It is singular how ethical standards change." The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that I was obliged to laugh.
"I suppose," I said, "that the real reason that we rewarded men for their endowments, while we considered those of horses and goats merely as fixing the service to be severally required of them, was that the animals, not being reasoning beings, naturally did the best they could, whereas men could only be induced to do so by rewarding them according to the amount of their product.

That brings me to ask why, unless human nature has mightily changed in a hundred years, you are not under the same necessity." "We are," replied Dr.Leete.

"I don't think there has been any change in human nature in that respect since your day.

It is still so constituted that special incentives in the form of prizes, and advantages to be gained, are requisite to call out the best endeavors of the average man in any direction." "But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put forth his best endeavors when, however much or little he accomplishes, his income remains the same?
High characters may be moved by devotion to the common welfare under such a system, but does not the average man tend to rest back on his oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a special effort, since the effort will not increase his income, nor its withholding diminish it ?" "Does it then really seem to you," answered my companion, "that human nature is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love of luxury, that you should expect security and equality of livelihood to leave them without possible incentives to effort?
Your contemporaries did not really think so, though they might fancy they did.

When it was a question of the grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they depended on quite other incentives.