THE STRAIN OF MODERN CIVILISATION 467 



■continually being made clear to us, and by Science ; slowly, of course, because, 

 like Nature, who is but the material upon which she works, Science does 

 not leap. There may be Design ; we know there is Law — cause and effect, 

 ' the Chancellors of God.' Genetic or conditioned, probably both, there 

 are reasons why one man is sweet tempered and another truculent ; why 

 one preserves his morale and another loses it ; why one is inclined to observe 

 the Golden Rule and another is blind to its vast significance. We want to 

 know the reasons, and Science can tell us. 



Even if there be Design it is very unlikely that the pattern would be 

 perceived by the scientist, however humble-minded — if such there be. The 

 poet, perhaps . . . 



Amongst the remedies for the ill effects of the strain of modern life, then, 

 I place first more Science and especially Science directed towards the study 

 and development of the mind and the spirit of man. Then it behoves us 

 to guard and support all those amenities which are actually in existence or 

 which are struggling for recognition : leisure for the artisan, the factory 

 hand, the labourer, the shopman and shop woman, the housewife — and for 

 ' all who grunt and sweat under a weary life ' ; slum clearance ; playing 

 fields ; national parks ; the National Trust ; physical education ; adult 

 classes ; pictures ; poetry ; music ; museums ; libraries ; architecture ; 

 quiet for the brain-worker and for others. 



Whether our outlook be mainly that of the eugenist or that of the en- 

 vironmentalist, we must not ' cease from mental fight ' until we have, by 

 these and other means, ' built Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant 

 land.' I risk platitudes once more but again the major premise holds. 



But the critic may be saying : ' That's all very well ; you are only 

 dealing with the individual ; it is the mass for whom you must prescribe, 

 the mass that is arising here, and there, and that will determine the trend 

 of civilisation in the near future, and even determine whether it continues 

 to exist or not.' But, personally, I see little hope for the people of this 

 country through mass movements. Fascist or Communist, when individual 

 freedom has been sacrificed I see no chance of achieving that control in 

 the spiritual sphere through which alone, I believe, salvation can come to 

 the human race. What matters the colour of men's shirts if these are soon 

 to be their shrouds ? Or what matters their numbers ? The falling birth- 

 rate in this country is causing some people concern. As a disciple of 

 Francis Galton I am much more interested in the quality than in the 

 quantity of our people. 



When the clash comes, if come it must, between these two hordes of the 

 new barbarians — civilised barbarians if you like — it may well be that the 

 salvaging of the world, or its doom, may depend upon whether Northern 

 and Western Europe, and America, have been able to preserve an indi- 

 vidualised Society, or, like the two opposed masses in the dictator countries, 

 have yielded to the tremendous pressure of what may prove to be a bastard 

 civilisation and have caught the infection of despair. If our own indi- 

 vidualities refuse to be tub-thumped, or intimidated, into a pulp, all yet may 

 be well and the clash may be averted. Meanwhile, ' " a plague on both " 

 their blouses ! ' We had troubles enough of our own with which we were 

 busily, and not altogether unsuccessfully, coping : the loud-speaker next 

 door, the roar of the sports model car up the street (night-silence for hooters 

 notwithstanding) ; and now comes another fire-eating speech from a 

 dictator on tour, or an account of one of these orgies of human sacrifice by 

 which an executive hopes to maintain its precarious control. No wonder 

 our nerves are kept on edge. 



Much of what I have just been saying may sound like a statement of my 



