Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/17

 ONE ASPECT OF VICE 3

body-energy, for heat and to keep up body-processes, muscle- energy, and energy of brain, whenever fuel is furnished the human machine. The difference between the amount of food required to sustain a man in idleness and to sustain him at labor is a very rough and unsatisfactory indication of the muscular energy which that labor demands. Upon this basis the statement is sometimes made that the laborer is paid for 25 per cent, of all the energy distributed by the human machine. Assuming, for purposes of illustration, that these figures have a proximate value, it will appear that only a small part of the energy taken up in air and food reappears in manual work. What becomes of the balance, for the quantity is supposed to remain constant ? Three times the salable energy of muscular labor remains internal : is retained to do the work of the body, to furnish it with heat, to drive on its processes, and to equip the brain for its work. One-fourth of the efficiency of life is manual efficiency ; one-sixth is energy of thought. More than one-half is required for the wants of the organism itself. Once more, these figures are not offered as exact. The exact determinations are not yet made. They are used here for purposes of illustration ; yet they are furnished by a multitude of experiments upon this subject, conducted in many parts of the world. It is evident that they must vary for differ- ent individuals ; that the muscular energy of the professional man is not the same as that of the laborer ; that the thought- energy of the laboring man is not the same as that of the thinker. Yet human beings, wherever found, are thus bilateral. Nature has supplied them with sensory as well as with motor centers. She has organized them as plan-makers and executors, and she is constantly furnishing each of us with the means for carrying out this two-sided process. Moreover, she is a constant adjuster. The penalty of having a brain is to use it. So with the body, there is nowhere any stoppage of the process of activity. The energy of muscle must become work. The energy of brain must appear as a form of consciousness. The supply of energy is relatively constant ; its discharge is constant ; all superficial limits to its further expression it overrides. The fame of Kant rests in large part upon his having heralded to the world the