Page:Return to Nature!.djvu/33

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Kuhne, Densmore, Trall and others have already achieved great things, and have won for themselves immortal honor, for from darkness they penetrated into light.

But these men have by no means been fully and clearly conscious that they must allow instinct alone to lead them, and they have not strictly and carefully followed the other voices of nature, which I have often mentioned. They have not sufficiently studied the ways of children and animals, those beings who still possess the true guides of life in a higher degree than the adults of modern civilization. They have not considered with sufficient care many of the contrivances and intentions of nature. Therefore their systems and teachings have not been perfect; they have contained mistakes and errors. These systems have now partly been forgotten, and in the course of time will be entirely swallowed up in the sea of oblivion.

After mankind has deviated from nature for thousands and thousands of years, it is very evident that they can only gradually regain a true insight as to which are their duties toward nature and her laws.

All the men who have hitherto built up the nature cure methods are deserving of our highest praise. We must by no means heap reproaches upon them and accuse them, because their systems are faulty and because they did not yet reach a complete natural method.

The nature cure method has evidently inspired the most serious and largest movement that civilized mankind has yet seen. It concerns itself with the health of the individual, that greatest of worldly possessions upon which such an infinite amount of well-being and happiness depends, and which is the only possible safety and redemption from all misery and evils—from final ruin. Therefore we may not remain silent or conceal anything concerning any person, but must above all things always keep our eye upon the great cause, and subjugate everything—every other interest and even every person—to this cause.

From this point of view T shall not hesitate to uncover the