The danger is that we may be too tired or too hopeless to undertake the conscious effort by which alone we can think of ends and calculate means.
The great mechanical inventions of the nineteenth century have given us an opportunity of choosing for ourselves our way of living such as men have never had before.

Up to our own time the vast majority of mankind have had enough to do to keep themselves alive, and to satisfy the blind instinct which impels them to hand on life to another generation.

An effective choice has only been given to a tiny class of hereditary property owners, or a few organisers of other men's labour.

Even when, as in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia, nature offered whole populations three hundred free days in the year if they would devote two months to ploughing and harvest, all but a fraction still spent themselves in unwilling toil, building tombs or palaces, or equipping armies, for a native monarch or a foreign conqueror.

The monarch could choose his life, but his choice was poor enough.