est he pushes off in a mass as weeds and nettles. Thus the
great bulk of the universe is to him useless or hurtful, because
he will not, or cannot, learn its secrets. These unknown things are
standing reproaches to his ignorance and sloth."

"Poisons, for instance, might become sanitary," said Case.

"If man lived in accord with nature," said Sartliff, "she would not
harm him. It is a baby's notion that everything is made to eat, and
that all must go into the mouth. Men should have got beyond this
universal alimentiveness, ere this. Find the uses of things, and
poisons and nettles fall into their places in harmony, and are no
longer poisons and nettles."

"And accidents would help us on, instead of off," suggested Case.

"They help as often one way as the other now," replied Sartliff. "But
there are really no accidents; everything is produced by law."

"There must be two or three systems then," suggested Case. "Things
collide, while each obeys its law. Your systems clash."

"Not a bit. This is apparent only; man acts abnormally under evil
influences; he will not observe law; he turns upon nature and says
he will subvert her laws, and compel her to obey his. Of course
confusion, disorder, and death are the consequences, and always will
be, till he puts himself in harmony with her."

"It seems to me, Mr. Sartliff, that in your effort to get back
individually, you have encountered more difficulties, collisions, and
ills, than the most of us do, who keep on the old orthodox civilized
way to the devil."

"That may be; I am one, looking alone; nobody helps me."

"And like the younger Mr. Weller, you find it a pursuit of knowledge
under difficulties."

"Precisely; I inherited an artificial constitution, and tastes, and
needs. I began perverted and corrupted, and when I go back to Nature,
she teaches me less than she does the beasts and birds. Before I can
understand, or even hear her voice, I must recover the original purity
and strength of organs and faculties which I might have had. I may
perish in the attempt to reach a point at which I can learn. The earth
chills and hurts my feet, the sun burns my skin, the winds shrivel me,
and the snows and frosts would kill me, while many of the fruits
good for food are indigestible to me. See to what the perversions of
civilization have reduced me."

"Do you propose in thus getting back to nature, to go back to what we
call savagery?" asked Bart.

"Not a bit of it. It w