
I suspect that many a reader will feel with me, that while to cure a
rose-tree or a turnip plant may require only the taking of the one out
of doors again and the falling of the kindly showers upon the other,
the restoration of civilized man to health would necessitate something
more than a mere return on his part to Nature and savagery. Indeed,
such a return may be altogether impossible, and even undesirable. In my
judgment, man having (as Carpenter himself points out) become
"self-conscious," can never go back to Nature, since he is no longer
the same being he was when he emerged from his more primitive state.
Yet what Carpenter recommends so far as he recommends any cure, is
exactly this: Human beings are to wear less clothes--if any at all;