6o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



dividual and resigning oneself to an outside power, whether that power 

 be God or the church. The function of religion in this aspect is that 

 of a sustainer, and religion loses its usefulness wholly if the individual, 

 as is often the case, feels it his duty to sustain his religion. His religion 

 must sustain him. Clubs, societies, fraternities of all kinds, exercise a 

 similar function. The great charm of all fraternal societies is that they 

 relieve the stress, the burden, the tension of the individual and shift the 

 responsibility upon the society as a whole. The society is back of him, 

 to some extent will do his thinking for him, decide moral questions for 

 him, relieve his worry. 



Just as man has physically lifted himself from the earth, overcom- 

 ing gravity, so mentally he has raised himself above the other animals 

 by the fatiguing exertion of his higher mental powers. The first ani- 

 mals were marine animals. They floated in or upon the water without 

 effort. Then came creeping land animals prone upon the ground but 

 not so completely supported as in the water. Gradually the animal 

 lifted himself upon four legs and at last, by infinite labor, erect upon 

 two, and the tension is correspondingly great. The horse rests very 

 comfortably upon his four legs if allowed to stand and needs to lie down 

 scarcely an hour in the twenty-four. Man sustains himself with con- 

 stant effort in an erect position and must sit much of the time on a chair 

 and at night reverts to the original position of the worm, prone upon 

 the bed. This illustrates the whole theory of relaxation. It is al- 

 ways some form of reversion to primitive attitudes or primitive psy- 

 choses and it brings rest and peace and harmony. 



The rhythm of moral and social progress probably follows the same 

 law. Periods of rapid progress are followed by periods of rest and re- 

 laxation. From time to time we are shocked by waves of vice and epi- 

 demics of immorality. We hear suddenly of conditions of astonishing 

 laxity of morals in the small towns of our western states which are sup- 

 posed to be models of propriety and we say that the world is going to the 

 bad. But our judgment is too hasty. These things are stages really in 

 progress. What we witness is a kind of moral relaxation, a relapse to 

 more primitive conditions, as a result probably of progress that is too 

 rapid, of tension too great. Something like moral fatigue takes place 

 and a reaction follows. 



Just at present we are hearing it said that our country has gone 

 " amusement mad." Well, our manner of life has been very strenuous. 

 The tension has been high. Something was bound to happen. Other 

 forms of relaxation have failed us just when we needed them most — 

 particularly art and religion. We are told that the art of ancient 

 Greece was the product of the Greek genius. Perhaps it was the cause 

 of it. Both art and religion entered intimately into the daily life of the 

 Greeks. They have departed from ours. 



