In bygone generations men used to fight and kill one another for the
most trivial cause. As civilization increased, self-control was
magnified into a virtue, and the man who governed himself and
allowed his neighbor to escape unslain was regarded as a hero.
Subsequently, general slashing was found to be incompatible with a
well-ordered community, and forbearance in killing or scratching or
any other unseemly manner of attacking an enemy was taken as a
matter of course.

Nowadays we do not know how often this old desire to kill is
repressed, a brain-impression of hatred thereby intensified, and a
nervous irritation caused which has its effect upon the entire
disposition. It would hardly be feasible to return to the killing to
save the irritation that follows repression; civilization has taken
us too far for that. But civilization does not necessarily mean
repression. There are many refinements of barbarity in our
civilization which might be dropped now, as the coarser expressions
of such states were dropped by our ancestors to enable them to reach
the present stage of knives and forks and napkins. And inasmuch as
we are farther on the way towards a true civilization, our progress
should be more rapid than that of our barbaric grandfathers. An
increasingly accelerated progress has proved possible in scientific
research and discovery; why not, then, in our practical dealings
with ourselves and one another?

Does it not seem likely that the various forms of nervous
irritation, excitement, or disease may result as much from the
repressed savage within us as from the complexity of civilization?
The remedy is, not to let the savage have his own way; with many of