THE LIFE WE SEEK

The Life We Seek ~ 454 ~ means—theft, fraud, bribery and so on. In so doing, they may materially compensate for their low incomes, but they then place society in that very predicament in which they had initially found themselves. The ideal of personal happiness has a catastrophic effect upon the happiness of society as a whole. In modern times, human society has been affected by a novel, and extremely alarming malaise — juvenile delinquency. We must ask ourselves how a child becomes a delinquent. Since this problem is peculiar to modern society, we must attribute it to circumstances which did not in the past exist. And if such circumstances now exist, it is because of present day preoccupation with material happiness to the detriment of law and order. Matrimony too is no longer the respected institution that it was. It all too often happens that newly-weds, after exhausting the initial pleasures of married bliss, become tired of seeing the same face and making the same physical contacts and, in order the better to satisfy their sexual desires, go out in search of other partners. Eventually, whatever survives of the material relationship deteriorates to the point where