Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 203, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1911 — Laziness the Curse of Mankind [ARTICLE]

Laziness the Curse of Mankind

ONE of the Oldest gospels ii the world Is the gospel o: work. “ Instead of trying to say any thing new upon it I am going t< take you through the library and show you what the wise men o: the past have said about its opposite—idleness. After all, the old fellows wht lived and thought before we weri born covered the ground pretty wel on almost any subject you dan im aglne.' We have made some prog ress In sewing machines, telephone* and rubber heels, but the ancient! can still give. us points on jus plain thinking. Going back to that picturesque old king of Judea, who not only hai become a chief figure in magic and masonry, but Who also gained the reputation of being the wisest mar that ever lived, Solomon the Great we find in his book of precepts sucl familiar words as: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.” “A, little more sleep and a littl< more slumber, and a little more fold, ing of the hands in sleep; so shal. thy want come as one that runneth and thy poverty as an armed man.’ Plutarch’s words are a perfect mine of piquant anecdotes and say ings of. the Greek and Roman sages He tells of Apelles, the great Greek artist, that when some one asked him why he had depicted Fortune or foot, he replied: “Because she never sits down,’ by which we understand that if you want to catch her you’ll have te run. Plutarch’s words are a perfect the elder, that, being asked one day If he were at leisure, he answered: “God forbide that any such thing should happen to me!” From Laertius we get this saying of the greatest of, philosophers. Plato: “Never mix idleness with honesty!” from which we infer that no mind can remain honest that I* not diligent. -t •

Democritus, another Greek, said that “fatigue is better than ease, foi a man’s satisfaction never comes ex cept at the end of labor.” The Spartans carried industry ta an extreme. Erasmus says: “they were exceedingly saving of theii time, applying themselves ever tc serious and urgent affairs, nevei allowing any citizen to spend hie time in diversion or ease. For instance, the ephors, by which name the rulers of the Spartans were known, hearing that certain judges were In the habit of taking a walls In the evening wrot# to them, with usual brevity: ‘Don’t, walk!* the point being that it behooved a Spartan to exercise in the gymnasium and not in promenades.” Aristophanes, the poet of Greece, expresses it: To stand around in ease, And to have nothing to do, Is to live as the sheep live. Seneca, the great philosopher o! Rome, that interesting genius who wrote on a golden table such excellent things about poverty and it* privileges, and whom Carlyle call* “the father of all them that wear shovelboard hats” —i. e., master ol “bromides” —wrote: "Life without letters (study) is death, and the sepulcher of living men.” From Ovid, the Latin poet, we get: “A life of ease corrupts the soul, as still waters grow foul!” And Livy, the Roman historian, remarks upon the well known connection between idleness and uncleanness:

“Ex diuturno otio lieentia colligitur.” (Dally east breeds licentious ness.) The same Idea we find in the Latin verses of Palingenio: “Idleness is the seed of all the vices, be trays the mind Into vileness, is a companion to lust, and removes tie foundations of the state.” This reminds one of the pretty fable told by the Germans. The devil desirous of ruining mankind, and thus spiting God who had made men, called all his imps before him, to see which one he would send on this important mission. Greed, envy, lust, anger, pride, and the other sins each volunteered, but were rejected as incompetent utterly to ruin men. At last came idleness. whom the devil chose at once —"for,” said he, “when men are Idle all the other vices follow as a matter of'’course.” Plutarch, the''ltalian poet, was still more emphatic. “Fatigue is the stuff from which virtue and nobleness are made; if you are afraid of the first one,, you do not value the last two. Idleness feeds lust, renders the body fat and the mind heavy obfuscates genius, takes away knowledge, extinguishes memory, and . gives birth to insanity.” The greatest of the poets of Italy, Dante, says: “Without work which consumes thy life. Thou shalt not leave upon the earth More imprint than smoke in the air, Or foam upon the vasty sea.” Tasso was another poet of Italy. In his ovation delivered at the opening of the academy at Ferrara he said: “Where there is nothing but leisure there is no genius, there la no dream of glory or of immortality, there appears no Image, nor shadow nor trace of any of the things we call virtue.” An epigram of Lautier is: “What we steal from our nights we add to oar days.” This reminds us of recent statements made by a prominent physician in New York to the effect that most people sleep too much. John Wesley’s rule was: “Get up as soon as you wake up.** Muratorl sententiously observes: “Doing nothing is doing evil.” We can catch the rhyme in the original: "Nulla fare e mal fare.” A good motto to inscribe upon walls of some of our wealthy

“A man of perfect leisure I* « walking crime.” * Nature has always some peculiaj pain which she attaches to thos« traits and deeds which do not eui' her purposes. Too much food brings the agony of indigestion and too little the pangs of hunger; hon esty brings peace and a mean act it followed by remorse; so idleness has its punishment, as noted t» Joubert: **Ease Carries within it* self its own penalty—ennui.” The sharp and cynical La Rock sfoucauld in one of his famout “Maxims” says: “It is a mistake tc suppose that it is the violent emotions, such as love and ambltior that triumph over the other emotions Love of ease, soft, as th« feeling is, is one of the strongest elements of character; for It sub dues the will and the deed, and in sensibly consumes every other passion, as well as all one’s principles.’ And it was a markedly true thing he also said that “we have a vast deal more laziness of mind than laziness of body.” Vauvenargues gives another ol the laws of the spirit, one that each of us has often proved, Idlenes* tires us much more quickly than work. The same writer points out sharply the important truth that oui feelings grow strong and firm by exercise precisely as our muscles: “Sterility of feeling follows its lack of use.” And there’s a flash of wit In this subtle remark of his, and a sting also: It is the Idle who are always wanting ‘something to do.’ ” The “lazy man’s load” Is a common expression, for a lazy man works harder so as to get through more quickly and rest. L* Rochefoucauld also notes this in one ol his “Maxims”: “No one is in such a hurry as a lazy person.” Lord Chesterfield gives us another phase of the subject: “Only the Ignorant and weak are lazy Those who have acquired a greal fund of knowledge always want to add to it; it is the same with power, the more one has the more on* wants.”

Burton, In his famous "Aratomy of Melancholy” saye: “Laziness Is poison to body and mind, the ailment of perverseness one of the seven deadly sins; ’tis the devil e pillow, his bolster, his main support. A lazy dog is full of the mange, and how’ shall a lazy man not he otherwise? Laziness ol mind is also much worse than laziness of body; an untised talent Is a misfortune; and to the mind rust is a pest, a hell.” Jeremy Taylor writes that "an idle person is the same as a dead per son; both are merely passing the time.” We get the medical point of view from Dr. Marshall Hall: “Nothing is 60 noxious as having nothing to do.” The same thought is framed thus by the archbishop of Magonza: “The human heart is like a mill; if you put grain in it, it produces flour; if you put nothing in it, it continues to grind, only it consumes itself.” , From this glance at the words ol the thinkers of all time we gather that the soul of man is like a boat, floating down stream toward the rapids; to be destroyed, no more is necessary than to put up'' the oare and lie down. The theory of evolution discloses to us the great law of nature that perfection and perpetuity are the prizes of struggle.