use to us, has been my object. And I believe enough has been said
to show that the great complexity of modern life, with its multiplicity
of demands upon our energy, has got us into a state of chronic hurry,
the results of which are everywhere to be seen in the shape of less
thorough workmanship and less rounded culture.

For one moment let me stop to note a further source of the relative
imperfection of modern culture, which is best illustrated in the case of
literature. I allude to the immense, unorganized mass of literature in
all departments, representing the accumulated acquisitions of past ages,
which must form the basis of our own achievement, but with which our
present methods of education seem inadequate to deal properly. Speaking
roughly, modern literature may be said to be getting into the state
which Roman jurisprudence was in before it was reformed by Justinian.
Philosophic criticism has not yet reached the point at which it may
serve as a natural codifier. We must read laboriously and expend a
disproportionate amount of time and pains in winnowing the chaff from
the wheat. This tends to make us "digs" or literary drudges; but I
doubt if the "dig" is a thoroughly developed man. Goethe, with all his
boundless knowledge, his universal curiosity, and his admirable capacity
for work, was not a "dig." But this matter can only be hinted at: it is
too large to be well discussed at the fag end of an essay while other
points are pressing for consideration.

A state of chronic hurry not only directly hinders the performance of
thorough work, but it has an indirect tendency to blunt the enjoyment of
life. Let us consider for a moment one of the psychological consequences
entailed by the strain of a too complex and rapid activity. Every one
must have observed that in going off for a vacation of two or three
weeks, or in getting freed in any way from the ruts of every-day life,
time slackens its gait somewhat, and the events which occur are apt
a few years later to cover a disproportionately large area in our
recollections. This is because the human organism is a natural timepiece
in which the ticks are conscious sensations. The greater the number of
sensations which occupy the foreground of consciousness during the day,
the longer the day seems in the retrospect. But the various groups of
sensations which accompany our daily work tend to become automatic from
continual repetition, and to sink into the background of co