COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



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 some- 

 what out of balance. When civilization is rap- 

 idly progressing, each generation of men is 

 forced into kinds of activity to which the inher- 

 ited emotional tendencies, and in some cases 

 even the inherited physical constitutions, are 

 not thoroughly adapted. Hence the number 

 and variety of pathological phenomena, both 

 mental and physical, is greater in civilized than 

 in savage communities. As might be expected, 

 the present century, which has witnessed a far 

 more extensive revolution in the modes of hu- 

 man activity than any previous age, exhibits 

 numerous instances of these minor failures of 

 adjustment. To take the most conspicuous ex- 

 ample, — 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 stand- 

 ard an excessive strain is put upon men's pow- 

 ers. 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 nor- 

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