ESCAPE MECHANISM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 49, 27 February 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

ESCAPE MECHANISM.

PROOF OF MAX'S MVUIITY.

(By DR. DON D. TULLIS.)

I o\erheard a labouring man talking to a pet dog that belonged to his employer. '\cu are a lucky dog," he Mid, I d like to trade places with vou. \ou do no work and have everything I work all the time and have nothing." It is not strange that some mii»ht wishto exchange their burdened lives for the unworried, unhurried existence of some pampered pet. Walt Whitman once expressed his desire to live with the animals because "thev are so placid and self-contained. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. Thev do not lie awake in the dark and ww'p for their sins. They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God." Xow these very experiences—discontent. reuiorrt and a sense of dutv to God, differentiate lietween man and the rest of the animal creation, and the surrender of them would mean the loss of the upward drive of the race. Man alone is sensitive to his surrounding's so that lie sweats and whines about external conditions. There are contented rows, but never a contented man. His very discontent marks his innate superiority and insures his larger destiny. WTiitman did not really covet the placidity of a cow. It was just his distracted nature searching for a way out. Richard Roberts «ays, "Whitman could write a poem about a cow, but never a cow could write a poem about Whitman," which is indicative of the vast difference between thinking a thought and chewing a ci:d. Next to man's mental grasp, his moral sense for ever separates him from the lower creation. He alone lies awake at nights, weeping for liis sins. Remorse is peculiar to man. He alone repents of his mistakes, and true repentance is the stepping stone from character to character. Above all else, his discussion of his duty to God is proof of man's divinity. His spiritual insight finally and for ever separates him from the brute creation. Whitman may have grown tired of this discussion, but the drive of duty is the golden chain that binds the world about the throne of God. Discontent, remorse, and sense of duty—these are the marks of a man. They deny him ease and satisfaction, "but guarantee him victory in his upward climb.—X.A.X.A.