‘8. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.
‘11. Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them!
‘12. And the harp, and the viol, the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands.
‘18. Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope:
‘20. Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
‘21. Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
‘22. Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink:
‘23. Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!’
We read these words, and it seems to us that it does not refer to us. We read in the Gospels: Matthew iii. 10:
‘And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.’
And we are fully convinced that we are just the good tree that brings forth fruit, and that these words are not addressed to us, but to some others, to bad people.
We read the words of Isaiah, vi:
‘10. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and convert and be healed.
‘11. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate.’
We read this and are fully persuaded that this wonderful thing is not done to us, but to some other people. But the reason why we see nothing is just because this wonderful work is being done to us: we do not hear, nor see, nor understand with our hearts. How did this come about?
CHAPTER XXVI
How can one who considers himself, I will not say a Christian or even a cultured or humane man, but simply a man with some traces of reason and conscience, live in such a way so that, without taking part in the struggle of all humanity for life, he devours the labour of those who do struggle and increases by his demands the burden of the strug-glers and the number of those who perish in that struggle? Yet our so-called Christian and cultured world is full of such people. Not only is our world full of such, but the ideal of people of our Christian and cultured world is to acquire the greatest possible fortune-that is, riches affording comfort and idleness: in other words, liberation from the struggle for life and opportunity to avail oneself fully of the labour of one’s brethren, who are perishing in that struggle. How could people fall into such an amazing error?
How could they come to the pass of not seeing, nor hearing, nor understanding with their hearts, what is so clear, obvious, and indubitable?
One need but reflect for a moment, to be horrified at the amazing contradiction between our life and what we-I will not say Christian, but humane and cultured people-profess.
Whether well or ill arranged by the God, or the law of nature, by which the world and mankind exist-the position of man in the world from the time we first know it, has been and is, that men are naked, without wool on their bodies, without burrows in which to shelter, without food they can find in the fields like Robinson Crusoe on his island, and they are all so placed as to have constantly and ceaselessly to struggle with nature in order to cover their bodies, make themselves clothes, fence themselves in, have a roof over their heads, and produce their food, so as two or three times’ a day to satisfy their hunger and that of their children and old folk who cannot work.
Wherever, at whatever period and in whatever number, we observe the life of men, in Europe, China, America, or Russia, and whether we observe the whole of humanity or only some small part of it, in ancient times in the nomad state or in our times with steam-engines, sewing machines, electric lights, and improved agricultural methods, we see one and the same thing: that people, working incessantly and intensely, are unable to secure sufficient food, clothing, and shelter for themselves and their children and old people, and that a considerable number, now as in earlier ages, perish from lack of sufficient means of life and from excessive labour to obtain those means.
Live where we may, if we draw a circle around us of a hundred thousand, of a thousand, of ten miles, or of one mile, and observe the lives of those whom our circle encloses, we shall see in it starveling children, old men and old women, women in confinement, the sick and the weak, who have not sufficient food or rest and who therefore die prematurely, and we shall see men in their prime who are simply killed by dangerous and harmful work.
Since the world began we see that men have struggled with their common need and despite terrible efforts, deprivations, and sufferings, have not been able to vanquish it. We also know that each of us, wherever he may be and however he may live, every day and every hour, voluntarily or not, consumes part of the produce the labour of humanity has produced.
Wherever and however he lives, the house and the roof over his head did not grow of their own accord. The wood in his stove did not walk in of itself, nor did the water; neither did the baked bread, the dinner, the clothes, and his boots, fall from the sky; but it has all been made not by men of the past alone, who are already dead, but has been, and is being, made for him now by people hundreds and thousands of whom wither up and die in unavailing efforts to obtain for themselves and their children the essentials of life-shelter, food, and clothing-the means to save themselves and their children from suffering and premature death. They all struggle against want: struggle with such tension that every moment their brethren perish around them: fathers, mothers, and children.
People in this world, like men on a waterlogged vessel with a small supply of food, are placed by God or by Nature so that they must spare the food and unceasingly exert themselves to avoid a calamity. Every stoppage of that work by any of us, every consumption by us of the work of others, that is not necessary for the common aim, is ruinous for ourselves and for our fellow-men.
How has it happened that the majority of the educated people of our time, without themselves labouring, calmly consume other people’s labours which are necessary for the maintenance of life, and consider that to do so is quite natural and reasonable?
To free ourselves from the toil proper and natural to all and to lay it on others without considering ourselves traitors and thieves, only two assumptions are possible: first, that we-those who do not share in the common toil-are beings distinct from the working people and have a special function in society, like the drones or queen bees that have a different function from working bees; and secondly, that what we, who are freed from the struggle for life, are doing for the others is so useful for all men that it certainly compensates for the harm we do by making their burden heavier.
In former times people who exploited the labour of others asserted, first that they were a special breed, and secondly that they were specially appointed by God to care for the welfare of the others, that is to govern them and teach them, and so they assured others, and often themselves believed, that what they were doing was more necessary and important for the people than was the labour they consumed. And that justification sufficed as long as people doubted neither the direct intervention of the Divinity in human affairs nor the distinction between different breeds. But with the coming of Christianity and the consciousness of the equality and unity of all men that flows from it, this justification could no longer be presented in that form. It was no longer possible to assert that people are born of different breeds and distinctions and with different functions, and the old justification, though still maintained by some people, was gradually abolished and now hardly exists.
The justification of the difference between various human breeds has disappeared, but the fact of the emancipation of self from toil and the consumption of the labour of others by those who have power to do so, remains as before, and new justifications for the existing fact have continually been devised, so that even without acknowledging a special breed of people it should seem right for those who can manage it to exempt themselves from labour.
Very many such justifications have been devised. Strange as it may appear, the chief occupation of the activity that at a particular period was called science-the thing that constituted
