MAN OR BEAST?

Educators are much exercised over the wholesale dissemination of "literary poison" in current fiction. A Canadian interested in the matter points out in the "Educational Review" that seventeen American magazines have been officially barred from Canada because of the salacious character of their contents. In discussing this problem Professor BHss Perry says: "Pernicious is that class of books that identify human behavior with animal behavior."

The modern scientific theory of a common unity in all living organisms is the point of departure of the new tendencies. Evolution in particular has been seized upon by such writers. Human nature, they say, is mere animal nature. A school of psychology, which regards all human behavior as mechanistic, gives them substantial backing. Then Freud, with his theory of the evils of suppressed desires, confirms their conviction that one can do no wrong if he follows his instincts. A sort of righteous zeal, therefore, inspires the modern crusade to let truth have its way and show things as they really are.

It would make the shade of Rabelais long for reincarnation to see so current his motto: "Fay ce que voudras." But thinking people are constrained to oppose the new libertinism. Man may, indeed, be an animal, often a superb animal. But isn't he something more? Is it rational to conclude that in spite of his evolution he remains a brute? Emerson said:

"There are two laws discrete.

Law for man, and law for thing."

And Emerson had clearly seen the unity which runs through all life, even before Darwin published his "Origin of Species".

The error of the misdirected freedom of today is an error of blindness. Even animals when caring for their young show some capacity for altruism. This same capacity is the basis of the higher strivings of man. No new principle has been introduced in his composition; but man's superior brain gives him greater power to control his lower instincts in a way possessed by every animal in small part. This is what makes him a man, and he remains a man in proportion as the law of this higher nature triumphs over the law of his lower nature.