[O]ur bodies do not generate energy in sufficient abundance for us to regard labor as a blessing. We don't work, as a rule, because we would rather w… - J. Howard Moore

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[O]ur bodies do not generate energy in sufficient abundance for us to regard labor as a blessing. We don't work, as a rule, because we would rather work than not. We work because we would rather work than starve. Labor is a sort of necessary evil. We endure it because it is not so bad as some other things we would have to undergo if we didn't work. To labor as men do in producing civilization in producing the food, houses, machinery, and luxuries of modern peoples is not natural in the present stage of development of the human machine. It is a strained and artificial expenditure. This is shown by our fondness for holidays, by our constant search for labor-saving machines, and by the fact that we are all the time looking forward to a Golden Age in our lives when we can lead a life of leisure. We generally classify toil with trouble and tears with the evil things of life, not with the good things. The Happy Places that men dream of for themselves after death are invariably places where there is not much work to do.

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About J. Howard Moore

John Howard Moore (December 4, 1862 – June 17, 1916) was an American zoologist, philosopher, educator and social reformer. He advocated for the ethical consideration and treatment of animals and authored several articles, books, essays and pamphlets on topics including education, ethics, evolutionary biology, humanitarianism, utilitarianism and vegetarianism. He is best known for his work The Universal Kinship (1906), which advocated for a secular sentiocentric philosophy he called the doctrine of "Universal Kinship", based on the shared evolutionary kinship between all sentient beings.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Prof. J. Howard Moore Professor J. Howard Moore John Howard Moore J. H. Moore Howard Moore J. H. M.

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The satisfaction of the much stigmatized <nowiki>''</nowiki>animal propensities," or <nowiki>''</nowiki>carnal desires," whatever they are, may be just as exemplary and noble as the satisfaction of the desire for knowledge or opulence; and they are, in fact, frequently more so. The only rational characterization of a low desire is one incapable of yielding to the universe in its satisfaction large returns of happiness. And a high desire is simply one affording to the universe in its satisfaction wide and profound welfare. The only reason why any desire, so-called "high" or so-called <nowiki>''</nowiki>low," should be kept in abeyance is that its satisfaction will not contribute to the utilities. There is no reason why any desire capable of satisfaction possessed by a living being should not be satisfied, except that its satisfaction may interfere with the satisfaction of other more valuable desires possessed by the being himself or by other beings.

Civilisation is not an appeal to nature. It is a revolt against nature—against nature as it has been represented in man in the past. It is supernatural. Civilization is an attempt to subordinate and control those primitive impulses which have reigned in human nature in the less gracious and less rational times gone by—impulses which we have ourselves to-day to a considerable extent inherited.

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Poor Thomson! How melancholy & helpless. I believe in the perfect parallelism & correlation of the physical & psychical. The anomalous mentality, like that of James Thomson, is caused by some hidden defect in his physical machinery. And I believe that it is to be one of the triumphs of future surgery to rectify many of these soul malformations, such as poor helpless Thomson had to carry thru life.

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