Heart and Soul by Maveric Post

Excerpt

DIAGNOSIS

Many of us, to-day, are disturbed and alarmed by the point of view and the behavior of people about us—especially the younger generation. Girls of good family are seen on all sides, who smoke and gamble and drink and paint their faces and laugh with scorn at the traditions and conventions which their grand-parents regarded with almost sacred reverence. The young men are worse, if anything, and as for the married people of the new era, what they are doing to the sanctity of the home and the bonds of matrimony might seem like a weird travesty of the teachings of the past.

What is the world coming to? Are things going on indefinitely, this way,—or more so? If not, who, or what, is to stop the movement and turn it in another direction? What is the meaning of it all? What is to be done about it?

Before attempting to speculate on these questions, it might be a good idea to consider for a moment the main, fundamental influences which have always been at work, to a greater or less extent, in determining the conduct of human beings.

First come the material instincts. Each individual is born with a large number of desires, appetites, feelings, impulses, tastes. There is also a natural wish to gratify these and the process of doing so brings with it a sense of satisfaction and pleasure. So that if these natural instincts were the only things to be considered, the problem of humanity in a general way would resolve itself into preserving life and getting as much pleasure out of it as possible. Why not follow the lead of our instincts, accept all opportunities as they come, and make the most of them?

Is not this point of view, however briefly and crudely expressed, the first principle of existence as it confronts each individual to-day, as it has confronted them in the past, and as it will continue to confront them always?

Is it not, in its essence, the starting point—the ever-present raw material—which must be recognized and dealt with somehow in any scheme of philosophy or morality?

The next consideration, which follows closely after, is that certain wishes cannot be gratified, certain pleasures are forbidden, certain instincts must be repressed or controlled.

Why?

For various reasons. The first being force and might. Some one stronger interferes and prevents.

Every child comes in contact with this principle at an early stage. It cannot have what it wants, it cannot do as it wills—because the nurse or the mother says "no."

A little later, if it undertakes to gratify a certain wish which has been forbidden, if it gives free play to an instinct for pleasure, against orders, it is slapped and scolded. It is made to feel that it has done wrong. And when one does wrong, punishment follows—one must learn to expect that.

This same principle confronts the individual in later years,—all through life. First the nurse and mother; then the father and other members of the family; then the neighbors and people at large; the police and the laws. All these embody the same principle, they represent greater force, without the individual, which interferes with its instincts, its pleasures, its wishes, which forbids certain things—declares they are wrong—and punishes, if they are done....