The mentality of this mass of individuals, spiritually relaxed and incapable of self-collectedness, reacts upon all those institutions which ought to serve the cause of culture, and therewith of civilization. The theatre takes a second place behind the pleasure resort or the picture show, and the instructive book behind the diverting one. An ever increasing proportion of periodicals and newspapers have to accommodate themselves to the necessity of putting their matter before their readers in the shape which lets it be assimilated most easily. A comparison of the average newspapers of to-day with those of fifty or sixty years ago shows how thoroughly such publications have had to change their methods in this respect. When once the spirit of superficiality has penetrated [pg 020] into the institutions which ought to sustain the spiritual life, these exercise on their part a reflex influence on the society which they have brought to this condition, and force on all alike this state of mental vacuity. How completely this want of thinking power has become a second nature in men to-day is shown by the kind of sociability which it produces. When two of them meet for a conversation each is careful to see that their talk does not go beyond generalities or develop into a real exchange of ideas. No one has anything of his own to give out, and everyone is haunted by a sort of terror lest anything original should be demanded from him. The spirit produced in such a society of never-concentrated minds is rising among us as an ever growing force, and it results in a lowered conception of what man should be. In ourselves, as in others we look for nothing but vigour in productive work and resign ourselves to the abandonment of any higher ideal. When we consider this want of freedom and of mental concentration, we see that the conditions of life for the inhabitants of our big cities are as unfavourable as they could be. Naturally, then, those inhabitants are in most danger on their spiritual side. It is doubtful whether big cities [pg 021] have ever been foci of civilization in the sense that in them there has arisen the ideal of a man well and truly developed as a spiritual personality; to-day, at any rate, the condition of things is such that true civilization needs to be rescued from the spirit that issues from them and their inhabitants. * * * * *