352 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
(4) The modern spirit is strenuous. The complex and crowded human environment is extremely stimulating. The primeval natural environment at times powerfully stimu lated the minds of men ; but on the whole it was soporific as compared with the thronging and tumultuous life in the midst of which the modern man moves. Indeed, many people are over-stimulated today. Only those of fairly sound nervous constitutions can stand the strain. Everybody works under high pressure ; when men play they feel that it is dull unless the pressure is high ; and perhaps no class of people live under higher pressure than those who do not work at all. The development of society inevitably quickens the pace of life. Everything must move faster. Men become impatient of slow movement in every sphere of life, and especially in the pulpit. This speeding-up process continues ; and no one can see any prospect that it will cease in the future. For tunately, life tends to adapt itself to the constantly accelerat ing pace in various ways. Men s minds become more alert ; and by learning to economize time and personal energy and to use more effectively the energy of natural forces, the majority of people not only survive but manage to accom plish more and more.
(5) The passion for achievement is a characteristic of the modern age. This would seem to be a natural result of living in an environment which is so stimulating and is so largely the product of human effort. Under this stimulation the sense of individual personality is intensified, and the environment teems with suggestions and inducements to give expressions to personality in forms of constructive effort. Sometimes the destructive impulse dominates, but that is ex ceptional. The conditions of life today stimulate men to impress themselves in some way upon their environment, either by subduing the yet unsubdued realms of nature or by reorganizing some part of the human world. This striv ing for achievement takes the form of both individual and collective effort, which are not inconsistent with one another but are always co-ordinated in any important enterprise.
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