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Chapter XXII<strong>The</strong> Necessity of the SpiritualTransformationOUR NORMAL conduct of life, whether the individualor the social, is actually governed by the balance betweentwo complementary powers, — first, an implicitwill central to the life and inherent in the main power of itsaction and, secondly, whatever modifying will can come in fromthe Idea in mind — for man is a mental being — and operatethrough our as yet imperfect mental instruments to give thislife force a conscious orientation and a conscious method. Lifenormally finds its own centre in our vital and physical being, inits cravings and its needs, in its demand for persistence, growth,expansion, enjoyment, in its reachings after all kinds of powerand possession and activity and splendour and largeness. <strong>The</strong>first self-direction of this Life-Force, its first orderings of methodare instinctive and either entirely or very largely subconscientand magnificently automatic: the ease, spontaneity, fine normality,beauty, self-satisfaction, abundant vital energy and powerof the subhuman life of Nature up to the animal is due to itsentire obedience to this instinctive and automatic urge. It is avague sense of this truth and of the very different and in thisrespect inferior character of human life that makes the thinker,when dissatisfied with our present conditions, speak of a lifeaccording to Nature as the remedy for all our ills. An attempt tofind such a rule in the essential nature of man has inspired manyrevolutionary conceptions of ethics and society and individualself-development down to the latest of the kind, the strangelyinspired vitalistic philosophy of Nietzsche. <strong>The</strong> common defectof these conceptions is to miss the true character of man and thetrue law of his being, his Dharma.Nietzsche’s idea that to develop the superman out of our

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