We may be sorry for the general, the painter,
the artist, the worker in any profession or of any kind, whose
misfortune rather than whose fault it is that he does his work ill.
But the reward must go to the man who does his work well; for any
other course is to create a new kind of privilege, the privilege of
folly and weakness; and special privilege is injustice, whatever form
it takes.
To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable,
ought to have the reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable,
and upright, is to say what is not true and cannot be true. Let us try
to level up, but let us beware of the evil of levelling down. If a man
stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us
needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is a
waste of time to try to carry him; and it is a very bad thing for
every one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to those
who shirk their work and to those who do it.
Let us, then, take into account the actual facts of life, and not be
misled into following any proposal for achieving the millennium, for
re-creating the golden age, until we have subjected it to hard-headed
examination. On the other hand, it is foolish to reject a proposal
merely because it is advanced by visionaries.
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