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Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3624, 10 September 1912, Page 4

What is the effect of the changing economic condi“A Manifest Hill- tions on the phyrion.” si cal and mental well-being of the people as a whole? This is the very interesting problem which Dr. Max Xordan sets himself to consider in an article in the “Habbert Journal." '‘The root of degeneracy is an intoxication of one or both progenitors. So far as the poisons that damage the parental organism are introduced from without a fight against them is not without prospect of suc-coss.” He then shows the hopeful features of the fight against absinthe, syphilis, malaria and adulterated food. “All these sources of mischief,” he says,

“are accessible to the intervention of the legislator,' the Government, the forces of society. The case stands otherwise, alas, with the second great cause of degeneration, auto-intoxica-tion and organic wear and tear — through fatigue consequent on overexertion. But this is the inevitable result of the whole course of modern I life, and in order to prevent it the j modern way of life must be radically J reformed. The work done in the civilised world to-day is incomparably greater than at any former time. Even the poorest workman who is not a beggar, but earns his own living, makes greater demands on his existence than his forefathers did, and the rise in Ills standard of life imposes correspondingly greater efforts upon him, since it is not compensated ay the general rise in wages. The dominant part plgyed in production by the machine, to a mere attendant on which man in the factory has been degraded. and the ever increasing division of labor, which condemns the worker to an eternal, automatic repetition of a small number of movements, and reduces the part taken in his work by the intellectual faculties to a minimum, wears him out onesidedly, and therefore quicker and more completely than is me ease when, with a varied, manifold activity, which calls in turn upon different groups of muscles and requires the continual intervention of imagination, judgment and will, he manufactures some complicated object of common use from the raw material up to the perfect article. In ever greater numbers the population makes its way from the country to the town, to exchange agricultural occupations for labor in workshops and factories. The number of people that dreed in towns of over 100,000 inhabit ants is everywhere swelling; everywhere among civilised nations the tendency appears to transform a. people that lives on the land and raises natural' products into n people of great cities, producing differentiated goods. The whole end of civilisation seems to bo economic. All progress aims at facilitating and augmenting the production of goods. That in this process the individual is being worn out is not considered. The world economy does not ask whether it enhances the happiness of the,single human being. It produces wealth, and sets this on a level with happiness —a manifest illusion.