_IMPERFECTIONS OF OUR SOCIAL SYSTEM._
To treat such a subject adequately in so small a space is obviously an
impossibility. It must suffice to point out some of the chief causes of
nerve-deterioration in present conditions, and the directions in which
some improvement may gradually be wrought. The notion that evils can be
remedied merely by passing laws is happily exploded. The law is now seen
to be evidence and ratification of public opinion, and also a means of
putting public opinion into action. Without this agreement on the part
of the majority, the law becomes a dead letter, or is enforced only at
the expense of dire catastrophe.
There is, however, one justification of the efforts of those who wish to
pass laws condemning certain abuses: they actually influence the public
mind by means of the agitation raised for the purpose of attaining
their ends; and so they create the opinion they would ratify. It also
frequently happens that the agitators arouse disgust at their bigotry
and fixity of idea, and so produce an opposite effect to that which they
intended. Indeed, though devotion to a Cause is generally supposed to be
an ennobling thing, it sometimes happens that it is a debasing and
demoralising thing. For, instead of Self being sunk in the Cause, the
Cause becomes with many a very excuse for selfishness. Persons
considered high-principled, who would on no account misrepresent or
defraud for their own confessed advantage, will nevertheless think
almost any expedient justifiable in what they are pleased to term the
public good.
In this loss of moral sense and judgment we find the secret of much of
the nerve-trouble of our day. The Self, having found a plausible excuse
for its assertion, loses no time in becoming as suicidal in its
tendencies as the uncontrolled Self usually is. Once committed to a
course of action, that course of action must be adhered to throughout
all opposition. Public support having in a weak moment been enlisted on
some false pretext, our utmost efforts must thenceforth be used to prove
this pretext true. Having gained a certain height, we dread to be cast
from our elevation. Then come harassing worries, overwork,
disappointment, and harmful excitement--all the sorrows, in fact, that
tend to lower vitality and injure the nervous system.
This new evil seems no less deadly in its effects than an exaggerated
personal ambition. Our complex social conditions render us in many
respects more dependent on one another than formerly. We have
associations and co-operations for everything. Increase of population
and means of communication bring us more into contact with our fellows.
Division of labour makes us indispensable to one another. We all govern
one another. We all have, in some form, a voice in public concerns.
Under the guise of advancing the common good, we have special
opportunities for advancing Self; and it is the element of
self-deception introduced into our striving after self-advancement, and
our consequent habit of deceiving others, which are specially injurious
to our moral sense. Marcus Aurelius tells us that that which is not for
the interest of the whole hive is not for the interest of a single bee.
He might with equal truth have said that that which is not for the
higher interests of a single bee cannot in the long-run benefit the
hive.
It may be questioned whether our exceeding unrest, our yearning for
notoriety, our eagerness to overwork ourselves, _i.e._, to draw on our
nerve-capital at the risk of breaking the bank, are not symptoms of
widespread nervous disease in the community rather than its causes; just
as, in the individual, the restless excitement regarded often as the
cause of the after-malady is in reality but a symptom of the
disintegration which has already begun. We may console ourselves with
the reflection that, neurasthenia in the individual being curable,
neurasthenia in the community is curable also; the community being but a
collection of individuals.
To go still deeper into the matter, we find that we are living in an age
of exceptionally rapid change, and all rapid changes have great dangers
because of the difficulty we find in adapting ourselves to altered
conditions. And the result of partial failure is seen not merely in
complete break-downs, but also in a general lowering of the vitality of
the nation. We are nearly all more or less nervous in the more usual
signification of the misused word. We have less of the calm confidence
that our fathers had; we indulge in alternate and spasmodic conceit and
cowardice; self-doubt one moment, self-assertion the next. The way in
which we skulk through life in terror of one another is truly
ridiculous. Our sensitiveness to the opinion of others is extreme. Can
we not realise that the opinion of others is of little moment? It
matters, indeed to themselves, though not to us; for the mode in which
people accustom themselves to think inevitably alters their nervous
structure. It is for them we should be concerned if they think wrongly;
not for ourselves. And while we spend our precious time in doubting and
fearing, in disputing as to whether men have wills or women have minds,
the great force-current flows tranquilly onwards, men and women alike
being but fleeting forms, capable of infinite development or of utter
degeneration.
One fertile source of danger to our stability has been the marvellous
speed at which human thought has advanced in this century. Owing to
recent scientific discoveries and mechanical inventions, the minds of
our younger generations have, in some respects, become more enlightened
than the less plastic minds of their elders. This inequality has
produced a great strain in many relations of life. Old theories have
been tested by the light of fresh information, and much misery and
nerve-deterioration have been occasioned in families by the rejection by
the younger members of tenets held sacred by their parents; real high
principle having, on both sides, prevented the sacrifice of belief,
which alone could effect a compromise. Each side seems to the other to
be cruel and unreasonable; yet both are right, even if both are wrong.
The elder, owing to their lack of faith, close their eyes to God’s
ever-progressive revelation; the younger, in their determination to
believe only what is demonstrable, lose sight of the value of much that
they deem worthy of rejection.
The position may be illustrated by the following allegory.
THE STORY OF THE AMPHIBIANS.
_The streams of God flowed ever from the hills and watered the
plain, and the waters of one of the streams gathered themselves
together in a hollow place, and formed a lake where dwelt the great
Amphibians. Now the Amphibians flourished in this lake and on its
shores because its waters were brackish, and they believed it to be
in this respect far superior to any other lakes of the plain._
_But the time came when, owing to successive geological and
atmospheric changes, the waters from the hills changed their
course, and the streams which had flowed into the Amphibian abode
dried up, so that the lake grew stagnant. And the sun’s heat
falling upon it, caused the water to evaporate, while there was now
no friendly stream to supply the waste. The waters therefore
dwindled rapidly._
_At first the Amphibians were unaware of any change in themselves
consequent on the too brackish condition of the lake. But the fact
was, that as the lake grew shallower and shallower, its inhabitants
grew more and more torpid, and more and more inactive. Some of
their children, however, who had inherited the former energetic
disposition of their parents, and had not yet been reduced to a
lethargic state by their surroundings, expressed great alarm at the
stagnancy of the water, and consulted as to the means to be adopted
to bring about a reform. They not only complained that the water
was constantly evaporating, but that it was too salt._
_They complained with reason. The brackish water had once been a
source of health and energy to the Amphibians, but it was evident
that the salt carried down into the lake by the stream had no means
of escape, so that, as the water diminished by evaporation, the
proportion of salt in the lake became far too great._
_The children were convinced that the extreme saltness of the water
was the chief cause of the torpidity of their parents and of the
deterioration which they began to perceive in themselves, and this
conviction caused them so much alarm, that they openly suggested
emigration to one of the other lakes, which they believed to be
fresh, as the only possible remedy for their ills. A few of them
actually attempted the feat, but the distance to the nearest lake
being great, and the Amphibians being unable to live long on land,
some of them died by the way. Two or three of them gave up the
toilsome journey in despair, and returned to the salt lake to
report the unfortunate end of their friends. Their example was then
held up as a warning to other aspiring spirits who had dreamed of
fresh streams and waters new._
_One or two of the emigrants, however, succeeded in reaching the
nearest lake. How they fared there was not at first known to the
conservative Amphibians, but during this period of uncertainty all
who endeavoured to leave their old home were persecuted by their
timorous companions, and those who succeeded in making their escape
did so only after a prolonged and exhausting struggle. In spite of
all opposition, the number of malcontents increased daily, and at
last a new mode of remedying the unsatisfactory state of affairs
was resorted to. The younger Amphibians in the old home seriously
set to work to cut a canal from their own lake to that in which
some of them believed their companions to be living happily._
_The elder Amphibians, horrified at the work of destruction,
continued their persecutions with renewed vigour. They refused to
believe that the water of the lake was too salt; indeed, they even
refused to believe that it was stagnant. They not only declared
that a stream still flowed into it as of yore, but that no other
stream flowed from the hills. Though ignorant of the fact that they
themselves were degenerating, they were convinced that the
restlessness and discontent of their children were due to a disease
which should be discouraged. They urged that, even if they were to
succeed in reaching the new lake, they would be unable to live in
the fresh water, and that by cutting a canal between the two, they
would flood the old lake, and thus diminish its saltness so
considerably that the whole race would cease to thrive there._
_Notwithstanding these arguments, the children persevered in their
labours. The canal was finished sooner than they had anticipated,
for those who had emigrated had been similarly employed, and the
workers from the two lakes met in the middle of the strip of land
which had formerly divided them. The results of the undertaking
gave universal satisfaction. The old lake was rendered healthier by
the influx of fresh water; the water of the new lake was improved
by the saline flavour now imparted to it. The parents swam
contentedly from one lake to the other, and saw with their own eyes
the stream which flowed down from the hills and replenished the new
lake._
Who could they have been, these timid, sceptical creatures, who accused
their children of the want of faith which was destroying themselves?
We have seen in the above story that some of those who valiantly
endeavoured to gain the new lake perished by the way, and so we find
that our recent scientific advances have been a cause of nerve-trouble,
apart from the persecutions they have entailed. The mental strife we
have gone through in our attempt to reconcile the ideas stored in our
minds, by no will of our own, with God’s ever-progressive revelation,
should teach us not to instil into the minds of our children as absolute
truth that which must necessarily be but approximate truth, changing
always with our own development. Seeming scientific facts themselves
assume a different complexion so soon as scientific discovery goes still
further. Even the axiom that two straight lines continued to infinity
cannot meet, ceases to be a fact to us, and is relegated to the region
of rational hypothesis, when we realise that we have never so much as
seen a straight line, all seeming straight lines being but parts of
curves; and that the mental picture we have been accustomed to form of a
straight line is but a picture of one of these curving lines. Almost the
hardest thing we have to learn is the impiety of putting cherished
beliefs in the place of the great God of the universe. Like Abraham, we
are called upon to sacrifice our Isaac. Like Abraham, we no sooner
freely consent to do so, than we find the ram ready for the sacrifice.
Directly we close our eyes to God’s progressive revelation and accustom
ourselves to inconsistency and to fallacious reasoning, we
unconsciously deteriorate.
Another outcome of recent rapid changes has been a great increase of
wealth, together with its unequal distribution. Whether this unequal
distribution might have been prevented, and whether it may or may not
now be remedied, cannot here be discussed. We have but to inquire
whether it has anything to do with the prevalent nerve-trouble; and I
think we must admit that excessive luxury on the one hand, and excessive
poverty on the other, are largely productive both of monotony and
overwork. At all events, it is principally amongst the well-to-do
classes that _ennui_ is complained of.
It cannot be doubted that monotony is a fertile source of nervous
disease. The fact is not always received, because the nature of the evil
is not understood. We fail to realise that monotony is an actual strain
upon the nerves, often an even greater strain than extreme fatigue; for
those who are overworked are supposed to require a holiday or change of
occupation, while those who are suffering from monotony often get no
relief until so much harm is done that mere change of scene or of
occupation is inadequate to repair the damage done to the ill-treated
nerves. In such cases the mischief wrought in the individual is similar
to the mischief now being wrought in the community--in each there is
excessive use of one part and disuse of another.
If we doubt that monotony is really a mode of overstrain, let us
consider the very meaning of the word. Why do we speak of a preacher’s
voice as monotonous, and why do we find the monotony of it tiring? Is it
not because a strain is thrown upon one part? If his preaching were more
varied, a number of smaller impressions would be made upon other parts.
If all the light which falls upon our eyes in the course of the day were
concentrated into one single flash, we should be blinded. And supposing
that all the impressions we receive throughout the day by means of
hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling, were to be concentrated into
stimulus of the brain passing through our eyes, we should probably
still be blinded, even though the process occupied the whole twelve
hours. But we fondly imagine that, though we have faculties to develop
and sympathies to enlarge by means of active life in the world and
contact with our fellows, we can shut ourselves off from the duties and
occupations which are as essential to our health as our daily food, and
yet escape the deterioration and suffering which must naturally follow
our over-use of one part and our disuse of another. We forget that we
can never cease to receive impressions unless we actually close our
senses, as when we shut our eyes and stop our ears. All we can do is to
determine what set of impressions we will receive. And if we are always
attracting nutriment to one particular part of our nervous system to the
exclusion of others, we are going the right way to become ill-balanced.
Not only are we rendering ourselves liable to mental disease by choosing
bad mental surroundings, but to physical disease also, since no bodily
function can be performed without the co-operation of the nervous
system. Highly organised persons suffer more from monotony than others,
because they have more faculties demanding healthy exercise, and also
because the greater the sensitiveness of our nerve-structure, the less
can we bear constant fatigue of one part.
The greatest sufferers from this species of folly and ignorance are, and
always have been, women. That curious form of neurasthenia which passes
under the singularly inappropriate name of “hysteria” is largely the
outcome of our modern ill-usage of the nervous system--the overstrain of
one part and the starvation of another. And owing to a marvellous
tendency of the human mind to add insult to injury, this very
affliction, which should most command our sympathy and aid because it
originates in cruel and idiotic injustice, is commonly regarded as fair
game for our sneers and reproaches. More than that, the female sex,
having been especially subjected to this kind of injustice, is often
reproached with inferiority because of the liability of women to fall
victims to the malady. It is as though we were to cut off a man’s arm,
and then laugh at him for having only one. Even women themselves, galled
by the contempt shown to their sex on account of its supposed
“hysterical” tendencies, display a lamentable want of feeling when
dealing with cases of nerve-trouble. They should bear in mind that if
their attempts at putting themselves on an equality with men seem to
destroy their womanly sympathies, they are not likely to attain their
end.
But we are now realising that the sons of “hysterical” women are apt to
suffer from neurasthenia, or even from epilepsy or insanity; so there is
hope that their sufferings may at last receive adequate attention and
consideration.
It is sometimes argued that in these enlightened days women are no
longer compelled to endure the miseries of monotony that have so
recently been their portion. This is, I think, a mistake. In large
towns, doubtless, outlet is usually found for their activities, but
numbers of women of the educated classes reside in the country and
undergo a sad process of deterioration, owing to the prejudices
entertained by those about them against their leaving home or seeking
congenial employment. The complaints I have to listen to from ladies who
have nothing to do are heart-rending. Tell them to cook their dinners,
and you find that some foolish convention stands in the way; urge their
entering some useful calling, and you are informed that their family
will cut them if they do anything of the sort. Possibly the only
occupation open to them is one for which training is necessary; and they
have not been trained. And then, because an evil naturally generates its
opposite, we find that when these women do succeed in finding
employment, they rush to a pernicious extreme and overdo themselves.
When mischief is once set up, and an unhappy sufferer falls into the
hands of unsympathetic doctors and nurses, her trials increase and
multiply. If she be suffering from seeming inactivity, she is reproved,
“roused,” and ordered to exert herself; the actual strain on the nerves
of monotony, and the need in many cases of absolute repose, being
wholly ignored. On the other hand, total inactivity is sometimes
prescribed as a remedy for overwork, when restlessness is so great that
enforced idleness maddens. The patience to gain the confidence of the
sufferer, and the sympathy to understand her ills and their causes, are
attributes of the higher order of mind that our sieves so often weed
out.
The evils of overwork are too well known to need much comment. Those who
have to earn their living cannot always avoid excessive fatigue, and
they are specially liable to suffer from it if cursed by congenitally
feeble organisations. But the strange thing is, that persons not obliged
to work hard, and not rendered restless by previous enforced inactivity,
should nevertheless deliberately make themselves ill. Nervous
exhaustion, however, is extremely insidious. We can draw on our capital
for a length of time without being made unpleasantly aware of growing
weakness; and though self-destructive tendencies do not usually
originate in a healthy, well-organised mind, people of good
constitution do sometimes break down in consequence of the physiological
ignorance in which they have been reared, or under the stress of a
combination of exceptionally untoward circumstances.
Sometimes the true cause of the evil is to be found in an exaggerated
personal ambition, showing none the less an ill-balanced mind; for, what
truly sane person would sacrifice health to such chimeras as wealth and
fame? All who have experienced wealth know perfectly well that it means
simply an accumulation of bothers and a sense of responsibility; that we
cannot, with our best endeavour, spend more than a certain amount upon
ourselves, and that the possession of great wealth really means our
acceptance of the arduous and thankless task of distributor to other
people. The only remaining reward possible to us is the answer of a
quiet conscience, and even that, we are aware, depends largely upon the
liver, which organ luxury is apt to upset. It is chiefly from the
wealthy that the ranks of the pessimists are recruited; and naturally
so. For just as perfect health cannot long exist without
self-forgetfulness, so all genuine happiness is to be found in working
for a worthy object. Happiness of this kind and health of the nervous
system go hand in hand;--at least, I have never found a prolonged
divorce between the two possible.
As to the other chimera, fame, those who trouble about it must surely
have a twist in their brains somewhere. The thing is a mere delusion of
our own. Let us consider how far our greatest English writer, William
Shakespeare, is known to the world. Of the vast populations of Africa,
Arabia, India, China, Japan, and Polynesia, to say nothing of the
inhabitants of Northern Asia, the native races of Australia and the
Americas, and the peasantry of the Continent, few have so much as heard
his name. And out of the small minority who have heard of it, how many
have read a line of him? Even to the mass of our own population he is
little known. Yet he lived but a couple of centuries ago and wrote as
few men have written.
The earliest historical record takes us back only four thousand years or
so--about a hundred generations--a mere flash of time compared to the
ages during which our planet must have endured; and of all who lived
before this brief period we know absolutely nothing.
For what, then, are we sacrificing our health, strength, and happiness?