"GOING TO THE DOGS"

Waipa Post, Volume 43, Issue 3392, 24 December 1931, Page 2 (Supplement)

"GOING TO THE DOGS"

IDEA SCOUTED BY WRITER. A TEXT FOR THE TIMES. It is always refreshing to find someone in these dark days who has the larger outlook and a sincere belief in the better times to come. In the October number of The Hibbert Journal such a writer and thinker appears in the opening article, under the name of the editor, Dr L. P. Jacks, who is well known as a keen thinker, aiAispiring publicist, when he puts'jPiis thoughts into shape for the average mind, and as an original philosopher. Dr Jacks is here discussing our civilisation. It is supposed to be going to the dogs. He begins by declaring that the cry of " civilisation in danger " has become the text of an immense output of gloomy "writing on both sides of the Atlantic," and Jeremiah has become a best seller. A% appetite for disaster has developed under the sour and gloomy showing of a multitude of these popular prophetas of evil proclaiming their pessimism in fiction, in philosophy, and in modem interpretations of science. " Civilisation is not only in danger, but is ia process of succumbing to its dangers, rapidly dissolving into chaos through sex aberrations, biological degeneration, political incompetence, economic greed, and the general permeation of every department in life by cant, humbug, and hypocrisy.". Such, says Dr Jacks, is the well-known story, and then he throws his own cheerful beam of light upon the outlook. So far as he can see, civilisation to-day is in no greater danger than it has been at any time in the past, or than it is likely to be in the days ahead. It was born of danger, and brought forth in the midst of cataclysm and collapse. Our individual lives from beginning to end are surrounded by dangers, and no doubt we often succumb to them through lack of foresight, or, indeed, through ordinary every-day foolishness. Civilisation never has been-fa " walk-over." Dr Jacks gets to th* heart of his exordium in the following weighty words: "Hard fighting against heavy odds* has accompanied every step of advance, and I see no prospect whatever that these conditions, so congenial to, man as a danger-facing animal, will be relaxed in the future. Even if the unity of mankind were attained tomorrow, and the world were lapped in universal peace, it would be a dangerous unity, a precarious peace, and either condition would dissolve immediately if the heroic qualities which had brought it into being were no longer present to sustain it from day to day." This is, indeed, the truth about every agej and in our own times, and at the present moment, we realise that if the pressure of danger and disaster does not bring out the best that is in us as a community we shall indeed give way and be overwhelmed. The Worst, in Dr Jacks' words, will i prevail over the Best, and our best possessions, in mind and estate, will disappear. But the point is that while nations have gone under in the strains and stresses of competition, and great empires have disappeared in desperate warfare, civilisation has never been quite mastered by evil spirits, or the malignant minds of men drunk with lust for power, and driven by pride and selfishness to destruction. The heroic in man has never been suppressed, but also civilisation has never in any age been made " safe." Dr, Jacks continues his powerful plea for a better outlook with the reminder: " Safe in the sense of being foolproof, safe in the sense of being cow-ard-proof, safe in the sense of being able to dispense with the faithfulness of trustees, the skill of roaster minds, and the courage of heroes—this civilisation never has been, is not, and can never be; nor should we desire it if we understood ourselves better. The history of an advancing civilisation is the history of a crisis, perpetually faced and mastered, its fortunes becoming more critical, and not less, with every step of advance. A civilisation that has no crisis to face is a contradiction in terms." It is as it this powerful appeal were a prophecy, in view of the fact that it was made before the general election in Great Britain. While other writers were looking forward to the possible results with mounting apprehension and an ever-growing anxiety, Dr Jacks took up his parable with a heartening " Cheerio." Dismay never had any place in his philosophy, and he'meets the cry of an age given over to vlt&chanisation and overwhelmed with insoluble economic problems by telling his readers that these are among the needed whips upon the shoulders of mankind which have been driving it forward for centuries—aye, for millenniums. "The faithfulness of feustees, the skill of the competent; the courage of the brave " are not three, but one great unity. They stand for the heroic in man as he rises to each great occasion and overcomes each tremendous crisis. Great Britain once more has shown the world that she has not lost her inborn courage or her faithfulness to what is noblest and truest in our humanity. She has givea fearlessly a blank cheque to her trusted leaders. This is our best encouragement in these dark days, when unscrupulous men have put hands upon our throats and threaten to strangle us.