If any one, after the
obligatories, wishes to be entirely idle, he may be so, but I cannot now
think of a single person without some voluntary occupation; doubtless
there are such persons, but I do not know them. It used to be said, in the
old times, that 'it was human nature' to shirk and malinger and loaf, but
we have found that it is no such thing. We have found that it is human
nature to work cheerfully, willingly, eagerly, at the tasks which all
share for the supply of the common necessities. In like manner we have
found out that it is not human nature to hoard and grudge, but that when
the fear, and even the imagination, of want is taken away, it is human
nature to give and to help generously. We used to say: 'A man will lie, or
a man will cheat, in his own interest; that is human nature'; but that is
no longer human nature with us, perhaps because no man has any interest to
serve; he has only the interests of others to serve, while others serve
his. It is in no wise possible for the individual to separate his good
from the common good; he is prosperous and happy only as all the rest are
so; and therefore it is not human nature with us for any one to lie in
wait to betray another or seize an advantage.
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