DEGENERATION. 289. 
worth. It is the will of Allah that the Arab should sleep 
in filth, and die the death of rottenness. It is related 
by Edwin H. Woodruff, that not long ago a cesspool in 
a palace at Cairo was to be cleansed. The vault was 
opened, and two or three of the workmen were suffocated 
by the foul gases. “(It is Allah’s will,” said the person 
in authority, “it is Allah’s will that the vault shall not 
be disturbed.” So it was closed again, that its foulness 
might increase for another century. In the tropics man 
knows little of competition. He cares not for time. 
The best man is the laziest, and no civilized race of men 
has yet held its own under these conditions. The strong 
races were born of hard times, they have fought for all 
they have had, and the strength of those they have con- 
quered has entered into their wills. They have been 
selected by competition and sifted by the elements, 
They have risen through struggle and they have gained 
through mutual help, and by the power of the human 
will they have made the earth their own. 
In luxury, again, are found conditions of degener- 
ation. When one has all that he wants, there is little 
incentive to strive for anything more. 
When a race is raised above competition, 
there is no- premium on the qualities 
that make for life. The sheltered life does not favour 
progress. Where the possibility of the misery of want 
is excluded there is still room for the misery of ennui, 
the pressure of existence unresisted by effort. Much of 
that degeneration of the higher classes of Europe, which 
Nordau has attributed to the “inheritance of fatigue 
and nerve-strain of civilization,” is simply personal and 
not inherited. It is the natural result of the loss of per- 
sonal incentive to action. It is the laziness and weak- 
ness engendered in the paupered and sheltered life. In 
the society in which this form of degeneracy appears, 
Degeneration in 
luxury. 
