How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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- Publication/creation
- London : George Routledge, 1932.
- Physical description
- xiv, 374 pages ; 22 cm
- Contributors
- Wolfe, W. Béran 1900-1935.
- Notes
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This edition was reprinted in 1933, 1934, 1935, 1937, 1942, 1944, 1945, 1946 and 1948.
Copy 1 Note: 1937 reprint. X158203
- Attribution and usage
-
Wellcome Collection
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The image contains the following text:
Two special facets of the larger social problem require
further explanation at this point. The first is the problem
of work which exists only among those living organisms
that have developed a communal life. We may well
consider the lilies of the field, the tiger in his jungle, the
robin in his apple tree—they work not, neither do they
spin. But ants, wasps, and human beings—organisms
that maintain their existence solely because of the
efficacy of their communal organizations, must work.
Among the insects the problem of work has been
crystallized in the course of the ages, but among men,
with their wider range of adjustments, the choice of
occupation allows of greater latitude. Yet work is an
essential of human life. Society exists for the protection
of the individual, but demands of every individual a
contribution toward the maintenance of the group. It is
therefore not a private matter for any man to say whether
he will work or not. Society allows a wide choice of
occupations, but work in some form or other is as
obligatory as common sense to any man who would call
himself human. In a later chapter we shall deal with
those who do not work—it will suffice here to indicate
that work, far from being a curse, is one of the chief
sources of personal salvation, as important as social
adjustment for the attainment of happiness.
In the second place there is the case of marriage. Man
is a bi-sexual animal. Bi-sexuality is a device of nature to
insure the proper evolution and development of the
species. The higher an organism stands in the scale of
evolution, the more marked the differences between the
sexes, and the more complete the division of labour
between them. But the problem of the sexes is also a
social problem, and human society therefore countenances
only those forms of sexual union which contribute to the
commonweal. Marriage, with its assumption of mutual
responsibilities toward the State and toward the children
by the contracting parties, is the most satisfactory solution
of the problem of bi-sexuality.
The widely varying forms of marriage to be found in