That quality which enables a man to work and wait, to stand the deferring of hope and desire, is patience. The classic figure of patience sitting on a monument is wrong, for she must sit on the eager desires of man. Nor is patience only the virtue of the good and farseeing, for we find patience in the rogue and schemer. Altruists may be patient or impatient, and so may be the selfish. Like most of the qualities, patience is to be judged by the company it keeps. Nevertheless, the impatient are very often those of small purposes and are rarely those of great achievement. For all great purposes have to be spread over time, have to overcome obstacles, and these must be met with courage and patience. Impatience is fussiness, fretfulness and a prime breeder of neurasthenia. Patience is realistic, and though it may seek perfection it puts up with imperfection as a part of human life. But here I am drifting into an error against which I warned the reader,--of making an entity of a conception. People are patient or impatient, but not necessarily throughout. There are men and women who fuss and fume over trifles who never falter or fret when their larger purposes are blocked or deferred. Some cannot stand detail who plan wisely and with patience. Vice versa, there are meticulous folk, little people, whose petty obstacles are met with patience and cheerfulness, who revel in minute detail, but who want returns soon and cannot wait a long time. We are not to ask of any man whether he is patient but rather what does he stand or do patiently? What renders him impatient? A form of impatience of enormous social importance is that which manifests itself in cure-alls. A man finds that his will overcomes some obstacles. Eager to apply this, he announces that will cures all ills. Impatient of evil, men seek to annihilate it by denying its existence or by loudly chanting that good thoughts will destroy it. These are typical impatient solutions in the sphere of religion; in the sphere of economics men urge nationalization, free trade, socialism or laissez faire, or some law or other to change social structure and human nature. War itself is the most impatient and consequently most socially destructive method of the methods of the treatment of evil.