had
been blue, and these had been compelled by some strange law to discard
the badges of their civilization and conform to the ruder image of the
first. The natural law by which such a change occurs is called _The
Principle of Reversion to Type_.

It is a proof of the universality of this law that the same thing will
happen with a plant. A garden is planted, let us say, with strawberries
and roses, and for a number of years is left alone. In process of time
it will run to waste. But this does not mean that the plants will really
waste away, but that they will change into something else, and, as it
invariably appears, into something worse; in the one case, namely, into
the small, wild strawberry of the woods, and in the other into the
primitive dog-rose of the hedges.

If we neglect a garden plant, then, a natural principle of deterioration
comes in, and changes it into a worse plant. And if we neglect a bird,
by the same imperious law it will be gradually changed into an uglier
bird. Or if we neglect almost any of the domestic animals, they will
rapidly revert to wild and worthless forms again.

Now the same thing exactly would happen in the case of you or me. Why
should Man be an exception to any of the laws of Nature? Nature knows
him simply as an animal--Sub-kingdom _Vertebrata_, Class _Mammalia_,
Order _Bimana_. And the law of Reversion to Type runs through all
creation. If a man neglect himself for a few years he will change into a
worse man and a lower man. If it is his body that he neglects, he will
deteriorate into a wild and bestial savage--like the de-humanized men
who are discovered sometimes upon desert islands. If it is his mind, it
will degenerate into imbecility and madness--solitary confinement has
the power to unmake men's minds and leave them idiots. If he neglect his
conscience, it will run off into lawlessness and vice. Or, lastly, if
it is his soul, it must inevitably atrophy, drop off in ruin and decay.

We have here, then, a thoroughly natural basis for the question before
us. If we neglect, with this universal principle staring us in the face,
how shall we escape? If we neglect the ordinary means of keeping a
garden in order, how shall it escape running to weeds and waste? Or, if
we neglect the opportunities for cultivating the mind, how shall it
escape ignorance and feebleness? So, if we neglect the soul, how shall
it escape the natural retrograde movement, the inevitable relapse into
barren