those that, on the one hand, are eminently
prosperous, and of those that, on the other hand, are as eminently
decadent. I have little doubt that the reader will agree with me that
the members of prospering communities are, as a rule, conspicuously
strenuous, and that those of decaying or decadent ones are conspicuously
slack. A prosperous community is distinguished by the alertness of its
members, by their busy occupations, by their taking pleasure in their
work, by their doing it thoroughly, and by an honest pride in their
community as a whole. The members of a decaying community are, for the
most part, languid and indolent; their very gestures are dawdling and
slouching, the opposite of smart. They shirk work when they can do so,
and scamp what they undertake. A prosperous community is remarkable for
the variety of the solid interests in which some or other of its members
are eagerly engaged, but the questions that agitate a decadent community
are for the most part of a frivolous order.

Prosperous communities are also notable for enjoyment of life; for
though their members must work hard in order to procure the necessary
luxuries of an advanced civilisation, they are endowed with so large a
store of energy that, when their daily toil is over, enough of it
remains unexpended to allow them to pursue their special hobbies during
the remainder of the day. In a decadent community the men tire easily,
and soon sink into drudgery; there is consequently much languor among
them, and little enjoyment of life.

I have studied the causes of civic prosperity in various directions and
from many points of view, and the conclusion at which I have arrived is
emphatic, namely, that chief among those causes is a large capacity for
labour--mental, bodily, or both--combined with eagerness for work. The
course of evolution in animals shows that this view is correct in
general. The huge lizards, incapable of rapid action, unless it be brief
in duration and associated with long terms of repose, have been
supplanted by birds and mammals possessed of powers of long endurance.
These latter are so constituted as to require work, becoming restless
and suffering in health when precluded from exertion.

We must not, however, overlook the fact that the influence of
circumstance on a community is a powerful factor in raising its tone. A
cause that catches the popular feeling will often rouse a potentially
capable nation from apathy into action. A