Sir,

Your note on Sir Arbuthnot Lane's discourse upon the old question "Is Civilisation a Failure?" (asked long ago more poetically by Bret Harte) is most interesting, especially in the light shed upon it by Prof. John Dewey and Mr. Matthias Alexander. According to Sir Arbuthnot Lane, the failure of civilisation lies in an alteration of the simple mechanical relationship Nature intended us to maintain towards our surroundings, and this has caused alterations in human anatomy which have produced all the ills from which we suffer to-day. That the numerous and heavy calls which civilisation has made upon the human organism have resulted in failure to respond with sufficient rapidity to altered environment is an undoubted fact and no doubt the lecturer obtained this information from Alexander's Constructive Conscious Control, with which I know him to be acquainted. One fails to see, however, what "alterations in human anatomy" this failure either could cause or has caused in the short period during which man has been civilised. That it has resulted in serious wrong functioning, both in body and mind, is what Alexander has insisted upon in the work mentioned, and it is nowhere better seen than in the attitude of most of our lecturers on health to-day. What Alexander has done is to find a specific remedy for this wrong functioning in his technique of re-education.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

Macleod Yearsley
Whapole Street, W., March 4th, 1926