destroys the sanity of life. All stimulants, narcotics, and tonics which affect the nervous system in whatever way reduce the truthfulness of sensation, thought, and action. Toward insanity all such influences lead; and their effect, slight though it be, is of the same nature as mania. The man who would see clearly, think truthfully, and act effectively must avoid them all. Emergency aside, he can not safely force upon his nervous system even the smallest falsehood. And here lies the one great unanswerable argument for total abstinence; not abstinence from alcohol alone, but from all nerve poisons and emotional excesses. The man who would be sane must avoid, emergencies excepted, all nerve excitants, nerve soothers, and "nerve foods," as well as trances, ecstasies, and similar abnormal relations to the external world. If he would keep his mind he must never lose his head" save in the rest of normal sleep.

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In general, great work is not accomplished under the influence of drugs or stimulants. The great thoughts and great deeds which move the world are those of men who live soberly and whose nervous systems record truthfully the facts of nature and of life.

What is true of man is true of animals, and true of nations as well. For a nation is an aggregation of many men as a man is a coalition of many cells. In the life of a nation,

The mind

of nations.

Lowell tells us, "three roots bear up Dominion-Knowledge, Will, the third Obedience, the great tap-root of all." This relation corresponds to the nervous sequence in the individual. And as in general the ills of humanity are due to untruthfulness in thought and action, so are the collective ills of nations due to national folly, vacillation, and disobedience. The laws of national greatness expand themselves from the laws which govern the growth of the single cell.

XI.

DEGENERATION.

By degeneration is meant the process by which a living being changes for the worse. This implies a narrowing range of powers and capabilities. The word is opposed in meaning to change for the better, which we call progress or development.

of activities.

Throughout the animal and vegetable kingdoms may be found instances of degenerate types. There are species or groups of species which have deDecline in range clined in complexity of structure and range of activities as compared with their ancestors. Degeneration of type appears whenever the range of competition is narrowed or incentive to activity lessened. It takes place whenever a relaxation of the struggle for existence permits life on a lower plane of activity or with less perfect adaptation to conditions. Thus a land animal transferred to the sea has its range of activity narrowed. There is competition from fewer quarters, and a corresponding decline of competitive structures takes place.

The most striking cases of degeneration are those of quiescent animals, and parasitic animals and plants, as compared with their free-swimming selfdependent ancestors. Examples of degenerate quiescent animals are the Tuni

Quiescent

animals.

cates. These creatures, descended from fishlike ances

Tunicates.

tors, are reduced to motionless sacs, buried in the sand or anchored to rocks or wharves. The evidence of their origin is found in the fact that the young Tunicate is tadpole-shaped, with a rudimentary backbone, and has the motions and in large degree the structure of the fish. With the loss of power of locomotion the structures on which locomotion depends also disappear.

Parasitical animals.

Still more marked is the degeneration of parasites. It is a universal rule that all creatures dependent on others for support lose their power of self-help. Parasitic insects lose their wings and are confined to the bodies of those unwillingly made their hosts. Parasitic worms are the simplest of their kind. Insects feeding on the juices of plants which they suck without moving become reduced to mere living scales.

Perhaps the most remarkable example of the degeneration of parasitism is that seen in the crustacean called Sacculina. This creature appears

Sacculina.

as a simple sac attached to the body of the crab, into which its root processes or blood vessels extend. When it is hatched from the egg it is similar in form to a young crab, independent and free-swimming. It soon attaches itself to some adult crab, into the body of which it extends its processes. It loses its power of locomotion, and the limbs all disappear. Living at the expense of others, self-activity is not demanded, and its position protects it from competition to which free-swimming crabs are subject. It becomes degraded into a parasitic sac, with no organs except a nervous ganglion, its ovaries, and root processes. This is the female Sacculina, and parasitic upon this is the smaller and still more degraded male of the same species.

The Sacculina is the type of race degeneration among animals and plants. When the stimulus to individual activity is lowered and the conditions of environment are such that destruction ism homologous does not follow reduced activity, we have continuous degeneration. This is the condition of animal pauperism. The same general laws hold good among men. Inactivity and

Animal pauper

with human

pauperism.

FIG. 19.-Sacculina after leaving the egg. (After Lang.)

dependence, protection in idleness, bring about deterioration and end in weakness, incapacity, and extinction.

It is true that all advance in one structure implies degradation of some other. This is the so-called "law of compensation." The specialization of the human hand, for example, has been at the cost of the human foot. The power to live by his wits has taken from man something of the strength and spryness of his apelike ancestors.

Law of compensation.

Any organ tends to degenerate when its highest function loses importance or is replaced by some other. To have one's food cooked means the reduction of the lower jaw and its muscles. For a bird to trust to its wings means the decline of the strength of its feet. Reduction of unused parts is a universal rule in organic development. Decline in all parts is the essential meaning of degeneration.

In the current discussions of the day the word de