By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice
some of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I
was, came uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding
arrangement. "Some men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed.
"Are the clever workmen content with a plan that
ranks them with the indifferent?"

"We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice,"
replied Dr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of
service from all."

"How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two
men's powers are the same?"

"Nothing could be simpler," was Dr. Leete's reply. "We
require of each that he shall make the same effort; that is, we
demand of him the best service it is in his power to give."

"And supposing all do the best they can," I answered, "the
amount of the product resulting is twice greater from one man
than from another."

"Very true," replied Dr. Leete; "but the amount of the
resulting product has nothing whatever to do with the question,
which is one of desert. Desert is a moral question, and the
amount of the product a material quantity. It would be an
extraordinary sort of logic which should try to determine a moral
question by a material standard. The amount of the effort alone
is pertinent to the question of desert. All men who do their best,
do the same. A man's endowments, however godlike, merely fix