One of the most important features of this great social function is the reactive effect on the functionary. The maker is inexorably modified by the thing made. If the thing made develops along normal lines, the maker develops with it. If it does not—if it is checked or perverted in its growth, so is the worker. Working is humanity’s growing. In the act of working the individual is modified, and by the work accomplished humanity is modified. Also the accomplished work remains, like coral, the record of the height of those who did it. In the case of those who do not work, who consume copiously, and produce nothing, they have no chance of normal development, add no step to human progress. See in conspicuous instance the Grecian marbles and literature. Those who gave the work were themselves developed by doing it; the society which received the work was developed by using it; and by the work as it remains to us, we know and judge Greece. But the possession of these works does not make us Greeks. To be able to do them was to be Greek. Many causes combined to make the Greek; and the Greek blossomed into that kind of work—he was, so to speak, merely Greeking in the doing of it. We have the result as we have fossil bones. From it we may learn what the Greek was, but not how to make him. A person, or a race, is something, owing to antecedent conditions. Then they _do_ something by virtue of being what they are, as an apple tree bears apples. (“By their fruits ye shall know them.”) The thing done does have some reactive effect, however—else we should have no power to modify each other, and this is one of humanity’s chief advantages. The modifying effect of the work accomplished is indeed large, it is no wonder we so long to create the things whereby we can thus progressively serve each other. See, for instance, the endless effect upon society of such work as Plato’s, Angelo’s, Stevenson’s, Edison’s; all work counts in both ways; in the doing it affects the doer; when done it affects the user. But it is more blessed to give than to receive. In animals the modification of species is effected only in the direct line of heredity. A change of condition modifies his action—the change in action modifies him—and the modification is transmitted in his single line. But there is no means of widening the effect—it has to be filtered down through direct heredity. With man, in his organic connection, there is a race modification through our transmission of energy in work, which multiplies his progress million-fold. Some local change of condition modifies the action of one person, the change in action modifies him, and the modification is transmitted in his single line. Thus far we are even with the animals. Then we pass them; man’s action is work; it is not mere putting something in his mouth; it is making something. And the thing made holds and transmits his energy, passing it on forever to all who use it, making the growth of one the growth of all.