MORAL & PHYSICAL HEALTH SOCIETY

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2174, 12 June 1914, Page 7

MORAL & PHYSICAL HEALTH SOCIETY

LECTURE ON PROGRESS,

Last evening, at tho Society for tho Moral and Physical Health Society, Miss Phoebe Myers read a paper which sho had given before the Eugenics Society some time- ago, dealing with the late Alfred Rusell Wallace's book, "Social Environment and Moral Progress." Miss Myers stated that tho book defined morals as largely a -product of environment, based on character. The latter had been unchanged from the earliest historic times, and in those times tho general ethical conceptions, tho accepted standard of morality, and the conduct arising therefrom, were in no way inferior to those which prevail to-day, though in somo respects they differed from ours. There had been no definite advance of morality from ago to age,-and even the lowest races at eacli period possessed the- same intellectual and moral nature as tho highest. The introduction of machinery had increased material civilisation, and produced refinements in'manners and customs of daily life, but there were few, if any, indications of permanent or widespread change, either for better or '.for worse, in our intellectual or moral nature. Tho application of steam power had led to a phenomenal increase of wealth. Scientific discoveries had increased our power over nature, but tho effects of the two put too great a strain upon our crude civilisation, and thi3 growth in wealth had been accompanied by various forms of social immorality, almost as amazing as unprecedented. Among those might be mentioned certain industrial conditions—insanitary dwellings, business subterfuges, and certain aspects of the administration of justice. After a lifetime of almost a 'century, during which ho had seen our social system develop to its present form, at an ago when he might be- expected to regard the past as superior to the- present, the discoverer j of the theory of natural selection saw that the only hopo of moral or mental improvement for tho human pec was to niako woman socially and economically independent. He would replace her on a pedestal, but one built of materials very different from those of which the old worn-out one was composed. Driven from her retreat by tho ruin of her home arts, through the invention of macliinery, sho was forced to become a rival to man in the field of labour. Sho had now realised that sho liad been living in a fools' Paradiso, and strengthened by tho struggle in which she has been engaged, fully aware of her responsibilities and importance in the plan of creation, sho had determined to rebuild her pedestal with material gained from her own experience. For this new system there must be scientific and economic management of labour to obtain the maxium efficiency, with tho minimum expenditure of energy, time, and material; State recognition of national servieo; tho application of scientific principles to tho domestic machinery. Moreover, women, as men do, will choose

their work for life, and therefore their efficiency will increase, and so will their economic value. Tho wonderful developments that, had beon made in man's environment during tho last century suggested a possibility as strange as it was startling, and in it, too, there was much of hope. Might it not bo that somo psychic force, hitherto ltnfelt, because the conditions were not favourable to its manifestations, was now adapting man for changed conditions of life, so

that he might enter on a new stage of evolution? Since tho brain had to prepare man for his new environment, and no mental or moral improvement could come except through woman, it would seem so.