WOBK AND REST: GENIUS AND STUPIDITY. 413 



WOEK AND EEST: GENIUS AND STUPIDITY. 



By ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN, PH.D., 

 CLARK UNIVERSITY, WORCESTER, MASS. 



OLDEE far than the Tennysonian line, ' Better fifty years of 

 Europe than a cycle of Cathay/ is the Chinese proverb, ' One day 

 is as good as three,' i. e., if you know how and when to do the thing 

 necessary. Scott has given the warrior's version : 



One crowded hour of glorious life 

 Is worth an age without a name. 



Pope speaks for the statesman : 



One self-approving hour whole years outweighs 

 Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas. 



Through the Mohammedan saying the goddess Artemis expresses her- 

 self, ' One hour in the execution of justice is worth seventy years of 

 prayer.' The faith of the religious votary is voiced by the Hebrew 

 psalmist, 'A day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.' The folk and 

 the poet, the two anticipators of science, have in all ages seen the ac- 

 complishments of great things in brief periods of intense activity. 

 There is an aristocracy of the moment, as well as of blood or brain. 



It is an interesting subject for inquiry how far the history of the 

 individual and of the race justifies the belief that one day is as good 

 as three, one hour outweighs whole years. In this brief paper, no ex- 

 haustive study can be entered upon, and the intention is simply to out- 

 line a theory based upon the phenomena thus recognized, and to defend 

 the view that intense activity for comparatively brief periods alternat- 

 ing with longer periods of greater or less quiescence is, whatever 

 incidents of environment, artificialities of civilization, exaggerated 

 sex influences, etc., have at times interfered to disturb it, the normal 

 phenomenon of work in so far as it is best and most genially produc- 

 tive and profitable racially and individually. 



The Animal. — From the earliest times some of the lower animals 

 have passed for models of industry, others as examples of utter sloth 

 and idleness. But we may be sure that man has read into his observa- 

 tions of animal activity a good deal of his own passing reflections, for 

 exact scientific investigation hardly justifies some of his familiar 

 sayings. Young animals (kittens, for example) do not play so many 

 hours of their day as is commonly supposed, and the busy bee is far 



