Do you remember Kipling's classic story titled "Letting the Jungle In"? It is the story of a group of people who went into the jungle, made a clearing, brought their livestock, planted their crops, and built their homes. For awhile it was a veritable paradise, until the rain years came and the jungle crept back. Wild animals killed their stock. The prolific vegetation of the jungle moved in faster than they could cope with it. The jungle took back their paradise.

Of course, Kipling wasn't writing about the jungle at all. He was writing the story of humanity. As Emerson Colaw has expressed it, "Kipling knew how near the jungle lies to the settlements of man, how thin is the veneer of civilization and how deep the savage in man. Our great upset at home and abroad today is but further eviden…