The modern malady

by Cyril Bennett

Many persons rebel against the doctrine of heredity because they consider it destructive of faith in God. Surely their own faith must rest on very insecure foundations. Belief in an all-loving God can but be strengthened by a knowledge of the means by which He develops and guides His creations. Kinematics, mathematics, biology, all natural and physical science—the means by which we study His great and continuous “Act,” the universe—should serve to increase our faith, since in Him we live and move and have our being. Even denying scientists do but reveal Him. If it be true that when we would do good evil is present with us, it is also true that when we do what seems evil we often bring about good results. How can there be conflict between the laws of Nature and the laws of Nature’s God?

Again, it is contended that it is possible for us to live an evil life, and, by means of scientific knowledge, avert the suffering which, in a God-fearing community is the reward of evil, the race being thereby saved from destruction. A very little consideration will suffice to show us that such contentions are without justification. The laws of God are not to be evaded. We bring ourselves to nothing when we “kick against the pricks.” We have seen that if any part be disused, nutriment can no longer be attracted to it. Let that part of the organism by which the moral sense manifests itself fall into disuse, and disintegration has begun in that part—that is to say, a larger amount of waste than can be repaired by nutrition. Supposing the defect to be counterbalanced by excessive activity of another part of the organism, this is no true compensation. No development of the lower part can atone for the loss of the higher. We should, at best, have one-sided beings, who lack the social instinct and must run counter to one another’s aims. Mutual destruction would result from their downward progress, and regulations previously agreed upon would be disregarded as the higher nature deteriorated. Moreover, no excessively one-sided organism can remain healthy. In such cases we commonly see the development of suicidal tendencies.[8] Our degenerate tribe would thus be suicidal both collectively and individually. In the most favourable circumstances imaginable, their career would resemble that of “The-do-as-you-likes” in Charles Kingsley’s “Water Babies;” but, as a matter of fact, no selfish tribe could have such a good time of it as even these unfortunates had, since roast pigs are not usually found running about in convenient proximity to the lazy.

It cannot be too widely taught, then, that the moment we withdraw ourselves from the paring and shaping action of life’s sieves, and choose only what is pleasant, our deterioration begins. Physical disease follows close at the heels of moral lethargy, just as physical disease may impair the moral sense. And the degenerative process being begun, our children and our children’s children, even unto the fourth generation, may bear the burden of our shortcomings.

In our efforts to raise a healthy race, we are apt to make one very serious blunder. We forget that the word nervous has two meanings. In its truer sense it implies strength, not weakness. Persons suffering from nerve-trouble have come to be called nervous, and so the sensitive organisation,—the finest, most highly developed organisation,—is quite unjustly depreciated. The healthy sea-anemone is less sensitive than the healthy human being. Would it therefore be preferable to be a sea-anemone?

The confusion between the large and complex nervous organisation and a diseased or defective condition has been aided by the fact that the genius—the truly nervous man in the higher sense, the largest offshoot from the great force-current—is invariably placed in hard conditions in youth. He pays the penalty for being before his time. He belongs to a higher standard than that into which he is forced. In the family nest he is the ugly duckling; in the world he is persecuted. When his marvellous insight and keen intelligence enable him to foresee the remote but lasting pernicious effects of practices that are clung to by his fellows for the sake of their immediate advantage, he falls by the hand of the assassin or is universally credited with madness. Centuries after his death, when his community has painfully toiled to his level, his greatness is recognised, and he is deified or canonised.

It is perhaps well that the growth of such offshoots is limited in every age by a mental atmosphere as real as the atmosphere surrounding our globe and limiting our aerial flights. Apparently it is not decreed that human progress shall be rapid. Nevertheless, a too wholesale destruction of our most highly organised members must certainly ensure that evolution backwards of which I spoke in another chapter.

The fact is, we find it hard to distinguish between genius and eccentricity. The uncontrolled eccentricities of the matured do so much harm, that it is found necessary to suppress them. But we should remember that the genius is always eccentric in youth unless he is allowed a very wide area for development—and this is the last service his friends are willing to do him. He has, as it were, to develop into a large circle. His great vitality and many-sidedness enable him to take advantage of any chance diminution of pressure, and in each direction where resistance is least he shoots out long points and angles. If any of these angles be lopped or violently discouraged, he may be a one-sided or distorted being. Let him alone, however, and in due course he will fill in the spaces between his angles and grow into a finely rounded being. But the magnificent virtue of letting one another alone is still little cultivated by our community.

Now, persons who are merely eccentric do not shoot out their angles in a variety of directions and fill in the spaces as soon as opportunity is granted them. They have only one or two long angles, to which they continue to add till they become such a nuisance that the peace and safety of the community demand their control. Both genius and eccentricity being hereditary, and the logical outcome of extreme eccentricity in one generation being insanity in the next, we need to exercise care in our dealings with these abnormal developments. To drive men of genius into the ranks of the eccentrics is a very dangerous policy. Let us honestly recognise the fact that we are all of us potential madmen.

Curiously enough, those who have the least pretension to sound organisation and rounded development are most often lauded as men of genius. Talent in one special direction developed at the expense of more essential parts of the organism, not an exceptional vitality, secures them this distinction. We should be cautious as to the objects we choose for admiration, since, by a natural law, that which we admire becomes prevalent.

Some persons propose to reform the world by means of checking reproduction from unfit types. But this measure would be useless so long as our conditions continue to coin the thing we would destroy. And if we could alter our conditions, the measure would be unnecessary, as the unfit already existing would soon die a natural death or be suitably modified. In some cases the wholesale change suggested would have very bad results, for the children of misdirected geniuses may possibly revert to the former standard and inherit the original genius of the parent without his recent aberrations. Our measures would but serve therefore to check the reproduction of these highly desirable types. In the midst of our black ignorance on such matters, our wisest course is to refrain from violent and irrevocable action. Instead of hurrying to lop people’s angles, it would be well if we were first to try the effect of removing pressure from the spaces between them.