336 COSMIC PHILOSOPHY, [pt. ii. 



relations, which in the course of organic evolution has been 

 entrusted more and more largely to the nervous system, and 

 which in the course of social evolution has been thrown 

 more and more upon the cerebrum, has during the past 

 hundred years been thrown upon the cerebrum to a formidable 

 extent. The community, therefore, is suffering not simply 

 from overwork, but from excessive brain-work, in the shape oi 

 inordinate thinking and planning, and inordinate anxiety. 

 " Further, it is to be observed that many of the industrial 

 activities which the struggle for existence has thrust on the 

 members of modern societies, are in-door activities, — activi- 

 ties not only not responded to by the feelings inherited from 

 aboriginal men, but in direct conflict with those more 

 remotely inherited and deeply organized feelings which 

 prompt a varied life in the open air." Hence manifold dis- 

 turbance. "A sedentary occupation pursued for years in a 

 confined air, regardless of protesting sensations, brings about 

 a degenerate physical state in which the inherited feelings are 

 greatly out of harmony with the superinduced requirements 

 of the body. Desired foods, originally appropriate, become 

 indigestible. An air pleasure-giving by its freshness to those 

 in vigour, brings colds and rheumatisms. Amounts of exer- 

 tion and excitement naturally healthful and gratifying are 

 found injurious. All which evils, due though they are to con- 

 tinued disregard of the guidance of inherited feelings, come 

 eventually to be mistaken for proofs that the guidance of in- 

 herited feelings is worthless." ^ 



Further to pursue this interesting subject would be to con- 

 vert a set of illustrations, already too elaborately stated, into 

 an unmanageable digression. Summing up the result's nov 

 obtained, we see that natural selection, acting less rigidly 

 nnder the limitations imposed by social evolution, fails to 



* Spencer, op. cit. i. 282, 283. Light is thus thrown upon the misuse of 

 alcohol and tobacco, — one of the most conspicuous of the cases ux which 

 laeu's physical appetites prompt to actions that are iujurioiia. 



