CH. XXII.] GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY, 335 



normal standard is left for the slow process of direct equili- 

 bration. 



The action of direct equilibration, in turn, is greatly com- 

 plicated, among the progressive races, by the rapid and 

 extensive change of the social environment from age to age. A 

 new set of readjustments needs to be made before the old 

 ones are completed ; and the result is that there are always 

 a number of functions somewhat out of balance. When 

 civilization is rapidly progressing, each generation of men is 

 forced into kinds of activity to which the inherited emotional 

 tendencies, and in some cases even the inherited physical con- 

 stitutions, are not thoroughly adapted. Hence the number 

 and variety of pathological phenomena, both mental anf^ 

 physical, is greater in civilized than in savage communities. 

 As might be expected, the present century, which has wit- 

 nessed a far more extensive revolution in the modes of human 

 activity than any previous age, exhibits numerous instances 

 of these minor failures of adjustment. To take the uiost 

 conspicuous example, — the progress of science and industry 

 during the past three generations have raised the average 

 standard of comfortable living so greatly and so suddenly, 

 that to attain this standard an excessive strain is put upon 

 men's powers. In many respects, it is harder to live to-day 

 than it was a hundred years ago. As a general rule we are 

 overworked until late in life, in the mere effort to secure the 

 means of maintaining life. Not only does this continual 

 overwork entail a serious disturbance of the normal equili- 

 brium between pleasures and pains and the correlative benefits 

 ,tnd injuries, since it involves the undue exertion of certaii; 

 faculties and the undue repression of others, but there is 

 further disturbance due to the specific character of the o\'er- 

 work. Throughout a very large and constantly increasing 

 portic n of the community, the excessive labour is intellectual 

 labour; the abnormal strain comes upon the nervous system. 

 The task of maintaining the correspondence with environing 



