“To induce [a lazy person] to become possessed of a good fixed idea, is not a superhuman work for those who know how to set about it. In fact, the means to be employed remind one of a woman who wishes to make herself loved. “Let us consider for a moment the means dictated to her by her infallible instinct concerning love affairs. First of all, she dresses herself with care, so as to show off her charms to the full; then she finds opportunities for constantly being seen, increases the number of meetings; her presence must become habitual—in fact, necessary; he must suffer when she is no longer near. She kindles the flame of jealousy, to make it understood that she is an incomparable treasure, and that another will grasp her if he does not stretch forth his arm in time. “Imitate her, you who wish to learn the marvellous art of reclaiming the indolent. Help your patient to choose a work really suited to his abilities; embellish the idea [of it] with all the hope that it is possible to raise—self-content, worldly importance, glory, and fortune to be conquered. Talk about it without ceasing; like a Wagnerian motive, repeat it again and again, and soon you will find that the brain seizes the idea, and can no longer exist without this good obsession. Finally, when the idea becomes cherished, when the brain loves it as one loves and desires a woman, make it to be understood that it belongs to all, that it is in the air, that another, braver and more manly, may step in and carry it off.... “Naturally, it is necessary to vary one’s advice according to the character and profession of each patient. I have had the opportunity of treating—for nervous affections and at the same time for indolence—men occupying the most varied social positions: students, composers, military officers, men of letters, lawyers, financiers, politicians, poor workmen, and idle, rich people. For each one of them it was necessary to choose a ruling idea, suited to his occupation and in proportion to his strength.” Treatment by suggestion, then, plus careful preliminary physiological, and if necessary medical, treatment to ameliorate the asthenic condition common to idlers—that is the proper course to pursue in dealing with all cases of laziness. And it is also the course to pursue in the more important matter of prevention, a matter which, as the case of Charles Darwin strikingly suggests, rests chiefly with fathers and mothers. Everybody knows that, as things now stand, young men and women choose vocations in a haphazard way, and too often choose vocations for which Nature has not intended them. What it is equally important to recognise is that even when they do happen to hit on a vocation fitted to them, it is only the exceptional man or woman who works anywhere near the limit of his or her capacity. The great majority fritter away much of their time, and may justly be accused of idleness.