LA WS OF SUPPL Y AND DEMAND 103 



ing nothing more, and spawning swarms of wretched beings to 

 succeed him in his hopeless contentment with a pittance. All 

 this has been too much done, undo it ; teach him, in order that he 

 may desire knowledge ; let him know that the world has pleasure 

 in it, so that he may long for pleasure ; show him what comfort 

 is, so that he may learn to want, not live as a savage without 

 wants ; and when he has learnt how good a thing it is to enjoy 

 life, let him fear poverty and starvation, as that man does fear 

 them who must subdue them or perish ; teach him to trust him- 

 self ; teach him that his wife, his little ones, should trust him 

 and him alone ; let him look on miscalled charity as a temptation 

 of the devil ; and add to all this the greatest want of all, the long- 

 ing that he may be that excellent thing, the man who walks in 

 the ways of God : and never fear that this being will grovel out 

 a life of hardship, or fail to learn how to win that which he so 

 much desires. 



Discontent with that which is vile is the mainspring by 

 which the world is to be moved to good. Contentment with 

 degradation is a vice a vice only too difficult to eradicate. The 

 action of these truths is everywhere to be seen. There is hardly 

 a grain of truth in the doctrine that men's wages are in propor- 

 tion to the pleasantness of their occupations. On the contrary, 

 all loathsome occupations are undertaken by apathetic beings for 

 a miserable hire. The plodding agricultural labourer has small 

 wages ; the discontented mechanic lives in comfort ; the pro- 

 fessional man, who never ceases struggling for more, wins luxu- 

 ries ; yet the best paid is the most pleasant life. Now the 

 common explanation of this is, that there are few capable of ful- 

 filling the higher and pleasanter functions, and many capable of 

 performing the baser work ; but why are there few fit for the higher 

 lot ? Simply because of the high standard obtaining among 

 those who rejoice in it. A doctor with half a dozen sons will 

 not make all doctors ; he could afford to do this very well. It 

 is not the expense of the education which deters ; he knows 

 he could not find openings for all in the one path he means by 

 this, not in the style to which he is accustomed, and in which 

 he expects his sons to live. It is the standard of comfort held 

 by the present doctors which limits the number entering the 

 profession, not the expense of education : again, a young doctor 



