DEGENERATION. 



297 



The genuine man, the man who is doing something, who 

 faces " the world as it is," in absolute veracity of thought 

 and action, is never decadent. Society 

 lives through the effort of those who 

 have power to act beyond what is needed 

 in the common struggle for life. Strength begets 

 strength and wisdom leads to wisdom. " There is al- 

 ways room for the man of force, and he makes room 

 for many." It is the strong, wise, and good of the past 



who have made civilization possible. It 

 The ^wholesome j g thg grea( . human men> the men ifl 



the natural order," that now and for 

 all time determine the current of life. " The earth," 

 Emerson tells us, " is upheld by the veracity of good 

 men. They keep the world wholesome." 



From all institutions a certain form of degeneration 

 must arise, because all institutions tend in some degree 



to do away with individual effort. A 

 Degeneration common creed for men weakens the 



force of individual belief. Common 

 institutions. 



ceremonies destroy the spontaneity and 



personality of the feelings they represent. Right action 

 by statute and convention is in some degree opposed 

 to virtue by personal initiative. Between unregulated 

 individualism or anarchy and all-controlling institutions 



not yet thorough science, yet is not wholly ignorant. It has 

 caught up notions on current literature which makes it think it- 

 self on the same level of those who have laboriously studied the 

 sciences. I see no other means of checking the mischief, except 

 that the schools should reform their method and restore thorough 

 teaching instead of that teaching of many things which has 

 usurped its place." Thoreau speaks of the derivation of "vile" 

 and " villain " from via, way, and villa, village. " This suggests," 

 he says, "that kind of degeneracy villagers are liable to. They 

 are -wayworn by the travel that goes by and over them without travel- 

 ling themselves." 



