of suffering--cannot
be changed, nor would we want to change it if we could. It would mean
the disappearance of the human race. But that many of our primitive
emotions can be greatly modified by culture, by new standards, by new
ideals of morality, about this there can be no question.

Just as love in modern man is an entirely different feeling from what
it was in primitive man, so jealousy in the advanced thinker is a
different feeling from what it was in the savage; and by education and
true culture it can be modified still further. We hope that in time to
come--I will not venture to say how soon that time will be here--this
injurious, degrading, anti-social feeling may be entirely or almost
entirely eradicated from the human breast.

The primitive desire--and this primitive desire of the race is still
fully exhibited by children--is to take possession of everything nice
or useful that somebody else has and which we have not. But our
education and our cultural standards, including fear of punishment,
have so repressed this desire, have put it so deeply in the
background, that normal human beings hardly feel it at all.

It is only improperly brought up people, mental defectives and those
unable to adjust themselves to their environment who still have this
primitive feeling of taking or stealing. And so with many other
feelings and emotions; and so with jealousy.

If we, at the very first notice of a manifestation of jealousy by a
child, should frown upon it, if we should explain to the child or
adolescent that jealousy is a mean, degrading feeling, that it is a
feeling to be ashamed of, a feeling to hide and not to show off or
even be proud of--as some are now--then jealousy would manifest itself
in a much smaller number of individuals, and those unfortunate enough
to be attacked by it would try to repress it, to hide it, to overcome
it, so that it would eventually become paler and less acute and its
consequences would be less significant, less disastrous for both the
victim and for the persons concerned. Feelings, let us bear in mind,
are not spontaneous things uninfluenced by any environmental factors.
Feelings are like plants; under one environment you may foster their
growth and make them develop luxuriantly; under another environment
you may dwarf their growth and strangle them.

In order to enable us to inhibit the growth of the demon of jealousy,
we must learn what its essence is and what factors are favor