We live today in a world which has lost the ability to meditate. Such a generalization must exclude the individual souls who are trying to follow the advice of Proverbs, ‘keep him in thy thoughts wherever thou goest', and those who have entered religion. But taken by and large it is a fair commentary on the present situation, as can be seen from the following extract from a broadcast talk, given some years ago by Bertrand Russell: ‘As men grow more industrialized and regimented, the kind of delight which is common in children becomes impossible to adults, because they are always thinking of the ”next thing” and cannot let themselves be absorbed in the moment. This habit of “thinking of the next thing” is more fatal to any kind of aesthetic excellence than any other habit of mind that can be imagined, and if art, in any important sense, is to survive, it will not be by the foundation of solemn academies, but by recapturing the capacity for wholehearted joys and sorrows which prudence and foresight have all but destroyed.’