afford a pasture-ground for parasites.

It does not seem to follow that because men are capable of doing
hard work they like it. Some, indeed, fidget and fret if they cannot
otherwise work off their superfluous steam; but on the other hand
there are many big lazy fellows who will not get up their steam to
full pressure except under compulsion. Again, the character of the
stimulus that induces hard work differs greatly in different persons;
it may be wealth, ambition, or other object of passion. The solitary
hard workers, under no encouragement or compulsion except their
sense of duty to their generation, are unfortunately still rare
among us.

It may be objected that if the race were too healthy and energetic
there would be insufficient call for the exercise of the pitying and
self-denying virtues, and the character of men would grow harder in
consequence. But it does not seem reasonable to preserve sickly
breeds for the sole purpose of tending them, as the breed of foxes
is preserved solely for sport and its attendant advantages. There is
little fear that misery will ever cease from the land, or that the
compassionate will fail to find objects for their compassion; but at
present the supply vastly exceeds the demand: the land is
overstocked and overburdened with the listless and the incapable.

In any scheme of eugenics, energy is the most important quality to
favour; it is, as we have seen, the basis of living action, and it
is eminently transmissible by descent.