s not always conscious of any need for self-reform. He lustily
attacks the misdoings of others and remains happily ignorant of the
Socratic rule, _Know thyself_. "Every unordered spirit is its own
punishment," says St. Augustine, and the disorder is not removed by
assaulting the faults of others. We have, first and last, to be
captains of our own souls. There is an element of absurdity in the
thought that the aim and purpose of human life is for each soul to hunt
for the sins and imperfections in others. The enjoinment of
self-criticism and self-culture seems a simpler and less circumstantial
rule of life. Asceticism, abnegation, prayer, remoteness from the
passions that rend the worldly, bring peace and content. But they limit
experience and give a false simplicity to the problems of life. Early
Christian monasticism held that as this world is the domain of the
devil, the only safety lies in flight from it. Such a view precludes the
possibility of social reform on a general and lasting basis. It has a
radical consistency and a scientific precision which are only disturbed
by the course of actual events. Supposing all humanity could be
withdrawn, every precious brand snatched from the burning and the whole
made into a vast monastery? The devil would be sure to slip in and cause
a disturbance.

The social reformer assumes that the world is worthy of his care, and
that we are here to make it as habitable as we can. He lives in the
midst of sinful humanity and accepts the inheritance of earthly
conventions. He may choose to live in the slums whilst his spirit
clamours for a hermitage amongst the blue hills. His ways may be
crotchety and his temper irritable--what does it matter so long as he is
carrying out his appointed task in the cosmic order?

To the true nature-lover there is no renunciation in forsaking the
things prized by most men. His virtue may be vice concealed; he gathers
bliss where others find boredom. Give me a tree, a perfect tree, and you
may keep your palaces. Give me the green fields with a hundred thousand
flowers, and you may keep your streets and your piles of gold. Give me
the wild wind and the breath of the torrent, and I have no wish to hear
your hymns. There is a brazen self-sufficiency about the nature-lover
which baffles and offends the mind of the crowd. The most amazing thing
about him is that he turns hardship and deprivation into pleasure. Take
away his house and he shelters in a cave. Depr