Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/164

 And they are beginning to see also that in the rush to reach these goals thousands fall at the first spreading point of light. Which is true. For if people have the will to strive, have they the power to sustain the will?

I doubt whether the Orientals have. And I doubt too whether the Occidentals, having the power, have also the wisdom to see when that power becomes an instrument of destruction instead of progress. For even as human machines fed from the inexhaustible power-house of Civilization, there is a course which the Orientals and the Occidentals can safely pursue,—a course that will save one people from the destructive effects of rust and another people from the more destructive effects of abrasion. For indolence and strenuosity are the two poles of one evil. And if a machine in disuse is a loss, an abused machine is the forerunner of losses manifold.

But who in the Western world to-day, where accident risks are reduced to a minimum or covered by an insurance