e, unable to conceive, and as the
man pays it himself, out of funds in his detention, I have a certain
backwardness to think him honest.

At least, we have gained a very obvious point: that _what a man spends
upon himself he shall have earned by services to the race_. Thence flows
a principle for the outset of life, which is a little different from
that taught in the present day. I am addressing the middle and the upper
classes; those who have already been fostered and prepared for life at
some expense; those who have some choice before them, and can pick
professions; and above all, those who are what is called independent,
and need do nothing unless pushed by honour or ambition. In this
particular the poor are happy; among them, when a lad comes to his
strength, he must take the work that offers, and can take it with an
easy conscience. But in the richer classes the question is complicated
by the number of opportunities and a variety of considerations. Here,
then, this principle of ours comes in helpfully. The young man has to
seek, not a road to wealth, but an opportunity of service; not money,
but honest work. If he has some strong propensity, some calling of
nature, some overweening interest in any special field of industry,
inquiry, or art, he will do right to obey the impulse; and that for two
reasons: the first external, because there he will render the best
services; the second personal, because a demand of his own nature is to
him without appeal whenever it can be satisfied with the consent of his
other faculties and appetites. If he has no such elective taste, by the
very principle on which he chooses any pursuit at all he must choose the
most honest and serviceable, and not the most highly remunerated. We
have here an external problem, not from or to ourself, but flowing from
the constitution of society; and we have our own soul with its fixed
design of righteousness. All that can be done is to present the problem
in proper terms and leave it to the soul of the individual. Now the
problem to the poor is one of necessity: to earn wherewithal to live,
they must find remunerative labour. But the problem to the rich is one
of honour: having the wherewithal, they must find serviceable labour.
Each has to earn his daily bread: the one, because he has not yet got it
to eat; the other, who has already eaten it, because he has not yet
earned it.

Of course, what is true of bread is true of luxuries and comforts,
whe