So far as you are fully concentrated on bringing about a certain result,

clearly
the quicker and easier it is, the better it is. Your resolve to secure

a sufficiency of
food for yourself and your family will induce you to spend

weary days in tilling
the ground and tending livestock; but if Nature provided

food and meat in
abundance, you would thank Nature for sparing you much labor.

An executed
purpose, in short, is a transaction in which the time and energy

spent on the
execution are balanced against the outcome, and the ideal case is

one in which
____________________________.

(a) the time and energy are incompatible so should be in harmony

(b) the former nearly to zero and the latter to infinity

(c) Nature does not reward those who do not exert efforts

(d) both converge to infinity

이 문제에서 정답은 (b) 인데요

(b)에서 말하는 the former와 the latter가 무엇인지 설명해주실수 있을까요?

1) the former = time , the latter = energy

2) the former = time+energy, the latter = outcome