148 What Animals Attained 



outside his body stable. Civilized life thus tends to become monoto- 

 nous, and man suffers ennui. He yearns for excitement. A savage 

 is continually busy escaping dangers and finding enough to eat. A 

 civilized man has leisure, which is a luxury that only a few animals 

 enjoy. How man shall spend his leisure time is perhaps the chief 

 problem of organized human society today. Civilization and social 

 life has perhaps become too much a matter of "being in style." A 

 child spends years being educated to know what others know and to 

 behave like others. Civilization becomes more and more a matter 

 of drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and seeing moving pictures 

 or baseball games. Joad (1928) compares man to a child with a 

 box of matches — science has given him leisure, and he does not have 

 wisdom enough to know what to do with it. The reason is that 

 knowledge and opportunity have not changed the primitive nature 

 of man (Schiller, 1924) . The quick and astute continue to exploit 

 the slow and unprogressive. Abilities differ and all cannot be re- 

 duced to a common level. If one man elects in his spare hours to 

 improve his abilities by study or practice, society should reward him. 

 Another man who chooses to sit in idleness or waste himself by 

 keeping busy with the trivialities of life should be penalized. Organ- 

 ized work is a product of society. It is today the best tool which 

 may contribute to the attainment of success. But it must not be 

 just work, such as satisfies industrious natures; it must be thought- 

 ful and purposeful work. 



