Taking into consideration facts like these, the evidence would certainly seem to be in favour of the view that, in yielding to a desire for idleness, men are, after all, only following the dictate of Nature. But, recalling the intense activity, the abounding energy of childhood, recalling also the demonstrable truth that in most cases even the laziest of school-boys has had a past characterised by the reverse of laziness, just as he may have, like Darwin, Lyell, and the rest, a future of marvellous accomplishment, the mind must once more incline to the opposite belief. It may be, and, as will be shown, it undoubtedly is, somewhat of an exaggeration to say that there never has been a congenitally lazy man. But to say this is far nearer the truth than to regard laziness as something rooted in the constitution of our being, and love of activity as merely an acquired characteristic. On the contrary, the sharp contrast between the activity and energy of the average child and the idling propensities of the average man, points unmistakably to the development of laziness as a parasitic growth interfering with the normal processes and tendencies of nature. Laziness, in other words, must be looked upon as essentially a pathological condition. Instead, therefore, of condemning the lazy man, as the moralists would, it is the part of wisdom to view him as a victim of disease and as standing in need of careful treatment. Nature intended him to be vigorous, forceful, a being of achievement; circumstances have made him listless, inert, responsive but in feeble measure to the spur of honour, ambition, pride, love, or necessity. Sometimes, to be sure, he is contented with his laziness, and would almost resent an attempt to rescue him from it; more frequently he writhes in secret over a defect which he realises exposes him to the contempt and ridicule of his more virile fellow-men, and renders his life an empty, profitless existence. As one unhappy victim confessed in a moment of extraordinary self-revelation: “I begin, but do not finish. When I conceive a work, a feverish impatience seizes me to reach the desired aim; I should like to attain it at once. But to accomplish something, patient and continuous efforts are required. I never accomplish anything.... One dull day, in one of the suburbs, I saw a large piece of waste land, more covered with fragments of earthenware than with grass. Three or four houses had been commenced, charming little dwellings of red brick and white stone; the walls had been there for two or three years, but the floors and ceilings were lacking, the roofs had never been tiled, and one could see across the ever wide-open windows. My mind is in a similar condition—a rough plain with several pretty houses, the roofs of which will never be finished.” (_The Fortnightly Review_, vol. lxix, p. 763.)