icrobes to which they were
unaccustomed, against which they had not acquired immunity. If by
antiseptics they could have kept these microbes at bay, they would have
done well, but if, like mankind, they had possessed self-resistance
against them (that is, if they had been self-cleansing) it would have
been still better. There is no paradox in saying that, practically, it
is very difficult for a healthy person to be genuinely unclean; and
that ideally, in the surgeon's eyes, we are, all, rich man and tramp,
so unclean that there is little to choose between us, and every one of
us requires a comprehensive scrubbing in an antiseptic tub.

[Sidenote: _DISADVANTAGES_]

But just as the habit of aiding nature by eating predigested food is
bad, so too rigid a habit, too great a need of cleanliness is a
positive disadvantage in the struggle for existence. Harry Stidston
says fleas are loveable little creatures. I have had to learn to put up
with one or two sometimes. Tommy makes his mother undress him in the
middle of dinner to find one. In other words, Harry Stidston can do his
work and live under conditions which would put me to flight, and I have
a like advantage over Tommy. Again, Tony can do with an occasional bath
and can eat his food with fishy hands, while I am a worm and no man
without my daily bath, or at least a wash-over, and, except at sea,
turn against the best of food if I can smell fish on my fingers. The
advantage is Tony's. It is good to be clean, but it is better to be
able to be dirty.

The upshot is half-a-dozen--maybe unpleasant--truths, without
recognition of which the latter-day citadel of snobbery cannot be
stormed, nor the poor man and his house appreciated at their worth;
namely:--

1. _Ideally_: We are all so unclean that there is little to
choose between us.

2. _Scientifically_: Cleanliness, as practised, is
conventional and irrational.

3. Blood-cleanliness is better than skin-cleanliness.

4. To be self-cleansing is better than to be cleansed by outside
agents.

5. It is hard for a healthy, active person to be really unclean.

6. _Practically_: The need of cleanliness is a weakness.

According to the orthodox standards, this house of Tony's is by no
means so clean as the rose-embowered cottage of romance. It was not
hygienically built. The children gain health by grubbing about outside,
then come in house and demonstrate their healthy appet