Conversely, the power of continued application, which in the primitive
man is very small, has among ourselves become considerable. It is
true that most are coerced into industry by necessity; but there
are sprinkled throughout society men to whom active occupation is a
need--men who are restless when away from business and miserable
when they eventually give it up; men to whom this or that line of
investigation is so attractive that they devote themselves to it day
after day, year after year; men who are so deeply interested in public
affairs that they pass lives of labor in achieving political ends they
think advantageous, hardly giving themselves the rest necessary for
health.
Yet again, and still more strikingly, does the change become manifest
when we compare undeveloped with developed humanity in respect of the
conduct prompted by fellow-feeling. Cruelty rather than kindness is
characteristic of the savage, and is in many cases a source of marked
gratification to him; but though among the civilized are some in whom
this trait of the savage survives, yet a love of inflicting pain is not
general, and besides numbers who show benevolence, there are those who
devote their whole time and much of their money to philanthropic ends,
without thought of reward either here or hereafter.
Clearly these major, along with many minor, changes of nature, conform
to the law set forth. Activities appropriate to their needs which
give pleasures to savages have ceased to be pleasurable to many of
the civilized; while the civilized have acquired capacities for other
appropriate activities and accompanying pleasures which savages had no
capacities for.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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