There are also certain mental disqualifications which apply especially to the professions. William Hazlitt objected to all professions which depend on reputation, because this is “as often got without merit as lost without deserving;” but this is less the case now than it was formerly. The point is rather a mental unfitness for the work required, a state of things which may exist with plenty of ability. The politician with an instinctive shrinking from publicity, the lawyer who has an aversion to argument, the physician who is unable to show sympathy and interest where he feels none, may succeed in his profession, but he will scarcely enjoy it. Intense application to an occupation is a common cause of distaste for it and unhappiness in it. Such concentration is nearly always needless, and is often fruitless. The most brilliant fortunes have not been the products of hard work, but of shrewd planning. The sweetness of the chimes does not depend on the violence of the ringing, but on the skill of the bellman. I had a friend who was brought up a broker, but remained a philosopher. He used to say that energy in business is the most common cause of failures. He referred, of course, to that exclusive and persistent zeal which is pretty sure to end by enfeebling the body and exhausting the mind. Dissatisfaction with one’s lot sometimes arises from over conscientiousness,――a rare disease, I confess, in business circles, but I have met a few cases of it. “Always try to do your best,” is one of several hundred copy-book maxims which hypocrisy pretends are necessary to success, but which common sense and practical life quietly ignore. Very much less than your best will often answer the purpose, and the rope that reaches is long enough. I have witnessed considerable distress, especially among young men, because their books of account were not so immaculate, or their press-articles so studied, as they might have been by greater toil; yet they were good enough,――and good enough is good. At the best, making one’s living is often a sad affair. Business life is like a dinner at a crowded third-rate hotel, ――one’s clothing is so torn in the struggle for place, and there is so much dirt to eat before the dessert is served, that either the appetite turns to nausea, or its satisfaction is followed by indigestion. Hence so many able men prefer permanent positions on small salaries to embarking in affairs on their own account. Many a lawyer will give up a large practice to become a judge on one-third of the income. Politics in the United States is, as a business, notoriously unsafe, but the attraction of fixed salaries overcrowds it with aspirants. The dream of the Socialists is for all citizens to be salaried. Individual effort, however, alone insures general progress; not to dispense with it, but to favor its pleasurable development, is the real social problem.