The Decay of Will Power

'Strong wills are becoming as rare was healthy physical organisations. The world is "fussy", but only because humanity is working itself too much.

Brain tissue has increased; but healthy, vigorous thought has diminished. Affections have become realities, and realities affectations. A toothache converts us into invalids, where our ancestors laughed at the gout. We have beaten the gold leaf so thin it has lost its own colour, and shines with a ghastly green light.

Sentiment has caried us past common-sense; we have had such a terror of the flesh that we have cultivated brain at the expense of motive tissue, and have produced a giant's skull that is too heavy for our dwarf-legs to bear.

Emotions have been refined, but they have not been improved; brain has increased, but strong, vigorous thought has diminished. Education has become diffused, but what the many have gained the select few have lost; and thought there are abundance of readers, the race of prophets has died out.

Suicide has increased because will and healthy thoughts have diminished. It is a disease born of modern affectations, of the disappearance of that self-control and self-respect that are better than cartloads of mock sentiment and morbid melancholy. Aside from the irresponsibility of insanity, an unsuccessful self murderer needs a large dose of iron and a large dose of the whip; and to crush out all future attempts needs a strong dose of public contempt and a strong dose of the treadmill. In a certain sense nature uses suicide to rid the world of fools; but it is, nevertheless, a blot on civilization and a warning that there is a limit to all things, even to human progress.

Humanity has made a rapid journey towards perfection; but the point has now been reached when rest and relaxation has become a necessity. We have conquered worlds; let us now return for a while to the old Greek proverb, and try to conquer ourselves.'

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From 'Great Thoughts from Master Minds', 1899.

{ Strange to think that even at the turn of the last century, the unknown author of this piece was noticing more and more people NEEDED a holiday from the stresses of everyday life. Political correctness might forbid the use of a treadmill to counteract potential suicidees nowadays, but I couldn't help but notice twinges of modern culture in these words. }