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Then he went on: "I felt like kicking the hobo when he got to me, he was so obviously the extreme of all worthless creatures, with that apologetic, confidential manner which seems to be an abominable attendant on human degeneracy. One may put up with it for a little while, but it presently becomes intolerable.
In so far as a really great man busies himself mainly with things that are objective, which are socially and morally neutral such as electricity, natural history, mechanical theory, with the applications of these of course, the mental capacity which he possesses is the main thing, and his absorption in these things may lead to a warped sense of the more ideal and refined relationships which are had in view by the writer in quest for degeneracy.
Of course he's a failure, whether rich or poor; a miserable imposition, a hollow vulgar fraud from beginning to end, too insignificant for you and me to talk of, were it not that his position is a sign of the degeneracy of the age. What are we coming to when such as he is an honoured guest at our tables? 'At just a table here and there, suggested his friend. 'No; it is not that.
You can say she drove out the English saved France. But for what? The Bartholomew massacres. The ruin of the Palatinate by Louis XIV. The horrors of the French Revolution, ending with Napoleon and all the misery and degeneracy that he bequeathed to Europe. History might have worked itself out so much better if the poor child had left it alone and minded her sheep."
Now in our days there is hardly any other means of educating the spirit of a people in this respect, except by War, and that too under bold Generals. By it alone can that effeminacy of feeling be counteracted, that propensity to seek for the enjoyment of comfort, which cause degeneracy in a people rising in prosperity and immersed in an extremely busy commerce.
When people learn to identify the source and nature of the influence swirling around them, it is sufficient. Let the American people once understand that it is not natural degeneracy, but calculated subversion that afflicts us, and they are safe. The explanation is the cure. This work was taken up without personal motives.
Degeneracy in morals roots in a one-sided and wavering philosophy, doubly dangerous, because it blinds the beclouded intellect with an appearance of correctness, truth, and conviction, which places it less under the restraining influence of man's instinctive moral sense. On the other hand, an enlightened understanding ennobles the feelings, the heart must be formed by the head.
Throughout the living world, from ameba to man, parasitism and slavery together with their by-products, physical and spiritual degeneracy, appear as the after effects of the more vital individual's efforts to remain alive and free. The origins of slavery may be seen in the parasitisms of the infectious diseases which kill man.
On the 13th of April we find Goldsmith and Johnson at the table of old General Oglethorpe, discussing the question of the degeneracy of the human race. Goldsmith asserts the fact, and attributes it to the influence of luxury. Johnson denies the fact; and observes that, even admitting it, luxury could not be the cause. It reached but a small proportion of the human race.
Peter, in his epistle to them, also wrote of the One "whom having not seen ye love." "After the ruin of paganism they were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel" in the idol worship. Symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.
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