"HEALTH, SLEEP, SANITY, AND INSANITY."

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 16

"HEALTH, SLEEP, SANITY, AND INSANITY."

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,— l shall be gkd if you will Icindly allow me space in which to Make somewhat olearer several points briefly referred to in your report of an address on " Health, given by me last evening. I mentioned, first of all, that seemingly inevitable Nemesis, which the past "hitsory of mankind shows us has hitherto overtaken and overthrown every nation and every dynasty which has risen to a dominant position on the face of the earth. The life of nations and the life of clans and families has seemed to be subject to the «ime law of rise and fall as the life of eaoh. individual man, and, indeed, of each particular living being,- .whether animal or Plan*-- J^ might seem to -the bw*dJy pflto-. gresaiv-e character of organic- evolution— the gradual xiee of the higher plante and. animals from' the simple cell to, the most complex of Hying beings 10 .either 'kingdom. The soience of geology and the- marr vellous revelations of the microscqpe (wtaon show us that the life history of each individual sums up from the ovum to the adult more or less completely the life history of its race), give us a general record of gradually increasing complexity of structure and "function throughout the ages. All this, however, is quite consistent with » perpetual falling out of the line of progress on the part of certain individuals and groups. This has been obvious enough all through in regard to man himself, but it was not until Professor Ray Lankeeter dealt in a masterly fashion witn the subject of Degeneration, exactly 30 yea/rs ago, in an address he then gave before the British Association that scientists came to realise the important role played by degeneration in regard to all forms of living beings, more or less, and came to realise also its extreme practical significance as a motive prompting further effort in the direction of scientific research, with a view to elucidating the causes tending m t>he direction of decadence rather than progress. It was stiown that nothing brought about degeneracy more inevitably, than the vicious habit of exchanging a free and active existence (in which the individual would have to work hard for a living, and gain in health, strength, capability, and complexity of structure and function in tna (process) for an idle, stationary life m which the means of living would depend on what oame unsought to the station where the creature took up its anchorage. This waa particularly illustrated by the case of two vertebrate organisms which, up to a certain point of development are almost precisely alike — namely, the tadpole of the frog and the tadpole of the ordinary " sea-squirt," or ascidian, which we find almost anywhere in the world anchored to stones, wharf

piles, etc., on the sea coast. There wa* a time when the adult ascidian had a brain and an eye, as its tadpole still has, but. • the race has fallen out of the line of progress, and from the tadpole stage onward each individual retrogresses into a mere6hapeless, bottle-like squirt with, a very^ simple internal structure and two pores forthe mere talcing in and ejecting of water. The frog, on the other hand, continuing* a comparatively active and varied life, developed lungs and a fairly complex brain and circulating system, of which we, its. cousins, have no cause to be ashamed. We are all three vertebrate, but theascidian is a degenerate relation that we are not iproud to acknowledge. ProfeeeorLankester pointed the moral, as follows: All that has been, thus far, here said on. the subject of Degeneration is so much zoological specialism, and may appear but v narrow restriction of the ducusckm to thoea who are not zoologists. Though we m*y establish the hypothesis most satisfactorily by the- study of animal organisation and development, it is abundtntl; clear that de-, generative evolution is %y no means limited in its application to the field of zoology. . - x r Ek»- tradition*! hiftocyj.. of vaxnkmd. furniafess us -with notable examples. of degeneration- High stales of civilisation hsv* decayed', and given place «> low and deg«ne-. rate'-sUies, Many, savage races, »s we *i present see them, axe- degenerate, and axe descended, from .-maceston* pbaaessed of *•■ relatively elaborate, civilisation. As such, we m*y cite some of feW Indians of Cen-tral America., the modern. Egyptians, and even the heirs of thegreat Oriental monarchies of prse- Christian times. Whilst the hypothesis of universal degeneration as an explanation of Mvag* races has been justly discarded, it yet appear* that degeneration his a rery large share in the explanation of the condition of the most barbarous races-, such as the Fuegians, ib» Bushmen, and even the Australians. They exhibit evidence of being descended from ancestors more cuMiva-ted tban themselves. With regard to ourselves, the white raoes o£ Eurcpe, the possibility of degeneration seems, to he worth some «ra6ider*tion. In accordance with a tacit assumption of universal progtees — an unireasoEing optimism— we *re> accustomed to regard ourselves as necessarily progressing, as necessarily having arrived aft a higher and more elaborated condition than that which our ancestors .reached, and a» destined to progress still further. On, the other hand, it ie well to remember that we are subject to tfoe general laws of evolution, and aie as likely >o degenerate *s to progress. As compared with «he immediate forefathers of our oiviUsation— the ancienC Greeks— we do not appear to have unproved so far as our bodily structure is concectteOj nor assuredly so f*r *» some of our mental capacities are concerned. Our powers of perceiving and expressing beauty of fonnl have certainly not increased since »• W« of the Parthenon and Aphrodite of MeUw,In matters of the reason, m the developmenfl of intellect, we may seriously inquire how. the case stands. Does the reason of the average man of civilised Europe stand outs clearly as an evidence of pcograss when compared with that of the men of bygone ages?t Are all the inventions and figments of human, superstition and folly, the self-inflicted torturing of mind, the Teiterwted snbstitutioni of wrong for right, and of falsehood for truth, which disfigure our modern civihsatioa —are these •vid«nce3 of progress? In mica