W.E.A. LECTURE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 31 July 1928, Page 6

W.E.A. LECTURE

PHYSICAL AND MORAL ‘'FITNESS.” Tiie fifth, public lecture arranged by the vv'.E.A. and Victoria University college was given at the Haw era council uhamuers last evening. Tiie title of the lecture was ‘‘Ancient ideas m Modern Minds”; and the lecturer (Mr. A. Ernest Mander) dealt with many aspects of the tendency of sentiments and beliefs to become merely traditional, and thus to be passed on from generation to generation long after they have ceased to bear any relation to the facts. Conditions change; but it is dangerously common for ideas and sentiments which relate to one set of conditions to persist, even though new and totally different conditions have evolved. Yet if a people is unable to adapt its sentiments and beliefs quickly enough to meet ever-changing conditions, that people must perish. A striking historical example of this was found in the people of the civilised Roman world, about A.D. 300 to 400. After 300 years of peace and prosperity and over-civilisation,, they were unable, “because of what had been their virtues under the old conditions,” to face- the new needs of a changing world, harder times economically, a breakdown of the political system, and the invasion of the empire by barbarians. “What liacl been their virtues now became weaknesses and defects; and the very qualities which had made them good citizens in time of peace and prosperity, unfitted | them to save themselves when faced i with war and ‘hard times.’ ” In one portion of ins lecture Mr. Mander pointed out the essentially relative nature of both physical and moral standards. “We all agree that it is, desirable that men shall he [ physically fit. Fit —for what ? We realise that there is no absolute and universal standard of physical fitness. One man might be perfectly fit for life in Samoa, and yet quite unfit for Alaska. A man might be physically fit for bushfelling, or for prize-fight-ing; and yet he might die in five years if put to the rolling of handmade cigarettes in a workroom in the* sums of East London. We ourselves may take pride in keeping perfectly fit for oup own life here in New Zealand. But how many of us would be fit to live as peasants in Manchuria ; or as coolies in Canton; or to live permanently on the plateau of Tibet 16,000 feet above sen-level; or to Jive permanently on the hot, moist, swampy, steaming West African Gold Coast? Yet many of the natives who are fit for those conditions and thrive there would he less fit than w© are here. So it is clear that one is not physically fit in any absolute or universal sense : one is fit for something; .and actually fitness for one kind of thing always implies unfitness for something else. We say that a particular person is fit when we mean only that he is fit for the particular environment in which he is placed, _ and for the particular kind of functions he is required to perform. ’ ’ The same thing is true, said the lecturer, of what w© may call “moral fitness.” What is considered —and what really is—good, right, and moral among one people, in one age, under one set of conditions, is bad and wrong in a different period or a different part of the world. It helps us to realise this when we remember what the Greek philosophers pointed out, about 8.0. 400. When we say that a man is “good,” we must mean that he is “good something”—a good fcitizen, a good neighbour, a good father, a good soil, a good husband, a good employer, a good man at his job, a good friend, and so forth. But lie 1 cannot be just simply “good.” By it-j self, like that, the term in meaningless.

“I want,” said Mr. Marnier, “to stress this point that morals must relate to function and conditions. It is impossible for any man or woman to be merely ‘good’ (in this moral sense). To be> ‘good’ at all, he must be ‘good for something.’ ” And only insofar as a man (or woman) is good-for-some-thing, can he or she be regarded as moral at all. So if I ask you whether a certain man or woman is good you at once want to know what I mean: “good—for what?” 'From this point the lecturer ]>roeeedocl to develop his argument that the qualities: that make, for example, a good citizen, must change with changing conditions. In a, primitive tribe, surrounded by enemies and able to exist only by fighting, courage and fortitude are the greatest and most necessary virtues. Where a people has a lrai'd struggle to sustain life in an inhospitable land (like the people of many parts of Scotland), frugality and thrift are among the most important good qualities, and extravagance is immoral. Rove ngef illness is a social virtue, and a very necessary virtue, in a primitive" sociey where there is no legal machinery to deter wrongdoers; but revenge-ful-ness is no longer a virtue, but a vice, in the citizen of an organised state with machinery for preserving law and order. And many of the qualities which make a good citizen in time of peace, heroine moral weaknesses and defects, characteristics of a had citizen, under the changed conditions of war.

The lecturer then applied the same argument to the qualities of a, good parent, a. good husband or wife, a good neighbour, and iso- forth. 11l every case, what qualities are to he regarded as good must he. judged by reference to actually prevailing conditions; and it is a serious, though very common mistake, to judge the people of one generation by standards that really relate to conditions, that have

passed away. A number of homely illustrations of this were given- and the speaker then went on to deal with the mistake of trying to perpetuate standards that were merely traditional and had no real relation to presentday conditions in New Zealand.