But think
of it!-the corrupt boss who, in order to extort fat contracts for
his firm, holds up for a year the building of a filtration plant designed
to deliver his city from the typhoid scourge, and thereby dooms twelve
hundred of his townspeople to sink to the tomb through the flaming
abyss of fever, comes off scatheless."]
(2) With the gentler conditions of civilized life there is a general
tendency toward the relaxing of social restraints. The harsh penalties
of early days would shock us by their cruelty; and early codes are
full of prohibitions and injunctions on matters which are now left
to the individual conscience. Needlessly cramping and cruel as these
primitive laws often were, they were powerful deterrents, and their
lapse has often been followed by greater moral laxity. The passionate
pursuit of liberty, which has been so prominent in modern times, though
on the whole of great advantage to man, has not been without its ill
effects.
(3) The monotonously specialized and unnatural work, which
confines a large proportion of our men, women, and youths today, promotes
restlessness and the craving for excitement. The normal all-round
occupations of primitive men tended to work off their energies and
satisfy their natural impulses. But the dulled and tired worker
released from eight or ten hours' drudgery in a factory is apt to be
in a psychological state that demands variety, excitement, pleasure
at any cost.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59