they want foreign immigrants they must offer conditions acceptable to them and to the government of the country supplying the immigrants. Conditions such as those obtaining in the Brazilian fazendas, or in certain cotton plantations of the Southern States of North America, must not be reproduced. Of course the guarantees demanded would vary according to the varying degree of civilisation of the different governments, and in some cases the agreements might be placed under the auspices of the League of Nations.

Besides South and Central America, there are other areas rich in natural resources and requiring development and population in Asia, Africa, and even in parts of Russia, ruled by governments incapable of progress through lack of capital, expert ability and administrative talent. Why cannot some of these territories be placed under the protectorate of civilised European countries capable of dealing with them and possessing an available reserve of population? Then there are the mandated territories in Asia and Africa. There appears to be no valid reason why, when the present mandates expire, these territories should be assigned exclusively to countries already possessing immense colonies, one of which has not even the necessary surplus population and can only develop her colonies by means of foreign labour.

A solution of this problem is not merely a question of abstract justice; it is an economic and political necessity in order to prevent a grave situation from arising at no distant date. That great and highly civilised countries, with large and growing populations, which cannot all find employment at home, should be for ever deprived of colonial possessions where their children can settle under their own institutions, when there are abundant territories thirsting for population, and that these countries should be forced to send many hundreds of thousands of their sons every year to work under foreign taskmasters abroad, where the best of them end by being completely lost to their father-land, and that even the openings affording this inadequate relief should be gradually closed to them, cannot but lead, sooner or later, to international conflicts. It is to the interest of every Power that this open sore should be healed, if reconstruction and peace are to be realised at last. It is well to look ahead and seek for a satisfactory and honourable solution based on international agreement, before the situation becomes too deeply embittered by violent national irritation. LUIGI VILLARI

THE HUMAN WILL

THE study of the human will is proverbially the quicksand of philosophy, in which many a stately speculative system has been swallowed up and lost. Metaphysics can neither conquer nor avoid this treacherous shore, but there are moments when an observer of its difficulties is inclined to think that the matter at issue is nearer the province of the engineer than the philosopher. The problem of life from this angle is very largely a study in stress and endurance, and the human will is the measure of our resistance capacity.

We go through life at a certain regulated pace, which seems in the main determined by the even income and expenditure of individual energy. We may put on the brake a little, and thus accumulate or restore our exhausted stock of vital energy; or speed things up a little, and thus live for a time on our small personal capital, whether inherited or individually acquired. But in the long run we have to pay it back-or pay the penalty.

It is impossible to make a general statement as to the amount by which we can vary the pace in either direction, for it differs in every individual; but that we can in fact so vary it is not, I think, in doubt. The valetudinarian and the bedridden prolong their tedious lives beyond the natural spell; while men of the Napoleon and Curzon type, who starve themselves of sleep and whose days are filled with endless toil, certainly shorten their lives. In the one case the living machine has little wear and tear; in the other the pressure is too high, and there is no time for recuperation.

The pace at which we live can also be varied by indulgence, which clogs or deteriorates the machine, as well as overwork. Excessive eating and drinking are probably the most common forms of indulgence, but personal temperance is obviously a matter within our own control. Now the figures of the United Kingdom Provident Institution show that the difference in mortality between abstainers and non-abstainers from alcohol, insured in that office over a period of 60 years, was 20 per cent. in favour of the former; while during a shorter period of more

recent date, when all classes had become more temperate, the difference between abstainers and non-abstainers from alcohol was still 10 per cent.*

There are no statistics of voluntary abstention from over-eating, which is probably more common and certainly not less harmful than indulgence from alcohol. But compulsory food-rationing in Denmark, a country of large appetites, during the war, reduced the death-rate; and the removal of the restrictions after the war sent it up to its former level.

These figures indicate that a temperate way of life in work and food may lengthen our days by 10 per cent.; that excessive indulgence and unrelieved toil may shorten them by 15 per cent. or more. The time-penalty of excess is greater than the reward of moderation, but in either event the choice is well within our range of liberty. Within the limits, then, of from 10 to 25 per cent. we can curtail or lengthen our lives.

On the other hand, it has often been supposed that those who desire to live longer will live longer; in other words, that the mere desire to live will itself lengthen life. But this raises an extremely difficult problem, comparable to the question whether any man by taking thought can add a cubit to his stature.

We know, indeed, that any man by taking exercise can add to his capacity for walking, and any man of ordinary ability by studying a subject can master it in time. But this is achieved by concentrating all the available power of the organism on one end; it does not necessarily increase the total power of the organism. Is it then possible, by concentrating all the available power of the organism on its physical continuity, for a man to live longer than would otherwise be the case?

It may be so. Few men live quite up to the limit of their capacity in the quality of their life, and this is probably true of the quantity of life as well. Most of us have several interests, which add to the enjoyment, but increase the expenditure of life; and there is, at any rate in the young, a reserve of latent energy

*Times, March 19, 1925. The figures of the Abstainers and General Insurance Co. (which, however, contains only a small proportion of abstainers, and the figures must therefore be used with caution) show very similar results. Times, March 27, 1925.-It must be remembered, of course, that excessive alcoholics are not likely to insure in either office.

for use in any sudden crisis. By abandoning these interests and throwing in this reserve, it is possible that we may slightly prolong a threatened life.*

Certainly the sick man who determines to get well is more likely to recover than the sick man who does not care whether he lives or dies. But this proves little; for the determination to recover may be the mere reflection in consciousness of the vigorous organism struggling against the threat to its existence; while indifference or resignation may be successively descending stages in the index of diminishing vitality. And it is the fact that many men who hate the idea of death have nevertheless died prematurely; while many men who longed for death have nevertheless continued to live.t

On the whole, then, I am doubtful of this proposition. There are too many exceptions; and although we can and do shorten or prolong our lives by our own action, the total period of individual life is fixed by the totality of individual conduct from the beginning, and not by any sudden resolution when the crisis is upon us. Death-bed repentances may be valid in theology; they have no legitimate parallel in biology.

From these doubtful cases and individual exceptions we can now turn to the general problem of the will to live.

The average length of life is clearly conditioned by the racial need for continuity--it lasts long enough to see the next generation secure. The individual life may be shortened by

*The standard case is probably that of Hezekiah. But in that story the dates are obscure, and the mythical element is strong.

†The fear of death is a direct reflection of the will to live. It is probably stronger in the European than in some aboriginal races elsewhere, where travellers have noticed that a man makes up his mind to die, and death soon comes. I doubt if the superior (and inherited) vitality of the European permits him to do this.

Dr. Johnson was a famous case of the fear of death. It seems to have been an outcome of his vigorous mentality; certainly he lived rather longer than his constitution and habits seem to justify. (He died at 75.) Perhaps it helped to prolong his life.

Other famous cases were Renan (69), Zola (62), Daudet (57), and Tolstoy, who wrote that "Nothing is worse than death, and when we consider that it is the inevitable end of all that lives, we must also recognise that nothing is worse than life." But the mere profession that life is evil does not involve suicide, for Tolstoy died of natural causes at 83.

privation or excess or some purely local influence; or lengthened by temperance; and it may, perhaps, also be slightly lengthened (but not very greatly) by the conception of some great enterprise-for an idea takes longer to mature than children; but the individual will to live diminishes steadily as the racial period accomplishes itself, until it is eventually extinguished altogether.

The suggestion that the will to live is eventually extinguished must sound excessively improbable to the youth who rejoices in sheer exuberance of physical existence; there are hours in the lives of all healthy men when the delight of bodily well-being is almost ecstatic, and the mere thought of death an impertinent anachronism. But let us put this matter to the test.

At 50 the dying Cecil Rhodes, who had long been familiar with the prospect of premature death, lamented bitterly at the last: "So little done, so much to do." Neither the racial nor the individual will to live was sated; and the idea for which he stood, the young colony of Rhodesia, was not yet secure.

At 59 the will to live is still strong. At the beginning of his last illness Cromwell burst out to his physicians: "Do not think I shall die; say not I have lost my reason. I tell you the truthI know it on better authority than any you can have from Galen or Hippocrates; it is the answer of God Himself to our prayers." Even when compelled to abandon hope of recovery he was still reluctant: "I would be willing to live to be further serviceable to God and His people, but my work is done!" Individual will was breaking, but mental will survived a little longer; for he knew too well that the Commonwealth, the idea for which he stood, was insecure.

At 61 the fierce Clothaire of France bitterly resented the coming of this great king, “who pulls down the strength of the strongest kings." The political idea for which he stood, and for which in his rough fashion he had fought as valiantly as Cromwell, was still insecure.

At the same age, however, the placid historian Lecky, admits in the "Map of Life" that the normal span of existence is long enough. His fame was assured, and he had embodied in permanent form the idea for which he stood. The will to live was obviously sated, the mental concept expressed, and four years later he died content.

At 67 Curzon, although in political office, was conscious that