IN HIGHER PEOPLES 159 



3. The Instinct of Indolence. 



Another survival from primitive times is the 

 loafing instinct, laziness, the disinclination to ex- 

 pend large or sustained amounts of energy. 

 Higher peoples put forth an immense amount of 

 energy^ — in contending with each other in war and 

 in overcoming and controlling the forces of nature 

 along the various lines of human industry. 



But our bodies do not generate energy in suffi- 

 cient abundance for us to regard labor as a bless- 

 ing. We don't work, as a rule, because we would 

 rather work than not. We work because we would 

 rather work than starve. Labor is a sort of neces- 

 sary evil. We endure it because it is not so bad 

 as some other things we would have to undergo 

 if we didn't work. To labor as men do in pro- 

 ducing civilization — in producing the food, houses, 

 machinery, and luxuries of modern peoples — is 

 not natural in the present stage of development of 

 the human machine. It is a strained and artificial 

 expenditure. This is shown by our fondness for 

 holidays, by our constant search for labor-saving 

 machines, and by the fact that we are all the time 

 looking forward to a Golden Age in our lives when 

 we can lead a life of leisure. We generally classi- 

 fy toil with trouble and tears — ^with the evil things 

 of life, not with the good things. The Happy 

 Places that men dream of for themselves after 

 death are invariably places where there is not 

 much work to do. 



The instinct of indolence is a survival from 



