Page:An introduction to ethics.djvu/203

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186
AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS.

of his time in the transaction of uninspiring details. And even those whose lives are considered to be the freest and most desirable, e.g. the artist and the musician, are not exempt from long stretches of monotonous drudgery. On the whole, such vocations are not intrinsically more pleasant than the artisan's. In the professions as well as the trades there is much drudgery and dullness. But on the whole, the activities that are called into being by the trades and professions are alike accompanied by pleasure in their exercise. The artisan takes pleasure in the skill of his hand, just as the poet takes pleasure in the skill of his mind. The activity of work and the consciousness of duty done are in both cases alike accompanied by pleasure. Pleasure and duty are harmonised in a happy life in which character is realised.

(2) But it is essential for this result that the individual should feel that the trade or profession is congenial. It must be really a vocation. He should feel the call of duty towards it, but he should also feel that his happiness consists in obeying the call. It should be a walk in life into which both duty and pleasure alike conspire to guide him. The boy has a right to choose the occupation to which he intends to devote himself.

It is every year becoming more possible for the average boy to select the career for which he is best fitted. However low his father's position, if the boy have capacity and ambition, he can raise himself to any level. The labourer's boy as well as the peer's carries the Prime Minister's despatch-box in his satchel. The improvement and popularisation of