‘ DEGENERATION. 295 
Most of the degeneration so cleverly treated by Nor- 
dau is purely the result of defects in the life of the indi- 
vidual, in his relation to his environment, and the course 
of action by which his character is formed. Without 
going into a detail for which I have neither space nor 
ability, I may say that the development of mysticism, 
symbolism, “ hearts insurgent,” and general mental and 
moral vagabondage is caused by the lack of sober liv- 
ing and of wholesome work, the lack of motor ideals 
and of outlet for effort. 
In the cities of Europe the common man has risen 
to a life of larger possibilities and greater opportunities 
for success and failure without adequate 
training for such activity. Society is 
like a band of schoolboys in charge of a 
railway train. They know not what to do nor how to 
do it, and are more interested in present enjoyment than 
in the success of any enterprise intrusted to them. 
Small-minded men lost in a multiplicity of impressions 
are likely to do things which suggest degeneration. If 
to this we add the wide diffusion of corrosive elements, 
narcotics, stimulants, impure suggestion, unwholesome 
living, we have elements which tend toward personal 
degeneration. As their influences affect many persons 
alike, they appear as a form of social decadence. 
We find, moreover, in Europe, the prevalence of “a 
strange drooping of spirit.” This feeling that civiliza- 
tion is confined in a blind channel, a 
cul-de-sac, is a natural result of the great 
increase of the results of sense-percep- 
tion without corresponding outlet in action. “ Prog- 
ress,” says Edward Alsworth Ross, referring to this con- 
dition, “ seems to have ended in aimless discontent. The 
schools have produced, according to Bismarck, ten times 
as many overeducated young men as there are places to 
Causes of 
decadence. 
The despondency 
of Europe. 
