ble position. Human nature _does_ change. Nothing can be
more unscientific, more hopelessly mediaeval, than to imagine that it
does not. It changes like everything else. You can't see it change.
True! But then you can't see the grass growing--not unless you arise
very early.

Is human nature the same now as in the days of Babylonian civilisation,
when the social machine was oiled by drenchings of blood? Is it the same
now as in the days of Greek civilisation, when there was no such thing
as romantic love between the sexes? Is it the same now as it was during
the centuries when constant friction had to provide its own cure in the
shape of constant war? Is it the same now as it was on 2nd March 1819,
when the British Government officially opposed a motion to consider the
severity of the criminal laws (which included capital punishment for
cutting down a tree, and other sensible dodges against friction), and
were defeated by a majority of only nineteen votes? Is it the same now
as in the year 1883, when the first S.P.C.C. was formed in England?

If you consider that human nature is still the same you should instantly
go out and make a bonfire of the works of Spencer, Darwin, and Wallace,
and then return to enjoy the purely jocular side of the present volume.
If you admit that it has changed, let me ask you how it has changed,
unless by the continual infinitesimal efforts, _upon themselves_, of
individual men, like you and me. Did you suppose it was changed by
magic, or by Acts of Parliament, or by the action of groups on persons,
and not of persons on groups? Let me tell you that human nature has
changed since yesterday. Let me tell you that to-day reason has a more
powerful voice in the directing of instinct than it had yesterday. Let
me tell you that to-day the friction of the machines is less screechy
and grinding than it was yesterday.

'You were born like that, and you can't alter yourself, and so it's no
use talking.' If you really believe this, why make any effort at all?
Why not let the whole business beautifully slide and yield to your
instincts? What object can there be in trying to control yourself in any
manner whatever if you are unalterable? Assert yourself to be
unalterable, and you assert yourself a fatalist. Assert yourself a
fatalist, and you free yourself from all moral responsibility--and other
people, too. Well, then, act up to your convictions, if convictions they
are. If you can't alter yourself, I