WHAT IS THE GOOD OF IT?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20960, 25 February 1930, Page 3

WHAT IS THE GOOD OF IT?

[Contributed.] This question, “What is the good of it?” has been asked so often about the Byrd Expedition to. Antarctica that one wonders if it is a sign of anything at all comparable to that in Graeco-Roman civilisation which J. B. Bury called *■ loss of nerve.” Commander Byrd, in company with Mallory and Irvine, whose bodies lie upon Everest, and all that ilk, needs no apologia. Such men have their reasons which reason knows not of.” They Just go ahead and climb mountains and explore the unknown because ultimately, like Shakespeare or Bernard Shaw, they cannot help themselves. Nevertheless, while needing no apologia, a man or an e-mnt may be the better for some interpretation; and interpretation consists in seeing things in proper relation to the rest of the world—i.c., fitting them into their proper contests. To this end two questions may be asked, the real answers to which will help to answer the original question. The first, presupposing a good meal newly eaten, says: What 11 Ido next?” The second asks: man a cabbage?” (It is perhaps surprising and possibly a trifle annoying, but the answer to this is not always No.”)

Sunday is - a day when most people, having eaten generously of roast mutton, potatoes, and pudding, find themselves faced with this question: “ What’ll I do next? There is no work they simply must do, and they have four or five hours of leisure before them. What can they do. They may engage in some activity, or they may go to sleep. The latter alternative is popular, but not worthy of consideration, so ’we shall confine ourselves to the former. In what kind of activity are they to engage? Now for most popple during the. week there is but one answer to such a question—they must ‘work”—-i.e., engage in Just that activity which for them will result in roast_ mutton, potatoes, and pudding. But in the situation we arc considering such activity is ruled out. Dinner is over, and tea is provided for. Yet work of some kind must he done. A man must employ his leisure somehow, and on Sunday /pre-eminently whatever activity does occupy him is not connected with food-getting. Hero lies the import°sni th ® , first of °ur two questions— What 11 Ido next?” Activity of some Innd is necessary, but there is no law to say what kind. Once the weekly quota of food has been provided it is all one what a man does. Some people exercise their brains (e.g., the past generation of Presbyterians), others their bodies at St. Olair; some cultivate their souls in their gardens, and others address hymns to the goddess of Beauty per the gramophone. Admittedly one may have ideas, convictions even, about how this leisure* ought to be spent, but convictions are apt to be a matter of opinion; and there is no universal iron law about leisure as there is about food-getting. Now, remembering this point, lot us note further that, when we speak of leisure, it is usually the leisure of this man or that woman. In distinction from tuts individual leisure, however, there is what we may call social leisure. All the energies of a nation or of a- race are not taken up with providing food and protection, and the energy unexpended in these activities is free to be used in other ways. What these other ways shall be is a matter for the race to defcide for itself. One qf them is Antarctic exploration, another is Palestine exploration, another is the unwearying collection of scientific data.

The second question, which asked “ Is a man a cabbage?” may be answered more shortly. It refers to the fact that when a race begins think only of eating and sleeping and being comfortable; when it ceases to take pleasure in conquest—be it of men, Nature, disease, or ignorance—that race is becoming extinct. One of the signs that men, though civilised, still take pleasure in conquest is the love of adventure; and in this twentieth century we may thrill with the sense of triumphant life in the spirit of man, for the kings of the earth are here, and will not be denied in their urgent quests—yea, kings they arc, kings all, the kings of the air, of the frozen unknowp, of the mountain top, and the kings of science are in the van. To all who have asked the question “What is the good of it?” and have played with the cabbage-philosophy, Sir Walter' Scott has the inevitable answer: Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife; To all the sensual world proclaim; Ope crowded hour of glorious-life Jsowrth an age without a name t