844 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



anew tliat happiness lies in the pleasures 

 which abide and in the selection of per- 

 manent beauty and truth from tlje bit- 

 ter-sweet of passing delights. ... As 

 the common miud of successive genera- 

 tions, by sifting and sublimating its ex- 

 periences and conceptions, discovers its 

 classic thinkers and its classic artists, so, 

 in the life of the individual man, should 

 experience be refined and conceptions 

 enlarged until our desires and pleasures 

 are purged of their grosser and more 

 transient accidents." This is well put, 

 and so is the following : " The disci- 

 pline which leads us to avoid the eddies 

 of the current and to move in the larger 

 periods of human life and thought, which 

 reveals to us the fugitive and deceitful 

 nature of selfish gratifications, and the 

 abiding joy of devotion to higher ideas, 

 is medicine for neuroses. We preach 

 no self-denial for its own sake, but re- 

 nunciation of the harlotries and en- 

 chantments which minister to transient 

 joys in oblivion of tlie future." 



This is wholesome reading for those 

 who, because they weakly yield to su- 

 perficial impressions and momentary 

 gusts of feeling, think themselves the 

 victims of an extraordinary refinement 

 of nervous organization. What such 

 persons have, judging merely by the 

 outcome in action, is an inferior nerv- 

 ous organization, one which is all activ- 

 ity on the surface and all inertness be- 

 low the surface. Professor Allbutt 

 seems to think, however, that in many 

 if not in most cases the deeper regions 

 of the nature might be stirred if a 

 proper discipline were employed. He 

 does not compare the too facile nervous 

 responses which so many exhibit to the 

 imperfect physical habits of breatliing, 

 eating, walking, etc. which are also 

 widely prevalent; but he evidently re- 

 gards the former as a phenomenon quite 

 akin to these, and therefore more or 

 less remediable by proper measures. 

 The only remedy that unaided Nature 

 knows is suffering, which long centuries 

 ago the sages of the human race saw and 



proclaimed to be the great teacher of 

 virtue and wisdom ; and possibly the 

 function of suffering in this respect 

 will never become wholly obsolete. 

 Prof. Allbutt, however, thinks that 

 proper educational influences might do 

 a great deal to redeem human life from 

 the sway of the momentary. One's 

 heart does fail just a little at the 

 thought of combating by educational 

 effort anything like a general tendency 

 of trjing to induce forces to take a Hue 

 of greater rather than one of less re- 

 sistance ; and yet the duty of making 

 the attempt seems to be plain. The 

 evil with which we have to contend is 

 in full sight. We see it in all the de- 

 vices now existing in such profusion 

 for reducing intellectual labor and the 

 strain of attention to a minimum. We 

 see it in flashy newspapers, in idle illus- 

 trations, in chopped-up articles, in 

 manufactured witticisms of irredeem- 

 able and inexpressible inanity, in shows 

 fit only for children offered for the en- 

 tertainment of men and women, in 

 vapid social amusements, in a general 

 impatience of whatever is serious and 

 solid, in the levity with which attacks 

 on fundamental institutions of society 

 and established rules of morality are 

 regarded, and in numberless other signs 

 of a prevalent disposition to treat sen- 

 suous pleasure, however fleeting and 

 however unworthy so long as it fills a 

 vacant moment as the one intelligible 

 end of existence. The teaching, if we 

 understand Prof. Allbutt aright, which 

 he thinks might be greatly influential 

 in mending this state of things, is the 

 teaching of social duty. " I speak as a 

 physiologist," he says, " when I say 

 that, in the growth of higher and more 

 penetrating conceptions of national life, 

 and in the increasing sense of security, 

 efliciency, and vigor which result from 

 organization, we shall find the cure for 

 the irregular nervous outbursts, moods 

 of despondency, and waste of eff"ort 

 which we certainly have continual 

 cause to lament." At present, he adds, 



