DEGENERATION. 



289 



worth. It is the will of Allah that the Arab should sleep 

 in filth, and die the death of rottenness. It is related 

 by Edwin H. Woodruff, that not long ago a cesspool in 

 a palace at Cairo was to be cleansed. The vault was 

 opened, and two or three of the workmen were suffocated 

 by the foul gases. " It is Allah's will," said the person 

 in authority, "it is Allah's will that the vault shall not 

 be disturbed." So it was closed again, that its foulness 

 might increase for another century. In the tropics man 

 knows little of competition. He cares not for time. 

 The best man is the laziest, and no civilized race of men 

 has yet held its own under these conditions. The strong 

 races were born of hard times, they have fought for all 

 they have had, and the strength of those they have con- 

 quered has entered into their wills. They have been 

 selected by competition and sifted by the elements. 

 They have risen through struggle and they have gained 

 through mutual help, and by the power of the human 

 will they have made the earth their own. 



In luxury, again, are found conditions of degener- 

 ation. When one has all that he wants, there is little 

 incentive to strive for anything more. 

 Degeneration in ^j^^^ ^ ^^^^ j^ ^^-^^^ ^^^^^ competition, 

 luxury. 



there is no premium on the qualities 



that make for life. The sheltered life does not favour 

 progress. Where the possibility of the misery of want 

 is excluded there is still room for the misery of ennui, 

 the pressure of existence unresisted by effort. Much of 

 that degeneration of the higher classes of Europe, which 

 Nordau has attributed to the " inheritance of fatigue 

 and nerve-strain of civilization," is simply personal and 

 not inherited. It is the natural result of the loss of per- 

 sonal incentive to action. It is the laziness and weak- 

 ness engendered in the paupered and sheltered life. In 

 the society in which this form of degeneracy appears. 



