Part 20 (1/2)
How can a man who considers himself to be,--we will not say a Christian or an educated and humane man,--but simply a man not entirely devoid of reason and of conscience,--how can he, I say, live in such a way, taking no part in the struggle of all mankind for life, only swallowing up the labour of others struggling for existence, and by his own claims increasing the labour of those who struggle and the number of those who perish in the struggle?
Such men abound in our so-called Christian and cultured world; and not only do they abound in our world but the very ideal of the men of our Christian, cultured world, is to get the largest amount of property,--that is, wealth,--which secures all comforts and idleness of life by freeing its possessors from the struggle for existence, and enabling them, as much as possible, to profit by the labour of those brothers of theirs who perish in that struggle.
How could men have fallen into such astounding error?
How could they have come to such a state that they can neither see nor hear nor understand with their heart what is so clear, obvious, and certain?
One need only think for a moment in order to be terrified at the way our lives contradict what we profess to believe, whether we be Christian or only humane educated people. Whether it be G.o.d or a law of nature that governs the world and men, good or bad, the position of men in this world, so long as we know it has always been such that naked men,--without wool on their bodies, without holes in which to take refuge, without food which they might find in the field like Robinson Crusoe on his island,--are put into a position of continual and incessant struggle with nature in order to cover their bodies by making clothes for themselves, to protect themselves by a roof over their heads, and to earn food in order twice or thrice a day to satisfy their hunger and that of their children and their parents.
Wherever and whenever and to whatever extent we observe the lives of men, whether in Europe, America, China, or Russia; whether we take into consideration all mankind or a small portion, whether in olden times in a nomad state, or in modern times with steam-engines, steam-ploughs, sewing-machines, and electric light,--we shall see one and the same thing going on,--that men, working constantly and incessantly, are not able to get clothes, shelter, and food for themselves, their little ones, and the old, and that the greatest number of men in olden times as well as now, perish slowly from want of the necessaries of life and from overwork.
Wherever we may live, if we draw a circle around us of a hundred thousand, or a thousand or ten, or even one mile's circ.u.mference, and look at the lives of those men who are inside our circle, we shall find half-starved children, old people male and female, pregnant women, sick and weak persons, working beyond their strength, who have neither food nor rest enough to support them, and who, for this reason, die before their time: we shall see others full-grown who are even being killed by dangerous and hurtful tasks.
Since the world has existed we find that with great efforts, sufferings, and privations men have been struggling for their common wants, and have not been able to overcome the difficulty.
Besides, we also know that every one of us, wherever and however he may live, _nolens volens_, is every day, and every hour of the day, absorbing for himself a part of the labour performed by mankind.
Wherever and however a man lives, the roof over his head did not grow of itself; the firewood in his stove did not get there of itself; the water did not come of itself either; and the baked bread does not fall down from the sky; his dinner, his clothes, and the covering for his feet, all this has been made for him, not only by men of past generations, long dead, but it is being done for him now by those men of whom hundreds and thousands are fainting away and dying in vain efforts to get for themselves and for their children sufficient shelter, food, and clothes,--means to save themselves and their children from suffering and a premature death.
All men are struggling with want. They are struggling so intensely that around them always their brethren, fathers, mothers, children, are peris.h.i.+ng. Men in this world are like those on a dismantled or water-logged s.h.i.+p with a short allowance of food; all are put by G.o.d, or by nature, in such a position that they must husband their food and unceasingly war with want.
Each interruption in this work of every one of us, each absorption of the labour of others which is useless for the common welfare, is ruinous, alike for us and them.
How is it that the majority of educated people, without labouring, are quietly absorbing the labours of others which are necessary for their own lives, and are considering such an existence quite natural and reasonable?
If we are to free ourselves from the labour proper and natural to all and lay it on others, and yet not at the same time consider ourselves traitors and thieves, we can do so only by two suppositions,--first, that we (the men who take no part in common labour) are different beings from working-men and have a peculiar destiny to fulfil in society (like drone-bees, or queen-bees, which have a different function from the working-bees); or secondly, that the business which we (the men freed from the struggle for existence) are doing for other men is so useful for all that it undoubtedly compensates for that harm which we do to others in overburdening them.
In olden times men who lived by the labour of others a.s.serted, first, that they belonged to a different race; and secondly, that they had from G.o.d a peculiar mission,--caring for the welfare of others; in other words, to govern and teach them: and therefore, they a.s.sured others, and partly believed themselves, that the business they did was more useful and more important for the people than those labours by which they profit. This justification was sufficient so long as the direct interference of G.o.d in human affairs, and the inequality of human races, was not doubted.
But with Christianity and that consciousness of the equality and unity of all men which proceeds from it, this justification could no longer be expressed in its previous form.
It was no longer possible to a.s.sert that men are born of different kind and quality and have a different destiny; and the old justification, though still held by some, has been little by little destroyed and has now almost entirely disappeared.
But though the justification disappeared, the fact itself,--of the freeing of some men from labour, and the appropriation by them of other men's labour, remained the same for those who had the power to enforce it. For this existing fact new excuses have constantly been invented, in order that without a.s.serting the difference of human beings, men might be able with apparent justice to free themselves from personal labour.
A great many justifications have been invented. However strange it may seem, the main object of all that has been called science, and the ruling tendency of science, has been to seek out such excuses.
This has been the object of the theological sciences and of the science of law: this was the object of so-called philosophy, and this became lately the object of modern rationalistic science, however strange it appears to us, the contemporaries, who use this justification.
All the theological subtleties which aimed at proving that a certain church is the only true successor of Christ, and that, therefore, she alone has full and uncontrolled power over the souls and bodies of men, had in view this very object.
All the legal sciences,--those of state law, penal law, civil law, and international law,--have this sole aim.
The majority of philosophical theories, especially that of Hegel, which reigned over the minds of men for such a long time, and maintained the a.s.sertion that everything which exists is reasonable, and that the state is a necessary form of the development of human personality, had only this one object in view.
Comte's positive philosophy and its outcome, the doctrine that mankind is an organism; Darwin's doctrine of the struggle for existence, directing life and its conclusion, the theory of the diversity of human races, the anthropology now so popular, biology, and sociology,--all have the same aim. These sciences have become favourites, because they all serve for the justification of the existing fact of some men being able to free themselves from the human duty of labour, and to consume other men's labour.
All these theories, as is always the case, are worked out in the mysterious sanctums of augurs, and in vague, unintelligible expressions are spread abroad among the ma.s.ses and adopted by them.