When Xerxes, that great Persian monarch, seated upon a throne of ivory and gold, viewed for the last time the magnificent array of his armies and his fleets, we read that he buried his face in his hands and wept, because he had reached the zenith of his glory; his ambition had been spent, his work had come to an end. And more desolate should be the man to-day who does not feel the passion of an earnest life, who does not yearn for some noble activity. He who sits with folded arms in the craft of civilization to be borne idly along while others ply the oars, must soon part company with the brave, loyal sons of activity to launch his idle bark in the dead waters of life, where the currents never come and the winds of energy are never felt. "At the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; On its sounding anvil shaped, Each burning deed and thought." V Ethics of Activity "The busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set, Till the occasion tells him what to do; And he who waits to have his task marked out. Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled." --James Russell Lowell. A Man's Relation to Society This question of activity is a twofold problem. In the preceding chapter we viewed it from the standpoint of the individual--as if he were the sole occupant of the boat, rowing toward a purely selfish end; going, as it were, in quest of the prize of life for purely personal aggrandizement. Whereas, strictly speaking, no man exists in a purely individualistic sense. He can not regard himself as separable from a social whole. Every individual is a vital element of an organized force working toward a mutual end. You are an integral factor, so to speak, of the social problem, but your value is determined by your relation to other quantifies in the complex system with which you are identified. As a segregated unit, you diminish in value.