Page:The Great Secret.djvu/178

162 And it is the same with the man as with the woman, if he comes down really to the level of his mate, only while women do become more subordinate and adaptable as time goes on, men more often awake to disgust after the first glamour of love has worn off.

Looking at the effect of this short space of time on individuals, as we have seen it for ourselves, the easy lapsing from cultivation into the fallow stage, and the force of constant communication and surroundings, we no longer wonder at the changes which have taken place in races. How the most civilised nations have come to lose and forget their arts, sciences, refinements and histories, and become by degrees once again skin-covered, flint-using savages, with only a glimmering of the past left in the shape of superstitions and myths. How quickly does a neglected garden become a wilderness!

Yet knowing all this, we also know that the soil too often used, too finely cultivated, must be ploughed over and left lying fallow to the weeds or what else likes to flourish over it until it can regain its original vigour, and so also super-refined and worn races must get fresh blood and become obliterated for a time after they have reached a certain stage for the sake of the unborn and new.