Old Froissart, who said of the English of his day that “they take their pleasures sadly after their fashion,” would doubtless, if he lived now, say of the Americans that “they take their pleasures hurriedly after their fashion.”  In large measure with us, and still more with you, there is not that abandonment to the moment which is requisite for full enjoyment; and this abandonment is prevented by the ever-present sense of multitudinous responsibilities.  So that beyond the serious physical mischief caused by overwork, there is the further mischief that it destroys what value there would otherwise be in the leisure part of life.  Nor do the evils end here.  There is the injury to posterity.  Damaged constitutions re-appear in their children and entail on them far more of ill than great fortunes yield them of good.  When life has been duly rationalized by science, it will be seen that among a man’s duties the care of the body is imperative not only out of regard for personal welfare, but also out of regard for descendants.  His constitution will be considered as an entailed estate which he ought to pass on uninjured if not improved to those who follow; and it will be held that millions bequeathed by him will not compensate for feeble health and decreased ability to enjoy life.

Once more, there is the injury to fellow-citizens taking the shape of undue regard of competitors.  I hear that a great trader among you deliberately endeavored to crush out everyone whose business competed with his own; and manifestly the man who, making himself a slave to accumulation, absorbs an inordinate share of the trade or profession he is engaged in, makes life harder for all others engaged in it and excludes from it many who might otherwise gain competencies.  Thus, besides the egoistic motive, there are two altruistic motives which should deter from this excess in work.

The truth is there needs a revised ideal of life.  Look back through the past, or look abroad through the present, and we find that the ideal of life is variable and depends on social conditions.  Everyone knows that to be a successful warrior was the highest aim among all ancient peoples of note, as it is still among many barbarous peoples.  When we remember that in the Norseman’s heaven, the time was to be passed in daily battles with magical healing of wounds, we see how deeply rooted may become the conception that fighting is man’s proper business and that industry is fit only for slaves and people of low degree.  That is to say, when the chronic struggles of races necessitate perpetual wars there is evolved an ideal of life adapted to the requirements.  We have changed all that in modern civilized societies, especially in England and still more in America.  With the decline of militant activity and the growth of industrial activity the occupations once disgraceful have become honorable.  The duty to work has taken the place of the duty to fight; and in the one case as in the other the ideal of life has become so well established that scarcely anybody dreams of questioning it.  Practical business has been substituted for war as the purpose of existence.