The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-02-29
DEGENERAOY AND REGENERATION
BY HENRY FORCE LEE.

BY HENRY FORCE LEE.
SINCE Max Nordau's brilliant and
able work on degeneration" society
has been brought face to face with
some of its greatest weaknesses and
has seriously been asking itself some
questions as to the tendency of much
that had heretofore passed without
challenge as the fad, and therefore
the fashion, of the hour. There has,
in consequence, been noticed some
healthful indications of change, and
tendency to saner and more healthful
views OF life and art. Undoubtedly,
however, Nordau's Degeneration"
injured its cause by vain exaggera-
tion, though it must be admitted
that nowadays anything which is to
attract attention must lay an extra
ordinary emphasis upon the things it
wishes to controvert or change. This
IN itself is also an indication of de-
generation, and one to which DR..
Nordau must plead guilty along with
other degenerates. This fact is
brought out clearly in "Regenera-
tion," work by an Englishman who
points out that Nordau makes a great
mistake in assuming that "a group or
two OF men and women in each of the
capitals of Europe are the real index
to the degeneracy, or the contrary,
OF modern life" The "plain people" !"
as Lincoln called them, are always
the truest indicators of a nations
life, and the mass of the plain people,
whether in America or in Europe, are
still, happily, unaffected by the fads
and jaded fancies Nordau SO causti-
cally satirizes and characterizes.
keeping near to the "plain people"
was Lincoln's great secret, and it is
the secret also, of most that is noble
and elevating in literature and art.
The plain people have not been sub
jected to the hot-house variety of
culture of which French novels and
English exotic poetry afford an illus
tration.
Every one, at times,' lis forced to
sacrifice to necessity, and the petty
details of life claim far too large a
share Of our thoughts and actions.
We are too busy with externals, with
the mere accessories of life, instead
OF with its essentials.
We exhaust ourselves for raiment
and shelter and food and despoil the
spirit and check its true growth and
development. Even the noblest and
most ingenious souls are at times
batfied and discouraged by the mass
of these details, and the soul realizes
the fable of the lion in the net, from
which it is glad to be delivered, even
by some agency far inferior to itself.
In thousands of cases where life is
not controlled by some overmastering
purpose or high ideal the current of
existence, instead of flowing on broad
ening and deepening to the peaceful
haven of old age, is lost in the desert
sands of slavery to detail and inability
to observe the Greek philosophers
maxim of always looking to the end.
In the old heroic days before in
herited wealth and the super-refne-
ments of civilization had produced a
race of drones the currents of action
might become perverted bypassion or
lust of power, but it rarely subsided
into the shadows incident to our mod
ern civilization. The ingenious in
stincts of the soul are not strong
enough, in most cases, to battle
against contagion and preserve its
originality and primitive tastes unim-
paired amid the hustle and glare of
society intent upon the follies of the
day and oblivious to higher things.
Even Epicurus taught that truth
was not an inhabitant of cities and de-
lights not in clamor. None but
misanthrope would decry the de-
lights of refined society, but the por-
ton of society which always runs
after "the newest thing" simply be-
cause it is new, that is always glad of
a new detail that may interest or
amuse various minds incapable of
earnest thought and purpose, affords
such philosophers as Nordau excel
lent illustrations of the degeneracy
of our times.
CHICAGO, ILL.