AN APPRECIATION 245 



it has borne, and the harvest it is yet destined to 

 produce. 



Meantime, we can perhaps give no better indica- 

 tion of his real greatness, as distinguished from 

 eminence, than by reciting his utterances of virility, 

 pronounced as recently as 1909, which are among 

 the last he has given to his countrymen. In a recent 

 article* he wrote : " I have studied the causes of civic 

 prosperity in various directions and from many 

 points of view, and the conclusion at which I have 

 arrived is emphatic, namely, that chief among those 

 causes is a large capacity for labour — mental, bodily, 

 or both — combined with eagerness for work." " A 

 prosperous community is distinguished by the alert- 

 ness of its members, by their busy occupations, by 

 their taking pleasure in their work, by their doing it 

 thoroughly, and by an honest pride in their com- 

 munity as a whole. The members of a decaying 

 community are, for the most part, languid and 

 indolent, they shirk work when they can do so, and 

 scamp what they undertake." " Prosperous com- 

 munities are also notable for enjoyment of life, for 

 though their members must work hard in order to 

 procure the necessary luxuries of an advanced 

 civilisation, they are endowed with so large a store 

 of energy that, when their daily toil is over, enough 

 of it remains unexpended to allow them to pursue 

 their special hobbies during the remainder of the 

 day. In a decadent community, the men tire 

 easily and soon sink into drudgery ; there is conse- 

 quently much languor among them and little 

 enjoyment of life." 



Recalling these words now, when he who wrote 

 them has passed from the world, leaving the memory 

 of his greatness and social insight, they remain 

 as a warning to a nation, which by the signs of its 

 times already shows evidence of that decadence 



* " The Eugenics Review," .luly, 1909. 



