Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/207

 THE IRKSOMENESS OF LABOR 1 89

all futility of life or of action is distasteful to him. There may be a wide divergence between individuals as regards the form and the direction in which this impulse expresses itself, but the impulse itself is not a matter of idiosyncrasy, it is a generic feature of human nature. It is not a trait that occurs sporadic- ally in a few individuals. Cases occur in which this proclivity for purposeful action is wanting or is present in obviously scant measure, but persons endowed in this stepmotherly fashion are classed as " defective subjects." Lines of descent which carry this defective human nature dwindle and decay even under the propitious circumstances of modern life. The history of heredi- tarily dependent or defective families is evidence to this effect.

Man's great advantage over other species in the struggle for survival has been his superior facility in turning the forces of the environment to account. It is to his proclivity for turning the material means of life to account that he owes his position as lord of creation. It is not a proclivity to effort, but to achievement — to the compassing of an end. His primacy is in the last resort an industrial or economic primacy. In his eco- nomic life man is an agent, not an absorbent; he is an agent seek- ing in every act the accomplishment of some concrete, objective, \\ impersonal end. As this pervading norm of action guides the life of men in all the use they make of material things, so it must also serve as the point of departure and afford the guid- ing principle for any science that aims to be a theory of the economic life process. Within the purview of economic theory, the last analysis of any given phenomenon must run back to this ubiquitous human impulse to do the next thing. ^U

All this seems to contradict what has just been said of the "n* conventional aversion to labor. But the contradiction is not so "■'^. sheer in fact as it appears to be at first sight. Its solution lies ^ in the fact that the aversion to labor is in great part a conventional aversion only. In the intervals of sober reflection, when not harassed with the strain of overwork, men's common sense speaks unequivocally under the guidance of the instinct of workmanship. They like to see others spend their life to some purpose, and they like to reflect that their own life is of some use. All men

«5>