Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/58

48 as well as our means, in amplitude. Perfection in amplitude of means few if any of us have; but we all want it, and, failing perfection, the nearest possible approach to it.

But we like ease, too, as well as abundance. We rate these two features of our sustenance at different relative values; some of us placing a higher value on ease and others on amplitude. Some, for the sake of ease, are willing to get along without things which others are willing to work hard for. This fact must never be forgotten, for it stands in the way of many very promising schemes. In personal contact, we may have no respect for the lazy man's laziness; but, as a scientific fact, we are bound to respect it or lose our reckoning.

Laziness is, in fact, a universal characteristic, and, when not excessive, a decidedly valuable one. Whoever lacked it entirely would soon work himself to death. Work wears us out. Laziness makes us decline to wear ourselves out with work unless we see hope of a reward which will rebuild us. It leads us to calculate closely the ratio of effort to satisfaction. The establishment of that ratio, at the point of minimum effort and maximum satisfaction, is the end and aim of all human forethought. This sometimes seems not to be true. Some persons seem to have a real appetite for work. But does such an appetite ever survive the hope of a return, either to that person or to another in whom he takes an interest? No work is done excepting to amplify the sustenance, to enlarge and complete the life of some human being, or to secure for that being rest hereafter. We may work on and postpone both ease and amplitude of living indefinitely, but we always keep them both in mind as our future reward. We may think to bestow the ease upon ourselves when we shall be too old to work, and in the mean time to work and earn it. This scheme is as wise as it is natural.

We may also forego in the present some pleasures or comforts which we might enjoy, for the sake of making our old age average well with the rest of our lives in these respects. It is a pity that human beings do not all behave in this way.

It may be hastily said that the laziness or extravagance of our fellow-beings hinders us in making a living. But just here a careful distinction must be made. It is one thing for them to hinder us, and essentially another thing for them to fail to help us as much as they might. It is this that the sluggard and the spendthrift both do. Supposing that each barely earns whatever living he has, the spendthrift helps us most, because no one can earn an ample sustenance, whatever he afterward does with it, without helping his fellow-beings. This rule is not necessarily universal, but it applies to all civilized countries and all times. If there are any communities where human beings make a living without the help of others, and without helping others, these communities are not subjects of economic study, except as serving to illustrate the economic by reference to the uneconomic.