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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Shall We Do?, by Leo Tolstoy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: What Shall We Do?
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoy
+
+Editor: A. C. F.
+        I. F. M.
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38690]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT SHALL WE DO? ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jana Srna, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Notes:
+
+    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+    as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.
+    Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They
+    are listed at the end of the text.
+
+    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+    Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=.
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+WHAT SHALL WE DO?
+
+
+
+
+=The Free Age Press= is an earnest effort to spread those deep
+convictions in which the noblest spirits of every age and race have
+believed--that man's true aim and happiness is "unity in reason and
+love"; the realisation of the brotherhood of all men: that we must all
+strive to eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, false
+feelings, and false desires--personal, social, religious,
+economic--which alienate us one from another and produce nine-tenths of
+all human suffering.
+
+Of these truly Christian and universally religious aspirations the
+writings of Leo Tolstoy are to-day perhaps the most definite expression,
+and it is to the production of very cheap editions of his extant
+religious, social and ethical works, together with much unpublished
+matter and his new writings, to which we have special access (being in
+close touch with Tolstoy), that we are at present confining ourselves.
+We earnestly trust that all who sympathise will continue to assist us by
+every means in their power, and help to make the publications yet more
+widely known. It is Tolstoy's desire that his books shall not be
+copyrighted, and as we share this view, all =Free Age Press=
+translations and editions (with one, as yet unavoidable exception), are
+and will be issued free of copyright and may be reprinted by anyone. We
+have already commenced to collect all Tolstoy's essays into more
+permanent cloth-bound volumes.
+
+Suggestions, inquiries, offers of help and co-operation will be
+gratefully welcomed. For the hundreds of sympathetic letters and the
+practical help in making known and circulating the books which we have
+received already, we are very grateful, and tender our hearty thanks.
+
+Orders and commercial communications should be addressed to "=The Free
+Age Press=" _English Branch_, 13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C. All
+other communications to the "Editor of the Free Age Press,"
+Christchurch, Hants.
+
+    VLADIMIR TCHERTKOFF, _Editor_.
+
+    THOMAS LAURIE, _Publisher_.
+
+
+
+
+  Revised and Corrected Translation
+
+
+  WHAT SHALL WE DO?
+
+  By LEO TOLSTOY
+
+  Edited by A.C.F.
+  and I.F.M.
+
+
+  NO RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+
+  THE FREE AGE PRESS
+  13 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
+
+
+
+
+Uniform with this Volume.--
+
+
+"=What is Religion?=" An entirely New Book just completed. By LEO
+TOLSTOY. With several new and recent Letters, Articles, and Appeals.
+Paper, 6d. nett.; post free, 7˝d. Flexible cloth, gilt, gilt top, 1s.
+nett.; post free, 1s. 2d. Leather, gilt, gilt top, 2s. nett.; post free,
+2s. 2d.
+
+=What I Believe= ("MY RELIGION") By LEO TOLSTOY. Revised Translation.
+224 pages. Same prices as _What is Religion?_
+
+"=On Life.=" By LEO TOLSTOY. A New Translation of this little-known
+book--"a book which is of especial value as a key to Tolstoy's method
+and belief" (Mr. H. W. Massingham). Same prices.
+
+=The Kingdom of God is Within You.=
+
+We hope eventually to issue the whole of Tolstoy's writings since 1878
+in volumes uniform with this book.
+
+
+
+
+WHAT SHALL WE DO?
+
+
+    "And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?
+
+    "He answereth and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him
+    impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do
+    likewise." (Luke iii. 10, 11.)
+
+    "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust
+    doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
+
+    "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth
+    nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
+    steal:
+
+    "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
+
+    "The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be
+    single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
+
+    "But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
+    If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is
+    your darkness?
+
+    "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and
+    love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
+    other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
+
+    "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
+    shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
+    shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than
+    raiment?" (Matt. vi. 19-25.)
+
+    "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What
+    shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
+
+    "(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek): for your
+    heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
+
+    "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and
+    all these things shall be added unto you." (Matt. vi. 31-33.)
+
+    "For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for
+    a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Luke xviii. 25.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+After having passed the greater part of my life in the country, I came
+at length, in the year 1881, to reside in Moscow, where I was
+immediately struck with the extreme state of pauperism in that city.
+Though well acquainted with the privations of the poor in rural
+districts, I had not the faintest conception of their actual condition
+in towns.
+
+In Moscow it is impossible to pass a street without meeting beggars of a
+peculiar kind, quite unlike those in the country, who go about there, as
+the saying is, "with a bag and the name of Christ."
+
+The Moscow beggars neither carry a bag nor ask for alms. In most cases
+when they meet you, they try to catch your eye, and then act according
+to the expression of your face.
+
+I know of one such, a bankrupt gentleman. He is an old man who advances
+slowly, limping painfully with each leg. When he meets you, he limps,
+and makes a bow. If you stop, he takes off his cap, ornamented with a
+cockade, bows again, and begs. If you do not stop, he pretends to be
+only lame, and continues limping along.
+
+That is a specimen of a genuine Moscow beggar, an experienced one.
+
+At first I did not know why such mendicants did not ask openly; but
+afterwards I learned why, without understanding the reason.
+
+One day I saw a policeman push a ragged peasant swollen with dropsy,
+into a cab. I asked what he had been doing, and the policeman replied,--
+
+"Begging."
+
+"Is begging, then, forbidden?"
+
+"So it seems," he answered. As the man was being driven away, I took
+another cab, and followed. I wished to find out whether begging was
+really forbidden, and if so, why? I could not at all understand how it
+was possible to forbid one man asking something from another; and,
+moreover, I had my doubts whether it could be illegal in a city where it
+flourished to such an extent.
+
+I entered the police-station where the pauper had been taken, and asked
+an official armed with sword and pistol, and seated at a table, what he
+had been arrested for.
+
+The man looked up at me sharply, and said, "What business is that of
+yours?"
+
+However, feeling the necessity of some explanation, he added, "The
+authorities order such fellows to be arrested, so I suppose it is
+necessary."
+
+I went away. The policeman who had brought the man was sitting in the
+window of the ante-room, studying his note-book. I said to him,--
+
+"Is it really true that poor people are not allowed to ask for alms in
+Christ's name?"
+
+The man started, as if waking up from a sleep, stared at me, then
+relapsed again into a state of stolid indifference, and, reseating
+himself on the window-sill, said,--
+
+"The authorities require it, so you see it is necessary."
+
+As he became again absorbed in his note-book, I went down the steps
+towards my cab.
+
+"Well! have they locked him up?" asked the cabman. He had evidently
+become interested in the matter.
+
+"They have," I answered. He shook his head.
+
+"Is begging forbidden in Moscow, then?" I asked.
+
+"I can't tell you," he said.
+
+"But how can a man be locked up," I said, "for begging in the name of
+Christ?"
+
+"Nowadays things have changed, and you see it is forbidden," he
+answered.
+
+Since then, I have often seen policemen taking paupers to the
+police-station and thence to the work-house. Indeed, I once met a whole
+crowd of these poor creatures, about thirty, escorted before and behind
+by policemen. I asked what they had been doing.
+
+"Begging," was the reply.
+
+It appears that, according to law, begging is forbidden in Moscow,
+notwithstanding the great number of beggars one meets there in every
+street, notwithstanding the rows of them near the churches during
+service-time, and especially at funerals. But why are some caught and
+locked up, while others are let alone? This I have not been able to find
+out. Either there are lawful and unlawful beggars amongst them, or else
+there are so many that it is impossible to catch them all; or, perhaps,
+though some are taken up, others fill their places.
+
+There is a great variety of such beggars in Moscow. There are those who
+live by begging. There are also entirely honest destitute people who
+have somehow chanced to reach Moscow and are really in extreme need.
+
+Amongst the latter are men and women evidently from the country. I have
+often met these. Some of them, who had fallen ill and afterwards
+recovered and left the hospital, could now find no means, either of
+feeding themselves, or of getting away from Moscow; some of them,
+besides, had taken to drink (this was probably the case with the man
+with dropsy whom I met); some were in good health, but had been burned
+out of house and home, or else were very old, or were widowed or
+deserted women with children; and some others had sound health, and were
+quite capable of working.
+
+These robust people especially interested me,--the more so, because,
+since my arrival in Moscow, I had contracted the habit of going to the
+Sparrow Hills for the sake of exercise, and working there with two
+peasants who sawed wood. These men were exactly like the beggars whom I
+often met in the streets. One, called Peter, was an ex-soldier from
+Kaluga; the other, Simon, was from Vladímir. They possessed nothing save
+the clothes on their backs: and they earned, by working very hard, from
+forty to forty-five kopeks (8d. to 9d.) a day; out of this they both put
+a little aside,--the Kaluga soldier, to buy a fur coat; the Vladímir
+peasant, to get money enough to return to his home in the country.
+
+Meeting in the streets similar men, I was therefore particularly
+interested in them, and could not understand why some begged whilst
+others worked.
+
+Whenever I met a beggar of this description, I used to ask him how it
+was that he had come to such a state. Once I met a strong,
+healthy-looking peasant who asked alms. I questioned him as to who he
+was, and whence he had come.
+
+He told me he had come from Kaluga, in search of work. He had at first
+found some, such as sawing old timber into fire-wood; but after he and
+his companion had finished that job, though they had continually looked
+for it, they had not found any more work, his mate had left him, and he
+himself had passed a fortnight in the utmost need, and having sold all
+he had to get food, now had not enough even to buy the necessary tools
+for sawing.
+
+I gave him money to get a saw, and told him where to go for work. I had
+previously arranged with Peter and Simon that they should accept a new
+fellow-worker, and find him a mate.
+
+"Be sure you come! There is plenty of work to be done," I said on
+parting.
+
+"You can reckon on me," he answered. "Do you think there is any pleasure
+in knocking about, begging, if I can work?"
+
+The man solemnly promised that he would come; and he seemed honest, and
+really meaning to work.
+
+Next day, on coming to my friends, Peter and Simon, I asked them whether
+the man had arrived. They said he had not; and, indeed, he never came at
+all. In this way I was frequently deceived.
+
+I have also been deceived by those who said that they only wanted a
+little money to buy a ticket to return home, and whom I met in the
+streets again a few days later. Many of them I came to know well, and
+they knew me; though occasionally having forgotten me, they would repeat
+the same false tale; but sometimes they would turn away on recognizing
+me.
+
+In this way I discovered, that, even in this class of men, there are
+many rogues.
+
+Still, these poor rogues were also very much to be pitied: they were all
+ragged and hungry; they were of the sort who die of cold in the streets,
+or hang themselves to escape life, as the papers frequently tell us.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+When I talked to my town friends about this pauperism which surrounded
+them, they always replied, "Oh! you have seen nothing yet! You should go
+to the Khitrof Market, and visit the lodging-houses there, if you want
+to see the genuine 'Golden Company.'"
+
+One jovial friend of mine added, that the number of these paupers had so
+increased, that they already formed not a "Golden Company," but a
+"Golden Regiment."
+
+My witty friend was right; but he would have been yet nearer the truth
+had he said that these men formed, in Moscow, not a company, nor a
+regiment, but a whole army,--an army, I should judge, of about fifty
+thousand.
+
+The regular townspeople, when they spoke to me about the pauperism of
+the city, always seemed to feel a certain pleasure or pride in being
+able to give me such precise information.
+
+I remember I noticed, when visiting London, that the citizens there
+seemed also to find a certain satisfaction in telling me about London
+destitution, as though it were something to be proud of.
+
+However, wishing to inspect this poverty about which I had heard so
+much, I had turned my steps very often towards the Khitrof Market,--but
+on each occasion I felt a sensation of pain and shame. "Why should you
+go to look at the suffering of human beings whom you cannot help?" said
+one voice within me. "If you live here, and see all that is pleasant in
+town life, go and see also what is wretched," replied another.
+
+And so, one cold, windy day in December, two years ago (1883), I went to
+the Khitrof Market, the centre of the town pauperism.
+
+It was on a week-day, about four in the afternoon. While still a good
+distance off I noticed greater and greater numbers of men in strange
+clothes,--evidently not originally meant for them,--and in yet stranger
+foot-wear; men of a peculiar unhealthy complexion, and all apparently
+showing a remarkable indifference to everything that surrounded them.
+
+Men in the strangest, most incongruous costumes sauntered along,
+evidently without the least thought as to how they might look in the
+eyes of others. They were all going in the same direction. Without
+asking the way, which was unknown to me, I followed them, and came to
+the Khitrof Market.
+
+There I found women likewise in ragged capes, rough cloaks, jackets,
+boots, and goloshes. Perfectly free and easy in their manner,
+notwithstanding the grotesque monstrosity of their attire, these women,
+old and young, were sitting, bargaining, strolling about, and abusing
+one another.
+
+Market-time having evidently passed, there were not many people there;
+and as most of them were going up-hill, through the market-place, and
+all in the same direction, I followed them.
+
+The farther I went, the greater became the stream of people flowing into
+the one road. Having passed the market, and gone up the street, I found
+that I was following two women, one old, the other young. Both were
+clothed in some grey ragged stuff. They were talking, as they walked,
+about some kind of business.
+
+Every expression was unfailingly accompanied by some obscene word.
+Neither was drunk, but each absorbed with her own affairs; and the
+passing men, and those about them, paid not the slightest attention to
+their language, which sounded so strange to me. It appeared to be the
+generally accepted manner of speech in those parts. On the left we
+passed some private night-lodging-houses, and some of the crowd entered
+these; others continued to ascend the hill towards a large corner house.
+The majority of the people walking along with me went into this house.
+Before it, people all of the same sort were standing and sitting, on the
+sidewalk and in the snow.
+
+At the right of the entrance were women; at the left, men. I passed by
+the men: I passed by the women (there were several hundreds in all), and
+stopped where the crowd ceased.
+
+This building was the "Liapin free night-lodging-house" ("doss-house").
+The crowd was composed of night-lodgers, waiting to be let in. At five
+o'clock in the evening this house is opened and the crowd admitted.
+Hither came almost all the people whom I followed.
+
+I remained standing where the file of men ended. Those nearest stared at
+me till I had to look at them. The remnants of garments covering their
+bodies were very various; but the one expression of the eyes of all
+alike seemed to be, "Why are you, a man from another world, stopping
+here with us? Who are you? Are you a self-satisfied man of wealth,
+desiring to be gladdened by the sight of our need, to divert yourself in
+your idleness, and to mock at us? or are you that which does not and can
+not exist,--a man who pities us?"
+
+On all their faces the same question was written. Each would look at me,
+meet my eyes, and turn away again.
+
+I wanted to speak to some of them, but for a long time I could not
+summon up courage. However, eventually our mutual exchange of glances
+introduced us to each other; and we felt that, however widely separated
+might be our social positions in life, we were still fellow-men, and so
+we ceased to be afraid of one another.
+
+Next to me stood a peasant with a swollen face and red beard, in a
+ragged jacket, with worn-out goloshes on his naked feet, though there
+were eight degrees of frost.[1] For the third or fourth time our eyes
+met; and I felt so drawn to him that I was no longer ashamed to address
+him (to have refrained from doing so would have been the only real
+shame), and I asked him where he came from.
+
+  [1] Réaumur.
+
+He answered eagerly, while a crowd began to collect round us, that he
+had come from Smolensk in search of work, to be able to buy bread and
+pay his taxes.
+
+"There is no work to be had nowadays," he said: "the soldiers have got
+hold of it all. So here am I knocking about; and God is my witness, I
+have not had any thing to eat for two days."
+
+He said this shyly, with an attempt at a smile. A seller[2] of warm
+drinks, an old soldier, was standing near. I called him, and made him
+pour out a glass. The peasant took the warm vessel in his hands, and,
+before drinking, warmed them against the glass, trying not to lose any
+of the precious heat; and whilst doing this he related to me his story.
+
+  [2] A sbiten-seller: _sbiten_ is a hot drink made of herbs or spices
+  and molasses
+
+The adventures of these people, or at least the stories which they tell,
+are almost always the same: He had had a little work; then it had
+ceased: and here, in the night-lodging-house, his purse, containing his
+money and passport, had been stolen from him. Now he could not leave
+Moscow.
+
+He told me that during the day he warmed himself in public-houses,
+eating any stale crust of bread which might be given him. His night's
+lodging here in Liapin's house cost him nothing.
+
+He was only waiting for the round of the police-sergeant to lock him up
+for being without his passport, when he would be sent on foot, with a
+party of men similarly situated, to the place of his birth.
+
+"They say the inspection will take place on Thursday, when I shall be
+taken up; so I must try and keep on until then." (The prison and his
+compulsory journey appeared to him as the "promised land.") While he was
+speaking, two or three men in the crowd said they were also in exactly
+the same situation.
+
+A thin, pale youth, with a long nose, only a shirt upon his back, and
+that torn about the shoulders, and a tattered cap on his head, edged his
+way to me through the crowd. He was shivering violently all the time,
+but tried, as he caught my eye, to smile scornfully at the peasant's
+conversation, thinking thus to show his superiority.
+
+I offered him some drink.
+
+He warmed his hands on the tumbler as the other had done; but just as he
+began to speak, he was shouldered aside by a big, black, hook-nosed,
+bare-headed fellow, in a thin shirt and waistcoat, who also asked for
+some drink.
+
+Then a tall old man, with a thin beard, in an overcoat fastened round
+the waist with a cord, and in bark shoes, had some. He was drunk.
+
+Then came a little man, with a swollen face and wet eyes, in a coarse
+brown jacket, with his knees protruding through his torn trousers and
+knocking against each other with cold. He shivered so that he could not
+hold the glass, and spilled the contents over his clothes: the others
+began to abuse him, but he only grinned miserably, and shivered.
+
+After him came an ugly, deformed man in rags, and with bare feet. Then
+an individual of the officer type; another belonging to the church
+class; then a strange-looking being without a nose,--all of them hungry,
+cold, suppliant, and humble,--crowded round me, and stretched out their
+hands for the glass; but the drink was exhausted. Then one man asked for
+money: I gave him some. A second and a third followed, till the whole
+crowd pressed on me. In the general confusion the gatekeeper of the
+neighbouring house shouted to the crowd to clear the pavement before his
+house, and the people submissively obeyed.
+
+Some of them undertook to control the tumult, and took me under their
+protection. They attempted to drag me out of the crush. But the crowd
+that formerly had lined the pavement in a long file, had now become
+condensed about me. Every one looked at me and begged; and it seemed as
+if each face were more pitiful, harassed, and degraded than the other. I
+distributed all the money I had,--only about twenty rubles,--and entered
+the lodging-house with the crowd. The house was an enormous one, and
+consisted of four parts. In the upper storeys were the men's rooms; on
+the ground-floor the women's. I went first into the women's
+dormitory,--a large room, filled with beds resembling the berths in a
+third-class railway-carriage. They were arranged in two tiers, one above
+the other.
+
+Strange-looking women in ragged dresses, without jackets, old and young,
+kept coming in and occupying places, some below, others climbing above.
+Some of the elder ones crossed themselves, pronouncing the name of the
+founder of the refuge. Some laughed and swore.
+
+I went up-stairs. There, in a similar way, the men had taken their
+places. Amongst them I recognized one of those to whom I had given
+money. On seeing him I suddenly felt horribly ashamed, and made haste to
+leave.
+
+With a sense of having committed some crime, I returned home. There I
+entered along the carpeted steps into the rug-covered hall, and, having
+taken off my fur coat, sat down to a meal of five courses, served by two
+footmen in livery, with white ties and white gloves. A scene of the past
+came suddenly before me. Thirty years ago I saw a man's head cut off
+under the guillotine in Paris before a crowd of thousands of spectators.
+I was aware that the man had been a great criminal: I was acquainted
+with all the arguments in justification of capital punishment for such
+offences. I saw this execution carried out deliberately: but at the
+moment that the head and body were severed from each other by the keen
+blade, I gasped, and realized in every fibre of my being, that all the
+arguments which I had hitherto heard in favour of capital punishment
+were wickedly false; that, no matter how many might agree that it was a
+lawful act, it was literally murder; whatever other title men might give
+it, they thus had virtually committed murder, that worst of all crimes:
+and there was I, both by my silence and my non-interference, an aider,
+an abetter, and participator in the sin.
+
+Similar convictions were again forced upon me when I now beheld the
+misery, cold, hunger, and humiliation of thousands of my fellow-men. I
+realized not only with my brain, but in every pulse of my soul, that,
+whilst there were thousands of such sufferers in Moscow, I, with tens of
+thousands of others, daily filled myself to repletion with luxurious
+dainties of every description, took the tenderest care of my horses, and
+clothed my very floors with velvet carpets!
+
+Whatever the wise and learned of the world might say about it, however
+unalterable the course of life might seem to be, the same evil was
+continually being enacted, and I, by my own personal habits of luxury,
+was a promoter of that evil.
+
+The difference between the two cases was only this: that in the first,
+all I could have done would have been to shout out to the murderers
+standing near the guillotine, who were accomplishing the deed, that they
+were committing a murder, and by every means to try to hinder
+them,--while, of course, knowing that my interference would be in vain.
+Whereas, in this second case, I might have given away, not only the
+drink and the small sum of money I had with me, but also the coat from
+off my shoulders, and all that I possessed at home. Yet I had not done
+so, and therefore felt, and feel, and can never cease to feel, that I
+myself am a partaker in a crime which is continually being committed, so
+long as I have superfluous food whilst others have none, so long as I
+have two coats whilst there exists one man without any.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+On the same evening that I returned from Liapin's house, I imparted my
+impressions to a friend: and he, a resident of the town, began to
+explain to me, not without a certain satisfaction, that this was the
+most natural state of things in a town; that it was only owing to my
+provincialism that I found anything remarkable in it; and that it had
+always been, and always would be so, such being one of the inevitable
+conditions of civilization. In London it was yet worse, etc., etc.,
+therefore there could be nothing wrong about it, and there was nothing
+to be disturbed or troubled about.
+
+I began to argue with my friend, but with such warmth and so angrily,
+that my wife rushed in from the adjoining room to ask what had happened.
+It appeared that, without being aware of it, I had shouted out in an
+agonized voice, gesticulating wildly, "We should not go on living in
+this way! we must not live so! we have no right!" I was rebuked for my
+unnecessary excitement; I was told that I could not talk quietly upon
+any question, that I was irritable; and it was pointed out to me that
+the existence of such misery as I had witnessed was in no way a reason
+for embittering the life of my home-circle.
+
+I felt that this was perfectly just, and held my tongue; but in the
+depth of my soul I knew that I was right, and I could not quiet my
+conscience.
+
+The town life, which had previously seemed alien and strange to me, now
+became so hateful that all the indulgencies of a luxurious existence, in
+which I had formerly delighted, began to torment me.
+
+However much I tried to find some kind of excuse for my mode of life, I
+could not contemplate without irritation either my own or other people's
+drawing-rooms, nor a clean, richly served dinner-table, nor a carriage
+with well-fed coachman and horses, nor the shops, theatres, and
+entertainments. I could not help seeing, in contrast to all this, those
+hungry, shivering, and degraded inhabitants of the night-lodging-house.
+I could never free myself from the thought that these conditions were
+inseparable--that the one proceeded from the other. I remember that the
+sense of culpability which I had felt from the first moment never left
+me; but with this feeling another soon mingled, which lessened the
+first.
+
+When I talked to my intimate friends and acquaintances about my
+impressions in Liapin's house, they all answered in the same way, and
+expressed besides their appreciation of my kindness and
+tender-heartedness, and gave me to understand that the sight had
+impressed me so because I, Leo Tolstoy, was kind-hearted and good. And I
+willingly allowed myself to believe this.
+
+The natural consequence of this was, that the first keen sense of
+self-reproach and shame became blunted, and was replaced by a sense of
+satisfaction at my own virtue, and a desire to make it known to others.
+"It is, in truth," I said to myself, "probably not my connection with a
+luxurious life which is at fault, but the unavoidable circumstances of
+existence. Therefore a change in my particular life would not alter the
+evil I had seen."
+
+In changing my own life, I thought, I should only render myself and
+those nearest and dearest to me miserable, whilst the other misery would
+remain; therefore my object should be, not to alter my own way of
+living, as I had at first imagined, but to try as much as was in my
+power to _ameliorate_ the position of those unfortunate ones who had
+excited my compassion. The whole matter, I reasoned, lies in the fact
+that I, being an extremely kind and good man, wish to do good to my
+fellow-men.
+
+So I began to arrange a plan of philanthropic activity in which I might
+exhibit all my virtues. I must, however, remark here, that, while
+planning this charitable effort, in the depth of my heart I felt that I
+was not doing the right thing; but, as too often happens, reason and
+imagination stifled the voice of conscience.
+
+About this time the census was being taken, and this seemed to me a good
+opportunity for instituting that charitable organization in which I
+wanted to shine.
+
+I was acquainted with many philanthropic institutions and societies
+already existing in Moscow, but all their activity seemed to me both
+insignificant and wrongly directed in comparison with what I myself
+wished to do.
+
+This was what I invented to excite sympathy amongst the rich for the
+poor: I began to collect money, and to enlist men who wished to help in
+the work, and who would, in company with the census officers, visit all
+the nests of pauperism, entering into relations with the poor, finding
+out the details of their needs, aiding them with money and work, sending
+them out of Moscow, placing their children in schools, and their old men
+and women in homes and houses of refuge.
+
+I thought, moreover, that from those who undertook this work a permanent
+society could be formed, which, by dividing between its members the
+various districts of Moscow, could take care that new cases of want and
+misery should be averted, and so by degrees pauperism might be stifled
+at its very beginning, not so much by cure, as by prevention.
+
+Already I saw in the future the entire disappearance of begging and
+poverty, I having been the means of its accomplishment. Then we who were
+rich could go on living in all our luxury as before, dwelling in fine
+houses, eating dinners of five courses, driving in our carriages to
+theatres and entertainments, no longer being harassed by such sights as
+I had witnessed at Liapin's house.
+
+Having invented this plan, I wrote an article about it; and, before even
+giving it to the printers, I went to those acquaintances from whom I
+hoped to obtain co-operation, and expounded to all whom I visited that
+day (chiefly the rich) the ideas I afterwards published in my article.
+
+I proposed to profit by the census in order to study the state of
+pauperism in Moscow, and to help exterminate it by personal effort and
+money, after which we might all with a quiet conscience enjoy our usual
+pleasures. Everyone listened to me attentively and seriously; but, in
+every case, I remarked that the moment my hearers came to understand
+what I was driving at, they seemed to become uncomfortable and somewhat
+embarrassed. It was principally, I feel sure, on my own account; because
+they considered all that I said to be folly. It seemed as though some
+outside motive compelled my listeners to agree for the moment with my
+foolishness.--"Oh, yes! Certainly. It would be delightful," they said:
+"of course it is impossible not to sympathize with you. Your idea is
+splendid. I myself have had the same; but ... people here are so
+indifferent, that it is hardly reasonable to expect a great success.
+However, as far as I am concerned, I am, of course, ready to share in
+the enterprise."
+
+Similar answers I received from all. They consented, as it appeared to
+me, not because they were persuaded by my arguments, nor yet in
+compliance with their own desire, but because of some exterior reason
+which rendered it impossible for them to refuse.
+
+I remarked this partly because none of those who promised me their help
+in the form of money, defined the sum they meant to give; so that I had
+to name the amount by asking, "May I count upon you for twenty-five, or
+one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred, rubles?" And not one of
+them paid the money. I draw attention to this fact, because, when people
+are going to pay for what they are anxious to have, they are generally
+in haste to give it. If it is to secure a box to see Sarah Bernhardt,
+the money is immediately produced; here, however, of all who agreed to
+give, and expressed their sympathy, not one produced the amount, but
+merely silently acquiesced in the sum I happened to name.
+
+In the last house I visited that day there was a large party. The
+mistress of the house had for some years been employed in works of
+charity. Several carriages were waiting at the door. Footmen in
+expensive liveries were seated in the hall. In the spacious
+drawing-room, ladies, old and young, wearing rich dresses and ornaments,
+were talking to some young men, and dressing up small dolls, intended
+for a lottery in aid of the poor.
+
+The sight of this drawing-room and of the people assembled there struck
+me very painfully. For not only was their property worth several million
+rubles; not only would the interest on the capital spent here on
+dresses, laces, bronzes, jewels, carriages, horses, liveries, footmen,
+exceed a hundred times the value of these ladies' work,--but even the
+expenses caused by this very party of ladies and gentlemen, the gloves,
+the linen, candles, tea, sugar, cakes, all this represented a sum a
+hundred times greater than the value of the work done.
+
+I saw all this, and therefore might have understood that here, at all
+events, I should not find sympathy with my plan, but I had come in order
+to give a proposal, and, however painful it was, I said what I wished to
+say, repeating almost the words of my article.
+
+One lady present offered me some money, adding that, owing to her
+sensibilities, she did not feel strong enough to visit the poor herself,
+but that she would give help in this form. How much money, and when she
+would give it, she did not say. Another lady and a young man offered
+their services in visiting the poor, but I did not profit by their
+offer. The principal person I addressed told me that it would be
+impossible to do much, because the means were not forthcoming. The means
+were scarce, because all the rich men in Moscow who were known and could
+be counted upon had already given all it was possible to get from them,
+their charities had already been rewarded with titles, medals, and other
+distinctions,--which was the only effectual way to ensure success in the
+collection of money; and to obtain new honors from the authorities was
+very difficult.
+
+When I returned home I went to bed, not only with a presentiment that
+nothing would result from my idea, but also with the shameful
+consciousness of having been doing something vile and contemptible the
+whole day. However, I did not desist.
+
+First, the work had been begun, and false shame prevented my giving it
+up; second, not only the success of the enterprise itself, but even my
+part in it, afforded me the possibility of continuing to live in my
+usual way; whereas the failure of this enterprise would have put me
+under the constraint of giving up my present mode of life and of seeking
+another. Of this, I was unconsciously afraid; and therefore I refused to
+listen to my inner voice, and continued what I had begun.
+
+Having sent my article to be printed, I read a proof-copy at a
+census-meeting in the town hall, hesitatingly, and blushing till my
+cheeks burned again. I felt very uncomfortable, and I saw that all my
+hearers were equally uncomfortable.
+
+On my question, whether the managers of the census would accept my
+proposal that they should remain at their posts in order to form a link
+between society and those in need, an awkward silence ensued.
+
+Then two of those present made speeches, which seemed to mend the
+awkwardness of my suggestions. Sympathy for me was expressed along with
+their general approbation, but they pointed out the impracticability of
+my scheme. Everyone immediately seemed more at ease; but afterwards,
+still wishing to succeed, I asked each district manager separately,
+whether during the census he was willing to investigate the needs of the
+poor and afterwards remain at his post in order to form this link
+between the poor and the rich, all were again confounded; it seemed as
+though their looks said, "Why, we have listened to your silly
+proposition out of personal regard for you; but here you come with it
+again!" This was the expression of their faces, but in words they told
+me that they consented; and two of them, separately, but as though they
+had agreed together, said in the same words, "We regard it as our moral
+duty to do so." The same impression was produced by my words upon the
+students who had volunteered to act as clerks during the census, when I
+told them that they might accomplish a charitable work besides their
+scientific pursuits.
+
+When we talked the matter over I noticed that they were shy of looking
+me straight in the face, as one often hesitates to look into the face of
+a good-natured man who is talking nonsense. The same impression was
+produced upon the editor of the paper when I handed my article to him;
+also upon my son, my wife, and various other people. Every one seemed
+embarrassed, but all found it necessary to approve of the idea itself;
+and all, immediately after this approbation, began to express their
+doubts as to the success of the plan, and, for some reason or other, all
+without exception took to condemning the indifference and coldness of
+society and of the world, though they evidently excluded themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+By my request I was appointed to make the census of the section of
+Khamovnitchesky police district, near the Smolensky Market in the
+Prototchni Lane between the Shore Drive and Nicolsky Lane. In this
+district are the houses known under the name of Rzhanoff House or
+Rzhanoff Fortress. In bygone times these houses belonged to the merchant
+Rzhanoff, and are now the property of the merchants Zeemin. I had long
+before heard that this was considered the lowest circle of poverty and
+vice, which was the reason why I asked the officers of the census to
+assign this district to me.
+
+My desire was gratified.
+
+Having received the appointment from the Town Council, I went alone, a
+few days before the census, to inspect my district. With the help of a
+plan I soon found the Rzhanoff Houses,--approached by a street which
+terminated on the left-hand side of Nicolsky Lane--a gloomy building
+without any apparent entrance. From the aspect of this house I guessed
+it was the one I was in search of. Descending the street, I came across
+some boys, from ten to fourteen years old, in short coats, who were
+sliding down the frozen gutter, some on their feet, others upon a single
+skate.
+
+The boys were ragged, and, like all town boys, sharp and bold. I stopped
+to look at them. An old woman in torn clothes, with hanging yellow
+cheeks, came round the corner. She was going up-hill to Smolensky
+Market, gasping painfully at every step, like a horse out of wind; and
+when abreast of me, stopped with hoarse, choking breath. In any other
+place, this old woman would have asked alms, but here she only began to
+talk.
+
+"Just look at them!" she said, pointing to the sliding boys; "always at
+mischief! They will become the same Rzhanoff good-for-nothings as their
+fathers." One boy, in an overcoat and cap without a peak, overhearing
+her words, stopped. "You shut up!" he shouted. "You're only an old
+Rzhanoff goat yourself!"
+
+I asked the boy if he lived here. "Yes, and so does she. She stole some
+boots," he called out, and, pushing himself off, slid on.
+
+The old woman began a torrent of abuse, interrupted by coughs. During
+the squabble an old white-haired man, all in rags, came down the middle
+of the street, brandishing his arms, and carrying in one hand a bundle
+of small rusk rings. He seemed to have just fortified himself with a
+glass of liquor. He had evidently heard the old woman's abuse and took
+her side.
+
+"I'll give it you, you little devils!" he shouted, pretending to rush
+after them; and, passing behind me, he stepped on the pavement. If you
+saw this old man in the Artat, a fashionable street, you would be struck
+with his air of decrepitude, feebleness, and poverty. Here he appeared
+as a merry workman returning from his day's labor.
+
+I followed him. He turned round the corner to the left into Prototchni, an
+alley, passed the front of the house and the gate, and disappeared through
+the door of an inn. Into this alley opened the doors of the latter,
+a public-house, and several small eating-houses. It was the Rzhanoff
+Houses. Every thing was gray, dirty, and foul-smelling,--buildings,
+lodgings, courts, and people. Most of those I met here were in tattered
+clothes, half naked. Some were passing along, others were running from
+one door to another. Two were bargaining about some rags. I went round
+the whole building, down another lane and a court, and, having returned,
+stopped at the archway of the Rzhanoff Houses.
+
+I wanted to go in and see what was going on inside, but the idea made me
+feel painfully awkward. If they asked me what I had come for, what
+should I say?
+
+However after a little hesitation I went in. The moment I entered the
+court I was conscious of a most revolting stench. The court was
+dreadfully dirty. I turned round the corner, and at the same instant
+heard steps running along the boards of the gallery and down the stairs.
+
+First a gaunt-looking woman, with tucked-up sleeves, a faded pink dress,
+and shoes on her stockingless feet, rushed out; after her, a
+rough-haired man in a red shirt, and extremely wide trousers, like a
+petticoat, and goloshes on his feet. The man caught her under the
+stairs: "You sha'n't escape me," he said, laughing.
+
+"Just listen to the squint-eyed devil!" began the woman, who was
+evidently not averse to his attentions; but, having caught sight of me,
+she exclaimed angrily, "Who are you looking for?" As I did not want
+anyone in particular, I felt somewhat confused, and went away.
+
+This little incident, though by no means remarkable in itself, suddenly
+showed me the work I was about to undertake in an entirely new light,
+especially after what I had seen on the other side of the
+courtyard,--the scolding woman, the light-hearted old man, and the
+sliding boys. I had meditated doing good to these people by the help of
+the rich men of Moscow. I now realized, for the first time, that all
+these poor unfortunates, whom I had been wishing to help, had, besides
+the time they spent suffering from cold and hunger in waiting to get a
+lodging, several hours daily to get through, and that they must somehow
+fill up the rest of the twenty-four hours of every day,--a whole life,
+of which I had never thought before. I realized now, for the first time,
+that all these people, besides the mere effort to find food and shelter
+from the cold, must live through the rest of every day of their life as
+other people have to do, must get angry at times, and be dull, and try
+to appear light-hearted, and be sad or merry. Now, for the first time
+(however strange the confession may sound), I was fully aware that the
+task which I was undertaking could not simply consist in feeding and
+clothing a thousand people (just as one might feed a thousand head of
+sheep, and drive them into shelter), but must develop some more
+essential help. When I considered that each one of these individuals was
+just another man like myself, possessing also a past history, with the
+same passions, temptations, and errors, the same thoughts, the same
+questions to be answered, then suddenly the work before me appeared
+stupendous and I felt my own utter helplessness;--but it had begun and I
+was resolved to go on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+On the appointed day, the students who were to assist me started early
+in the morning; while I, the philanthropist, only joined them at twelve
+o'clock. I could not come earlier, as I did not get up till ten, after
+which I had to take some coffee, and then smoke for the sake of my
+digestion. Twelve o'clock, then, found me at the door of the Rzhanoff
+Houses. A policeman showed me a public-house to which the census-clerks
+referred all those who wished to enquire for them. I entered, and found
+it very dirty and unsavoury. Here, right in front of me, was a counter;
+to the left a small room, furnished with tables covered with soiled
+napkins; to the right a large room on pillars, containing similar little
+tables placed in the windows and along the walls; with men here and
+there having tea, some very ragged, others well dressed, apparently
+workmen or small shopkeepers. There were also several women. In spite of
+the dirt, it was easy to see, by the business air of the man in charge,
+and the ready, obliging manners of the waiters, that the eating-house
+was driving a good trade. I had no sooner entered than one of the
+waiters was already preparing to assist me in getting off my overcoat,
+anxious to take my orders, and showing that evidently the people here
+were in the habit of doing their work quickly and readily.
+
+My enquiry for the census-clerks was answered by a call for "Ványa" from
+a little man dressed in foreign fashion, who was arranging something in
+a cupboard behind the counter. This was the proprietor of the
+public-house, a peasant from Kaluga, Iván Fedotitch by name, who also
+rented half of the other houses, sub-letting the rooms to lodgers. In
+answer to his call, a thin, sallow-faced, hook-nosed lad, about eighteen
+years old, came forward hastily. The landlord said, "Take this gentleman
+to the clerks: they have gone to the main body of the building over the
+well."
+
+The lad put down his napkin, pulled on a coat over his white shirt and
+trousers, picked up a large cap with a peak, and then, with quick, short
+steps, led the way by a back-door through the buildings. At the entrance
+of a greasy, malodorous kitchen, we met an old woman who was carefully
+carrying some putrid tripe in a rag. We descended into a court, built up
+all round with wooden buildings on stone foundations. The smell was most
+offensive, and seemed to be concentrated in a privy to which numbers of
+people were constantly resorting. This privy was really only the place
+which custom accepted as a privy. One could not avoid noticing this
+place as one passed through the courtyard. One suffered in entering the
+acrid atmosphere of the bad smells issuing from it.
+
+The boy, taking care not to soil his white trousers, led me cautiously
+across frozen and unfrozen filth, and approached one of the buildings.
+The people crossing the yard and galleries all stopped to gaze at me. It
+was evident that a cleanly-dressed man was an unusual sight in the
+place.
+
+The boy asked a woman whom we met, whether she had seen where the census
+officials had entered, and three people at once answered his question:
+some said that they were over the well; others said that they had been
+there, but had now gone to Nikita Ivanovitch's.
+
+An old man in the middle of the court, who had only a shirt on, said
+that they were at No. 30. The boy concluded that this information was
+the most probable and led me to No. 30, into the basement, where
+darkness prevailed and a bad smell, different from that which filled the
+court.
+
+We continued to descend along a dark passage. As we were traversing it a
+door was suddenly opened, out of which came a drunken old man in a
+shirt, evidently not of the peasant class. A shrieking washerwoman with
+tucked-up sleeves and soapy arms was pushing him out of the room.
+"Ványa" (my guide) shoved him aside, saying, "It won't do to kick up
+such a row here--and you an officer too!"
+
+When we arrived at No. 30, Ványa pulled the door, which opened with the
+sound of a wet slap; and we felt a gush of soapy steam and an odor of
+bad food and tobacco, and entered in complete darkness. The windows were
+on the other side; and we were in a crooked corridor, that went right
+and left, with doors leading at different angles into rooms separated
+from it by a partition of unevenly laid boards, roughly whitewashed.
+
+In a dark room to the left we could see a woman washing at a trough.
+Another old woman was looking out of a door at the right. Near an open
+door was a hairy, red-skinned peasant in bark shoes, sitting on a couch.
+His hands rested upon his knees; and he was swinging his feet and
+looking sadly at his shoes.
+
+At the end of the passage a small door led into the room where the
+census officers had assembled. This was the room of the landlady of the
+whole of No. 30, who rented it from Iván Fedotitch and sub-let to
+ordinary or night lodgers.
+
+In this tiny room a student sat under an image glittering with gilt
+paper, and, with the air of a magistrate, was putting questions to a man
+dressed in shirt and vest. This last was a friend of the landlady's, who
+was answering the questions in her stead. The landlady herself,--an old
+woman,--and two inquisitive lodgers, were also present.
+
+When I entered, the room was quite filled up. I pushed through to the
+table, shook hands with the student, and he went on extracting his
+information, while I studied the inhabitants, and put questions to them
+for my own ends.
+
+It appeared, however, I could find no one here upon whom to bestow my
+benevolence. The landlady of the rooms, notwithstanding their
+wretchedness and filth (which especially struck me in comparison with
+the mansion in which I lived), was well off, even from the point of view
+of town poverty; and compared with country destitution, with which I was
+well acquainted, she lived luxuriously. She had a feather-bed, a quilted
+blanket, a samovár, a fur cloak, a cupboard, with dishes, plates, etc.
+The landlady's friend had the same well-to-do appearance, and boasted
+even a watch and chain. The lodgers were poor, but among them there was
+no one requiring immediate help.
+
+Three only applied for aid,--the woman washing linen, who said she had
+been abandoned by her husband; an old widowed woman, without means of
+livelihood; and the peasant in the bark shoes, who told me he had not
+had anything to eat that day. But, upon gathering more precise
+information, it became evident that all these people were not in extreme
+want, and that, before one could really help, it would be necessary to
+make their more intimate acquaintance.
+
+When I offered the washerwoman to place her children in a "home," she
+became confused, thought over it some time, then thanked me much, but
+evidently did not desire it; she would rather have had some money. Her
+eldest daughter helped her in the washing, and the second acted as nurse
+to the little boy.
+
+The old woman asked to be put into a refuge; but, examining her corner,
+I saw she was not in extreme distress. She had a box containing some
+property and a teapot, two cups, and old bon-bon boxes with tea and
+sugar. She knitted stockings and gloves, and received a monthly
+allowance from a lady benefactress.
+
+The peasant was evidently more desirous of wetting his throat after his
+last day's drunkenness than of food, and anything given him would have
+gone to the public-house. In these rooms, therefore, there was no one
+whom I could have rendered in any respect happier by helping them with
+money.
+
+There were only paupers there,--and paupers, it seemed, of a
+questionable kind.
+
+I put down the names of the old woman, the laundress, and the peasant,
+and settled in my mind that it would be necessary to do something for
+them, but that first I would help those other _especially_ unfortunate
+ones whom I expected to come across in this house. I made up my mind
+that some system was necessary in distributing the aid which we had to
+give: first, we must find the most needy, and then come to such as
+these.
+
+But in the next lodging, and in the next again, I found only similar
+cases, which would have to be looked into more closely before being
+helped. Of those whom pecuniary aid alone would have rendered happy, I
+found none.
+
+However ashamed I feel in confessing it, I began to experience a certain
+disappointment at not finding in these houses anything resembling what I
+had expected. I thought to find very exceptional people; but, when I had
+gone over all the lodgings, I became convinced that their inhabitants
+were in no way extremely peculiar, but much like those amongst whom I
+lived.
+
+As with us, so also with them, there were some more or less good and
+others more or less bad: there were some more or less happy and others
+more or less unhappy. Those who were unhappy amongst them would have
+been equally wretched with us, their misery being within themselves,--a
+misery not to be mended by any kind of bank-note.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The inhabitants of these houses belonged to the lowest population of the
+town, which in Moscow amounts to perhaps more than a hundred thousand.
+In this house, there were representative men of all kinds,--petty
+employers and journeymen, shoemakers, brushmakers, joiners, hackney
+coachmen, jobbers carrying on business on their own account,
+washerwomen, second-hand dealers, money-lenders, day-laborers, and
+others without any definite occupation; and here also lodged beggars and
+unfortunate women.
+
+Many who were like the people I had seen waiting at Liapin's house lived
+here, mixed up with the working-people. But those whom I saw then were
+in a most wretched condition, having eaten and drunk all they had, and,
+turned out of the public-house, were waiting, as for heavenly manna,
+cold and hungry, to be admitted into the free night-lodging-house,--and
+longing day by day to be taken to prison, in order to be sent back to
+their homes. Here I saw the same men among a greater number of
+working-people, at a time when by some means or other they had got a few
+farthings to pay for their night's lodging, and perhaps a ruble or two
+for food and drink.
+
+However strange it may sound, I had no such feelings here as I
+experienced in Liapin's house; on the contrary, during my first
+visiting-round, I and the students had a sensation which was rather
+agreeable than otherwise. Why do I say "almost agreeable?" It is not
+true. The sensation called forth by the companionship of these
+men--strange as it may seem--was simply a very agreeable one.
+
+The first impression was, that the majority of the lodgers here were
+working people, and very kindly disposed. We found most of them at
+work,--the washerwomen at their tubs, the joiners by their benches, the
+bootmakers at their lasts. The tiny rooms were full of people, and the
+work was going on cheerfully and with energy. There was a smell of
+perspiration among the workmen, of leather at the bootmaker's, of chips
+in the carpenter's shop. We often heard songs, and saw bare, sinewy arms
+working briskly and skilfully.
+
+Everywhere we were received kindly and cheerfully. Nearly everywhere our
+intrusion into the daily life of these people excited no desire in them
+to show us their importance, or to rate us soundly, which happens when
+such visits are paid to the lodgings of well-to-do people. On the
+contrary, all our questions were answered simply, without any particular
+importance being attached to them,--served, indeed, only as an excuse
+for merriment and for jokes about how they were to be enrolled on the
+list, how such a one was as good as two, and how two others ought to be
+reckoned as one.
+
+Many we found at dinner or at tea; and each time, in answer to our
+greeting, "Bread and salt," or, "Tea and sugar," they said, "You are
+welcome"; and some even made room for us to sit down. Instead of the
+place being the resort of an ever-shifting population, such as we
+expected to find, it turned out that in this house were many rooms which
+had been tenanted by the same people for long periods.
+
+One carpenter, with his workmen, and a bootmaker, with his journeymen,
+had been living here for ten years. The bootmaker's shop was very dirty
+and quite choked up, but all his men were working very cheerily. I tried
+to talk with one of the workmen, wishing to sound him about the miseries
+of his lot, what he owed to the master, and so forth; but he did not
+understand me, and spoke of his master and of his life from a very
+favourable point of view.
+
+In one lodging, there lived an old man with his old wife. They dealt in
+apples. Their room was warm, clean, and filled with their belongings.
+The floor was covered with straw-matting which they got from the apple
+stores. There were chests, a cupboard, a samovár, and crockery. In the
+corner were many holy images, before which two lamps were burning: on
+the wall hung fur cloaks wrapped up in a sheet. The old woman with
+wrinkled face, kind and talkative, was apparently quite delighted with
+her quiet, respectable life.
+
+Iván Fedotitch, the owner of the inn and of the lodgings, came out and
+walked with us. He joked kindly with many of the lodgers, calling them
+all by their names, and giving us short sketches of their characters.
+They were as other men, did not consider themselves unhappy, but
+believed they were like everyone else, as in reality they were. We were
+prepared to see only dreadful things, and we met instead objects not
+only not repulsive, but estimable. There were so many of these, compared
+with the ragged, ruined, unoccupied people we met now and then among
+them, that the latter did not in the least destroy the general
+impression. To the students it did not appear so remarkable as it did to
+me. They were merely performing an act useful to science, as they
+thought; and, in passing, made casual observations: but I was a
+benefactor; my object in going there was to help the unhappy, ruined,
+depraved men and women whom I had expected to meet in this house.
+Suddenly, instead of unhappy, ruined, depraved beings, I found the
+majority to be workingmen: quiet, satisfied, cheerful, kind, and very
+good.
+
+I was still more strongly impressed when I found that in these lodgings
+the crying want I wished to relieve had already been relieved before I
+came. But by whom? By these same unhappy, depraved beings whom I was
+prepared to save! And this help was given in a way not open to me.
+
+In one cellar lay a lonely old man suffering from typhus-fever. He had
+no connections in the world; yet a woman,--a widow with a little
+girl,--quite a stranger to him, but living in the corner next to him,
+nursed him, gave him tea, and bought him medicine with her own money.
+
+In another lodging lay a woman in puerperal fever. A woman of the town
+was nursing her child, and had prepared a sucking-bottle for him, and
+had not gone out to ply her sad trade for two days.
+
+An orphan girl was taken into the family of a tailor, who had three
+children of his own. Thus, there remained only such miserable unoccupied
+men as retired officials, clerks, men-servants out of situations,
+beggars, tipsy people, prostitutes, children, whom it was not possible
+to help all at once by means of money, but whose cases it was necessary
+to consider carefully before assisting them. I had been seeking for men
+suffering immediately from want of means, whom one might be able to help
+by sharing one's superfluities with them. I had not found them. All whom
+I had seen, it would have been very difficult to assist materially
+without devoting time and care to their cases.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+These unfortunate necessitous ones ranged themselves in my mind under
+three heads: First, those who had lost former advantageous positions,
+and who were waiting to return to them (such men belonged to the lowest
+as well as to the highest classes of society); Secondly, women of the
+town, who are very numerous in these houses; and Thirdly, children.
+
+The majority of those I found, and noted down, were men who had lost
+former places, and were desirous of returning to them, chiefly of the
+better class, and government officials. In almost all the lodgings we
+entered with the landlord, we were told, "Here we need not trouble to
+fill up the card ourselves: the man here is able to do it, provided he
+is not tipsy."
+
+Thus summoned by Iván Fedotitch, there would appear, from some dark
+corner, the once rich nobleman or official, mostly drunk, and always
+half-dressed. If he were not drunk, he willingly undertook the task: he
+kept nodding his head with a sense of importance, knitted his brows,
+inserted now and then learned terms in his remarks, and carefully
+holding in his dirty, trembling hands the neat pink card, looked round
+at his fellow-lodgers with pride and contempt, as if he were now, by the
+superiority of his education, triumphing over those who had been
+continually humbling him.
+
+He was evidently pleased to have intercourse with the world which used
+pink cards, with a world of which he himself had once been a member.
+
+To my questions about his life, this kind of man not only replied
+willingly, but with enthusiasm,--beginning to tell a story, fixed in his
+mind like a prayer, about all kinds of misfortunes which had happened to
+him, and chiefly about his former position, in which, considering his
+education, he ought to have remained.
+
+Many such people are scattered about in all the tenements of the
+Rzhanoff Houses. One lodging-house was tenanted exclusively by them,
+women and men. As we approached them, Iván Fedotitch said, "Now, here's
+where the nobility live."
+
+The lodging was full. Almost all the lodgers--about forty persons--were
+at home. In the whole house, there were no faces so ruined and
+degraded-looking as these,--if old, flabby; if young, pale and haggard.
+
+I talked with several of them. Almost always the same story was told,
+differing only in degree of development. One and all had been once rich,
+or had still a rich father or brother or uncle; or either his father or
+his unfortunate self had held a high office. Then came some misfortune
+caused by envious enemies, or his own imprudent kindness, or some
+out-of-the-way occurrence; and, having lost everything, he was obliged
+to descend to these strange and hateful surroundings, among lice and
+rags, in company with drunkards and loose characters, feeding upon bread
+and liver, and subsisting by beggary.
+
+All the thoughts, desires, and recollections of these men are turned
+toward the past. The present appears to them as something unnatural,
+hideous, and unworthy of attention. It does not exist for them. They
+have only recollections of the past, and expectations of the future
+which may be realized at any moment, and for the attainment of which but
+very little is needed; but, unfortunately, this little is out of their
+reach; it cannot be got anywhere: and so one has wasted one year,
+another five, and a third thirty years.
+
+One needs only to be dressed respectably in order to call on a
+well-known person who is kindly disposed toward him; another requires
+only to be dressed, have his debts paid, and go to some town or other; a
+third wants to take his effects out of pawn, and get a small sum to
+carry on a law-suit, which must be decided in his favour, and then all
+will be well again. All say that they have need of some external
+circumstance in order to regain that position which they think natural
+and happy.
+
+If I had not been blinded by my pride in being a benefactor, I should
+have needed only to look a little closer into their faces, young and
+old, which were generally weak, sensual, but kind, in order to
+understand that their misfortunes could not be met by external means;
+that they could be happy in no position while their present conception
+of life remained the same; that they were by no means peculiar people in
+peculiarly unhappy circumstances, but that they were like all other men,
+ourselves included.
+
+I remember well how my intercourse with men of this class was
+particularly trying to me. I now understand why it was so. In them I saw
+my own self as in a mirror. If I had considered carefully my own life
+and the lives of people of my own class, I should have seen that between
+us and these unfortunate men there existed no essential difference.
+
+Those who live around me in expensive suites of apartments and houses of
+their own in the best streets of the city, eating something better than
+liver or herring with their bread, are none the less unhappy. They also
+are discontented with their lot, regret the past, and desire a happier
+future, precisely as did the wretched tenants of the Rzhanoff Houses.
+Both wished to be worked less and to be worked for more, the difference
+between them being only in degrees of idleness.
+
+Unfortunately, I did not see this at first, nor did I understand that
+such people needed to be relieved, not by my charity, but from their own
+false views of the world; and that to change a man's estimate of life he
+must be given one more accurate than his own, which, unhappily, not
+possessing myself, I could not communicate to others.
+
+These men were unhappy not because, to use an illustration, they were
+without nourishing food, but because their stomachs were spoiled; and
+they required, not nourishment, but a tonic. I did not see that in order
+to help them, it was not necessary to give them food but to teach them
+how to eat. Though I am anticipating, I must say that of all these
+people whose names I put down I did not in reality help one,
+notwithstanding that everything some of them had desired was done to
+relieve them. Of these I became acquainted with three men in particular.
+All three, after many failures and much assistance, are now in the same
+position they were in three years ago.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The second class of unfortunates, whom I hoped afterwards to be able to
+help, were women of the town. These women were very numerous in the
+Rzhanoff Houses; and they were of every kind, from young girls still
+bearing some likeness to women, to old and fearful-looking creatures
+without a vestige of humanity. The hope of helping these women, whom I
+had not at first in view, was aroused by the following circumstances.
+
+When we had finished half of our tour, we had already acquired a
+somewhat mechanical method. On entering a new lodging we at once asked
+for the landlord. One of us sat down, clearing a space to write; and the
+other went from one to another, questioning each man and woman in the
+room, and reporting the information obtained to him who was writing.
+
+On our entering one of the basement lodgings, the student went to look
+for the landlord; and I began to question all who were in the place.
+This place was divided thus: In the middle of the room, which was four
+yards square, there stood a stove. From the stove four partitions or
+screens radiated, making a similar number of small compartments. In the
+first of these, which had two doors in it opposite each other, and four
+pallets, were an old man and a woman. Next to this was a rather long but
+narrow room, in which was the landlord, a young, pale, good-looking man
+dressed in a gray woollen coat. To the left of the first division was a
+third small room where a man was sleeping, seemingly tipsy, and a woman
+in a pink dressing-gown. The fourth compartment was behind a partition,
+access to it being through the landlord's room.
+
+The student entered the latter, while I remained in the first,
+questioning the old man and the woman. The former had been a compositor,
+but now had no means of livelihood whatever.
+
+The woman was a cook's wife.
+
+I went into the third compartment, and asked the woman in the
+dressing-gown about the man who was asleep.
+
+She answered that he was a visitor.
+
+I asked her who she was.
+
+She replied that she was a peasant girl from the county of Moscow.
+
+"What is your occupation?" She laughed, and made no answer.
+
+"What do you do for your living?" I repeated, thinking she had not
+understood the question.
+
+"I sit in the inn," she said.
+
+I did not understand her, and asked again,--
+
+"What are your means of living?"
+
+She gave me no answer, but continued to giggle. In the fourth room,
+where we had not yet been, I heard the voices of women also giggling.
+
+The landlord came out of his room, and approached us. He had evidently
+heard my questions and the woman's answers. He glanced sternly at her,
+and, turning to me, said, "She is a prostitute"; and it was evident that
+he was pleased that he knew this word,--which is the one used in
+official circles,--and at having pronounced it correctly. And having
+said this with a respectful smile of satisfaction towards me, he turned
+to the woman. As he did so, the expression of his face changed. In a
+peculiarly contemptuous manner, and with rapid utterance as one would
+speak to a dog, he said, without looking at her, "Don't be a fool!
+instead of saying you sit in the inn, speak plainly, and say you are a
+prostitute.--She does not even yet know her proper name," he said,
+turning to me.
+
+This manner of speaking shocked me.
+
+"It is not for us to shame her," I said. "If we were all living
+according to God's commandment, there would be no such persons."
+
+"There are such doings," said the landlord, with an artificial smile.
+
+"Therefore we must pity them, and not reproach them. Is it their fault?"
+
+I do not remember exactly what I said. I remember only that I was
+disgusted by the disdainful tone of this young landlord, in a lodging
+filled with females whom he termed prostitutes; and I pitied the woman,
+and expressed both feelings.
+
+No sooner had I said this, than I heard from the small compartment where
+the giggling had been, the noise of creaking bed-boards; and over the
+partition, which did not reach to the ceiling, appeared the dishevelled
+curly head of a female with small swollen eyes, and a shining red face;
+a second, and then a third, head followed. They were evidently standing
+on their beds; and all three were stretching their necks and holding
+their breath, and looking silently at me with strained attention.
+
+A painful silence followed.
+
+The student, who had been smiling before this happened, now became
+grave; the landlord became confused, and cast down his eyes; and the
+women continued to look at me in expectation.
+
+I felt more disconcerted than all the rest. I had certainly not expected
+that a casual word would produce such an effect. It was like the field
+of battle covered with dead bones seen by the prophet Ezekiel, on which,
+trembling from contact with the spirit, the dead bones began to move. I
+had casually uttered a word of love and pity, which produced upon all
+such an effect that it seemed as if they had been only waiting for it,
+to cease to be corpses, and to become alive again.
+
+They continued to look at me, as if wondering what would come next, as
+if waiting for me to say those words and do those acts by which these
+dry bones would begin to come together,--be covered with flesh and
+receive life.
+
+But I felt, alas! that I had no such words or deeds to give, or to
+continue as I had begun. In the depth of my soul I felt that I had told
+a lie, that I myself was like them, that I had nothing more to say; and
+I began to write down on the card the names and the occupations of all
+the lodgers there.
+
+This occurrence led me into a new kind of error. I began to think that
+these unhappy creatures also could be helped. This, in my self
+deception, it seemed to me would be very easily done. I said to myself,
+"Now we shall put down the names of these women too; and afterwards,
+when we (though it never occurred to me to ask who were the _we_) have
+written everything down, we can occupy ourselves with their affairs." I
+imagined that _we_, the very persons who, during many generations, have
+been leading such women into such a condition, and still continue to do
+so, could one fine morning wake up and remedy it all. And yet, if I
+could have recollected my conversation with the lost woman who was
+nursing the baby for the sick mother, I should have understood the folly
+of such an idea.
+
+When we first saw this woman nursing the child, we thought that it was
+hers; but upon our asking her what she was, she answered us plainly that
+she was a wench. She did not say "prostitute." It was left for the
+proprietor of the lodgings to make use of that terrible word.
+
+The supposition that she had a child gave me the idea of helping her out
+of her present position.
+
+"Is this child yours?" I asked.
+
+"No: it is that woman's there."
+
+"Why do you nurse him?"
+
+"She asked me to. She is dying."
+
+Though my surmise turned out to be wrong, I continued to speak with her
+in the same spirit. I began to question her as to who she was, and how
+she came to be in such a position. She told me her story willingly, and
+very plainly. She belonged to the artisan class of Moscow, the daughter
+of a factory workman. She was left an orphan, and adopted by her aunt,
+from whose house she began to visit the inns. The aunt was now dead.
+
+When I asked her whether she wished to change her course of life, my
+question did not even interest her. How can a supposition about
+something quite impossible awaken an interest in any one? She smiled and
+said,--
+
+"Who would take me with a yellow ticket?"[3]
+
+  [3] The police certificate of registration as a prostitute.--Ed.
+
+"But," said I, "if it were possible to find you a situation as a cook or
+something else?" I said this because she looked like a strong woman,
+with a kind, dull, round face, not unlike many cooks I had seen.
+
+Evidently my words did not please her. She repeated, "Cook! but I do not
+understand how to bake bread."
+
+She spoke jestingly; but, by the expression of her face, I saw that she
+was unwilling; that she even considered the position and rank of a cook
+beneath her.
+
+This woman, who, in the most simple manner, like the widow in the
+gospel, had sacrificed all that she had for a sick person, at the same
+time, like other women of the same profession, considered the position
+of a workman or workwoman low and despicable. She had been educated to
+live without work,--a life which all her friends considered quite
+natural. This was her misfortune. And by this she came into her present
+position, and is kept in it. This brought her to the inns. Who of us men
+and women will cure her of this false view of life? Are there among us
+any men convinced that a laborious life is more respectable than an idle
+one, and who are living according to this conviction, and who make this
+the test of their esteem and respect?
+
+If I had thought about it I should have understood that neither I nor
+anybody else I know, was able to cure a person of this disease.
+
+I should have understood that those wondering and awakened faces that
+looked over the partition expressed merely astonishment at the pity
+shown to them, but no wish to reform their lives. They did not see the
+immorality. They knew that they were despised and condemned, but the
+reason for this they could not understand. They had lived in this manner
+from their infancy among women like themselves, who, they know very
+well, have always existed, do exist, and are necessary to society, that
+there are officials deputed by government to see that they conform to
+regulations.
+
+Besides, they know that they have power over men, and subdue them, and
+often influence them more than any other women. They see that their
+position in society, notwithstanding the fact that they are always
+blamed, is recognised by men as well as by women and by the government;
+and therefore they cannot even understand of what they have to repent,
+and wherein they should reform.
+
+During one of our tours the student told me that in one of the lodgings
+there was a woman who sends out her daughter, thirteen years old, to
+walk the streets. Wishing to save this little girl I went on purpose to
+their lodging.
+
+Mother and daughter were living in great poverty. The mother, a small,
+dark-complexioned prostitute of forty years of age, was not simply ugly,
+but disagreeably ugly. The daughter was also bad-looking. To all my
+indirect questions about their mode of life, the mother replied curtly,
+with a look of suspicion and animosity, apparently feeling that I was an
+enemy with bad intentions: the daughter said nothing without looking
+first at the mother, in whom she evidently had entire confidence.
+
+They did not awaken pity in my heart, but rather disgust. Still I
+decided that it was necessary to save the daughter, to awaken an
+interest in ladies who might sympathize with the miserable condition of
+these women and might so be brought here.
+
+Yet if I had thought about the antecedents of the mother, how she had
+given birth to her daughter, how she had fed and brought her up,
+certainly without any outside help, and with great sacrifices to
+herself; if I had thought of the view of life which had formed itself in
+her mind,--I should have understood, that, in the mother's conduct,
+there was nothing at all bad or immoral, seeing she had been doing for
+her daughter all she could; i.e., what she considered best for herself.
+
+It was possible to take this girl away from her mother by force; but to
+convince her that she was doing wrong in selling her daughter was not
+possible. It would first be necessary to save this woman--this
+mother--from a condition of life approved by every one, and according to
+which a woman may live without marrying and without working, serving
+exclusively as a gratification to the passions. If I had thought about
+this, I should have understood that the majority of those ladies whom I
+wished to send here for saving this girl were not only themselves
+avoiding family duties, and leading idle and sensuous lives, but were
+consciously educating their daughters for this very same mode of
+existence. One mother leads her daughter to the inn, and another to
+court and to balls. Both the views of the world held by both mothers are
+the same; viz., that a woman must gratify the passions of men, and for
+that she must be fed, dressed, and taken care of.
+
+How, then, are our ladies to reform this woman and her daughter?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Still more strange were my dealings with the children. In my _rôle_ as
+benefactor I paid attention to the children too, wishing to save
+innocent beings from going to ruin in this den; and I wrote down their
+names in order to attend to them myself _afterwards_.
+
+Among these children my attention was particularly drawn to Serozha, a
+boy twelve years old. I sincerely pitied this clever, intelligent lad,
+who had been living with a bootmaker, and who was left without any place
+of refuge when his master was put into prison. I wished to do something
+for him.
+
+I will now give the result of my benevolence in his case, because this
+boy's story will show my false position as a benefactor better than
+anything else.
+
+I took the boy into my house, and lodged him in the kitchen. Could I
+possibly bring a lousy boy out of a den of depravity to my children? I
+considered that I had been very kind in having put him where he was,
+amongst my servants. I thought myself a great benefactor for having
+given him some of my old clothes and fed him; though it was properly my
+cook who did it, not I. The boy remained in my house about a week.
+
+During this week I saw him twice, and, passing him, spoke some words to
+him, and, when out walking, called on a bootmaker whom I knew and
+proposed the boy as an apprentice. A peasant who was on a visit at my
+house invited him to go to his village and work in a family. The boy
+refused to accept it and disappeared within a week.
+
+I went to Rzhanoff's house to enquire after him. He had returned there;
+but when I called, he was not at home. He had already been two days in a
+menagerie in Presnem Ponds, where he hired himself for 6d. a day to
+appear in a procession of savages in costume, leading an elephant. There
+was some public show on at the time.
+
+I went to see him again, but he was so ungrateful, he evidently avoided
+me. Had I reflected upon the life of this boy and on my own, I should
+have understood that the boy had been spoiled by the fact of his having
+tasted the sweets of a merry and idle life, and that he had lost the
+habit of working. And I, in order to confer on him a benefit and reform
+him, took him into my own house. And what did he see there? He saw my
+children, some older than he, some younger, and some of the same age,
+who not only never did anything for themselves, but gave as much work to
+others as they could. They dirtied and spoiled everything about them,
+surfeited themselves with all sorts of dainties, broke the china, upset
+and threw to the dogs food which would have been a treat to him. If I
+took him out of a den and brought him to a respectable place, he could
+not but assimilate the views of life which existed there; and, according
+to these views, he understood that in a respectable position one must
+live without working, eat and drink well, and lead a merry life.
+
+True, he did not know that my children had much labour in learning the
+exceptions in Latin and Greek grammars; nor would he have been able to
+understand the object of such work. But one cannot help seeing that even
+had he understood it the influence upon him of the example of my
+children would have been still stronger. He would have then understood
+that they were being educated in such a way, that, not working now, they
+might afterwards also work as little as possible, and enjoy the good
+things of life by virtue of their diplomas.
+
+But what he did understand of it made him go, not to the peasant to take
+care of cattle and feed on potatoes and kvas,[4] but to the menagerie in
+the costume of a savage to lead an elephant for 6d. a day. I ought to
+have understood how foolish it was of one who was educating his own
+children in complete idleness and luxury to try to reform other men and
+their children, and save them from going to ruin and idleness in what I
+called the _dens_ in Rzhanoff's house; where, however, three-fourths of
+the men were working for themselves and for others. But then I
+understood nothing of all this.
+
+  [4] An unfermented home-made liquor used by Russian peasants.--Ed.
+
+In Rzhanoff's house there were a great many children in the most
+miserable condition. There were children of prostitutes, orphans, and
+children carried about the streets by beggars. They were all very
+wretched. But my experience with Serozha showed me that so long as I
+continued living the life I did I was not able to help them.
+
+While the boy was living with us I remember I took pains to hide from
+him our way of life, particularly that of my children. I felt that all
+my endeavours to lead him to a good and laborious life were frustrated
+by my example and that of my children. It is very easy to take away a
+child from a prostitute or a beggar. It is very easy, when one has
+money, to wash him, dress him in new clothes, feed him well, and even
+teach him different accomplishments; but to teach him how to earn his
+living, is, for us who have not been earning ours but doing just the
+contrary, not only difficult but quite impossible, because by our
+example and by the very improvements of his mode of life effected by us
+without any cost on our part, we teach him the very opposite.
+
+You may take a puppy, pet him, feed him, teach him to carry things after
+you, and be pleased with looking at him: but it is not enough to feed a
+man, dress him, and teach him Greek; you must teach him how to live;
+i.e., how to take less from others and give them more in return: and yet
+through our own mode of life we cannot help teaching him the very
+opposite whether we take him into our house or put him into a home to
+bring up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+I have never since experienced such a feeling of compassion towards men
+and of aversion towards myself, as I felt in Liapin's house. I was now
+filled with the desire to carry out the scheme I had already begun and
+to do good to the men whom I had met.
+
+And, strange to say, though it might seem that to do good and to give
+money to those in want of it was a good deed, and ought to dispose men
+to universal love, it turned out quite the reverse; calling up in me
+bitter feelings and disposition to censure them. Even during our first
+tour a scene occurred similar to that in Liapin's house; but it failed
+to produce again the same effect and created a very different
+impression.
+
+It began with my finding in one of the lodgings a miserable person who
+required immediate help,--a woman who had not eaten food for two days.
+
+It happened thus: In one very large and almost empty night-lodging, I
+asked an old woman whether there were any poor people who had nothing to
+eat. She hesitated a moment and then named two; then suddenly, as if
+recollecting herself, she said, "Yes, there lies one of them," pointing
+to a pallet. "This one," she added, "indeed, has nothing to eat."
+
+"You don't say so! Who is she?"
+
+"She has been a lost woman; but as nobody takes her now, she can't earn
+anything. The landlady has had pity on her, but now she wants to turn
+her out.--Agafia! I say, Agafia!" cried the old woman.
+
+We went a little nearer, and saw something rise from the pallet. This
+was a grey-haired, dishevelled woman, thin as a skeleton, in a dirty,
+torn chemise, and with peculiarly glittering, immovable eyes. She looked
+fixedly beyond us, tried to snatch up her jacket behind her in order to
+cover her bony chest, and growled out like a dog, "What? what?"
+
+I asked her how she managed to live. For some time she was unable to see
+the drift of my words and said, "I don't know myself; they are going to
+turn me out."
+
+I asked again; and oh, how ashamed of myself I feel! my hand can
+scarcely write it! I asked her whether it was true that she was
+starving. She replied in the same feverish, excited manner, "I had
+nothing to eat yesterday; I have had nothing to eat to-day."
+
+The miserable aspect of this woman impressed me deeply, but quite
+differently from those in Liapin's house: there, out of pity for them, I
+felt embarrassed and ashamed of myself; but here, I rejoiced that I had
+at last found what I had been looking for,--a hungry being.
+
+I gave her a ruble and I remember how glad I felt that the others had
+seen it.
+
+The old woman forthwith asked me also for money. It was so pleasant to
+me to give that I handed her some also, without thinking whether it was
+necessary or not. She accompanied me to the door, and those who were in
+the corridor heard how she thanked me. Probably my questions about the
+poor provoked expectations, for some of the inmates began to follow us
+wherever we went.
+
+Among those that begged, there were evidently drunkards, who gave me a
+most disagreeable impression; but having once given to the old woman I
+thought I had no right to refuse them, and I began to give away more.
+This only increased the number of applicants, and there was a stir
+throughout the whole lodging-house.
+
+On the stairs and in the galleries, people appeared dogging my steps.
+When I came out of the yard, a boy ran quickly down the stairs, pushing
+through the people. He did not notice me and said hurriedly,--
+
+"He gave a ruble to Agafia!"
+
+Having reached the ground, he, too, joined the crowd that was following
+me. I came out into the street. All sorts of people crowded round
+begging for money. Having given away all I had in coppers, I entered a
+shop and asked the proprietor to give me change for ten rubles.
+
+Here occurred a scene similar to that which took place in Liapin's
+house. A dreadful confusion ensued. Old women, seedy gentlefolk,
+peasants, children, all crowded about the shop, stretching out their
+hands; I gave, and asked some of them about their position and means,
+and entered all in my note-book. The shopkeeper, having turned up the
+fur collar of his great-coat, was sitting like a statue, glancing now
+and then at the crowd, and again staring beyond it. He apparently felt
+like everyone else, that all this was very foolish, but he dared not say
+so.
+
+In Liapin's house the misery and humiliation of the people had
+overwhelmed me; and I felt myself to blame for it, and also the desire
+and the possibility of becoming a better man. But though the scene here
+was similar, it produced quite a different effect. In the first place, I
+felt angry with many of those who assailed me, and then anxious as to
+what the shopmen and the dvorniks might think of me. I returned home
+that day with a weight on my mind. I knew that what I had done was
+foolish and inconsistent; but, as usual when my conscience was troubled,
+I talked the more about my projected plan, as if I had no doubt whatever
+as to its success.
+
+The next day I went alone to those whom I had noted down, and who seemed
+the most miserable, thinking they could be more easily helped than
+others.
+
+As I have already mentioned, I was not really able to help any of these
+people. It turned out that to do so was more difficult than I had
+imagined: in short, I only tormented these men and helped no one.
+
+Before the last visiting-tour I went several times to Rzhanoff's house,
+and each time the same thing occurred: I was assailed by a crowd of men
+and women in the midst of whom I utterly lost my presence of mind.
+
+I felt the impossibility of doing anything because there were so many of
+them; besides, each of them, taken separately, did not awaken any
+sympathy in me. I felt that every one lied, or at least prevaricated,
+and regarded me only as a purse out of which money could be drawn. It
+often seemed to me that the very money extorted from me did not improve
+their position but only made it worse.
+
+The oftener I went to these houses, the closer the intercourse which I
+had with the inmates, the more apparent became the impossibility of
+doing anything; but notwithstanding this, I did not give up my plan
+until after the last night tour with the census-takers.
+
+I feel more ashamed of this visit than of any other. Formerly I had gone
+alone, but now twenty of us went together. At seven o'clock all who
+wished to take part in this last tour began to assemble in my house.
+They were almost all strangers to me. Some students, an officer, and two
+of my fashionable acquaintances, who, after having repeated the usual
+phrase, "C'est trčs intéressant!" asked me to put them into the number
+of the census-takers.
+
+These fashionable friends of mine had dressed themselves in
+shooting-jackets and tall travelling boots, which they thought more
+suited to the visit than their ordinary clothes. They carried with them
+peculiar pocket-books and extraordinary-looking pencils. They were in
+that agitated state of mind which one experiences just before going to a
+hunt, or to a duel, or into a battle. The falseness and foolishness of
+our enterprise was now more apparent to me in looking at them; but were
+we not all in the same ridiculous position?
+
+Before starting we had a conference, somewhat like a council of war, as
+to what we should begin with, how to divide ourselves, and so on. This
+conference was just like all other official councils, meetings, and
+committees: each spoke, not because he had anything to say, or to ask,
+but because every one tried to find something to say in order not to be
+behind the rest. But during the conversation no one alluded to the acts
+of benevolence to which I had so many times referred; and however much
+ashamed I felt, I found it was needful to remind them that we must carry
+out our charitable intentions by writing down, during the visiting-tour,
+the names of all whom we should find in a destitute condition.
+
+I had always felt ashamed to speak about these matters; but here, in the
+midst of our hurried preparations for the expedition, I could scarcely
+utter a word about them. All listened to me and seemed touched, all
+agreed with me in words; but it was evident that each of them knew that
+it was folly, and that it would lead to nothing, and so they began at
+once to talk about other subjects, and continued doing so until it was
+time for us to start.
+
+We came to the dark tavern, aroused the waiters, and began to sort out
+papers. When we were told that the people, having heard about this
+visiting-tour, had begun to leave their lodgings, we asked the landlord
+to shut the gate, and we ourselves went to the yard to persuade those to
+remain who wanted to escape, assuring them that no one would ask to see
+their passports.
+
+I remember the strange and painful impression produced upon me by these
+frightened night-lodgers. Ragged and half-dressed, they all appeared
+tall by the light of the lantern in the dark court-yard. Frightened and
+horrible in their terror, they stood in a small knot round the
+pestilential out-house, listening to our persuasions, but not believing
+us; and, evidently, like hunted animals, prepared to do anything to
+escape from us.
+
+Gentlemen of all kinds, town and country policemen, public coroner and
+judges, had, all their lives, been hunting them in towns and villages,
+on the roads and in the streets, in the taverns and in the
+lodging-houses, and suddenly these gentlemen had come at night and shut
+the gate, only, forsooth, in order to count them! They found this as
+difficult to believe as it would be for hares to believe that the dogs
+had come out not to catch but to count them.
+
+But the gates were shut, and the frightened night-lodgers returned to
+their places; and we, having separated into groups, began our visit.
+With me were my fashionable acquaintances and two students. Ványa, with
+a lantern, went before us in a great-coat and white trousers, and we
+followed. We entered lodgings well known to me. The place was familiar,
+some of the persons also; but the majority were new to me, and the
+spectacle was also a new and dreadful one,--still more dreadful than
+that which I had seen at Liapin's house. All the lodgings were filled,
+all the pallets occupied, and not only by one, but often by two persons.
+The sight was dreadful, because of the closeness with which these people
+were huddled together, and because of the indiscriminate commingling of
+men and women. Such of the latter as were not dead-drunk were sleeping
+with men. Many women with children slept with strange men on narrow
+beds.
+
+The spectacle was dreadful, owing to the misery, dirt, raggedness, and
+terror of these people; and chiefly because there were so many of them.
+One lodging, then another, then a third, a tenth, a twentieth, and so
+on, without end. And everywhere the same fearful stench, the same
+suffocating exhalation, the same confusion of sexes, men and women,
+drunk, or in a state of insensibility; the same terror, submissiveness,
+and guilt stamped on all faces, so that I felt deeply ashamed and
+grieved, as I had before at Liapin's. At last I understood that what I
+was about to do was disgusting, foolish, and therefore impossible; so I
+left off writing down their names and questioning them, knowing now that
+nothing would come of it.
+
+I felt deeply hurt.
+
+At Liapin's I had been like a man who sees a horrible wound on the body
+of another. He feels sorry for the man, ashamed of not having relieved
+him before, yet he can still hope to help the sufferer; but now I was
+like a doctor who comes with his own medicines to the patient, uncovers
+his wound only to mangle it, and to confess to himself that all he has
+done has been done in vain, and that his remedy is ineffectual.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+This visit gave the last blow to my self-deception. It became very
+evident to me that my aim was not only foolish, but even productive of
+evil. Yet, though I knew this, it seemed my duty to continue the project
+a little longer: first, because of the article I had written and by my
+visits I had raised the expectations of the poor; secondly, because what
+I had said and written had awakened the sympathy of some benefactors,
+many of whom had promised to assist me personally and with money. And I
+was expecting to be applied to by both, and hoped to satisfy them as
+well as I was able.
+
+As regards the applications made to me by those who were in need, the
+following details may be given: I received more than a hundred letters,
+which came exclusively from the "rich poor," if I may so express myself.
+Some of them I visited, and some I left unanswered. In no instance did I
+succeed in doing any good. All the applications made to me were from
+persons who were once in a privileged position (I call such persons
+privileged who receive more from others than they give in return), had
+lost that position, and were desirous of regaining it. One wanted two
+hundred rubles in order to keep his business from going to ruin, and to
+enable him to finish the education of his children; another wanted to
+have a photographic establishment; a third wanted money to pay his
+debts, and take his best clothes out of pawn; a fourth was in need of a
+piano, in order to perfect himself and to earn money to support his
+family by giving lessons. The majority did not name any particular sum
+of money: they simply asked for help; but when I began to investigate
+what was necessary, it turned out that their wants increased in
+proportion to the help offered, and nothing satisfactorily resulted. I
+repeat again, the fault may have been in my want of understanding; but
+in any case I helped no one, notwithstanding the fact that I made every
+effort to do so.
+
+As for the philanthropists who were to co-operate with me, something
+very strange and quite unexpected occurred: of all who promised to
+assist with money, and even stated the amount they would give, not one
+contributed anything for distribution among the poor.
+
+The promises of pecuniary assistance amounted to about three thousand
+rubles; but of all these people, not one recollected his agreement, or
+gave me a single kopek. The students alone gave the money which they
+received as payment for visiting, about twelve rubles; so that my
+scheme, which was to have collected tens of thousands of rubles from the
+rich, and to have saved hundreds and thousands of people from misery and
+vice, ended in my distributing at random some few rubles offered by the
+students, with twenty-five more sent me by the town-council for my
+labour as manager, which I positively did not know what to do with.
+
+So ended the affair.
+
+Then, before leaving Moscow for the country, on the Sunday before the
+Carnival, I went to the Rzhanoff house in the morning in order to
+distribute the thirty-seven rubles among the poor. I visited all whom I
+knew in the lodgings, but found only one invalid, to whom I gave
+something,--five rubles, I think. There was nobody else to give to. Of
+course, many began to beg; but, as I did not know them, I made up my
+mind to take the advice of Iván Fedotitch, the tavern-keeper, respecting
+the distribution of the remaining thirty-two rubles.
+
+It was the first day of the carnival. Everybody was smartly dressed, all
+had had food, and many were drunk. In the yard near the corner of the
+house stood an old-clothes man, dressed in a ragged peasant's coat and
+bark shoes. He was still hale and hearty. Sorting his purchases, he was
+putting them into different heaps,--leather, iron, and other
+things,--and was singing a merry song at the top of his voice.
+
+I began to talk with him. He was seventy years of age; had no relatives;
+earned his living by dealing in old clothes, and not only did not
+complain, but said he had enough to eat, drink, and to spare. I asked
+him who in the place were particularly in want. He became cross, and
+said plainly that there was no one in want but drunkards and idlers; but
+on learning my object in asking, he begged me five kopeks for drink, and
+ran to the tavern for it.
+
+I also went to the tavern to see Iván Fedotitch, to ask him to
+distribute the money for me. It was full; gayly-dressed tipsy
+prostitutes were walking to and fro; all the tables were occupied; many
+people were already drunk; and in the small room someone was playing a
+harmonium, and two people were dancing. Iván Fedotitch, out of respect
+for me, ordered them to leave off, and sat down next me at a vacant
+table. I asked him, as he knew his lodgers well, to point out those most
+in want, as I was intrusted with a little money for distribution, and
+wished him to direct me. The kind-hearted man (he died a year after)
+gave me his attention for a time in order to oblige me, although he had
+to wait on his customers. He began to think it over, and was evidently
+puzzled. One old waiter had overheard us, and took his part in the
+conference.
+
+They began to go over his lodgers, some of whom were known to me, but
+they could not agree. "Paramonovna," suggested the waiter.
+
+"Well; yes, she does go hungry sometimes; but she drinks."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"Well, Spiridon Ivanovitch, he has children; that's the man for you."
+
+But Iván Fedotitch had doubts about Spiridon too.
+
+"Akulina, but she has a pension. Ah, but there is the blind man!"
+
+To him I myself objected: I had just seen him. This was an old man of
+eighty years of age, without any relatives. One could scarcely imagine
+any condition to be worse; and yet I had just seen him lying drunk on a
+feather bed, cursing at his comparatively young mistress in the most
+filthy language.
+
+They then named a one-armed boy and his mother. I saw that Iván
+Fedotitch was in great difficulty owing to his conscientiousness, for he
+knew that every thing given away by me would be spent at his tavern. But
+as I had to get rid of my thirty-two rubles, I insisted, and we managed
+somehow or other to distribute the money. Those who received it were
+mostly well-dressed, and we had not far to go to find them: they were
+all in the tavern. The one-armed boy came in top-boots and a red shirt
+and waistcoat.
+
+Thus ended all my benevolent enterprises; and I left for the country
+vexed with everyone, as it always happens when one does something
+foolish and harmful. Nothing came of it all, except the train of
+thoughts and feelings which it called forth in me, which not only did
+not cease, but doubly agitated my mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+What did it all mean?
+
+I had lived in the country and had entered into relations with the
+country-poor. It is not out of false modesty, but that I may state the
+truth, which is necessary in order to understand the run of all my
+thoughts and feelings, that I must say that in the country I had done
+perhaps but little for the poor, the help which had been required of me
+was so small; but even the little I had done had been useful, and had
+formed round me an atmosphere of love and sympathy with my
+fellow-creatures, in the midst of whom it might yet be possible for me
+to quiet the gnawing of my conscience as to the unlawfulness of my life
+of luxury.
+
+On going to the city I had hoped for the same happy relations with the
+poor, but here things were upon quite another footing. In the city,
+poverty was at once less truthful, more exacting, and more bitter, than
+in the country. It was chiefly because there was so much more of it
+accumulated together, that it produced upon me a most harrowing
+impression. What I experienced at Liapin's house made my own luxurious
+life seem monstrously evil. I could not doubt the sincerity and strength
+of this conviction; yet, notwithstanding this, I was quite incapable of
+carrying out a revolution which demanded an entire change in my mode of
+life: I was frightened at the prospect, and so I resorted to
+compromises. I accepted what I was told by everyone, and what has been
+said by everybody since the world began,--that riches and luxury are in
+themselves no evil, that they are given by God, and that whilst
+continuing to live luxuriously it is possible to help those in need. I
+believed this and wanted to do so. And I wrote an article in which I
+called upon all rich people to help. These all admitted themselves
+morally obliged to agree with me, but evidently did not wish to do or
+give anything for the poor, or could not do so.
+
+I then began visiting, and discovered what I had in no way expected to
+see. On the one hand, I saw in these dens (as I had at first called
+them) men whom it was impossible for me to help, because they were
+working-men, accustomed to labour and privation, and therefore having a
+much firmer hold on life than I had. On the other hand, I saw miserable
+men whom I could not aid because they were just such as I was myself.
+The majority of the poor whom I saw were wretched, merely because they
+had lost the capacity, desire, and habit of earning their bread; in
+other words, their misery consisted in the fact that they were just like
+myself. Whereas, of poor people to whom it was possible to give
+immediate assistance--those suffering from illness, cold, and hunger,--I
+found none, except the starving Agafia; and I became persuaded that,
+being so far removed from the life of those whom I wished to succour, it
+was almost impossible to find such need as I sought, because all real
+need was attended to by those amongst whom these unhappy creatures
+lived: and my principal conviction now was, that, with money, I could
+never reform that life of misery which these people led.
+
+I was persuaded of this: yet a feeling of shame to leave off all I had
+begun, and self-deception as to my own virtues, made me continue my plan
+for some time longer till it died a natural death; thus, only with great
+difficulty and the help of Iván Fedotitch, I managed to distribute in
+the tavern at Rzhanoff's house the thirty-seven rubles which I
+considered were not my own.
+
+Of course I might have continued this style of thing and have
+transformed it into a kind of charity; and, by importuning those who
+promised to give me money, I might have obtained and distributed more,
+thus comforting myself with the idea of my own excellence: but I became
+convinced on the one hand that we rich people do not wish,--and are also
+unable,--to distribute to the poor a portion of our superfluities (we
+have so many wants ourselves), and that money should not be given to any
+one if we really wish to do good, instead of merely distributing it at
+random as I had done in the Rzhanoff tavern. So I dropped the affair
+entirely and in despair quitted Moscow for my own village.
+
+I intended on returning home to write a pamphlet on my experience, and
+to state why my project had not succeeded. I wanted to justify myself
+from the imputations which resulted from my article on the census; I
+wanted also to denounce society and its heartless indifference; and I
+desired to point out the causes of this town misery, and the necessity
+for endeavouring to remedy it, as well as the means which I thought were
+requisite for this purpose. I began even then to write, and fancied I
+had many very important facts to communicate. But in vain did I rack my
+brain: I could not manage it, notwithstanding the super-abundance of
+material at my command, because of the irritation under which I wrote,
+and because I had not yet learned by experience what was necessary to
+grasp the question rightly; still more because I had not become fully
+conscious of the cause of it all,--a very simple cause, deep-rooted in
+myself. So the pamphlet was not finished at the commencement of the
+present year (1884-1885).
+
+In the matter of moral law we witness a strange phenomenon to which men
+pay too little attention. If I speak to an unlearned man about geology,
+astronomy, history, natural philosophy, or mathematics, he receives the
+information as quite new to him, and never says to me, "There is nothing
+new in what you tell me; every one knows it, and I have known it for a
+long time." But tell a man one of the highest moral truths in the
+simplest manner, in such a way as it has never been before formulated,
+and every ordinary man, particularly one who does not take any interest
+in moral questions, and, above all, one who dislikes them, is sure to
+say, "Who does not know that? It has been always known and expressed."
+And he really believes this. Only those who can appreciate moral truths
+know how to value their elucidation and simplification by a long and
+laborious process, or can prize the transition from a proposition or
+desire at first vaguely understood to a firm and determined expression
+calling for a corresponding change of conduct.
+
+We are all accustomed to consider moral doctrine to be a very insipid
+and dull affair in which there can be nothing new or interesting;
+whereas, in reality, human life, with all its complicated and varied
+actions which seem to have no connection with morals,--political
+activity, activity in the sciences, in the arts, and in commerce,--has
+no other object than to elucidate moral truths more and more, and to
+confirm, simplify, and make them accessible to all.
+
+I recollect once while walking in a street in Moscow I saw a man come
+out and examine the flag-stones attentively; then, choosing one of them,
+he sat down by it and began to scrape and rub it vigorously.
+
+"What is he doing with the pavement?" I wondered; and, having come up
+close to him, I discovered he was a young man from a butcher's shop, and
+was sharpening his knife on the flag-stone. He was not thinking about
+the stones when examining them, and still less while doing his work; he
+was merely sharpening his knife. It was necessary for him to do so in
+order to cut the meat, but to me it seemed that he was doing something
+to the pavement.
+
+In the same way mankind seems to be occupied with commerce, treaties,
+wars, sciences, arts; and yet for them one thing only is important, and
+they do only that,--they are elucidating those moral laws by which they
+live.
+
+Moral laws are already in existence, and mankind has been and is merely
+re-discovering them: this elucidation appears to be unimportant and
+imperceptible to one who has no need of moral law, and who does not
+desire to live by it. Yet this is not only the chief but is the sole
+business of all men. The elucidation is imperceptible in the same way as
+the difference between a sharp knife and a blunt one is imperceptible. A
+knife remains a knife; and one who has not to cut anything with it will
+not notice its edge: but for one who understands that all his life
+depends more or less upon whether his knife is blunt or sharp, every
+improvement in sharpening it is important; and such a man knows that
+there must be no limit to this improvement, and that the knife is only
+really a knife when it is sharp, and when it cuts what it has to cut.
+
+The conviction of this truth flashed upon me when I began to write my
+pamphlet. Previously it seemed to me that I knew everything about my
+subject, that I had a thorough understanding of everything connected
+with those questions which had been awakened in me by the impressions
+made in Liapin's house and during the census; but when I tried to sum
+them up, and to put them on paper, it turned out that the knife would
+not cut, and had to be sharpened: so it is only now after three years
+that I feel my knife is sharp enough for me to cut out what I want. It
+is not that I have learned new things: my thoughts are still the same;
+but they were blunt formerly; they kept diverging in every direction;
+there was no edge to them; nor was anything brought, as it is now, to
+one central point, to one most simple and plain conclusion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+I recollect that during the whole time of my unsuccessful endeavours to
+help the unfortunate inhabitants of Moscow, I felt I was like a man
+trying to help others out of a bog, who was all the time stuck fast in
+it himself. Every effort made me feel the instability of the ground upon
+which I was standing. I felt that I myself was in this bog, but the
+acknowledgement did not help me to look more closely under my feet to
+find out the nature of the ground on which I stood: I kept looking for
+some external means to remedy the evil.
+
+I felt my life was a bad one, and that people ought not to live so; yet
+I did not come to the most natural and obvious conclusion: that I must
+first reform my own mode of life before I could have any conception of
+how to reform others. And so I began at the wrong end, as it were. I was
+living in town, and wished to improve the lives of the men there; but I
+soon became convinced that I had no power to do so; and then I began to
+ponder over the _nature_ of town life and town misery.
+
+I said to myself over and over again, "What is this town life and town
+misery? And why, while living in town, am I unable to help the town
+poor?" The only reply I found was, that I was powerless to do anything
+for them, First, because there were too many collected together in one
+place; Secondly, because none of them were at all like those in the
+country. And again I asked myself, "Why are there so many here, and in
+what do they differ from the country poor?"
+
+To both these questions the answer was the same. The poor are numerous
+in towns because all who have nothing to subsist on in the country are
+collected there round the rich; and their peculiarity is due to the fact
+that they have all come into the towns from the country to get a living.
+(If there are any town poor born there, whose fathers and grandfathers
+were town born, these in their turn originally came there to get a
+living.) But what are we to understand by the expression, "getting a
+living in town"? There is something strange in the expression; it sounds
+like a joke when we reflect on its meaning. How is it that from the
+country,--i.e., from places where there are woods, meadows, corn and
+cattle, where the earth yields the treasures of fertility--men come
+away, to get a living in a place where there are none of these
+advantages, but only stones and dust? What then, do the words, "getting
+a living in town," mean?
+
+Such a phrase is constantly used, both by the employed and their
+employers, as if it were quite clear and intelligible. I remember now
+all the hundreds and thousands of town people living well or ill with
+whom I had spoken about their object in coming here; and all of them,
+without exception, told me they had quitted their villages "to get a
+living"; that "Moscow neither sows nor reaps, yet lives in wealth"; that
+in Moscow there is abundance of everything; and that, therefore, in
+Moscow one may get the money which is needed in the country for corn,
+cottages, horses, and the other essentials of life.
+
+But, in fact, the country is the source of all wealth; there, only, are
+real riches,--corn, woods, horses, and everything necessary. Why go to
+towns, then, to get what is to be had in the country? And why should
+people carry away from the country into the towns the things that are
+necessary for country people,--flour, oats, horses, and cattle?
+
+Hundreds of times I have spoken thus with peasants who live in towns;
+and from my talks with them, and from my own observations, it became
+clear to me that the accumulation of country people in our cities is
+partly _necessary_, because they could not otherwise earn their
+livelihood, and partly voluntary, because they are attracted by the
+temptations of a town life.
+
+It is true that the circumstances of a peasant are such, that, in order
+to satisfy the pecuniary demands made on him in his village, he cannot
+do otherwise than sell that corn and cattle which he knows very well
+will be necessary for himself; and he is compelled, whether he will or
+not, to go to town to earn back what was his own. But it is also true
+that he is attracted to town by the charms of a comparatively easy way
+of getting money, and by the luxury of life there; and, under the
+pretext of earning his living, he goes there in order to have easier
+work and better food, to drink tea three times a day, to dress himself
+smartly, and even to get drunk and lead a dissolute life.
+
+The cause is a simple one; for property passing from the hands of the
+agriculturalists into those of non-agriculturalists accumulates in
+towns. Observe towards autumn how much wealth is gathered together in
+the villages. Then come the demands of taxes, rents, recruiting; then
+the temptations of vodka, marriages, feasts, peddlers, and all sorts of
+other snares; so that in one way or other, this property, all in its
+various forms (sheep, calves, cows, horses, pigs, poultry, eggs, butter,
+hemp, flax, rye, oats, buckwheat, peas, hemp-seed, and flax-seed),
+passes into the hands of strangers, and is taken first to provincial
+towns, and thence to the capitals. A villager is compelled to dispose of
+all these things in order to satisfy the demands made upon him and the
+temptations offered him; and, having thus parted with his goods, he is
+left in want, and must follow where his wealth has been taken; and there
+he tries to earn back the money which is necessary for his most urgent
+needs at home; and so, being partly carried away by these temptations,
+he himself, along with others, makes use of the accumulated wealth.
+
+Everywhere throughout Russia, and, I think, not only in Russia but all
+over the world, the same thing happens. The wealth of the country people
+who produce it passes into the hands of tradespeople, landowners,
+government officials, manufacturers. The men who receive this wealth
+want to enjoy it, and to enjoy it fully they must be in town.
+
+In the country, in the first place, it is difficult for the rich to
+gratify all their desires, owing to the inhabitants being scattered: you
+do not find there the shops, banks, restaurants, theatres, and various
+kinds of public amusements.
+
+Secondly, another of the chief pleasures procured by wealth,--vanity,
+the desire to astonish, to make a display before others,--cannot be
+gratified in the country for the same reason: its inhabitants being too
+scattered. There is no one in the country to appreciate luxury; there is
+no one to astonish. There you may have what you like to embellish your
+dwelling,--pictures, bronze statues, all sorts of carriages, and fine
+toilets,--but there is nobody to look at them or to envy you. The
+peasants do not understand the value of all this, and cannot make head
+or tail of it. Thirdly, luxury in the country is even disagreeable to a
+man who has a conscience, and is an anxiety to a timid person. One feels
+uneasy or ashamed at taking a milk bath, or in feeding puppies with
+milk, when there are children close by needing it; one feels the same in
+building pavilions and gardens among a people who live in cottages
+covered with stable litter, and who have no wood to burn.
+
+There is no one in the village to prevent the stupid, uneducated
+peasants from spoiling our comforts.
+
+Therefore, rich people gather together in towns, and settle near those
+who, in similar positions, have similar desires. In towns, the enjoyment
+of luxuries is carefully protected by a numerous police. The principal
+inhabitants of towns are government officials, round whom all the rich
+people, master-workmen, and artisans have settled. There, a rich man has
+only to think about a thing, and he can get it. It is also more
+agreeable for him to live there, because he can gratify his vanity;
+there are people with whom he may try to compete in luxury, whom he may
+astonish or eclipse. But it is especially pleasant for a wealthy man to
+live in town, because, where his country life was uncomfortable, and
+even somewhat incongruous because of his luxury, in town, on the
+contrary, it would be uncomfortable for him _not_ to live splendidly, as
+his equals in wealth do. What seemed out of place there, appears
+indispensable here.
+
+Rich people collect together in towns, and, under the protection of the
+authorities, enjoy peacefully all that has been brought there by the
+villagers. A countryman often cannot help going to town, where a
+ceaseless round of feasting is going on, where what has been procured
+from the peasants is being spent. He comes into the town to feed on
+those crumbs which fall from the tables of the rich; and partly by
+observing the careless, luxurious, and generally approved mode of living
+of these men, he begins to desire to order his own affairs in such a
+manner that he, too, may be able to work less and avail himself more of
+the labour of others. At last he decides to settle down in the
+neighbourhood of the wealthy, trying by every means in his power to get
+back from them what is necessary for him, and submitting to all the
+conditions which the rich enforce. These country people assist in
+gratifying all the fancies of the wealthy: they serve them in public
+baths, in taverns, as coachmen, and as prostitutes. They manufacture
+carriages, make toys and dresses, and little by little learn from their
+wealthy neighbours how to live like them, not by real labour, but by all
+sorts of tricks, squeezing out from others the money they have
+collected,--and so they become depraved, and are ruined.
+
+It is then this same population, depraved by the wealth of towns, which
+forms that city misery which I wished to relieve, but could not.
+
+Indeed, if one only reflects on the condition of these country folk
+coming to town to earn money to buy bread or to pay taxes, and who see
+everywhere thousands of rubles squandered foolishly, and hundreds very
+easily earned while they have to earn their pence by the hardest of
+labour, one cannot but be astonished that there are still many such
+people at work, and that they do not all have recourse to a more easy
+way of getting money,--trading, begging, vice, cheating, and even
+robbery.
+
+It is only we who join in the ceaseless orgie going on in the towns who
+can get so accustomed to our own mode of life that it seems quite
+natural to us that one fine gentleman should occupy five large rooms
+heated with sufficient firewood to enable twenty families to warm their
+homes and cook their food with. To drive a short distance, we employ two
+thoroughbreds and two men; we cover our inlaid floors with carpets, and
+spend five or ten thousand rubles on a ball, or even twenty-five for a
+Christmas-tree, and so on. Yet a man who needs ten rubles to buy bread
+for his family, or from whom his last sheep has been taken to meet a tax
+of seven rubles which he cannot save by the hardest of labour, cannot
+get accustomed to all this which we imagine must seem quite natural to
+the poor. There are even people _naďve_ enough to say that the poor are
+thankful to us because we feed them by living so luxuriously!
+
+But poor people do not lose their reasoning powers because they are
+poor: they reason quite in the same manner as we do. When we have heard
+that some one has lost a fortune at cards, or squandered ten or twenty
+thousand rubles, the first thought that comes into our minds is: "How
+stupid and bad this man must be to have parted with such a large sum
+without any equivalent; and how well _I_ could have employed this money
+for some building I have long wanted to get done, or for the improvement
+of my estate," and so on.
+
+The poor reason in the same way on seeing how foolishly we waste our
+wealth; all the more forcibly, because this money is needed, not to
+satisfy their _whims_, but for the chief necessaries of life, of which
+they are in want. We are greatly mistaken in thinking that the poor,
+while able to reason thus, still look on unconcernedly at the luxury
+around them.
+
+They have never acknowledged, and never will, that it is right for one
+man to be always idling, and for another to be continually working. At
+first they are astonished and offended; then, looking closer into the
+question, they see that this state of things is acknowledged to be
+legal, and they themselves try to get rid of work, and to take part in
+the feasting. Some succeed in so doing, and acquire similar wanton
+habits; others, little by little, approach such a condition; others
+break down before they reach their object, and, having lost the habit of
+working, fill the night-houses and the haunts of vice.
+
+The year before last we took from the village a young peasant to be our
+butler's assistant. He could not agree with the footman, and was sent
+away; he entered the service of a merchant, pleased his masters, and now
+wears a watch and chain, and has smart boots.
+
+In his place we took another peasant, a married man. He turned out a
+drunkard, and lost money. We took a third: he began to drink, and,
+having drunk all he had, was for a long time in distress in a
+night-lodging-house. Our old cook took to drinking in the town, and fell
+ill. Last year a footman who used formerly to have fits of drunkenness,
+but who, while living in the village kept himself from it for five
+years, came to live in Moscow without his wife (who used to keep him in
+order), began again to drink, and ruined himself. A young boy of our
+village is living as butler's assistant at my brother's. His
+grandfather, a blind old man, came to me while I was living in the
+country, and asked me to persuade this grandson to send ten rubles for
+taxes, because, unless this were done, the cow would have to be sold.
+
+"He keeps telling me that he has to dress himself respectably," said the
+old man. "He got himself long boots, and that ought to be enough; but I
+actually believe he would like to buy a watch!"
+
+In these words the grandfather expressed what he felt was the utmost
+degree of extravagance. And this was really so; for the old man could
+not afford a drop of oil for his food during the whole of Lent, and his
+wood was spoilt because he had not the ruble and a quarter necessary for
+cutting it up. But the old man's irony turned out to be reality. His
+grandson came to me dressed in a fine black overcoat, and in long boots
+for which he had paid eight rubles. Recently he had got ten rubles from
+my brother, and spent them on his boots. And my children, who have known
+the boy from his infancy, told me that he really considers it necessary
+to buy a watch. He is a very good boy, but he considers that he will be
+laughed at for not having one.
+
+This year a housemaid, eighteen years of age, formed an intimacy with
+the coachman, and was sent away. Our old nurse, to whom I related the
+case, reminded me of a girl whom I had quite forgotten. Ten years ago,
+during a short stay in Moscow, she formed an intimacy with a footman.
+She also was sent away, and drifted at last into a house of ill-fame,
+and died in a hospital before she was twenty years of age.
+
+We have only to look around us to become alarmed by the infection which
+(to say nothing of manufactories and workshops existing only to gratify
+our luxury) we directly, by our luxurious town life, spread among those
+very people whom we desire afterwards to help.
+
+Thus, having got at the root of that town misery which I was not able to
+alleviate, I saw that its first cause is in our taking from the
+villagers their necessaries and carrying them to town. The second cause
+is, that in those towns we avail ourselves of what we have gathered from
+the country, and, by our foolish luxury, tempt and deprave the peasants
+who follow us there in order to get back something of what we have taken
+from them in the country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+From another point of view than the one stated, I also came to the same
+conclusion. Recollecting my connection with the town-poor during this
+period, I saw that one cause which prevented me from helping them was
+their insincerity and falseness. They all considered me, not as an
+individual but merely as a means to an end. I felt I could not become
+intimate with them; I thought I did not perhaps understand how to do so;
+but without truthfulness, no help was possible. How can one help a man
+who does not tell all his circumstances? Formerly I accused the poor of
+this (it is so natural to accuse others), but one word spoken by a
+remarkable man, Sutaief, who was then on a visit at my house, cleared up
+the difficulty, and showed me wherein lay the cause of my failure.
+
+I remember that even then what he said made a deep impression on me; but
+I did not understand its full meaning until afterwards. It happened that
+while in the full ardour of my self-deception I was at my sister's
+house, Sutaief being also there; and my sister was questioning me about
+my work.
+
+I was relating it to her; and, as is always the case when one does not
+fully believe in one's own enterprises, I related with great enthusiasm,
+ardour, and at full length, all I had been doing, and all the possible
+results. I was telling her how we should keep our eyes open to what went
+on in Moscow; how we should take care of orphans and old people; how we
+should afford means for impoverished villagers to return to their homes,
+and pave the way to reform the depraved. I explained, that, if we
+succeeded in our undertaking, there would not be in Moscow a single poor
+man who could not find help.
+
+My sister sympathized with me; and while speaking, I kept looking now
+and then at Sutaief; knowing his Christian life, and the importance
+attached by him to works of charity, I expected sympathy from him, and I
+spoke so that he might understand me; for, though I was addressing my
+sister, yet my conversation was really more directed to him.
+
+He sat immovable, dressed in his black-tanned-sheepskin coat, which he,
+like other peasants, wore in-doors as well as out. It seemed that he was
+not listening to us, but was thinking about something else. His small
+eyes gave no responding gleam, but seemed to be turned inwards. Having
+spoken out to my own satisfaction, I turned to him and asked him what he
+thought about it.
+
+"The whole thing is worthless," he replied.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The plan is an empty one, and no good will come of it," he repeated
+with conviction.
+
+"But why will nothing come of it? Why is it a useless business, if we
+help thousands, or even hundreds, of unhappy ones? Is it a bad thing,
+according to the gospel, to clothe the naked, or to feed the hungry?"
+
+"I know, I know; but what you are doing is not that. Is it possible to
+help thus? You are walking in the street; somebody asks you for a few
+kopeks; you give them to him. Is that charity? Do him some spiritual
+good; teach him. What you give him merely says, 'Leave me alone.'"
+
+"No; but that is not what we were speaking of: we wish to become
+acquainted with the wants, and then to help by money and by deeds. We
+will try to find for the poor people some work to do."
+
+"That would be no way of helping them."
+
+"How then? must they be left to die of starvation and cold?"
+
+"Why left to die? How many are there of them?"
+
+"How many?" said I, thinking that he took the matter so lightly from not
+knowing the great number of these men; "you are not aware, I dare say,
+that there are in Moscow about twenty thousand cold and hungry. And
+then, think of those in St. Petersburg and other towns!"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Twenty thousand! And how many households are there in Russia alone?
+Would they amount to a million?"
+
+"Well; but what of that?"
+
+"What of that?" said he, with animation, and his eyes sparkled. "Let us
+unite them with ourselves; I am not rich myself, but will at once take
+two of them. Here is a fellow you settled in your kitchen; I asked him
+to go with me, but he refused. If there were ten times as many, we
+should take them all into our families. You one, I another. We shall
+work together; he will see how I work; he will learn how to live, and we
+shall eat out of one bowl, at one table; and they will hear a good word
+from me, and from you also. That is charity; but all this plan of yours
+is no good."
+
+These plain words made an impression upon me. I could not help
+recognizing that they were true. But it seemed to me then, that,
+notwithstanding the justice of what he said, my proposed plan might
+perhaps be useful also.
+
+But the longer I was occupied with this affair; and the closer my
+intercourse with the poor, the oftener I recollected these words and the
+greater meaning I found in them.
+
+I, indeed, go in an expensive fur coat, or drive in my own carriage to a
+man who is in want of boots: he sees my house which costs two hundred
+rubles a month, or he notices that I give away, without thinking, five
+rubles, only because of a caprice; he is then aware that if I give away
+rubles in such a manner, it is because I have accumulated so many that I
+have a lot to spare which I am not only never in the habit of giving to
+any one, but which I have taken away from others without compunction.
+What can he see in me but one of those persons who have become possessed
+of something which should belong to him? And what other feelings can he
+have towards me than the desire to get back as many as possible of these
+rubles which were taken by me from him and from others?
+
+I should like to become intimate with him, and complain that he is not
+sincere. But I am afraid to sit down upon his bed for fear of lice or
+some infectious disease; I am also afraid to let him come into my room;
+and when he comes to me half-dressed, he has to wait, if fortunate, in
+the entrance-hall, but oftener in the cold porch. And then I say that it
+is all his fault that I cannot become intimate with him, and that he is
+not sincere.
+
+Let the most hard-hearted man sit down to dine upon five courses among
+hungry people who have little or nothing to eat except dry bread, and no
+one could have the heart to eat while these hungry people are around him
+licking their lips.
+
+Therefore, before one can eat well when living among half-starved men,
+the first thing necessary is to hide ourselves from them, and to eat so
+that they may not see us. This is the very thing we do in the first
+place.
+
+I looked into our own mode of life without prejudice, and became aware
+that it was not by chance that closer intercourse with the poor is
+difficult for us, but that we ourselves are intentionally ordering our
+lives in such a way as to make this intercourse impossible. And not only
+this; but, on looking at our lives, or at the lives of rich people from
+without, I saw that all that is considered as the _happiness_ of these
+lives consists in being separated as much as possible from the poor, or
+is in some way or other connected with this desired separation.
+
+In fact, the entire aim of our lives, beginning with food, dress,
+dwelling and cleanliness, and ending with our education, consists in
+placing a gulf between us and them. And we spend nine-tenths of our
+wealth to erect impassable barriers in order to establish this
+distinction and separation.
+
+The first thing a man who has grown rich does is to leave off eating
+with others out of one bowl. He arranges plates for himself and his
+family, and separates himself from the kitchen and the servants. He
+feeds his servants well so that their mouths may not water, and he dines
+alone. But eating alone is dull. He invents whatever he can to improve
+his food, embellish his table; and the very manner of taking food, as at
+dinner-parties, becomes a matter of vanity and pride. His manner of
+eating his food is a means of separating himself from other people. For
+a rich man it is out of the question to invite a poor person to his
+table. One must know how to hand a lady to table, how to bow, how to
+sit, to eat, to use a finger-bowl, all of which the rich alone know how
+to do.
+
+The same holds good with dress.
+
+If a rich man wore ordinary dress,--a jacket, a fur coat, felt shoes,
+leather boots, an undercoat, trousers, a shirt,--he would require very
+little to cover his body and protect it from cold; and, having two fur
+coats, he could not help giving one away to somebody who had none. But
+the wealthy man begins with wearing clothes which consist of many
+separate parts, of use only on particular occasions, and therefore of no
+use to a poor man. The man of fashion must have evening dress-coats,
+waistcoats, frock-coats, patent-leather shoes; his wife must have
+bodices, and dresses which, according to fashion, are made of many
+parts, high-heeled shoes, hunting and travelling jackets, and so on. All
+these articles can be useful only to people in a condition far removed
+from poverty.
+
+And thus dressing also becomes a means of isolation. Fashions make their
+appearance, and are among the chief things which separate the rich man
+from the poor one.
+
+The same thing shows itself more plainly still in our dwellings. In
+order that one person may occupy ten rooms we must manage so that he may
+not be seen by the people who are living by tens in one room.
+
+The richer a man is, the more difficult it is to get at him; the more
+footmen there are between him and people not rich, the more impossible
+it is for him to receive a poor guest, to let him walk on his carpets
+and sit on his satin-covered chairs.
+
+The same thing happens in travelling. A peasant who drives in a cart or
+on a carrier's sledge must be very hard-hearted if he refuses to give a
+pedestrian a lift; he has enough room, and can do it. But the richer the
+carriage is, the more impossible it is to put any one in it besides the
+owner. Some of the most elegant carriages are so narrow as to be termed
+"_egotists_."
+
+The same thing applies to all the modes of living expressed by the word
+"cleanliness." Cleanliness! Who does not know human beings, especially
+women, who make a great virtue of cleanliness? Who does not know the
+various phrases of this cleanliness, which have no limit whatever when
+it is procured by the labour of others? Who among self-made men has not
+experienced in his own person the pains with which he carefully
+accustomed himself to this cleanliness, which illustrates the saying,
+"White hands are fond of another's labour"?
+
+To-day cleanliness consists in changing one's shirt daily; to-morrow it
+will be changed twice a day. At first, one has to wash one's hands and
+neck every day, then one will have to wash one's feet every day, and
+afterwards it will be the whole body, and in peculiar methods. A clean
+table-cloth serves for two days, then it is changed every day, and
+afterwards two table-cloths a day are used. To-day the footman is
+required to have clean hands; to-morrow he must wear gloves, and clean
+gloves, and he must hand the letters on a clean tray.
+
+There are no limits to this cleanliness, which is of no other use to
+anyone except to separate us, and to make our intercourse with others
+impossible while the cleanliness is obtained through the labour of
+others.
+
+Not only so, but when I had deeply reflected upon this, I came to the
+conclusion that what we term education is a similar thing. Language
+cannot deceive: it gives the right name to everything. The common people
+call education fashionable dress, smart conversation, white hands, and a
+certain degree of cleanliness. Of such a man they say, when
+distinguishing him from others, that he is an educated man.
+
+In a little higher circle men denote by education the same things, but
+add playing on the piano, the knowledge of French, good Russian
+spelling, and still greater cleanliness.
+
+In the still higher circle education consists of all this, with the
+addition of English, and a diploma from a high educational
+establishment, and a still greater degree of cleanliness. But in all
+these shades, education is in substance quite the same.
+
+It consists in those forms and various kinds of information which
+separate a man from his fellow-creatures. Its object is the same as that
+of cleanliness: to separate us from the crowd, in order that they,
+hungry and cold, may not see how we feast. But it is impossible to hide
+ourselves, and our efforts are seen through.
+
+Thus I became aware that the reason why it was impossible for us rich
+men to help the town poor was nothing more or less than the
+impossibility of our having closer intercourse with them, and that this
+barrier we ourselves create by our whole life and by all the uses we
+make of our wealth. I became persuaded that between us rich men and the
+poor there stood, erected by ourselves, a barrier of cleanliness and
+education which arose out of our wealth; and that, in order to be able
+to help them, we have first to break down this barrier and to render
+possible the realization of the means suggested by Sutaief: to take the
+poor into our respective homes. And so, as I have already said at the
+beginning of this chapter, I came to the same conclusion from a
+different point of view from that to which the train of thought about
+town misery had led me; viz., the cause of it all lay in our wealth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+I began again to analyze the matter from a third and purely personal
+point of view. Among the phenomena which particularly impressed me
+during my benevolent activity, there was one,--a very strange
+one,--which I could not understand for a long time.
+
+Whenever I happened, in the street or at home, to give a poor person a
+trifling sum without entering into conversation with him, I saw on his
+face, or imagined I saw, an expression of pleasure and gratitude, and I
+myself experienced an agreeable feeling at this form of charity. I saw
+that I had done what was expected of me. But when I stopped and began to
+question the man about his past and present life, entering more or less
+into particulars, I felt it was impossible to give him 3 or 20 kopeks;
+and I always began to finger the money in my purse, and, not knowing how
+much to give, I always gave more under these circumstances; but,
+nevertheless, I saw that the poor man went away from me dissatisfied.
+When I entered into still closer intercourse with him, my doubts as to
+how much I should give increased; and, no matter what I gave, the
+recipient seemed more and more gloomy and dissatisfied.
+
+As a general rule, it always happens that if, upon nearer acquaintance
+with the poor man I gave him three rubles or even more, I always saw
+gloominess, dissatisfaction, even anger depicted on his face; and
+sometimes, after having received from me ten rubles, he has left me
+without even thanking me, as if I had offended him.
+
+In such cases I was always uncomfortable and ashamed, and felt myself
+guilty. When I watched the poor person during weeks, months, or years,
+helped him, expressed my views, and became intimate with him, then our
+intercourse became a torment, and I saw that the man despised me. And I
+felt that he was right in doing so. When in the street a beggar asks me,
+along with other passers-by, for three kopeks, and I give it him, then,
+in his estimation, I am a kind and good man who gives "one of the
+threads which go to make the shirt of a naked one": he expects nothing
+more than a thread, and, if I give it, he sincerely blesses me.
+
+But if I stop and speak to him as man to man, show him that I wish to be
+more than a mere passer-by, and, if, as it often happened, he shed tears
+in relating his misfortune, then he sees in me not merely a chance
+helper, but that which I wish him to see,--a kind man. If I am a kind
+man, my kindness cannot stop at twenty kopeks, or at ten rubles, or ten
+thousand. One cannot be a slightly kind man. Let us suppose that I give
+him much; that I put him straight, dress him, and set him on his legs so
+that he can help himself; but, from some reason or other, either from an
+accident or his own weakness, he again loses the great-coat and clothing
+and money I gave him, he is again hungry and cold, and he again comes to
+me, why should I refuse him assistance? For if the cause of my
+benevolent activity was merely the attainment of some definite, material
+object, such as giving him so many rubles or a certain great-coat, then,
+having given them I could be easy in my mind; but the cause of my
+activity was not this: the cause of it was my desire to be a kind
+man--i.e., to see myself in everybody else. Everyone understands
+kindness in this way, and not otherwise.
+
+Therefore if such a man should spend in drink all you gave him twenty
+times over, and be again hungry and cold, then, if you are a benevolent
+man, you cannot help giving him more money, you can never leave off
+doing so while you have more than he has; but if you draw back, you show
+that all you did before was done not because you are benevolent, but
+because you wish to appear so to others and to him. And it was because I
+had to back out of such cases, and to cease to give, and thus to disown
+the good, that I felt a painful sense of shame.
+
+What was this feeling, then?
+
+I had experienced it in Liapin's house and in the country, and when I
+happened to give money or anything else to the poor, and in my
+adventures among the town people. One case which occurred lately
+reminded me of it forcibly, and led me to discover its cause.
+
+It happened in the country. I wanted twenty kopeks to give to a pilgrim.
+I sent my son to borrow it from somebody. He brought it to the man, and
+told me that he had borrowed it from the cook. Some days after, other
+pilgrims came, and I was again in need of twenty kopeks. I had a ruble.
+I recollected what I owed the cook, went into the kitchen, hoping that
+he would have some more coppers. I said,--
+
+"I owe you twenty kopeks: here is a ruble."
+
+I had not yet done speaking when the cook called to his wife from the
+adjoining room: "Parasha, take it," he said.
+
+Thinking she had understood what I wanted, I gave her the ruble. I must
+tell you that the cook had been living at our house about a week, and I
+had seen his wife, but had never spoken to her. I merely wished to tell
+her to give me the change, when she briskly bowed herself over my hand
+and was about to kiss it, evidently thinking I was giving her the ruble.
+I stammered out something and left the kitchen. I felt ashamed,
+painfully ashamed, as I had not felt for a long time. I actually
+trembled, and felt that I was making a wry face; and, groaning with
+shame, I ran away from the kitchen.
+
+This feeling, which I fancied I had not deserved, and which came over me
+quite unexpectedly, impressed me particularly, because it was so long
+since I had felt anything like it and also because I fancied that I, an
+old man, had been living in a way I had no reason to be ashamed of.
+
+This surprised me greatly. I related the case to my family, to my
+acquaintances, and they all agreed that they also would have felt the
+same. And I began to reflect: Why is it that I felt so?
+
+The answer came from a case which had formerly occurred to me in Moscow.
+I reflected upon this case, and I understood the shame which I felt
+concerning the incident with the cook's wife, and all the sensations of
+shame I had experienced during my charitable activity in Moscow, and
+which I always feel when I happen to give anything beyond trifling alms
+to beggars and pilgrims, which I am accustomed to give, and which I
+consider not as charity, but as politeness and good breeding. If a man
+asks you for a light, you must light a match if you have it. If a man
+begs for three or twenty kopeks, or a few rubles, you must give if you
+have them. It is a question of politeness, not of charity.
+
+The following is the case I referred to. I have already spoken about the
+two peasants with whom I sawed wood three years ago. One Saturday
+evening, in the twilight, I was walking with them back to town. They
+were going to their master to receive their wages. On crossing the
+Dragomilor bridge we met an old man. He begged, and I gave him twenty
+kopeks. I gave, thinking what a good impression my alms would make upon
+Simon, with whom I had been speaking on religious questions.
+
+Simon, the peasant from Vladímir, who had a wife and two children in
+Moscow, also stopped, turned up the lappet of his kaftan, and took out
+his purse; and, after having looked over his money, he picked out a
+three-kopek piece, gave it to the old man, and asked for two kopeks
+back. The old man showed him in his hand two three-kopek pieces and a
+single kopek. Simon looked at it, was about to take one kopek, but,
+changing his mind, took off his cap, crossed himself, and went away,
+leaving the old man the three-kopek piece.
+
+I was acquainted with all Simon's pecuniary circumstances. He had
+neither house nor other property. When he gave the old man the three
+kopeks, he possessed six rubles and fifty kopeks, which he had been
+saving up, and this was all the capital he had.
+
+My property amounted to about six hundred thousand rubles. I had a wife
+and children, so also had Simon. He was younger than I, and had not so
+many children; but his children were young, and two of mine were
+grown-up men, old enough to work, so that our circumstances,
+independently of our property, were alike, though even in this respect I
+was better off than he.
+
+He gave three kopeks, I gave twenty. What was, then, the difference in
+our gifts? What should I have given in order to do as he had done? He
+had six hundred kopeks; out of these he gave one, and then another two.
+I had six hundred thousand rubles. In order to give as much as Simon
+gave, I ought to have given three thousand rubles, and asked the man to
+give me back two thousand; and, in the event of his not having change,
+to leave him these two also, cross myself, and go away calmly,
+conversing about how people live in the manufactories, and what is the
+price of liver in the Smolensk market.
+
+I thought about it at the time, but it was long before I was able to
+draw from this case the conclusion which inevitably follows from it.
+This conclusion appears to be so uncommon and strange, notwithstanding
+its mathematical accuracy, that it requires time to get accustomed to
+it. One is inclined to think there is some mistake, but there is none.
+It is only the terrible darkness of prejudice in which we live.
+
+This conclusion, when I arrived at it and recognized its inevitableness,
+explained to me the nature of my feelings of shame in the presence of
+the cook's wife, and before all the poor to whom I gave and still give
+money. Indeed, what is that money which I give to the poor, and which
+the cook's wife thought I was giving her? In the majority of cases it
+forms such a minute part of my income that it cannot be expressed in a
+fraction comprehensible to Simon or to a cook's wife,--it is in most
+cases a millionth part or thereabout. I give so little that my gift is
+not, and cannot be, a sacrifice to me: it is only a something with which
+I amuse myself when and how it pleases me. And this was indeed how my
+cook's wife had understood me. If I gave a stranger in the street a
+ruble or twenty kopeks, why should I not give her also a ruble? To her,
+such a distribution of money is the same thing as a gentleman throwing
+gingerbread nuts into a crowd. It is the amusement of people who possess
+much "fool's money." I was ashamed, because the mistake of the cook's
+wife showed me plainly what ideas she and all poor people must have of
+me. "He is throwing away 'fool's money'"; that is, money not earned by
+him.
+
+And, indeed, what is my money, and how did I come by it? One part of it
+I collected in the shape of rent for my land, which I had inherited from
+my father. The peasant sold his last sheep or cow in order to pay it.
+
+Another part of my money I received from the books I had written. If my
+books are harmful, and yet sell, they can only do so by some seductive
+attraction, and the money which I receive for them is badly earned
+money; but if my books are useful, the thing is still worse. I do not
+give them to people, but say, "Give me so many rubles, and I will sell
+them to you."
+
+As in the former case a peasant sells his last sheep, here a poor
+student or a teacher does it: each poor person who buys denies himself
+some necessary thing in order to give me this money. And now that I have
+gathered much of such money what am I to do with it? I take it to town,
+give it to the poor only when they satisfy all my fancies and come to
+town to clean pavements, lamps, or boots, to work for me in the
+factories, and so on. And with this money I draw from them all I can. I
+try to give them as little as I can and take from them as much as
+possible.
+
+Now, quite unexpectedly, I begin to share all this said money with these
+same poor persons for nothing; but not with everyone, only as fancy
+prompts me. And why should not every poor man expect that his turn might
+come to-day to be one of those with whom I amuse myself by giving them
+my "fool's money"?
+
+So everyone regards me as the cook's wife did. And I had gone about with
+the notion that this was charity,--this taking away thousands with one
+hand, and with the other throwing kopeks to those I select!
+
+No wonder I was ashamed. But before I can begin to do good I must leave
+off the evil and put myself in a position in which I should cease to
+cause it. But all my course of life is evil. If I were to give away a
+hundred thousand, I should not yet have put myself in a condition in
+which I could do good, because I have still five hundred thousand left.
+
+It is only when I possess nothing at all that I shall be able to do a
+little good; such as, for instance, the poor prostitute did who nursed a
+sick woman and her child for three days. Yet this seemed to me to be but
+so little! And _I_ ventured to think of doing good! One thing only was
+true, which I at first felt on seeing the hungry and cold people outside
+Liapin's house,--that _I_ was guilty of that; and that to live as I did
+was impossible, utterly impossible. What shall we do then? If somebody
+still needs an answer to this question, I will, by God's permission,
+give one, in detail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+It was hard for me to own this; but when I had got so far I was
+terrified at the delusion in which I had been living. I had been head
+over ears in the mud myself, and yet I had been trying to drag others
+out of it.
+
+What is it that I really want? I want to do good; I want to contrive so
+that no human beings shall be hungry and cold, and that men may live as
+it is proper for them to live. I desire this; and I see that in
+consequence of all sorts of violence, extortions, and various expedients
+in which I too take part, the working people are deprived of the
+necessary things, and the non-working community, to whom I also belong,
+monopolize the labour of others. I see that this use of other people's
+labour is distributed thus: That the more cunning and complicated the
+devices employed by the man himself (or by those from whom he has
+inherited his property), the more largely he employs the labours of
+other people, and the less he works himself.
+
+First come the millionaires; then the wealthy bankers, merchants,
+land-owners, government officials; then the smaller bankers, merchants,
+government officials and land-owners, to whom I belong too; then
+shopmen, publicans, usurers, police sergeants and inspectors, teachers,
+sacristans, clerks; then, again, house-porters, footmen, coachmen,
+water-carters, cabmen, pedlers; and then, last of all, the workmen,
+factory hands and peasants, the number of this class in proportion to
+the former being as ten to one.
+
+I see that the lives of nine-tenths of the working people essentially
+require exertion and labour, like every other natural mode of living;
+but that, in consequence of the devices by which the necessaries of life
+are taken away from these people, their lives become every year more
+difficult, and more beset with privations; and our lives, the lives of
+the non-labouring community, owing to the co-operation of sciences and
+arts which have this very end in view, become every year more sumptuous,
+more attractive and secure.
+
+I see that in our days the life of a labouring man, and especially the
+lives of the old people, women, and children of the working-classes, are
+quite worn away by increased labour out of proportion to their
+nourishment, and that even the very first necessaries of life are not
+secured for them. I see that side by side with these the lives of the
+non-labouring class, to which I belong, are each year more and more
+filled up with superfluities and luxury, and are becoming continually
+more secure. The lives of the wealthy have reached that degree of
+security of which in olden times men only dreamed in fairy-tales, to the
+condition of the owner of the magic purse with the "inexhaustible
+ruble"; to a state where a man not only is entirely free from the law of
+labour for the sustenance of his life, but has the possibility of
+enjoying all the goods of this life without working, and of bequeathing
+to his children, or to anyone he chooses, this purse with the
+"inexhaustible ruble."
+
+I see that the results of the labour of men pass over more than ever
+from the masses of labourers to those of the non-labourers; that the
+pyramid of the social structure is, as it were, being rebuilt, so that
+the stones of the foundation pass to the top, and the rapidity of this
+passage increases in a kind of geometric progression.
+
+I see that there is going on something like what would take place in an
+ant-hill if the society of ants should lose the sense of the general
+law, and some of them were to take the results of labour out of the
+foundations and carry them to the top of the hill, making the foundation
+narrower and narrower and thus enlarging the top, and so by that means
+cause their fellows to pass also from the foundation to the top.
+
+I see that instead of the ideal of a laborious life, men have created
+the ideal of the purse with the "inexhaustible ruble." The rich, I among
+their number, arrange this ruble for themselves by various devices; and
+in order to enjoy it we locate ourselves in towns, in a place where
+nothing is produced but everything is swallowed up.
+
+The poor labouring man, swindled so that the rich may have this magic
+ruble, follows them to town; and there he also has recourse to tricks,
+either arranging matters so that he may work little and enjoy much (thus
+making the condition of other workingmen still more heavy), or, not
+having attained this state, he ruins himself and drifts into the
+continually and rapidly increasing number of cold and hungry tenants of
+doss-houses.
+
+I belong to the class of those men who by means of these various devices
+take away from the working people the necessaries of life, and who thus,
+as it were, create for themselves the inexhaustible fairy ruble which
+tempts in turn these unfortunate ones.
+
+I wish to help men; and therefore it is clear that first of all I ought
+on the one side to cease to plunder them as I am doing now, and on the
+other to leave off tempting them. But by means of most complicated,
+cunning, and wicked contrivances practised for centuries, I have made
+myself the owner of this ruble; that is, have got into a condition
+where, never doing anything myself, I can compel hundreds and thousands
+of people to work for me, and I am really availing myself of this
+privileged monopoly notwithstanding that all the time I imagine I pity
+these men and wish to help them.
+
+I sit on the neck of a man, and having quite crushed him down compel him
+to carry me and will not alight from off his shoulders, though I assure
+myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his
+condition by every means in my power--except by getting off his back.
+
+Surely this is plain. If I wish to help the poor, that is, to make the
+poor cease to be poor, I ought not to create the poor. Yet I give money
+capriciously to those who have gone astray, and take away tens of rubles
+from men who have not yet become bad, thereby making them poor and at
+the same time depraved.
+
+This is very clear; but it was exceedingly difficult for me to
+understand at first, without some modification or reserve which would
+justify my position. However as soon as I come to see my own error, all
+that formerly appeared strange, complicated, clouded, and inexplicable,
+became quite simple and intelligible; but the important matter was, that
+the direction of my life indicated by this explanation, became at once,
+simple, clear, and agreeable, instead of being, as formerly, intricate,
+incomprehensible, and painful.
+
+Who am I, I thought, that desire to better men's condition? I say I
+desire this, and yet I do not get up till noon, after having played
+cards in a brilliantly lighted saloon all night,--I, an enfeebled and
+effeminate man requiring the help and services of hundreds of people, I
+come to help them! to help these men who rise at five, sleep on boards,
+feed on cabbage and bread, understand how to plough, to reap, to put a
+handle to an axe, to hew, to harness horses, to sew; men who, by their
+strength and perseverance and skill and self-restraint are a hundred
+times stronger than I who come to help them.
+
+What _could_ I experience in my intercourse with these people but shame?
+The weakest of them, a drunkard, an inhabitant of Rzhanoff's house, he
+whom they call "the sluggard," is a hundred times more laborious than I;
+his balance, so to say,--in other words the relation between what he
+takes from men and what he gives to them,--is a thousand times more to
+his credit than mine when I count what I receive from others and what I
+give them in return. And such men I go to assist!
+
+I go to help the poor. But of the two who is the poorer? No one is
+poorer than myself. I am a weak, good-for-nothing parasite who can only
+exist under very peculiar conditions, can live only when thousands of
+people labour to support this life which is not useful to anyone. And I,
+this very caterpillar which eats up the leaves of a tree, I wish to help
+the growth and the health of the tree and to cure it!
+
+All my life is spent thus: I eat, talk, and listen; then I eat, write,
+or read, which are only talking and listening in another form; I eat
+again, and play; then eat, talk, and listen, and finally eat and go to
+sleep: and thus every day is spent; I neither do anything else nor
+understand how to do it. And in order that I may enjoy this life it is
+necessary that from morning till night house-porters, dvorniks, cooks
+(male and female), footmen, coachmen, and laundresses, should work; to
+say nothing of the manual labour necessary so that the coachmen, cooks,
+footmen, and others may have the instruments and articles by which and
+upon which they work for me,--axes, casks, brushes, dishes, furniture,
+glasses, shoe-black, kerosene, hay, wood, and food. All these men and
+women work hard all the day and every day in order that I may talk, eat,
+and sleep. And I, this useless man, imagined I was able to benefit the
+very people who were serving me! That I did not benefit any one and that
+I was ashamed of myself, is not so strange as the fact that such a
+foolish idea ever came into my mind.
+
+The woman who nursed the sick old man helped him; the peasant's wife,
+who cut a slice of her bread earned by herself, from the very sowing of
+the corn that made it, helped the hungry one; Simon, who gave three
+kopeks which he had earned, assisted the pilgrim, because these three
+kopeks really represented his labour; but I had served nobody, worked
+for no one, and knew very well that my money did not represent my
+labour.
+
+And so I felt that in money, or in money's worth, and in the possession
+of it, there was something wrong and evil; that the money itself, and
+the fact of my having it, was one of the chief causes of those evils
+which I had seen before me; and I asked myself, What is money?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Money! Then what is money?
+
+It is answered, money represents labour. I meet educated people who even
+assert that money represents labour performed by those who possess it. I
+confess that I myself formerly shared this opinion, although I did not
+very clearly understand it. But now it became necessary for me to learn
+thoroughly what money is.
+
+In order to do so, I addressed myself to science. Science says that
+money in itself is neither unjust nor pernicious; that money is the
+natural result of the conditions of social life, and is indispensable,
+first, for convenience of exchange; secondly, as a measure of value;
+thirdly, for saving; and fourthly, for payments.
+
+The fact that when I have in my pocket three rubles to spare, which I am
+not in need of, I have only to whistle and in every civilized town I can
+obtain a hundred people ready for these three rubles to do the worst,
+most disgusting, and humiliating act I require, it is said, comes not
+from money, but from the very complicated conditions of the economical
+life of nations!
+
+The dominion of one man over others does not come from money, but from
+the circumstance that a workingman does not receive the full value of
+his labour; and the fact that he does not get the full value of his
+labour depends upon the nature of capital, rent, and wages, and upon
+complicated connections between the distribution and consumption of
+wealth.
+
+In plain language, it means that people who have money may twist round
+their finger those who have none. But science says that this is an
+illusion; that in every kind of production three factors take
+part,--land, savings of labour (capital), and labour, and that the
+dominion of the few over the many proceeds from the various connections
+between these factors of production, because the two first factors, land
+and capital, are not in the hands of working people; and from this fact
+and from the various combinations which result from it this domination
+proceeds.
+
+Whence comes the great power of money, which strikes us all with a sense
+of its injustice and cruelty? Why is one man, by the means of money, to
+have dominion over others? Science says, "It comes from the division of
+the factors of production, and from the consequent combinations which
+oppress the worker."
+
+This answer has always appeared to me to be strange, not only because it
+leaves one part of the question unnoticed (namely, the significance of
+money), but also because of the division of the factors of production,
+which to an unprejudiced man will always appear artificial and out of
+touch with reality. Science asserts that in every production three
+agents come into operation,--land, capital and labour; and along with
+this division it is understood that property (or its value in money) is
+naturally divided among those who possess one of these agents; thus,
+rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the land-owner; interest
+belongs to the capitalist; and wages to the worker.
+
+Is this really so?
+
+First, is it true that in every production only three agencies operate?
+Now, while I am writing proceeds the production of hay around me. Of
+what is this production composed? I am told of the land which produces
+the grass; of capital (scythes, rakes, pitch-forks, carts which are
+necessary for the housing of the hay); and of labour. But I see that
+this is not true. Besides the land, there is the sun and rain; and, in
+addition, social order, which has been keeping these meadows from any
+damage which might be caused by letting stray cattle graze upon them,
+the skill of workmen, their knowledge of language, and many other
+agencies of production,--which, for some unknown reason, are not taken
+into consideration by political economy.
+
+The power of the sun is as necessary as the land, even more. I may
+mention the instances when men (in a town, for example), assume the
+right to keep out the sun from others by means of walls or trees. Why,
+then, is the sun not included among the factors of production?
+
+Rain is another means as necessary as the ground itself. The air too. I
+can imagine men without water and pure air because other men had assumed
+to themselves the right to monopolise these essential necessaries of
+all. Public security is likewise a necessary element. Food and dress for
+workmen are similar factors in production; this is even recognized by
+some economists. Education, the knowledge of language which creates the
+possibility to apply work, is likewise an agent. I could fill a volume
+by enumerating such combinations, not mentioned by science.
+
+Why, then, are three only to be chosen, and laid as a foundation for the
+science of political economy? Sunshine and water equally with the earth
+are factors in production, so with the food and clothes of the workers,
+and the transmission of knowledge. All may be taken as distinct factors
+in production. Simply because the right of men to enjoy the rays of the
+sun, rain, food, language, and audience, are challenged only on rare
+occasions; but the use of land and of the instruments of labour are
+constantly challenged in society.
+
+This is the true foundation; and the division of the factors of
+production into three, is quite arbitrary, and is not involved in the
+nature of things. But it may perhaps be urged that this division is so
+suitable to man, that wherever economic relationships are formed these
+three factors appear at once and alone.
+
+Let us see whether this is really so.
+
+First of all, I look at what is around me,--at Russian colonists, of
+whom millions have for ages existed. They come to a land, settle
+themselves on it, and begin to work; and it does not enter the mind of
+any of them that a man who does not use the land can have any claim to
+it,--and the land does not assert any rights of its own. On the
+contrary, the colonists conscientiously recognize the communism of the
+land and the right of every one of them to plough and to mow wherever he
+likes.
+
+For cultivation, for gardening, for building houses, the colonists
+obtain various implements of labour: nor does it enter the mind of any
+of them that these instruments of labour may be allowed to bring profit
+in themselves, and the capital does not assert any rights of its own. On
+the contrary, the colonists consciously recognize among themselves that
+all interest for tools, or borrowed corn or capital, is unjust.
+
+They work upon a free land, labour with their own tools, or with those
+borrowed without interest, each for himself, or all together, for common
+business; and in such a community, it is impossible to prove either the
+existence of rent, interest accruing from capital, or remuneration for
+labour.
+
+In referring to such a community I am not indulging my fancy but
+describing what has always taken place, not only among Russian
+colonists, but everywhere, as long as human nature is not sinned
+against.
+
+I am describing what appears to everyone to be natural and rational. Men
+settle on land, and each member undertakes the business which suits him,
+and, having procured the necessary tools, does his own work.
+
+If these men find it more convenient to work together, they form a
+workmen's association. But neither in separate households, nor in
+associations, will separate agents of production appear till men
+artificially and forcibly divide them. There will be simply labour and
+the necessary conditions of labour,--the sun which warms all, the air
+which they breathe, water which they drink, land on which they labour,
+clothes on the body, food in the stomach, stakes, shovels, ploughs,
+machines with which they work. And it is evident that neither the rays
+of the sun, nor the clothes on the body, nor the stakes, nor the spade,
+nor the plough, with which each man works, nor the machines with which
+they labour in the workmen's association, can belong to anyone else than
+those who enjoy the rays of the sun, breathe the air, drink the water,
+eat the bread, clothe their bodies, and labour with the spade or with
+the machines, because all these are necessary only for those who use
+them. And when men act thus, we see they act rationally.
+
+Therefore, observing all the economic conditions created among men, I do
+not see that division into three is natural. I see, on the contrary,
+that it is neither natural nor rational.
+
+But perhaps the setting apart of these three does not occur in primitive
+societies, only when the population increases and cultivation begins to
+develop it is unavoidable. And we cannot but recognise the fact that
+this division has occurred in European society.
+
+Let us see whether it is really so.
+
+We are told that in European society this division of agencies has been;
+that is, that one man possesses land, another accomplished the
+instruments of labour, and the third is without land and instruments.
+
+We have grown so accustomed to this assertion that we are no longer
+struck by the strangeness of it. But in this assertion lies an inner
+contradiction. The conception of a labouring man, includes the land on
+which he lives and the tools with which he works. If he did not live on
+the land and had no tools he would not be a labourer. A workman deprived
+of land and tools never existed and never can exist. There cannot be a
+bootmaker without a house for his work built on land, without water,
+air, and tools to work with.
+
+If the peasant has no land, horse, water or scythe; if the bootmaker is
+without a house, water, or awl, then that means that some one has driven
+him from the ground, or taken it from him, and has cheated him out of
+his scythe, cart, horse, or awl; but it does not in any way mean that
+there can be country labourers without scythes or bootmakers without
+tools.
+
+As you cannot think of a fisherman on dry land without fishing
+implements, unless you imagine him driven away from the water by some
+one who has taken his fishing implements from him; so also you cannot
+picture a workman without land on which to live, and without tools for
+his trade, unless somebody has driven him from the former, or robbed him
+of the latter.
+
+There may be men who are hunted from one place to another, and who,
+having been robbed, are compelled perforce to work for another man and
+make things necessary for themselves, but this does not mean that such
+is the nature of production. It means only that in such case, the
+natural conditions of production are violated.
+
+But if we are to consider as factors of production all of which a
+workman may be deprived by force, why not count among these the claim on
+the person of a slave? Why not count claims on the rain and the rays of
+the sun?
+
+One man might build a wall and so keep the sun from his neighbour;
+another might come who would turn the course of a river through his own
+pond and so contaminate its water; or claim a fellow-being as his own
+property. But none of these claims, although enforced by violence, can
+be recognised as a basis. It is therefore as wrong to accept the
+artificial rights to land and tools as separate factors in production,
+as to recognise as such the invented rights to use sunshine, air, water,
+or the person of another.
+
+There may be men who claim the land and the tools of a workman, as there
+were men who claimed the persons of others, and as there may be men who
+assert their rights to the exclusive use of the rays of the sun, or of
+water and air. There may be men who drive away a workman from place to
+place, taking from him by force the products of his labour as they are
+produced, and the very instruments of its production, who compel him to
+work, not for himself, but for his master, as in the factories;--all
+this is possible; but the conception of a workman without land and tools
+is still an impossibility, as much as that a man can willingly become
+the property of another, notwithstanding men have claimed other men for
+many generations.
+
+And as the claim of property in the person of another cannot deprive a
+slave of his innate right to seek his own welfare and not that of his
+master; so, too, the claim to the exclusive possession of land and the
+tools of others cannot deprive the labourer of his inherent rights as a
+man to live on the land and to work with his own tools, or with communal
+tools, as he thinks most useful for himself.
+
+All that science can say in examining the present economic question, is
+this: that in Europe certain claims to the land and the tools of workmen
+are made, in consequence of which, for some of these workmen (but by no
+means for all of them), the proper conditions of production are
+violated, so that they are deprived of land and implements of labour and
+compelled to work with the tools of others. But it is certainly not
+established that this accidental violation of the law of production is
+the fundamental law itself.
+
+In saying that this separate consideration of the factors is the
+fundamental law of production, the economist is doing the very thing a
+zoölogist would do, if on seeing a great many siskins with their wings
+cut, and kept in little cages, he should assert that this was the
+essential condition of the life of birds, and that their life is
+composed of such conditions.
+
+However many siskins there may be, kept in paste-board houses, with
+their wings cut, a zoölogist cannot say that these, and a tiny pail of
+water running up rails, are the conditions of the birds' lives. And
+however great the number of workpeople there may be, driven from place
+to place, and deprived of their productions as well as their tools, the
+natural right of man to live on the land, and to work with his own
+tools, is essential to him, and so it will remain forever.
+
+Of course there are some who lay claim to the land and to the tools of
+workmen, just as in former ages there were some who laid claim to the
+persons of others; but there can be no real division of men into lords
+and slaves--as they wanted to establish in the ancient world--any more
+than there can be any real division in the agents of production (land
+and capital, etc.), as the economists are trying to establish.
+
+These unlawful claims on the liberty of other men, science calls "the
+natural conditions of production." Instead of taking its fundamental
+principles from the natural properties of human societies, science took
+them from a special case; and desiring to justify this case, it
+recognized the right of some men to the land on which other men earn
+their living, and to the tools with which others again work; in other
+words, it recognized as a right something which had never existed, and
+cannot exist, and which is in itself a contradiction, because the claim
+of the man to the land on which he does not labour, is in essence
+nothing else than the right to use the land which he does not use; the
+claim on the tools of others is nothing else than the assumption of a
+right to work with implements with which a man does not work.
+
+Science, by dividing the factors of production, declares that the
+natural condition of a workman--that is, of a man in the true sense of
+the word--is the unnatural condition in which he lives at present, just
+as in ancient times, by the division of men into citizens and slaves, it
+was asserted that the unnatural condition of slavery was the natural
+condition of life.
+
+This very division, which science has accepted only for the purpose of
+justifying the existing injustice, and the recognition of this division
+as the foundation of all its inquiries, is responsible for the fact that
+science vainly tries to explain existing phenomena and, denying the
+clearest and plainest answers to the questions that arise, gives answers
+which have absolutely no meaning in them.
+
+The question of economic science is this: What is the cause of the fact
+that some men, by means of money, acquire an imaginary right to land and
+capital, and may make slaves of those who have no money? The answer
+which presents itself to common sense is, that it is the result of
+money, the nature of which is to enslave men.
+
+But economic science denies this, and says: This arises, not from the
+nature of money, but from the fact that some men have land and capital,
+and others have neither.
+
+We ask: Why do persons who possess land and capital oppress those who
+possess neither? And we are answered: Because they possess land and
+capital.
+
+But this is just what we are inquiring about. Is not deprivation of land
+and tools enforced slavery? And the answer is like saying, "A remedy is
+narcotic because its effects are narcotic." Life does not cease to put
+this essential question, and even science herself notices and tries to
+answer it, but does not succeed, because, starting from her own
+fundamental principles, she only turns herself round in a vicious
+circle.
+
+In order to give itself a satisfactory answer to the question, science
+must first of all deny that wrong division of the agents of production,
+and cease to acknowledge the result of the phenomena as being their
+cause; and she must seek, first the more obvious, and then the remoter,
+causes of those phenomena which constitute the matter questioned.
+
+Science must answer the question, Why are some men deprived of land and
+tools while others possess both? or, Why is it that lands and tools are
+taken from the people who labour on the land and work with the tools?
+
+And as soon as economic science puts this question to herself she will
+get new ideas which will transform all the previous ideas of sham
+science,--which has been moving in an unalterable circle of
+propositions,--that the miserable condition of the workers proceeds from
+the fact that they are miserable.
+
+To simple-minded persons it must seem unquestionable that the obvious
+reason of the oppression of some men by others is money. But science,
+denying this, says that money is only a medium of exchange, which has no
+connection with slavery of men.
+
+Let us see whether it is so or not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+What is the origin of money? What are the conditions under which nations
+always have money, and under what circumstances need nations not use
+money?
+
+There are small tribes in Africa, and one in Australia, who live as the
+Sknepies and the Drevlyans lived in olden times. These tribes lived by
+breeding cattle and cultivating gardens. We become acquainted with them
+at the dawn of history, and history begins by recording the fact that
+some invaders appear on the scene. And invaders always do the same
+thing: they take away from the aborigines everything they can
+take,--cattle, corn, and cloth; they even make prisoners, male and
+female, and carry them away.
+
+In a few years the invaders appear again, but the people have not yet
+got over the consequences of their first misfortunes, and there is
+scarcely anything to take from them; so the invaders invent new and
+better means of making use of their victims.
+
+These methods are very simple, and present themselves naturally to the
+mind of all men. The _first_ is personal slavery. There is a drawback to
+this, because the invaders must take over the entire control and
+administration of the tribe, and feed all the slaves; hence, naturally,
+there appears the _second_. The people are left on their own land, but
+this becomes the recognized property of the invaders, who portion it out
+among the leading military men, by whose means the labour of the tribe
+is utilized and transferred to the conquerors.
+
+But this, too, has its drawback. It is inconvenient to have to oversee
+all the production of the conquered people, and thus the _third_ means
+is introduced, as primitive as the two former; this is, the levying of a
+certain obligatory tax to be paid by the conquered at stated periods.
+
+The object of conquest is to take from the conquered the greatest
+possible amount of the product of their labour. It is evident, that, in
+order to do this, the conquerors must take the articles which are the
+most valuable to the conquered, and which at the same time are not
+cumbersome, and are convenient for keeping,--skins of animals, and gold.
+
+So the conquerors lay upon the family or the tribe a tax in these skins
+or gold, to be paid at fixed times; and thus, by means of this tribute,
+they utilize the labour of the conquered people in the most convenient
+way.
+
+When the skins and the gold have been taken from the original owners,
+they are compelled to sell all they have amongst themselves to obtain
+more gold and skins for their masters; that is, they have to sell their
+property and their labour.
+
+So it was in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and so it occurs now. In
+the ancient world, where the subjugation of one people by another was
+frequent, personal slavery was the most widespread method of
+subjugation, and the centre of gravity in this compulsion, owing to the
+non-recognition of the equality of men. In the Middle Ages,
+feudalism--land-ownership and the servitude connected with it--partly
+takes the place of personal slavery, and the centre of compulsion is
+transferred from persons to land. In modern times, since the discovery
+of America, the development of commerce, and the influx of gold (which
+is accepted as a universal medium of exchange), the money tribute has
+become, with the increase of state power, the chief instrument for
+enslaving men, and upon this all economic relations are now based.
+
+In "The Literary Miscellany" there is an article by Professor Yanjoul in
+which he describes the recent history of the Fiji Islands. If I were
+trying to find the most pointed illustration of how in our day the
+compulsory money payment became the chief instrument in enslaving some
+men by others, I could not imagine anything more striking and convincing
+than this trustworthy history,--history based upon documents of facts
+which are of recent occurrence.
+
+In the South-Sea Islands, in Polynesia, lives a race called the Fiji.
+The group on which they live, says Professor Yanjoul, is composed of
+small islands, which altogether comprise about forty thousand square
+miles. Only half of these islands are inhabited, by a hundred and fifty
+thousand natives and fifteen hundred white men. The natives were
+reclaimed from savagery a long time ago, and were distinguished among
+the other natives of Polynesia by their intellectual capacities. They
+appear to be capable of labour and development, which they proved by the
+fact that within a short period they became good workmen and cattle
+breeders.
+
+The inhabitants were well-to-do, but in the year 1859 the condition of
+their state became desperate: the nation and its representative, Kakabo,
+were in need of money. This money, forty-five thousand dollars, was
+wanted as compensation or indemnification demanded of them by the United
+States of America for violence said to have been done by Fijis to some
+citizens of the American Republic.
+
+To collect this, the Americans sent a squadron, which unexpectedly
+seized some of the best islands under the pretext of guaranty, and
+threatened to bombard and ruin the towns if the indemnification were not
+paid over on a certain date to the representatives of America.
+
+The Americans were among the first colonists who came to the Fiji
+Islands with the missionaries. They chose and (under one pretext or
+another) took possession of the best pieces of land on the islands, and
+established there cotton and coffee plantations. They hired whole crowds
+of natives, binding them by contracts unknown to this half-civilized
+race, or they acted through special contractors and dealers of human
+merchandise.
+
+Misunderstandings between these master planters and the natives, whom
+they considered almost as slaves, were unavoidable, and it was some of
+these quarrels which served as a pretext for the American
+indemnification.
+
+Notwithstanding their prosperity the Fijis had preserved almost up to
+that time the forms of the so-called natural economy which existed in
+Europe during the Middle Ages: money was scarcely in circulation among
+them, and their trade was almost exclusively on the barter basis,--one
+merchandise being exchanged for another, and the few social taxes and
+those of the state being paid in rural products. What could the Fijis
+and their King Kakabo do, when the Americans demanded forty-five
+thousand dollars under terrible threats in the event of nonpayment? To
+the Fijis the very figures seemed inconceivable, to say nothing of the
+money itself, which they had never seen in such large quantities. After
+deliberating with other chiefs, Kakabo made up his mind to apply to the
+Queen of England, at first merely asking her to take the islands under
+her protection, but afterwards requesting definite annexation.
+
+But the English regarded this request cautiously, and were in no hurry
+to assist the half-savage monarch out of his difficulty. Instead of
+giving a direct answer, they sent special commissioners to make
+inquiries about the Fiji Islands in 1860, in order to be able to decide
+whether it was worth while to annex them to the British Possessions, and
+to lay out money to satisfy the American claims.
+
+Meanwhile the American Government continued to insist upon payment, and
+as a pledge held in their _de facto_ dominion some of the best parts,
+and, having looked closely into the national wealth, raised their former
+claim to ninety thousand dollars, threatening to increase it still more
+if Kakabo did not pay at once.
+
+Being thus pushed on every side, and knowing nothing of European means
+of credit accommodation, the poor king, acting on the advice of European
+colonists, began to try to raise money in Melbourne among the merchants,
+cost what it might, if even he should be obliged to yield his kingdom
+into private hands.
+
+So in consequence of his application a commercial society was formed in
+Melbourne. This joint-stock company, which took the name of the
+"Polynesian Company," formed a treaty with the chiefs of the
+Fiji-Islanders on the most advantageous terms. It took over the debt to
+the American Government, pledging itself to pay it by several
+instalments; and for this the company received, according to the first
+treaty, one, and then two hundred thousand acres of the best land,
+selected by itself; perpetual immunity from all taxes and dues for all
+its factories, operations, and colonies, and the exclusive right for a
+long period to establish banks in the Fiji Islands, with the privilege
+of issuing unlimited notes.
+
+This treaty was definitely concluded in the year 1868, and there has
+appeared in the Fiji Islands, side by side with the local government, of
+which Kakabo is the head, another powerful authority,--a commercial
+organization, with large estates over all the islands, exercising a
+powerful influence upon the government.
+
+Up to this time the wants of the government of Kakabo had been satisfied
+with a payment in local products, and a small custom tax on goods
+imported. But with the conclusion of the treaty and the formation of the
+influential "Polynesian Company," the king's financial circumstances had
+changed.
+
+A considerable part of the best land in his dominion having passed into
+the hands of the company, his income from the land had therefore
+diminished; on the other hand the income from the custom taxes also
+diminished, because the company had obtained for itself the right to
+import and export all kinds of goods free of duties.
+
+The natives--ninety-nine per cent. of the population--had never paid
+much in custom duties, as they bought scarcely any of the European
+productions except some stuffs and hardware; and now, from the freeing
+of custom duties of many well-to-do Europeans along with the Polynesian
+Company, the income of King Kakabo was reduced to _nil_, and he was
+obliged to take steps to resuscitate it if possible.
+
+He began to consult his white friends as to the best way to remedy the
+trouble, and they advised him to create the first direct tax in the
+country; and, in order, I suppose, to have less trouble about it, to
+make it in money. The tax was established in the form of a general
+poll-tax, amounting to one pound for every man, and to four shillings
+for every woman, throughout the islands.
+
+As I have already said, there still exists on the Fiji Islands a natural
+economy and a trade by barter. Very few natives possess money. Their
+wealth consists chiefly of raw products and cattle; whilst the new tax
+required the possession of considerable sums of money at fixed times.
+
+Up to that date a native had not been accustomed to any individual
+burden in the interests of his government, except personal obligations;
+all the taxes which had to be paid, were paid by the community or
+village to which he belonged, and from the common fields from which he
+received his principal income.
+
+One alternative was left to him,--to try to raise money from the
+European colonists; that is, to address himself either to the merchant
+or to the planter.
+
+To the first he was obliged to sell his productions on the merchant's
+own terms (because the tax-collector required money at a certain fixed
+date), or even to raise money by the sale of his expected harvest, which
+enabled the merchant to take iniquitous interest. Or he had to address
+himself to the planter, and sell him his labour; that is, to become his
+workman: but the wages on the Fiji Islands were very low (owing, I
+suppose, to the exceptionally great supply of labour); not exceeding a
+shilling a week for a grown-up man, or two pounds twelve shillings a
+year; and therefore, merely to be able to get the money necessary to pay
+his own tax, to say nothing of his family, a Fiji had to leave his
+house, his family, and his own land, often to go far away to another
+island, and enslave himself to the planter for at least half a year;
+even then there was the payment for his family, which he must provide by
+some other means.
+
+We can understand the result of such a state of affairs. From his
+hundred and fifty thousand subjects, Kakabo collected only six thousand
+pounds; and so there began a forcible extortion of taxes, unknown till
+then, and a whole series of coercive measures.
+
+The local administration, formerly incorruptible, soon made common cause
+with the European planters, who began to have their own way with the
+country. For nonpayment of the taxes the Fijis were summoned to the
+court, and sentenced not only to pay the expenses but also to
+imprisonment for not less than six months. The prison really meant the
+plantations of the first white man who chose to pay the tax-money and
+the legal expenses of the offender. Thus the white settlers received
+cheap labour to any amount.
+
+At first this compulsory labour was fixed for not longer than half a
+year; but afterwards the bribed judges found it possible to pass
+sentence for eighteen months, and even then to renew the sentence.
+
+Very quickly, in the course of a few years, the picture of the social
+condition of the inhabitants of Fiji was quite changed.
+
+Whole districts, formerly flourishing, lost half of their population,
+and were greatly impoverished. All the male population, except the old
+and infirm, worked far away from their homes for European planters, to
+get money necessary for the taxes, or in consequence of the law court.
+The women on the Fiji Islands had scarcely ever worked in the fields, so
+that in the absence of the men, all the local farming was neglected and
+went to ruin. And in the course of a few years, half the population of
+Fiji had become the slaves of the colonists.
+
+To relieve their position the Fiji-Islanders again appealed to England.
+A new petition was got up, subscribed by many eminent persons and
+chiefs, praying to be annexed to England; and this was handed to the
+British consul. Meanwhile, England, thanks to her scientific
+expeditions, had time not only to investigate the affairs of the
+islands, but even to survey them, and duly to appreciate the natural
+riches of this fine corner of the globe.
+
+Owing to all these circumstances, the negotiations this time were
+crowned with full success; and in 1874, to the great dissatisfaction of
+the American planters, England officially took possession of the Fiji
+Islands, and added them to its colonies. Kakabo died, his heirs had a
+small pension assigned to them, and the administration of the islands
+was intrusted to Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor of New South Wales.
+In the first year of its annexation the Fiji-Islanders had no
+self-government, but were under the direction of Sir Hercules Robinson,
+who appointed an administrator.
+
+Taking the islands into their hands, the English Government had to
+undertake the difficult task of gratifying various expectations raised
+by them. The natives, of course, first of all expected the abolition of
+the hated poll-tax; one part of the white colonists (the Americans)
+looked with suspicion upon the British rule; and another part (those of
+English origin) expected all kinds of confirmations of their power over
+the natives,--permission to enclose the land, and so on. The English
+Government, however, proved itself equal to the task; and its first act
+was to abolish for ever the poll-tax, which had created the slavery of
+the natives in the interest of a few colonists.
+
+But here Sir Hercules Robinson had at once to face a difficult dilemma.
+It was necessary to abolish the poll-tax, which had made the Fijis seek
+the help of the English Government; but, at the same time, according to
+English colonial policy, the colonies had to support themselves; they
+had to find their own means for covering the expenses of the government.
+With the abolition of the poll-tax, all the incomes of the Fijis (from
+custom duties) did not amount to more than six thousand pounds, while
+the government expenses required at least seventy thousand a year.
+
+Having abolished the money tax, Sir Hercules Robinson now thought of a
+labour tax; but this did not yield the sum necessary to feed him and his
+assistants. Matters did not mend until a new governor had been
+appointed,--Gordon,--who, to get out of the inhabitants the money
+necessary to keep him and his officials, resolved not to demand money
+until it had come sufficiently into general circulation on the islands,
+but to take from the natives their products, and to sell them himself.
+
+This tragical episode in the lives of the Fijis is the clearest and best
+proof of the nature and true meaning of money in our time.
+
+In this illustration every essential is represented. The first
+fundamental condition of slavery,--the guns, threats, murders, and
+plunder,--and lastly, money, the means of subjugation which has
+supplanted all the others. That which in an historical sketch of
+economical development, has to be investigated during centuries, we have
+here, where all the forms of monetary violence have fully developed
+themselves, concentrated in a space of ten years.
+
+The drama begins thus: the American Government sends ships with loaded
+guns to the shores of the islands, whose inhabitants they want to
+enslave. The pretext of this threat is monetary; but the beginning of
+the tragedy is the levelling of guns against all the inhabitants,--women,
+children, old people, and men,--though innocent of any crime.
+"Your money or your life,"--forty-five thousand dollars, then
+ninety thousand or slaughter. But the ninety thousand are not to be had.
+So now begins the second act: it is the postponement of a measure which
+would be bloody, terrible, and concentrated in a short period; and the
+substitution of a suffering less perceptible, which can be laid upon
+all, and will last longer. And the natives, with their representative,
+seek to substitute for the massacre a slavery of money. They borrow
+money, and the method at once begins to operate like a disciplined army.
+In five years the thing is done,--the men have not only lost their right
+to utilize their own land and their property, but also their
+liberty,--they have become slaves.
+
+Here begins act three. The situation is too painful, and the unfortunate
+ones are told they may change their master and become the slaves of
+another. Of freedom from the slavery brought about by the means of money
+there is not one thought. And the people call for another master, to
+whom they give themselves up, asking him to improve their condition. The
+English come, see that dominion over these islanders will give them the
+possibility of feeding their already too greatly multiplied parasites,
+and take possession of the islands and their inhabitants.
+
+But it does not take them in the form of personal slaves, it does not
+take even the land, nor distribute it among its assistants. These old
+ways are not necessary now: only one thing is necessary,--taxes which
+must be large enough on the one hand to prevent the workingmen from
+freeing themselves from virtual slavery, and on the other hand, to feed
+luxuriously a great number of parasites. The inhabitants must pay
+seventy thousand pounds sterling annually,--that is the fundamental
+condition upon which England consents to free the Fijis from the
+American despotism, and this is just what was wanting for the final
+enslaving of the inhabitants. But it turns out that the Fiji-Islanders
+cannot under any circumstances pay these seventy thousand pounds in
+their present state. The claim is too great.
+
+The English temporarily modify it, and take a part of it out in natural
+products in order that in time, when money has come into circulation,
+they may receive the full sum. They do not behave like the former
+company, whose conduct we may liken to the first coming of savage
+invaders into an uncivilized land, when they want only to take as much
+as possible and then decamp; but England behaves like a more
+clear-sighted enslaver; she does not kill at one blow the goose with the
+golden eggs, but feeds her in order that she may continue to lay them.
+England at first relaxes the reins for her own interest that she may
+hold them tight forever afterwards, and so has brought the
+Fiji-Islanders into that state of permanent monetary thraldom in which
+all civilized European people now exist, and from which their chance of
+escape is not apparent.
+
+This phenomenon repeats itself in America, in China, in Central Asia;
+and it is the same in the history of the conquest of all nations.
+
+Money is an inoffensive means of exchange when it is not collected while
+loaded guns are directed from the sea-shore against the defenceless
+inhabitants. As soon as it is taken by the force of guns, the same thing
+must inevitably take place which occurred on the Fiji Islands, and has
+always and everywhere repeated itself.
+
+Men who consider it their lawful right to utilize the labour of others,
+will achieve their ends by the means of a forcible demand of a sum of
+money which will compel the oppressed to become the slaves of the
+oppressors.
+
+Moreover, that will happen which occurred between the English and the
+Fijis,--the extortioners will always, in their demand for money, rather
+exceed the limit to which the amount of the sum required must rise, so
+that the enslaving may be earlier. They will respect this limit only
+while they have moral sense and sufficient money for themselves: they
+will overstep it when they lose their moral sense or even do not require
+funds.
+
+As for governments, they will always exceed this limit,--first, because
+for a government there exists no moral sense of justice; and secondly,
+because, as everyone knows, every government is always in the greatest
+want of money, through wars and the necessity of giving gratuities to
+their allies. All governments are insolvent, and involuntarily follow a
+maxim expressed by a Russian statesman of the eighteenth century,--that
+the peasant must be sheared of his wool lest it grow too long. All
+governments are hopelessly in debt, and this debt on an average (not
+taking in consideration its occasional diminution in England and
+America) is growing at a terrible rate. So also grow the budgets; that
+is, the necessity of struggling with other extortioners, and of giving
+presents to those who assist in extortion, and because of that grows the
+land rent.
+
+Wages do not increase, not because of the law of rent, but because
+taxes, collected with violence, exist, with the object of taking away
+from men their superfluities, so that they may be compelled to sell
+their labour to satisfy them,--utilizing their labour being the aim of
+raising the taxes.
+
+And their labour can only be utilized when, on a general average, the
+taxes required are more than the labourers are able to give without
+depriving themselves of all means of subsistence. The increase of wages
+would put an end to the possibility of slavery; and therefore, as long
+as violence exists, wages can never be increased. The simple and plain
+mode of action of some men towards others, political economists term
+_the iron law_; the instrument by which such action is performed, they
+call a medium of exchange; and money is this inoffensive medium of
+exchange necessary for men in their transactions with each other.
+
+Why is it, then, that, whenever there is no violent demand for money
+taxes, money in its true signification has never existed, and never can
+exist; but, as among the Fiji-Islanders, the Phoenicians, the Kirghis,
+and generally among men who do not pay taxes, such as the Africans,
+there is either a direct exchange of produce, sheep, hides, skins, or
+accidental standards of value, such as shells?
+
+A definite kind of money, whatever it may be, always becomes not a means
+of exchange, but a means of ransoming from violence; and it begins to
+circulate among men only when a definite standard is compulsorily
+required from all.
+
+It is only then that everybody wants it equally, and only then does it
+receive any value.
+
+And further, it is not the thing that is most convenient for exchange
+that receives exchange value, but that which is required by the
+government. If gold is demanded, gold becomes valuable: if knuckle-bones
+were demanded, they, too, would become valuable. If it were not so, why,
+then, has the issue of this means of exchange always been the
+prerogative of the government? The Fiji-Islanders, for instance, have
+arranged among themselves their own means of exchange; well, then, let
+them be free to exchange what and how they like, and you, men possessing
+power, or the means of violence, do not interfere with this exchange.
+But instead of this you coin money, and do not allow anyone else to coin
+it; or, as is the case with us, you merely print some notes, engraving
+upon them the heads of the tsars, sign them with a particular signature,
+and threaten to punish every falsification of them. Then you distribute
+this money to your assistants, and, under the name of duties and taxes,
+you require everybody to give you such money or such notes with such
+signatures, and so many of them, that a workman must give away all his
+labour in order to get these notes or coins; and then you want to
+convince us that this money is necessary for us as a means of exchange!
+
+Here are all men free, and none oppresses the others or keeps them in
+slavery; but money appears in society and immediately an iron law
+exists, in consequence of which rent increases and wages diminish to the
+minimum.
+
+That half (nay, more than half) of the Russian peasants, in order to pay
+direct and indirect taxes, voluntarily sell themselves as slaves to the
+land-owners or to manufacturers, does not at all signify (which is
+obvious); for the violent collection of the poll-taxes and indirect and
+land taxes, which have to be paid in money to the government and to its
+assistants (the landowners), _compels_ the workman to be a slave to
+those who own money; but it means that this money, as a means of
+exchange, and an iron law, exist.
+
+Before the serfs were free, I could compel Iván to do any work; and if
+he refused to do it, I could send him to the police-sergeant, and the
+latter would give him the rod till he submitted. But if I compelled Iván
+to overwork himself, and did not give him either land or food, the
+matter would go up to the authorities, and I should have to answer for
+it.
+
+But now that men are free, I can compel Iván and Peter and Sidor to do
+every kind of work; and if they refuse I give them no money to pay
+taxes, and then they will be flogged till they submit: besides this, I
+may also make a German, a Frenchman, a Chinaman, and an Indian, work for
+me by that means, so that, if they do not submit, I shall not give them
+money to hire land, or to buy bread, because they have neither land nor
+bread. And if I make them overwork themselves, or kill them with excess
+of labour, nobody will say a word to me about it; and, moreover, if I
+have read books on political economy I shall be quite sure that all men
+are free and that money does not create slavery!
+
+Our peasants have long known that with a ruble one can hurt more than
+with a stick. It is only political economists who cannot see it.
+
+To say that money does not create bondage, is the same as to have
+asserted, fifty years ago, that serfdom did not create slavery.
+Political economists say that money is an inoffensive medium of
+exchange, notwithstanding the fact that its possession enables one man
+to enslave another. Why, then, was it not said half a century ago that
+servitude was, in itself, an inoffensive medium of reciprocal services,
+notwithstanding the fact that no man could lawfully enslave another?
+Some give their manual labour, and the work of others consists in taking
+care of the physical and intellectual welfare of the slaves, and in
+superintending their efforts.
+
+And, I fancy, some really did say this.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+If the object of this sham pseudo-science of Political Economy had not
+been the same as that of all other legal sciences,--the justification of
+coercion,--it could not have avoided noticing the strange phenomena that
+the distribution of wealth, the deprivation of some men of land and
+capital, and the enslavery of some men to others, depend upon money, and
+that it is only by means of money that some men utilize the labour of
+others,--in other words, enslave them.
+
+I repeat that a man who has money may buy up and monopolise all the corn
+and kill others by starvation, completely oppressing them, as it has
+frequently happened before our own eyes on a very large scale.
+
+It would seem then that we ought to examine the connection of these
+occurrences with money; but Political Science, with full assurance,
+asserts that money has no connection whatever with the matter.
+
+This science says, "Money is as much an article of merchandise as
+anything else which contains the value of its production, only with this
+difference,--that this article of merchandise is chosen as the more
+convenient medium of exchange for establishing values, for saving, and
+for making payments. One man has made boots, another has grown wheat,
+the third has bred sheep; and now, in order to exchange more
+conveniently, they put money into circulation, which represents the
+equivalent of labour; and by this medium they exchange the soles of
+boots for a loin of mutton, or ten pounds of flour."
+
+Students of this sham science are very fond of picturing to themselves
+such a state of affairs; but there has never been such a condition in
+the world. This idea about society is like the fancy about the
+primitive, prehistoric, perfect human state which the philosophers
+cherished; but such a state never existed.
+
+In all human societies where money has been used there has also been the
+oppression by the strong and the armed of the weak and the defenceless;
+and wherever there was oppression, there the standard of value, money,
+whatever it consisted of, cattle or hides, skin or metals, must have
+unavoidably lost its significance as a medium of exchange, and received
+the meaning of a ransom from violence.
+
+There is no doubt that money does possess the inoffensive properties
+which science enumerates; but it would have these properties only in a
+society in which there was no violence,--in an ideal state. But in such
+a society money would not be found as a general measure of value. In
+such a community, at the advent of violence, money would immediately
+lose its significance.
+
+In all societies known to us where money is used it receives the
+significance of a medium of exchange only because it serves as a means
+of violence. And its chief object is to act thus,--not as a mere medium.
+Where violence exists, money cannot be a true medium of exchange,
+because it is not a measure of value,--because, as soon as one man may
+take away from another the products of his labour, all measures of value
+are directly violated. If horses and cows, bred by one man, and
+violently taken away by others, were brought to a market, it is plain
+that the value of other horses and cows there, when brought into
+competition with stolen animals, would no longer correspond with the
+labour of breeding them. And the value of everything else would also
+change with this change, and so money could not determine values.
+
+Besides, if one man may acquire by force a cow or a horse or a house, he
+may by the same force acquire money itself, and with this money acquire
+all kinds of produce. If, then, money itself is acquired by violence,
+and spent to purchase products, money entirely loses its quality as a
+medium of exchange.
+
+The oppressor who takes money and gives it for the products of labour
+does not exchange anything, but obtains from labour all that he wants.
+
+But let us suppose that such an imaginary and impossible state of
+society really existed, in which money is in circulation, without the
+exercise of general violence,--silver or gold serving as a measure of
+value and as a medium of exchange. All the savings in such a society are
+expressed by money. There appears in this society an oppressor in the
+shape of a conqueror. Let us suppose that this oppressor claims the
+cows, horses, clothes, and the houses of the inhabitants; but, as it is
+not convenient for him to take possession of all this, he naturally
+thinks of taking that which represents among these men all kinds of
+values and is exchanged for everything,--money. And at once in this
+community, money receives, for the oppressor and his assistants, another
+signification, and its character as a medium of exchange therefore
+immediately ceases.
+
+The measure of the values will always depend on the pleasure of the
+oppressor. The articles most necessary to him, and for which he gives
+more money, are considered greater value, and _vice versa_; so that, in
+a community exposed to violence, money at once receives its chief
+meaning,--it becomes a means of violence and a ransom from violence, and
+it retains, among the oppressed, its significance as a medium of
+exchange only so far as that is convenient to the oppressor.
+
+Let us picture the whole affair in a circle, thus:--The serfs supply
+their landlord with linen, poultry, sheep, and daily labour. The
+landlord substitutes money for these goods, and fixes the value of the
+various articles sent in. Those who have no linen, corn, cattle, or
+manual labour to offer, may bring a definite sum of money.
+
+It is obvious, that, in the society of the peasants of this landlord,
+the price of the various articles will always depend upon the landlord's
+pleasure. The landlord uses the articles collected among his peasants,
+and some of these articles are more necessary for him than others: he
+fixes the prices for them accordingly, more or less. It is clear that
+the mere will and requirements of the landlord must regulate the prices
+of these articles among the payers. If he is in want of corn, he will
+set a high price for a fixed quantity of it, and a low price for linen,
+cattle, or work; and therefore those who have no corn will sell their
+labour, linen, and cattle to others, in order to buy corn to give it to
+the landlord.
+
+If the landlord chooses to substitute money for all his claims, then the
+value of things will again depend, not upon the value of labour, but
+first upon the sum of money which the landlord requires, and secondly
+upon the articles produced by the peasants, which are more necessary to
+the landlord, and for which he allows a higher price.
+
+The money-claim made by the landlord on the peasants ceases to influence
+the prices of the articles only when the peasants of this landlord live
+separately from other people and have no connection with any one; and
+secondly, when the landlord employs money, not in purchasing things in
+his own village, but elsewhere. Only under these two conditions would
+the prices of things, though changed nominally, remain relatively the
+same, and money would become a measure of value and a medium of
+exchange.
+
+But if the peasants have any business connections with the inhabitants
+surrounding them, the prices of their produce, as sold to their
+neighbours, would depend on the sum required from them by their
+landlord. (If less money is required from their neighbours than from
+themselves, then their products would be sold cheaper than the products
+of their neighbours, and _vice versa_.) Again, the landlord's
+money-demand would cease to influence the prices of the articles, only
+when the sums collected by the landlord were not spent in buying the
+products of his own peasants. But if he spends the money in purchasing
+from them, it is plain that the prices of various articles will
+constantly vary among them according as the landlord buys more of one
+thing than another.
+
+Suppose one landlord has fixed a very high poll-tax, and his neighbour a
+very low one: it is clear that on the estate of the first landlord every
+thing will be cheaper than on the estate of the second, and that the
+prices on either estate will depend only upon the increase and decrease
+of the poll-taxes. This is one effect of violence on value.
+
+Another, rising out of the first, consists in relative values. Suppose
+one landlord is fond of horses, and pays a high price for them; another
+is fond of towels, and offers a high figure for them. It is obvious that
+on the estate of either of these two landlords, the horses and the
+towels will be dear, and the prices of these articles will be out of
+proportion to those of cows or of corn. If to-morrow the collector of
+towels dies, and his heirs are fond of poultry, then it is obvious that
+the price of towels will fall and that of poultry will rise.
+
+Wherever in society there is the mastery of one man over another, there
+the meaning of money as the measure of value at once yields to the will
+of the oppressor, and its meaning as a medium of exchange of the
+products of labour is replaced by another,--that of the most convenient
+means of utilizing other people's labour.
+
+The oppressor wants money neither as a medium of exchange,--for he takes
+whatever he wants without exchange,--nor as a measure of value,--for he
+himself determines the value of everything,--but only for the
+convenience it affords of exercising violence; and this convenience
+consists in the fact that money may be stored up, and is the most
+convenient means of holding in slavery the majority of mankind.
+
+It is not convenient to carry away all the cattle in order always to
+have horses, cows, and sheep whenever wanted, because they must be fed;
+the same holds good with corn, for it may be spoiled; the same with
+slaves; sometimes a man may require thousands of workmen, and sometimes
+none. Money demanded from those who have not got it makes it possible to
+get rid of all these inconveniences and to have everything that is
+required; and this is why the oppressor wants money. Besides which, he
+wants money so that his right to utilize another man's labour may not be
+confined to certain men but may be extended to all men who require the
+money.
+
+When there was no money in circulation each landlord could utilize the
+labour of his own serfs only; but when they agreed to demand from the
+peasants money which they had not, they were enabled to appropriate
+without distinction the labour of all men on every estate.
+
+Thus the oppressor finds it more convenient to press all his claims on
+labour in the shape of money, and for this sole object is it desired. To
+the victim from whom it is taken away money cannot be of use, either for
+the purpose of exchange (seeing he exchanges without money, as all
+nations have exchanged who had no government); nor for a measure of
+value, because this is fixed without him; nor for the purpose of saving,
+because the man whose productions are taken away cannot save; neither
+for payments, because an oppressed man always has more to pay than to
+receive; and if he does receive anything, the payment is made, not in
+money, but in articles of merchandise in either case; whether the
+workman takes his goods from his master's shop to remunerate his labour,
+or whether he buys the necessaries of life with his earnings in other
+shops, the money is required from him, and he is told by his oppressors
+that if he does not pay it they will refuse to give him land or bread,
+or will take away his cow or his horse, or condemn him to work, or put
+him in prison. He can only free himself from all this by selling the
+products of his toil, his own labour, or that of his children.
+
+He will have to sell this according to the prices established, not by a
+regular exchange, but by the authority which demands money of him.
+
+Under the conditions of the influence of tribute and taxes on
+prices,--which everywhere and always repeat themselves, as much with the
+land-owners in a narrow circle, as with the state on a larger scale (in
+which the causes of the modification of prices are as obvious to us, as
+the motion of the hands and feet of puppets is obvious to those who look
+behind the curtain and see who are the wire-pullers):--under these
+circumstances, to say that money is a medium of exchange and a measure
+of value, is at least astonishing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+All slavery is based solely on the fact that one man can deprive another
+of his life, and by threatening to do so can compel him to do his will.
+We may see for certain that whenever one man is enslaved by another,
+when, against his own will and by the will of another, he does certain
+actions contrary to his inclination, the cause, if traced to its source,
+is nothing more nor less than a result of this threat. If a man gives to
+others all his labour, has not enough to eat, has to send his little
+children from home to work hard, leaves the land, and devotes all his
+life to a hated and unnecessary task, which happens before our own eyes
+in the world (which we term civilized because we ourselves live in it),
+then we may certainly say that he does so only because not to do so
+would be equivalent to loss of life.
+
+Therefore in our civilized world, where the majority of the people,
+amidst terrible privations, perform hated labours unnecessary to
+themselves, the greater number of men are in a slavery based on the
+threat of being deprived of their existence. Of what, then, does this
+slavery consist? Wherein lies this power of threat?
+
+In olden times the means of subjugation and the threat to kill were
+plain and obvious to all: the primitive means of enslaving men then
+consisted in a direct threat to kill with the sword.
+
+An armed man said to an unarmed, "I can kill thee, as thou hast seen I
+have done to thy brother, but I do not want to do it: I will spare
+thee,--first, because it is not agreeable for me to kill thee; secondly,
+because, as well for me as for thee, it will be more convenient that
+thou shouldst labour for me than that I should kill thee. Therefore do
+all I order thee to do, but know that, if thou refusest, I will take thy
+life."
+
+So the unarmed man submitted to the armed one and did everything he was
+ordered to do. The unarmed man laboured, the armed threatened. This was
+that personal slavery which appeared first among all nations, and which
+still exists among primitive races.
+
+This means of enslaving always begins the work; but when life becomes
+more complicated it undergoes a change. With the complication of life
+such a method presents great inconveniences to the oppressor. Before he
+can appropriate the labour of the weaker he must feed and clothe them
+and keep them at work, and so their number remains small; and, besides,
+this compels the slave-holder to remain continually with the slaves,
+driving them to work by the threat of murdering them. And thus another
+means of subjugation is developed.
+
+Five thousand years ago (according to the Bible) this novel, convenient,
+and clever means of oppression was discovered by Joseph the Beautiful.
+
+It is similar to that employed now in the menageries for taming restive
+horses and wild beasts.
+
+It is hunger!
+
+This contrivance is thus described in the Bible (Genesis xli., 48-57):--
+
+    And he (Joseph) gathered up all the food of the seven years, which
+    were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the
+    food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in
+    the same.
+
+    And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he
+    left numbering; for it was without number.
+
+    And the seven years of plenteousness, that was in the land of Egypt,
+    were ended.
+
+    And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had
+    said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt,
+    there was bread.
+
+    And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to
+    Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto
+    Joseph; what he said to you, do.
+
+    And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened
+    all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine
+    waxed sore in the land of Egypt.
+
+    And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; even
+    because that the famine was so sore in all lands.
+
+Joseph, making use of the primitive means of enslaving men by the threat
+of the sword, gathered corn during the years of plenty in expectation of
+years of famine which generally follow years of plenty,--men know all
+this without the dreams of Pharaoh,--and then by the pangs of hunger he
+made all the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the surrounding countries
+slaves to Pharaoh more securely and conveniently. And when the people
+began to be famished, he arranged matters so as to keep them in his
+power _forever_.
+
+    (Genesis xlvii., 13-26.) And there was no bread in all the land; for
+    the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land
+    of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.
+
+    And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of
+    Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought:
+    and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house.
+
+    And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of
+    Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph, and said, Give us bread:
+    for why should we die in thy presence? for the money faileth. And
+    Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle,
+    if money fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph
+    gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for
+    the cattle of the herds, and for the asses: and he fed them with
+    bread for all their cattle for that year.
+
+    When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and
+    said unto him, We will not hide it from my Lord, how that our money
+    is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought
+    left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands:
+    Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy
+    us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto
+    Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, and that
+    the land be not desolate. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt
+    for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the
+    famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh's. And as for
+    the people, he removed them to cities from one end of the borders of
+    Egypt even to the other end thereof.
+
+    Only the lands of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a
+    portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which
+    Pharaoh gave them: wherefore they sold not their lands.
+
+    Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day
+    and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall
+    sow the land. And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye
+    shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your
+    own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your
+    households, and for food for your little ones.
+
+    And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the
+    sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.
+
+    And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that
+    Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests
+    only, which became not Pharaoh's.
+
+Formerly, in order to appropriate labour, Pharaoh had to use violence
+towards them; but now, when the stores and the land belonged to Pharaoh,
+he had only to keep these stores by force, and hunger compelled the men
+to labour for him.
+
+All the land now belonged to Pharaoh, and he had all the stores (which
+were taken away from the people); and therefore, instead of driving them
+to work individually by the sword, he had only to keep food from them
+and they were enslaved, not by the sword, but by hunger.
+
+In a year of scarcity, all men may be starved to death at Pharaoh's
+will; and in a year of plenty, all may be killed who, from casual
+misfortunes, have no stores of corn.
+
+Thus comes into operation the second means of enslaving, not directly
+with the sword,--that is, by the strong man driving the weak one to
+labour under threat of killing him,--but by the strong one having taken
+away from the weak the stores of corn which, keeping by the sword, he
+compels the weak to work for.
+
+Joseph said to the hungry men, "I could starve you to death, because I
+have the corn; but I will spare your lives, but only under the condition
+that you do all I order you for the food which I will give you." For the
+first means of enslaving, the oppressor only needs soldiers to ride to
+and fro among the inhabitants, and make them fulfil the requirements of
+their master under threat of death. And thus the oppressor has only to
+pay his soldiers. But with the second means, besides the soldiers, the
+oppressor must have different assistants for keeping and protecting the
+land and stores from the starving people.
+
+These are the Josephs and their stewards and distributors. And the
+oppressor has to reward them, and to give Joseph a dress of brocade, a
+gold ring, and servants, and corn and silver to his brothers and
+relatives. Besides this, from the very nature of the second means, not
+only the stewards and their relations, but all who have stores of corn
+become participators in this violence, just as by the first means, based
+upon immediate force, every one who has arms becomes a partner in
+tyranny, so by this means, based upon hunger, every one who has stores
+of provision shares in it, and has power over those who have no stores.
+
+The advantage of this method over the former consists, first and
+chiefly, in the fact that the oppressor need no longer compel the
+workmen to do his will by force, for they themselves come to him and
+sell themselves to him; secondly, in the circumstance that fewer men
+escape from his violence. The drawback is, that he has to employ a
+greater number of men. For the oppressed the advantage of it consists in
+the fact that they are no longer exposed to rough violence but are left
+to themselves; and can always hope to pass from being the oppressed to
+becoming oppressors in their turn, which by fortunate circumstances they
+sometimes really do. The drawback for them is, that they can never
+escape from participating in the oppression of others.
+
+This new means of enslaving generally comes into operation together with
+the old one; and the oppressor lessens the one and increases the other
+according to his desires. But this does not fully satisfy the man who
+wishes to take away as much as possible of the products of the labour of
+as many working-people as he can find, and to enslave as many men as
+possible; and, therefore, a third means of oppression is evolved.
+
+This is the slavery of taxation, and, like the second, it is based upon
+hunger; but to the means of subduing men by depriving them of bread is
+added the deprivation of other necessaries.
+
+The oppressor requires from the slaves so much of the money he himself
+has coined, that, in order to obtain it, the slaves are compelled to
+sell not only stores of corn in greater quantity than the fifth part
+which was fixed by Joseph, but the first necessaries of life as
+well,--meat, skins, wool, clothes, firewood, even their buildings; and
+therefore the oppressor always keeps his slaves in his power, not only
+by hunger, but by thirst, cold and other privations.
+
+And thus the third means of slavery comes into operation, a monetary,
+tributary one, consisting in the oppressor saying to the oppressed, "I
+can do with each of you just what I like; I can kill and destroy you by
+taking away the land by which you earn your living; I can, with this
+money which you must give me, buy all the corn upon which you feed, and
+sell it to strangers, and at any time annihilate you by starvation; I
+can take from you all that you have,--your cattle, your houses, your
+clothes; but it is neither convenient nor agreeable for me to do so, and
+therefore I let you alone, to work as you please; only give me so much
+of the money which I demand of you, either as a poll-tax, or according
+to your land or the quantity of your food and drink, or your clothes or
+your houses. Give me this money, and do what you like among yourselves,
+but know that I shall neither protect nor maintain widows nor orphans
+nor invalids nor old people, nor such as have been burned out: I shall
+only protect the regular circulation of this money. This right will
+always be mine, to protect only those who regularly give me the fixed
+number of these pieces of money: as to how or where you get it, I shall
+not in the least trouble myself." And so the oppressor distributes these
+pieces of money as an acknowledgement that his demand has been complied
+with.
+
+The second method of enslaving consisted in this, that, having taken
+away the fifth part of the harvest, and collected stores of corn,
+Pharaoh, besides the personal slavery by the sword, received, by his
+assistants, the possibility of dominion over the working-people during
+the time of famine, and over some of them during misfortunes which
+happen to them.
+
+The third method consists in this: Pharaoh requires from the
+working-people more money than the value of the fifth part of corn which
+he took from them; he and his assistants get a new means of dominion
+over the working-class, not merely during the famine and their casual
+misfortunes, but permanently.
+
+By the second method, men retain some stores of corn which help them to
+bear indifferent harvests and casual misfortunes without going into
+slavery; but by the third, when there are more demands, the stores, not
+of corn only but of all other necessaries of life are taken away from
+them, and at the first misfortune a workman, having neither stores of
+corn nor any other stores which he might exchange for corn, falls into
+slavery to those who have money.
+
+To set the first in motion an oppressor need have only soldiers, and
+share the booty with them; for the second, besides the protectors of the
+land and the stores, he must have collectors and clerks for the
+distribution of the corn; for the third, besides the soldiers for
+keeping the land and his property, he must have collectors of taxes,
+assessors of direct taxation, supervisors, custom-house clerks, managers
+of money, and coiners of it.
+
+The organization of the third method is much more complicated than that
+of the second. By the second, the getting in of corn may be leased out,
+as was done in olden times and is still the custom in Turkey; but by
+putting taxes on men there is need of a complicated administration,
+which has to ensure the right levying of the taxes. And therefore by the
+third method the oppressor has to share the plunder with a still greater
+number of men than by the second; besides, according to the very nature
+of the thing, all the men of the same or of the foreign country who
+possess money become sharers with the oppressed.
+
+The advantage of the third method over the first and second consists
+chiefly in the following fact: that by it there is no need to wait for a
+year of scarcity, as in the time of Joseph, but years of famine are
+established forever, and (whilst by the second method the part of the
+labour which is taken away depends upon the harvest, and cannot be
+augmented _ad libitum_, because if there is no corn, there is nothing to
+take) by the new _monetary_ method the requirement can be brought to any
+desired limit, for the demand for money can always be satisfied, because
+the debtor, to satisfy it, must sell his cattle, clothes, or houses. The
+chief advantage to the oppressor of this method is that he can take away
+the greatest quantity of labour in the most convenient way; for a
+money-tax, like a screw, may easily and conveniently be turned to the
+utmost limit, and golden eggs be obtained though the bird that lays them
+is all but dead.
+
+Another of its advantages for the oppressor is that its violence reaches
+all those also who, by possessing no land, formerly escaped from it by
+giving only a part of their labour for corn; whereas now, besides that
+part which they give for corn, they must now give another part for
+taxes. A drawback for the oppressor is that he has to share the plunder
+with a still greater number of men, not only with his direct assistants,
+but also with all those men of his own country, and even of foreign
+countries, who may have the money which is demanded from the slaves.
+
+Its advantage for the oppressed is only that he is allowed greater
+independence than under the second method; he may live where he chooses,
+do what he likes; he may sow or not sow; he has to give no account of
+his labour; and if he has money, he may consider himself entirely free,
+and constantly hope, though only for a time, to obtain not only an
+independent position, but even to become an oppressor himself, when he
+has money to spare.
+
+The drawback for the oppressed is, that on a general average their
+situation becomes much worse, and they are deprived of the greater part
+of the products of their labour, because the number of those who utilize
+their labour has increased, and therefore the burden of keeping them
+falls upon a smaller number of men.
+
+This third method of enslaving men is also very old, and comes into
+operation with the former two without entirely excluding them.
+
+These three methods of enslaving men have always been in operation.
+
+They may all be compared to screws which secure the board laid on the
+work-people which presses them down. The fundamental, or middle screw,
+without which the other screws could not hold, which is first screwed
+up, and which is never slackened, is the screw of personal slavery, the
+enslaving of some men by others under threat of slaughter; the second,
+which is screwed up after the first, is that of enslaving men by taking
+away the land and stores of provisions from them, such alienation being
+maintained by the threat to murder; and the third screw is slavery
+enforced by the requirement of certain money taxes; and this demand is
+also maintained under threat of murder.
+
+These three screws are made fast, and it is only when one of them is
+tightened more that the others are slackened. For the complete
+enslavement of the workman, all three are necessary; and in our society,
+all three are in operation together. The first method of personal
+slavery under threat of murder by the sword has never been abolished,
+and never will be so long as there is any oppression, because every kind
+of oppression is based on this alone.
+
+We are all quite sure that personal slavery is abolished in our
+civilized world; that the last remnant of it has been annihilated in
+America and in Russia, and that it is only among the barbarians that
+real slavery exists, and that with us it is no longer in being. We
+forget only one small circumstance,--those hundreds of millions of
+standing troops without which no state exists, and with the abolition of
+which all the economical organization of each state would inevitably
+fall to pieces. Yet what are these millions of soldiers but the personal
+slaves of those who rule them? Are not these men compelled to do the
+will of their commanders under the threat of torture and death,--a
+threat often carried out? the difference consisting only in the fact
+that the submission of these slaves is not called slavery, but
+discipline, and that slaves are slaves from their birth, but soldiers
+only during a more or less short period of their so-called "service."
+
+Personal slavery, therefore, is not only not abolished in our civilized
+world, but, under the system of conscription, it has of late years been
+confirmed; and it has remained as it has always existed, only slightly
+changed from its original form. And it cannot but exist, because, so
+long as there is the enslaving of one man by another there will be this
+personal slavery too, this slavery which, under the threat of the sword,
+maintains serfdom, land-ownership, and taxes.
+
+It may be that this slavery of troops is useful, as it is said, for the
+defence and the glory of the country; but this kind of utility is more
+than doubtful, because we see how often in the case of unsuccessful wars
+it serves only for the subjugation and shame of the country. But of the
+expediency of this slavery for maintaining that of the land and taxes
+there is no question.
+
+If Irish or Russian peasants were to take possession of the land of the
+proprietors, troops would be sent to dispossess them. If you build a
+distillery or a brewery and do not pay excise, then soldiers will be
+sent to shut it up. Refuse to pay taxes, and the same thing will happen
+to you.
+
+The second screw is the method of enslaving men by taking away from them
+their land and their stores of provisions. This method has also always
+been in existence wherever men are oppressed; and, whatever changes it
+may undergo, it is everywhere in operation.
+
+Sometimes all the land belongs to the sovereign, as in Turkey, and there
+one-tenth is given to the state treasury. Sometimes a part of the land
+belongs to the sovereign, and taxes are raised on it. Sometimes all the
+land belongs to a few people and is let out for labour, as in England.
+Sometimes more or less large portions of land belong to the land-owners,
+as in Russia, Germany, and France. But wherever there is enslaving there
+exists also the appropriation of the land by the oppressor, and this
+screw is slackened or tightened only according to the condition of the
+other screws.
+
+Thus, in Russia, when personal slavery was extended to the majority of
+the working-people there was no need of land-slavery; but the screw of
+personal slavery was slackened in Russia only when the screws of land
+and tax slavery were tightened. Only when the government had
+appropriated the land and divided it among private individuals, and had
+instituted money payments and taxation, did it give the peasants
+personal freedom.
+
+In England, for instance, land-slavery is pre-eminently in operation,
+and the question about the nationalizing of the land consists only in
+the screw of taxation being tightened in order that the screw of land
+appropriation may be slackened.
+
+The third method of enslaving men, by taxes, has also been in operation
+for ages; and in our days, with the extension of uniform standards of
+money and the strengthening of state powers it has become an especially
+powerful influence.
+
+This method is so developed in our days that it tends to be a substitute
+for the second method of enslaving,--the land monopoly.
+
+It is obvious from the state of the political economy of all Europe,
+that it is by the tightening of this screw that the screw of land
+slavery is slackened.
+
+In our own lifetime we have witnessed in Russia two transformations of
+slavery. When the serfs were liberated, and their landlords retained the
+right to the greater part of the soil, the landlords were afraid they
+would lose their power; but experience has shown that having let go the
+whole chain of personal slavery, they had only to seize another,--that
+of the land. A peasant was short of corn; he had not enough to live on.
+The landlord had land and stores of corn: and therefore the peasant
+still remained the same slave.
+
+Another transformation was caused by the government screw of taxation
+being pressed home. The majority of working-people, having no stores,
+were obliged to sell themselves to their landlords and to the factories.
+This new form of oppression held the people still tighter, so that
+nine-tenths of the Russian working-people are still working for their
+landlords and in the factories to pay these taxes. This is so obvious,
+that, if the government were to remit taxation for one year only, all
+labour would be stopped in the fields of the landlords, and in the
+factories. Nine-tenths of the Russian people hire themselves out during
+and before the collection of taxes.
+
+All these three methods have never ceased to operate, and are still in
+operation, but people are inclined to ignore them or to invent new
+excuses for them. And, what is most remarkable of all is, that the very
+means on which everything is based, that screw which is screwed up
+tighter than all others, which holds everything at the moment in
+question, is not noticed so long as it holds. When in the ancient world
+the entire economical order was upheld by personal slavery, the greatest
+intellects did not notice it. To Plato, as well as to Xenophon, and
+Aristotle, and to the Romans, it seemed that it could not be otherwise,
+and that slavery was an unavoidable and natural result of wars, without
+which the existence of mankind was inconceivable. Similarly, in the
+Middle Ages, and till recently, people did not apprehend the meaning of
+land-ownership, on which depended the entire economical organization of
+their time.
+
+So also, at present, no one sees or wants to see, that in our time the
+slavery of the majority of the people depends on taxes collected by the
+government from its own land slaves, taxes collected _by administration
+and the troops_,--by the very same troops which are maintained by these
+taxes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+No wonder that the slaves themselves, who have always been enslaved, do
+not understand their own position, and that this condition in which they
+have always lived is considered by them to be natural to human life, and
+that they hail as a relief any change in their form of slavery; no
+wonder that their owners sometimes quite sincerely think they are, in a
+measure, freeing the slaves by slacking one screw, though they are
+compelled to do so by the over-tension of another.
+
+Both become accustomed to their state; and the slaves, never having
+known what freedom is, merely seek an alleviation, or only the change of
+their condition; the other, the owners, wishing to mask their injustice,
+try to assign a particular meaning to those new forms of slavery which
+they enforce in place of the older ones. But it is wonderful how the
+majority of the critics of the economic conditions of the life of the
+people fail to see that which forms the basis of the entire economic
+conditions of a people.
+
+One would think the duty of a true science would be to try to ascertain
+the connection of the phenomena and general cause of a series of
+occurrences. But the majority of the representatives of modern Political
+Economy are doing just the reverse of this: they carefully hide the
+connection and meaning of the phenomena, and avoid answering the most
+simple and essential questions.
+
+Modern Political Economy, like an idle, lazy cart-horse, goes well only
+down-hill, when it has no collar-work; but as soon as it has anything to
+draw, it at once refuses, pretending it has to go somewhere aside after
+its own business. When any grave, essential question is put to Political
+Economy, scientific discussions are started about some other matter
+having only in view to divert attention from this subject.
+
+You ask, "How are we to account for a fact so unnatural, monstrous,
+unreasonable, and not useless only, but harmful, that some men can eat
+or work only according to the will of other men?"
+
+You are gravely answered, "Because some men must arrange the labour and
+feeding of others, such is the law of production."
+
+You ask, "What is this property-right which allows some men to
+appropriate to themselves the land, food, and instruments of labour
+belonging to others?" You are again gravely answered, "This right is
+based upon the protection of labour,"--that is, the protection of some
+men's labour is effected by taking possession of the labour of other
+men.
+
+You ask, "What is that money which is everywhere coined and stamped by
+the governments, by the authorities, and which is so exorbitantly
+demanded from the working-people, and which in the shape of national
+debts is levied upon the future generations of workingmen? Further, has
+not this money, demanded from the people in the shape of taxes which are
+raised to the utmost pitch, has not this money any influence on the
+economic relationships of men,--between the payers and the receivers?"
+And you are answered in all seriousness, "Money is an article of
+merchandise like sugar, or chintz; and it differs from other articles
+only in the fact that it is more convenient for exchange."
+
+As for the influence of taxes on the economic conditions of a people, it
+is a different question altogether: the laws of production, exchange,
+and distribution of wealth, are one thing, but taxation is quite
+another. You ask whether it has any influence on the economic conditions
+of a people that the government can arbitrarily raise or lower prices,
+and, having increased the taxes, can make slaves of all who have no
+land? The pompous answer is, "The laws of production, exchange, and
+distribution of wealth constitute one science,--Political Economy; and
+taxes, and, generally speaking, State Economy, come under another
+head,--the Law of Finance."
+
+You ask finally, "Is no influence exercised on economic conditions by
+the circumstance that all the people are in bondage to the government,
+and that this government can arbitrarily ruin them all, can take away
+all the products of their labour, and even carry the men themselves away
+from their work into military slavery?" You are answered, "This is
+altogether a different question, belonging to the State Law."
+
+The majority of the representatives of science discuss quite seriously
+the laws of the economic life of a people, while all the functions and
+activities of this life are dependent on the will of the oppressor.
+Whilst they recognize the influence of the oppressor as a natural
+condition of a nation's life, they do just what a critic of the economic
+conditions of the life of the personal slaves of different masters would
+do, were he to omit to consider the influence exercised on the life of
+these slaves by the will of that master who compels them to work on this
+or that thing and drives them from one place to another according to his
+pleasure, who feeds them or neglects to do so, who kills them or leaves
+them alive.
+
+A noxious superstition has been long in existence and still survives,--a
+superstition which has done more harm to men than the most terrible
+religious superstitions.
+
+And so-called science supports this superstition with all its power, and
+with the utmost zeal. This superstition exactly resembles religious
+superstitions. It consists in affirming that, besides the duties of man
+to man, there are still more important duties towards an imaginary
+being,--which the theologians call God, and the political scientists the
+State.
+
+The religious superstition consists in affirming that sacrifices, even
+of human lives, must be offered to this imaginary being, and that they
+can and ought to be enforced by every means, even by violence. The
+political superstition consists in the belief that, besides the duties
+of man to man, there are still more important duties to an imaginary
+being, the State; and the offerings,--often of human lives,--brought to
+this imaginary being are also essential, and can and ought to be
+enforced by every means, even by violence.
+
+This superstition it is, formerly encouraged by the priests of different
+religions, which is now sustained by so-called science.
+
+Men are thrown into slavery, into the most terrible slavery, worse than
+has ever before existed; but Political Science tries to persuade men
+that it is necessary and unavoidable.
+
+The state must exist for the welfare of the people, and it must do its
+duty, to rule and protect them from their enemies. For this purpose the
+state needs money and troops. Money must be subscribed by all the
+citizens of the state. And hence all the relations of men must be
+considered in the light of the existence of the state.
+
+"I want to help my father by my labour," says a common unlearned man. "I
+want also to marry; but instead, I am taken and sent to Kazan, to be a
+soldier for six years. I leave the military service, I want to plough
+the ground to earn food and drink for my family; but I am not allowed to
+plough for a hundred versts around me unless I pay money, which I have
+not got, and pay it to those men who do not know how to plough, and who
+demand for the land so much money that I must give them all my labour to
+procure it: however, I still manage to save something, and wish to give
+this to my children; but a police official comes and takes from me all I
+had saved, for taxes: I can earn a little more, and again I am deprived
+of it. My entire economic activity is at the mercy of state demands; and
+it seems to me that my position and that of my brethren, will certainly
+improve if we are liberated from the demands of the state."
+
+But he is told, "Such reasoning is the result of your ignorance. Study
+the laws of production, exchange, and distribution of wealth, and do not
+mix up economical questions with those of the state. The phenomena which
+you point to are no restraints on your freedom; they are the necessary
+sacrifices which you, along with others, must make for your own freedom
+and welfare."
+
+"But my son has been taken away from me," says again a common man; "and
+they threaten to take away all my sons as soon as they are grown up:
+they took him away by force, and drove him to face the enemy's guns in
+some country which we have never heard of, and for an object which we
+cannot understand.
+
+"And as for the land which they will not allow us to plough, and for
+want of which we are starving, it belongs to a man who got possession of
+it by force, and whom we have never seen, and whose usefulness we cannot
+even understand. And the taxes, to collect which the police official has
+by force taken my cow from my children, will, so far as I know, go to
+this same man who took my cow away, and to various members of the
+committees and of departments which I do not know of, and in the utility
+of which I do not believe. How is it, then, that all these acts of
+violence secure my liberty, and all this evil procures good?"
+
+You may compel a man to be a slave and to do that which he considers to
+be evil for himself, but you cannot compel him to think, that, in
+suffering violence, he is free, and that the obvious evil which he
+endures constitutes his good. This appears impossible. Yet by the help
+of science this very thing has been done in our time.
+
+The state, that is, the armed oppressors, decide what they want from
+those whom they oppress (as in the case of England and the
+Fiji-Islanders): they decide how much labour they want from their
+slaves,--they decide how many assistants they will need in collecting
+the fruits of this labour; they organize their assistants in the shape
+of soldiers, land-owners, and collectors of taxes. And the slaves give
+their labour, and, at the same time, believe that they give it, not
+because their masters demand it, but for the sake of their own freedom
+and welfare; and that this service and these bloody sacrifices to the
+divinity called the State are necessary, and that, except this service
+to their Deity, they are free. They believe this because the same had
+been formerly said in the name of religion by the priests, and is now
+said in the name of so-called science, by learned men.
+
+But one need only cease to believe what is said by these other men who
+call themselves priests or learned men, for the absurdity of such an
+assertion to become obvious.
+
+The men who oppress others assure them that this oppression is necessary
+for the state,--and the state is necessary for the freedom and welfare
+of men; so that it appears that the oppressors oppress men for the sake
+of their freedom, and do them evil for the sake of good.
+
+But men are furnished with reason so that they may understand wherein
+consists their own good, and do it willingly.
+
+As for the acts, the goodness of which is not intelligible to men, and
+to which they are compelled by force, these cannot be for their good,
+because a reasoning being can consider as good only the thing which
+appears so to his reason. If men are driven to evil through passion or
+folly, all that those who are not so driven can do is to persuade the
+others into what constitutes their real good. You may try to persuade
+men that their welfare will be greater when they are all soldiers, are
+deprived of land, and have given their entire labour away for taxes; but
+until all men consider this condition to be welfare, and undertake it
+willingly, one cannot call such a state of things the common welfare of
+men.
+
+The sole criterion of a good conception is its willing acceptance by
+men. And the lives of men abound with such acts. Ten workmen buy tools
+in common, in order to work together with them, and in so doing they are
+undoubtedly benefitting themselves; but we cannot suppose that if these
+ten workmen were to compel an eleventh, by force, to join in their
+association, they would insist that their common welfare will be the
+same for him.
+
+So with gentlemen who agree to give a subscription dinner at a pound a
+head to a mutual friend; no one can assert that such a dinner will
+benefit a man who, against his will, has been obliged to pay a sovereign
+for it. And so with peasants who decide, for their common convenience,
+to dig a pond. To those who consider the existence of a pond more
+valuable than the labour spent on it, digging it will be a common good.
+But to the one who considers the pond of less value than a day's
+harvesting in which he is behind-hand, digging it will appear evil. The
+same holds good with roads, churches, and museums, and with all various
+social and state affairs.
+
+All such work may be good for those who consider it good, and who
+therefore freely and willingly perform it,--the dinner which the
+gentlemen give, the pond which the peasants dig. But work to which men
+must be driven by force ceases to be a common good precisely by the fact
+of such violence.
+
+All this is so plain and simple, that, if men had not been so long
+deceived, there would be no need to explain it.
+
+Suppose we live in a village where all the inhabitants have agreed to
+build a road over a swamp which is a danger to them. We agree together,
+and each house promises to give so much money or wood or days of labour.
+We agree to this because the making of the road is more advantageous to
+us than what we exchange for it; but among us there are some for whom it
+is more advantageous to do without a road than to spend money on it, or
+who at all events think so. Can compelling these men to labour make it
+of advantage to them? Obviously not; because those who considered that
+their choosing to join in making the way would have been
+disadvantageous, will consider it _a fortiori_ still more
+disadvantageous when they are _compelled_ to do so. Suppose, even, that
+we all, without exception, were agreed, and promised so much money or
+labour from each house, but that it happened that some of those who had
+promised did not give what they agreed, their circumstances having
+meanwhile changed, so that it was more advantageous for such now to be
+without the road than to spend money on it; or that they have simply
+changed their mind about it; or even calculate that others will make the
+road without them and that they will then use it. Can coercing these men
+to join in the labour make them consider that the sacrifices are
+enforced for their own good?
+
+Obviously not; because, if these men have not fulfilled what they
+promised, owing to a change in circumstances, so that now the sacrifices
+for the sake of the road outbalance their gain by it, the compulsory
+sacrifices of such would be only a worse evil. But if those who refuse
+to join in building the road intend to utilize the labour of the others,
+then in this case also coercing them into making a sacrifice would be
+only a punishment on a supposition, and their object, which nobody can
+prove, will be punished before it is made apparent; but in neither case
+can coercing them to join in a work which they do not desire be good for
+them.
+
+If this is so with sacrifices for a work which every one can comprehend,
+obvious, and undoubtedly useful to everyone, such as a road over a
+swamp; how still more unjust and unreasonable is it to coerce millions
+of men into making sacrifices for objects which are incomprehensible,
+imperceptible, and often undoubtedly harmful, such as military service
+and taxation.
+
+But, according to science, what appears to every one to be an evil is a
+common good: it appears that there are men, a small minority, who alone
+know of what the common good consists, and, notwithstanding the fact
+that all other men consider this good to be an evil, this minority can
+compel the others to do whatever they may consider to be for the common
+good. And it is this belief which constitutes the chief superstition and
+the chief deceit and hinders the progress of mankind towards the True
+and the Good.
+
+To nurse this superstitious deceit has been the object of political
+sciences in general, and of so-called "Political Economy" in particular.
+
+Many are making use of its aims in order to hide from men the state of
+oppression and slavery in which they now are.
+
+The way they set about doing so is by starting the theory that the
+violence connected with the economy of social slavery is a natural and
+unavoidable evil; and men thereby are deceived and turn their eyes from
+the real causes of their misfortunes.
+
+Slavery has long been abolished. It has been abolished in Rome as well
+as in America, and in Russia; but only the word has been abolished,--not
+the evil.
+
+Slavery is the violent freeing of some men from the labour necessary for
+satisfying their wants, which transfers this labour to others; and
+wherever there is a man who does not work, not because others willingly
+and lovingly work for him, but because he has the possibility, while not
+working himself, to make others work for him, there slavery exists.
+
+Wherever there are, as in all European societies, men who utilize the
+labour of thousands of others by coercion, and consider such to be their
+right, and others who submit to this coercion considering it to be their
+duty,--there you have slavery in its most dreadful proportions.
+
+Slavery exists. In what, then, does it consist? Slavery consists of that
+of which it has always consisted, and without which it cannot exist at
+all,--in the coercion of a weak and unarmed man by a strong and armed
+man.
+
+Slavery in its three fundamental modes of operation,--personal violence,
+the military, land-taxes,--maintained by the military, and direct and
+indirect taxes put upon all the inhabitants, is still in operation now
+as it has been before.
+
+We do not see it because each of these three forms of slavery has
+received a new justification, which hides its meaning from us.
+
+The personal violence of armed over unarmed men has been justified as
+the defence of one's country from imaginary enemies,--while in its
+essence it has the one old meaning, the submission of the conquered to
+the oppressors.
+
+The violent seizure of the labourers' land has been justified as the
+recompense for services rendered to an imaginary common welfare, and
+confirmed by the right of heritage; but in reality it is the same
+dispossession of men from their land and enslaving them which was
+performed by the troops.
+
+And the last, the monetary violence by means of taxes, the strongest and
+most effective in our days, has received a most wonderful justification.
+
+Dispossessing men of their liberty and their goods is said to be done
+for the sake of the common liberty and of the common welfare. But in
+fact it is the same slavery, only an impersonal one.
+
+Wherever violence becomes law, there is slavery.
+
+Whether violence finds its expression in the circumstance that princes
+with their courtiers come, kill, and burn down villages; whether
+slave-owners take labour or money for the land from their slaves, and
+enforce payment by means of armed men, or by putting taxes on others,
+and riding armed to and fro in the villages; or whether a Home
+Department collects money through governors or police sergeants,--in one
+word, as long as violence is maintained by the bayonet,--there will be
+no distribution of wealth, but it will be accumulated among the
+oppressors.
+
+As a striking illustration of the truth of this assertion the project of
+Henry George to nationalize the land may serve us. Henry George proposes
+to declare all land the property of the state, and to substitute a
+land-rent for all taxes, direct and indirect. That is, everyone who
+utilizes the land would have to pay to the state the value of its rent.
+
+What would be the result? The land would belong to the state,--English
+land to England, American land to America, and so on; that is, there
+would be slavery, determined by the quantity of cultivated land. It
+might be that the condition of some labourers would improve; but while a
+forcible demand for rent remained, the slavery would remain too. The
+cultivator, after a bad harvest, being unable to pay the rent exacted of
+him by force, would be obliged to enslave himself to any one who
+happened to have the money in order not to lose everything and to retain
+the land.
+
+If a pail leaks, there must be a hole. Looking at the pail, we might
+imagine the water runs from many holes; but no matter how we might try
+to stop the imaginary holes from without, the water would not cease
+running. In order to put a stop to the leakage we must find the place
+from which water runs, and stop it from the inside.
+
+The same holds good with the proposed means of stopping the irregular
+distribution of wealth,--the holes through which the wealth runs away
+from the people.
+
+It is said, _Organize workmen's corporations, make capital social
+property, make land social property_. All this is only mere stopping
+from the outside those holes from which we fancy the water runs. In
+order to stop the wealth going from the hands of the workers to those of
+the non-workers, it is necessary to try to find from the inside the hole
+through which this leakage takes place. And this hole is the violence of
+armed men towards unarmed men, the violence of troops, by means of which
+men are carried away from their labour, and the land, and the products
+of labour, taken from them.
+
+So long as there is one armed man, whoever he may be, with the
+acknowledged right to kill another man, so long will there also exist an
+unjust distribution of wealth,--in other words, slavery.
+
+I was led into the error that I can help others by the fact that I
+imagined my money was as good as Semion's. But it was not so.
+
+The general opinion is that money represents wealth; that wealth is the
+result of work and therefore that money represents work. This opinion is
+as just as the opinion asserting that every form of state is the result
+of a contract (contrat social).
+
+All men like to believe that money is only a means of exchange of
+labour. I have made boots, you have made bread, he has fed sheep; now,
+in order to exchange our wares the more conveniently, we introduce
+money, which represents the corresponding share of labour, and through
+it we exchange leather soles for a mutton brisket and ten pounds of
+flour.
+
+By means of money we exchange our products and this money, belonging to
+each of us, represents our labour. This is perfectly true, but true only
+while in the community, where this exchange takes place, violence of one
+man towards another did not appear, violence not only over another man's
+labour, as happens in war and in slavery, but not even violence applied
+to defend the products of labour of one man against another. This could
+be only in a community whose members entirely fulfil the Christian
+law,--in a community where one gets what he demands and where one is not
+requested to return what he gets. But as soon as violence in any form is
+applied in the community, the meaning of money for its owner at once
+loses its significance as a representative of labour, and acquires the
+significance of a right, based not on labour, but on violence.
+
+As soon as there is war and one man has taken away something from
+another, then money cannot always represent labour; the money received
+by the soldier for the booty he has sold, as well as the money got by
+his superior, is by no means the produce of their work and has quite a
+different meaning from the money received for the labour resulting in
+boots. When there are slave-owners and slaves, as have been always in
+the world, then one cannot assert that money represents labour. The
+women have woven a quantity of linen, have sold it and received money;
+the serfs have woven some linen for their master, and the master has
+sold it and received money. The one and the other money are the same;
+but one is the product of labour and the other is the product of
+violence. Likewise, if somebody,--say my father,--made me a present of
+money and he, when giving it to me, knew, and I knew and everybody knew,
+that no one can take this money away from me, that if anybody tried to
+take it, or even merely failed to return it at the date promised, then
+the authorities would defend me and by force compel the man to return me
+this money,--then again it is evident that by no means can this money be
+called a representative of labour, like the money which Semion got for
+cutting wood.
+
+Thus in a community, where by some kind of violence somebody's money is
+taken possession of, or the ownership of somebody's money defended
+against others--there money cannot always represent labour. It
+represents in such a community sometimes labour, sometimes violence.
+
+So it would be if only one fact of violence of one man over another
+appeared in the midst of perfectly free relations; but now, when the
+accumulated money has passed through centuries of most various forms of
+violence, when these acts of violence continue under other forms; when
+money itself by its accumulation creates violence,--which is recognized
+by everybody,--when the direct products of labour constitute only a
+small part of money made up of all sorts of violence,--to assert now
+that money represents the work of its owner is an obvious error, or an
+open lie. One may say it ought to be so, one may say it is desirable
+that it should be so, but by no means can any one say that it is so.
+
+Money represents labour. Yes; money represents labour, but whose labour?
+In our society it is only in the rarest cases that money represents the
+work of its owner. Almost always it represents the labour of other
+men,--the past or future labours of men. It is the representative of a
+claim on the labour of other men by force of violence.
+
+Money, in its most exact and at the same time its simplest definition,
+represents conventional signs, which bestow the right,--or rather the
+possibility,--to use the work of other men. In its ideal meaning, money
+ought to give this right or possibility only when it serves itself as a
+representative of labour, and as such, money could exist in a society
+devoid of any kind of violence. But as soon as violence takes place in a
+society, i.e., the possibility of the utilizing of the labour of others
+by the idler,--then this possibility of using the labour of others,
+without defining persons over which this violence is committed, is also
+exercised in money.
+
+The landowner taxed his serfs by a contribution in kind, making them
+bring a certain quantity of linen, corn, cattle, or a corresponding
+amount of money. One household delivered the cattle, but the linens were
+replaced by money. The landowner accepts the money in a certain
+quantity, only because he knows that for this money he can get the same
+pieces of linen (generally he takes a little more money to be sure that
+he will receive for it the same quantity of linen), and this money
+evidently offers for the landowner lien on other men's labour.
+
+The peasant gives money as a security against persons unknown but
+numerous, who would undertake to work out so much linen for this money.
+Those who will undertake to work the linen will do it because they did
+not succeed in feeding the sheep, and for these they must pay in money;
+and the peasant who will get the money for the sheep will take it, only
+because he must pay for the corn, which was a failure that year. The
+same goes on in the State and all over the world.
+
+A man sells the produce of his past, present or future labour, sometimes
+his food-stuff, not mostly because money is a convenient exchange for
+him,--he would exchange without money,--but because he is required by
+means of violence to give money, as a security on his work.
+
+When Pharaoh has demanded the labour of his slaves, then the slaves have
+given him all their labour, but they could give only the past and
+present labour, and could not give that of the future. But with the
+spread of money tokens and their result of "credit" it becomes possible
+to give also one's future work for money.
+
+Money, with the existence of violence in society, offers the means for a
+new form of impersonal slavery, which replaces the personal one. A
+slave-owner claims a right to the work of Peter, Iván, Sidor. But
+wherever money is required from everybody, the owner of money acquires a
+claim on the labour of all those unknown people who are in need of
+money. Money removes the painful side of slavery, by which the owner
+knows about his right on Iván, at the same time it removes all those
+human relations between the owner and the slave, which softened down the
+burden of personal slavery.
+
+I will not dwell on the theory that perhaps such a state is necessary
+for the development of mankind, for its progress and so forth--I will
+not dispute it. I only strive to make clear to myself the conception of
+money and to discover the general misconception I have made in accepting
+money, as a representative of labour. I became convinced by experience
+that money is not a representative of labour, but in the great majority
+of cases is a representative of violence, or of specially complex
+artifices founded on violence.
+
+Money in our time has already altogether lost the desirable significance
+of being the representative of labour; such significance it may have in
+exceptional cases, but as a rule it has become the right or the
+possibility of using the labour of others.
+
+This spreading of money, of credit and different conventional signs,
+more and more confirm this meaning of money. Money is the possibility or
+the right to use the labours of others.
+
+Money is a new form of slavery differing from the old form of slavery
+only by its impersonality, by the freedom it gives from all human
+relations to the slave.
+
+Money is money, a value always equal to itself, and which is always
+considered quite correct and lawful, and the use of which is not
+considered immoral, as slavery was.
+
+In my young days a game of lotto was introduced in the clubs. All
+eagerly played the game and, as was said, many lost their fortunes,
+ruined their families, lost money entrusted to them, and government
+funds, and finally shot themselves, so that the game was forbidden and
+is still forbidden.
+
+I remember I have met old, hardened card players who told me that this
+game was especially fascinating, because one did not know whom one was
+to beat, as is the case in other games; the attendant does not even
+serve one with money, but with counters, everybody loses a small stake
+and does not betray grief. It is the same in roulette, which is rightly
+forbidden everywhere.
+
+So it is with money. I have a magical, everlasting ruble; I cut off
+coupons and live apart from all the affairs of the world. Whom do I
+harm? I am the most quiet and kind-hearted man. But this is only a game
+of lotto or roulette where I do not see the man, who shoots himself
+after having lost, and who provides for me these small coupons, which I
+carefully cut off under the right angle from the tickets.
+
+I have done nothing, I am doing nothing, and never will do anything,
+save cut off the coupons, and firmly believe that money represents
+labour. This is really astounding! And people talk of lunatics! But what
+mania could be more horrible than this? An intelligent, learned, and in
+all other respects sensible man lives madly, and soothes himself by not
+acknowledging that one thing which he should acknowledge to make his
+argument reasonable, and he considers himself in the right! The coupons
+are representatives of labour! Of labour! Yes, but of whose labour? Not
+of his, who owns them, evidently, but of the one who works.
+
+Money is the same as slavery; its aim is the same and its consequences
+are the same. Its aim is the freeing of some men from the original law,
+truly called so by a thoughtful writer of the working-classes, from the
+natural law of life, as we call it, from the law of personal labour for
+the satisfaction of one's needs. The consequences of the slavery for the
+owner: the begetting, the invention of infinitely more and more needs
+never to be satisfied, of effeminate wretchedness and of depravity, and
+for the slaves,--oppression of the man, and his lowering to the level of
+a beast.
+
+Money is a new and terrible form of slavery and, like the old form of
+personal slavery, it equally demoralises the slave and the slave-owner,
+but it is so much worse, because it frees the slave and the slave-owner
+from personal human relations.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+I always wonder at the often repeated words, "Yes, it is all true in
+theory, but how is it in practice?" As though the theory were only a
+collection of words useful for conversation, and not as though all
+practice,--that is, all activity of life--were inevitably based upon it.
+
+There must have been an immense number of foolish theories in the world
+for men to employ such wonderful reasoning. We know that theory is what
+a man thinks about a thing, and practice is what he does. How can a man
+think that he ought to act in one way, and then do quite the reverse? If
+the theory of baking bread consists in this, that first of all one must
+knead the dough, then put it by to rise, anyone knowing it would be a
+fool to do the reverse. But with us it has come into fashion to say, "It
+is all very well in theory, but how would it be in practice?"
+
+In all that has occupied me practice has unavoidably followed theory,
+not mainly in order to justify it, but because it could not help doing
+so: if I have understood the affair upon which I have meditated I cannot
+help doing it in the way in which I have understood it.
+
+I wished to help the needy only because I had money to spare: and I
+shared the general superstition that money represents labour, and,
+generally speaking, is something lawful and good in itself. But, having
+begun to give this money away, I saw that I was only drawing bills of
+exchange collected from poor people; that I was doing the very thing the
+old landlords used to do in compelling some of their serfs to work for
+other serfs.
+
+I saw that every use of money, whether buying anything with it, or
+giving it away gratis, is a drawing of bills of exchange on poor people,
+or passing them to others to be drawn by them. And therefore I clearly
+understood the foolishness of what I was doing in helping the poor by
+exacting money from them.
+
+I saw that money in itself was not only not a good thing, but obviously
+an evil one, depriving men of their chief good, labour, and that this
+very good I cannot give to anyone because I am myself deprived of it: I
+have neither labour nor the happiness of utilizing my labour.
+
+It might be asked by some, "What is there so peculiarly important in
+abstractly discussing the meaning of money?" But this argument which I
+have opened is not merely for the sake of discussion, but in order to
+find an answer to the vital question which had caused me so much
+suffering, and on which my life depended, in order to discover what I
+was to do.
+
+As soon as I understood what wealth means, what money means, then it
+became clear and certain what I have to do, it became clear and certain
+what all others have to do,--and that they will inevitably do it, what
+all men must do. In reality I merely came to realize what I have long
+known,--that truth which has been transmitted to men from the oldest
+times, by Buddha, by Isaiah, by Laotse, by Socrates, and most clearly
+and definitely by Jesus and his predecessor John the Baptist.
+
+John the Baptist, in answer to men's question "What shall we do then?"
+answered plainly and briefly, "He that hath two coats, let him impart to
+him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise"
+(Luke iii., 10, 11).
+
+The same thing, and with still greater clearness, said Jesus,--blessing
+the poor, and uttering woes on the rich. He said that no man can serve
+God and mammon. He forbade his disciples not only to take money, but
+also to have two coats. He said to the rich young man that he could not
+enter into the kingdom of God because he was rich, and that it is easier
+for a camel to go through the needle's eye than for a rich man to enter
+the kingdom of God.
+
+He said that he who would not leave every thing--his houses and children
+and his fields--in order to follow him, was not his disciple. He spoke a
+parable about a rich man who had done nothing wrong (like our own rich
+people), but merely dressed well and ate and drank well, yet by this
+lost his own soul; and about a beggar named Lazarus, who had done
+nothing good, but who had saved his soul by his beggar's life.
+
+This truth had long been known to me; but the false teaching of the
+world had so cunningly hidden it that it became a theory in the sense
+which men like to attach to this word,--that is, a pure abstraction. But
+as soon as I succeeded in pulling down in my consciousness the sophistry
+of the world's teaching, then theory became one with practice and the
+reality of my life and the life of all men became its unavoidable
+result.
+
+I came to understand that man, besides living for his own good, must
+work for the good of others; and that if we were to draw our comparison
+from the world of animals, as some men are so fond of doing in
+justifying violence and contest by the law of the struggle for
+existence, we must take this comparison from the lives of social animals
+like bees; and therefore man, to say nothing of that love to his
+neighbours which is incumbent on him, is called upon to serve his
+fellows and their common object, as much by reason as by his very
+nature.
+
+I understood that this is the natural law of man, by fulfilling which he
+can alone fulfil his calling and therefore be happy. I understood that
+this law has been and is being violated by the fact that men (as
+robber-bees do) free themselves from labour by violence, and utilize the
+labour of others, using this labour not for the common purpose but for
+the personal satisfaction of their constantly increasing lusts, and
+also, like robber-bees, they perish thereby. I understood that the
+misfortune of men comes from the slavery in which some men are kept by
+others; and I understood that this slavery is brought about in our days
+by military force, violence, by the appropriation of land, and by the
+exaction of money.
+
+And, having understood the meaning of all these three instruments of
+modern slavery, I could not help desiring to free myself from any share
+in it.
+
+When I was a landlord, possessing serfs, and came to understand the
+immorality of such a position, I, along with other men who had
+understood the same thing, tried to free myself from it. And I freed
+myself from this state thus. Finding it immoral, but not being able as
+yet to free myself wholly from it, I tried meanwhile to assert my rights
+as a serf-owner as little as possible.
+
+I cannot help doing the same now with reference to the present
+slavery--that is, I try as little as possible to assert my claims while
+I am unable to free myself from the power which gives me land-ownership,
+and from money raised by the violence of military force--and at the same
+time by all means in my power to suggest to other men the unlawfulness
+and inhumanity of these imaginary rights.
+
+The share in enslaving men consists, on the standpoint of a slave-owner,
+in utilizing the labour of others. (It is all the same whether the
+enslaving is based on a claim to the person of the slave or on the
+possession of land or money.) And, therefore, if a man really does not
+like slavery and does not desire to be a partaker in it, the first thing
+which he must do is this: neither take men's labour by serving the
+government, nor possess land or money.
+
+The refusal of all the means in use for taking another's labour will
+unavoidably bring such a man to the necessity of lessening his wants on
+the one hand, and, on the other, of doing himself what formerly was done
+for him by other men. This simple and unavoidable conclusion enters into
+every detail of my life, changes it entirely, and at once sets me free
+from the moral sufferings I had endured at the sight of the misery and
+wickedness of men.
+
+The first cause was the accumulation of people in towns, and the
+absorption there of the products of the country.
+
+All that a man needs is not to desire to take another's labour by
+serving the government and possessing land and money, and then,
+according to his strength and ability, to satisfy unaided his own wants.
+The idea of leaving his village would never enter the mind of such a
+man, because in the country it is easier for him to satisfy his wants
+personally, while in a town everything is the product of the labour of
+others, all must be bought; in the country a man will always be able to
+help the needy, and will not experience that feeling of being useless,
+which I felt in the town when I wanted to help men, not with my own, but
+with other men's labours.
+
+The second cause was the estrangement between the poor and the rich. A
+man need only not desire to profit by other men's labour by serving the
+government and possessing land and money, and he would be compelled to
+satisfy his wants himself, and at once involuntarily that barrier would
+be pushed down which separates him from the working-people, and he would
+be one with the people, standing shoulder to shoulder with them, and
+seeing the possibility of helping them.
+
+The third cause was shame, based on the consciousness of the immorality
+of possessing money with which I wanted to help others. A man need only
+not desire to profit by another man's labour by serving the government
+and possessing land and money, and he will never have that superfluous
+"fool's money," the fact of possessing which made those who wanted money
+ask me for pecuniary assistance which I was not able to satisfy, and
+called forth in me the consciousness of my unrighteousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+I saw that the cause of the sufferings and depravity of men lies in the
+fact that some men are in bondage to others; and therefore I came to the
+obvious conclusion that if I want to help men I have first of all to
+leave off causing those very misfortunes which I want to remedy,--in
+other words, I must not share in the enslaving of men.
+
+I was led to the enslaving of men by the circumstance that from my
+infancy I had been accustomed not to work, but to profit by the labour
+of others, and that I had been living in a society which is not only
+accustomed to this slavery but which justifies it by all kinds of
+sophistry, clever and foolish.
+
+I came to the following simple conclusion, that, in order to avoid
+causing the sufferings and depravity of men, I ought to make other men
+work for me as little as possible and to work myself as much as
+possible.
+
+It was by this roundabout way that I arrived at the inevitable
+conclusion to which the Chinese arrived some thousand years ago, and
+which they express thus: "If there is one idle man, there must be
+another who is starving."
+
+I came to this simple and natural conclusion, that if I pity the
+exhausted horse on whose back I ride the first thing for me to do if I
+really pity him is to get off his back and walk. This answer, which
+gives such complete satisfaction to the moral sense, had always been
+before my eyes, as it is before the eyes of every one, but we do not all
+see it, and look aside.
+
+In seeking to heal our social diseases we look everywhere,--to the
+governmental, anti-governmental, scientific, and philanthropic
+superstitions,--and yet we do not see that which meets the eyes of every
+one. We fill our drains with filth and require other men to clean them,
+and pretend to be very sorry for them and want to ease their work; and
+we invent all sorts of devices except one, the simplest; namely, that we
+should ourselves remove our slops so long as we find it necessary to
+produce them in our rooms.
+
+For him who really suffers from the sufferings of the other men
+surrounding him, there exists a most clear, simple, and easy means, the
+only one sufficient to heal this evil and to confer a sense of the
+lawfulness of one's life. This means is that which John the Baptist
+recommended when he answered the question, "What shall we do then?" and
+which was confirmed by Christ: not to have more than one coat, and not
+to possess money,--that is, not to profit by another man's labour. And
+in order not to profit by another's labour, we must do with our own
+hands all that we can do. This is so plain and simple! But it is plain
+and simple and clear only when our wants are also plain, and when we
+ourselves are still sound and not corrupted to the backbone by idleness
+and laziness.
+
+I live in a village, lie by the stove, and tell my neighbour, who is my
+debtor, to chop wood and light the stove. It is obvious that I am lazy
+and take my neighbour away from his own work; and at last I feel ashamed
+of it; and besides, it grows dull for me to be always lying down when my
+muscles are strong and accustomed to work,--and I go to chop the wood
+myself.
+
+But slavery of all kinds has been going on so long, so many artificial
+wants have grown about it, so many people with different degrees of
+familiarity with these wants are interwoven with one another, through so
+many generations men have been spoiled and made effeminate, such
+complicated temptations and justifications of luxury and idleness have
+been invented by men, that for one who stands on the top of the pyramid
+of idle men, it is not at all so easy to understand his sin as it is for
+the peasant who compels his neighbour to light his stove.
+
+Men who stand at the top find it most difficult to understand what is
+required of them. From the height of the structure of lies on which they
+stand they become giddy when they look at that spot on the earth to
+which they must descend in order to begin to live, not righteously, but
+only not quite inhumanly; and that is why this plain and clear truth
+appears to these men so strange.
+
+A man who employs ten servants in livery, coachmen and cooks, who has
+pictures and pianos, must certainly regard as strange and even
+ridiculous the simple preliminary duty of, I do not say a good man, but
+of every man who is not an animal, to hew that wood with which his food
+is cooked and by which he is warmed; to clean those boots in which he
+carelessly stepped into the mud; to bring that water with which he keeps
+himself clean; and to carry away those slops in which he has washed
+himself.
+
+But besides the estrangement of men from the truth, there is another
+cause which hinders them from seeing the duty of doing the most simple
+and natural physical work; that is the complication and intermingling of
+the conditions in which a rich man lives.
+
+This morning I entered the corridor in which the stoves are heated. A
+peasant was heating the stove which warmed my son's room. I entered his
+bedroom: he was asleep, and it was eleven o'clock in the morning. The
+excuse was, "To-day is a holiday; no lessons." A stout lad of eighteen
+years of age, having over-eaten himself the previous night, is sleeping
+until eleven o'clock; and a peasant of his own age, who had already that
+morning done a quantity of work, was now lighting the tenth stove. "It
+would be better, perhaps, if the peasant did not light the stove to warm
+this stout, lazy fellow!" thought I; but I remembered at once that this
+stove also warmed the room of our housekeeper, a woman of forty years of
+age, who had been working the night before till three o'clock in the
+morning to prepare everything for the supper which my son ate; and then
+she put away the dishes, and, notwithstanding this, got up at seven. She
+cannot heat the stove herself: she has no time for that. The peasant is
+heating the stove for her, too. And under her name my lazy fellow was
+being warmed.
+
+True, the advantages are all interwoven; but without much consideration
+the conscience of each will say, On whose side is the labour, and on
+whose the idleness? But not only does conscience tell this, the
+account-book also tells it: the more money one spends, the more people
+work for us. The less one spends, the more one works one's self. "My
+luxurious life gives means of living to others. Where should my old
+footman go, if I were to discharge him?" "What! every one must do
+everything for himself? Make his coat as well as hew his wood? And how
+about division of labour? And industry and social undertakings?" And,
+last of all, come the most horrible of words,--civilization, science,
+art!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+Last March I was returning home late in the evening. On turning into a
+bye-lane I perceived on the snow in a distant field some black shadows.
+I should not have noticed this but for the policeman who stood at the
+end of the lane and cried in the direction of the shadows, "Vasili, why
+don't you come along?"
+
+"She won't move," answered a voice; and thereupon the shadows came
+towards the policeman. I stopped and asked him,--
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+He said, "We have got some girls from Rzhanoff's house, and are taking
+them to the police-station; and one of them lags behind, and won't come
+along."
+
+A night-watchman in sheepskin coat appeared now driving on a girl who
+slouched along while he prodded her from behind. I, the watchman and the
+policeman, were wearing winter coats: she alone had none, having only
+her gown on. In the dark I could distinguish only a brown dress and a
+kerchief round her head and neck. She was short, like most starvelings,
+and had a broad, clumsy figure.
+
+"We aren't going to stay here all night for you, you hag! Get on, or
+I'll give it you!" shouted the policeman. He was evidently fatigued and
+tired of her. She walked some paces and stopped again.
+
+The old watchman, a good-natured man (I knew him), pulled her by the
+hand. "I'll wake you up! come along!" said he, pretending to be angry.
+She staggered, and began to speak with a croaking hoarse voice, "Let me
+be; don't you push. I'll get on myself."
+
+"You'll be frozen to death," he returned.
+
+"A girl like me won't be frozen: I've lots of hot blood."
+
+She meant it as a joke, but her words sounded like a curse. By a lamp,
+which stood not far from the gate of my house, she stopped again, leaned
+back against the paling, and began to seek for something among her
+petticoats with awkward, frozen hands. They again shouted to her; but
+she only muttered and continued searching. She held in one hand a
+crumpled cigarette and matches in the other. I remained behind her: I
+was ashamed to pass by or to stay and look at her. But I made up my mind
+and came up to her. She leaned with her shoulder against the paling and
+vainly tried to light a match on it.
+
+I looked narrowly at her face. She was indeed a starveling and appeared
+to me to be a woman of about thirty. Her complexion was dirty; her eyes
+small, dim, and bleared with drinking; she had a squat nose; her lips
+were wry and slavering, with downcast angles; from under her kerchief
+fell a tuft of dry hair. Her figure was long and flat; her arms and legs
+short.
+
+I stopped in front of her. She looked at me and grinned as if she knew
+all that I was thinking about. I felt that I ought to say something to
+her. I wanted to show her that I pitied her.
+
+"Have you parents?" I asked. She laughed hoarsely, then suddenly
+stopped, and, lifting her brows, began to look at me steadfastly.
+
+"Have you parents?" I repeated.
+
+She smiled with a grimace which seemed to say, "What a question for him
+to put!"
+
+"I have a mother," she said at last; "but what's that to you?"
+
+"And how old are you?"
+
+"I am over fifteen," she said, at once answering a question she was
+accustomed to hear.
+
+"Come, come! go on; we shall all be frozen for you, the deuce take you!"
+shouted the policeman; and she edged off from the paling and staggered
+along the lane to the police-station: and I turned to the gate and
+entered my house, and asked whether my daughters were at home. I was
+told that they had been to an evening party, had enjoyed themselves
+much, and now were asleep.
+
+The next morning I was about to go to the police-station to enquire what
+had become of this unhappy girl. I was ready to start early enough, when
+one of those unfortunate men called, who from weakness have dropped out
+of the gentlemanly line of life to which they have been accustomed, and
+who rise and fall by turns. I had been acquainted with him three years.
+During this time he had several times sold every thing he had,--even his
+clothes; and, having just done so again, he passed his nights
+temporarily in Rzhanoff's house, and his days at my lodgings. He met me
+as I was going out, and, without listening to me, began at once to
+relate what had happened at Rzhanoff's house the night before.
+
+He began to relate it, yet had not got through one-half when, all of a
+sudden, he, an old man, who had gone through much in his life, began to
+sob, and, ceasing to speak, turned his face away from me. This was what
+he related. I ascertained the truth of his story on the spot, where I
+learned some new particulars, which I shall relate too.
+
+A washerwoman thirty years of age, fair, quiet, good-looking, but
+delicate, passed her nights in the same lodging-house, the ground-floor
+of No. 32 where my friend slept among various shifting night-lodgers,
+men and women, who for five kopeks slept with each other.
+
+The landlady at this lodging was the mistress of a boatman. In summer
+her lover kept a boat; and in winter they earned their living by letting
+lodgings to night-lodgers at three kopeks without a pillow, and at five
+kopeks with one.
+
+The washerwoman had been living here some months, and was a quiet woman;
+but lately they began to object to her because she coughed, and
+prevented the other lodgers from sleeping. An old woman in particular,
+eighty years old, half silly, and a permanent inmate of this lodging,
+began to dislike the washerwoman and kept annoying her because she
+disturbed her sleep; for all night she coughed like a sheep.
+
+The washerwoman said nothing. She owed for rent, and felt herself
+guilty, and was therefore compelled to endure. She began to work less
+and less, for her strength failed her; and that was why she was unable
+to pay her rent. She had not been to work at all the whole of the last
+week; and she had been making the lives of all, and particularly of the
+old woman, miserable by her cough.
+
+Four days ago the landlady gave her notice to leave. She already owed
+sixty kopeks, and could not pay them, and there was no hope of doing so;
+and other lodgers complained of her cough.
+
+When the landlady gave the washerwoman notice, and told her she must go
+away if she did not pay the rent, the old woman was glad, and pushed her
+out into the yard. The washerwoman went away, but came back again in an
+hour, and the landlady had not the heart to send her away again....
+During the second and the third day the landlady left her there. "Where
+shall I go?" she kept saying. On the third day the landlady's lover, a
+Moscow man, who knew all the rules and regulations, went for a
+policeman. The policeman, with a sword and a pistol slung on a red cord,
+came into the lodging and quietly and politely turned the washerwoman
+out into the street.
+
+It was a bright, sunny, but frosty day in March. The melting snow ran
+down in streams, the house-porters were breaking the ice. The hackney
+sledges bumped on the ice-glazed snow, and creaked over the stones. The
+washerwoman went up the hill on the sunny side, got to the church, and
+sat down in the sun at the church-porch. But when the sun began to go
+down behind the houses and the pools of water began to be covered with a
+thin sheet of ice, the washerwoman felt chilly and terrified. She got up
+and slowly walked on.... Where? Home,--to the only house in which she
+had been living lately.
+
+While she was walking there, several times resting herself, it began to
+get dark. She approached the gate, turned into it, her foot slipped, she
+gave a shriek, and fell down.
+
+One man passed by, then another. "She must be drunk," they thought.
+Another man passed, and stumbled up against her, and said to the
+house-porter, "Some tipsy woman is lying at the gate. I very nearly
+broke my neck over her. Won't you take her away?"
+
+The house-porter came. The washerwoman was dead. This was what my friend
+related to me.
+
+The reader will perhaps fancy I have picked out particular cases in the
+prostitute of fifteen years of age and the story of this washerwoman;
+but let him not think so: this really happened in one and the same
+night. I do not exactly remember the date, only it was in March, 1884.
+
+Having heard my friend's story I went to the police-station, intending
+from there to go to Rzhanoff's house to learn all the particulars of the
+washerwoman's story.
+
+The weather was fine and sunny; and again under the ice of the previous
+night, in the shade, you could see the water running; and in the sun, in
+the square, everything was melting fast. The trees of the garden
+appeared blue from over the river; the sparrows that were reddish in
+winter, and unnoticed then, now attracted people's attention by their
+merriness; men also tried to be merry, but they all had too many cares.
+The bells of the churches sounded; and blending with them were heard
+sounds of shooting from the barracks,--the hiss of the rifle balls, and
+the crack when they struck the target.
+
+I entered the police-station. There some armed men--policemen--led me to
+their chief. He, also armed with a sword, sabre, and pistol, was busy
+giving some orders about a ragged, trembling old man who was standing
+before him, and from weakness could not clearly answer what was asked of
+him. Having done with the old man, he turned to me. I inquired about the
+prostitute of last night. He first listened to me attentively, then he
+smiled, not only because I did not know why they were taken to the
+police-station, but more particularly at my astonishment at her youth.
+"Goodness! there are some of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years of age
+often," said he, in a lively tone.
+
+To my question about the girl of yesterday, he told me that she had
+probably been already sent to the committee (if I understood him right).
+To my question where such women passed the night, he gave a vague
+answer. The one about whom I spoke he did not remember. There were so
+many of them every day.
+
+At Rzhanoff's house, in No. 32, I already found the sacristan reading
+prayers over the dead washerwoman. She had been brought in and laid on
+her former pallet; and the lodgers, all starvelings themselves,
+contributed money for the prayers, the coffin, and the shroud; the old
+woman had dressed her, and laid her out. The clerk was reading something
+in the dark; a woman in a cloak stood holding a wax taper; and with a
+similar wax taper stood a man (a gentleman, it is fair to state), in a
+nice great-coat, trimmed with an astrachan collar, in bright goloshes,
+and with a starched shirt. That was her brother. He had been hunted up.
+
+I passed by the dead woman to the landlady's room in order to ask her
+all the particulars. She was afraid of my questions,--afraid probably of
+being charged with something; but by and by she grew talkative and told
+me all. On passing by again, I looked at the dead body. All the dead are
+beautiful; but this one was particularly beautiful and touching in her
+coffin, with her clear, pale face, with closed, prominent eyes, sunken
+cheeks, and fair, soft hair over her high forehead; her face looked
+weary, but kind, and not sad at all, but rather astonished. And indeed,
+if the living do not see, the dead may well be astonished.
+
+On the day I wrote this there was a great ball in Moscow. On the same
+night I left home after eight o'clock. I live in a locality surrounded
+by factories; and I left home after the factory whistle had sounded, and
+when, after a week of incessant work, the people were freed for their
+holiday. Factory-men passed by me, and I by them, all turning their
+steps to the public-houses and inns. Many were already tipsy: many were
+with women.
+
+Every morning at five I hear each of the whistles, which means that the
+labour of women, children, and old people has begun. At eight o'clock
+another whistle,--this means half an hour's rest; at twelve the third
+whistle,--this means an hour for dinner. At eight o'clock the fourth
+whistle, indicating cessation from work. By a strange coincidence, all
+the three factories in my neighbourhood produce only the articles
+necessary for balls.
+
+In one factory,--the one nearest to me,--they make nothing but
+stockings; in the other opposite, silk stuffs; in the third, perfumes
+and pomades.
+
+One may, on hearing these whistles, attach to them no other meaning than
+that of the indication of time. "There, the whistle has sounded: it is
+time to go out for a walk."
+
+But one may associate with them also the meaning they have in
+reality,--that at the first whistle at five o'clock in the morning, men
+and women, who have slept side by side in a damp cellar, get up in the
+dark, and hurry away into the noisy building to take their part in a
+work of which they see neither cessation nor utility for themselves, and
+work often so in the heat, in suffocating exhalations, with very rare
+intervals of rest, for one, two, or three, or even twelve or more hours.
+They fall asleep, and get up again, and again do this work, meaningless
+for themselves, to which they are goaded only by want. So it goes on
+from one week to another, interrupted only by holidays.
+
+And now I see these working-people freed for one of these holidays. They
+go out into the street: everywhere there are inns, public-houses, and
+gay women. And they, in a drunken state, pull each other by the arms,
+and carry along with them girls like the one whom I saw conducted to the
+police-station: they hire hackney-coaches, and ride and walk from one
+inn to another, and abuse each other, and totter about, and say they
+know not what.
+
+Formerly when I saw the factory people knocking about in this way I used
+to turn aside with disgust, and almost reproached them; but since I hear
+these daily whistles, and know what they mean, I am only astonished that
+all these men do not come into the condition of the utter beggars with
+whom Moscow is filled, and the women into the position of the girl whom
+I had met near my house.
+
+Thus I walked on, looking at these men, observing how they went about
+the streets, till eleven o'clock. Then their movements became quieter:
+there remained here and there a few tipsy people, and I met some men and
+women who were being conducted to the police-station. And now, from
+every side, carriages appeared, all going in one direction. On the
+coach-box sat a coachman, sometimes in a sheepskin coat, and a
+footman,--a dandy with a cockade. Well-fed horses, covered with cloth,
+trotted at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. In the carriages sat
+ladies wrapped in shawls, taking great care not to spoil their flowers
+and their toilets. All, beginning with the harness on the horses, the
+carriages, indiarubber wheels, the cloth of the coachman's coat, down to
+the stockings, shoes, flowers, velvet, gloves, scents,--all these
+articles have been made by those men, some of whom fell asleep on their
+own pallets in their mean rooms, some in night-houses with prostitutes,
+and others in the police-station.
+
+The ball-goers drive past these men, in and with things made by them;
+and it does not even enter into their minds that there could possibly be
+any connection between the ball they are going to, and these tipsy
+people to whom their coachmen shout out so angrily. With easy minds and
+assurance that they are doing nothing wrong, but something very good,
+they enjoy themselves at the ball.
+
+Enjoy themselves!
+
+From eleven o'clock in the evening till six in the morning, in the very
+depth of the night; while with empty stomachs men are lying in
+night-lodgings, or dying as the washer-woman had done!
+
+The enjoyment of the ball consists in women and girls uncovering their
+bosoms, putting on artificial protuberances at the back, and altogether
+getting themselves up as no girl and no woman who is not yet depraved
+would, on any account, appear before men; and in this half-naked
+condition, with uncovered bosoms, and arms bare up to the shoulders,
+with dresses puffed behind and tight round the hips, in the brightest
+light, women and girls, whose first virtue has always been modesty,
+appear among strange men, who are also dressed in indecently
+tight-fitting clothes, embrace each other, and pivot round and round to
+the sound of exciting music. Old women, often also half naked like the
+younger ones, are sitting looking on, and eating and drinking: the old
+men do the same. No wonder it is done at night when everyone else is
+sleeping, so that no one may see it!
+
+But it is not done at night in order to hide it; there is nothing indeed
+to hide; all is very nice and good; and by this enjoyment, in which is
+swallowed up the painful labour of thousands, not only is nobody harmed,
+but by this very thing poor people are fed!
+
+The ball goes on very merrily, may be, but how did it come to do so?
+When we see in society or among ourselves one who has not eaten, or is
+cold, we are ashamed to enjoy ourselves, and cannot begin to be merry
+until he is fed, to say nothing of the fact that we cannot even imagine
+that there are people who can enjoy themselves by means of anything
+which produces the sufferings of others.
+
+We are disgusted with and do not understand the enjoyment of brutal boys
+who have squeezed a dog's tail into a piece of split wood. How is it,
+then, that in our enjoyment we become blind, and do not see the cleft in
+which we have pinched those men who suffer for our enjoyment.
+
+We know that each woman at this ball whose dress costs a hundred and
+fifty rubles was not born at the ball, but has lived in the country, has
+seen peasants, is acquainted with a nurse and maid whose fathers and
+brothers are poor, for whom the earning of a hundred and fifty rubles to
+build a cottage with is the end and aim of a long, laborious life. She
+knows all this; how can she, then, enjoy herself, knowing that on her
+half-naked body she is wearing the cottage which is the dream of her
+housemaid's brother?
+
+But let us suppose she has not thought about this: still she cannot help
+knowing that velvet and silk, sweetmeats and flowers, and laces and
+dresses, do not grow of themselves, but are made by men. One would think
+she could not help knowing that men make all these things, and under
+what circumstances, and why. She cannot help knowing that her
+dressmaker, whom she scolded to-day, made this dress not at all out of
+love to her, therefore she cannot help knowing that all these
+things--her laces, flowers, and velvet--were made from sheer want.
+
+But perhaps she is so blinded that she does not think of this. Well,
+but, at all events, she could not help knowing that five people, old,
+respectable, often delicate men and women, have not slept all night, and
+have been busy on her account. She saw their tired, gloomy faces. This,
+also, she could not help knowing,--that on this night there were
+twenty-eight degrees of frost, and that her coachman--an old man--was
+sitting in this frost all night on his coach-box.
+
+But I know that they do not really see this. If from the hypnotic
+influence of the ball these young women and girls fail to see all this,
+we cannot judge them. Poor things! They consider all to be good which is
+pronounced so by their elders. How do these elders explain their
+cruelty? They, indeed, always answer in the same way: "I compel no one;
+what I have, I have bought; footmen, chambermaids, coachman, I hire.
+There is no harm in engaging and in buying. I compel none; I hire; what
+wrong is there in that?"
+
+Some days ago I called on a friend. Passing through the first room I
+wondered at seeing two women at a table, for I knew my acquaintance was
+a bachelor. A skinny yellow, old-looking woman, about thirty, with a
+kerchief thrown over her shoulders, was briskly doing something over the
+table with her hands, jerking nervously, as if in a fit. Opposite to her
+sat a young girl, who was also doing something and jerking in the same
+way. They both seemed to be suffering from St. Vitus's dance. I came
+nearer and looked closer to see what they were about.
+
+They glanced up at me and then continued their work as attentively as
+before.
+
+Before them were spread tobacco and cigarettes. They were making
+cigarettes. The woman rubbed the tobacco fine between the palms of her
+hands, caught it up by a machine, put on the tubes, and threw them to
+the girl. The girl folded the papers, put them over the cigarette, threw
+it aside, and took up another.
+
+All this was performed with such speed, with such dexterity, that it was
+impossible to describe it. I expressed my wonder at their quickness. "I
+have been at this business fourteen years," said the woman.
+
+"Is it hard work?"
+
+"Yes: my chest aches, and the air is choky with tobacco."
+
+But it was not necessary for her to have said so: you need only have
+looked at her or at the girl. The latter had been at this business three
+years; but anyone not seeing her at this work would have said that she
+had a strong constitution which was already beginning to be broken.
+
+My acquaintance, a kind-hearted man of liberal views, hired these women
+to make him cigarettes at two rubles and a half (5s.) a thousand. He has
+money, and he pays it away for this work: what harm is there in it?
+
+My acquaintance gets up at twelve. His evenings, from six to two, he
+spends at cards or at the piano; he eats and drinks well; other people
+do all the work for him. He has devised for himself a new
+pleasure,--smoking. I can remember when he began to smoke. Here are a
+woman and a girl who can scarcely earn their living by transforming
+themselves into machines, and who pass all their lives in breathing
+tobacco, thus ruining their lives. He has money which he has not earned,
+and he prefers playing at cards to making cigarettes for himself. He
+gives these women money only on condition that they continue to live as
+miserably as they lived before in making cigarettes for him.
+
+I am fond of cleanliness; and I give money on condition that the
+washerwoman washes my shirts, which I change twice a day; and the
+washing of these shirts having taxed the utmost strength of the
+washerwoman, she has died.
+
+What is wrong in this?
+
+Men who buy and hire will continue doing so whether I do or do not; they
+will force other people to make velvets and dainties, and will buy them
+whether I do or do not; so also they will hire people to make cigarettes
+and to wash shirts. Why should I, then, deprive myself of velvets,
+sweetmeats, cigarettes, and clean shirts, when their production is
+already set in going. Often,--almost constantly I hear this reasoning.
+
+This is the very reasoning which a crowd, maddened with the passion of
+destruction, will employ. It is the same reasoning which leads a pack of
+dogs, when one of their number runs against another and knocks it down,
+the rest attack it and tear it to pieces. Others have already begun,
+have done a little mischief; why shouldn't I, too, do the same? What can
+it possibly signify if I wear a dirty shirt and make my cigarettes
+myself? could that help any one? men ask who desire to justify
+themselves.
+
+Had we not wandered so far from truth one would be ashamed to answer
+this question; but we are so entangled that such a question seems
+natural to us, and, therefore, though I feel ashamed, I must answer it.
+
+What difference would it be if I should wear my shirt a week instead of
+a day, and make my cigarettes myself, or leave off smoking altogether?
+
+The difference would be this,--that a certain washerwoman, and a certain
+cigarette-maker, would exert themselves less, and what I gave formerly
+for the washing of my shirt, and for the making of my cigarettes, I may
+give now to that or to another woman; and working-people who are tired
+by their work, instead of overworking themselves, will be able to rest
+and to have tea. But I have heard objections to this, so ashamed are the
+rich and luxurious to understand their position.
+
+They reply, "If I should wear dirty linen, leave off smoking, and give
+this money away to the poor, then this money would be all the same taken
+away from them, and my drop will not help to swell the sea."
+
+I am still more ashamed to answer such a reply, but at the same time I
+must do so. If I came among savages who gave me chops which I thought
+delicious, but the next day I learned (perhaps saw myself) that these
+delicious chops were made of a human prisoner who had been slain in
+order to make them; and if I think it bad to eat men, however delicious
+the cutlets may be, and however general the custom to eat men among the
+persons with whom I live, and however small the utility of my refusal to
+eat them may be,--to the prisoners who have been prepared for food,--I
+shall not and cannot eat them.
+
+It may be that I shall eat human flesh when urged by hunger; but I shall
+not make a feast of it, and shall not take part in feasts with human
+flesh, and shall not seek such feasts, nor be proud of my partaking of
+them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+But what is to be done, then? We did not do it, did we? And if not we,
+who did?
+
+We say, "It is not we who have done all this; it has been done of
+itself"; as children say when they break anything, that "it broke
+itself." We say that, as towns are already in existence, we, who are
+living there, must feed men by buying their labour. But that is not
+true. It need only be observed how we live in the country, and how we
+feed people there.
+
+Winter is over: Easter is coming. In the town the same orgies of the
+rich go on,--on the boulevards, in gardens, in the parks, on the river;
+music, theatres, riding, illuminations, fire-works. But in the country
+it is still better,--the air is purer; the trees, the meadows, the
+flowers, are fresher. We must go where all is budding and blooming. And
+now we, the majority of rich people, who live by other men's labour, go
+into the country to breathe the purer air, to look at the meadows and
+woods. Here in the country among humble villagers who feed on bread and
+onions, work eighteen hours every day, and have neither sufficient sleep
+nor clothes, rich people take up their abode. No one tempts these
+people: here are no factories, and no idle hands, of which there are so
+many in town, whom we may imagine we feed by giving them work to do.
+Here people never can do their own work in time during the summer; and
+not only are there no idle hands, but much property is lost for want of
+hands; and an immense number of men, children, and old people, and women
+with child, overwork themselves.
+
+How, then, do rich people order their lives here in the country? Thus:
+if there happens to be an old mansion, built in the time of the serfs,
+then this house is renovated and re-decorated: if there is not, one is
+built of two or three stories. The rooms, which are from twelve to
+twenty and more in number, are all about sixteen feet high. The floors
+are inlaid; in the windows are put whole panes of glass, costly carpets
+on the floors; expensive furniture is procured,--a sideboard, for
+instance, costing from twenty to sixty pounds. Near the mansion, roads
+are made; flower-beds are laid out; there are croquet-lawns,
+giant-strides, reflecting globes, conservatories, and hot-houses, and
+always luxurious stables. All is painted in colours, prepared with the
+very oil which the old people and children lack for their porridge. If a
+rich man can afford it he buys such a house for himself; if he cannot he
+hires one: but however poor and however liberal a man of our circle may
+be, he always takes up his abode in the country in such a house, for
+building and keeping which it is necessary to take away dozens of
+working-people who have not enough time to do their own business in the
+field to earn their living.
+
+Here we cannot say that factories are already in existence and will
+continue so whether we make use of their work or no; we cannot say that
+we are feeding idle hands; here we plainly establish the factories for
+making things necessary for us, and simply make use of the surrounding
+people; we divert the people from work necessary for them, as for us and
+for all, and by such system deprave some, and ruin the lives and the
+health of others.
+
+There lives, let us say, in a village, an educated and respectable
+family of the upper class, or that of a government officer. All its
+members and the visitors assemble towards the middle of June, because up
+to June they had been studying and passing their examinations: they
+assemble when mowing begins, and they stay until September, until the
+harvest and sowing time. The members of the family (as almost all men of
+this class) remain in the country from the beginning of the urgent
+work,--hay-making,--not to the end of it, indeed, because in September
+the sowing goes on, and the digging up of potatoes, but till labour
+begins to slacken. During the whole time of the stay, around them and
+close by the peasants' summer work has been proceeding, the strain of
+which, however much we may have heard or read of it, however much we may
+have looked at it, we can form no adequate idea without having
+experienced it ourselves.
+
+The members of the family, about ten persons have been living as they
+did in town, if possible still worse than in town, because here in the
+village they are supposed to be resting (after doing nothing), and offer
+no pretence in the way of work, and no excuse for their idleness.
+
+In the midsummer-lent, when people are forced from want to feed on
+kvas[5] and bread and onions, begins the mowing time. Gentlefolk who
+live in the country see this labour, partly order it, partly admire it;
+enjoy the smell of the drying hay, the sound of women's songs, the noise
+of the scythes, and the sight of the rows of mowers, and of the women
+raking. They see this near their house as well as when they, with young
+people and children who do nothing all the day long, drive well-fed
+horses a distance of a few hundred yards to the bathing-place.
+
+  [5] A home-made cheap fermented drink.--Ed.
+
+The work of mowing is one of the most important in the world. Nearly
+every year, from want of hands and of time, the meadows remain half
+uncut and may remain so till the rains begin; so that the degree of
+intensity of the labour decides the question whether twenty or more per
+cent will be added to the stores of the world, or whether this hay will
+be left to rot or spoil while yet uncut.
+
+And if there is more hay, there will be also more meat for old people
+and milk for children; thus matters stand in general; but in particular
+for each mower here is decided the question of bread and milk for
+himself, and for his children during the winter.
+
+Each of the working-people, male and female, knows this: even the
+children know that this is an important business and that one ought to
+work with all one's strength, carry a jug with kvas for the father to
+the mowing-place, and, shifting it from one hand to another, run
+barefoot as quickly as possible, a distance of perhaps a mile and a half
+from the village, in order to be in time for dinner, that father may not
+grumble. Every one knows, that, from the mowing to the harvest, there
+will be no cessation of labour, and no time for rest. And besides
+mowing, each has some other business to do,--to plough up new land and
+harrow it; the women have the linen to make, bread to bake, and the
+washing to do; and the peasants must drive to the mill and to market;
+they have the official affairs of their community to attend to; they
+have also to provide the local government officials with means of
+locomotion, and to pass the night in the fields with the pastured
+horses.
+
+All, old and young and sick, work with all their strength.
+
+The peasants work in such a way, that, when cutting the last rows, the
+mowers, some of them weak people, growing youths, and old men, are so
+tired, that, having rested a little, it is with great pain they begin
+anew; the women, often with child, work hard too.
+
+It is a strained, incessant labour. All work to the utmost of their
+strength, and use not only all their provisions but what they have in
+store. During harvest-time all the peasants grow thinner although they
+never were very stout.
+
+There is a small company labouring in the hayfield; three peasants--one
+an old man, another his married nephew, and the third the village
+cobbler, a thin, wiry man. Their mowing this morning decides their fate
+for the coming winter, whether they will be able to keep a cow and pay
+their taxes. This is their second weeks' work. The rain hindered them
+for a while. After the rain had left off and the water had dried up they
+decided to make hayricks; and in order to do it quicker they decided
+that two women must rake to each scythe. With the old man came out his
+wife, fifty years of age, worn out with labour and the bearing of eleven
+children; deaf, but still strong enough for work; and his daughter,
+thirteen years of age, a short but brisk and strong little girl.
+
+With the nephew came his wife,--a tall woman, as strong as a peasant,
+and his sister in law,--a soldier's wife, who was with child. With the
+cobbler came his wife,--a strong working-woman, and her mother,--an old
+woman about eighty, who for the rest of the year used to beg.
+
+They all draw up in a line, and work from morning to evening in the
+burning sun of June. It is steaming hot and a thunder-shower is
+threatening. Every moment of work is precious. They have not wished to
+leave off working even to fetch water or kvas. A small boy, the grandson
+of the old woman, brings them water. The old woman is evidently anxious
+only on one point,--not to be sent away from work. She does not let the
+rake out of her hands, and moves about with great difficulty. The little
+boy, quite bent under the jug with water, heavier than himself, walks
+with short steps on his bare feet, and carries the jug with many shifts.
+The little girl takes on her shoulders a load of hay which is also
+heavier than herself; walks a few paces, and stops, then throws it down,
+having no strength to carry it farther. The old man's wife rakes
+together unceasingly, her kerchief loosened from her disordered hair;
+she carries the hay, breathing heavily and staggering under the burden:
+the cobbler's mother is only raking, but this is also beyond her
+strength; she slowly drags her feet, in baste shoes, and looks gloomily
+before her, like one very ill, or at the point of death. The old man
+purposely sends her far away from the others, to rake about the ricks,
+in order that she may not attempt to compete with them; but she does not
+leave off working, but continues with the same dead gloomy face as long
+as the others.
+
+The sun is already setting behind the wood and the ricks are not yet in
+order: there is much still to be done.
+
+All feel that it is time to leave off working but no one says so; each
+waiting for the other to suggest it. At last, the cobbler, realizing
+that he has no more strength left, proposes to the old man to leave the
+ricks till to-morrow, and the old man agrees to it; and at once the
+women go to fetch their clothes, their jugs, their pitchforks; and the
+old woman sits down where she was standing, and then lays herself down
+with the same fixed stare on her face. But as the women go away she gets
+up groaning, and, crawling along, follows them.
+
+Let us turn to the country-house. The same evening, when from the side
+of the village were heard the rattle of the scythes of the toil-worn
+mowers who were returning from work, the sounds of the hammer against
+the anvil, the cries of women and girls who had just had time to put
+away their rakes, and were already running to drive the cattle in,--with
+those blend other sounds from the country-house. Rattle, rattle, goes
+the piano; a Hungarian song is heard through the noise of the
+croquet-balls; before the stable an open carriage is standing harnessed
+with four fat horses, which has been hired for twenty shillings to bring
+some guests a distance of ten miles.
+
+Horses standing by the carriage rattle their little bells. Before them
+hay has been thrown, which they are scattering with their hoofs, the
+same hay which the peasants have been gathering with such hard labour.
+In the yard of this mansion there is movement; a healthy, well-fed
+fellow in a pink shirt, presented to him for his service as a
+house-porter, is calling the coachmen and telling them to harness and
+saddle some horses. Two peasants who live here as coachmen come out of
+their room, and go in an easy manner, swinging their arms, to saddle
+horses for the ladies and gentlemen. Still nearer to the house the
+sounds of another piano are heard. It is the music-mistress,--who lives
+in the family to teach the children,--practising her Schumann. The
+sounds of one piano jangle with those of another. Quite near the house
+walk two nurses; one is young, another old; they lead and carry children
+to bed; these children are of the same age as those who ran from the
+village with jugs. One nurse is English: she cannot speak Russian. She
+was engaged to come from England, not from being distinguished by some
+peculiar qualities but simply because she does not speak Russian.
+Farther on is another person, a French woman, who is also engaged
+because she does not know Russian. Farther on a peasant, with two women,
+is watering flowers near the house: another is cleaning a gun for one of
+the young gentlemen. Here two women are carrying a basket with clean
+linen,--they have been washing for all these gentlefolks. In the house
+two women have scarcely time to wash the plates and dishes after the
+company, who have just done eating; and two peasants in evening clothes
+are running up and down the stairs, serving coffee, tea, wine,
+seltzer-water, etc. Up-stairs a table is spread. One meal has just
+ended, and another will soon begin, to continue till cock-crow and often
+till morning dawns. Some are sitting smoking, playing cards; others are
+sitting and smoking, engaged in discussing liberal ideas of reform; and
+others, again, walk to and fro, eat, smoke, and, not knowing what to do,
+have made up their mind to take a drive.
+
+The household consists of fifteen persons, healthy men and women; and
+thirty persons, healthy working-people, male and female, labour for
+them. And this takes place there, where every hour, and each little boy,
+are precious.
+
+This will be so, also, in July, when the peasants, not having had their
+sleep out, will mow the oats at night in order that it may not be lost,
+and the women will get up before dawn in order to finish their threshing
+in time; when this old woman, who had been exhausted during the harvest,
+and the women with child, and the little children will again all
+overwork themselves, and when there is a great want of hands, horses,
+carts, in order to house this corn upon which all men feed, of which
+millions of bushels are necessary in Russia in order that men should not
+die: during even such a time, the idle lives of ladies and gentlemen
+will go on. There will be private theatricals, picnics, hunting,
+drinking, eating, piano-playing, singing, dancing,--in fact, incessant
+orgies.
+
+Here, at least, it is impossible to find any excuse from the fact that
+all this had been going on before: nothing of the kind had been in
+existence. We ourselves carefully create such a life, taking bread and
+labour away from the work-worn people. We live sumptuously, as if there
+were no connection whatever between the dying washerwoman,
+child-prostitute, women worn out by making cigarettes and all the
+intense labour around us to which their unnourished strength is
+inadequate. We do not want to see the fact that if there were not our
+idle, luxurious, depraved lives, there would not be this labour,
+disproportioned to the strength of people, and that if there were not
+this labour we could not go on living in the same way.
+
+It appears to us that their sufferings are one thing and our lives
+another, and that we, living as we do, are innocent and pure as doves.
+We read the description of the lives of the Romans, and wonder at the
+inhumanity of a heartless Lucullus, who gorged himself with fine dishes
+and delicious wines while people were starving: we shake our heads and
+wonder at the barbarism of our grandfathers,--the serf-owners,--who
+provided themselves with orchestras and theatres, and employed whole
+villages to keep up their gardens. From the height of our greatness we
+wonder at their inhumanity. We read the words of Isaiah v., 8:
+
+    "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field,
+    till there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of
+    the land.
+
+    Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may
+    follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine
+    inflame them!
+
+    The harp, and the lute, the tabret, the pipe, and wine are in their
+    feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither have they
+    considered the operation of his hands.
+
+    Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it
+    were with a cart rope.
+
+    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!
+
+    Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their
+    own sight!
+
+    Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to
+    mingle strong drink:
+
+    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 they have nothing to do
+with us.
+
+We read in the Gospel, Matthew iii., 10: "And even now is the axe laid
+unto the root of the tree: every tree therefore that bringeth not forth
+good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire," and we are quite sure
+that the good tree bearing good fruit is we ourselves, and that those
+words are said, not to us, but to some other bad men.
+
+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 heart, and turn again, and be
+    healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities
+    be waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land
+    become utterly waste."
+
+We read, and are quite assured that this wonderful thing has not
+happened to us, but to some other people. For this very reason we do not
+see that this has happened to us, and is taking place with us. We do not
+hear, we do not see, and do not understand with our heart.
+
+But why has it so happened?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+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 God 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 circumference, 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
+perishing. Men in this world are like those on a dismantled or
+water-logged ship with a short allowance of food; all are put by God, 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 asserted, first,
+that they belonged to a different race; and secondly, that they had from
+God a peculiar mission,--caring for the welfare of others; in other
+words, to govern and teach them: and therefore, they assured 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 God 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 assert 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 asserting 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
+assertion 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 masses and adopted by them.
+
+As in olden times the subtleties of theology, which justified violence
+in church and state, were the special property of priests; and among the
+masses of the people, the conclusions, taken by faith, and ready made
+for them, were circulated, that the power of kings, clergy and nobility
+was sacred: so afterwards, the philosophical and legal subtleties of
+so-called science became the property of the priests of science; and
+through the masses only the ready-made conclusion, accepted by
+faith,--that social order (the organization of society) must be such as
+it is, and cannot be otherwise,--was diffused.
+
+So it is now. It is only in the sanctuaries of the modern sages that the
+laws of life and the development of organisms are analyzed. Whereas in
+the crowd, the ready-made conclusion, accepted on trust,--that division
+of labour is a law confirmed by science, and therefore it must be that
+some starve and toil and others eternally feast, and that this very ruin
+of some and feasting of others is the undoubted law of man's life, to
+which we must submit,--is circulated.
+
+The current justification of their idleness by all so-called educated
+people, with their various activities, from the railway proprietor down
+to the author or artist, is this: We men who have freed ourselves from
+the common human duty of taking part in the struggle for existence, are
+furthering progress, and so we are of great use to all human society, of
+such use that we counterbalance all the harm we do the people by
+consuming their labour.
+
+This reasoning seems to the men of our day to be not at all like the
+reasoning by which the former non-workers justified themselves; just as
+the reasoning of the Roman emperors and citizens, that but for them the
+civilized world would go to ruin, seemed to them to be of quite another
+order from that of the Egyptians and Persians; and so also an exactly
+similar kind of reasoning seemed in turn to the knights and clergy of
+the Middle Ages totally different from that of the Romans.
+
+But it only _seems_. One need only reflect on the justification of our
+time in order to ascertain that there is nothing new in it. It is only a
+little differently dressed up, but it is the same because it is based on
+the same principle. Every justification of one man's consumption of the
+labour of others, while producing none himself, as with Pharaoh and his
+soothsayers, the emperors of Rome and those of the Middle Ages and their
+citizens, knights, priests, and clergy, always consists in these two
+assertions: First, we take the labour of the masses because we are
+different from others, people called by God to govern them and to teach
+them divine truths: Secondly, those who compose the masses cannot be
+judges of the measure of labour which we take from them for the good we
+do for them, because, as it has been said by the Pharisees, "This
+multitude which knoweth not the law are accursed" (John vii. 49).
+
+The people do not understand what is for their good, and therefore they
+cannot be judges of the benefits done to them. The justification of our
+time, notwithstanding all apparent originality, consists in facts of the
+same fundamental assertions: First, we are a different people,--we are
+an educated people,--we further progress and civilization, and by this
+fact we procure for the masses a great advantage. Secondly, the
+uneducated crowd does not understand the advantages we procure for them,
+and therefore cannot be judges of them.
+
+The fundamental assertions are the same. We free ourselves from labour,
+appropriate the labour of others, and by this increase the burden of our
+fellows; and then assert that in compensation for this we bring them a
+great advantage, of which they, owing to ignorance, cannot be judges.
+
+Is it not, then, the same thing? The only difference lies in this: that
+formerly the claims on other men's labour were made by citizens, Roman
+priests, knights, and nobility, and now these claims are put forward by
+a caste who term themselves educated.
+
+The lie is the same, because the men who justify themselves are in the
+same false position. The lie consists in the fact, that, before
+beginning to reason about the advantages conferred on the workers by
+people who have freed themselves from labour,--certain men, Pharaohs,
+priests, or we ourselves, educated people, assume this position first,
+and only afterwards manufacture a justification for it.
+
+The very position universally serves as a basis for the justification.
+The difference of our justification from the ancient ones consists
+merely in the fact that it is more false and less well grounded. The old
+emperors and popes, if they themselves, and the people, believed in
+their divine calling, could easily explain why they were to control the
+labour of others: they asserted that they were appointed by God himself
+for this very thing, and from God they had a commandment to teach the
+people divine truths revealed to them, and to govern them.
+
+But modern, educated men, who do not labour with their hands, and who
+acknowledge the equality of all men, cannot explain why they and their
+children (for education is only by money; that is, by power) should be
+those lucky persons called to an easy, idle life, out of those millions
+who by hundreds and thousands are perishing to make it possible for them
+to be educated. Their only justification consists in this, that, just as
+they are, instead of doing harm to the workers by freeing themselves
+from labour, and by swallowing up labour, they bring to the people some
+advantages, unintelligible to them, which compensate for all the evil
+they perpetrate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+The theory by which men who have freed themselves from personal labour
+justify themselves, is, in its simplest and most exact form, this: "We
+men, having freed ourselves from work, and having by violence
+appropriated the labour of others, we find ourselves better able to
+benefit them." In other words, certain men, for doing the people a
+palpable and comprehensible harm,--utilizing their labour by violence,
+and thereby increasing the difficulty of their struggles with
+nature,--do to them an impalpable and incomprehensible good. This is a
+very strange proposition; but the men, both of former as well of modern
+times, who have lived on the labour of workmen, believe it, and calm
+their conscience by it.
+
+Let us see in what way it is justified, in different classes of men who
+have freed themselves from labour in our own days.
+
+"I serve men by my activity in church or state,--as king, minister,
+archbishop; I serve men by my trading or by industry; I serve men by my
+activity in the departments of science or art. By our activities we are
+all as necessary to the people as they are to us."
+
+So say various men of to-day who have freed themselves from labour.
+
+Let us consider _seriatim_ the principles upon which they base the
+usefulness of their activity.
+
+There are only two indications of the usefulness of any activity of one
+man for another: (1) an exterior indication,--the acknowledgement of the
+utility of the activity by those to whom it is applied; and (2) an
+interior indication,--the desire to be of use to others lying at the
+root of the activity of the one who is trying to be of use.
+
+Statesmen (I include the Church dignitaries appointed by the government
+in the category of statesmen) are, it is said, of use to those whom they
+govern. The emperor, the king, the president of a republic, the prime
+minister, the minister of justice, the minister of war, the minister of
+public instruction, the bishop, and all under them who serve the state,
+all live free from the struggle of mankind for existence, having laid
+all the burden of this struggle on someone else, on the ground that
+their non-activity compensates for this.
+
+Let us apply the first indication to those for whose welfare the
+activity of statesmen is bestowed. Do they, I ask, recognize the
+usefulness of this activity?
+
+Yes, it is recognized. Most men consider statesmanship necessary to
+them. The majority recognize the usefulness of this activity in
+principle; but in all its manifestations known to us, in all
+_particular_ cases known to us, the usefulness of each of the
+institutions and of each of the manifestations of this activity is not
+only denied by those for whose advantage it is performed, but they
+assert that it is even pernicious and hurtful. There is no state
+function or social activity which is not considered by many men to be
+hurtful: there is no institution which is not considered
+pernicious,--courts of justice, banks, local self-government, police,
+clergy. Every state activity, from the minister down to the policeman,
+from the bishop to the sexton, is considered by some men to be useful
+and by others to be pernicious. And this is the case not only in Russia
+but throughout the world; in France as well as in America.
+
+The activity of the republican party is considered pernicious by the
+radical party, and _vice versa_: the activity of the radical party, if
+the power is in their hands, is considered bad by the republican and
+other parties. But not only is it a fact that the activity of statesmen
+is never considered by all men to be useful, this activity has, besides,
+this peculiarity, that it must always be carried out by violence, and
+that, to attain its end, murders, executions, prisons, taxes raised by
+force, and so on, became necessary.
+
+It appears therefore that besides the fact that the usefulness of state
+activity is not recognized by all men, and is always denied by one
+portion of men, this usefulness has the peculiarity of vindicating
+itself always by violence.
+
+Therefore the usefulness of state activity cannot be confirmed by the
+first indication,--i.e., the fact that it is recognized by those men for
+whom it is said to be performed.
+
+Let us apply the second test. Let us ask statesmen themselves, from the
+Tsar down to the policeman, from the president to the secretary, from
+the patriarch to the sexton, begging for a sincere answer, whether, in
+occupying their respective positions they have in view the good which
+they wish to do for men or something else. In their desire to fill the
+situation of a Tsar, a president, a minister, a police-sergeant, a
+sexton, a teacher, are they moved by the desire of being useful to men
+or for their own personal advantage? And the answer of sincere men would
+be that their chief motive is their own personal advantage.
+
+So it appears that one class of men, who live by the labour of some
+others who are perishing by these labours, compensate for this
+indubitable evil by an activity which is always considered by a great
+many men to be not only useless, but pernicious; which cannot be
+accepted voluntarily, but to which men must always be compelled, and the
+aim of which is not the benefit of others but the personal advantage of
+the men who perform it.
+
+What is it, then, that confirms the theory that state activity is useful
+for humanity? Only the fact that the men who perform it firmly profess
+to believe it to be useful, and that it has been always in existence.
+But so some not only useless, but very pernicious institutions, like
+slavery, prostitution, and wars, have always been in existence.
+
+Business people (merchants, manufacturers, railway proprietors, bankers,
+land-owners) believe that they do a good which compensates for the harm
+undoubtedly done by them. On what grounds do they believe this? To the
+question, By whom is the usefulness of their activity recognized? men in
+church and in state are able to point to the thousands and millions of
+working-people who in principle recognize the usefulness of state and
+church activity. But to whom will bankers, distillers, manufacturers of
+velvet, of bronzes, of looking-glasses, to say nothing of guns,--to whom
+will they point when we ask them, Is their usefulness recognized by
+public opinion?
+
+If men can be found who recognize the usefulness of manufacturing
+chintzes, rails, beer, and such like things, there will be found also a
+still greater number of men who consider the manufacture of these
+articles pernicious.
+
+As for the merchants whose activity is confined to prices, and
+land-owners, nobody would even attempt to justify them.
+
+Besides, this activity is always associated with harm to working-people,
+and with violence, which, if less direct than that of the state, is yet
+just as cruel in its consequences. For the activities displayed in
+industry and in trade are entirely based on taking advantage of the
+wants of working-people in every form in order to compel them to hard
+and hated labour; to buying cheap, and to selling necessaries at the
+highest possible price and to raising the interest on money. From
+whatever point we consider this activity we can see that the usefulness
+of business-men is not recognised by those for whom it is expended,
+neither generally nor in particular cases; and by the majority their
+activity is considered to be directly pernicious.
+
+If we were to apply the second test and to ask, What is the chief motive
+of the activity of business-men? we should receive a still more
+determinate answer than that on the activity of statesmen. If a
+statesman says that besides a personal advantage he has in view the
+common benefit, we cannot help believing him, and each of us knows such
+men. But a business-man, from the very nature of his occupations cannot
+have in view a common advantage, and would be ridiculous in the sight of
+his fellows if he were in his business aiming at something besides
+increasing his wealth and keeping it.
+
+And, therefore, working-people do not consider the activity of
+business-men of any advantage to them. Their activity is associated with
+violence; and its object is not their good but always and only personal
+advantage; and yet, strange to say, these business-men are so assured of
+their own usefulness that they boldly, for the sake of their imaginary
+good, do an undoubted, obvious harm to workmen by extricating themselves
+from labour, and consuming the produce of the working-classes.
+
+Scientists and artists have also freed themselves from labour by putting
+it on others, and live with a quiet conscience believing that they bring
+sufficient advantages to other men to compensate for it. On what is this
+assurance based? Let us ask them as we have done statesmen and
+business-men. Is the utility of the arts and sciences recognized by all,
+or even by the majority, of working-people?
+
+We shall receive a very sad answer. The activity of men in the State
+Church and government offices is recognized to be useful in theory by
+almost all, and in application by the majority of those for whom it is
+performed. The activity of business-men is recognized only by those who
+are engaged in it or who desire to practise it. Those who bear on their
+shoulders all the labour of life and who feed and clothe the scientists
+and artists cannot recognize the usefulness of the activity of these men
+because they cannot even form an idea about an activity which always
+appears to workmen useless and even depraving.
+
+Thus, without any exception, working-people think the same about
+universities, libraries, conservatories, picture and statue galleries,
+and theatres, which are built at their expense.
+
+A workman considers this activity so decidedly pernicious that he does
+not send his children to be taught; and in order to compel people to
+accept this activity it has everywhere been found necessary to introduce
+a law compelling parents to send the children to school.
+
+A workman always looks at this activity with ill-will, and only ceases
+to look at it so when he ceases to be a workman, and through gain and
+so-called education passes out of the class of working-people into the
+class of men who live on the neck of others.
+
+Notwithstanding the fact that the usefulness of the activity of
+scientists and artists is not recognized and even cannot be recognized
+by any workman, these men are, all the same, compelled to make
+sacrifices for such an activity.
+
+A statesman simply sends another to the guillotine or to prison; a
+business-man, utilizing the labour of someone else, takes from him his
+last resource, leaving him the alternative of starvation or labour
+destructive to his health and life: but a man of science or of art
+seemingly compels nobody to do anything; he merely offers the good he
+has done to those who are willing to take it; but, to be able to make
+his productions undesirable to the working-people, he takes away from
+them by violence, through the statesmen, a great part of their labour
+for the building and keeping open of academies, universities, colleges,
+schools, museums, libraries, conservatories, and for the wages for
+himself and his fellows.
+
+But if we were to ask the scientists and artists the object which they
+are pursuing in their activity, we should receive the most astonishing
+replies.
+
+A statesman would answer that his aim was the common welfare; and in his
+answer, there would be an admixture of truth confirmed by public
+opinion.
+
+In the answer of the business-man, there would be less probability; but
+we could admit even this also.
+
+But the answer of the scientists and artists strikes one at once by its
+want of proof and by its effrontery. Such men say, without bringing any
+proofs (just as priests used to do in olden times) that their activity
+is the most important of all, and that without it mankind would go to
+ruin. They assert that it is so, notwithstanding the fact that nobody
+except themselves either understands or acknowledges their activity, and
+notwithstanding the fact that, according to their own definition, true
+science and true art should not have a utilitarian aim.
+
+These men are occupied with the matter they like, without troubling
+themselves what advantage will come out of it to men; and they are
+always assured that they are doing the most important and the most
+necessary thing for all mankind.
+
+So that while a sincere statesman, acknowledging that the chief motive
+of his activity is a personal one, tries to be as useful as possible to
+the working-people; while a business-man, acknowledging the egotism of
+his activity, tries to give it an appearance of being one of universal
+utility,--men of science and art do not consider it necessary even to
+seem to shelter themselves under a pretence of usefulness, they deny
+even the object of usefulness, so sure are they, not only of the
+usefulness but even of the sacredness of their own business.
+
+So it turns out that the third class of men who have freed themselves
+from labour and laid it on others, are occupied with things which are
+totally incomprehensible to the working-people, and which these people
+consider trifles and often very pernicious trifles; and are occupied
+with these things without any consideration of their usefulness but
+merely for the gratification of their own pleasure: it turns out that
+these men are, from some reason or other, quite assured that their
+activity will always produce that without which the work-people would
+never be able to exist.
+
+Men have freed themselves from labouring for their living and have
+thrown the work upon others who perish under it: they utilize this
+labour and assert that their occupations, which are incomprehensible to
+all other men, and which are not directed to useful aims, compensate for
+all the evil they are doing to men by freeing themselves from the
+trouble of earning their livelihood and by swallowing up the labour of
+others.
+
+The statesman, to compensate for the undoubted and obvious evil which he
+does to man by freeing himself from the struggle with nature and by
+appropriating the labour of others, does men another obvious and
+undoubted harm by countenancing all sorts of violence.
+
+The business-man, to compensate for the undoubted and obvious harm which
+he does to men by using up their labour, tries to earn for himself as
+much wealth as possible; that is, as much of other men's labour as
+possible.
+
+The man of science and art, in compensating for the same undoubted and
+obvious harm which he does to working-people, is occupied with matters
+to which he feels attracted and which are quite incomprehensible to
+work-people, and which, according to his own assertion, in order to be
+true, ought not to aim at usefulness.
+
+Therefore, all these men are quite sure that their right of utilizing
+other men's labour is secure. Yet it seems obvious that all those men
+who have freed themselves from the labour of earning their livelihood
+have no justification for doing so.
+
+But, strange to say, these men firmly believe in their own
+righteousness, and live as they do with an easy conscience.
+
+There must be some plausible ground, some false belief, at the bottom of
+such a profound error.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+In reality, the position in which men who live by other men's labour are
+placed, is based not only on a certain belief but on an entire doctrine;
+and not only on one doctrine but on three, which have grown one upon
+another during centuries and are now fused together into an awful
+deceit,--or humbug as the English call it,--which hides from men their
+unrighteousness.
+
+The oldest of these, which justifies the treason of men against the
+fundamental duty of labour to earn their own living, was the
+Church-Christian doctrine, which asserts that men by the will of God
+differ one from another as the sun differs from the moon and the stars,
+and as one star differs from another. Some men God has ordained to have
+dominion over all, others to have power over many, others, still, over a
+few, and the remainder are ordained by God to obey.
+
+This doctrine, though already shaken to its foundations, still continues
+to influence some men, so that many who do not accept it, who often even
+ignore the existence of it, are, nevertheless, guided by it.
+
+The second is what I cannot help terming the State-philosophical
+doctrine. According to this, as fully developed by Hegel, everything
+that exists is reasonable, and the established order of life is
+constant, and is sustained not merely by men, but as the only possible
+form of the manifestation of the spirit, or, generally, of the life of
+mankind.
+
+This doctrine, too, is no longer accepted by the men who direct social
+opinion, and it holds its position only by the power of inertia.
+
+The last doctrine, which is now ruling the minds of men and on which is
+based the justification of leading statesmen, men of business, and
+science and art, is a scientific one, not in the evident sense of the
+word (meaning knowledge generally), but in the sense of a knowledge
+peculiar in form as well as in matter, termed _Science_. On this new
+doctrine, the justification of man's idleness and the hiding from him
+his treason against his calling, is particularly based.
+
+This doctrine appeared in Europe contemporaneously with a large class of
+rich and idle people who served neither the church nor the state and who
+were in want of a justification of their position.
+
+Not very long ago, before the French revolution in Europe, all
+non-working people, in order to have a right to utilize other men's
+labour, were obliged to have some definite occupation,--to serve in the
+church, the state, or the army.
+
+The men who served the government, "governed the people"; those who
+served the church, "taught the people divine truths"; and those who
+served the army, "protected the people."
+
+Only these three classes of men--the clergy, the statesmen, and the
+military men--claimed for themselves the right of utilizing labour, and
+they could always point out their services to the people: the remaining
+rich men who had not this justification, were despised, and, feeling
+their own want of right, were ashamed of their wealth and their
+idleness. But as time went on, this class of rich people, who belonged
+neither to the clergy, to the government, nor to the army, owing to the
+vices of these other three classes, increased in number and became a
+powerful party. They were in want of a justification of their position.
+And one was invented for them. A century had not elapsed before the men
+who served neither the State nor the Church and took no part whatever in
+their affairs, received the same right to live on labour as the former
+classes; and they not only left off being ashamed of their wealth and
+idleness but began to consider their position quite justified. And the
+number of such men has increased, and is still increasing in our days.
+
+The most wonderful of all is this, that these men whose claims to be
+freed from labour were unrecognized not long ago, now consider
+themselves alone to be fully right and are attacking the former three
+classes,--the servants of the Church, State, and Army,--alleging their
+exemption from labour to be unjust and often even considering their
+activity directly pernicious. What is still more wonderful is this, that
+the former servants of Church, State, and Army, do not now lean on the
+divinity of their calling, nor even on the philosophy which considers
+the state necessary for individual development, but setting aside these
+supports which have so long maintained them, they are now seeking the
+same supports on which the new reigning class of men, who have found a
+novel justification, stand, and at the head of which are the men of
+Science and Art.
+
+If a statesman now sometimes, appealing to old memories, justifies his
+position by the fact that he was set in it by God, or by the fact that
+the state is a form of the development of personality, he does it
+because he is behind the age, and he feels that nobody believes him.
+
+In order to justify himself effectually, he ought to find now neither
+theological nor philosophical but new and scientific supports.
+
+It is necessary to point to the principle of nationalities, or to that
+of the development of an organism; and to gain over the ruling class, as
+in the Middle Ages it was necessary to gain over the clergy; and as at
+the end of the last century, it was necessary to obtain the sanction of
+philosophers, as seen in the case of Frederick the Great and Catherine
+of Russia. If now a rich man, after the old fashion, says sometimes that
+it is God's providence which makes him rich, or if he points to the
+importance of a nobility for the welfare of a state, he does it because
+he is behind the times.
+
+In order to justify himself completely he must point to the way he
+furthers progress by improving the modes of production, by lowering the
+prices of consumption, by establishing intercourse between nations. A
+rich man must think and speak in scientific language, and, like the
+clergy formerly, he must offer sacrifices to the ruling class: he must
+publish magazines and books, provide himself with a picture-gallery, a
+musical society, a kindergarten or technical school. The ruling class is
+the class of learned men and artists of a definite character. They
+possess the complete justification for having freed themselves from
+labour; and on this justification (as in former times on the theological
+justification, and afterwards on the philosophical one) everything is
+based: and it is these men who now give the diploma of exemption to
+other classes.
+
+The class of men who now feel completely justified in freeing themselves
+from labour, is that of men of science, and particularly of
+experimental, positive, critical, evolutional science, and of artists
+who develop their ideas according to the same tendency.
+
+If a learned man or an artist of the old style speaks nowadays about
+prophecy, revelation, or the manifestation of the spirit, he does so
+because he is behind the age, and he will not succeed in justifying
+himself: to stand firm he must try to associate his activity with
+experimental, positive, critical science, and he must make this science
+the fundamental principle of his activity. Only then will the science or
+the art with which he is occupied appear true, and he will stand on firm
+ground, and then there will be no doubt as to his usefulness to mankind.
+The justification of all who have freed themselves from labour is now
+based upon this experimental, critical, positive science.
+
+The theological and philosophical explanations have had their day: now
+they timidly and bashfully introduce themselves to notice and try to
+humour their scientific usurper, who, however, boldly knocks down and
+destroys the remnants of the past, everywhere taking its place, and,
+assured of its own firmness, lifts aloft its head.
+
+_The theological justification_ maintained that men are
+predestined,--some to govern, others to obey; some to live sumptuously,
+others to labour: and therefore those who believed in the revelation of
+God could not doubt the lawfulness of the position of those men, who, by
+the will of God, are called to govern and to be rich.
+
+_The state-philosophical justification_ used to say, "The state with all
+its institutions and differences of classes according to rights and
+possessions, is that historical form which is necessary for the right
+manifestation of the spirit in mankind; and therefore the situation
+which everyone occupies in state and in society according to his rights
+and to his possessions must be such as to ensure the sound life of
+mankind."
+
+_The scientific theory_ says, "All this is nonsense and superstition:
+the one is the fruit of the theological period of thought, and the other
+of the metaphysical period. To study the laws of the life of human
+societies, there is only one sure method,--that of a positive,
+experimental, critical science. It is only sociology, based on biology,
+in its turn based on all the other positive sciences, which is able to
+give us new laws for the life of mankind. Mankind, or human societies,
+are organisms either already perfect, or in a state of development
+subject to the laws of the evolution of organisms. One of the first of
+these laws is the division of labour among the portions of the organs.
+If some men govern and others obey, some live in opulence and others in
+want, then this is so, neither according to the will of God nor because
+the state is the form of the manifestation of personality, but because
+in societies as in organisms a division of labour takes place which is
+necessary for the life of the whole. Some men perform in societies the
+muscular part of labour, and others, the mental."
+
+On this doctrine is built the ruling excuse of the age.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Christ teaches men in a new way, and this teaching is written down in
+the Gospels.
+
+It is first persecuted, and not accepted. Then the fables of the fall of
+man, and of the first angel, are invented, and these fables are believed
+to be the teaching of Christ. The fables are absurd, they have no
+foundation whatever, but by virtue of them men are led to believe that
+they may continue to live in an evil way, and none the less consider
+themselves as saved by Christ. This conclusion is so agreeable to the
+mass of weak men who have no affection for moral effort, that the system
+is eagerly accepted, not only as true, but even as the Divine truth as
+revealed by God himself. And the invention becomes the groundwork on
+which for centuries theologians build their theories.
+
+Then by degrees these learned men diverge by various channels into
+special systems of their own, and finally endeavour to overthrow each
+other's theories. They begin to feel there is something amiss, and cease
+to understand what they themselves are talking about. But the crowd
+still requires them to expound its favourite instruction; and thus the
+theologians, pretending both to understand and believe what they are
+saying, continue to dispense it.
+
+In process of time, however, the conclusions drawn from theological
+conceptions cease to be necessary to the masses, who, then, peeping into
+the very sanctuaries of their augurs, discover them to be utterly void
+of those glorious and indubitable truths which the mysteries of theology
+had seemed to be, and see instead that there is nothing there but crude
+deception, and they marvel at their own blindness.
+
+The same happened to philosophy, not in the sense of the wisdom of men
+like Confucius or Epictetus, but with professional philosophy which
+humoured the instincts of the crowd of rich and idle people. Not long
+ago a moral philosophy was in fashion in the learned world, according to
+which it appeared that everything that is, is reasonable; that there is
+neither good nor evil; that man has not to struggle with evil, but has
+merely to manifest the spirit of the age, some in military service, some
+in courts of justice, and some on the violin.
+
+Many and various were the expressions of human wisdom known to the men
+of the nineteenth century,--of Rousseau, Pascal, Lessing, and Spinoza;
+and all the wisdom of antiquity was expounded, but none of its systems
+laid hold of the crowd. We cannot say that Hegel's success was due to
+the harmony of his theory. We had no less harmonious theories from
+Descartes, Leibnitz, Fichte, and Schopenhauer.
+
+There was only one reason for the fact that this doctrine became for a
+short time the belief of the civilized world, the same reason that
+caused the success of the theory of the fall and redemption of man; to
+wit, that the deductions of this philosophical theory humoured the weak
+side of men's nature. It said, "All is reasonable, all is good; nobody
+is to blame for any thing."
+
+As at first with the church upon theological foundations, so also, with
+the philosophy of Hegel for a base, a Babel's tower was built (some who
+are behind the age are still sitting upon it); and here again was a
+confusion of tongues, men feeling that they themselves did not know of
+what they were talking, but were trying to conceal their ignorance and
+keep up their prestige before the crowd; and here again the masses found
+confirmation of their accepted teachings, and believed that whatever
+might seem to them bewildering and contradictory is as clear as
+day-light on philosophic altitudes. In the same way, the time came when
+this doctrine wore out and a new one replaced it. It had become useless,
+and the crowd peeped into the mysterious temples of the teachers, and
+saw there was nothing there--nor ever had been, but obscure and
+unmeaning words. I have seen this in my own day.
+
+When I began life, Hegelianism was the order of the day; it was in the
+very air you breathed; it found its expression in newspapers and
+magazines, in lectures on history and on law, in novels, in tracts, in
+art, in sermons, in conversation. A man who did not know Hegel had no
+right to open his mouth; those who desired to learn the truth were
+studying Hegel,--every thing pointed to him; and lo! forty years have
+elapsed and nothing is left of him; there is no remembrance of him; all
+is as though he had never existed. And the most remarkable of all is,
+that just as false Christianity, so also Hegelianism has fallen, not
+because someone refuted or overthrew it; no, it is now as it was before,
+but both have only become no longer necessary for the learned, educated
+world.
+
+If at the present time we speak to any man of modern culture about the
+fall of the angel, of Adam, about atonement, he does not argue or
+deny;--he simply asks, amazed, "What angel? Adam? What for? What
+atonement? What is all this to me?"
+
+So also with Hegelianism. No one of our day will argue its theses. He
+will only inquire, "What Spirit?" "Where did it come from?" "With what
+purpose?" "What good will it do me?" Not very long ago the sages of
+Hegelianism were solemnly teaching the crowd; and the crowd,
+understanding nothing, blindly believed all, finding the confirmation of
+what suited them, and thinking that what seemed to them to be not quite
+clear or even contradictory, was clearer than day on the heights of
+philosophy: but time went on, the theory was worn out, a new one
+appeared in its place, the former one was no longer demanded, and again
+the crowd looked into the mysterious temples of the augurs and saw there
+was nothing there, and that nothing had ever been there but words, very
+dark and meaningless.
+
+This happened within my memory. These things happened, we are told,
+because they were ravings of the theological and metaphysical period,
+but now we have a critical, positive science which will not deceive us,
+because it is based upon induction and experience; now our knowledge is
+no longer uncertain as it formerly was, and it is only by following it
+that one can find the answer to all the questions of life.
+
+But this is exactly what was said by the old teachers, and they
+certainly were no fools, and we know that among them were men of immense
+intellect; and within my memory the disciples of Hegel said exactly the
+same thing, with no less assurance and no less acknowledgment on the
+side of the crowd of so-called educated people. And such men as our
+Herzen, Stankievich, Bylinsky, were no fools either. But why, then, has
+this wonderful thing happened, that clever men preached with the
+greatest assurance and the crowd accepted with veneration, only
+groundless and meaningless doctrines? The reason is only that these
+doctrines justified men in their bad mode of living.
+
+A very commonplace English writer, whose books are now almost forgotten
+and recognized as the emptiest of all empty ones, wrote a tract upon
+population, in which he invented an imaginary law that the means of
+living do not increase with the increase of population. This sham law
+the author dressed out with the formulć of mathematics which have no
+foundation whatever, and published it. Judged by the lightness of mind
+and the want of talent displayed in this treatise we might have supposed
+that it would have passed unnoticed and been forgotten as all other
+writings of the same author have been; but it turned out quite
+differently. The author who wrote it became at once a scientific
+authority, and has maintained this position for nearly half a century.
+Malthus! The Malthusian theory,--the law of the increase of population
+in geometrical progression, and the increase of means of living in
+arithmetical progression, and the natural and prudent means of
+restraining the increase of population,--all these became scientific,
+undoubted truths which have never been verified, but, accepted as
+axioms, have served for further deductions.
+
+Thus learned and educated men were deceived; whereas in the crowd of
+idle men there was a blind and religious trust in the great laws
+discovered by Malthus. How did this happen? These statements seem to be
+scientific deductions which have nothing in common with the instincts of
+the crowd.
+
+But they are only sacred to those who believe science to be something
+self-existent and infallible, like the Church, and not merely the
+thoughts of weak men liable to mistakes, who only for importance' sake
+call their own thoughts and words by a pompous word, _science_. It was
+only necessary to draw practical conclusions from the Malthusian theory
+in order to see that it was quite a human one with very determinate
+aims.
+
+The deductions which were directly drawn from this theory were the
+following: The miserable condition of working-people does not come from
+the cruelty, egotism, and unreasonableness of rich and powerful men, but
+it exists according to an unchangeable law which does not depend upon
+man, and, if anybody is to blame, it is the starving working-people
+themselves: why do these fools come into the world when they know that
+they will not have enough to eat? and therefore the wealthy and powerful
+classes are not at all to blame for any thing, and they may quietly
+continue to live as they have done.
+
+This conclusion, being pleasant to the crowd of idle men, induced the
+learned dons to overlook the incorrectness and total arbitrariness of
+the deductions; and the crowd of educated, i.e., idle people,
+instinctively guessing to what these deductions led, greeted the theory
+with delight, set upon it the seal of truth, and cherished it during
+half a century. The reason for all this was, that these doctrines
+justified men in their bad mode of life.
+
+Is not the same cause at the bottom of the self-assurance of men of the
+new positive, critical, experimental science, and of the reverent regard
+of the crowd to what they preach? At first it seems strange that the
+theory of evolution (like the theory of atonement in theology, it serves
+for the majority of men as a popular expression of the new teaching)
+should justify men in their false lives, and it would seem that the
+scientific theory has only to do with facts, and does nothing but
+observe facts. But it only seems so.
+
+It had been so with theological teaching; theology seemed to be occupied
+only with doctrines and to have nothing to do with the lives of men. It
+had been so with philosophy, which also seemed to be occupied only with
+facts.
+
+It had been so with the teaching of Hegel on a large scale, and with the
+theory of Malthus on a small one. Hegelianism seemed to be occupied
+merely with its logical constructions and to have nothing to do with the
+lives of men; and the theory of Malthus seemed to be occupied
+exclusively with statistics.
+
+But it only seemed so.
+
+Modern science also claims to be occupied exclusively with facts: it
+studies facts.
+
+But what facts? Why some facts and not others?
+
+The disciples of the modern science are very fond of saying with a
+solemn assurance, "We study facts alone," imagining that these words
+have some meaning.
+
+To study facts alone is quite impossible, because the number of facts
+which may be objects of our study, are, in the strict sense of the word,
+countless.
+
+Before beginning to study facts, one must have some theory according to
+which the facts are studied; that is, determining which shall be
+selected from the countless number of facts. And this theory indeed
+exists and is even very definitely expressed, though many of the agents
+of modern science ignore it; that is, do not want to know it, or really
+do not know it;--sometimes pretend not to know it.
+
+Thus matters stood before with all most important beliefs.
+
+The basis of each is always given in theory; and so-called learned men
+seek only further deductions from the various bases given to them,
+though sometimes they ignore even these.
+
+But a fundamental theory must always be present, and so it is also now.
+Modern science selects its facts on the ground of a determinate theory,
+which sometimes it knows, sometimes does not wish to know, sometimes
+really does not know; but which exists. The theory is this: Mankind is
+an undying organism, having each his special calling for the service of
+the whole. As the cells, growing into an organism, divide among
+themselves the labour of the struggle for existence of the whole
+organism, increase one capacity, and diminish another, and all together
+form an organ in order better to satisfy the wants of the whole
+organism; and as among social animals,--ants and bees,--the individuals
+divide the labour among themselves (queen-bees lay eggs, drone-bees
+fecundate, working-bees labour for the life of the whole),--so also in
+mankind and in human societies there take place the same differentiation
+and integration of the parts. And therefore, in order to find the law of
+man's life, we must study the laws of the lives and development of
+organisms. And in these we find the following laws: That each phenomenon
+is followed by more than one consequence. The failure of uniformity. The
+law of uniformity and diversity; and so on.
+
+All this seems to be very innocent, but we need only draw deductions
+from these observations of facts in order to see at once to what they
+are tending. These facts lead to one thing,--the acknowledgement of
+humanity or human society as an organism, and hence to the
+acknowledgment of the division of activities in human society as
+organic, that is necessary; and as there exist in human societies many
+cruelties and vices, therefore these phenomena must not be considered as
+cruelties and vices, but must be accepted as inevitable facts confirming
+a general law--i.e., that of "division of labour." Moral philosophy used
+also to justify every cruelty and wickedness; but there it became
+philosophical, and therefore incorrect. According to science, however,
+the same thing turns out to be scientific, and therefore unquestionable.
+
+How can we help accepting such a fine theory! We need only look at human
+society merely as something to be observed, and we may quietly devour
+the labour of perishing men, calming ourselves with the idea that our
+activity as a dancing-master, a lawyer, a doctor, a philosopher, an
+actor, an investigator of the theory of mediumism and of forms of atoms,
+and so on, is a functional activity of the organism of mankind and
+therefore there can be no question whether it is just that I should
+continue to live doing only what is pleasant, just as there can be no
+question whether the division of labour between a mental and a muscular
+cell is fair or not. How can we help accepting such a nice theory which
+enables us afterwards to put our consciences into our pockets forever,
+and live a completely unbridled, animal life, feeling under our feet a
+firm, scientific support? And it is upon this new belief that the
+justification of idleness and the cruelty of men is built.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+This doctrine had its commencement about half a century ago. Its chief
+founder was the French philosopher Comte. Comte, being a lover of
+systematic theory, and at the same time a man of religious tendency, was
+impressed by the then new physiological researches of Bichat; and he
+conceived the old idea, expressed in bygone days by Menenius Agrippa,
+that human societies, indeed all human-kind, may be regarded as one
+whole, An Organism, and men--as live particles of separate organs, each
+having his definite destination to fulfil in the service of the whole
+organism.
+
+Comte was so fascinated by this idea that he founded his philosophical
+theory on it; and this theory so captivated him that he quite forgot
+that his point of departure was no more than a pretty comparison,
+suitable enough in a fable, but in no way justifiable as the foundation
+of a science. As it often happens, he took his pet hypothesis for an
+axiom, and so imagined that his whole theory was based upon the most
+firm and positive foundations.
+
+According to his theory it appeared that, as mankind is an organism,
+therefore the knowledge of what man is and what his relation to the
+world ought to be, is only possible through the knowledge of the
+properties of this organism. And to be able to learn these properties
+man is fitted to make observations upon other lower organisms and to
+draw deductions from their lives.
+
+Therefore, first, the true and exclusive method of science, according to
+Comte, is the inductive one, and science is only science when it has
+experiment for its basis. Secondly, the final aim and the summit of
+science becomes the new science concerning the imaginary organism of
+Mankind, or the organic being,--Mankind. This new hypothetic science is
+Sociology. From this view of science it generally turns out that all
+former knowledge was false, and that the whole history of mankind, in
+the sense of its self-consciousness, divides itself into three, or
+rather two, periods. First, the theological and metaphysical period,
+from the beginning of the world to Comte. And, secondly, the modern
+period of true science, positive science, beginning with Comte.
+
+All this was very well, but there was one mistake in it, which was this:
+that all this edifice was built on the sand, on an arbitrary (and
+incorrect) assertion that mankind, collectively considered, was an
+organism.
+
+This assertion is arbitrary because, if we are to acknowledge the
+existence of mankind as an organism, which is beyond observation, we
+might as well acknowledge the existence of the triple God and similar
+theological propositions.
+
+It was incorrect, because to the idea of mankind, that is, of men, the
+definition of an organism was added, whereas man lacks the essential
+characteristics of an organism,--a centre of sensation or consciousness.
+We call an elephant, as well as a bacterium, organisms, only because we
+suppose by analogy in these beings that there is unification of
+sensations, or consciousness. But human societies and mankind lack this
+essential; and therefore, however many other general character-signs we
+may find in mankind and in an organism,--without this, the assertion
+that man is an organism is incorrect.
+
+But notwithstanding the arbitrariness and incorrectness of the
+fundamental proposition of Positive Philosophy, it was accepted by the
+so-called "Educated World" with great sympathy, because of that great
+fact, important for the crowd, that it afforded a justification of the
+existing order of things by recognizing the lawfulness of the existing
+division of labour; that is, of violence in mankind. It is remarkable in
+this respect that from the writings of Comte, composed of two parts,--a
+Positive Philosophy and a Positive Politics,--only the first part was
+accepted on new experimental principles by the learned world, that which
+justified the existing evil in human society. The second part, treating
+of the moral, altruistic duties, following from this recognition of
+mankind as an organism, was considered not only unimportant but even
+unscientific.
+
+Here the same thing was repeated which occurred with the two parts of
+Kant's writings. The "Critique of Pure Reason," was accepted by science;
+but the "Critique of Practical Reason," that part which contains the
+essence of moral doctrine, was rejected. In the teaching of Comte, that
+was recognized to be scientific which humoured the reigning evil.
+
+But the Positive Philosophy accepted by the crowd, based on an arbitrary
+and incorrect supposition, was by itself too ill-grounded, and therefore
+too unsteady, and could not be sustained by itself.
+
+And now, among the idle play of ideas of so-called "Men of Science,"
+there has appeared a similarly arbitrary and incorrect assertion, not at
+all new, to the effect that all living beings (that is, organisms),
+proceed one from another; not only one organism from another, but one
+organism from many; that during a very long period, a million of years,
+for instance, not only may a fish and a duck have proceeded from one and
+the same forefather, but also one organism might have proceeded from
+many separate organisms; so, for instance, out of a swarm of bees a
+single animal may proceed. This arbitrary and incorrect assertion was
+accepted by the learned world with still greater sympathy.
+
+The assertion was arbitrary, because no one has ever seen how one kind
+of organism is made from others; and therefore the hypothesis about the
+Origin of Species will always remain a mere supposition and never become
+an experimental fact.
+
+The hypothesis was incorrect, because the solution of the problem of the
+Origin of Species by the theory of the laws of inheritance and
+accommodation during an infinitely long period, is not a solution of the
+problem at all, but the mere reiteration of the question in another
+form.
+
+According to the solution of this problem by Moses (to oppose which is
+the object of Comte's theory), it appeared that the variety of the
+species of living beings proceeded from the will of God and his infinite
+omnipotence. According to the Theory of Evolution, it appears that the
+variety of species of living beings proceeded from themselves in
+consequence of the infinite variety of conditions of inheritance and
+environment in an infinite period of time.
+
+The Theory of Evolution, speaking plainly, asserts only that (by chance)
+in an infinite period of time, anything you like may proceed from
+anything else you choose.
+
+This is no answer to the question; it is simply the same question put
+differently: instead of Will is put Chance, and the co-efficient of the
+Infinite is transferred from Omnipotence to Time.
+
+But this new assertion, enforced by Darwin's followers in an arbitrary
+and inaccurate spirit, maintained the first assertion of Comte, and
+therefore it became the Revelation for our time, and the foundation of
+all sciences, even that of the history of philosophy and religion; and
+besides, according to the _naďve_ confession of Darwin himself, the idea
+was awakened in him by the law of Malthus; and therefore he pointed to
+the "Struggle for Existence" not only of men but of all living beings,
+as a fundamental law of every living thing, and this was exactly what
+was wanted by the crowd of idle people for their own justification.
+
+Two unstable theories which could not stand on their own feet supported
+each other, and so received a show of stability. Both the theories bore
+in them a sense, precious to the crowd, that men are not to be blamed
+for the existing evil in human societies, that the existing order is
+what should be; and thus the new theory was accepted by the crowd in the
+sense wanted by them, with full confidence and unprecedented enthusiasm.
+
+Thus the new scientific doctrine was founded upon two arbitrary and
+incorrect propositions, accepted in the same way that dogmas of faith
+are accepted. Both in matter and form this new doctrine is remarkably
+like the Church-Christian one. In matter, the similarity lies in the
+fact that in both doctrines alike a fantastical meaning is attached to
+really existing things, and this artificial meaning is taken as the
+object of our research.
+
+In the Church-Christian doctrine, to Christ who did really exist, is
+attributed the fantastic conception of being God Himself, screened. In
+the Positive doctrine, to the really existing fact of live men is
+attributed the fantastical attributes of an organism.
+
+In form, the similarity of these two doctrines is remarkable, since, in
+both cases, a theory emanating from one class of men is accepted as the
+only and infallible truth. In the Church-Christian doctrine, the
+Church's way of understanding God's revelation to men is regarded as the
+sacred and only true one. In the doctrine of Positivism, certain men's
+way of understanding science is regarded as absolutely correct and true.
+
+As the Church-Christians regard the foundation of their church as the
+only origin of true knowledge of God, and only out of a kind of courtesy
+admit that former believers may also be regarded as having formed a
+church; so in precisely the same manner does Positive science, according
+to its own statement, place its origin in Comte: and its
+representatives, also only out of courtesy, admit the existence of
+previous science, and that only as regarding certain thinkers, as, for
+instance, Aristotle. Both the Church and Positive science altogether
+exclude the ideas of all the rest of mankind, and regard all knowledge
+outside their own as _erroneous_. The similarity persists. Just as to
+the support of the first advental theological dogmas of the Trinity and
+of the divinity of Christ comes the old--but newly-interpreted--dogmas
+of man's fall and of his redemption by the death of Christ, and out of
+these dogmas is developed popular Church teaching: so in our time, the
+old dogma of Evolution comes in with new importance to help the
+fundamental dogma of Comte concerning the organism of mankind; and from
+these two elements the popular scientific doctrine has been formed. As
+in one teaching, so in the other: the new dogma is necessary for the
+support of the old one, and becomes comprehensible only in connection
+with it. If to a believer in the Divinity of Christ, it is not clearly
+comprehensible why God should come down to earth, the doctrine of
+atonement explains it. If it is not quite clear to a believer in the
+Organism of Mankind why a collection of individuals may be counted as an
+organism, the dogma of Evolution is charged with the explanation. This
+dogma is needed to reconcile the contradictions and certainties of the
+first: mankind is an organism, and we see that it does not contain the
+chief characteristic of an organism; how must we account for it?
+
+Here the dogma of evolution comes in, and explains, Mankind is an
+organism in a state of development. If you accept this, you may then
+consider mankind as such.
+
+As to any man free from superstitions about the trinity and the Divinity
+of Christ, it is impossible even to understand the force and the meaning
+of the teaching of atonement, which meaning comes only through the
+acknowledgment of Christ as God Himself, so a man who is free from the
+Positive superstition cannot even understand wherein lies the interest
+of the theory of the Origin of Species and of Evolution; and this
+interest is explained only when we learn the fundamental dogma, that
+"Mankind is an Organism." And as the subtleties of theology are only
+intelligible to those who believe in its fundamental dogmas, so also the
+subtleties of sociology, which now occupy the minds of all adherents of
+this recent and profound science, are intelligible only to believers.
+The doctrine of atonement is necessary to reconcile the contradiction
+between the first dogma and facts. God descended on earth to save men.
+But men are not saved. How then explain this? The dogma of atonement
+asserts "He saved those, who believed in atonement. If you believe in
+atonement, you are saved."
+
+The similarity between these two doctrines holds good yet further. Being
+founded on dogmas accepted by faith, these doctrines neither question
+nor analyze their own principles, which, on the other hand, are used as
+starting-points for the most extraordinary theories. The preachers of
+these call themselves, in Theology, sanctified; in Positive knowledge,
+scientific; in both cases, infallible. And at the same time, they
+conceive the most peremptory, incredible, and unfounded assertions,
+which they give forth with the greatest pomp and seriousness, and which
+are with equal pomp and seriousness contradicted in all their details by
+others who do not agree, and yet who equally recognize the fundamental
+dogmas.
+
+The Basil the Great of scientific doctrine, Herbert Spencer, in one of
+his first writings expresses these doctrines thus: Societies and
+organisms, says he, are alike in the following points: First, in that,
+being conceived as small aggregates, they imperceptibly grow in mass, so
+that some of them become ten thousand times bigger than their originals.
+
+Secondly, in that, while in the beginning they have such simple
+structure that they may almost be considered structureless, in their
+growth they develop an ever-increasing complexity of structure.
+
+Thirdly, in that, though in their early undeveloped period there does
+not exist among them any dependence of particles upon one another, these
+particles by and by acquire a mutual dependence, which at last becomes
+so strong that the activity and the life of each part is possible only
+with the activity and the lives of all others.
+
+Fourthly, in this, that the life and the development of society is more
+independent and longer than the life and the development of every unit
+which goes to form it, and which is separately born and growing and
+acting and multiplying and dying while the political body formed of such
+continues to live one generation after another, developing in mass, in
+perfection of structure, and in functional activity.
+
+Then follow the points of difference between organisms and societies,
+and it is demonstrated that these differences are only seeming ones, and
+that organisms and societies are quite similar.
+
+To an impartial man the question at once arises, What are you speaking
+about, then? Why is mankind an organism or something similar? You say
+that societies are similar to organisms according to these four points;
+but even this comparison is incorrect. You take only a few
+characteristics of an organism, and you then apply them to human
+societies. You produce four points of similarity, then you take the
+points of difference which you say are only seemingly so, and you
+conclude that human societies may be considered as organisms. But this
+is nothing else than an idle play of dialectics. On this ground we may
+consider as an organism everything we choose. I take the first thing
+which comes to my mind,--a forest, as it is planted in a field and grows
+up: first beginning as a small aggregate and imperceptibly increasing in
+mass. Secondly, "In the beginning the structure of an organism is
+simple, then the complexity increases," and so on. This is the case with
+the forest: at first there are only birch-trees, then hazel, and so on;
+first all the trees grow straight, and afterwards they interlace their
+branches. Thirdly, "The dependence of the parts increases so that the
+life of each part depends upon the lives and activities of all the
+others": it is exactly the same with the forest; the nut-tree keeps the
+trunks warm (if you hew it down, the other trees will be frozen in
+winter), the underwood keeps off wind, the seed-trees continue the
+species, the tall and leafy ones give shadow, and the life of each tree
+depends upon that of the rest. Fourthly, "Separate parts may die, but
+the whole organism continues to live." Separate trees perish, but the
+forest continues in life and growth.
+
+The same holds good with the example so often brought by the defenders
+of the scientific doctrine. Cut off an arm,--the arm will die: we may
+say remove a tree from the shadow and the ground of a forest, it will
+die.
+
+Another remarkable similarity between this scientific doctrine and the
+Church-Christian one,--and any other theory founded upon propositions
+which are accepted through faith,--lies in their mutual capacity of
+being proof against logic.
+
+Having demonstrated that by this theory a forest may be considered as an
+organism, you think you have proved to the followers of the theory the
+incorrectness of their definition? Not at all. Their definition of an
+organism is so loose and plastic that they can apply it to everything
+they like.
+
+Yes, they will say, you may consider the forest, too, as an organism. A
+forest is a mutual co-operation of the individuals who do not destroy
+each other; an aggregate: its parts can also pass into a closer
+relationship, and by differentiation and integration it may become an
+organism.
+
+Then you will say, that in that case, the birds too and the insects, and
+the herbs of this forest, which mutually co-operate and do not destroy
+each other, may be considered, with the trees, to be an organism. They
+would agree to this, too. According to their theory, we may consider as
+an organism every collection of living beings which mutually co-operate,
+and do not destroy one another. You can establish a connection and
+co-operation between everything you like, and, according to evolution,
+you can assert that from anything may proceed anything else you like, if
+a long enough period is granted.
+
+To those who believe in the Trinity, it is impossible to prove that it
+does not exist. But one can show them that their assertion is not based
+on knowledge, but is an assertion of faith, and that if they assert that
+there are three Gods, I have an equal right to assert that there are 17˝
+Gods. One may say the same thing with yet better ground to the followers
+of Positive and Evolutional science. On the basis of this science one
+could undertake to prove anything one liked. And the strangest thing of
+all is, that this same Positive science regards the scientific method as
+a condition of true knowledge, and that it has itself defined the
+elements of the scientific method. It professes that common sense is the
+scientific method. And yet common sense itself discloses the fallacies
+of the doctrine at every step. The moment those who occupied the
+position of saints felt there was no longer anything sacred in them,
+that they are cursed like the Pope and our own Synod, they immediately
+called themselves not merely sacred, but "most sacred." The moment
+science felt that it had given up common sense, it called itself The
+Science of Reason, The Only Really Scientific Science.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+"Division of Labour" is the law pervading everything that exists,
+therefore it must exist in human societies too. That may be so; but the
+question still remains, whether the existing division of labour in human
+society is the division which ought to exist. And when men consider a
+certain division of labour unreasonable and unjust, no science whatever
+can prove to men that what they consider unreasonable and unjust ought
+to continue.
+
+The theological theory demonstrated that "Power is of God"; and it very
+well may be so. But the question still remains, To whom is the power
+given, to Catherine the Empress, or to the rebel Pugatchof? And no
+theological subtleties whatever can solve this difficulty. Moral
+philosophy demonstrates that "A State is merely a form of the social
+development of the individual"; but the question still remains,--Can the
+state of a Nero or that of a Gengis Khan be considered a form of such
+development? And no transcendentalism whatever can solve that
+difficulty.
+
+It is the same with Scientific Science also. Division of Labour is the
+condition of the life of organisms and of human societies; but what have
+we to consider in these human societies as an organic division of
+labour? However much science studies the division of labour in the
+molecules of a tape-worm, all the observations cannot compel men to
+acknowledge as correct a division of labour which is repudiated by their
+reason and conscience. However convincing the proofs of the division of
+labour in the cells of investigated organisms may be, a man who has not
+yet lost his reason will say it is wrong that some should only weave
+cloth all their long life, and that this is not division of labour, but
+oppression of human beings.
+
+Herbert Spencer and others affirm that as there is a whole population of
+weavers, the weaver's activity is in organic division of labour. In
+saying this they use a similar line of reasoning to the theologians:
+There is a power, therefore it is of God, whatever it may be: there are
+weavers, therefore they exist as a result of the law of division of
+labour. There might be some sense in this if the power and the position
+of weavers were created by themselves; but we know that they are not but
+that it is we who create them. Well, then, we ought to ascertain whether
+we have established this power according to the will of God or of
+ourselves, and whether we have called these weavers into being by virtue
+of some organic law or from some other cause.
+
+Here are men earning their living by agriculture, as it is proper for
+all men to do: one man has set up a smith's forge and mended his plough;
+his neighbour comes to him and asks him to mend his plough, too, and
+promises to give labour or money in return. A second comes with a
+similar request; others follow; and in the society of these men a form
+of division of labour arises. Thus, one man becomes a smith.
+
+Another man has taught his children well; his neighbour brings him his
+children and asks him to teach them, and thus a teacher is formed: but
+the smith as well as the teacher become, and continue to be, a smith and
+a teacher, only because they were asked, and they remain a smith and a
+teacher only as long as people require their trades. If it happens that
+too many smiths and teachers appear, or if their labour is no longer
+wanted, they at once, according to common sense, throw aside their trade
+and become labourers again, as it everywhere and always happens where
+there is no cause for the violation of a right division of labour.
+
+Men who behave in such a way are directed both by their reason and their
+conscience; and therefore we who are endowed with reason and conscience,
+all agree that such a division of labour is a right one. But if it were
+to happen that smiths, having the possibility of compelling other men to
+labour for them, were to continue to make horseshoes when there was no
+longer a demand for them, and teachers were to wish to continue to teach
+when there was nobody to be taught, then, to every impartial man endowed
+with reason and conscience, it would be obvious that this is not real
+division of labour but a usurpation of other men's labour; because such
+a division could no longer be tested satisfactorily by the sole standard
+by which we may know whether it is right or not,--the demand of such
+labour by other men, and a voluntary compensation offered for it by
+them. But exactly such a surplus, however, is what Scientific Science
+terms "a division of labour."
+
+Men do what is not required, and they ask to be fed for it, and say it
+is just, because it is division of labour. The chief _social_ evil of a
+people,--not with us alone,--is the countless horde of State officials.
+The chief cause of the _economical_ misery of our days, is what is
+called in England "over-production" (that is, the production of an
+enormous quantity of articles, wanted by nobody, and which no one knows
+how to get rid of). All this comes simply from the strange idea about
+the "division of labour?"
+
+It would be very strange to see a boot-maker who considered that men
+were bound to feed him because, forsooth, he continued to produce boots
+wanted by no one; but what shall we say about those men in government,
+church, science, and art, who not only do not produce any thing tangibly
+useful for the people but whose produce is wanted by nobody, yet who as
+boldly require to be well fed and clothed on account of "The division of
+labour."
+
+There may be magicians for whose activity there is a demand and to whom
+men give casks and spirits; but we cannot even imagine the existence of
+magicians who, while their magic is not wanted by anybody, require to be
+fed simply because they wish to practice their art. Yet in our world
+this is the very position of the men in church and state, of the men of
+science and art. And it all proceeds from that false conception of the
+division of labour, defined, not by reason and conscience, but by
+deductions to which these scientists so unanimously resort.
+
+Division of labour, indeed, has always existed; but it is correct only
+when man decides it by his reason and conscience, and not by his making
+observations on it. And the conscience and the reason of all men solve
+this question in the simplest and surest way. They always decide the
+question by recognizing the division of labour to be right only when the
+special activity of a man is so necessary to others, that they freely
+offer to feed him in compensation for what they ask him to do for them.
+But when a man from his infancy up to his thirtieth year lives on the
+shoulders of other men, promising to do, when he finishes his studies,
+something very useful, which nobody has ever asked him for, and then for
+the rest of his life lives in the same way, promising only to do
+presently something which nobody asks him to do, this would not be a
+true division of labour, but, as it really is, only the violation by a
+strong man of the labour of others; the same appropriation of other
+men's labour by a strong man, which formerly Theology called Divine
+predestination; Philosophy, Inevitable Conditions of Life; and now
+Scientific Science, the Organic Division of Labour.
+
+The entire importance of the ruling science consists in this alone. This
+science is now the dispenser of diplomas for idleness, because in her
+temples she alone analyzes and determines what activity in the social
+organism is parasitic and what organic. As if each man could not decide
+much better and more quickly, too, by consulting his own reason and
+conscience.
+
+As formerly, both for clergy and for statesmen, there could have been no
+doubt as to who were most necessary to other people, so now for the
+believers in Positive Science it seems that there can be no doubt about
+this, that their own activity is undoubtedly an organic one: they, the
+factors of science and art, are the cells of the brain, the most
+precious cells of all the human organism.
+
+Let us leave them to reign, eat, drink, and be feasted, as priests and
+sophists of old have before them, so long as they do not deprave men!
+
+Since men are reasonable creatures they have discriminated good from
+evil, making use of what has been done in this direction before them by
+others, have struggled with evil, seeking a true and better way, and
+slowly but unceasingly have advanced in this way. But always across the
+road different deceptions stood before them, trying to assure them that
+this struggle was not at all necessary, and that they should submit to
+the tide of life. First the awful deceptions of the old Church; little
+by little with dreadful struggle and effort men got rid of them: but
+scarcely had they done so when in their place arose new ones--state and
+philosophical deceptions.
+
+Men freed themselves from these too, and now a new deceit, a still worse
+one, has sprung up in their path,--the scientific deception.
+
+This new deception is exactly what the old ones were: its essence
+consists in the substitution of an externality for reason and
+conscience, and this externality is _observation_, as in theology it was
+_revelation_.
+
+The snare of this science consists in this, that having exposed some
+bare-faced perversions of the activity of reason and conscience, it
+destroys men's confidence in both reason and conscience. Hiding their
+lie clothed in a scientific theory, scientists assure men that by
+studying external phenomena they study undeniable facts which will
+reveal to them the law of man's life. Things which are the property of
+conscience and reason are now to be discovered by observation alone.
+These men lose the conception of good and evil and thus become unable to
+understand those expressions and definitions of good and evil which have
+been worked out during the entire former existence of mankind.
+
+All that reason and conscience say to them, all that they have said to
+the highest representatives of men since the world has existed, all
+this, in their slang, is "conditional and subjective." All this must be
+left behind.
+
+It is said that by reason one cannot apprehend the truth, because reason
+is liable to error: there is another way, unmistakable and almost
+mechanical,--one must study facts on the ground of science; that is, on
+two groundless suppositions, Positivism and Evolution, which are offered
+as the most undoubted truths. With mock solemnity the ruling science
+asserts that the solution of all the questions of life is only possible
+through studying the facts of nature, and especially those of organisms.
+
+The credulous crowd of youth, overwhelmed by the novelty of this
+authority,--not only not destroyed, not yet even touched by
+critics,--rush to the study of these facts of natural sciences, to that
+"only way" which, according to the assertion of the ruling doctrine,
+alone can lead to the elucidation of all questions of life. But the
+farther the students proceed in this study, the farther do they remove
+not only the possibility of solving the questions of life, but even the
+very thought of this solution. The more they grow accustomed, not so
+much to observe themselves, as to believe other men's observations on
+their word (to believe in cells, in protoplasm, in the fourth dimension
+of matter, and so on), the more the form hides from them the contents.
+The more they lose the consciousness of good and evil and the capacity
+of understanding those expressions and definitions of good and evil
+which have been worked out in all the former career of mankind, the more
+they appropriate to themselves that special scientific slang of
+"conditional" expressions which have no common human meaning in them.
+The farther and farther they get into the thick forest of observations
+lighted by anything, the more they lose the capacity, not only of
+independent thought, but even of understanding other men's fresh human
+ideas which are not included in their Talmud. But chiefly they pass
+their best years in losing the habit of life, that is, of labour, and
+accustom themselves to consider their own position justified, and thus
+become, physically, good-for-nothing parasites, and, mentally, dislocate
+their brains and lose all power of thought-production.
+
+So, their capacities more and more blunted, they acquire by degrees
+self-assurance which deprives them forever of the possibility of
+returning to a simple, laborious life, and to any plain, clear, common,
+human manner of thinking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+The division of labour has always existed in human society, and I
+daresay always will exist; but the question for us is, not if it has
+been and will still continue, but, what should guide us in providing
+that this division may be a right one.
+
+If we take the facts of observation for our standard, we refuse to have
+any standard at all: for every division of labour which we see among
+men, and which may seem to us to be right, we shall consider right; and
+this is what the ruling Scientific Science is leading us to.
+
+Division of labour!
+
+"Some are occupied with mental and spiritual, others with muscular and
+physical, labour."
+
+With what an assurance men express this! They wish to think it, and so
+that which is transparently the ancient violence, seems to them in
+reality a fair exchange of services.
+
+"Thou," or rather, "you" (because it is always the many who have to feed
+the one),--"you feed me, dress me, do for me all this rough labour which
+I require of you, and to which you are accustomed from your infancy, and
+I will do for you that mental work to which I have already become
+accustomed. Give me bodily food, and in return I will give you the
+spiritual."
+
+The statement seems fair; and it would really be so if such exchange of
+services were free; if those who supply the bodily food were not obliged
+to supply it before they get the spiritual. The producer of the
+spiritual food says, "In order that I may be able to give you this food,
+you must feed me, clothe me, and remove all filth from my house."
+
+But the producer of bodily food must do his work without making any
+claims of his own, and he has to give the bodily food whether he receive
+spiritual food or not. If the exchange were a free one the conditions on
+both sides would be equal. We agree that spiritual food is as necessary
+to man as bodily. But the learned man, the artist, says, "Before we can
+begin to serve men by giving them spiritual food, we want men to provide
+us with bodily food."
+
+But why should not the producers of this say, "Before we begin to serve
+you with bodily food, we want spiritual food; and until we receive it,
+we cannot labour?"
+
+You say, "I require the labour of a ploughman, a smith, a book-maker, a
+carpenter, masons, and others, in order that I may prepare the spiritual
+food I have to offer."
+
+Every workman might say, too, "Before I go to work to prepare bodily
+food for you, I want the fruits of the spirit. In order to have strength
+for labouring, I require a religious teaching, the social order of
+common life, application of knowledge to labour, and the joys and
+comforts which art gives. I have no time to work out for myself a
+teaching concerning the meaning of life,--give it to me. I have no time
+to think out statutes of common life which would prevent the violation
+of justice,--give me this too. I have no time to study mechanics,
+natural philosophy, chemistry, technology; give me books with
+information as to how I am to improve my tools, my ways of working, my
+dwelling, its heating and lighting. I have no time to occupy myself with
+poetry, with plastic art, or music. Give me the excitements and comforts
+necessary for life; give me the productions of the arts."
+
+You say it would be impossible for you to do your important and
+necessary business if you were deprived of the labour that
+working-people do for you; and I say, a workman may declare, "It is
+impossible for me to do my important and necessary business, not less
+important than yours,--to plough, to cart away refuse, and to clean
+_your_ houses,--if I am deprived of a religious guidance corresponding
+to the wants of my intellect and my conscience, of a reasonable
+government which will secure my labour, of information for easing my
+labour, and the enjoyment of art to ennoble it. All you have hitherto
+offered me in the shape of spiritual food is not only of no use to me
+whatever, I cannot even understand to whom it could be of any use. And
+until I receive this nourishment, proper for me as for every man, I
+cannot produce bodily food to feed you with."
+
+What if the working-people should speak thus? And if they did, it would
+be no jest but the simplest justice. If a workman said this, he would be
+far more in the right than a man of intellectual labour; because the
+labour produced by the workman is more urgent and more necessary than
+that of the intellectual worker, and because a man of intellect is
+hindered by nothing from giving that spiritual food which he promised to
+give, while the workingman is hindered in giving the bodily food by the
+fact that he himself is short of it.
+
+What, then, should we intellectual labourers answer, if such simple and
+lawful claims were made upon us? How should we satisfy these claims?
+Should we satisfy the religious wants of the people by the catechism of
+Philaret, by sacred histories of Sokolof, by the literature sent out by
+monasteries and cathedrals? Should we satisfy their demand for order by
+the "Code of Laws," and cassation verdicts of different departments, or
+by reports of committees and commissions? And should we satisfy their
+want of knowledge by giving them spectrum analysis, a survey of the
+Milky Way, speculative geometry, microscopic investigations,
+controversies concerning spiritualism and mediumism, the activity of
+academies of science? How should we satisfy their artistic wants? By
+Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Turgenief, L. Tolstoy? By pictures of French
+_salons_, and of those of our artists who represent naked women, satin,
+velvet, and landscapes, and pictures of domestic life; by the music of
+Wagner, and that of our own musicians?
+
+All this is of no use and cannot be of use because we, with our right to
+utilize the labour of the people and absence of all duties in
+preparation of their spiritual food, have quite lost from sight the
+single destination our activity should have.
+
+We do not even know what is required by the workman; we have even
+forgotten his mode of life, his views of things, his language; we have
+even lost sight of the very working-people themselves, and we study them
+like some ethnographical rarity or newly-discovered continent. Demanding
+for ourselves bodily food, we have taken upon ourselves to provide the
+spiritual; but in consequence of the imaginary division of labour,
+according to which we may not only first take our dinner and afterwards
+do our work, but may during many generations dine luxuriously and do no
+work,--we, in the way of compensation for our food, have prepared
+something which is of use, as it seems to us, for ourselves and for
+science and art, but of no use whatever for those very people whose
+labour we consume under the pretext of providing them in return with
+intellectual food; not only is of no use, but is quite unintelligible
+and distasteful to them.
+
+In our blindness, we have to such a degree left out of sight the duty we
+took upon us, that we have even forgotten for what our labour is being
+done; and the very people whom we undertook to serve we have made an
+object of our scientific and artistic activities. We study them and
+represent them for our own pleasure and amusement: but we have quite
+forgotten that it is our duty, not to study and depict, but to serve
+them.
+
+We have to such a degree left out of sight the duty we assumed that we
+have not even noticed that other people do what we undertook in the
+departments of science and art, and that our place turns out to be
+occupied.
+
+It appears that while we have been in controversy,--now about the
+immaculate conception, and now about spontaneous generation; now about
+spiritualism, and now about the forms of atoms; now about pangenesis,
+now about protoplasms, and so on,--all this while the people none the
+less required spiritual food, and the abortive outcasts of science and
+art began to provide for the people this spiritual food to the order of
+various speculators, who had in view exclusively their own profit and
+gain.
+
+Now, for some forty years in Europe, and ten years in Russia, millions
+of books and pictures and songs have been circulating; shows have been
+opened: and the people gaze and sing, and receive intellectual food,
+though not from those who promised to provide it for them; and we, who
+justify our idleness by the need for that intellectual food which we
+pretend to provide for the people, are sitting still, and taking no
+notice.
+
+But we cannot do so, because our final justification has vanished from
+under our feet. We have taken upon ourselves a peculiar department: we
+have a peculiar functional activity of our own. We are the brain of the
+people. They feed us, and we have undertaken to teach them. Only for the
+sake of this have we freed ourselves from labour. What, then, have we
+been teaching them? They have waited years, tens of years, hundreds of
+years. And we are still conversing among ourselves, and teaching each
+other, and amusing ourselves, and have quite forgotten them; we have so
+totally forgotten them, that others have taken upon themselves to teach
+and amuse them, and we have not even become aware of this in our
+flippant talk about division of labour: and it is very obvious that all
+our talk about the utility we offer to the people was only a shameful
+excuse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+There was a time when the _Church_ guided the intellectual life of the
+men of our world. The Church promised men happiness, and, in
+compensation for this she freed herself from taking part in mankind's
+common struggle for life.
+
+As soon as she did this she went away from her calling, and men turned
+from her. It was not the _errors_ of the Church which originally caused
+her ruin, but the fact that by the help of the secular power, in the
+time of Constantine, her ministers violated the law of labour; and then
+their claim to idleness and luxury gave birth to the errors.
+
+As soon as she obtained this power she began to care for herself, and
+not for humanity, whom she had taken upon herself to serve. The
+ministers of the Church gave themselves up to idleness and depravity.
+
+_The State_ took upon itself to guide men's lives. The State promised
+men justice, peace, security, order, satisfaction of common intellectual
+and material wants; and, in compensation, men who served the State freed
+themselves from taking part in the struggle for life. And the State's
+servants, as soon as they were able to utilize other men's labour, acted
+in the same way as the ministers of the Church.
+
+They had not in view the people; but, from kings down to the lowest
+state functionaries, in Rome, as well as in France, England, Russia, and
+America, they gave themselves over to idleness and depravity. Now men
+have lost their faith in the state, and anarchy is now seriously
+advocated as an ideal. The state has lost its prestige among men, only
+because its ministers have claimed the right of utilizing the people's
+labour for themselves.
+
+_Science and art_ have done the same, assisted by the state power which
+they took upon themselves to sustain. They also have claimed and
+obtained for themselves the right of idleness and of utilizing other
+men's labour, and also have been false to their calling. And their
+errors, too, proceeded only from the fact that their ministers, pointing
+to a falsely conceived principle of the division of labour, claimed for
+themselves the right to utilize the work of the people, and so lost the
+meaning of their calling, making the aim of their activity, not the
+utility of the people, but some mysterious activity of science and art;
+and also, like their forerunners, they have given themselves over to
+idleness and depravity, though not so much to a fleshly as to an
+intellectual corruption.
+
+It is said that science and art have done much for mankind.
+
+That is quite true.
+
+Church and State have given much to humanity, not because they abused
+their power, or because their ministers forsook the common life of men,
+and the eternal duty of labour for life--but in spite of this.
+
+The Roman Republic was powerful, not because its citizens were able to
+lead a life of depravity, but because it could number among them men who
+were virtuous.
+
+This is the case with science and art.
+
+Science and art have effected much for mankind, not because their
+ministers had sometimes formerly, and have always at present, the
+possibility of freeing themselves from labour, but because men of
+genius, not utilizing these rights, have forwarded the progress of
+mankind.
+
+The class of learned men and artists who claim, on account of a false
+division of labour, the right of utilizing other men's labour, cannot
+contribute to the progress of true science and true art, because a lie
+can never produce a truth.
+
+We are so accustomed to our pampered or debilitated representatives of
+intellectual labour, that it would seem very strange if a learned man or
+an artist were to plough, or cart manure. We think that, were he to do
+so, all would go to ruin; that all his wisdom would be shaken out of
+him, and that the great artistic images he carries in his breast would
+be soiled by the manure: but we are so accustomed to our present
+conditions that we do not wonder at our ministers of science, that is,
+ministers and teachers of truth, compelling other people to do for them
+that which they could very well do themselves, passing half their time
+eating, smoking, chattering in "liberal" gossip, reading newspapers,
+novels, visiting theatres; we are not surprised to see our philosopher
+in an inn, in a theatre, at a ball; we do not wonder when we learn that
+those artists who delight and ennoble our souls, pass their lives in
+drunkenness, in playing cards, in company with loose women, or do things
+still worse.
+
+Science and art are fine things: but just because they are fine things
+men ought not to spoil them by associating them with depravity;--by
+freeing themselves from man's duty to serve by labour his own life and
+the lives of other men.
+
+Science and art have forwarded the progress of mankind. Yes; but not
+because men of science and art, under the pretext of a division of
+labour, taught men by word, and chiefly by deed, to utilize by violence
+the misery and sufferings of the people in order to free themselves from
+the very first and unquestionable human duty of labouring with their
+hands in the common struggle of mankind with nature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+"But," you say, "it is this very division of labour, the freeing men of
+science and of art from the necessity of earning their bread, that has
+rendered possible the extraordinary success in science which we see
+to-day.
+
+"If everybody were to plough, these enormous results would not be
+attained; you would not have those astonishing successes which have so
+enlarged man's power over nature; you would not have those discoveries
+in astronomy which so strike the minds of men and promote navigation;
+there would be no steamers, railways, wonderful bridges, tunnels,
+steam-engines, telegraphs, photographs, telephones, sewing-machines,
+phonographs, electricity, telescopes, spectroscopes, microscopes,
+chloroform, Lister bandages, carbolic acid."
+
+I will not attempt to enumerate all the things of which our century is
+proud. This enumeration, and the ecstasy of the contemplation of
+ourselves and of our great deeds you can find in almost every newspaper
+and popular book. And these raptures are so often repeated, and we are
+so seldom tired of praising ourselves, that we really have come to
+believe, with Jules Verne, that science and art never made such progress
+as in our time. And as all this is rendered possible only by division of
+labour, how can we avoid countenancing it?
+
+Let us suppose that the progress of our century is really striking,
+astonishing, extraordinary; let us suppose, too, that we are
+particularly lucky in living at such an extraordinary time: but let us
+try to ascertain the value of these successes, not by our own
+self-contentment, but by the very principle of the division of labour;
+that is, by the intellectual labour of scientists for the advantage of
+the people which has to compensate for the freedom of its servants from
+manual toil.
+
+This progress is very striking indeed; but owing to some bad luck,
+recognized, too, by the men of science, this progress has not yet
+ameliorated, but has rather deteriorated, the condition of working men.
+
+Though a working man, instead of walking, can use the railway, it is
+this very railway which has caused his forest to be burned and has
+carried away his bread from under his very nose, and put him into a
+condition which is next door to slavery to the railway proprietor.
+
+If, thanks to steam-engines and machines, a workman can buy cheap and
+bad calico, it is these very engines and machines which have deprived
+him of his livelihood and brought him to a state of entire slavery to
+the manufacturer.
+
+If there are telegraphs, which he is not forbidden to use but which he
+does not use because he cannot afford it, still each of his productions,
+the value of which rises, is bought up at low prices before his very
+eyes by capitalists, thanks to that telegraph, before he has even become
+aware that the article is in demand.
+
+If there are telephones and telescopes, novels, operas,
+picture-galleries, and so on, the life of the workman is not at all
+improved by any of them, because all, owing to the same unlucky chance,
+are beyond his reach.
+
+So that, after all, these wonderful discoveries and productions of art,
+if they have not made the life of working-people worse, have by no means
+improved it: and on this the men of science are agreed.
+
+So that, if we apply, not our self-contemplating rapture, but the very
+standard on which the ground of the division of labour is
+defended,--utility to the working-world,--to the question as to the
+reality of the successes attained by the sciences and arts, we shall see
+that we have not yet any sound reason for the self-contentment to which
+we consign ourselves so willingly.
+
+A peasant uses the railway; a peasant's wife buys calico; in the cottage
+a lamp, and not a pine-knot, burns; and the peasant lights his pipe with
+a match,--all this is comfortable; but what right have I from this to
+say that railways and factories have done good to the people?
+
+If a peasant uses the railway, and buys a lamp, calico, and matches, he
+does it only because we cannot forbid his doing so: but we all know very
+well that railways and factories were not built for the use of the
+people; and why, then, should the casual comfort a workman obtains by
+chance be brought forward as a proof of the usefulness of these
+institutions to the people?
+
+We all know very well that if the engineers and capitalists who build a
+railway or a factory thought about the working-people, they thought only
+how to make the most possible use of them. And we see they have fully
+succeeded in doing so in Europe and America, as well as in Russia.
+
+In every hurtful thing there is something useful. After a house has been
+burned down we can sit and warm ourselves, and light our pipes from one
+of the fire-brands; but should we therefore say that a conflagration is
+beneficial?
+
+Whatever we do, do not let us deceive ourselves. We all know very well
+the motives for building railways and factories, and for producing
+kerosene and matches. An engineer builds a railway for the government,
+to facilitate wars, or for the capitalists for their financial purposes.
+He makes machines for manufacturers for his own advantage and for the
+profit of capitalists. All that he makes or plans he does for the
+purpose of the government, the capitalists, and other rich people. His
+most skilful inventions are either directly harmful to the people, such
+as guns, torpedoes, solitary prisons, and so on; or they are not only
+useless but quite inaccessible to them, such as electric light,
+telephones, and the innumerable improvements of comfort; or lastly, they
+deprave the people and rob them of their last kopek, that is, their last
+labour, for spirits, wine, beer, opium, tobacco, finery, and all sorts
+of trifles.
+
+But if it happens sometimes that the inventions of men of science and
+the works of engineers, are of use to the people, as, for instance,
+railways, calicoes, steel, scythes, it only proves that in this world of
+ours everything is mutually connected, and that out of every hurtful
+activity there may arise an accidental good for those to whom the
+activity was hurtful.
+
+Men of science and of art could say that their activity was useful for
+the people, only if in their activity they have aimed at serving the
+people, as they now aim to serve the government and capitalists.
+
+We could have said that, only if the men of science and art made the
+wants of the people their object; but such is not the case.
+
+All learned men are occupied with their sacred businesses, which lead to
+the investigation of protoplasms, the spectrum analysis of stars, and so
+on: but concerning investigations as to how to set an axe, or with what
+kind it is more advantageous to hew; which saw is the most handy; with
+what flour bread shall be made, how it may best be kneaded, how to set
+it to rise; how to heat and to build stoves; what food, drink or
+crockery-ware it is best to use; what mushrooms may be eaten, and how
+they may be prepared more conveniently,--science never troubles itself,
+or does so very slightly.
+
+Yet all this is the business of science.
+
+I know that, according to its own definition, science must be useless;
+but this is only an excuse, and a very impudent one.
+
+The business of science is to serve people. We have invented telegraphs,
+telephones, phonographs, but what improvements have we made in the life
+of the people? We have catalogued two millions of insects! but have we
+domesticated a single animal since biblical times, when all our animals
+had long been domesticated, and still the elk and the deer, and the
+partridge and the grouse and the wood-hen, are wild?
+
+Botanists have discovered the cells, and in the cells protoplasms and in
+protoplasms something else, and in this something else again.
+
+These occupations will go on for a long time and evidently never end,
+and therefore learned men have no time to do anything useful. Hence from
+the times of the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, when wheat and lentils
+were already cultivated, down to the present time, not a single plant
+has been added for the nourishment of the people except potatoes, and
+these were not discovered by science. We have invented torpedoes and
+house-drains; but the spinning-wheel, weaving-looms, ploughs and
+axe-handles, flails and rakes, buckets and well-sweeps, are still the
+same as in the time of Rurik. If some things have been improved, it is
+not the learned who have improved them, but the unlearned.
+
+The same is the case with art. Many people are acclaimed as great
+writers. We have carefully analyzed their works, have written mountains
+of critiques and criticisms upon criticisms, and still more criticisms
+on criticisms; we have collected pictures in galleries, and thoroughly
+studied in detail different schools of art; and we possess symphonies
+and operas that it is with great difficulty we ourselves can listen to;
+but what have we added to the folk-lore, legends, tales, songs for the
+people? what pictures, what music, have we created for the people?
+
+Books and pictures are published, and harmoniums are made for the
+people, but we did not participate in either.
+
+What is most striking and obvious is the false tendency of our science
+and art, which manifests itself in those departments which, according to
+their own propositions, would seem to be useful to people, but which,
+owing to this tendency, appear rather pernicious than useful. An
+engineer, a surgeon, a teacher, an artist, an author, seem by their very
+professions to be obliged to serve the people, but what do we see? With
+the present tendency, they can bring to the people nothing but harm. An
+engineer and a mechanic must work with capital: without capital they are
+good for nothing.
+
+All their training is of such a nature that, in order to make use of it,
+they need capital and the employment of work-people on a large scale, to
+say nothing of the fact that they themselves are accustomed to spend
+from fifteen hundred to a thousand rubles a year on themselves, and
+therefore cannot go to live in a village, since no one there can give
+them any such remuneration: from their very occupations they are not fit
+for the service of the people.
+
+They understand how to calculate the arch of a bridge by means of the
+higher mathematics, how to calculate power and the transfer of power in
+an engine, and so on: but they are at a loss to meet the plain
+requirements of common labour; they do not know how to improve the
+plough or the cart; or how to make a brook passable, taking into
+consideration the conditions of a workman's life.
+
+They know and understand nothing of all this, less even than the poorest
+peasant does. Give them workshops, and plenty of people, order engines
+from abroad, and then they will arrange these matters. But to find out
+how to ease the labour of the millions of the people in their present
+conditions, they do not know, and cannot do it; and therefore, by their
+knowledge and habits and wants, they are not at all fit for this
+business.
+
+A surgeon is in a still worse condition. His imaginary science is of
+such a nature that he understands how to cure those only who have
+nothing to do and who can utilize other men's labour. He requires a
+countless number of expensive accessories, instruments, medicines,
+sanitary dwellings, food, and drains, in order that he may act
+scientifically: besides his fee he demands such expenses that, in order
+to cure one patient, he must kill with starvation hundreds of those who
+bear this expense.
+
+He has studied under eminent persons in the capital cities, who attended
+only to those patients whom they may take into hospitals, or who can
+afford to buy all the necessary medicines and machines, and even go at
+once from north to south, to these or those mineral waters, as the case
+may be.
+
+Their science is of such a kind that every country surgeon complains
+that there is no possibility of attending to the work-people who are so
+poor that they cannot afford sanitary accommodations, and that there are
+no hospitals, and that he cannot attend to the business alone, that he
+requires help and assistant-surgeons.
+
+What does this really mean?
+
+It means this,--that the want of the necessaries of life is the chief
+cause of people's misfortunes, and the source of diseases as well as of
+their spreading and incurability. Now science, under the banner of "the
+division of labour," calls its champions to help the people. Science has
+settled satisfactorily about the rich classes, and seeks how to cure
+those who can get everything necessary for the purpose; and it sends
+persons to cure in the same way those who have nothing to spare. But
+there are no means; and therefore they must be raised from the people,
+who become ill and catch diseases, and cannot be cured for want of
+means.
+
+The advocates of the healing art for the people say, that, up to the
+present time, this business has not been sufficiently developed.
+
+Evidently it is not yet developed, because if (which God forbid!) it
+were developed among our people, and, instead of two doctors and
+mid-wives and two assistant-surgeons in the district, there should be
+twenty sent, as they want, then there would soon be no one left to
+attend to. The scientific co-operation for the benefit of the people
+must be of quite a different kind. And this, which ought to exist, has
+not yet begun.
+
+It will begin when a man of science, an engineer, or a surgeon, ceases
+to consider lawful that division of labour, or rather that taking away
+other men's labour, which now exists, and when he no longer considers
+that he has the right to take,--I do not say hundreds of thousands,--but
+even a moderate sum of one thousand or five hundred rubles as
+compensation for his services; but when such a man comes to live among
+labouring-people in the same condition and in the same way as they, and
+applies his information in mechanics, technics or hygiene, to cure them.
+
+But at present, scientific men, who are fed at the expense of the
+workman, have quite forgotten the conditions of the life of these men:
+they ignore (as they say) these conditions, and are quite seriously
+offended that their imaginary knowledge does not find application among
+the people.
+
+The departments of the healing art as well as of the mechanical have not
+yet been touched: the questions how best to divide the period of labour,
+how and upon what it is best to feed, how best to dress, how to
+counteract dampness and cold, how best to wash, to suckle, and swaddle
+children, and so on, and all these applied to the conditions in which
+the workers now exist,--all these questions have not yet been faced.
+
+The same applies to the activity of scientific teachers,--the
+pedagogues. Science has arranged this business, too, in such a way, that
+teaching according to science is possible only for those who are rich;
+and the teachers, like the engineers and surgeons, are involuntarily
+drawn towards money, and among us in Russia especially towards the
+government.
+
+And this cannot be otherwise, because a school properly arranged (and
+the general rule is that the more scientifically a school is arranged
+the more expensive it is), with convertible benches, globes, maps,
+libraries, and manuals for teachers and pupils, is just such a school to
+maintain which it is necessary to double the taxes of the people. So
+science wants to have it. The children are necessary for work, and the
+more so with the poorer people. The advocates of science say, "Pedagogy
+is even now of use for the people; but let it develop, then it will be
+still better." But if it will develop till instead of 20 schools in a
+district there will be 100--all of them scientific,--and the parents
+forced to keep up these schools? Then they will be still poorer, and
+will want the labour of their children still more urgently.
+
+What is to be done then?
+
+To this they will reply, "The government will establish schools, and
+will make education obligatory as it is in the rest of Europe." But the
+money will still have to be raised from the people, and labour will be
+still harder for them, and they will have less time to spare from their
+labour, and there will then be no obligatory education at all.
+
+There is, again, only one escape,--for a teacher to live in the
+conditions of a workman, and to teach for that compensation which will
+be freely offered him.
+
+Such is the false tendency of science which deprives it of the
+possibility to fulfil its duty in serving the people. But this false
+tendency of our educated class is still more obvious in art-activity,
+which, for the sake of its very meaning ought to be accessible to the
+people.
+
+Science may point to its stupid excuse that "science is acting for
+science," and that, when fully developed it will become accessible to
+the people; but art, if it is art indeed, ought to be accessible to all,
+especially to those for whose sake it is created. But our art strikingly
+denounces its factors in that they do not wish, and do not understand,
+and are not able to be of use to the people. A painter, in order to
+produce his great works, must have a large studio, in which at least
+forty joiners or boot-makers might work, who are now freezing or
+suffocating in wretched lodgings. But this is not all: he requires
+models, costumes, journeys from place to place. The Academy of Art has
+spent millions of rubles, collected from the people, for the
+encouragement of art; and the productions of this art are hung in
+palaces, and are neither intelligible to the people nor wanted by them.
+
+Musicians, in order to express their great ideas, must gather about two
+hundred men with white neckties or in special costumes, and spend
+hundreds of thousands of rubles arranging operas. But this
+art-production would never appear to the people (even if they could
+afford to use it) as anything but perplexing or dull.
+
+The authors, writers, would seem not to need any particular
+accommodations, studios, models, orchestras, or actors; but here also it
+turns out that an author, a writer, in order to prepare his great works,
+wants travelling, palaces, cabinets, enjoyments of art, theatres,
+concerts, mineral waters, and so on; to say nothing of all the comforts
+of his dwelling and all the comforts of his life. If he himself has not
+saved up enough money for this purpose he is given a pension in order
+that he may compose better. And, again, these writings, which we value
+so highly, remain for the people, rubbish, and are not at all necessary
+to them.
+
+What if, according to the wish of men of science and art, such producers
+of mental food should so multiply, that, in every village it would be
+necessary to build a studio, provide an orchestra, and keep an author in
+the conditions which men of art consider indispensable to them? I dare
+say working-people would make a vow never to look at a picture, or
+listen to a symphony, or read poetry and novels, in order only not to be
+compelled to feed all these good-for-nothing parasites.
+
+And why should not men of art serve the people? In every cottage there
+are holy images and pictures; each peasant, each woman of the people,
+sings; many have instruments of music; and all can relate stories,
+repeat poetry; and many of them read. How came it to pass that these two
+things, which were as much made for one another as a key for a lock,
+were separated, and why are they so separated that we cannot imagine how
+to re-unite them?
+
+Tell a painter to paint without a studio, models, costumes, and to draw
+penny pictures, and he will say that this would be a denial of art as he
+understands it. Tell a musician to play on a harmonium and to teach
+country-women to sing songs; tell a poet to throw aside writing poems
+and novels and satires, and to compose song-books for the people, and
+stories and tales which might be intelligible to illiterate
+persons,--they will say you are cracked.
+
+But is it not being worse than cracked when the men who have freed
+themselves from labour because they promised to provide mental food for
+those who have brought them up, and are feeding and clothing them, have
+afterwards so forgotten their promise that they have ceased to
+understand how to make food fit for the people? Yet this very forsaking
+of their promises they consider dignifies them.
+
+Such is the case everywhere, they say. Then everywhere the case is very
+unreasonable. And it will be so while men, under the pretext of division
+of labour, promise to provide mental food for the people, but only
+swallow up the labour of the people. Men will serve the people with
+science and art only when living among them and in the same way as the
+people do, putting forth no claims whatever, they offer to the people
+their scientific and artistic services, leaving it to the free will of
+the people to accept or refuse them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+To say that the activities of the arts and sciences have co-operated in
+forwarding the progress of mankind, and by these activities to mean that
+which is now called by this name, is as to say that an awkward moving of
+the oars, hindering the progress of a boat going down the stream, is
+forwarding the progress of the boat; while it only hinders it. The
+so-called division of labour--that is, the violation of other men's
+labour which has become in our time a condition of the activity of men
+of art and science--has been, and still remains, the chief cause of the
+slowness of the progress of mankind.
+
+The proof of it we have in the acknowledgement that the acquisitions of
+art and science are not accessible to the working-classes because of a
+wrong distribution of wealth. And the incorrectness of this distribution
+does not diminish in proportion to the progress of art and science, but
+rather increases. Nor is it astonishing that such is the case; because
+the incorrect distribution of wealth proceeds solely from the theory of
+the division of labour, preached by men of art and science for selfish
+purposes.
+
+Science, defending the division of labour as an unchangeable law, sees
+that the distribution of wealth based upon this division is incorrect
+and pernicious, and asserts that its activity, which recognizes the
+division of labour, will set all right again, and lead men to happiness.
+
+It appears, then, that some men utilize the labour of others; but if
+they will only continue to do this for a long time, and on a still
+larger scale, then this incorrect distribution of wealth, that is,
+utilizing of other men's labour, will vanish.
+
+Men are standing by an ever-increasing spring of water, and are busy
+turning it aside from thirsty men, and then they assert that it is they
+who produce this water, and that soon there will be so much of it that
+everybody will have enough and to spare. And this water, which has been
+running unceasingly, and nourishing all mankind, is not only not the
+result of the activity of those who, standing at its source, turn it
+aside, but it runs and spreads itself in spite of the endeavours to stop
+it from doing so.
+
+There has always existed a true church,--in other words, men united by
+the highest truth accessible to them at a certain epoch,--but it has
+never been that church which gave herself out for such; and there have
+always been real art and science, but they were not those which call
+themselves now by these names.
+
+Men who consider themselves to be the representatives of art and science
+in a given period of time, always imagine that they have been doing, are
+doing, and the important fact is that they are on the point of making
+wonderful things, and that beyond them there has never been any art or
+science. Thus it seemed to the sophists, to the scholiasts, alchemists,
+cabalists, Talmudists, and to our own scientific science and to our
+artistic art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+
+"But science! art! You repudiate science, art; that is, you repudiate
+that by which mankind live."
+
+I am always hearing this: people choose this way to put aside my
+arguments altogether without analyzing them. "He repudiates science and
+art; he wishes to turn men back again to the savage state; why, then,
+should we listen to him, or argue with him?"
+
+But this is unjust. Not only do I not repudiate science--human
+reasonable activity--and art,--the expression of this reasonable
+activity,--but it is actually in the name of this reasonable activity
+and its expression that I speak what I do, in order that mankind may
+avoid the savage state towards which they are rapidly moving, owing to
+the false teaching of our time.
+
+Science and art are as necessary to men as food, drink, and
+clothes,--even still more necessary than these; but they become such,
+not because we decide that what we call science and art are necessary,
+but because they are truly necessary to men. Now, if I should prepare
+hay for the bodily food of men, my idea that hay is food would not make
+it to be so. I cannot say, Why do you not eat hay when it is your
+necessary food? Food is, indeed, necessary, but perhaps what I offer is
+not food at all.
+
+This very thing has happened with our science and art. And to us it
+seems that when we add to a Greek word the termination _logy_, and call
+this science, it will be science indeed; and if we call an indecency,
+like the painting of naked women, by the Greek word "choreography," and
+term it art, it will be art indeed.
+
+But however much we may say this, the business which we are about, in
+counting up the insects, and chemically analyzing the contents of the
+Milky Way, in painting water-nymphs and historical pictures, in writing
+novels, and in composing symphonies, this, our business, will not become
+science or art until it is willingly accepted by those for whom it is
+being done.
+
+Till now it has not been accepted. If some men only were allowed to
+prepare food, and all others were either forbidden to do it, or be
+rendered incapable of producing it, I daresay that the quality of the
+food would deteriorate. If the men who had the exclusive privilege of
+producing food were Russian peasants, then there would be no other food
+than black bread, kvas, potatoes, and onions, which they are fond of,
+and which is agreeable to them. The same would be the case with that
+highest human activity in art and science if their exclusive privilege
+were appropriated by one caste, with this difference only, that in
+bodily food there cannot be too great digressions from the
+natural;--bread as well as onions, though unsavoury food, is still
+eatable:--but in mental food there may be great digressions; and some
+men may for a very long time feed upon an unnecessary, or even hurtful
+and poisonous, mental food; they themselves may slowly kill themselves
+with opium or with spirits, and this sort of food they may offer to the
+masses of the people.
+
+This very thing has happened to us. And it has happened because men of
+art and science are in privileged conditions; because art and science in
+our world are not that mental activity of all mankind, without any
+exception, who separate their best powers for the service of art and
+science: but it is the activity of a small company of men having the
+monopoly of these occupations, and calling themselves scientists and
+artists; and therefore they have perverted the very conceptions of art
+and science, and lost the sense of their own calling, and are merely
+occupied in amusing a small company of parasites and saving them from
+burdensome dulness.
+
+Since men have existed, they have always had science in the plainest and
+largest sense of the word. Science, as the sum of all human information,
+has always been in existence; and without it life is not conceivable,
+and there is no necessity whatever either to attack or to defend it.
+
+But the fact is this, that the reason of this knowledge is so various,
+so much information of all kinds enters into it, from information how to
+obtain iron up to the knowledge about movements of the celestial bodies,
+that man would be lost among all this varied information if he had no
+clew to help him to decide which of all these kinds of information is
+more important, and which less.
+
+Therefore, the highest wisdom of men has always consisted in finding out
+the clew whereby to arrange the information of men, and to decide what
+kinds of information are more, and what are less, important. This which
+has directed all other knowledge, men have always called science in the
+strictest sense of the word. Such science has always been, up to the
+present time, in human societies which have left the savage state behind
+them. Since mankind has existed teachers have appeared in every nation
+to form science in this strict sense,--the science about what it is most
+necessary for men to know. The object of this science has always been
+the inquiry as to what was the destiny, and therefore the true welfare,
+of each man and of all men. This science has served as a clew to
+determine the importance and the expression of all other sciences. Such
+information and art as co-operated with the science of man's destiny and
+welfare were considered highest in public opinion.
+
+Such was the science of Confucius, Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Christ,
+Mohammed,--science such as it has been understood by all men save our
+own circle of so-called educated people.
+
+Such a science has not only always occupied the first place, but it is
+the one science which has determined the importance of other sciences.
+And this, not at all because so-called learned men of our time imagine
+that it is only deceitful priests and teachers of this science who have
+given it such an importance, but because, as, indeed, everyone can learn
+by his own inward experience, without the science of man's destiny and
+welfare, there cannot be any determining of other values, or any choice
+of art and science for man. And, therefore, there cannot be any study of
+science, for there are _innumerable_ quantities of subjects to which
+science may be applied. I italicize the word innumerable, as I use it in
+its exact value.
+
+Without knowledge as to what constitutes the calling and welfare of all
+men, all other arts and sciences become, as is really the case with us
+at present, only an idle and pernicious amusement. Mankind have been
+living long, and they have never been living without a science relative
+to the calling and welfare of men: it is true that the science of the
+welfare of men to a superficial observation appears to be different with
+Buddists, Brahmins, Hebrews, Christians, with the followers of Confucius
+and those of Laotse, though one need only reflect on these teachings in
+order to see their essential unity; where men have left the savage state
+behind them, we find this science; and now of a sudden it turns out that
+modern men have decided that this very science which has been till now
+the guide of all human information, is the obstacle in the way of
+everything.
+
+Men build houses; one architect makes one estimate, another makes a
+second, and so on. The estimates are a little different, but they are
+separately correct; and every one sees that, if each estimate is
+fulfilled, the house will be erected. Such architects are Confucius,
+Buddha, Moses, Christ. And now certain men come and assure us that the
+chief thing to come by is the absence of any estimate, and that men
+ought to build anyhow according to eyesight. And this "anyhow" these men
+call the most exact science, as the Pope terms himself the "most holy."
+
+Men deny every science, the most essential science of men's calling and
+welfare; and this denial of science they call science. Since men have
+existed, great intellects have always appeared, which, in the struggle
+with the demands of their reason and conscience, have put to themselves
+questions concerning the calling and welfare, not only of themselves
+individually, but of every man. What does that Power, which created me,
+require from me and from each man? And what am I to do in order to
+satisfy the craving ingrafted in me for a personal and a common welfare?
+
+They have asked themselves, I am a whole and a part of something
+unfathomable, infinite: what are to be my relations to other parts
+similar to me,--to men and to the whole?
+
+And from the voice of conscience and from reason, and from consideration
+on what men have said who lived before, and from contemporaries who have
+asked themselves the same questions, these great teachers have deduced
+teachings,--plain, clear, intelligible to all men, and always such as
+can be put into practice.
+
+Such men were of the first, second, third, and all magnitudes. The world
+is full of such men. All living men put to themselves the question, How
+am I to reconcile my own demands for personal life with conscience and
+reason, which demand the common good of all men? And out of this common
+travail new forms of life are evolved slowly, but unceasingly,
+satisfying more and more the demands of reason and conscience.
+
+And of a sudden a new caste of men appears, who say, All these are
+nonsense, and are to be left behind. This is the deductive way of
+thinking (though wherein lies the difference between the inductive and
+the deductive way of thinking, nobody ever has been able to understand),
+and this is also the method of the theological and metaphysical periods.
+
+All that men have understood by inward experience, and have related to
+each other concerning the consciousness of the law of their own life
+(functional activity, in their cant phrase); all that from the beginning
+of the world has been done in this direction by the greatest intellects
+of mankind,--all these are trifles, having no weight whatever.
+
+According to this new teaching, you are the cell of an organism, and the
+problem of your reasonable activity consists in trying to ascertain your
+functional activity. In order to ascertain this, you must make
+observations outside yourself.
+
+The fact that you are a cell which thinks, suffers, speaks, and
+understands, and that for that very reason you can inquire of another
+similar speaking, suffering cell whether he or she suffers and rejoices
+in the same way as yourself, and that thus you may verify your own
+experience; and the fact that you may make use of what the speaking
+cells, who lived and suffered before you wrote on the subject; and your
+knowledge that millions of cells agreeing with what the past cells have
+written, confirm your own experience, that you yourself are a living
+cell, who always, by a direct inward experience, apprehend the
+correctness or incorrectness of your own functional activity,--all this
+means nothing, we are told: it is all a false and evil method.
+
+The true scientific method is this: If you wish to learn in what your
+functional activity consists, what is your destiny and welfare, and what
+the destiny of mankind, and of the whole world, then first you must
+cease to listen to the voice and demands of your conscience and of your
+reason, which manifest themselves inwardly to you and to your
+fellow-men; you must leave off believing all that the great teachers of
+humanity have said about their own conscience and reason, and you must
+consider all this to be nonsense, and begin at the beginning.
+
+And in order to begin from the beginning, you have to observe through a
+microscope the movements of amoebć and the cells of tape-worms; or,
+still easier, you must believe everything that people with the diploma
+of infallibility may tell you about them. And observing the movements of
+these amoebć and cells, or reading what others have seen, you must
+ascribe to these cells your own human feelings and calculations as to
+what they desire, what are their tendencies, their reflections and
+calculations, their habits; and from these _observations_ (in which each
+word contains some mistake of thought or of expression), according to
+analogy, you must deduce what is your own destiny, and what that of
+other cells similar to you.
+
+In order to be able to understand yourself, you must study not merely
+the tape-worm which you see, but also microscopic animalcules which you
+cannot see, and the transformation from one set of things into another,
+which neither you nor anybody else has ever seen, and which you
+certainly will never see.
+
+The same holds good with art. Wherever a true science has existed, it
+has been expressed by art. Since men have existed they have always
+separated out of all their activities, from their varied information,
+the chief expression of science, the knowledge of man's destination and
+welfare; and art, in the strict sense of the word, has been the
+expression of this.
+
+Since men have existed, there have always been persons particularly
+sensitive to the teaching of man's welfare and destiny, who have
+expressed in word, and upon psaltery and cymbals, their human struggle
+with deceit which led them aside from their true destiny, and their
+sufferings in this struggle, their hopes about the victory of good,
+their despair about the triumph of evil, and their raptures in
+expectation of coming welfare.
+
+Since men have existed, the true art, that which has been valued most
+highly by men, had no other destiny than to be the expression of science
+on man's destiny and welfare.
+
+Always down to the present time art has served the teaching of life
+(afterwards called religion), and it has only been this art which men
+have valued so highly.
+
+But contemporaneously with the fact that in place of the science of
+man's destiny and welfare appears the science of universal
+knowledge,--since science lost its own sense and meaning, and true
+science has been scornfully called religion,--true art, as an important
+activity of men, has disappeared.
+
+As long as the church existed, and taught men's calling and welfare, art
+served the church, and was true; but from the moment it left the church,
+and began to serve a science which served everything it met, art lost
+its meaning, and, notwithstanding its old-fashioned claims, and a stupid
+assertion that art serves merely art itself, and nothing else, it has
+turned out to be a trade which procures luxuries for men, and
+unavoidably mixes itself with choreography, culinary art, hair-dressing,
+and cosmetics, the producers of which may call themselves artists with
+as much right as the poets, painters, and musicians of our day.
+
+Looking back, we see that during thousands of years, from among
+thousands of millions of men who have lived, there came forth a few like
+Confucius, Buddha, Solon, Socrates, Solomon, Homer, Isaiah, David. True
+artist-producers of spiritual food seem to appear seldom among men,
+notwithstanding the fact that they appear, not from one caste only, but
+from among all men; and it is not without cause that mankind have always
+so highly valued them. And now it turns out that we have no longer any
+need of all these former great factors of art and science.
+
+Now, according to the law of the division of labour, it is possible to
+manufacture scientific and artistic factors almost mechanically; and in
+the space of ten years we shall manufacture more great men of art and
+science than have been born among all men from the beginning of the
+world. Nowadays there is a trade corporation of learned men and artists,
+and by an improved way they prepare all the mental food which is wanted
+by mankind. And they have prepared so much of it, that there need no
+longer be any remembrance of the old producers, not only of the very
+ancient, but also of the more recent,--all their activity, we are told,
+was the activity of the theological and metaphysical period: all had to
+be destroyed, and the true, mental activity began some fifty years ago.
+
+And in these fifty years we have manufactured so many great men that in
+a German university there are more of them than have been in the whole
+world, and of sciences we have manufactured a great number too; for one
+need only put to a Greek word the termination _logy_, and arrange the
+subject according to ready-made paragraphs, and the science is created:
+we have thus manufactured so many sciences that not only cannot one man
+know them all, but he cannot even remember all their names,--these names
+alone would fill a large dictionary; and every day new sciences come
+into existence.
+
+In this respect we are like that Finnish teacher who taught the children
+of a land-owner the Finnish language instead of the French. He taught
+very well; but there was one drawback,--that nobody, except himself,
+understood it. We have learned everything very well, but the pity of it
+is that nobody but ourselves understands it, and that everybody else
+considers it good-for-nothing nonsense.
+
+But to this also there is an explanation: Men do not understand all the
+utility of the scientific science because they are still under the
+influence of the theological period of knowledge, that stupid period
+when all the people of the Hebrew race, as well as the Chinese and
+Indians and Greeks, understood everything spoken to them by their great
+teachers.
+
+But whatever may be the cause, the fact is this,--that art and science
+have always existed among mankind; and when they really existed, then
+they were necessary and intelligible to all men.
+
+We are busy about something which we call art and science, and it turns
+out that what we are busy about is neither necessary nor intelligible to
+men. So that we have no right to give the name of art or science to our
+doings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+But it is said to me, "You only give another narrower definition of art
+and science, which science does not agree with; but even this does not
+exclude them, and notwithstanding all you say, there still remains the
+scientific and art activities of men like Galileo, Bruno, Homer, Michael
+Angelo, Beethoven, Wagner, and other learned men and artists of lesser
+magnitude who have devoted all their lives to art and science."
+
+Usually this is said in the endeavour to establish a link, which in
+other cases they disown, to connect the activity of the former learned
+men and artists with the modern ones, trying to forget that new
+principle of the division of labour by reason of which art and science
+now occupy a privileged position.
+
+First of all, it is not possible to establish any such connection
+between the former factors and the modern ones, even as the holy life of
+the first Christian has nothing in common with the lives of popes: thus,
+the activity of men like Galileo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, has nothing in
+common with the activities of men like Tyndal, Hugo, and Wagner. As the
+Holy Fathers would have denied any connection with the Popes, so the
+ancient factors of science would have denied any relationship with the
+modern ones.
+
+Secondly, owing to that importance which art and science ascribe to
+themselves, they have established a very clear standard by means of
+which we are able to determine whether they do, or do not, fulfil their
+destiny; and we therefore decide, not without proofs, but according to
+their own standard, whether that activity which calls itself art and
+science has, or has not, any right thus to call itself.
+
+Though the Egyptians or Greek priests performed mysteries known to none
+but themselves, and said that these mysteries included all art and
+science, I could not, on the ground of the asserted utility of these to
+the people, ascertain the reality of their science, because this said
+science, according to their _ipse dixit_, was a supernatural one: but
+now we all have a very clear and plain standard, excluding everything
+supernatural; art and science promise to fulfil the mental activity of
+mankind, for the welfare of society, or even of the whole of mankind.
+Therefore we have a right to call only such activity, art and science,
+which has this aim in view, and attains it. And therefore, however those
+learned men and artists may call themselves, who excogitate the theory
+of penal laws, of state laws, and of the laws of nations, who invent new
+guns and explosive substances, who compose obscene operas and operettas,
+or similarly obscene novels, we have no right to call such activity the
+activity of art and science, because this activity has not in view the
+welfare of the society or of mankind, but on the contrary is directed to
+the harm of men.
+
+In like manner, however these learned men may call themselves, who in
+their simplicity are occupied during all their lives with the
+investigations of the microscopical animalcule and of telescopical and
+spectral phenomena; or those artists who, after having carefully
+investigated the monuments of old times, are busy writing historical
+novels, making pictures, concocting symphonies and beautiful verses, all
+these men, notwithstanding all their zeal, cannot, according to the
+definition of their own science, be called men of science or art, first
+because their activity in science for the sake of science, and of art
+for art, has not in view man's welfare; and secondly, because we do not
+see any results of these activities for the welfare of society or
+mankind.
+
+The fact that sometimes something useful or agreeable for some men comes
+of their activities, by no means gives us any right, according to their
+own scientific definition, to consider them to be men of art and
+science.
+
+In like manner, however those men may call themselves who excogitate the
+application of electricity to lighting, heating, and motion; or who
+invent some new chemical combinations, producing dynamite or fine
+colours; men who correctly play Beethoven's symphonies; who act on the
+stage, or paint portraits well, domestic pictures, landscapes, and other
+pictures; who compose interesting novels, the object of which is merely
+to amuse rich people,--the activity of these men cannot be called art
+and science, because this activity is not directed, like the activity of
+the brain in the organism, to the welfare of the whole, but is guided
+merely by personal gain, privileges, money, which one obtains for the
+inventing and producing of so-called art. Therefore this activity cannot
+possibly be separated from other covetous, personal activity, which adds
+agreeable things to life, as the activity of innkeepers, jockeys,
+milliners, prostitutes, and so on, because the activity of the first,
+the second, and the last, do not come under the definition of art and
+science, on the ground of the division of labour, which promises to
+serve for the welfare of all mankind.
+
+The scientific definition of art and science is a correct one; but
+unluckily, the activity of modern art and science does not come under
+it. Some produce directly hurtful things, others useless things; and a
+third party invents trifles fit only for the use of rich people. They
+may all be very good persons, but they do not fulfil what they have
+taken upon themselves to fulfil, according to their own definition; and
+therefore they have as little right to call themselves men of art and
+science as the modern clergy, who do not fulfil their duties, have right
+to consider themselves the bearers and teachers of divine truth.
+
+It is not difficult to understand why the factors of modern art and
+science have not fulfilled their calling, and cannot fulfil it. They do
+not fulfil it, because they have converted their duty into a right. The
+scientific and art activities, in their true sense, are fruitful only
+when they ignore their rights, and know only their duties. Mankind value
+this activity so highly, only because it is a self-denying one.
+
+If men are really called to serve others by _mental_ labour, they will
+have to suffer in performing this labour, because it is only by
+suffering that spiritual fruit is produced. Selfdenying and suffering
+are the lot and portion of a thinker and an artist, because their object
+is the welfare of men. Men are wretched: they suffer and go to ruin. One
+cannot wait and lose one's time.
+
+A thinker and an artist will never sit on the heights of Olympus, as we
+are apt to imagine: he must suffer in company with men in order to find
+salvation or consolation. He will suffer because he is constantly in
+anxiety and agitation; he might have found out and told what would give
+happiness to men, might have saved them from suffering; and he has
+neither found it out nor said it, and to-morrow it may be too late--he
+may die. And therefore suffering and self-sacrifice will always be the
+lot of the thinker and the artist.
+
+He who is brought up in an establishment where learned men and artists
+are created (but, in reality, they create only destroyers of art and
+science), and who obtains a diploma, and is well provided for, for life,
+will not become a thinker or an artist, but he who would gladly abstain
+from thinking, and from expressing that which is ingrafted in his soul,
+but which he dare not overlook, being drawn to it by two irresistible
+powers,--his own inward impulse and the wants of men.
+
+Thinkers and artists cannot be sleek, fat men, enjoying themselves in
+self-conceit. Spiritual and mental activity and their expressions are
+really necessary for others, and are the most difficult of men's
+callings,--a cross, as it is called in the gospel.
+
+The only one certain characteristic of the presence of a calling is this
+self-denying,--the sacrifice of one's self in order to manifest the
+power ingrafted in man for the benefit of others. To teach how many
+insects there are in the world, and to observe the spots on the sun, to
+write novels and operas, can be done without suffering; but to teach men
+their welfare, which entirely consists in self denial and in serving
+others, and to express this teaching powerfully, cannot be done without
+self-denial.
+
+The Church existed in her purity as long as her teachers endured
+patiently and suffered; but as soon as they became fat and sleek, their
+teaching activity ended. "Formerly," say the people, "priests were of
+gold, and chalices of wood; now chalices are of gold, and priests of
+wood." It was not in vain that Jesus Christ died on a cross: it is not
+in vain that sacrifice and suffering conquer every thing.
+
+As for our art and sciences, they are provided for: they have diplomas,
+and everybody only thinks about how to provide still better for them;
+that is, to make it impossible for them to serve men. A true art and a
+true science have two unmistakable characteristics,--the first, an
+interior one, that a minister of art or science fulfils his calling, not
+for the sake of gain, but with self-denial; and the second, an exterior
+one, that his productions are intelligible to all men, whose welfare he
+is aiming at.
+
+Whatever men may consider to be their destiny and welfare, science will
+be the teacher of this destiny and welfare, and art the expression of
+this teaching. The laws of Solon, of Confucius, are science; the
+teachings of Moses, of Christ, are science; the temples in Athens, the
+psalms of David, church worship, are art: but finding out the fourth
+dimension of matter, and tabulating chemical combinations, and so on,
+have never been, and never will be, science.
+
+The place of true science is occupied, in our time, by theology and law;
+the place of true art is occupied by the church and state ceremonies, in
+which nobody believes, and which are not considered seriously by
+anybody; while that which with us is called art and science, is only the
+production of idle minds and feelings desirous to stimulate similarly
+idle minds and feelings, and unintelligible and dumb for the people,
+because they have not their welfare in view.
+
+Since we have known the lives of men, we have always and everywhere
+found a ruling false doctrine, calling itself science, which does not
+show men the true meaning of life, but rather hides it from them.
+
+So it was among the Egyptians, the Indians, the Chinese, and partially
+among the Greeks (sophists); and among the mystics, Gnostics, and
+cabalists; in the Middle Ages, in theology, scholasticism, alchemy; and
+so on down to our days. How fortunate indeed we are to be living in such
+a peculiar time, when that mental activity which calls itself science is
+not only free from errors, but, we are assured, is in a state of
+peculiar progress! Does not this good fortune come from the fact that
+man can not and will not see his own deformities? While of the sciences
+of theologians, and that of cabalists, nothing is left but empty words,
+why should we be so particularly fortunate?
+
+The characteristics of our times and of former times are quite similar;
+there is the same self-conceit and blind assurance that we only are on
+the true way, and that only with us true knowledge begins; there are the
+same expectations that we shall presently discover something very
+wonderful; and there is the same exposure of our error, in the fact that
+all our wisdom remains with us, while the masses of the people do not
+understand it, and neither accept nor need it. Our position is a very
+difficult one, but why should we not look it in the face?
+
+It is time to come to our senses, and to look more closely to ourselves.
+We are, indeed, nothing but scribes and Pharisees, who, sitting in
+Moses' seat, and having the key of the kingdom of God, do not enter
+themselves, and refuse entrance to others.
+
+We, priests of art and science, are most wretched deceivers, who have
+much less right to our position than the most cunning and depraved
+priests ever had.
+
+For our privileged position, there is no excuse whatever: we have taken
+up this position by a kind of swindling, and we retain it by deceit.
+Pagan priests, the clergy, Russian as well as Roman Catholic, however
+depraved they may have been, had rights to their position, because they
+professed to teach men about life and salvation. And we, who have cut
+the ground from under their feet, and proved to men that they were
+deceivers, we have taken their place, and not only do not teach men
+about life, we even acknowledge that there is no necessity for them to
+learn. We suck the blood of the people, and for this we teach our
+children Greek and Latin grammars so that they also may continue the
+same parasitic life which we are living.
+
+We say, There have been castes, we will abolish them. But what means the
+fact that some men and their children work, and other men and their
+children do not work?
+
+Bring a Hindu who does not know our language, and show him the Russian
+and the European lives of many generations, and he will recognize the
+existence of two important definite castes of working-people and of
+non-working people as they are in existence in his own country. As in
+his country, so also among us, the right of not working is acquired
+through a peculiar initiation which we call art and science, and
+education generally.
+
+It is this education, and the perversions of reason associated with it,
+that have brought to us this wonderful folly, whence it has come to pass
+that we do not see what is so plain and certain. We are eating up the
+lives of our brethren, and consider ourselves to be Christians, humane,
+educated, and quite in the right.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+What is to be done? What must we do?
+
+This question, which includes acknowledgment of the fact that our life
+is bad and unrighteous, and at the same time hints that there is no
+possibility of changing it,--this question I hear everywhere, and
+therefore I chose it for the title of my work.
+
+I have described my own sufferings, my search, and the answer which I
+have found to this question.
+
+I am a man like others; and if I distinguish myself from an average man
+of my own circle in any thing, it is chiefly in the fact that I, more
+than this average man, have served and indulged the false teaching of
+our world, that I have been more praised by the men of the prevalent
+school of teaching, and that therefore I am more depraved, and have gone
+farther astray, than most of my fellows.
+
+Therefore I think that the answer to this question which I have found
+for myself will do for all sincere persons who will put the same
+question to themselves. First of all, to the question, "What is to be
+done?" I answer that I must neither deceive other men nor myself; that I
+must not be afraid of the truth, whatever the result may be.
+
+We all know what it is to deceive other men; and notwithstanding this,
+we do deceive from morning to evening,--"Not at home," when I am in;
+"Very glad," when I am not at all glad; "Esteemed," when I do not
+esteem; "I have no money," when I have it, and so on.
+
+We consider the deception of others to be evil, particularly a certain
+kind of deception, but we are not afraid to deceive ourselves: yet the
+worst direct lie to men, seeing its result, is nothing in comparison
+with that lie to ourselves according to which we shape our lives. Now,
+this very lie we must avoid if we wish to be able to answer the
+question, "_What is to be done?_"
+
+Indeed, how am I to answer the question as to what is to be done, when
+every thing I do, all my life, is based upon a lie and I carefully give
+out this lie to others and to myself as truth? Not to lie in this sense
+means to be not afraid of truth; not to invent excuses, and not to
+accept excuses invented by others, in order to hide from one's self the
+deductions of reason and conscience; not to be afraid of contradicting
+all our surroundings, and of being left alone with reason and
+conscience; not to be afraid of that condition to which truth and
+conscience lead us: however dreadful it may be, it cannot be worse than
+that which is based upon deceit.
+
+To avoid lying, for men in our privileged position of mental labour,
+means not to be afraid of truth. Perhaps we owe so much that we should
+never be able to pay it all; but however much we may owe, we must make
+out our bill: however far we have gone astray, it is better to return
+than to continue straying.
+
+Lying to our fellows is always disadvantageous. Every business is always
+more directly done by truth than by lies, and more quickly too. Lying to
+other men makes matters only more complicated, and retards the decision;
+but lying to one's self, which is given out to be the truth, entirely
+ruins the life of man.
+
+If a man considers a wrong road to be a right one, then his every step
+leads him only farther from his aim: a man who has been walking for a
+long time on a wrong road may find out for himself, or be told by
+others, that his road is a wrong one; but if he, being afraid of the
+thought how far he has gone astray, tries to assure himself that he may,
+by following this wrong course, still come across the right one, then he
+will certainly never find it. If a man becomes afraid of the truth, and,
+on seeing it, will not acknowledge it, but accepts falsehood for truth,
+then this man will never learn what is to be done.
+
+We, not only rich men, but men in privileged position, so-called
+educated men, have gone so far astray that we require either a firm
+resolution or very great sufferings on our false way to bring us to our
+senses again, and to recognize the lie by which we live.
+
+I became aware of the lie of our life, thanks to those sufferings to
+which my wrong road led me; and, having acknowledged the error of the
+way on which I was bent, I had the boldness to go, first in theory, then
+in reality, wherever my reason and conscience led me, without any
+deliberation as to whither they were tending.
+
+I was rewarded for this boldness.
+
+All the complex, disjointed, intricate, and meaningless phenomena of
+life surrounding me became of a sudden clear; and my position among
+these phenomena, formerly so strange and vile, became of a sudden
+natural and easy.
+
+In this new position my activity has exactly determined itself, but it
+is quite a different activity from that which appeared possible to me
+before: it is a new activity, far more quiet, affectionate, and joyous.
+The very thing which frightened me before, now attracts me.
+
+Therefore, I think that every one who sincerely puts to himself the
+question, "What is to be done?" and in answering this question, does not
+lie or deceive himself, but goes wherever his reason _and conscience_
+may lead him, that man has already answered the question.
+
+If he will only avoid deceiving himself, he will find out what to do,
+where to go, and how to act. There is only one thing which may hinder
+him in finding an answer,--that is too high an estimate of himself, and
+of his own position. So it was with me; and therefore the second answer
+to the question, "What is to be done?" resulting from the first,
+consisted for me in repenting, in the full meaning of this word: that
+is, entirely changing the estimate of my own position and activity.
+Instead of considering such to be useful and of importance, we must come
+to acknowledge it to be harmful and trifling; instead of considering
+ourselves educated, we must come to see our ignorance; instead of
+imagining ourselves to be kind and moral, we must acknowledge that we
+are immoral and cruel; instead of seeing our importance, we must see our
+own insignificance.
+
+I say, that besides avoiding lying to myself, I had moreover to
+_repent_, because, though the one results from the other, the wrong idea
+about my great importance was so much a part of my own nature, that
+until I had sincerely repented, and had put aside that wrong estimate of
+myself, I did not see the enormity of the lie of which I had been
+guilty.
+
+It was only when I repented,--that is, left off considering myself to be
+a peculiar man, and began to consider myself to be like _all_ other
+men,--it was then that my way became clear to me. Before this I was not
+able to answer the question, "What is to be done?" because the very
+question itself was put incorrectly.
+
+Before I repented, I had put the question thus: "What activity should I
+choose, I, the man with the education and talents I have acquired? How
+can I compensate by this education and these talents for what I have
+been taking away from the people?"
+
+This question was a false one, because it included the wrong idea of my
+not being like other men, but a peculiar man, called to serve other men
+with those talents and that education which I had acquired in forty
+years.
+
+I had put the question to myself, but in reality I had already answered
+it in advance by having determined beforehand that I was called upon to
+serve men by the kind of activity agreeable to myself. I really asked
+myself, "How can I, so fine a writer, one so very well informed, and
+with such talents, how can I utilize those talents for the benefit of
+mankind?"
+
+But the question ought to have been put thus,--as it would have to be
+put to a learned rabbi who had studied all the Talmud, and knew the
+exact number of letters in the Holy Scripture, and all the subtleties of
+his science:--"What can I do, who, from unlucky circumstances, have lost
+my best years in study instead of accommodating myself to labour,--in
+learning the French language, the piano, grammar, geography, law,
+poetry; in reading novels, romances, philosophical theories, and in
+performing military exercises? what can I do, who have passed the best
+years of my life in idle occupations, depraving the soul? what can I do,
+notwithstanding these unlucky conditions of the past, in order to
+requite those men, who, during all this time, have fed and clothed me,
+and who still continue to feed and to clothe me?"
+
+If the question had been put thus, after I had repented, "What can I, so
+ruined a man, do?" the answer would have been easy: First of all, I must
+try to get my living honestly,--that is, learn not to live upon the
+shoulders of others; and while learning this, and after I have learned
+it, to try on every occasion to be of use to men with my hands and with
+my feet, as well as with my brain and my heart, and with all of me that
+is wanted by men.
+
+Therefore I say that for one of my own circle, besides avoiding lying to
+others and ourselves, it is further necessary to repent, to lay aside
+pride about our education, refinement, and talents, not considering
+ourselves to be benefactors of the people, advanced men, who are ready
+to share our useful acquirements with the people, but acknowledging
+ourselves to be entirely guilty, ruined, good-for-nothing men, who
+desire to turn over a new leaf, and not to be benefactors of the people,
+but to cease to offend and to humiliate them.
+
+Very often good young people, who sympathise with the negative part of
+my writings, put to me the question, "What must I do then? What have I,
+who have finished my study in the university or in some other high
+establishment,--what have I to do in order to be useful?"
+
+These young people ask the question; but in the depths of their souls
+they have already decided that the education which they have received is
+their great advantage, and that they wish to serve the people by this
+very advantage.
+
+Therefore, there is one thing which they do not do,--honestly and
+critically examine what they call their education, asking themselves
+whether it is a good or a bad thing.
+
+If they do this, they will be unavoidably led to decry their education,
+and to begin to learn anew; and this alone is what is wanted. They will
+never be able to answer the question, as to what there is to be done,
+while they put it wrongly. The question should be put thus: "How can I,
+a helpless, useless man, recognizing the misfortune of having lost my
+best years in studying the scientific Talmud, pernicious for soul and
+body, how can I rectify this mistake, and learn to serve men?" But the
+question is always put thus: "How can I, who have acquired so much fine
+information, how can I be useful to men with this my information?"
+
+Therefore, a man can never answer the question, "What is to be done?"
+until he leaves off deceiving himself and repents. And repentance is not
+dreadful, even as truth is not dreadful, but it is equally beneficent
+and fruitful of good. We need only accept the whole truth and fully
+repent in order to understand that in life no one has any rights or
+privileges, and that there is no end of duties, and no limits to them,
+and that the first and unquestionable duty of a man is to take part in
+the struggle with nature for his own life and for the lives of other
+men. And this acknowledgment of men's duty forms the essence of the
+third answer to the question, "What is to be done?"
+
+I have tried to avoid deceiving myself. I have endeavoured to extirpate
+the last remnant of the false estimate of the importance of my education
+and talents, and to repent; but before answering the question, _What is
+to be done?_ there stands a new difficulty.
+
+There are so many things to be done, that one requires to know what is
+to be done in particular? And the answer to this question has been given
+me by the sincere repentance of the evil in which I have been living.
+
+What is to be done? What is there exactly to be done? everybody keeps
+asking; and I, too, kept asking this, while, under the influence of a
+high opinion of my own calling, I had not seen that my first and
+unquestionable business is to earn my living, clothing, heating,
+building, and so forth, and in doing this to serve others as well as
+myself, because, since the world has existed, the first and
+unquestionable duty of every man has been comprised in this.
+
+In this one business, man receives,--if he has already begun to take
+part in it,--the full satisfaction of all the bodily and mental wants of
+his nature; to feed, clothe, take care of himself and of his family,
+will satisfy his bodily wants; to do the same for others, will satisfy
+his spiritual.
+
+Every other activity of man is only lawful when these have first been
+satisfied. In whatever department a man thinks his calling lies, whether
+in governing the people, in protecting his countrymen, in officiating at
+divine services, in teaching, in inventing the means of increasing the
+delights of life, in discovering the laws of the universe, in
+incorporating eternal truths in artistic images, the first and most
+unquestionable duty of a reasonable man will always consist in taking
+part in the struggle with nature for preserving his own life and the
+lives of other men.
+
+This duty must always rank first, because the most necessary thing for
+men is life: and therefore, in order to protect and to teach men, and to
+make their lives more agreeable, it is necessary to keep this very life;
+while by not taking part in the struggle, and by swallowing up the
+labour of others, other lives are destroyed. And it is folly and
+impossible to endeavour to serve men while destroying their lives.
+
+Man's duty to acquire the means of living through the struggle with
+nature will always be unquestionably the very first of all duties,
+because it is the law of life, the violation of which unavoidably brings
+with it a punishment by destroying the bodily or mental life of man. If
+a man, living alone, free himself from the duty of struggling with
+nature, he will be at once punished by the perishing of his body.
+
+But if a man free himself from this duty by compelling other men to
+fulfil it for him, in ruining their lives, he will be at once punished
+by the destruction of his reasonable life; that is, of the life which
+has a reasonable sense in it.
+
+I had been so perverted by my antecedents, and this first and
+unquestionable law of God or nature is so hidden in our present world,
+that the fulfilling of it had seemed to me strange, and I was afraid and
+ashamed of it, as if the fulfilment, and not the violation, of this
+eternal and unquestionable law were strange, unnatural, and shameful. At
+first it seemed to me, that, in order to fulfil this law, some sort of
+accommodation was necessary, some established association of
+fellow-thinkers, the consent of the family, and life in the country (not
+in town): then I felt ashamed, as if I were putting myself forward in
+performing things so unusual to our life as bodily labour, and I did not
+know how to begin.
+
+But I needed only to understand that this was not some exclusive
+activity, which I have to invent and arrange, but that it was merely
+returning from the false condition in which I had lived to a natural
+one, merely rectifying that lie in which I had been living,--I had only
+to acknowledge all this, and all the difficulties vanished.
+
+It was not at all necessary to arrange and accommodate any thing, nor to
+wait for the consent of other people, because everywhere, in whatever
+condition I was, there were men who fed, dressed, and warmed me as well
+as themselves; and everywhere, under all circumstances, if I had
+sufficient time and strength, I was able to do these things for myself
+and for them.
+
+Nor could I feel a false shame in performing actions unusual and strange
+to me, because, in not doing so, I already experienced, not a false, but
+a real, shame.
+
+Having come to this conclusion, and to the practical deduction from it,
+I have been fully rewarded for not having been afraid of the deductions
+of reason, and for having gone where they led me.
+
+Having come to this practical conclusion, I was struck by the facility
+and simplicity of the solution of all those problems which had formerly
+seemed to me so difficult and complicated. To the question, "What have
+we to do?" I received a very plain answer: Do first what is necessary
+for yourself; arrange all you can do by yourself,--your tea-urn, stove,
+water, and clothes.
+
+To the question, "Would not this seem strange to those who had been
+accustomed to do all this for me?" it appeared that it was strange only
+for about a week, and after a week it seemed more strange for me to
+return to my former condition.
+
+In answer to the question, "Is it necessary to organize this physical
+labour, to establish a society in a village upon this basis?" it
+appeared that it was not at all necessary to do all this; that if the
+labour does not aim at rendering idleness possible, and at utilizing
+other men's labour,--as is the case with men who save up money,--but
+merely the satisfying of necessities, then such labour will naturally
+induce people to leave towns for the country, where this labour is most
+agreeable and productive.
+
+There was also no need to establish a society, because a workingman will
+naturally associate with other working-people. In answer to the
+question, "Would not this labour take up all my time, and would it not
+deprive me of the possibility of that mental activity which I am so fond
+of, and to which I have become accustomed, and which in moments of doubt
+I consider to be useful?" the answer will be quite an unexpected one.
+The energy of my mental activity increased in proportion to bodily
+exercise, being freed from all that was superfluous.
+
+In fact, having spent eight hours in physical labour,--half a
+day,--which formerly I used to spend in endeavouring to struggle with
+dulness, there still remained for me eight hours, out of which in my
+circumstances I required five for mental labour; and if I, a very
+prolific writer, who had been doing nothing but write during forty
+years, and who had written three hundred printed sheets, then if during
+these forty years I had been doing ordinary work along with
+working-people, and, not taking into consideration winter evenings and
+holidays, had been reading and learning during the five hours a day, and
+had written only on holidays two pages a day (and I have sometimes
+written sixteen pages a day), I should have written the same three
+hundred printed sheets in fourteen years.
+
+A wonderful thing: a most simple arithmetical calculation which every
+boy of seven years of age may do, but which I had never done. Day and
+night have together twenty-four hours; we sleep eight hours; there
+remain sixteen hours. If any man labour mentally five hours a day, he
+will do a vast amount of business; what do we, then, do during the
+remaining eleven hours?
+
+So it appears that physical labour not only does not exclude the
+possibility of mental activity, but improves and stimulates it.
+
+In answer to the question, whether this physical labour would deprive me
+of many innocent enjoyments proper to man, such as enjoyment of art,
+acquirement of knowledge, of social intercourse, and, generally, of the
+happiness of life, it was really quite the reverse: the more intense my
+physical labour, the more it approached that labour which is considered
+the hardest, to wit, agricultural labour, the more I acquired
+enjoyments, and knowledge, and the closer and more affectionate was my
+intercourse with mankind, and the more happiness did I feel in life.
+
+In answer to the question (which I hear so often from men who are not
+quite sincere), "What result can there be from such an awfully small
+drop in the sea? what is all my personal physical labour in comparison
+with the sea of labour which I swallow up?"
+
+To this question I also received a very unexpected answer.
+
+It appeared that as soon as I had made physical labour the ordinary
+condition of my life, at once the greatest part of the false and
+expensive habits and wants which I had while I had been physically idle,
+ceased of themselves, without any endeavour on my part. To say nothing
+of the habit of turning day into night, and _vice versa_, of my bedding,
+clothes, my conventional cleanliness, which all became impossible and
+embarrassing when I began to labour physically, both the quantity and
+the quality of my food was totally changed. Instead of the sweet, rich,
+delicate, complicated, and highly spiced food, which I formerly liked, I
+now required and obtained plain food as being the most agreeable,--sour
+cabbage soup, porridge, black bread, tea with a bit of sugar.
+
+So that, apart from the example of common workingmen satisfied with
+little, with whom I came in closer intercourse, my very wants themselves
+were gradually changed by my life of labour; so that in proportion to my
+growing accustomed to this labour and acquiring the ways of it, my drop
+of physical labour became indeed more perceptible in the ocean of common
+labour; and in proportion as my labour grew more fruitful, my demands
+for other men's labour grew less and less, and, without effort or
+privation, my life naturally came nearer to that simple life of which I
+could not even have dreamed without fulfilling the law of labour.
+
+It became apparent that my former most expensive demands--the demands of
+vanity and amusement--were the direct result of an idle life. With
+physical labour, there was no room for vanity, and no need for
+amusement, because my time was agreeably occupied; and after weariness,
+simple rest while drinking tea, or reading a book, or conversing with
+the members of my family, was far more agreeable than the theatre,
+playing at cards, concerts, or large parties.
+
+In answer to the question, "Would not this unusual labour be hurtful to
+health, which is necessary in order that I may serve men?" it appeared
+that, despite the positive assurance of eminent doctors that hard
+physical labour, especially at my age, might have the worst results (and
+that Swedish gymnastics, riding, and other expedients intended to supply
+the natural conditions of man, would be far better), the harder I
+worked, the sounder, more cheerful, and kinder, I felt myself.
+
+It became undoubtedly certain that even as all those inventions of the
+human mind, such as newspapers, theatres, concerts, parties, balls,
+cards, magazines, novels, are nothing but means to sustain the spiritual
+life of men outside its natural condition of labour for others, so in
+the same way all the hygienic and medical inventions of the human mind
+for the provision of food, drink, dwelling, ventilation, warming of
+rooms, clothes, medicines, mineral water, gymnastics, electric and other
+cures, are all merely means to sustain the bodily life of man outside of
+its natural conditions of labour; and all these are nothing else than an
+establishment hermetically closed, in which, by means of chemical
+apparatus, the evaporation of water for the plants is arranged, when you
+need only to open the window, and do that which is natural, not for men
+alone but to beasts too; in other words, having absorbed the food, and
+thus produced a charge of energy, to discharge it by muscular labour.
+
+All the profound study of hygiene and of the art of healing for the men
+of our circle are like the efforts of a mechanic, who, having stopped
+all the valves of an overheated engine, should invent something to
+prevent this engine from bursting.
+
+When I had plainly understood all this, it seemed to me ridiculous, that
+I, through a long series of doubt, research, and much thinking, had
+arrived at this extraordinary truth, that if man has eyes, they are to
+be seen through; ears, to hear by; feet to walk with, and hands and back
+to work with,--and that if man will not use these, his members, for what
+they are meant, then it will be the worse for him. I came to this
+conclusion, that with us, privileged people, the same thing has happened
+which happened to the horses of a friend of mine: The steward, who was
+not fond of horses, and did not understand any thing about them, having
+received from his masters orders to prepare the best cobs for sale,
+chose the best out of the drove of horses, put them into the stable, fed
+them upon oats; but being over-anxious, he trusted them to nobody,
+neither rode them himself, nor drove nor led them.
+
+Of course, all these horses became good for nothing.
+
+The same has happened to us with this difference,--that you cannot
+deceive horses, and, in order not to let them out, they must be fastened
+in; while we are kept in unnatural and hurtful conditions by all sorts
+of temptations, which fasten and hold us as with chains.
+
+We have arranged for ourselves a life which is against the moral and
+physical nature of man, and we use all the powers of our mind in order
+to assure men that this life is the real one. All that we call
+culture,--our science and arts for improving the delights of life,--all
+these are only meant to deceive man's natural moral requirements: all
+that we call hygiene, and the art of healing, are endeavours to deceive
+the natural physical want of human nature.
+
+But these deceits have their limits, and we are come to these limits.
+"If such be real human life, then it is better not to live at all," says
+the fashionable philosophy of Schopenhauer and Hartman. "If such is
+life, then it is better not to live at all," is the witness borne by the
+increasing number of suicides among the privileged classes. "If such be
+life, it is better for future generations, too, not to live," says the
+indulgent healing art, and invents means to destroy women's fecundity.
+
+In the Bible the law to human beings is expressed thus: "In the sweat of
+thy face shalt thou eat bread," and "In sorrow thou shall bring forth
+children."
+
+The peasant Bondaref, who wrote an article about this, threw great light
+upon the wisdom of this sentence. During the whole of my life, two
+thinking men--Russians--have exercised a great influence over me: they
+have enriched my thoughts, and enlightened my contemplation of the
+world.
+
+These men were neither poets, nor learned men, nor preachers: they were
+two remarkable men, both now living, peasants,--Sutaief and Bondaref.
+But "nous avons changé tout ça," as says one of Moličre's personages,
+talking at random about the healing art, and saying that the liver is on
+the left side, "we have changed all that." Men need not work,--all work
+will be done by machines; and women need not bring forth children. The
+healing art will teach different means of avoiding this, for there are
+already too many people in the world.
+
+In the Krapivensky district,[6] there wanders a ragged peasant, who
+during the war was a purchaser of bread for a commissary of stores.
+Having become acquainted with this functionary, and having seen his
+comfortable life, he became mad, and now thinks that he, too, can live
+as gentlemen do, without work, being provided for by the Emperor.
+
+  [6] Tolstoy's village of Yasnaya Polyana is situated in this
+  district.--Ed.
+
+This peasant now calls himself "the Most Serene Marshal Prince Blokhin,
+purveyor of war-stores of all kinds."
+
+He says of himself that he has gone through all ranks, and for his
+services during the war he has to receive from the Emperor an unlimited
+bank-account, clothes, uniforms, horses, carriages, tea, servants, and
+all kinds of provision. When anybody asks him whether he would like to
+work a little, he only answers, "Thanks: the peasants will attend to all
+that." When we say to him that the peasants also may not be disposed to
+work, he answers, "Machines have been invented to ease the labour of
+peasants. They have no difficulty in their business." When we ask him
+what he is living for, he answers, "To pass away the time."
+
+I always consider this man as a mirror. I see in him myself and all my
+class. To pass through all ranks in order to live to pass away the time,
+and to receive an unlimited bank-account, while peasants attend to every
+thing, and find it easy to do so, because of the invention of machines.
+
+This is the exact form of the foolish belief of men of our class. When
+we ask what have we particularly to do, we are in reality asking
+nothing, but only asserting--not so sincerely indeed as the Most Serene
+Marshal Prince Blokhin, who had passed through all ranks, and lost his
+mind--that we do not wish to do anything.
+
+He who has come to his senses cannot ask this, because from one side all
+that he makes use of has been done, and is being done, by the hands of
+men; on the other side, as soon as a healthy man has got up and
+breakfasted, he feels the inclination to work, as well with his feet as
+with his hands and brain. In order to find work, he has only not to
+restrain himself from labour. Only he who considers labour to be a
+shame,--like the lady who asked her guest not to trouble herself to open
+the door, but to wait till she called a servant to do it,--only such
+persons can ask what is there to be done in particular.
+
+The difficulty is not in inventing work,--every one has enough to do for
+himself and for others,--but in losing this criminal view of life, that
+we eat and sleep for our own pleasure, and in gaining that simple and
+correct view in which every working-person grows up, that man first of
+all is a machine which is charged with food, and that therefore it is
+shameful, difficult, and impossible to eat and not to work; that to eat
+and not to work is a most dangerous state, and as bad as incendiarism.
+
+It is necessary only to have this consciousness, and we shall find work
+and this work will always be pleasant, and capable of satisfying all the
+wants of our soul and body.
+
+I picture to myself the whole matter thus: Every man's day is divided by
+his meals into four parts, or four stages as it is called by the
+peasants: First, before breakfast; secondly, from breakfast to dinner;
+thirdly, from dinner to poldnik (a slight evening meal between dinner
+and supper); and fourthly, from poldnik to night. The activity of man to
+which he is drawn, is also divided into four kinds: First, the activity
+of the muscles, the labour of the hands, feet, shoulders, back,--hard
+labour by which one perspires; secondly, the activity of the fingers and
+wrists, the activity of skill and handicraft; thirdly, the activity of
+the intellect and imagination; fourthly, the activity of intercourse
+with other men.
+
+The goods which man makes use of may also be divided into four kinds:
+First, every man makes use of the productions of hard labour,--bread,
+cattle, buildings, wells, bridges, and so on; secondly, the productions
+of handicraft,--clothes, boots, hardware, and so on; thirdly, the
+productions of mental activity,--science, art; and fourthly, the
+intercourse with men, acquaintanceship, societies.
+
+I thought that it would be the best thing so to arrange the occupations
+of the day that one might be able to exercise all these four faculties,
+and to return all the four kinds of production of labour, which one
+makes use of; so that the four parts of the day were devoted, first, to
+hard labour; secondly, to mental labour; thirdly, to handicraft;
+fourthly, to the intercourse with men. It would be good if one could so
+arrange his labour; but if it is not possible to arrange thus, one thing
+is important,--to acknowledge the duty of labouring, the duty of making
+a good use of each part of the day.
+
+I thought that it would be only then that the false division of labour
+which now rules our society would disappear, and a just division would
+be established which should not interfere with the happiness of mankind.
+
+I, for instance, have all my life been busy with mental work. I had said
+to myself that I have thus divided the labour: that my special work is
+writing; that is, mental labour: and all other works necessary for me, I
+left to be done by other men, or rather compelled them to do it. But
+this arrangement, seemingly so convenient for mental labour, though
+unjust, became most inconvenient, especially for mental labour. I have
+been writing all my life, have accommodated my food, sleep, amusements,
+with reference to this special labour, and besides this work I did
+nothing.
+
+The results of which were, first, that I had been narrowing the circle
+of my observation and information, and often I had not any object to
+study, and therefore, having had to describe the life of men (the life
+of men is a continual problem of every mental activity), I felt my
+ignorance, and had to learn and to ask about such things, which everyone
+not occupied with a special work knows; secondly, it happened that when
+I sat down to write, I often had no inward inclination to write, and
+nobody wanted my writing for itself, that is, for my thoughts, but
+people merely wanted my name for profits in the magazines.
+
+I made great efforts to write what I could; sometimes I did not succeed
+at all; sometimes succeeded in writing something very bad, and I felt
+dissatisfied and miserable. So often and often weeks passed, during
+which I would eat, drink, sleep, warm myself, and do nothing--or do
+something of no use to anybody--i.e., commit the worst and meanest
+crime, scarcely ever committed by a man of the working class. But since
+I have acknowledged the necessity of physical labour as well as hard
+labour, and also that of handicraft, everything is quite different: my
+time is occupied however humbly, but certainly in a useful way, and
+pleasantly and instructively for me.
+
+Therefore I, for the sake of my speciality, leave off this undoubtedly
+useful and pleasant occupation, only when I feel an inward want, or see
+a direct demand for my literary work. And this caused the quality, and
+therefore the usefulness and pleasantness, of my special labour to
+improve.
+
+Thus it has happened that my occupation with those physical works, which
+are necessary for me as well as for every man, not only do not interfere
+with my special activity, but are a necessary condition of the utility,
+quality, and pleasantness of this activity.
+
+A bird is so created that it is necessary for it to fly, to walk, to
+peck, to consider; and when it does all this, it is satisfied and happy;
+then it is a bird. Exactly so with a man when he walks, turns over heavy
+things, lifts them up, carries them, works with his fingers, eyes, ears,
+tongue, brain, then only is he satisfied, then only is he _a man_.
+
+A man who has come to recognise his calling to labour will be naturally
+inclined to that change of labour which is proper for him for the
+satisfying of his outward and inward wants, and he will reverse this
+order only when he feels an irresistible impulse to some special labour,
+and when other men require this labour from him. The nature of labour is
+such that the satisfying of all men's wants requires that very
+alternation of different kinds of labour which renders labour easy and
+pleasant.
+
+Only the erroneous idea that labour is a curse could lead men to free
+themselves from some kinds of labour, that is, to seize other men's
+labour, requiring from other men that forced occupation with a special
+labour which is called nowadays the division of labour.
+
+We have become so accustomed to our false conception of the arrangement
+of labour that it seems to us that for a boot-maker, a machinist, a
+writer, a musician, it would be better to be freed from the labour
+proper to man. Where there is no violence over other men's labour, nor a
+false belief in the pleasure of idleness, no man will for the sake of
+his special labour free himself from physical labour necessary for the
+satisfying of his wants, because special occupation is not a privilege,
+but a sacrifice to a man's inclination and for the sake of his brethren.
+
+A boot-maker in a village having torn himself from his usual pleasant
+labour in the field, and having begun his labour of mending or making
+boots for his neighbours, deprives himself of a pleasant, useful labour
+in the field for the sake of others, only because he is fond of sewing,
+and knows that nobody will do it better than he does, and that people
+will be thankful to him.
+
+But he cannot wish to deprive himself of the pleasant alternation of
+labour for all his life. The same with the starosta, the machinist, the
+writer, the learned man.
+
+It is only to our perverted ideas, that it seems, when the master sends
+his clerk to be a peasant, or government sentences one of its ministers
+to deportation, that they are punished and have been dealt with hardly.
+In reality they have had a great good done to them; that is, they have
+exchanged their heavy special work for a pleasant alternation of labour.
+
+In a natural society all is different. I know a commune where the people
+earn their living themselves. One of the members of this community was
+more educated than the rest; and they require him to deliver lectures,
+for which he has to prepare himself during the day, that he may be able
+to deliver them in the evening. He does it joyfully, feeling that he is
+useful to others, and that he can do it well. But he grows tired of the
+exclusive mental labour, and his health suffers accordingly. The members
+of the community therefore pity him, and ask him to come and labour in
+the field again.
+
+For men who consider labour to be the essential thing and the joy of
+life, the ground, the basis, of it will always be the struggle with
+nature,--not only in agricultural labour, but also in that of
+handicraft, mental work, and intercourse with men.
+
+The divergence from one or many of these kinds of labour, and
+specialities of labour, will be performed only when a man of special
+gifts, being fond of this work, and knowing that he performs it better
+than anybody else, will sacrifice his own advantage in order to fulfil
+the demands which others put directly to him.
+
+Only with such a view of labour and the natural division of labour
+resulting from it, will that curse disappear which in our imagination we
+have put upon labour; and every labour will always be a joy, because man
+will do either an unquestionably useful, pleasant, and easy work, or
+will be conscious that he makes a sacrifice by performing a more
+difficult special labour for the good of others.
+
+But the division of labour is, it is said, more advantageous.
+Advantageous for whom? Is it more advantageous to make with all speed as
+many boots and cotton-prints as possible? But who will make these boots
+and cotton-prints? Men who from generation to generation have been
+making only pin-heads? How, then, can it be more advantageous for
+people? If the object were to make as many cotton-prints and pins as
+possible, it would be so; but the question is, how to make people happy?
+
+The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labour.
+
+How, then, can the necessity of painful, oppressing work be advantageous
+for men? If the question were only for the advantage of some men without
+any consideration of the welfare of all, then it might be most
+advantageous for some men to eat others. They say it is savoury!
+
+The thing most advantageous for all men is what I wish for myself,--the
+greatest welfare and the satisfying of all my wants which are ingrafted
+in me, those of body as well as those of soul, of conscience, and of
+reason.
+
+Now, for myself I have found, that for my welfare and for the satisfying
+of these wants, I need only to be cured of the folly in which I (as well
+as the Krapivensky madman) have lived, consisting in the idea that
+gentlefolk need not work, and that all must be done for them by others,
+and that, producing nothing, I have to do only what is proper to
+man,--satisfy my own wants.
+
+Having discovered this, I became persuaded that this labour for the
+satisfying of my own wants, is divisible into various kinds of labour,
+each of which has its own charm, and is not only no burden, but serves
+as rest after some other labour.
+
+I have roughly divided labour, not in the least insisting on the
+propriety of such a division, into four parts parallel to the four parts
+of the labourer's day's work, divided by his meals; and thus I try to
+satisfy my wants.
+
+These are, then, the answers to the question, "What shall we do?" which
+I have found for myself.
+
+_First_, Not to lie to myself. However far I have gone astray from that
+road of life which my reason shows to me, I must not be afraid of the
+truth.
+
+_Secondly_, To renounce my own righteousness, my own advantages,
+peculiarities, distinguishing me from others, and to own my guilt.
+
+_Thirdly_, To fulfil the eternal, unquestionable law of man,--by
+labouring with all my being to struggle with nature, to sustain my own
+life, and the lives of others.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+
+I have now finished, having said all that concerns myself; but I cannot
+restrain my desire to say that which concerns every one, and to verify
+my own deductions by several considerations.
+
+I wish to explain why I think that a great many of my own class must
+arrive where I myself am, and I must also speak of what will result if
+even a few men arrive there; in the first place, if men of our circle,
+our caste, will only seriously think the matter out themselves, the
+younger generation, who seek their own personal happiness, will become
+afraid of the ever-increasing misery of lives which obviously lead them
+to ruin; scrupulous persons among us (if they would examine themselves
+more closely) will be terrified at the cruelty and unlawfulness of their
+own lives, and timid persons will be frightened at the danger of their
+mode of life.
+
+_The misery of our lives!_ However we, rich men, may try to mend and to
+support, with the assistance of science and art, this our false life, it
+must become weaker every day, unhealthier, and more and more painful:
+with each year, suicide, and the sin against the unborn babe, increase;
+with each year the new generations of our class grow weaker, with each
+year we feel more and more the increasing misery of our lives.
+
+It is obvious that on this road, with all its increase of the comforts
+and delights of life, of cures, artificial teeth and hair, and so on,
+there can be no salvation.
+
+This truth has become such a truism, that in newspapers advertisements
+are printed about stomach powder for rich people, under the title
+"Blessings of the poor," where they say that only poor people have a
+good digestion, and the rich need help, and among other things this
+powder. You cannot ameliorate this matter by any kind of amusements,
+comforts, powders, but only by turning over a new leaf.
+
+_The contradiction of our life with our conscience._ However we may try
+to justify to ourselves our treason against mankind, all our
+justification falls to pieces before evidence: around us, people are
+dying from overwork and want; and we destroy the food, clothes, and
+labour of men merely to amuse ourselves. Therefore the conscience of a
+man of our circle, though he may have but a small remainder of it in his
+breast, cannot be stifled, and poisons all these comforts and charms of
+life which our suffering and perishing brethren procure for us. Not only
+does every conscientious man feel this himself, but he must feel it more
+acutely at present, because the best part of art and science, that part
+which still retains a sense of its high calling, constantly reminds him
+of his cruelty, and of the unlawfulness of his position.
+
+The old secure justifications are all destroyed; and the new ephemeral
+justifications of the progress of science for science's sake, and art
+for art's sake, will not bear the light of plain common sense.
+
+The conscience of men cannot be calmed by new devices: it can be calmed
+only by turning over a new leaf, when there will be no longer any need
+for justification.
+
+_The danger to our lives!_ However much we may try to hide from
+ourselves the plain and obvious danger of exhausting the patience of
+those whom we oppress; however much we may try to counteract this danger
+by all sorts of deceit, violence and flattery,--it grows day by day,
+hour by hour,--it has long been threatening us, but now it is so ready
+that we are scarcely able to hold our course,--as in a vessel tossed by
+a roaring and overflowing sea,--a sea which will presently swallow us up
+in wrath.
+
+The workman's revolution, with its terrors of destruction and murder,
+not only threatens us, but we have already lived above it for the last
+thirty years, and it is only by various cunning devices that we have
+postponed the explosion.
+
+Such is the state in Europe: such is the state in Russia, and still
+worse there, because we have no safety-valves. The classes who oppress
+the people, with the exception of the Tsar, have no longer any
+justification in the eyes of our people; they all keep up their position
+merely by violence, cunning, and expediency, i.e., skill; but the hatred
+towards us of the worst representatives of the people, and the contempt
+of us from the best, increases every hour.
+
+Among the Russian people a new word full of significance has been
+circulating during the last three or four years: by this word, which I
+never heard before, people are swearing in the streets, and by it they
+give us a definition--"parasites."
+
+The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are increasing, and the
+physical and moral strength of the richer classes are decreasing: the
+deceit which supports all is wearing out, and the rich classes have
+nothing wherewith to comfort themselves in this mortal danger. To return
+to the old order of things is impossible, to restore the old prestige is
+impossible. It only remains for those who are not willing to change the
+course of their lives, and to turn over a new leaf,--to hope that,
+during their lives, they may fare well enough, after which the people
+may do as they like. So think the blind crowd of the rich; but the
+danger ever increases, and the awful catastrophe comes nearer and
+nearer.
+
+There are three reasons which should prove to rich people the necessity
+of turning over a new leaf: First, desire for their own personal welfare
+and that of their families, which is not secured by the way in which
+rich people are living; secondly, the inability to satisfy the voice of
+conscience, which is obviously impossible in the present condition of
+things; and thirdly, the threatening and constantly increasing danger to
+life, which cannot be met by any outward means. All these together ought
+to induce rich people to change their mode of life. This change alone
+would satisfy the desire of welfare and conscience, and would remove the
+danger. There is but one means of making such change,--to leave off
+deceiving ourselves, to repent, and to acknowledge labour to be, not a
+curse, but the joyful business of life.
+
+To this it is replied, "What will come out of the fact of my physical
+labour during ten, eight, or five hours, while thousands of peasants
+would gladly do it for the money which I have?"
+
+The first good result would be, that you will become livelier,
+healthier, sounder, kinder; and you will learn that real life from which
+you have hidden yourself, or which was hidden from you.
+
+The second good result will be, that, if you have a conscience, it will
+not only cease to suffer as it now suffers when looking at the labour of
+men,--the importance of which we always, from our ignorance, either
+increase or diminish,--but you will constantly experience a joyful
+acknowledgment that with each day you are satisfying more and more the
+demands of your conscience, and are leaving behind you that awful state
+in which so much evil is accumulated in our lives that we feel that we
+cannot possibly do any good in the world; you will experience the joy of
+free life, with the possibility of doing good to others; you will open
+for yourself a way into regions of the world of morality which have
+hitherto been shut to you.
+
+The third good result will be this, that, instead of constant fear of
+revenge upon your evil deeds, you will feel that you are saving others
+from this revenge, and are principally saving the oppressed from the
+cruel feeling of rancour and resentment.
+
+But it is generally said, that it would be ridiculous if we, men of our
+stamp, with deep philosophical, scientific, political, artistic,
+ecclesiastical, social questions before us, we, state ministers,
+senators, academists, professors, artists, singers, we, whose
+quarter-hours are valued so highly by men, should spend our time in
+doing--what? Cleaning our boots, washing our shirts, digging, planting
+potatoes, or feeding our chickens and cows, and so on,--in business
+which not only our house-porter, or our cook, but thousands of men
+besides who value our time, would be very glad to do for us.
+
+But why do we dress, wash, and comb our hair ourselves? Why do we walk,
+hand chairs to ladies, to our guests, open and shut the door, help
+people into carriages, and perform hundreds of actions which were
+formerly performed for us by our slaves?
+
+Because we consider that such may be done by ourselves; that they are
+compatible with human dignity; that is, human duty. The same holds good
+with physical labour. Man's dignity, his sacred duty, is to use his
+hands, his feet, for the purpose for which they were given him, to spend
+the swallowed food in work, which produces the food, and not to be
+wasted by disuse, not merely that he may wash and clean them and use
+them only for the purpose of stuffing food and cigarettes into his
+mouth.
+
+Such is the meaning of physical labour for every man in every society.
+But in our class, with the divergence from this law of nature came the
+misery of a whole circle of men; and for us, physical labour receives
+another meaning,--the meaning of a preaching and a propaganda which
+divert the terrible evil which threatens mankind.
+
+To say that for an educated man, physical labour is a trifling
+occupation, is the same as to say, in the building of a temple, "What
+importance can there be in putting each stone exactly in its place?"
+Every great act is done under the conditions of quietness, modesty, and
+simplicity. One can neither plough, nor feed cattle, nor think, during a
+great illumination, or amid thundering of guns, nor while in uniform.
+
+Illumination, the roar of cannon, music, uniforms, cleanliness,
+brilliancy, which we usually connect with the idea of the importance of
+any act, are, on the contrary, tokens of the absence of importance in
+that act. Great, true deeds are always simple and modest. Such is also
+the greatest deed which is left to us to do,--the solution of those
+awful contradictions in which we are living. The acts which solve these
+contradictions are modest, imperceptible, seemingly ridiculous acts,
+such as helping ourselves by physical labour, and, if possible, helping
+others too: this is what we rich people have to do, if we understand the
+misery, wrong, and danger of the position in which we live.
+
+What will result from the circumstance that I, and another, and a third,
+and a tenth man, do not despise physical labour, but consider it
+necessary for our happiness, for the calming of our consciences, and for
+our safety? This will result from it,--that one, two, three, ten men,
+coming into conflict with no one, without violence either of government
+or of revolution, will solve for themselves the problem which is before
+all the world, and which has appeared unsolvable; and they will solve it
+in such a way that life will become for them a good thing: their
+consciences will be calm, and the evil which oppresses them will cease
+to be dreadful to them.
+
+Another effect will be this: other men, too, will see that the welfare,
+which they have been looking for everywhere, is quite near them, that
+seemingly unsolvable contradictions between conscience and the order of
+the world are solved in the easiest and pleasantest way, and that,
+instead of being afraid of the men surrounding them, they must have
+intercourse with them, and love them.
+
+The seemingly unsolvable economical and social questions are like the
+problem of Krilof's casket. The casket opened of itself, without any
+difficulty: but it will not open until men do the simplest and most
+natural thing; that is, open it. The seemingly unsolvable question is
+the old question of the utilizing some men's labour by others: this
+question, in our time, has found its expression in property.
+
+Formerly, other men's labour was used simply by violence, by slavery: in
+our time it is being done by the means of property. In our time,
+property is the root of all evil and of the sufferings of men who
+possess it, or are without it, and of all the remorse of conscience of
+those who misuse it, and of the danger from the collision between those
+who have it, and those who have it not.
+
+Property is the root of all evil, and, at the same time, property is
+that towards which all the activity of our modern society is directed,
+and that which directs the activity of the world. States and governments
+intrigue, make wars, for the sake of property, for the possession of the
+banks of the Rhine, of land in Africa, China, the Balkan Peninsula.
+Bankers, merchants, manufacturers, land-owners, labourers, use cunning,
+torment themselves, torment others, for the sake of property; government
+functionaries, artisans, struggle, deceive, oppress, suffer, for the
+sake of property; courts of justice and police protect property; penal
+servitude, prisons, all the terrors of so-called punishments,--all is
+done for the sake of property.
+
+Property is the root of all evil; and now all the world is busy with the
+distribution and protecting of wealth.
+
+What, then, is property? Men are accustomed to think that property is
+something really belonging to man, and for this reason they have called
+it property. We speak indiscriminately of our own house and our own
+land. But this is obviously an error and a superstition. We know, and if
+we do not, it is easy to perceive, that property is only the means of
+utilizing other men's labour. And another's labour can by no means
+belong to me. It has nothing in common with the conception of
+property,--a conception very exact and precise.
+
+Man has been, and will always call his own that which is subject to his
+own will and joined with his own consciousness. As soon as a man calls
+his own something which is not his body, but which he should like to be
+subject to his will as his body is, then he makes a mistake, and gets
+disappointment, and suffering, and compels other people to suffer as
+well. Man calls his wife his own, his children, his slaves, his
+belongings, his own too; but the reality always shows him his error: and
+he must either get rid of this superstition, or suffer, and make others
+suffer.
+
+Now we, having nominally renounced the possessing of slaves, owing to
+money (and to its exactment by the government), claim our right also to
+money; that is, to the labour of other men.
+
+But as to our claiming our wives as our property, or our sons, our
+slaves, our horses,--this is pure fiction contradicted by reality, and
+which only makes those suffer who believe in it; because a wife or a son
+will never be so subject to my will as my body is; therefore my own body
+will always remain the only thing I can call my true property; so also
+money, property,--will never be real property, but only a self-deception
+and a source of suffering, and it is only my own body which will be my
+property, that which always obeys me, and is connected with my
+consciousness.
+
+It is only to us, who are so accustomed to call other things than our
+body our own, that such a wild superstition can appear to be useful for
+us, and without evil results; but we have only to reflect upon the
+nature of the matter to see how this, like every other superstition,
+brings with it only dreadful consequences.
+
+Let us take the most simple example. I consider myself my own, and
+another man like myself I consider my own too. I must understand how to
+cook my dinner: if I were free from the superstition of considering
+another man as my property, I should have been taught this art as well
+as every other necessary to my real property (that is, my body); but now
+I have it taught to my imaginary property, and the result is that my
+cook does not obey me, does not wish to humour me, and even runs away
+from me, or dies, and I remain with an unsatisfied want, and have lost
+the habit of learning, and recognize that I have spent as much time in
+worry about this cook as I should have spent in learning the art of
+cooking for myself.
+
+The same is the case with property in buildings, clothes, wares; with
+property in the land; with property in money. Every imaginary property
+calls forth in me a non-corresponding want which cannot always be
+gratified, and deprives me of the possibility of acquiring for my true
+and sure property--my own body--that information, that skill, those
+habits, improvements, which I might have acquired.
+
+The result is always that I have spent (without gain to myself,--to my
+true property) strength, sometimes my whole life, on that which never
+has been, and never could be, my property.
+
+I provide myself with an imaginary "private" library, a "private"
+picture gallery, "private" apartments, clothes; acquire my "own" money
+in order to purchase with it every thing I want, and the matter stands
+thus,--that I, being busy about this imaginary property, which is not,
+and cannot be my property, however I may call it, and which is no object
+for activity, leave quite out of sight that which is my true property,
+upon which I may really labour, and which really may serve me, and which
+always remains in my power.
+
+Words have always a definite meaning until we purposely give them a
+false signification.
+
+What does property mean?
+
+Property means that which is given to me alone, which belongs to me
+alone, exclusively; that with which I may always do everything I like,
+which nobody can take away from me, which remains mine to the end of my
+life, and which I ought to use in order to increase and to improve it.
+For every man such property is only himself.
+
+It is in this very sense that imaginary property is understood, that
+very property for sake of which (making it impossible for this imaginary
+property to become a real one) all the sufferings of this world
+exist,--wars, executions, judgments, prisons, luxury, depravity,
+murders, and the ruin of mankind.
+
+What, then, will result from the circumstance that ten men plough, hew
+wood, make boots, not from necessity, but in acknowledgment that man
+needs work, and that the more he works, the better it will be for him?
+
+This will come out of it: that ten men, or even one single man, by
+thought and in deed, will show men that this fearful evil from which
+they are suffering, is not the law of their destiny, nor the will of
+God, nor any historical necessity, but is a superstition not at all
+strong or overpowering, but weak and null, which one need only leave off
+believing in, as in idols, in order to get rid of, and to destroy it
+even as a frail cobweb is swept away.
+
+Men who begin to work in order to fulfil the pleasant law of their
+lives, who work for the fulfilment of the law of labour, will free
+themselves from this superstition of property which is so full of
+misery, and then all these worldly establishments which exist in order
+to protect this imaginary property outside of one's own body, will
+become not only unnecessary for them, but burdensome; and it will become
+clear to all that these institutions are not necessary, but pernicious,
+imaginary, and false conditions of life.
+
+For a man who considers labour not a curse, but a joy, property outside
+his own body--that is, the right or possibility of utilizing other men's
+labour--will be not only useless, but an impediment. If I am fond of
+cooking my dinner, and accustomed to do it, then the fact that another
+man will do it for me, will deprive me of my usual business, and will
+not satisfy me so well as I have satisfied myself; and further, the
+acquirement of imaginary property will not be necessary for such a man:
+a man who considers labour to be his very life, fills up all his life
+with it, and therefore requires less and less the labour of others,--in
+other words, as property to fill up his unoccupied time, and to
+embellish his life.
+
+If the life of a man is occupied by labour, he does not require many
+rooms, much furniture, various fine clothes: he does not require so much
+expensive food, or locomotion, or amusements. Especially a man who
+considers labour to be the business and the joy of his life, will not
+seek to ease his own labour by utilizing that of others.
+
+A man who considers life to consist in labour, will aim, in proportion
+as he acquires more skill, craft, and endurance, at having more and more
+work to do, to occupy all his time. For such a man, who sees the object
+of his life in labour, and not in the results of his labour in
+acquirement of property, there cannot be even a question about the
+instruments of labour. Though such a man will always choose the most
+productive instrument of labour, he will have the same satisfaction in
+working with the most unproductive.
+
+If he has a steam-plough, he will plough with it; if he has not such, he
+will plough with a horse-plough; if he has not this, he will plough with
+the plain Russian sokhá; if he has not even this, he will use a spade:
+and under any circumstances, he will attain his aim; that is, will pass
+his life in labour useful to man, and therefore will have fullest
+satisfaction. The position of such a man, in exterior and interior
+circumstances, will be happier than the condition of a man who gives his
+life away to acquire property.
+
+According to exterior circumstances, he will never want, because men,
+seeing that he does not shirk work, will always try to make his labour
+most productive to them, as they arrange a mill by running water; and
+that his labour may be more productive, they will provide for his
+material existence, which they will never do for men who aim at
+acquiring property. The providing for material wants, is all that a man
+requires.
+
+According to interior conditions, such a man will be always happier than
+he who seeks for property, because the latter will never get what he is
+aiming at, and the former in proportion to his strength (even the weak,
+old, dying, according to the proverb, with a Kored in his hands), will
+always receive full satisfaction, and the love and sympathy of men.
+
+One of the consequences of this will be, that certain odd, half-insane
+persons will plough, make boots, and so on, instead of smoking, playing
+cards, and riding about, carrying their dulness with them, from one
+place to another, during the ten hours which every brain worker has at
+his command.
+
+Another result will be, that these silly people will demonstrate in
+deed, that that imaginary property for the sake of which men suffer, and
+torment themselves and others, is not necessary for happiness, and even
+impedes it, and is but a superstition; and that true property is only
+one's own head, hands, feet; and that, in order to utilize this true
+property usefully and joyfully, it is necessary to get rid of that false
+idea of property outside one's own body, on which we waste the best
+powers of our life.
+
+Another result will be, that these men will demonstrate, that, when a
+man leaves off believing in imaginary property, then only will he make
+real use of his true property,--his own body, which will yield him fruit
+an hundred-fold, together with happiness such as we have no idea as yet;
+and he will be a useful, strong, kind man, who will everywhere stand on
+his own feet, will be always a brother to everybody, will be
+intelligible to all, desired by all, and dear to all.
+
+Then men, looking at one,--at ten such "silly" men will understand what
+they have all to do to unfasten that dreadful knot in which they have
+all been tied by the superstition respecting property, and to get rid of
+the miserable condition under which they are now groaning, and from
+which they do not know how to free themselves.
+
+There is no reasoning which can so plainly demonstrate the
+unrighteousness of those who employ it as does this. The boatmen are
+dragging vessels against the stream. Is it possible that there could be
+found a stupid boatman who would refuse to do his part in dragging,
+because he alone cannot drag the boat up against the stream? He who,
+besides his rights of animal life,--to eat and to sleep,--acknowledges
+any human duty, knows very well wherein such duty consists: just in the
+same way as a boatman knows that he has only to get into his
+breast-collar, and to walk in the given direction. He will only seek to
+know what to do and how to do it after having fulfilled his duty.
+
+As with the boatmen, and with all men who do any labour in common, so
+with the labour of all mankind; each man need only keep on his
+breast-collar, and go in the given direction. And for this purpose one
+and the same reason is given to all men that this direction may always
+be the same.
+
+That this direction _is_ given to us, is obvious and certain from the
+lives of those who surround us, as well as in the conscience of every
+man, and in all the previous expressions of human wisdom; so that only
+he who does not want work, can say that he does not see it.
+
+What, then, will come out of this?
+
+This, that first one man, then another, will drag; looking at them, a
+third will join; and so one by one the best men will join, until the
+business will be set a-going, and will move as of itself, inducing those
+also to join who do not yet understand why and wherefore it is being
+done.
+
+First, to the number of men who conscientiously work in order to fulfil
+the law of God, will be added those who will accept half conscientiously
+and half upon faith; then to these a still greater number of men, only
+upon faith in the foremost men; and lastly the majority of people: and
+then it will come to pass that men will cease to ruin themselves, and
+will find out happiness.
+
+This will happen (and it will happen soon) when men of our circle, and
+after them all the great majority of working-people, will no longer
+consider it shameful to clean sewers, but will consider it shameful to
+fill them up in order that other men, _our brethren_, may carry their
+contents away; they will not consider it shameful to go visiting in
+common boots, but they will consider it shameful to walk in goloshes
+beside barefooted people; they will not think it shameful not to know
+French, nor about the last novel, but they will consider it shameful to
+eat bread, and not to know how it is prepared; they will not consider it
+shameful not to have a starched shirt or a clean dress, but that it is
+shameful to wear a clean coat as a token of one's idleness; they will
+not consider it shameful to have dirty hands, but shameful not to have
+callouses on their hands.
+
+All this will come to pass when public opinion demands it. Public
+opinion will demand it, when men get rid of those snares which hide the
+truth from them. Great changes in this direction have taken place within
+my memory. These changes occurred only as public opinion changed. Within
+my memory has happened this, that whereas rich men were ashamed if they
+could not drive out with a team of four horses, with two men-servants,
+and that it was considered shameful not to have a man-servant or a maid,
+to dress one, wash one, attend the chamber, and so on; now of a sudden
+it has become shameful not to dress and to wash oneself, without help,
+or to drive out with men-servants. All these changes have been
+accomplished by public opinion.
+
+Can we not see the changes which public opinion is now preparing?
+Twenty-five years ago it sufficed to destroy the snare which justified
+serfdom, and public opinion changed its attitude as to what is
+praiseworthy, and what is shameful, and life changed. It would suffice
+to destroy the snares justifying the power of money over men, and public
+opinion will change its view, concerning things praiseworthy and things
+shameful, and life will change.
+
+But the destroying of the snare justifying the power of money and the
+change of public opinion in this direction is already quickly taking
+place. This snare is already transparent and but slightly veils the
+truth. One needs only to look more attentively to see clearly that
+change of public opinion, which not only must take place, but which has
+been already accomplished, only not yet consciously acknowledged, not
+yet named. Let a slightly educated man of our time think of the
+consequences ensuing from those views he holds concerning the universe,
+and he will see, that the unconscious estimate of good and evil, of
+praiseworthy and shameful, by which he is guided in life, directly
+contradicts all his conceptions of life.
+
+Let a man of our times dismiss himself, if only for a minute, from his
+own inert life, and looking at it, as an outsider, subject it to that
+very estimate, resulting from his conception of life, and he will stand
+aghast before the definition of his life, which results from his
+conception of the world.
+
+Let us take as an example, a young man (in young people the life energy
+is stronger and the self-consciousness is more vague) of the wealthy
+classes, and of any shade of opinions. Every decent youth considers it a
+shame not to help an old man, a child, a woman; he considers it a shame
+to risk the life and health of another in common work while avoiding the
+danger for himself. Everybody considers it shameful and barbarous to do
+what Skyler tells about the Kirghiz: who during storms sent out their
+wives and old women to hold the corners of the tent, while they remained
+inside drinking their koumis; everybody considers it a shame to force a
+weak man to work for him and still more shameful when in such danger,
+as, say, on a ship on fire, for the strongest to push aside the weak and
+go first into the life-boat, and so on. Men consider all this shameful
+and would by no means act so under certain exceptional circumstances;
+but in everyday life the same actions and even worse,--being hidden by
+snares,--are constantly committed by them.
+
+One need only think of it earnestly to recognize the horror of it.
+
+A young man changes his shirts daily. Who washes them? A woman, whatever
+her state may be, very often old enough to be his mother or grandmother,
+often unwell. How would this young man call another who out of whim,
+changes his clean shirt and sends it to be washed by a woman old enough
+to be his mother?
+
+A young man, that he may be smart, provides himself with horses and an
+old man, fit to be his father or grandfather, is set to training them,
+thus endangering his very life, and the young man rides on the horse
+when danger is over. What would the young man say about a man who,
+avoiding a dangerous situation for himself, puts another into it and for
+his pleasure allows such a risk?
+
+Yet the whole life of the well-to-do classes consists of a chain of such
+actions. The overtaxing labour of old men, children and women, and work
+connected with danger to life done by others, not to help us to work but
+to satisfy our whims--these fill up our life. The fisherman gets drowned
+while catching fish for us, the washerwomen catch colds and die, the
+smith grows blind, those who work in factories get ill and injured by
+machinery, woodcutters are crushed by falling trees, workmen fall from
+roofs and are killed, needlewomen pine away. All real work is done with
+waste and danger to life. To hide this and refuse to see it is
+impossible. There is one salvation, one issue out of this situation, to
+wit--that if a man of our time is not to be obliged--according to his
+own principles--to call himself a scoundrel and a coward, who burdens
+others with work and danger to life--he must take from men only what is
+necessary for his life, and submit himself also to true labour
+associated with waste and danger to life.
+
+Within my memory, more striking changes have taken place. I remember
+that at table, a servant stood with a plate, behind each chair. Men made
+visits accompanied by two footmen. A Cossack boy and a girl stood in a
+room to give people their pipes, and to clean them, and so on. Now this
+seems to us strange and remarkable. But is it not equally strange that a
+young man or woman, or even an elderly man, that he may visit a friend,
+should order his horses to be harnessed, and that well-fed horses are
+kept only for this purpose? Is it not as strange that one man lives in
+five rooms, or that a woman spends tens, hundreds, thousands of rubles
+for her dress when she only needs some flax and wool wherewith to spin
+dresses for herself, and clothes for her husband and children?
+
+Is it not strange that men live doing nothing, riding to and fro,
+smoking and playing, and that a battalion of people are busy feeding and
+warming them?
+
+Is it not strange that old people quite gravely talk and write in
+newspapers about theatres and music, and other insane people drive to
+look at musicians or actors?
+
+Is it not strange that tens of thousands of boys and girls are brought
+up so as to make them unfit for every work (they return home from
+school, and their two books are carried for them by a servant)?
+
+There will soon come a time,--and it is already drawing near,--when it
+will be shameful to dine on five courses served by footmen, and cooked
+by any but the masters themselves; it will be shameful not only to ride
+thoroughbreds or to drive in a coach when one has feet to walk on; to
+wear on week-days dress, shoes, gloves, in which it is impossible to
+work; it will be shameful to play on a piano which costs one hundred and
+fifty pounds, or even ten pounds, while others work for one; to feed
+dogs upon milk and white bread, when there are men who have neither milk
+nor bread, and to burn lamps and candles without working by their light;
+to heat stoves in which no meal is cooked, while there are men who have
+neither light nor fuel. Then it will be impossible to think about giving
+openly not merely one pound, but even six pence, for a place in a
+concert or in a theatre. All this will be when the law of labour becomes
+public opinion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+As it is said in the Bible, there is a law given unto man and woman,--to
+man, the law of labour; to woman, the law of child-bearing. Although
+with our science, "_nous avons changé tout ça_," the law of man as well
+as of woman remains as immutable as the liver in its place; and the
+breach of it is inevitably punished by death. The only difference is,
+that for man, the breach of law is punished by death in such a near
+future that it can almost be called present; but for woman, the breach
+of law is punished in a more distant future.
+
+A general breach, by all men, of the law, destroys men immediately: the
+breach by women destroys the men of the following generation. The
+evasion of the law by a few men and women does not destroy the human
+race, but deprives the offender of rational human nature.
+
+The breach of this law by men began years ago in the classes which could
+use violence with others; and, spreading on its way, it has reached our
+day, and has now attained madness, the ideal contained in a breach of
+the law, the ideal expressed by Prince Blokhin, and shared by Renan and
+the whole educated world: work will be done by machines, and men will be
+bundles of nerves enjoying themselves.
+
+There has been scarcely any breach of the law by women. It has only
+manifested itself in prostitution, and in private cases of crime
+destroying progeny. Women of the wealthy classes have fulfilled their
+law, while men did not fulfil theirs; and therefore women have grown
+stronger, and have continued to govern, and will govern, men, who have
+deviated from their law, and who, consequently, have lost their reason.
+It is generally said that women (the women of Paris, especially those
+who are childless) have become so bewitching, using all the means of
+civilization, that they have mastered man by their charms.
+
+This is not only wrong, but it is just the reverse of the truth. It is
+not the childless woman who has mastered man, it is the mother, the one
+who has fulfilled her duty, while man has not fulfilled his.
+
+As to the woman who artificially remains childless, and bewitches man by
+her shoulders and curls, she is not a woman, mastering man, but a woman
+corrupted by him, reduced to the level of the corrupted man, who, as
+well as he, has deviated from her duty, who, as well as he, has lost
+every reasonable sense of life.
+
+This mistake also produces the astounding nonsense which is called
+"woman's rights." The formula of these rights is as follows:--
+
+"You men," says woman, "have deviated from your law of true labour, and
+want us to carry the load of ours. No: if so, we also, as well as you,
+will make a pretence of labour, as you do in banks, ministries,
+universities, and academies; we wish, as well as you, by the pretence of
+division of work, to profit by other people's work, and to live, only to
+satisfy our lust." They say so, and in deed show that they can make that
+pretence of labour not at all worse, but even better, than men do it.
+
+The so-called question of women's rights arose, and could only arise,
+among men who had deviated from the law of real labour. One has only to
+return to it, and that question must cease to exist. A woman who has her
+own particular, inevitable labour will never claim the right of sharing
+man's labour,--in mines, or in ploughing fields. She claims her share
+only in the sham labour of the wealthy classes.
+
+The woman of our class was stronger than man, and is now still stronger,
+not through her charms, not through her skill in performing the same
+pharisaic similitude of work as man, but because she has not stepped
+outside of the law; because she has borne that true labour with danger
+of life, with uttermost effort; true labour, from which the man of the
+wealthy classes has freed himself.
+
+But within my memory has begun also the deviation from the law by
+woman,--that is to say, her fall; and within my memory, it has proceeded
+farther and farther. A woman who has lost the law, believes that her
+power consists in the charms of her witchery, or in her skill at a
+pharisaic pretence of intellectual labour. Children hinder the one and
+the other. Therefore, with the help of science (science is always
+helpful to everything wicked) within my memory it has come to pass that
+among the wealthy classes, scores of means of destroying progeny have
+appeared, and these means become a common attribute of the toilet. And
+behold,--women, mothers, some of them of the wealthy classes, who held
+their power in their hands, let it slip away, and place themselves on a
+level with women of the street. The evil has spread far, and spreads
+farther every day, and will soon grasp all the women of the wealthy
+classes; and then they will be on a level with the men, and together
+with them will lose every reasonable sense of life. There will be no
+return for this class then. But there is yet time. For there still
+remain more women than men who accomplish the law of their life,
+therefore there are still reasonable beings among them,--and thus some
+of the women of our class hold in their hands the possibility of
+salvation.
+
+If only women would understand their worth, their power, and would use
+these for the work of salvation of their husbands, brothers, and
+children,--the salvation of all men!
+
+Women, mothers of the wealthy classes, in your hands is the salvation of
+men of our world from the evils from which it suffers.
+
+Not those women who are occupied by their figures, bustles,
+head-dresses, and their charms for men, and who, against their will, by
+accident and in despair, bear children, and then give them over to
+wet-nurses; nor yet those who go to different lectures, and talk of
+psychometrical centres of differentiation, and who also try to free
+themselves from bearing children not to hinder their folly, which they
+call development,--but those women and mothers who, having the power of
+freeing themselves from child-bearing, hold strictly and consciously to
+that eternal, immutable law, knowing that the weight and labour of that
+submission is the aim of their life. These women and mothers of our
+wealthy classes are those in whose hands, more than in any others, lies
+the salvation of the men of our sphere in life, from the calamities
+which oppress them.
+
+You women and mothers who submit consciously to the law of God, you are
+the only ones who,--in our miserable, mutilated circle, which has lost
+all semblance of humanity,--know the whole true meaning of life
+according to the law of God; and you are the only ones who, by your
+example, can show men the happiness of that submission to God's law, of
+which they rob themselves.
+
+You are the only ones who know the joy and happiness which takes
+possession of one's whole being,--the bliss which is the share of every
+man who does not deviate from God's law. You know the joy of love to
+your husband,--a joy never ending, never destroyed, like all other joys,
+but forming the beginning of another new joy--love to your child. You
+are the only ones, when you are simple and submissive to God's law, who
+know, not the farcical pretence of labour, which men of your world call
+labour, but that true labour which is imposed by God upon men, and you
+know the rewards for it,--the bliss which it gives.
+
+You know it, when after the joys of love, you expect with emotion, fear,
+and hope, the torturing state of pregnancy, which makes you ill for nine
+months, and brings you to the brink of death and to unbearable
+sufferings and pains: you know the conditions of true labour, when with
+joy you expect the approach and increase of the most dreadful
+sufferings, after which comes the bliss, known to you only.
+
+You know it when, directly after those sufferings, without rest, without
+interruption, you undertake another series of labours and
+sufferings,--those of nursing; for the sake of which you subjugate to
+your feeling, and renounce, the strongest human necessity,--that of
+sleep, which, according to the saying, is sweeter than father and
+mother. For months and years you do not sleep two nights running, and
+often you do not sleep whole nights; walking alone to and fro, rocking
+in your wearied arms an ailing baby, whose sufferings tear your heart.
+When you do all this, unapproved and unseen by anybody, not expecting
+any praise or reward for it; when you do this, not as a great deed, but
+as the labourer of the gospel parable, who came from the field,
+considering that you are only doing your duty,--you know then what is
+false, fictitious labour,--for human fame; and what is true labour,--the
+fulfilment of God's will, the indication of which you feel in your
+heart. You know, if you are a true mother, that not only has nobody seen
+and praised your labour, considering that it is only what ought to be,
+but even those for whom you toiled are not only ungrateful to you, but
+often torment and reproach you. With the next child you do the
+same,--again you suffer, again you bear unseen, terrible toil, and again
+you do not expect any reward from anybody, and feel the same
+satisfaction.
+
+If you are such, in your hands must lie the power over men, and in your
+hands lies the salvation. Your number is decreasing every day: some busy
+with practising their charms over men, become prostitutes; others are
+engaged in competition with men in their artificial, ludicrous
+occupations; the third, who have not yet renounced their vocation, begin
+to repudiate it in their minds: they perform all the deeds of women and
+mothers, but accidentally, with grumblings and envy of the free women,
+not bearing children,--and so deprive themselves of the only reward for
+them--the inner consciousness of the fulfilment of God's will--and
+instead of being satisfied they suffer from what is really their
+happiness.
+
+We are so confused by our false life, we, men of our circle, have all of
+us so utterly lost the sense of life, that we do not differ from one
+another. Having loaded others with all the burdens and dangers of life,
+we dare not call ourselves by the true names deserved by those who force
+others to perish in providing life for them--scoundrels, cowards.
+
+But among women a distinction still exists. There are women,--human
+beings, women,--presenting the highest manifestation of a human being;
+and there are women--prostitutes. This discrimination will be made by
+succeeding generations, and we, too, cannot help making it.
+
+Every woman, however she dresses, however she calls herself, however
+refined she may be, if being married she abstains from bearing children,
+is a prostitute.
+
+However low a lost woman may be, if she consciously devotes herself to
+bearing children, she does the best and highest work of life in
+fulfilling the will of God, and she has no superior.
+
+If you are such, you will not say, after two or after twenty children,
+that you have borne children enough; as a fifty-year old workman will
+not say that he has worked enough, while he still eats and sleeps, and
+his muscles demand work. If you are such, you will not cast the trouble
+of nursing and care on a strange mother,--any more than a workman will
+give the work which he has begun, and nearly finished, to another
+man,--because in that work you put your life, and because, the more you
+have of that work, the fuller and happier is your life.
+
+But when you are like this,--and, happily for men, there are yet such
+women,--the same law of fulfilment of God's will, by which you guide
+your own life, you will also apply to the life of your husband, of your
+children, and of men near to you. If you are such, and if you know by
+experience that only self-denied, unseen, unrewarded labour with danger
+of life, and uttermost effort for the life of others, is the mission of
+man which gives satisfaction, you will claim the same from others, you
+will encourage your husband to do the same labour, you will value and
+appreciate the worth of men by this same labour, and for it you will
+prepare your children.
+
+Only that mother who looks on child-bearing as a disagreeable accident,
+and upon the pleasures of love, comfort, education, sociability, as the
+meaning of life, will bring up her children so that they shall have as
+many pleasures, and enjoy them as much as possible; will feed them
+luxuriously, dress them smartly, will artificially divert them, and will
+teach them, not that which will make them capable of self-sacrificing
+man's and woman's labour with danger of life and uttermost effort, but
+that which will deliver them from that labour,--which will give them
+diplomas and idleness. Only such a woman, who has lost the significance
+of her life, will sympathize with that false, sham man's labour, by
+means of which her husband, freeing himself from man's duty, may profit,
+together with her, by the labour of others. Only such a woman will
+choose a similar husband for her daughter, and will value men, not for
+what they are in themselves, but for what is attached to
+them,--position, money, the art of profiting by the labour of others.
+
+A true mother, who really knows God's law, will prepare her children for
+the fulfilment of it. For such a mother it will be suffering to see her
+child overfed, pampered, overdressed, because all this, she knows, will
+hinder it in the fulfilment of God's law, experienced by herself. Such a
+woman will not teach that which will give her son or daughter the
+possibility of delivering themselves from labour, but that which will
+help them to bear the labour of life.
+
+She will not want to ask what to teach her children, or for what to
+prepare them, knowing what it is and in what consists the mission of
+men, and consequently knowing what to teach her children, and for what
+to prepare them. Such a woman will not only discourage her husband from
+false, sham labour, the only aim of which is to profit by other people's
+work, but will view with disgust and dread an activity that will serve
+as a double temptation for her children. Such a woman will not choose
+her daughter's husband according to the whiteness of his hands, and the
+refinement of his manners, but, knowing thoroughly what is labour and
+what deceit, will always and everywhere, beginning with her husband,
+respect and appreciate men, in claiming from them true labour with waste
+and danger of life, and will scorn that false, sham labour which has for
+its aim the delivering of one's self from true labour.
+
+And let not those women say,--who, while renouncing the vocation of
+women, desire to profit by its rights,--that such a view of life is
+impossible for a mother, that a mother is too intimately connected by
+love to her children to deprive them of sweets, smart dresses, or
+entertainments, or not to fear their being unprovided for, if the
+husband has no fortune or secure position, or not to be afraid for the
+future of the marrying daughters and sons, who have not got an
+"education."
+
+All this is a lie, a burning lie!
+
+A true mother will never say this: "You cannot keep yourself from the
+desire to give them sweets, toys, to take them to the circus?"
+
+But surely you don't give them poisonous berries to eat, you do not let
+them go out alone in a boat, you do not take them to a café chantant?
+Why then can you restrain yourselves in this case and not in that?
+Because you do not tell the truth. You say that you love the children so
+much that you fear for their life, you are so afraid of hunger, and
+cold, and that is why you appreciate so much the security, which your
+husband's position provides for you, though you consider it unlawful.
+
+You are so afraid of future eventualities, calamities for your children
+which are very distant and doubtful,--and you therefore encourage your
+husband to do things unjustifiable in your opinion; but what are you
+doing now to secure your children in their present conditions of life
+from the unfortunate eventualities of the present life?
+
+Do you spend much of your time during the day with your children? You do
+well if you spend one-tenth of the day!
+
+The remaining time they are under the care of strangers, hired people,
+often taken from the street, or they are in institutions, open to the
+dangers of moral and physical infection.
+
+Your children eat, they are nourished. Who cooks their dinner and what
+from? Mostly you know nothing about it. Who instills moral principles
+into them? Neither do you know that!
+
+Then do not say, that you are suffering evil for the good of your
+children--it is not true. You do evil because you like it.
+
+A true mother, the one who in bearing and bringing up children sees her
+self-sacrificing vocation of life and the fulfilment of God's will--will
+not say it.
+
+She will not say it, because she knows it is not her business to make of
+her children what she herself or current opinions require. She knows
+that children, i.e., the following generations,--are the greatest and
+most sacred thing which is given to men to behold in reality: and, to
+serve with all her being, this sacred cause is her life.
+
+She knows herself,--being constantly between life and death and ever
+rearing the feebly flickering life,--that life and death are not her
+business, her business is to serve life, and she will not therefore
+search for distant paths of this service but will only endeavour not to
+avoid the near one.
+
+Such a mother _will bring forth and nurse her children herself_, and,
+above all things else, will feed and provide for them, will work for
+them, wash and teach them, will sleep and talk with them, because she
+makes that her life-work. Only such a mother will not seek for her
+children external security through her husband's money, or her
+children's diplomas, but she will exercise in them the same capacity of
+self-sacrificing fulfilment of God's will which she knows in herself,
+the capacity for bearing labour with waste and danger of life, because
+she knows that only in that lie the security and welfare of life. Such a
+mother will not have to ask others what is her duty: she will know every
+thing, and will fear nothing, for she will always know that she has done
+what she was called to do.
+
+If there can be doubts for a man or for a childless woman about the way
+to fulfil God's will, for a mother that way is firmly and clearly drawn;
+and if she fulfils it humbly, with a simple heart, standing on the
+highest point of good, which it is only given to a human being to
+attain, she becomes the guiding-star for all men, tending to the same
+good. Only a mother can before her death say to Him who sent her into
+this world, and to Him whom she has served by bearing and bringing up
+children, beloved by her more than herself,--only she can peacefully
+say, after having served Him in her appointed service,--
+
+"'Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'"
+
+And this is that highest perfection, to which, as to the highest good,
+men aspire.
+
+Such women who fulfil their mission, are those who reign over reigning
+men, and serve as a guiding-star to humanity,--those who prepare new
+generations of men and form public opinion: and therefore in the hands
+of these women lies the highest power of men's salvation from the
+existing and threatening evils of our time.
+
+Yes, women, mothers, in your hands, more than in those of any others,
+lies the salvation of the world!
+
+
+
+
+NOTE TO CHAPTER XL
+
+
+The vocation of every man and woman is to serve other people. With this
+general proposition, I think all who are not immoral people will agree.
+The difference between men and women in the fulfilment of that vocation,
+is only in the means by which they attain it; that is to say, by which
+they serve men.
+
+Man serves others by physical work,--procuring food; by intellectual
+work,--studying the laws of nature in order to master it; and by social
+work,--instituting forms of life, and establishing mutual relationships
+between people.
+
+The means of serving others are various for men. The whole activity of
+mankind, with the exception of bearing children and rearing them, is
+open for his service to men. A woman, in addition to the possibility of
+serving men by all the means open to man is, by the construction of her
+body, called and inevitably attracted, to serve others by that which
+alone is excepted from the domain of the service of man.
+
+The service of mankind is divided into two parts,--one, the augmentation
+of the welfare of mankind; the other, the continuation of the race. Men
+are called chiefly to the first, as they are deprived of the possibility
+of fulfilling the second. Women are called exclusively to the second, as
+they only are fitted for it. This difference one should not, one can
+not, forget or destroy; and it would be sinful to do so. From this
+difference proceed the duties of each,--duties not invented by men, but
+which are in the nature of things. From the same difference proceeds the
+estimation of virtue and vice for woman and man,--the estimation which
+has existed in every century, which exists now, and which will never
+cease to exist while reason exists in men.
+
+It always has been the case, and it always will be, that a man who
+spends a great part of his life in the various physical and mental
+labours which are natural to him, and a woman who spends a great part of
+her life in the labour of bearing, nursing, and rearing children, which
+is her exclusive prerogative, will alike feel that they are doing their
+duty, and will alike rise in the esteem and love of other people,
+because they both fulfil what is appointed because such is the substance
+of the matter.
+
+The vocation of man is broader and more varied; the vocation of woman
+more uniform and narrower, but more profound: and therefore it has
+always been, and always will be, the case, that man, having hundreds of
+duties, will be neither a bad nor a pernicious man, even when he has
+been false to one or ten out of them, if he fulfils the greater part of
+his vocation; while woman, as she has a smaller number of duties, if she
+is false to one of them, instantly falls lower than a man, who has been
+false to ten out of his hundreds of duties. Such has always been the
+general opinion, and such it will always remain,--because such is the
+substance of the matter.
+
+A man, in order to fulfil God's will, must serve him in the domain of
+physical work, thought and morality: in all these ways he can fulfil his
+vocation. Woman's service to God consists chiefly and almost exclusively
+in bearing children (because no one except herself can render it). Only
+by means of work, is man called to serve God and his fellow-men: only by
+means of her children, is a woman called to serve them.
+
+Therefore, that love to her own children which is inborn in woman, that
+exclusive love against which it is quite vain to strive by reasoning,
+will always be, and ought to be, natural to a woman and a mother. That
+love to a child in its infancy is not egotism, it is the love of a
+workman for the work which he is doing while it is in his hands. Take
+away that love for the object of one's work, and the work becomes
+impossible. While I am making a boot, I love it above everything. If I
+did not love it, I could not work at it. If anybody spoils it for me, I
+am in despair; but I only love it thus while I am working at it. When it
+is completed, there remains an attachment, a preference, which is weak
+and illegitimate.
+
+It is the same with a mother. A man is called to serve others by
+multifarious labours, and he loves those labours while he is
+accomplishing them. A woman is called to serve others by her children,
+and she cannot help loving those children of hers while she is rearing
+them to the age of three, seven, or ten years.
+
+In the general vocation of serving God and others, man and woman are
+entirely equal, notwithstanding the difference of the form of that
+service. The equality consists in the equal importance of one service
+and of the other,--that the one is impossible without the other, that
+the one depends upon the other, and that for efficient service, as well
+for man as for woman, the knowledge of truth is equally necessary.
+
+Without this knowledge, the activity of man and woman becomes not useful
+but pernicious for mankind. Man is called to fulfil his multifarious
+labour; but his labour is only useful, and his physical, mental, and
+social labour is only fruitful, when it is fulfilled in the name of
+truth and the welfare of others.
+
+A man can occupy himself as zealously as he will to increase his
+pleasures by vain reasoning and with social activity for his own
+advantage: his labour will not be fruitful. It will be so only when it
+is directed towards lessening the suffering of others through want and
+ignorance and from false social organization.
+
+The same with woman's vocation: her bearing, nursing, and bringing up
+children will only be useful to mankind when she gives birth to children
+not only for her own pleasure, but when she prepares future servants of
+mankind; when the education of those children is done in the name of
+truth and for the welfare of others,--that is to say, when she will
+educate her children in such a manner that they shall be the very best
+men possible, and the very best labourers for others.
+
+The ideal woman, in my opinion, is the one who,--appropriating the
+highest view of life of the time in which she lives, yet gives herself
+to her feminine mission, which is irresistibly placed in her,--that of
+bringing forth, nursing and educating, the greatest possible number of
+children, fitted to work for people according to the view which she has
+of life.
+
+In order to appropriate the highest view of life, I think there is no
+need of visiting lectures: all that she requires is to read the gospel,
+and not to shut her eyes, ears, and, most of all, her heart.
+
+Well, and if you ask what those are to do who have no children, who are
+not married, or who are widows, I answer that those will do well to
+share man's multifarious labour. But one cannot help feeling sorry that
+such a precious tool as woman is, should be bereft of the possibility of
+fulfilling the great vocation which it is given to her alone to fulfil.
+
+Especially as every woman, when she has finished bearing children, if
+she has strength left, will have time to occupy herself with help in
+man's labour. Woman's help in that labour is very precious; but it will
+always be a pity to see a young woman fit for child-bearing occupied by
+man's labour.
+
+To see such a woman, is the same as to see precious vegetable soil
+covered with stones as a place of parade or as a walking-ground. Still
+more a pity, because the earth could only produce bread, and a woman
+could produce that for which there cannot be any equivalent, than which
+there is nothing higher,--man. And only she is able to do this.
+
+    THE END
+
+
+
+
+JUST PUBLISHED, PRICE 6d.
+
+
+  NEW STORIES by LEO TOLSTOY.
+
+  King Assarhadon,
+  and other Two Stories.
+
+  With Introduction, including quotations from the Letters of Leo Tolstoy.
+
+  Authorized Translation
+  BY
+  V. TCHERTKOFF (Editor of "The Free Age Press.")
+  AND I. F. M.
+
+  With Frontispiece, on Plate Paper, of the latest Portrait of Tolstoy on
+  Horseback, August, 1903.
+
+  By request of Tolstoy, the profits of this work will be devoted to the
+  relief of the families of the Jews massacred in Russia.
+
+  The Free Age Press,
+  13, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+  [ Transcriber's Note:
+
+    The following is a list of corrections made to the original.
+    The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
+
+  strive to eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, alse
+  strive to eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, false
+
+  permanent cloth-bound volumes,
+  permanent cloth-bound volumes.
+
+  raiment? (Matt. vi, 19-25.)
+  raiment?" (Matt. vi. 19-25.)
+
+  a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Luke xviii. 25).
+  a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." (Luke xviii. 25.)
+
+  began to speak, he was shouldered aside by a big, black, hook-nosed
+  began to speak, he was shouldered aside by a big, black, hook-nosed,
+
+  protection. They attempted to drag me out of the crush,. But the crowd
+  protection. They attempted to drag me out of the crush. But the crowd
+
+  pauperism in Moscow, and te help exterminate it by personal effort and
+  pauperism in Moscow, and to help exterminate it by personal effort and
+
+  with his air of decreptitude, feebleness, and poverty. Here he appeared
+  with his air of decrepitude, feebleness, and poverty. Here he appeared
+
+  He was evidently pleased to have intercouse with the world which used
+  He was evidently pleased to have intercourse with the world which used
+
+  women and men. As we approached them, Ivan Fedotitch said, "Now, here's
+  women and men. As we approached them, Iván Fedotitch said, "Now, here's
+
+  No: it is that woman's there."
+  "No: it is that woman's there."
+
+  called the _dens_ in Rzhanoff's house; where, however, three-forths of
+  called the _dens_ in Rzhanoff's house; where, however, three-fourths of
+
+  And, strange to say, thought it might seem that to do good and to give
+  And, strange to say, though it might seem that to do good and to give
+
+  through the people. He did not notice me and said hurredly,--
+  through the people. He did not notice me and said hurriedly,--
+
+  Chistmas-tree, and so on. Yet a man who needs ten rubles to buy bread
+  Christmas-tree, and so on. Yet a man who needs ten rubles to buy bread
+
+  will try to find for the poor people some work to do.
+  will try to find for the poor people some work to do."
+
+  more than a mere passer-by, and, if as, it often happened, he shed tears
+  more than a mere passer-by, and, if, as it often happened, he shed tears
+
+  happened to give money or anything else to the poor,, and in my
+  happened to give money or anything else to the poor, and in my
+
+  little good ;such as, for instance, the poor prostitute did who nursed a
+  little good; such as, for instance, the poor prostitute did who nursed a
+
+  I see that there is going on something like what would take place in a
+  I see that there is going on something like what would take place in an
+
+  incomprehensible and painful.
+  incomprehensible, and painful.
+
+  rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the land.owner; interest
+  rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the land-owner; interest
+
+  that some men by means of money, acquire an imaginary right to land and
+  that some men, by means of money, acquire an imaginary right to land and
+
+  colonists, began to try to raise money in Melbourne among the mrechants,
+  colonists, began to try to raise money in Melbourne among the merchants,
+
+  This phenomena repeats itself in America, in China, in Central Asia;
+  This phenomenon repeats itself in America, in China, in Central Asia;
+
+  If the object of this sham pseudo--science of Political Economy had not
+  If the object of this sham pseudo-science of Political Economy had not
+
+  the meaning of a ransom from violence..
+  the meaning of a ransom from violence.
+
+  assessors of direct taxation, supervisers, custom-house clerks, managers
+  assessors of direct taxation, supervisors, custom-house clerks, managers
+
+  Its advantages for the oppressed is only that he is allowed greater
+  Its advantage for the oppressed is only that he is allowed greater
+
+  This third method of enslaving men is also very old,, and comes into
+  This third method of enslaving men is also very old, and comes into
+
+  benefit a man who, against his will, has been obiged to pay a sovereign
+  benefit a man who, against his will, has been obliged to pay a sovereign
+
+  The violent seizures of the labourers' land has been justified as the
+  The violent seizure of the labourers' land has been justified as the
+
+  slave-owner claims a right to the work of Peter, Ivan, Sidor. But
+  slave-owner claims a right to the work of Peter, Iván, Sidor. But
+
+  knows about his right on Ivan, at the same time it removes all those
+  knows about his right on Iván, at the same time it removes all those
+
+  So it is with money. I have a magical, everlasting rouble; I cut off
+  So it is with money. I have a magical, everlasting ruble; I cut off
+
+  surrounding him, there exists a most clear simple, and easy means, the
+  surrounding him, there exists a most clear, simple, and easy means, the
+
+  whom Moscow is filled, and the woman into the position of the girl whom
+  whom Moscow is filled, and the women into the position of the girl whom
+
+  getting themselves up as no girl and no women who is not yet depraved
+  getting themselves up as no girl and no woman who is not yet depraved
+
+  sweatmeats, cigarettes, and clean shirts, when their production is
+  sweetmeats, cigarettes, and clean shirts, when their production is
+
+  It maybe that I shall eat human flesh when urged by hunger; but I shall
+  It may be that I shall eat human flesh when urged by hunger; but I shall
+
+  healed Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities
+  healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities
+
+  perish in the struggle.
+  perish in the struggle?
+
+  A great many justifications have been invented However strange it may
+  A great many justifications have been invented. However strange it may
+
+  soothsayers, the emperors of Rome and those of the Middle ages and their
+  soothsayers, the emperors of Rome and those of the Middle Ages and their
+
+  appropriated the the labour of others, we find ourselves better able to
+  appropriated the labour of others, we find ourselves better able to
+
+  undoubtedly done by them. On what grounds do they believe this. To the
+  undoubtedly done by them. On what grounds do they believe this? To the
+
+  CHAPTER XXII
+  CHAPTER XXIX
+
+  will only inquire, "What Spirit?" "Where did it come from"? "With what
+  will only inquire, "What Spirit?" "Where did it come from?" "With what
+
+  many separate organism; so, for instance, out of a swarm of bees a
+  many separate organisms; so, for instance, out of a swarm of bees a
+
+  therefore it must exist in human societies too." That may be so; but the
+  therefore it must exist in human societies too. That may be so; but the
+
+  given, to Catharine the Empress, or to the rebel Pugatchof? And no
+  given, to Catherine the Empress, or to the rebel Pugatchof? And no
+
+  offer to feed him in compensation for what the y ask him to do for them.
+  offer to feed him in compensation for what they ask him to do for them.
+
+  accustomed. Give me bodily food, and and in return I will give you the
+  accustomed. Give me bodily food, and in return I will give you the
+
+  forced to keep up these schools? They they will be still poorer, and
+  forced to keep up these schools? Then they will be still poorer, and
+
+  themselves from labour bceause they promised to provide mental food for
+  themselves from labour because they promised to provide mental food for
+
+  other cells similar to you
+  other cells similar to you.
+
+  All the complex, disjointed, intricate, and meaningless phenomna of
+  All the complex, disjointed, intricate, and meaningless phenomena of
+
+  seemed to me so difficult and complicated To the question, "What have
+  seemed to me so difficult and complicated. To the question, "What have
+
+  life," then it is better not to live at all," is the witness borne by the
+  life, then it is better not to live at all," is the witness borne by the
+
+  Do you spend much of your time during the day with your children. You do
+  Do you spend much of your time during the day with your children? You do
+
+  ]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What Shall We Do?, by Leo Tolstoy
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Shall We Do?, by Leo Tolstoy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: What Shall We Do?
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoy
+
+Editor: A. C. F.
+        I. F. M.
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2012 [EBook #38690]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT SHALL WE DO? ***
+
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+
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+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
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+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div id="tnote">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></p>
+
+<p>Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
+as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation.</p>
+
+<p>Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made.
+<span class="screen">They are marked <ins title="transcriber's note">like
+this</ins> in the text. The original text appears when hovering the cursor
+over the marked text.</span> A <a href="#tn-bottom">list of amendments</a> is
+at the end of the text.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center page-break page-break-after" style="font-size: x-large;">WHAT SHALL WE DO?</p>
+
+<p><a name="free-age-press"><b>The Free Age Press</b></a> is an earnest effort to spread
+those deep convictions in which the noblest spirits of every
+age and race have believed&mdash;that man's true aim and
+happiness is &ldquo;unity in reason and love&rdquo;; the realisation
+of the brotherhood of all men: that we must all strive to
+eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, <ins title="alse">false</ins> feelings,
+and false desires&mdash;personal, social, religious,
+economic&mdash;which alienate us one from another and produce
+nine-tenths of all human suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Of these truly Christian and universally religious
+aspirations the writings of Leo Tolstoy are to-day perhaps
+the most definite expression, and it is to the production of
+very cheap editions of his extant religious, social and
+ethical works, together with much unpublished matter and
+his new writings, to which we have special access (being
+in close touch with Tolstoy), that we are at present confining
+ourselves. We earnestly trust that all who sympathise
+will continue to assist us by every means in their power,
+and help to make the publications yet more widely known.
+It is Tolstoy's desire that his books shall not be copyrighted,
+and as we share this view, all <b>Free Age Press</b>
+translations and editions (with one, as yet unavoidable
+exception), are and will be issued free of copyright and
+may be reprinted by anyone. We have already commenced
+to collect all Tolstoy's essays into more permanent
+cloth-bound <ins title="volumes,">volumes.</ins></p>
+
+<p>Suggestions, inquiries, offers of help and co-operation
+will be gratefully welcomed. For the hundreds of sympathetic
+letters and the practical help in making known and
+circulating the books which we have received already, we
+are very grateful, and tender our hearty thanks.</p>
+
+<p>Orders and commercial communications should be
+addressed to &ldquo;<b>The Free Age Press</b>&rdquo; <i>English Branch</i>,
+<span class="small-caps">13, Paternoster Row, London, E.C.</span> All other communications
+to the
+<span class="small-caps">&ldquo;Editor of the Free Age Press,&rdquo; Christchurch, Hants</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="right">VLADIMIR TCHERTKOFF, <i>Editor</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="right">THOMAS LAURIE, <i>Publisher</i>.</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent page-break italic">Revised and Corrected<br/>
+Translation</p>
+
+<h1>WHAT SHALL WE DO?</h1>
+
+<p class="no-indent small-caps" style="font-size: large;">By LEO TOLSTOY</p>
+
+<p class="right" style="margin: 4em auto;">Edited by A.C.F.<br/>
+and I.F.M.</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent">NO RIGHTS RESERVED</p>
+
+<p class="no-indent" style="line-height: 1.6; margin-top: 5em;"><big>THE FREE AGE PRESS</big><br/>
+13 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON</p>
+
+<p class="page-break italic">Uniform with this Volume.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="hanging-indent">&ldquo;<b>What is Religion?</b>&rdquo; An entirely New Book
+just completed. By <span class="small-caps">Leo Tolstoy</span>. With
+several new and recent Letters, Articles, and
+Appeals. Paper, 6d. nett.; post free, 7½d.
+Flexible cloth, gilt, gilt top, 1s. nett.; post
+free, 1s. 2d. Leather, gilt, gilt top, 2s. nett.;
+post free, 2s. 2d.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging-indent"><b>What I Believe</b> (&ldquo;<span class="small-caps">My Religion</span>&rdquo;) By
+<span class="small-caps">Leo Tolstoy</span>. Revised Translation. 224 pages.
+Same prices as <i>What is Religion?</i></p>
+
+<p class="hanging-indent">&ldquo;<b>On Life.</b>&rdquo; By <span class="small-caps">Leo Tolstoy</span>. A New Translation
+of this little-known book&mdash;&ldquo;a book
+which is of especial value as a key to Tolstoy's
+method and belief&rdquo; (Mr. H.&nbsp;W. Massingham).
+Same prices.</p>
+
+<p class="hanging-indent"><b>The Kingdom of God is Within You.</b></p>
+
+<p class="hanging-indent">We hope eventually to issue the whole of Tolstoy's
+writings since 1878 in volumes uniform with this
+book.</p>
+
+<p class="center page-break" style="font-size: x-large;"><a class="pagenum" name="Page_5" title="5"> </a>WHAT SHALL WE DO?</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He answereth and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him
+impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.&rdquo;
+(Luke&nbsp;iii. 10, 11.)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
+rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither
+moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through
+nor steal:</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be single,
+thy whole body shall be full of light.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
+If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is your
+darkness?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one,
+and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the
+other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye
+shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall
+put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than <ins title="raiment?">raiment?&rdquo;</ins>
+(Matt.&nbsp;<ins title="vi,">vi.</ins> 19&ndash;25.)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What
+shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek): for your
+heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
+and all these things shall be added unto you.&rdquo; (Matt.&nbsp;vi. 31&ndash;33.)</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for
+a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.&rdquo; (Luke&nbsp;xviii. <ins title="25).">25.)</ins></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">After</span> having passed the greater part of my life in the
+country, I came at length, in the year 1881, to reside in
+Moscow, where I was immediately struck with the extreme
+state of pauperism in that city. Though well acquainted
+with the privations of the poor in rural districts, I had
+not the faintest conception of their actual condition in
+towns.</p>
+
+<p>In Moscow it is impossible to pass a street without
+meeting beggars of a peculiar kind, quite unlike those in
+the country, who go about there, as the saying is, &ldquo;with
+a bag and the name of Christ.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The Moscow beggars neither carry a bag nor ask for
+alms. In most cases when they meet you, they try to
+catch your eye, and then act according to the expression
+of your face.</p>
+
+<p>I know of one such, a bankrupt gentleman. He is an
+old man who advances slowly, limping painfully with
+each leg. When he meets you, he limps, and makes a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_6" title="6"> </a>
+bow. If you stop, he takes off his cap, ornamented with
+a cockade, bows again, and begs. If you do not stop,
+he pretends to be only lame, and continues limping along.</p>
+
+<p>That is a specimen of a genuine Moscow beggar, an
+experienced one.</p>
+
+<p>At first I did not know why such mendicants did not
+ask openly; but afterwards I learned why, without understanding
+the reason.</p>
+
+<p>One day I saw a policeman push a ragged peasant
+swollen with dropsy, into a cab. I asked what he had
+been doing, and the policeman replied,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Begging.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is begging, then, forbidden?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;So it seems,&rdquo; he answered. As the man was being
+driven away, I took another cab, and followed. I wished
+to find out whether begging was really forbidden, and
+if so, why? I could not at all understand how it was
+possible to forbid one man asking something from
+another; and, moreover, I had my doubts whether it
+could be illegal in a city where it flourished to such an
+extent.</p>
+
+<p>I entered the police-station where the pauper had been
+taken, and asked an official armed with sword and pistol,
+and seated at a table, what he had been arrested for.</p>
+
+<p>The man looked up at me sharply, and said, &ldquo;What
+business is that of yours?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>However, feeling the necessity of some explanation, he
+added, &ldquo;The authorities order such fellows to be arrested,
+so I suppose it is necessary.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I went away. The policeman who had brought the
+man was sitting in the window of the ante-room, studying
+his note-book. I said to him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it really true that poor people are not allowed to
+ask for alms in Christ's name?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The man started, as if waking up from a sleep, stared
+at me, then relapsed again into a state of stolid indifference,
+and, reseating himself on the window-sill, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The authorities require it, so you see it is necessary.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As he became again absorbed in his note-book, I went
+down the steps towards my cab.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well! have they locked him up?&rdquo; asked the cabman.
+He had evidently become interested in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They have,&rdquo; I answered. He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is begging forbidden in Moscow, then?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I can't tell you,&rdquo; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But how can a man be locked up,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;for
+begging in the name of Christ?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_7" title="7"> </a>&ldquo;Nowadays things have changed, and you see it is forbidden,&rdquo;
+he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Since then, I have often seen policemen taking paupers
+to the police-station and thence to the work-house.
+Indeed, I once met a whole crowd of these poor
+creatures, about thirty, escorted before and behind by
+policemen. I asked what they had been doing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Begging,&rdquo; was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that, according to law, begging is forbidden
+in Moscow, notwithstanding the great number of beggars
+one meets there in every street, notwithstanding the rows
+of them near the churches during service-time, and especially
+at funerals. But why are some caught and locked up,
+while others are let alone? This I have not been able to
+find out. Either there are lawful and unlawful beggars
+amongst them, or else there are so many that it is impossible
+to catch them all; or, perhaps, though some are
+taken up, others fill their places.</p>
+
+<p>There is a great variety of such beggars in Moscow.
+There are those who live by begging. There are also
+entirely honest destitute people who have somehow
+chanced to reach Moscow and are really in extreme need.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the latter are men and women evidently from
+the country. I have often met these. Some of them,
+who had fallen ill and afterwards recovered and left the
+hospital, could now find no means, either of feeding
+themselves, or of getting away from Moscow; some of
+them, besides, had taken to drink (this was probably the
+case with the man with dropsy whom I met); some were
+in good health, but had been burned out of house and
+home, or else were very old, or were widowed or deserted
+women with children; and some others had sound health,
+and were quite capable of working.</p>
+
+<p>These robust people especially interested me,&mdash;the more
+so, because, since my arrival in Moscow, I had contracted
+the habit of going to the Sparrow Hills for the sake of
+exercise, and working there with two peasants who sawed
+wood. These men were exactly like the beggars whom
+I often met in the streets. One, called Peter, was an ex-soldier
+from Kaluga; the other, Simon, was from
+VladĂ­mir. They possessed nothing save the clothes on
+their backs: and they earned, by working very hard, from
+forty to forty-five kopeks (8d. to 9d.) a day; out of this
+they both put a little aside,&mdash;the Kaluga soldier, to buy
+a fur coat; the VladĂ­mir peasant, to get money enough
+to return to his home in the country.</p>
+
+<p>Meeting in the streets similar men, I was therefore
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_8" title="8"> </a>
+particularly interested in them, and could not understand
+why some begged whilst others worked.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever I met a beggar of this description, I used to
+ask him how it was that he had come to such a state.
+Once I met a strong, healthy-looking peasant who asked
+alms. I questioned him as to who he was, and whence
+he had come.</p>
+
+<p>He told me he had come from Kaluga, in search of
+work. He had at first found some, such as sawing old
+timber into fire-wood; but after he and his companion
+had finished that job, though they had continually looked
+for it, they had not found any more work, his mate had
+left him, and he himself had passed a fortnight in the
+utmost need, and having sold all he had to get food,
+now had not enough even to buy the necessary tools for
+sawing.</p>
+
+<p>I gave him money to get a saw, and told him where to
+go for work. I had previously arranged with Peter and
+Simon that they should accept a new fellow-worker, and
+find him a mate.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Be sure you come! There is plenty of work to be
+done,&rdquo; I said on parting.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You can reckon on me,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Do you
+think there is any pleasure in knocking about, begging,
+if I can work?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The man solemnly promised that he would come; and
+he seemed honest, and really meaning to work.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, on coming to my friends, Peter and Simon,
+I asked them whether the man had arrived. They said
+he had not; and, indeed, he never came at all. In this
+way I was frequently deceived.</p>
+
+<p>I have also been deceived by those who said that they
+only wanted a little money to buy a ticket to return home,
+and whom I met in the streets again a few days later.
+Many of them I came to know well, and they knew me;
+though occasionally having forgotten me, they would
+repeat the same false tale; but sometimes they would
+turn away on recognizing me.</p>
+
+<p>In this way I discovered, that, even in this class of
+men, there are many rogues.</p>
+
+<p>Still, these poor rogues were also very much to be
+pitied: they were all ragged and hungry; they were of
+the sort who die of cold in the streets, or hang themselves
+to escape life, as the papers frequently tell us.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_9" title="9"> </a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">When</span> I talked to my town friends about this pauperism
+which surrounded them, they always replied, &ldquo;Oh! you
+have seen nothing yet! You should go to the Khitrof
+Market, and visit the lodging-houses there, if you want
+to see the genuine &lsquo;Golden Company.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>One jovial friend of mine added, that the number of
+these paupers had so increased, that they already formed
+not a &ldquo;Golden Company,&rdquo; but a &ldquo;Golden Regiment.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>My witty friend was right; but he would have been yet
+nearer the truth had he said that these men formed, in
+Moscow, not a company, nor a regiment, but a whole
+army,&mdash;an army, I should judge, of about fifty thousand.</p>
+
+<p>The regular townspeople, when they spoke to me about
+the pauperism of the city, always seemed to feel a certain
+pleasure or pride in being able to give me such precise
+information.</p>
+
+<p>I remember I noticed, when visiting London, that the
+citizens there seemed also to find a certain satisfaction
+in telling me about London destitution, as though it were
+something to be proud of.</p>
+
+<p>However, wishing to inspect this poverty about which I
+had heard so much, I had turned my steps very often
+towards the Khitrof Market,&mdash;but on each occasion I
+felt a sensation of pain and shame. &ldquo;Why should you go
+to look at the suffering of human beings whom you cannot
+help?&rdquo; said one voice within me. &ldquo;If you live here,
+and see all that is pleasant in town life, go and see also
+what is wretched,&rdquo; replied another.</p>
+
+<p>And so, one cold, windy day in December, two years
+ago (1883), I went to the Khitrof Market, the centre of the
+town pauperism.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a week-day, about four in the afternoon.
+While still a good distance off I noticed greater and
+greater numbers of men in strange clothes,&mdash;evidently not
+originally meant for them,&mdash;and in yet stranger foot-wear;
+men of a peculiar unhealthy complexion, and all apparently
+showing a remarkable indifference to everything
+that surrounded them.</p>
+
+<p>Men in the strangest, most incongruous costumes sauntered
+along, evidently without the least thought as to how
+they might look in the eyes of others. They were all
+going in the same direction. Without asking the way,
+which was unknown to me, I followed them, and came
+to the Khitrof Market.</p>
+
+<p>There I found women likewise in ragged capes, rough
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_10" title="10"> </a>
+cloaks, jackets, boots, and goloshes. Perfectly free and
+easy in their manner, notwithstanding the grotesque monstrosity
+of their attire, these women, old and young,
+were sitting, bargaining, strolling about, and abusing one
+another.</p>
+
+<p>Market-time having evidently passed, there were not
+many people there; and as most of them were going up-hill,
+through the market-place, and all in the same direction,
+I followed them.</p>
+
+<p>The farther I went, the greater became the stream of
+people flowing into the one road. Having passed the
+market, and gone up the street, I found that I was following
+two women, one old, the other young. Both were
+clothed in some grey ragged stuff. They were talking, as
+they walked, about some kind of business.</p>
+
+<p>Every expression was unfailingly accompanied by some
+obscene word. Neither was drunk, but each absorbed
+with her own affairs; and the passing men, and those
+about them, paid not the slightest attention to their language,
+which sounded so strange to me. It appeared to
+be the generally accepted manner of speech in those parts.
+On the left we passed some private night-lodging-houses,
+and some of the crowd entered these; others continued to
+ascend the hill towards a large corner house. The
+majority of the people walking along with me went into
+this house. Before it, people all of the same sort were
+standing and sitting, on the sidewalk and in the snow.</p>
+
+<p>At the right of the entrance were women; at the left,
+men. I passed by the men: I passed by the women (there
+were several hundreds in all), and stopped where the
+crowd ceased.</p>
+
+<p>This building was the &ldquo;Liapin free night-lodging-house&rdquo;
+(&ldquo;doss-house&rdquo;). The crowd was composed of
+night-lodgers, waiting to be let in. At five o'clock in the
+evening this house is opened and the crowd admitted.
+Hither came almost all the people whom I followed.</p>
+
+<p>I remained standing where the file of men ended.
+Those nearest stared at me till I had to look at them.
+The remnants of garments covering their bodies were very
+various; but the one expression of the eyes of all alike
+seemed to be, &ldquo;Why are you, a man from another world,
+stopping here with us? Who are you? Are you a self-satisfied
+man of wealth, desiring to be gladdened by the
+sight of our need, to divert yourself in your idleness, and
+to mock at us? or are you that which does not and can
+not exist,&mdash;a man who pities us?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>On all their faces the same question was written. Each
+would look at me, meet my eyes, and turn away again.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_11" title="11"> </a>I wanted to speak to some of them, but for a long
+time I could not summon up courage. However,
+eventually our mutual exchange of glances introduced us
+to each other; and we felt that, however widely separated
+might be our social positions in life, we were still fellow-men,
+and so we ceased to be afraid of one another.</p>
+
+<p>Next to me stood a peasant with a swollen face and red
+beard, in a ragged jacket, with worn-out goloshes on his
+naked feet, though there were eight degrees of frost.<a name="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> For
+the third or fourth time our eyes met; and I felt so drawn
+to him that I was no longer ashamed to address him (to
+have refrained from doing so would have been the only
+real shame), and I asked him where he came from.</p>
+
+<p>He answered eagerly, while a crowd began to collect
+round us, that he had come from Smolensk in search of
+work, to be able to buy bread and pay his taxes.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There is no work to be had nowadays,&rdquo; he said: &ldquo;the
+soldiers have got hold of it all. So here am I knocking
+about; and God is my witness, I have not had any thing
+to eat for two days.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He said this shyly, with an attempt at a smile. A
+seller<a name="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> of warm drinks, an old soldier, was standing near.
+I called him, and made him pour out a glass. The
+peasant took the warm vessel in his hands, and, before
+drinking, warmed them against the glass, trying not to
+lose any of the precious heat; and whilst doing this he
+related to me his story.</p>
+
+<p>The adventures of these people, or at least the stories
+which they tell, are almost always the same: He had had
+a little work; then it had ceased: and here, in the night-lodging-house,
+his purse, containing his money and passport,
+had been stolen from him. Now he could not leave
+Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>He told me that during the day he warmed himself in
+public-houses, eating any stale crust of bread which
+might be given him. His night's lodging here in Liapin's
+house cost him nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He was only waiting for the round of the police-sergeant
+to lock him up for being without his passport,
+when he would be sent on foot, with a party of men
+similarly situated, to the place of his birth.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;They say the inspection will take place on Thursday,
+when I shall be taken up; so I must try and keep on
+until then.&rdquo; (The prison and his compulsory journey
+appeared to him as the &ldquo;promised land.&rdquo;) While he was
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_12" title="12"> </a>
+speaking, two or three men in the crowd said they were
+also in exactly the same situation.</p>
+
+<p>A thin, pale youth, with a long nose, only a shirt upon
+his back, and that torn about the shoulders, and a
+tattered cap on his head, edged his way to me through
+the crowd. He was shivering violently all the time, but
+tried, as he caught my eye, to smile scornfully at the
+peasant's conversation, thinking thus to show his
+superiority.</p>
+
+<p>I offered him some drink.</p>
+
+<p>He warmed his hands on the tumbler as the other had
+done; but just as he began to speak, he was shouldered
+aside by a big, black, <ins title="hook-nosed">hook-nosed,</ins> bare-headed fellow,
+in a thin shirt and waistcoat, who also asked for some
+drink.</p>
+
+<p>Then a tall old man, with a thin beard, in an overcoat
+fastened round the waist with a cord, and in bark
+shoes, had some. He was drunk.</p>
+
+<p>Then came a little man, with a swollen face and wet
+eyes, in a coarse brown jacket, with his knees protruding
+through his torn trousers and knocking against each other
+with cold. He shivered so that he could not hold the
+glass, and spilled the contents over his clothes: the others
+began to abuse him, but he only grinned miserably, and
+shivered.</p>
+
+<p>After him came an ugly, deformed man in rags, and
+with bare feet. Then an individual of the officer type;
+another belonging to the church class; then a strange-looking
+being without a nose,&mdash;all of them hungry, cold,
+suppliant, and humble,&mdash;crowded round me, and stretched
+out their hands for the glass; but the drink was exhausted.
+Then one man asked for money: I gave him some. A
+second and a third followed, till the whole crowd pressed
+on me. In the general confusion the gatekeeper of the
+neighbouring house shouted to the crowd to clear the
+pavement before his house, and the people submissively
+obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>Some of them undertook to control the tumult, and
+took me under their protection. They attempted to drag
+me out of the <ins title="crush,.">crush.</ins> But the crowd that formerly had
+lined the pavement in a long file, had now become condensed
+about me. Every one looked at me and begged;
+and it seemed as if each face were more pitiful, harassed,
+and degraded than the other. I distributed all the money
+I had,&mdash;only about twenty rubles,&mdash;and entered the lodging-house
+with the crowd. The house was an enormous
+one, and consisted of four parts. In the upper storeys
+were the men's rooms; on the ground-floor the women's.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_13" title="13"> </a>
+I went first into the women's dormitory,&mdash;a large room,
+filled with beds resembling the berths in a third-class
+railway-carriage. They were arranged in two tiers, one
+above the other.</p>
+
+<p>Strange-looking women in ragged dresses, without
+jackets, old and young, kept coming in and occupying
+places, some below, others climbing above. Some of the
+elder ones crossed themselves, pronouncing the name of
+the founder of the refuge. Some laughed and swore.</p>
+
+<p>I went up-stairs. There, in a similar way, the men
+had taken their places. Amongst them I recognized one
+of those to whom I had given money. On seeing him I
+suddenly felt horribly ashamed, and made haste to leave.</p>
+
+<p>With a sense of having committed some crime, I
+returned home. There I entered along the carpeted
+steps into the rug-covered hall, and, having taken off my
+fur coat, sat down to a meal of five courses, served by
+two footmen in livery, with white ties and white gloves.
+A scene of the past came suddenly before me. Thirty
+years ago I saw a man's head cut off under the guillotine
+in Paris before a crowd of thousands of spectators. I was
+aware that the man had been a great criminal: I
+was acquainted with all the arguments in justification of
+capital punishment for such offences. I saw this execution
+carried out deliberately: but at the moment that
+the head and body were severed from each other by the
+keen blade, I gasped, and realized in every fibre of my
+being, that all the arguments which I had hitherto heard
+in favour of capital punishment were wickedly false;
+that, no matter how many might agree that it was a
+lawful act, it was literally murder; whatever other title
+men might give it, they thus had virtually committed
+murder, that worst of all crimes: and there was I, both
+by my silence and my non-interference, an aider, an
+abetter, and participator in the sin.</p>
+
+<p>Similar convictions were again forced upon me when I
+now beheld the misery, cold, hunger, and humiliation of
+thousands of my fellow-men. I realized not only with
+my brain, but in every pulse of my soul, that, whilst
+there were thousands of such sufferers in Moscow, I, with
+tens of thousands of others, daily filled myself to repletion
+with luxurious dainties of every description, took
+the tenderest care of my horses, and clothed my very
+floors with velvet carpets!</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the wise and learned of the world might say
+about it, however unalterable the course of life might
+seem to be, the same evil was continually being enacted,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_14" title="14"> </a>
+and I, by my own personal habits of luxury, was a promoter
+of that evil.</p>
+
+<p>The difference between the two cases was only this:
+that in the first, all I could have done would have been
+to shout out to the murderers standing near the guillotine,
+who were accomplishing the deed, that they were committing
+a murder, and by every means to try to hinder
+them,&mdash;while, of course, knowing that my interference
+would be in vain. Whereas, in this second case, I might
+have given away, not only the drink and the small sum
+of money I had with me, but also the coat from off my
+shoulders, and all that I possessed at home. Yet I had
+not done so, and therefore felt, and feel, and can never
+cease to feel, that I myself am a partaker in a crime which
+is continually being committed, so long as I have superfluous
+food whilst others have none, so long as I have
+two coats whilst there exists one man without any.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">On</span> the same evening that I returned from Liapin's house,
+I imparted my impressions to a friend: and he, a resident
+of the town, began to explain to me, not without a
+certain satisfaction, that this was the most natural state
+of things in a town; that it was only owing to my provincialism
+that I found anything remarkable in it; and
+that it had always been, and always would be so, such
+being one of the inevitable conditions of civilization. In
+London it was yet worse, etc., etc., therefore there could
+be nothing wrong about it, and there was nothing to be
+disturbed or troubled about.</p>
+
+<p>I began to argue with my friend, but with such warmth
+and so angrily, that my wife rushed in from the adjoining
+room to ask what had happened. It appeared that, without
+being aware of it, I had shouted out in an agonized
+voice, gesticulating wildly, &ldquo;We should not go on living
+in this way! we must not live so! we have no right!&rdquo; I
+was rebuked for my unnecessary excitement; I was told
+that I could not talk quietly upon any question, that I
+was irritable; and it was pointed out to me that the existence
+of such misery as I had witnessed was in no way
+a reason for embittering the life of my home-circle.</p>
+
+<p>I felt that this was perfectly just, and held my tongue;
+but in the depth of my soul I knew that I was right, and
+I could not quiet my conscience.</p>
+
+<p>The town life, which had previously seemed alien and
+strange to me, now became so hateful that all the indulgencies
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_15" title="15"> </a>
+of a luxurious existence, in which I had formerly
+delighted, began to torment me.</p>
+
+<p>However much I tried to find some kind of excuse for
+my mode of life, I could not contemplate without irritation
+either my own or other people's drawing-rooms, nor a
+clean, richly served dinner-table, nor a carriage with well-fed
+coachman and horses, nor the shops, theatres, and
+entertainments. I could not help seeing, in contrast to
+all this, those hungry, shivering, and degraded inhabitants
+of the night-lodging-house. I could never free myself
+from the thought that these conditions were inseparable&mdash;that
+the one proceeded from the other. I remember
+that the sense of culpability which I had felt from the
+first moment never left me; but with this feeling another
+soon mingled, which lessened the first.</p>
+
+<p>When I talked to my intimate friends and acquaintances
+about my impressions in Liapin's house, they all
+answered in the same way, and expressed besides their
+appreciation of my kindness and tender-heartedness, and
+gave me to understand that the sight had impressed me
+so because I, Leo Tolstoy, was kind-hearted and good.
+And I willingly allowed myself to believe this.</p>
+
+<p>The natural consequence of this was, that the first
+keen sense of self-reproach and shame became blunted,
+and was replaced by a sense of satisfaction at my own
+virtue, and a desire to make it known to others. &ldquo;It is,
+in truth,&rdquo; I said to myself, &ldquo;probably not my connection
+with a luxurious life which is at fault, but the unavoidable
+circumstances of existence. Therefore a change in
+my particular life would not alter the evil I had seen.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In changing my own life, I thought, I should only render
+myself and those nearest and dearest to me miserable,
+whilst the other misery would remain; therefore my
+object should be, not to alter my own way of living, as
+I had at first imagined, but to try as much as was in my
+power to <em>ameliorate</em> the position of those unfortunate ones
+who had excited my compassion. The whole matter, I
+reasoned, lies in the fact that I, being an extremely kind
+and good man, wish to do good to my fellow-men.</p>
+
+<p>So I began to arrange a plan of philanthropic activity
+in which I might exhibit all my virtues. I must, however,
+remark here, that, while planning this charitable
+effort, in the depth of my heart I felt that I was not doing
+the right thing; but, as too often happens, reason and
+imagination stifled the voice of conscience.</p>
+
+<p>About this time the census was being taken, and this
+seemed to me a good opportunity for instituting that
+charitable organization in which I wanted to shine.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_16" title="16"> </a>I was acquainted with many philanthropic institutions
+and societies already existing in Moscow, but all their
+activity seemed to me both insignificant and wrongly
+directed in comparison with what I myself wished to do.</p>
+
+<p>This was what I invented to excite sympathy
+amongst the rich for the poor: I began to collect money,
+and to enlist men who wished to help in the work, and
+who would, in company with the census officers, visit all
+the nests of pauperism, entering into relations with the
+poor, finding out the details of their needs, aiding them
+with money and work, sending them out of Moscow,
+placing their children in schools, and their old men and
+women in homes and houses of refuge.</p>
+
+<p>I thought, moreover, that from those who undertook
+this work a permanent society could be formed, which,
+by dividing between its members the various districts of
+Moscow, could take care that new cases of want and
+misery should be averted, and so by degrees pauperism
+might be stifled at its very beginning, not so much by
+cure, as by prevention.</p>
+
+<p>Already I saw in the future the entire disappearance
+of begging and poverty, I having been the means of its
+accomplishment. Then we who were rich could go on
+living in all our luxury as before, dwelling in fine houses,
+eating dinners of five courses, driving in our carriages
+to theatres and entertainments, no longer being harassed
+by such sights as I had witnessed at Liapin's house.</p>
+
+<p>Having invented this plan, I wrote an article about it;
+and, before even giving it to the printers, I went to those
+acquaintances from whom I hoped to obtain co-operation,
+and expounded to all whom I visited that day (chiefly the
+rich) the ideas I afterwards published in my article.</p>
+
+<p>I proposed to profit by the census in order to study
+the state of pauperism in Moscow, and <ins title="te">to</ins> help exterminate
+it by personal effort and money, after which we might
+all with a quiet conscience enjoy our usual pleasures.
+Everyone listened to me attentively and seriously; but,
+in every case, I remarked that the moment my hearers
+came to understand what I was driving at, they seemed
+to become uncomfortable and somewhat embarrassed.
+It was principally, I feel sure, on my own account;
+because they considered all that I said to be folly. It
+seemed as though some outside motive compelled my
+listeners to agree for the moment with my foolishness.&mdash;&ldquo;Oh,
+yes! Certainly. It would be delightful,&rdquo; they
+said: &ldquo;of course it is impossible not to sympathize with
+you. Your idea is splendid. I myself have had the
+same; but ... people here are so indifferent, that
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_17" title="17"> </a>
+it is hardly reasonable to expect a great success. However,
+as far as I am concerned, I am, of course, ready
+to share in the enterprise.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Similar answers I received from all. They consented,
+as it appeared to me, not because they were persuaded
+by my arguments, nor yet in compliance with their own
+desire, but because of some exterior reason which rendered
+it impossible for them to refuse.</p>
+
+<p>I remarked this partly because none of those who
+promised me their help in the form of money, defined
+the sum they meant to give; so that I had to name the
+amount by asking, &ldquo;May I count upon you for twenty-five,
+or one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred,
+rubles?&rdquo; And not one of them paid the money. I
+draw attention to this fact, because, when people are
+going to pay for what they are anxious to have, they
+are generally in haste to give it. If it is to secure a
+box to see Sarah Bernhardt, the money is immediately
+produced; here, however, of all who agreed to give,
+and expressed their sympathy, not one produced the
+amount, but merely silently acquiesced in the sum I
+happened to name.</p>
+
+<p>In the last house I visited that day there was a large
+party. The mistress of the house had for some years
+been employed in works of charity. Several carriages
+were waiting at the door. Footmen in expensive liveries
+were seated in the hall. In the spacious drawing-room,
+ladies, old and young, wearing rich dresses and ornaments,
+were talking to some young men, and dressing up
+small dolls, intended for a lottery in aid of the poor.</p>
+
+<p>The sight of this drawing-room and of the people
+assembled there struck me very painfully. For not only
+was their property worth several million rubles; not
+only would the interest on the capital spent here on
+dresses, laces, bronzes, jewels, carriages, horses, liveries,
+footmen, exceed a hundred times the value of these
+ladies' work,&mdash;but even the expenses caused by this very
+party of ladies and gentlemen, the gloves, the linen,
+candles, tea, sugar, cakes, all this represented a sum a
+hundred times greater than the value of the work done.</p>
+
+<p>I saw all this, and therefore might have understood
+that here, at all events, I should not find sympathy with
+my plan, but I had come in order to give a proposal,
+and, however painful it was, I said what I wished to
+say, repeating almost the words of my article.</p>
+
+<p>One lady present offered me some money, adding that,
+owing to her sensibilities, she did not feel strong enough
+to visit the poor herself, but that she would give help
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_18" title="18"> </a>
+in this form. How much money, and when she would
+give it, she did not say. Another lady and a young man
+offered their services in visiting the poor, but I did not
+profit by their offer. The principal person I addressed
+told me that it would be impossible to do much, because
+the means were not forthcoming. The means were
+scarce, because all the rich men in Moscow who were
+known and could be counted upon had already given
+all it was possible to get from them, their charities had
+already been rewarded with titles, medals, and other
+distinctions,&mdash;which was the only effectual way to ensure
+success in the collection of money; and to obtain new
+honors from the authorities was very difficult.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned home I went to bed, not only with
+a presentiment that nothing would result from my idea,
+but also with the shameful consciousness of having
+been doing something vile and contemptible the whole
+day. However, I did not desist.</p>
+
+<p>First, the work had been begun, and false shame prevented
+my giving it up; second, not only the success
+of the enterprise itself, but even my part in it, afforded
+me the possibility of continuing to live in my usual
+way; whereas the failure of this enterprise would have
+put me under the constraint of giving up my present
+mode of life and of seeking another. Of this, I was unconsciously
+afraid; and therefore I refused to listen
+to my inner voice, and continued what I had begun.</p>
+
+<p>Having sent my article to be printed, I read a proof-copy
+at a census-meeting in the town hall, hesitatingly,
+and blushing till my cheeks burned again. I felt very uncomfortable,
+and I saw that all my hearers were equally
+uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>On my question, whether the managers of the census
+would accept my proposal that they should remain at
+their posts in order to form a link between society and
+those in need, an awkward silence ensued.</p>
+
+<p>Then two of those present made speeches, which
+seemed to mend the awkwardness of my suggestions.
+Sympathy for me was expressed along with their general
+approbation, but they pointed out the impracticability
+of my scheme. Everyone immediately seemed more at
+ease; but afterwards, still wishing to succeed, I asked
+each district manager separately, whether during the
+census he was willing to investigate the needs of
+the poor and afterwards remain at his post in
+order to form this link between the poor and the
+rich, all were again confounded; it seemed as though
+their looks said, &ldquo;Why, we have listened to your silly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_19" title="19"> </a>
+proposition out of personal regard for you; but here you
+come with it again!&rdquo; This was the expression of their
+faces, but in words they told me that they consented;
+and two of them, separately, but as though they had
+agreed together, said in the same words, &ldquo;We regard it
+as our moral duty to do so.&rdquo; The same impression was
+produced by my words upon the students who had volunteered
+to act as clerks during the census, when I told
+them that they might accomplish a charitable work
+besides their scientific pursuits.</p>
+
+<p>When we talked the matter over I noticed that they
+were shy of looking me straight in the face, as one often
+hesitates to look into the face of a good-natured man
+who is talking nonsense. The same impression was produced
+upon the editor of the paper when I handed my
+article to him; also upon my son, my wife, and
+various other people. Every one seemed embarrassed,
+but all found it necessary to approve of the idea itself;
+and all, immediately after this approbation, began to
+express their doubts as to the success of the plan,
+and, for some reason or other, all without exception took
+to condemning the indifference and coldness of society
+and of the world, though they evidently excluded themselves.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">By</span> my request I was appointed to make the census of
+the section of Khamovnitchesky police district, near the
+Smolensky Market in the Prototchni Lane between
+the Shore Drive and Nicolsky Lane. In this
+district are the houses known under the name
+of Rzhanoff House or Rzhanoff Fortress. In bygone
+times these houses belonged to the merchant
+Rzhanoff, and are now the property of the merchants
+Zeemin. I had long before heard that this was considered
+the lowest circle of poverty and vice, which was
+the reason why I asked the officers of the census to
+assign this district to me.</p>
+
+<p>My desire was gratified.</p>
+
+<p>Having received the appointment from the Town
+Council, I went alone, a few days before the census, to
+inspect my district. With the help of a plan I soon
+found the Rzhanoff Houses,&mdash;approached by a street
+which terminated on the left-hand side of Nicolsky Lane&mdash;a
+gloomy building without any apparent entrance.
+From the aspect of this house I guessed it was the one
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_20" title="20"> </a>
+I was in search of. Descending the street, I came across
+some boys, from ten to fourteen years old, in short coats,
+who were sliding down the frozen gutter, some on their
+feet, others upon a single skate.</p>
+
+<p>The boys were ragged, and, like all town boys, sharp
+and bold. I stopped to look at them. An old woman
+in torn clothes, with hanging yellow cheeks, came round
+the corner. She was going up-hill to Smolensky Market,
+gasping painfully at every step, like a horse out of wind;
+and when abreast of me, stopped with hoarse, choking
+breath. In any other place, this old woman would have
+asked alms, but here she only began to talk.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just look at them!&rdquo; she said, pointing to the sliding
+boys; &ldquo;always at mischief! They will become the same
+Rzhanoff good-for-nothings as their fathers.&rdquo; One boy,
+in an overcoat and cap without a peak, overhearing her
+words, stopped. &ldquo;You shut up!&rdquo; he shouted. &ldquo;You're
+only an old Rzhanoff goat yourself!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I asked the boy if he lived here. &ldquo;Yes, and so does
+she. She stole some boots,&rdquo; he called out, and, pushing
+himself off, slid on.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman began a torrent of abuse, interrupted
+by coughs. During the squabble an old white-haired
+man, all in rags, came down the middle of the street,
+brandishing his arms, and carrying in one hand a bundle
+of small rusk rings. He seemed to have just fortified
+himself with a glass of liquor. He had evidently heard
+the old woman's abuse and took her side.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I'll give it you, you little devils!&rdquo; he shouted, pretending
+to rush after them; and, passing behind me,
+he stepped on the pavement. If you saw this old man
+in the Artat, a fashionable street, you would be struck
+with his air of <ins title="decreptitude">decrepitude</ins>, feebleness, and poverty.
+Here he appeared as a merry workman returning from his
+day's labor.</p>
+
+<p>I followed him. He turned round the corner to the left
+into Prototchni, an alley, passed the front of the house
+and the gate, and disappeared through the door of an
+inn. Into this alley opened the doors of the latter, a
+public-house, and several small eating-houses. It was
+the Rzhanoff Houses. Every thing was gray, dirty, and
+foul-smelling,&mdash;buildings, lodgings, courts, and people.
+Most of those I met here were in tattered clothes, half
+naked. Some were passing along, others were running
+from one door to another. Two were bargaining about
+some rags. I went round the whole building, down
+another lane and a court, and, having returned, stopped
+at the archway of the Rzhanoff Houses.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_21" title="21"> </a>I wanted to go in and see what was going on inside,
+but the idea made me feel painfully awkward. If they
+asked me what I had come for, what should I say?</p>
+
+<p>However after a little hesitation I went in. The
+moment I entered the court I was conscious of a most
+revolting stench. The court was dreadfully dirty. I
+turned round the corner, and at the same instant heard
+steps running along the boards of the gallery and down
+the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>First a gaunt-looking woman, with tucked-up sleeves,
+a faded pink dress, and shoes on her stockingless feet,
+rushed out; after her, a rough-haired man in a red shirt,
+and extremely wide trousers, like a petticoat, and
+goloshes on his feet. The man caught her under the
+stairs: &ldquo;You sha'n't escape me,&rdquo; he said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Just listen to the squint-eyed devil!&rdquo; began the
+woman, who was evidently not averse to his attentions;
+but, having caught sight of me, she exclaimed angrily,
+&ldquo;Who are you looking for?&rdquo; As I did not want anyone
+in particular, I felt somewhat confused, and went away.</p>
+
+<p>This little incident, though by no means remarkable
+in itself, suddenly showed me the work I was about to
+undertake in an entirely new light, especially after what
+I had seen on the other side of the courtyard,&mdash;the
+scolding woman, the light-hearted old man, and the sliding
+boys. I had meditated doing good to these people
+by the help of the rich men of Moscow. I now realized,
+for the first time, that all these poor unfortunates, whom
+I had been wishing to help, had, besides the time they
+spent suffering from cold and hunger in waiting to get
+a lodging, several hours daily to get through, and that
+they must somehow fill up the rest of the twenty-four
+hours of every day,&mdash;a whole life, of which I had never
+thought before. I realized now, for the first time, that
+all these people, besides the mere effort to find food
+and shelter from the cold, must live through the rest
+of every day of their life as other people have to do,
+must get angry at times, and be dull, and try to appear
+light-hearted, and be sad or merry. Now, for the
+first time (however strange the confession may sound),
+I was fully aware that the task which I was undertaking
+could not simply consist in feeding and clothing a
+thousand people (just as one might feed a thousand head
+of sheep, and drive them into shelter), but must develop
+some more essential help. When I considered that
+each one of these individuals was just another man like
+myself, possessing also a past history, with the same
+passions, temptations, and errors, the same thoughts,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_22" title="22"> </a>
+the same questions to be answered, then suddenly the
+work before me appeared stupendous and I felt my own
+utter helplessness;&mdash;but it had begun and I was resolved
+to go on.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">On</span> the appointed day, the students who were to assist
+me started early in the morning; while I, the philanthropist,
+only joined them at twelve o'clock. I could not
+come earlier, as I did not get up till ten, after which
+I had to take some coffee, and then smoke for the sake
+of my digestion. Twelve o'clock, then, found me at the
+door of the Rzhanoff Houses. A policeman showed me
+a public-house to which the census-clerks referred all
+those who wished to enquire for them. I entered, and
+found it very dirty and unsavoury. Here, right in front
+of me, was a counter; to the left a small room, furnished
+with tables covered with soiled napkins; to the right
+a large room on pillars, containing similar little tables
+placed in the windows and along the walls; with men
+here and there having tea, some very ragged, others well
+dressed, apparently workmen or small shopkeepers.
+There were also several women. In spite of the dirt, it
+was easy to see, by the business air of the man in charge,
+and the ready, obliging manners of the waiters, that the
+eating-house was driving a good trade. I had no sooner
+entered than one of the waiters was already preparing
+to assist me in getting off my overcoat, anxious to take
+my orders, and showing that evidently the people here
+were in the habit of doing their work quickly and readily.</p>
+
+<p>My enquiry for the census-clerks was answered by a
+call for &ldquo;Ványa&rdquo; from a little man dressed in foreign
+fashion, who was arranging something in a cupboard
+behind the counter. This was the proprietor of the public-house,
+a peasant from Kaluga, Iván Fedotitch by
+name, who also rented half of the other houses, sub-letting
+the rooms to lodgers. In answer to his call, a
+thin, sallow-faced, hook-nosed lad, about eighteen years
+old, came forward hastily. The landlord said, &ldquo;Take
+this gentleman to the clerks: they have gone to the main
+body of the building over the well.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The lad put down his napkin, pulled on a coat over
+his white shirt and trousers, picked up a large cap with a
+peak, and then, with quick, short steps, led the way by
+a back-door through the buildings. At the entrance of
+a greasy, malodorous kitchen, we met an old woman
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_23" title="23"> </a>
+who was carefully carrying some putrid tripe in a rag.
+We descended into a court, built up all round with
+wooden buildings on stone foundations. The smell was
+most offensive, and seemed to be concentrated in a privy
+to which numbers of people were constantly resorting.
+This privy was really only the place which custom accepted
+as a privy. One could not avoid noticing this place
+as one passed through the courtyard. One suffered in
+entering the acrid atmosphere of the bad smells issuing
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>The boy, taking care not to soil his white trousers,
+led me cautiously across frozen and unfrozen filth, and
+approached one of the buildings. The people crossing
+the yard and galleries all stopped to gaze at me. It
+was evident that a cleanly-dressed man was an unusual
+sight in the place.</p>
+
+<p>The boy asked a woman whom we met, whether she
+had seen where the census officials had entered, and
+three people at once answered his question: some said
+that they were over the well; others said that they had
+been there, but had now gone to Nikita Ivanovitch's.</p>
+
+<p>An old man in the middle of the court, who had only
+a shirt on, said that they were at No.&nbsp;30. The boy concluded
+that this information was the most probable and
+led me to No.&nbsp;30, into the basement, where darkness
+prevailed and a bad smell, different from that which filled
+the court.</p>
+
+<p>We continued to descend along a dark passage. As
+we were traversing it a door was suddenly opened, out
+of which came a drunken old man in a shirt, evidently
+not of the peasant class. A shrieking washerwoman with
+tucked-up sleeves and soapy arms was pushing him out
+of the room. &ldquo;Ványa&rdquo; (my guide) shoved him aside,
+saying, &ldquo;It won't do to kick up such a row here&mdash;and
+you an officer too!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>When we arrived at No.&nbsp;30, Ványa pulled the door,
+which opened with the sound of a wet slap; and we felt
+a gush of soapy steam and an odor of bad food and
+tobacco, and entered in complete darkness. The windows
+were on the other side; and we were in a crooked
+corridor, that went right and left, with doors leading at
+different angles into rooms separated from it by a partition
+of unevenly laid boards, roughly whitewashed.</p>
+
+<p>In a dark room to the left we could see a woman washing
+at a trough. Another old woman was looking out
+of a door at the right. Near an open door was a hairy,
+red-skinned peasant in bark shoes, sitting on a couch.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_24" title="24"> </a>
+His hands rested upon his knees; and he was swinging
+his feet and looking sadly at his shoes.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the passage a small door led into the
+room where the census officers had assembled. This was
+the room of the landlady of the whole of No.&nbsp;30, who
+rented it from Iván Fedotitch and sub-let to ordinary
+or night lodgers.</p>
+
+<p>In this tiny room a student sat under an image glittering
+with gilt paper, and, with the air of a magistrate,
+was putting questions to a man dressed in shirt and vest.
+This last was a friend of the landlady's, who was answering
+the questions in her stead. The landlady herself,&mdash;an
+old woman,&mdash;and two inquisitive lodgers, were also
+present.</p>
+
+<p>When I entered, the room was quite filled up. I
+pushed through to the table, shook hands with the
+student, and he went on extracting his information,
+while I studied the inhabitants, and put questions to
+them for my own ends.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared, however, I could find no one here upon
+whom to bestow my benevolence. The landlady of the
+rooms, notwithstanding their wretchedness and filth
+(which especially struck me in comparison with the
+mansion in which I lived), was well off, even from the
+point of view of town poverty; and compared with
+country destitution, with which I was well acquainted,
+she lived luxuriously. She had a feather-bed, a quilted
+blanket, a samovár, a fur cloak, a cupboard, with dishes,
+plates, etc. The landlady's friend had the same well-to-do
+appearance, and boasted even a watch and chain.
+The lodgers were poor, but among them there was no
+one requiring immediate help.</p>
+
+<p>Three only applied for aid,&mdash;the woman washing linen,
+who said she had been abandoned by her husband; an
+old widowed woman, without means of livelihood; and
+the peasant in the bark shoes, who told me he had not
+had anything to eat that day. But, upon gathering more
+precise information, it became evident that all these
+people were not in extreme want, and that, before one
+could really help, it would be necessary to make their
+more intimate acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>When I offered the washerwoman to place her children
+in a &ldquo;home,&rdquo; she became confused, thought over it some
+time, then thanked me much, but evidently did not
+desire it; she would rather have had some money. Her
+eldest daughter helped her in the washing, and the
+second acted as nurse to the little boy.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman asked to be put into a refuge; but,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_25" title="25"> </a>
+examining her corner, I saw she was not in extreme distress.
+She had a box containing some property and a
+teapot, two cups, and old bon-bon boxes with tea and
+sugar. She knitted stockings and gloves, and received
+a monthly allowance from a lady benefactress.</p>
+
+<p>The peasant was evidently more desirous of wetting his
+throat after his last day's drunkenness than of food, and
+anything given him would have gone to the public-house.
+In these rooms, therefore, there was no one whom I
+could have rendered in any respect happier by helping
+them with money.</p>
+
+<p>There were only paupers there,&mdash;and paupers, it
+seemed, of a questionable kind.</p>
+
+<p>I put down the names of the old woman, the laundress,
+and the peasant, and settled in my mind that it would
+be necessary to do something for them, but that first I
+would help those other <em>especially</em> unfortunate ones whom
+I expected to come across in this house. I made up my
+mind that some system was necessary in distributing the
+aid which we had to give: first, we must find the most
+needy, and then come to such as these.</p>
+
+<p>But in the next lodging, and in the next again, I found
+only similar cases, which would have to be looked into
+more closely before being helped. Of those whom
+pecuniary aid alone would have rendered happy, I found
+none.</p>
+
+<p>However ashamed I feel in confessing it, I began to
+experience a certain disappointment at not finding in
+these houses anything resembling what I had expected. I
+thought to find very exceptional people; but, when I
+had gone over all the lodgings, I became convinced that
+their inhabitants were in no way extremely peculiar, but
+much like those amongst whom I lived.</p>
+
+<p>As with us, so also with them, there were some more or
+less good and others more or less bad: there were some
+more or less happy and others more or less unhappy.
+Those who were unhappy amongst them would have been
+equally wretched with us, their misery being within
+themselves,&mdash;a misery not to be mended by any kind of
+bank-note.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> inhabitants of these houses belonged to the lowest
+population of the town, which in Moscow amounts to
+perhaps more than a hundred thousand. In this house,
+there were representative men of all kinds,&mdash;petty employers
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_26" title="26"> </a>
+and journeymen, shoemakers, brushmakers,
+joiners, hackney coachmen, jobbers carrying on business
+on their own account, washerwomen, second-hand
+dealers, money-lenders, day-laborers, and others without
+any definite occupation; and here also lodged beggars
+and unfortunate women.</p>
+
+<p>Many who were like the people I had seen waiting at
+Liapin's house lived here, mixed up with the working-people.
+But those whom I saw then were in a most
+wretched condition, having eaten and drunk all they had,
+and, turned out of the public-house, were waiting, as
+for heavenly manna, cold and hungry, to be admitted
+into the free night-lodging-house,&mdash;and longing day by
+day to be taken to prison, in order to be sent back to
+their homes. Here I saw the same men among a greater
+number of working-people, at a time when by some means
+or other they had got a few farthings to pay for their
+night's lodging, and perhaps a ruble or two for food and
+drink.</p>
+
+<p>However strange it may sound, I had no such feelings
+here as I experienced in Liapin's house; on the contrary,
+during my first visiting-round, I and the students had a
+sensation which was rather agreeable than otherwise.
+Why do I say &ldquo;almost agreeable?&rdquo; It is not true.
+The sensation called forth by the companionship of these
+men&mdash;strange as it may seem&mdash;was simply a very agreeable
+one.</p>
+
+<p>The first impression was, that the majority of the
+lodgers here were working people, and very kindly disposed.
+We found most of them at work,&mdash;the washerwomen
+at their tubs, the joiners by their benches, the
+bootmakers at their lasts. The tiny rooms were full of
+people, and the work was going on cheerfully and with
+energy. There was a smell of perspiration among the
+workmen, of leather at the bootmaker's, of chips in the
+carpenter's shop. We often heard songs, and saw bare,
+sinewy arms working briskly and skilfully.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere we were received kindly and cheerfully.
+Nearly everywhere our intrusion into the daily life of
+these people excited no desire in them to show us their
+importance, or to rate us soundly, which happens when
+such visits are paid to the lodgings of well-to-do people.
+On the contrary, all our questions were answered simply,
+without any particular importance being attached to them,&mdash;served,
+indeed, only as an excuse for merriment and
+for jokes about how they were to be enrolled on the list,
+how such a one was as good as two, and how two others
+ought to be reckoned as one.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_27" title="27"> </a>Many we found at dinner or at tea; and each time, in
+answer to our greeting, &ldquo;Bread and salt,&rdquo; or, &ldquo;Tea and
+sugar,&rdquo; they said, &ldquo;You are welcome&rdquo;; and some even
+made room for us to sit down. Instead of the place being
+the resort of an ever-shifting population, such as we
+expected to find, it turned out that in this house were
+many rooms which had been tenanted by the same people
+for long periods.</p>
+
+<p>One carpenter, with his workmen, and a bootmaker,
+with his journeymen, had been living here for ten years.
+The bootmaker's shop was very dirty and quite choked
+up, but all his men were working very cheerily. I tried
+to talk with one of the workmen, wishing to sound him
+about the miseries of his lot, what he owed to the
+master, and so forth; but he did not understand me, and
+spoke of his master and of his life from a very favourable
+point of view.</p>
+
+<p>In one lodging, there lived an old man with his old
+wife. They dealt in apples. Their room was warm,
+clean, and filled with their belongings. The floor was
+covered with straw-matting which they got from the
+apple stores. There were chests, a cupboard, a samovár,
+and crockery. In the corner were many holy images,
+before which two lamps were burning: on the wall hung
+fur cloaks wrapped up in a sheet. The old woman with
+wrinkled face, kind and talkative, was apparently quite
+delighted with her quiet, respectable life.</p>
+
+<p>Iván Fedotitch, the owner of the inn and of the lodgings,
+came out and walked with us. He joked kindly
+with many of the lodgers, calling them all by their names,
+and giving us short sketches of their characters. They
+were as other men, did not consider themselves unhappy,
+but believed they were like everyone else, as in reality
+they were. We were prepared to see only dreadful things,
+and we met instead objects not only not repulsive, but
+estimable. There were so many of these, compared
+with the ragged, ruined, unoccupied people we met now
+and then among them, that the latter did not in the least
+destroy the general impression. To the students it did
+not appear so remarkable as it did to me. They were
+merely performing an act useful to science, as they
+thought; and, in passing, made casual observations:
+but I was a benefactor; my object in going there was
+to help the unhappy, ruined, depraved men and women
+whom I had expected to meet in this house. Suddenly,
+instead of unhappy, ruined, depraved beings, I
+found the majority to be workingmen: quiet, satisfied,
+cheerful, kind, and very good.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_28" title="28"> </a>I was still more strongly impressed when I found that
+in these lodgings the crying want I wished to relieve
+had already been relieved before I came. But by whom?
+By these same unhappy, depraved beings whom I was
+prepared to save! And this help was given in a way not
+open to me.</p>
+
+<p>In one cellar lay a lonely old man suffering from
+typhus-fever. He had no connections in the world; yet
+a woman,&mdash;a widow with a little girl,&mdash;quite a stranger
+to him, but living in the corner next to him, nursed him,
+gave him tea, and bought him medicine with her own
+money.</p>
+
+<p>In another lodging lay a woman in puerperal fever. A
+woman of the town was nursing her child, and had prepared
+a sucking-bottle for him, and had not gone out
+to ply her sad trade for two days.</p>
+
+<p>An orphan girl was taken into the family of a tailor,
+who had three children of his own. Thus, there remained
+only such miserable unoccupied men as retired officials,
+clerks, men-servants out of situations, beggars, tipsy
+people, prostitutes, children, whom it was not possible
+to help all at once by means of money, but whose cases
+it was necessary to consider carefully before assisting
+them. I had been seeking for men suffering immediately
+from want of means, whom one might be able to
+help by sharing one's superfluities with them. I had
+not found them. All whom I had seen, it would have
+been very difficult to assist materially without devoting
+time and care to their cases.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">These</span> unfortunate necessitous ones ranged themselves in
+my mind under three heads: First, those who had lost
+former advantageous positions, and who were waiting to
+return to them (such men belonged to the lowest as well
+as to the highest classes of society); Secondly, women of
+the town, who are very numerous in these houses; and
+Thirdly, children.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of those I found, and noted down, were
+men who had lost former places, and were desirous of
+returning to them, chiefly of the better class, and government
+officials. In almost all the lodgings we entered
+with the landlord, we were told, &ldquo;Here we need not
+trouble to fill up the card ourselves: the man here is
+able to do it, provided he is not tipsy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Thus summoned by Iván Fedotitch, there would
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_29" title="29"> </a>
+appear, from some dark corner, the once rich nobleman
+or official, mostly drunk, and always half-dressed. If
+he were not drunk, he willingly undertook the task: he
+kept nodding his head with a sense of importance,
+knitted his brows, inserted now and then learned terms
+in his remarks, and carefully holding in his dirty,
+trembling hands the neat pink card, looked round at his
+fellow-lodgers with pride and contempt, as if he were
+now, by the superiority of his education, triumphing over
+those who had been continually humbling him.</p>
+
+<p>He was evidently pleased to have <ins title="intercouse">intercourse</ins> with the
+world which used pink cards, with a world of which
+he himself had once been a member.</p>
+
+<p>To my questions about his life, this kind of man not
+only replied willingly, but with enthusiasm,&mdash;beginning
+to tell a story, fixed in his mind like a prayer, about all
+kinds of misfortunes which had happened to him, and
+chiefly about his former position, in which, considering
+his education, he ought to have remained.</p>
+
+<p>Many such people are scattered about in all the tenements
+of the Rzhanoff Houses. One lodging-house was
+tenanted exclusively by them, women and men. As we
+approached them, <ins title="Ivan">Iván</ins> Fedotitch said, &ldquo;Now, here's
+where the nobility live.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The lodging was full. Almost all the lodgers&mdash;about
+forty persons&mdash;were at home. In the whole house, there
+were no faces so ruined and degraded-looking as these,&mdash;if
+old, flabby; if young, pale and haggard.</p>
+
+<p>I talked with several of them. Almost always the same
+story was told, differing only in degree of development.
+One and all had been once rich, or had still a rich father
+or brother or uncle; or either his father or his unfortunate
+self had held a high office. Then came some misfortune
+caused by envious enemies, or his own imprudent
+kindness, or some out-of-the-way occurrence; and, having
+lost everything, he was obliged to descend to these strange
+and hateful surroundings, among lice and rags, in company
+with drunkards and loose characters, feeding upon
+bread and liver, and subsisting by beggary.</p>
+
+<p>All the thoughts, desires, and recollections of these
+men are turned toward the past. The present appears
+to them as something unnatural, hideous, and unworthy
+of attention. It does not exist for them. They have only
+recollections of the past, and expectations of the future
+which may be realized at any moment, and for the attainment
+of which but very little is needed; but, unfortunately,
+this little is out of their reach; it cannot be got
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_30" title="30"> </a>
+anywhere: and so one has wasted one year, another five,
+and a third thirty years.</p>
+
+<p>One needs only to be dressed respectably in order
+to call on a well-known person who is kindly disposed
+toward him; another requires only to be dressed, have
+his debts paid, and go to some town or other; a third
+wants to take his effects out of pawn, and get a small
+sum to carry on a law-suit, which must be decided in
+his favour, and then all will be well again. All say that
+they have need of some external circumstance in order
+to regain that position which they think natural and
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>If I had not been blinded by my pride in being a benefactor,
+I should have needed only to look a little closer
+into their faces, young and old, which were generally
+weak, sensual, but kind, in order to understand that
+their misfortunes could not be met by external means;
+that they could be happy in no position while their
+present conception of life remained the same; that they
+were by no means peculiar people in peculiarly unhappy
+circumstances, but that they were like all other men,
+ourselves included.</p>
+
+<p>I remember well how my intercourse with men of this
+class was particularly trying to me. I now understand
+why it was so. In them I saw my own self as in a
+mirror. If I had considered carefully my own life and
+the lives of people of my own class, I should have seen
+that between us and these unfortunate men there existed
+no essential difference.</p>
+
+<p>Those who live around me in expensive suites of apartments
+and houses of their own in the best streets of the
+city, eating something better than liver or herring with
+their bread, are none the less unhappy. They also are discontented
+with their lot, regret the past, and desire a
+happier future, precisely as did the wretched tenants of
+the Rzhanoff Houses. Both wished to be worked less and
+to be worked for more, the difference between them being
+only in degrees of idleness.</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately, I did not see this at first, nor did I
+understand that such people needed to be relieved, not
+by my charity, but from their own false views of the
+world; and that to change a man's estimate of life he
+must be given one more accurate than his own, which,
+unhappily, not possessing myself, I could not communicate
+to others.</p>
+
+<p>These men were unhappy not because, to use an illustration,
+they were without nourishing food, but because
+their stomachs were spoiled; and they required, not
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_31" title="31"> </a>
+nourishment, but a tonic. I did not see that in order
+to help them, it was not necessary to give them food but
+to teach them how to eat. Though I am anticipating, I
+must say that of all these people whose names I put
+down I did not in reality help one, notwithstanding that
+everything some of them had desired was done to relieve
+them. Of these I became acquainted with three men in
+particular. All three, after many failures and much
+assistance, are now in the same position they were in
+three years ago.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> second class of unfortunates, whom I hoped afterwards
+to be able to help, were women of the town.
+These women were very numerous in the Rzhanoff
+Houses; and they were of every kind, from young girls
+still bearing some likeness to women, to old and fearful-looking
+creatures without a vestige of humanity. The
+hope of helping these women, whom I had not at first
+in view, was aroused by the following circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>When we had finished half of our tour, we had already
+acquired a somewhat mechanical method. On entering a
+new lodging we at once asked for the landlord. One of
+us sat down, clearing a space to write; and the other
+went from one to another, questioning each man and
+woman in the room, and reporting the information
+obtained to him who was writing.</p>
+
+<p>On our entering one of the basement lodgings, the
+student went to look for the landlord; and I began to
+question all who were in the place. This place was
+divided thus: In the middle of the room, which was
+four yards square, there stood a stove. From the stove
+four partitions or screens radiated, making a similar number
+of small compartments. In the first of these, which
+had two doors in it opposite each other, and four pallets,
+were an old man and a woman. Next to this was a rather
+long but narrow room, in which was the landlord, a
+young, pale, good-looking man dressed in a gray woollen
+coat. To the left of the first division was a third small
+room where a man was sleeping, seemingly tipsy, and a
+woman in a pink dressing-gown. The fourth compartment
+was behind a partition, access to it being through
+the landlord's room.</p>
+
+<p>The student entered the latter, while I remained in the
+first, questioning the old man and the woman. The
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_32" title="32"> </a>
+former had been a compositor, but now had no means of
+livelihood whatever.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was a cook's wife.</p>
+
+<p>I went into the third compartment, and asked the
+woman in the dressing-gown about the man who was
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>She answered that he was a visitor.</p>
+
+<p>I asked her who she was.</p>
+
+<p>She replied that she was a peasant girl from the county
+of Moscow.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is your occupation?&rdquo; She laughed, and made
+no answer.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What do you do for your living?&rdquo; I repeated, thinking
+she had not understood the question.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I sit in the inn,&rdquo; she said.</p>
+
+<p>I did not understand her, and asked again,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What are your means of living?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She gave me no answer, but continued to giggle. In
+the fourth room, where we had not yet been, I heard the
+voices of women also giggling.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord came out of his room, and approached
+us. He had evidently heard my questions and the
+woman's answers. He glanced sternly at her, and, turning
+to me, said, &ldquo;She is a prostitute&rdquo;; and it was evident
+that he was pleased that he knew this word,&mdash;which is the
+one used in official circles,&mdash;and at having pronounced it
+correctly. And having said this with a respectful smile
+of satisfaction towards me, he turned to the woman. As
+he did so, the expression of his face changed. In a peculiarly
+contemptuous manner, and with rapid utterance
+as one would speak to a dog, he said, without looking at
+her, &ldquo;Don't be a fool! instead of saying you sit in the
+inn, speak plainly, and say you are a prostitute.&mdash;She does
+not even yet know her proper name,&rdquo; he said, turning
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>This manner of speaking shocked me.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;It is not for us to shame her,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;If we were
+all living according to God's commandment, there would
+be no such persons.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;There are such doings,&rdquo; said the landlord, with an
+artificial smile.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Therefore we must pity them, and not reproach them.
+Is it their fault?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I do not remember exactly what I said. I remember
+only that I was disgusted by the disdainful tone of this
+young landlord, in a lodging filled with females whom he
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_33" title="33"> </a>
+termed prostitutes; and I pitied the woman, and
+expressed both feelings.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had I said this, than I heard from the small
+compartment where the giggling had been, the noise of
+creaking bed-boards; and over the partition, which did
+not reach to the ceiling, appeared the dishevelled curly
+head of a female with small swollen eyes, and a shining
+red face; a second, and then a third, head followed.
+They were evidently standing on their beds; and all
+three were stretching their necks and holding their breath,
+and looking silently at me with strained attention.</p>
+
+<p>A painful silence followed.</p>
+
+<p>The student, who had been smiling before this happened,
+now became grave; the landlord became confused,
+and cast down his eyes; and the women continued to
+look at me in expectation.</p>
+
+<p>I felt more disconcerted than all the rest. I had certainly
+not expected that a casual word would produce
+such an effect. It was like the field of battle covered with
+dead bones seen by the prophet Ezekiel, on which,
+trembling from contact with the spirit, the dead bones
+began to move. I had casually uttered a word of love
+and pity, which produced upon all such an effect that it
+seemed as if they had been only waiting for it, to cease
+to be corpses, and to become alive again.</p>
+
+<p>They continued to look at me, as if wondering what
+would come next, as if waiting for me to say those words
+and do those acts by which these dry bones would begin
+to come together,&mdash;be covered with flesh and receive life.</p>
+
+<p>But I felt, alas! that I had no such words or deeds to
+give, or to continue as I had begun. In the depth of my
+soul I felt that I had told a lie, that I myself was like
+them, that I had nothing more to say; and I began to
+write down on the card the names and the occupations
+of all the lodgers there.</p>
+
+<p>This occurrence led me into a new kind of error. I
+began to think that these unhappy creatures also could
+be helped. This, in my self deception, it seemed to me
+would be very easily done. I said to myself, &ldquo;Now we
+shall put down the names of these women too; and afterwards,
+when we (though it never occurred to me to ask
+who were the <em>we</em>) have written everything down, we can
+occupy ourselves with their affairs.&rdquo; I imagined that <em>we</em>,
+the very persons who, during many generations, have been
+leading such women into such a condition, and still continue
+to do so, could one fine morning wake up and
+remedy it all. And yet, if I could have recollected my
+conversation with the lost woman who was nursing the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_34" title="34"> </a>
+baby for the sick mother, I should have understood the
+folly of such an idea.</p>
+
+<p>When we first saw this woman nursing the child, we
+thought that it was hers; but upon our asking her what
+she was, she answered us plainly that she was a wench.
+She did not say &ldquo;prostitute.&rdquo; It was left for the proprietor
+of the lodgings to make use of that terrible word.</p>
+
+<p>The supposition that she had a child gave me the idea
+of helping her out of her present position.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is this child yours?&rdquo; I asked.</p>
+
+<p><ins title="No">&ldquo;No</ins>: it is that woman's there.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why do you nurse him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She asked me to. She is dying.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Though my surmise turned out to be wrong, I continued
+to speak with her in the same spirit. I began to
+question her as to who she was, and how she came to be
+in such a position. She told me her story willingly, and
+very plainly. She belonged to the artisan class of
+Moscow, the daughter of a factory workman. She was
+left an orphan, and adopted by her aunt, from whose
+house she began to visit the inns. The aunt was now
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>When I asked her whether she wished to change her
+course of life, my question did not even interest her.
+How can a supposition about something quite impossible
+awaken an interest in any one? She smiled and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Who would take me with a yellow ticket?&rdquo;<a name="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;if it were possible to find you a situation
+as a cook or something else?&rdquo; I said this because
+she looked like a strong woman, with a kind, dull, round
+face, not unlike many cooks I had seen.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently my words did not please her. She repeated,
+&ldquo;Cook! but I do not understand how to bake bread.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She spoke jestingly; but, by the expression of her face,
+I saw that she was unwilling; that she even considered
+the position and rank of a cook beneath her.</p>
+
+<p>This woman, who, in the most simple manner, like the
+widow in the gospel, had sacrificed all that she had for
+a sick person, at the same time, like other women of the
+same profession, considered the position of a workman
+or workwoman low and despicable. She had been educated
+to live without work,&mdash;a life which all her friends
+considered quite natural. This was her misfortune. And
+by this she came into her present position, and is kept
+in it. This brought her to the inns. Who of us men
+and women will cure her of this false view of life? Are
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_35" title="35"> </a>
+there among us any men convinced that a laborious life
+is more respectable than an idle one, and who are living
+according to this conviction, and who make this the
+test of their esteem and respect?</p>
+
+<p>If I had thought about it I should have understood that
+neither I nor anybody else I know, was able to cure a
+person of this disease.</p>
+
+<p>I should have understood that those wondering and
+awakened faces that looked over the partition expressed
+merely astonishment at the pity shown to them, but no
+wish to reform their lives. They did not see the immorality.
+They knew that they were despised and condemned,
+but the reason for this they could not understand.
+They had lived in this manner from their infancy among
+women like themselves, who, they know very well, have
+always existed, do exist, and are necessary to society,
+that there are officials deputed by government to see that
+they conform to regulations.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, they know that they have power over men, and
+subdue them, and often influence them more than any
+other women. They see that their position in society,
+notwithstanding the fact that they are always blamed, is
+recognised by men as well as by women and by the
+government; and therefore they cannot even understand
+of what they have to repent, and wherein they should
+reform.</p>
+
+<p>During one of our tours the student told me that in one
+of the lodgings there was a woman who sends out her
+daughter, thirteen years old, to walk the streets. Wishing
+to save this little girl I went on purpose to their
+lodging.</p>
+
+<p>Mother and daughter were living in great poverty. The
+mother, a small, dark-complexioned prostitute of forty
+years of age, was not simply ugly, but disagreeably ugly.
+The daughter was also bad-looking. To all my indirect
+questions about their mode of life, the mother replied
+curtly, with a look of suspicion and animosity, apparently
+feeling that I was an enemy with bad intentions:
+the daughter said nothing without looking first at the
+mother, in whom she evidently had entire confidence.</p>
+
+<p>They did not awaken pity in my heart, but rather disgust.
+Still I decided that it was necessary to save the
+daughter, to awaken an interest in ladies who might
+sympathize with the miserable condition of these women
+and might so be brought here.</p>
+
+<p>Yet if I had thought about the antecedents of the
+mother, how she had given birth to her daughter, how
+she had fed and brought her up, certainly without any
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_36" title="36"> </a>
+outside help, and with great sacrifices to herself; if I
+had thought of the view of life which had formed itself
+in her mind,&mdash;I should have understood, that, in the
+mother's conduct, there was nothing at all bad or immoral,
+seeing she had been doing for her daughter all
+she could; i.e., what she considered best for herself.</p>
+
+<p>It was possible to take this girl away from her mother
+by force; but to convince her that she was doing wrong
+in selling her daughter was not possible. It would first
+be necessary to save this woman&mdash;this mother&mdash;from a
+condition of life approved by every one, and according
+to which a woman may live without marrying and without
+working, serving exclusively as a gratification to the passions.
+If I had thought about this, I should have understood
+that the majority of those ladies whom I wished
+to send here for saving this girl were not only themselves
+avoiding family duties, and leading idle and
+sensuous lives, but were consciously educating their
+daughters for this very same mode of existence. One
+mother leads her daughter to the inn, and another to
+court and to balls. Both the views of the world held by
+both mothers are the same; viz., that a woman must
+gratify the passions of men, and for that she must be
+fed, dressed, and taken care of.</p>
+
+<p>How, then, are our ladies to reform this woman and
+her daughter?</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Still</span> more strange were my dealings with the children.
+In my <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rĂ´le</i> as benefactor I paid attention to the children
+too, wishing to save innocent beings from going to ruin
+in this den; and I wrote down their names in order to
+attend to them myself <em>afterwards</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Among these children my attention was particularly
+drawn to Serozha, a boy twelve years old. I sincerely
+pitied this clever, intelligent lad, who had been living
+with a bootmaker, and who was left without any place
+of refuge when his master was put into prison. I wished
+to do something for him.</p>
+
+<p>I will now give the result of my benevolence in his
+case, because this boy's story will show my false position
+as a benefactor better than anything else.</p>
+
+<p>I took the boy into my house, and lodged him in the
+kitchen. Could I possibly bring a lousy boy out of a
+den of depravity to my children? I considered that I
+had been very kind in having put him where he was,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_37" title="37"> </a>
+amongst my servants. I thought myself a great benefactor
+for having given him some of my old clothes and fed
+him; though it was properly my cook who did it, not I.
+The boy remained in my house about a week.</p>
+
+<p>During this week I saw him twice, and, passing him,
+spoke some words to him, and, when out walking, called
+on a bootmaker whom I knew and proposed the boy as
+an apprentice. A peasant who was on a visit at my house
+invited him to go to his village and work in a family.
+The boy refused to accept it and disappeared within a
+week.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Rzhanoff's house to enquire after him. He
+had returned there; but when I called, he was not at
+home. He had already been two days in a menagerie in
+Presnem Ponds, where he hired himself for 6d. a day to
+appear in a procession of savages in costume, leading an
+elephant. There was some public show on at the time.</p>
+
+<p>I went to see him again, but he was so ungrateful, he
+evidently avoided me. Had I reflected upon the life of
+this boy and on my own, I should have understood that
+the boy had been spoiled by the fact of his having tasted
+the sweets of a merry and idle life, and that he had lost
+the habit of working. And I, in order to confer on him a
+benefit and reform him, took him into my own house.
+And what did he see there? He saw my children, some
+older than he, some younger, and some of the same age,
+who not only never did anything for themselves, but gave
+as much work to others as they could. They dirtied and
+spoiled everything about them, surfeited themselves with
+all sorts of dainties, broke the china, upset and threw to
+the dogs food which would have been a treat to him. If
+I took him out of a den and brought him to a respectable
+place, he could not but assimilate the views of life
+which existed there; and, according to these views, he
+understood that in a respectable position one must live
+without working, eat and drink well, and lead a merry
+life.</p>
+
+<p>True, he did not know that my children had much
+labour in learning the exceptions in Latin and Greek
+grammars; nor would he have been able to understand
+the object of such work. But one cannot help seeing that
+even had he understood it the influence upon him of the
+example of my children would have been still stronger.
+He would have then understood that they were being
+educated in such a way, that, not working now, they
+might afterwards also work as little as possible, and
+enjoy the good things of life by virtue of their diplomas.</p>
+
+<p>But what he did understand of it made him go, not to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_38" title="38"> </a>
+the peasant to take care of cattle and feed on potatoes and
+kvas,<a name="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> but to the menagerie in the costume of a savage
+to lead an elephant for 6d. a day. I ought to have understood
+how foolish it was of one who was educating his
+own children in complete idleness and luxury to try to
+reform other men and their children, and save them from
+going to ruin and idleness in what I called the <em>dens</em> in
+Rzhanoff's house; where, however, three-<ins title="forths">fourths</ins> of the men
+were working for themselves and for others. But then
+I understood nothing of all this.</p>
+
+<p>In Rzhanoff's house there were a great many children in
+the most miserable condition. There were children of
+prostitutes, orphans, and children carried about the
+streets by beggars. They were all very wretched. But
+my experience with Serozha showed me that so long as
+I continued living the life I did I was not able to help
+them.</p>
+
+<p>While the boy was living with us I remember I took
+pains to hide from him our way of life, particularly that
+of my children. I felt that all my endeavours to lead
+him to a good and laborious life were frustrated by my
+example and that of my children. It is very easy to take
+away a child from a prostitute or a beggar. It is very
+easy, when one has money, to wash him, dress him in
+new clothes, feed him well, and even teach him different
+accomplishments; but to teach him how to earn his living,
+is, for us who have not been earning ours but doing just
+the contrary, not only difficult but quite impossible,
+because by our example and by the very improvements of
+his mode of life effected by us without any cost on our
+part, we teach him the very opposite.</p>
+
+<p>You may take a puppy, pet him, feed him, teach him
+to carry things after you, and be pleased with looking
+at him: but it is not enough to feed a man, dress him,
+and teach him Greek; you must teach him how to live;
+i.e., how to take less from others and give them more in
+return: and yet through our own mode of life we cannot
+help teaching him the very opposite whether we take him
+into our house or put him into a home to bring up.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_39" title="39"> </a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">I have</span> never since experienced such a feeling of compassion
+towards men and of aversion towards myself, as I felt
+in Liapin's house. I was now filled with the desire to carry
+out the scheme I had already begun and to do good to
+the men whom I had met.</p>
+
+<p>And, strange to say, <ins title="thought">though</ins> it might seem that to do
+good and to give money to those in want of it was a good
+deed, and ought to dispose men to universal love, it
+turned out quite the reverse; calling up in me bitter feelings
+and disposition to censure them. Even during our
+first tour a scene occurred similar to that in Liapin's
+house; but it failed to produce again the same effect and
+created a very different impression.</p>
+
+<p>It began with my finding in one of the lodgings a miserable
+person who required immediate help,&mdash;a woman who
+had not eaten food for two days.</p>
+
+<p>It happened thus: In one very large and almost empty
+night-lodging, I asked an old woman whether there were
+any poor people who had nothing to eat. She hesitated
+a moment and then named two; then suddenly, as if
+recollecting herself, she said, &ldquo;Yes, there lies one of
+them,&rdquo; pointing to a pallet. &ldquo;This one,&rdquo; she added,
+&ldquo;indeed, has nothing to eat.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You don't say so! Who is she?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She has been a lost woman; but as nobody takes her
+now, she can't earn anything. The landlady has had pity
+on her, but now she wants to turn her out.&mdash;Agafia! I
+say, Agafia!&rdquo; cried the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>We went a little nearer, and saw something rise from
+the pallet. This was a grey-haired, dishevelled woman,
+thin as a skeleton, in a dirty, torn chemise, and with
+peculiarly glittering, immovable eyes. She looked fixedly
+beyond us, tried to snatch up her jacket behind her in
+order to cover her bony chest, and growled out like a dog,
+&ldquo;What? what?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I asked her how she managed to live. For some time
+she was unable to see the drift of my words and said, &ldquo;I
+don't know myself; they are going to turn me out.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I asked again; and oh, how ashamed of myself I feel!
+my hand can scarcely write it! I asked her whether it
+was true that she was starving. She replied in the same
+feverish, excited manner, &ldquo;I had nothing to eat yesterday;
+I have had nothing to eat to-day.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The miserable aspect of this woman impressed me
+deeply, but quite differently from those in Liapin's house:
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_40" title="40"> </a>
+there, out of pity for them, I felt embarrassed and ashamed
+of myself; but here, I rejoiced that I had at last found
+what I had been looking for,&mdash;a hungry being.</p>
+
+<p>I gave her a ruble and I remember how glad I felt that
+the others had seen it.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman forthwith asked me also for money.
+It was so pleasant to me to give that I handed her some
+also, without thinking whether it was necessary or not.
+She accompanied me to the door, and those who were in
+the corridor heard how she thanked me. Probably my
+questions about the poor provoked expectations, for some
+of the inmates began to follow us wherever we went.</p>
+
+<p>Among those that begged, there were evidently
+drunkards, who gave me a most disagreeable impression;
+but having once given to the old woman I thought I
+had no right to refuse them, and I began to give away
+more. This only increased the number of applicants, and
+there was a stir throughout the whole lodging-house.</p>
+
+<p>On the stairs and in the galleries, people appeared
+dogging my steps. When I came out of the yard, a boy
+ran quickly down the stairs, pushing through the people.
+He did not notice me and said <ins title="hurredly">hurriedly</ins>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He gave a ruble to Agafia!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Having reached the ground, he, too, joined the crowd
+that was following me. I came out into the street. All
+sorts of people crowded round begging for money. Having
+given away all I had in coppers, I entered a shop and
+asked the proprietor to give me change for ten rubles.</p>
+
+<p>Here occurred a scene similar to that which took place
+in Liapin's house. A dreadful confusion ensued.
+Old women, seedy gentlefolk, peasants, children, all
+crowded about the shop, stretching out their hands; I
+gave, and asked some of them about their position and
+means, and entered all in my note-book. The shopkeeper,
+having turned up the fur collar of his great-coat,
+was sitting like a statue, glancing now and then at the
+crowd, and again staring beyond it. He apparently felt
+like everyone else, that all this was very foolish, but he
+dared not say so.</p>
+
+<p>In Liapin's house the misery and humiliation of the
+people had overwhelmed me; and I felt myself to blame
+for it, and also the desire and the possibility of becoming
+a better man. But though the scene here was similar,
+it produced quite a different effect. In the first place, I
+felt angry with many of those who assailed me, and then
+anxious as to what the shopmen and the dvorniks might
+think of me. I returned home that day with a weight
+on my mind. I knew that what I had done was foolish
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_41" title="41"> </a>
+and inconsistent; but, as usual when my conscience was
+troubled, I talked the more about my projected plan, as
+if I had no doubt whatever as to its success.</p>
+
+<p>The next day I went alone to those whom I had noted
+down, and who seemed the most miserable, thinking they
+could be more easily helped than others.</p>
+
+<p>As I have already mentioned, I was not really able to
+help any of these people. It turned out that to do so was
+more difficult than I had imagined: in short, I only tormented
+these men and helped no one.</p>
+
+<p>Before the last visiting-tour I went several times to
+Rzhanoff's house, and each time the same thing occurred:
+I was assailed by a crowd of men and women in the midst
+of whom I utterly lost my presence of mind.</p>
+
+<p>I felt the impossibility of doing anything because there
+were so many of them; besides, each of them, taken
+separately, did not awaken any sympathy in me. I felt
+that every one lied, or at least prevaricated, and regarded
+me only as a purse out of which money could be drawn.
+It often seemed to me that the very money extorted from
+me did not improve their position but only made it worse.</p>
+
+<p>The oftener I went to these houses, the closer the intercourse
+which I had with the inmates, the more apparent
+became the impossibility of doing anything; but notwithstanding
+this, I did not give up my plan until after the
+last night tour with the census-takers.</p>
+
+<p>I feel more ashamed of this visit than of any other.
+Formerly I had gone alone, but now twenty of us went
+together. At seven o'clock all who wished to take part
+in this last tour began to assemble in my house. They
+were almost all strangers to me. Some students, an officer,
+and two of my fashionable acquaintances, who, after having
+repeated the usual phrase, &ldquo;C'est très intéressant!&rdquo;
+asked me to put them into the number of the census-takers.</p>
+
+<p>These fashionable friends of mine had dressed themselves
+in shooting-jackets and tall travelling boots, which
+they thought more suited to the visit than their ordinary
+clothes. They carried with them peculiar pocket-books
+and extraordinary-looking pencils. They were in that
+agitated state of mind which one experiences just before
+going to a hunt, or to a duel, or into a battle. The falseness
+and foolishness of our enterprise was now more
+apparent to me in looking at them; but were we not all
+in the same ridiculous position?</p>
+
+<p>Before starting we had a conference, somewhat like a
+council of war, as to what we should begin with, how to
+divide ourselves, and so on. This conference was just
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_42" title="42"> </a>
+like all other official councils, meetings, and committees:
+each spoke, not because he had anything to say, or to ask,
+but because every one tried to find something to say in
+order not to be behind the rest. But during the conversation
+no one alluded to the acts of benevolence to which
+I had so many times referred; and however much ashamed
+I felt, I found it was needful to remind them that we
+must carry out our charitable intentions by writing down,
+during the visiting-tour, the names of all whom we should
+find in a destitute condition.</p>
+
+<p>I had always felt ashamed to speak about these matters;
+but here, in the midst of our hurried preparations for
+the expedition, I could scarcely utter a word about them.
+All listened to me and seemed touched, all agreed with
+me in words; but it was evident that each of them knew
+that it was folly, and that it would lead to nothing, and
+so they began at once to talk about other subjects, and
+continued doing so until it was time for us to start.</p>
+
+<p>We came to the dark tavern, aroused the waiters, and
+began to sort out papers. When we were told that the
+people, having heard about this visiting-tour, had begun
+to leave their lodgings, we asked the landlord to shut the
+gate, and we ourselves went to the yard to persuade those
+to remain who wanted to escape, assuring them that no
+one would ask to see their passports.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the strange and painful impression produced
+upon me by these frightened night-lodgers. Ragged and
+half-dressed, they all appeared tall by the light of the
+lantern in the dark court-yard. Frightened and horrible
+in their terror, they stood in a small knot round the
+pestilential out-house, listening to our persuasions, but
+not believing us; and, evidently, like hunted animals,
+prepared to do anything to escape from us.</p>
+
+<p>Gentlemen of all kinds, town and country policemen,
+public coroner and judges, had, all their lives, been hunting
+them in towns and villages, on the roads and in the
+streets, in the taverns and in the lodging-houses, and
+suddenly these gentlemen had come at night and shut
+the gate, only, forsooth, in order to count them! They
+found this as difficult to believe as it would be for hares
+to believe that the dogs had come out not to catch but
+to count them.</p>
+
+<p>But the gates were shut, and the frightened night-lodgers
+returned to their places; and we, having separated into
+groups, began our visit. With me were my fashionable
+acquaintances and two students. Ványa, with a lantern,
+went before us in a great-coat and white trousers, and
+we followed. We entered lodgings well known to me.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_43" title="43"> </a>
+The place was familiar, some of the persons also; but
+the majority were new to me, and the spectacle was also
+a new and dreadful one,&mdash;still more dreadful than that
+which I had seen at Liapin's house. All the lodgings
+were filled, all the pallets occupied, and not only by one,
+but often by two persons. The sight was dreadful, because
+of the closeness with which these people were huddled
+together, and because of the indiscriminate commingling
+of men and women. Such of the latter as were not dead-drunk
+were sleeping with men. Many women with children
+slept with strange men on narrow beds.</p>
+
+<p>The spectacle was dreadful, owing to the misery, dirt,
+raggedness, and terror of these people; and chiefly because
+there were so many of them. One lodging, then another,
+then a third, a tenth, a twentieth, and so on, without end.
+And everywhere the same fearful stench, the same suffocating
+exhalation, the same confusion of sexes, men and
+women, drunk, or in a state of insensibility; the same
+terror, submissiveness, and guilt stamped on all faces,
+so that I felt deeply ashamed and grieved, as I had before
+at Liapin's. At last I understood that what I was about
+to do was disgusting, foolish, and therefore impossible;
+so I left off writing down their names and questioning
+them, knowing now that nothing would come of it.</p>
+
+<p>I felt deeply hurt.</p>
+
+<p>At Liapin's I had been like a man who sees a horrible
+wound on the body of another. He feels sorry for the
+man, ashamed of not having relieved him before, yet
+he can still hope to help the sufferer; but now I was like
+a doctor who comes with his own medicines to the patient,
+uncovers his wound only to mangle it, and to confess to
+himself that all he has done has been done in vain, and
+that his remedy is ineffectual.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">This</span> visit gave the last blow to my self-deception. It became
+very evident to me that my aim was not only
+foolish, but even productive of evil. Yet, though I
+knew this, it seemed my duty to continue the project a
+little longer: first, because of the article I had written and
+by my visits I had raised the expectations of the poor;
+secondly, because what I had said and written had
+awakened the sympathy of some benefactors, many of
+whom had promised to assist me personally and with
+money. And I was expecting to be applied to by both,
+and hoped to satisfy them as well as I was able.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_44" title="44"> </a>As regards the applications made to me by those who
+were in need, the following details may be given: I
+received more than a hundred letters, which came exclusively
+from the &ldquo;rich poor,&rdquo; if I may so express myself.
+Some of them I visited, and some I left unanswered. In
+no instance did I succeed in doing any good. All the
+applications made to me were from persons who were
+once in a privileged position (I call such persons privileged
+who receive more from others than they give in
+return), had lost that position, and were desirous of regaining
+it. One wanted two hundred rubles in order to
+keep his business from going to ruin, and to enable him
+to finish the education of his children; another wanted
+to have a photographic establishment; a third wanted
+money to pay his debts, and take his best clothes out
+of pawn; a fourth was in need of a piano, in order to
+perfect himself and to earn money to support his family
+by giving lessons. The majority did not name any particular
+sum of money: they simply asked for help; but
+when I began to investigate what was necessary, it turned
+out that their wants increased in proportion to the help
+offered, and nothing satisfactorily resulted. I repeat
+again, the fault may have been in my want of understanding;
+but in any case I helped no one, notwithstanding
+the fact that I made every effort to do so.</p>
+
+<p>As for the philanthropists who were to co-operate with
+me, something very strange and quite unexpected
+occurred: of all who promised to assist with money, and
+even stated the amount they would give, not one contributed
+anything for distribution among the poor.</p>
+
+<p>The promises of pecuniary assistance amounted to
+about three thousand rubles; but of all these people,
+not one recollected his agreement, or gave me a single
+kopek. The students alone gave the money which they
+received as payment for visiting, about twelve rubles;
+so that my scheme, which was to have collected tens of
+thousands of rubles from the rich, and to have saved
+hundreds and thousands of people from misery and vice,
+ended in my distributing at random some few rubles
+offered by the students, with twenty-five more sent me by
+the town-council for my labour as manager, which I
+positively did not know what to do with.</p>
+
+<p>So ended the affair.</p>
+
+<p>Then, before leaving Moscow for the country, on the
+Sunday before the Carnival, I went to the Rzhanoff house
+in the morning in order to distribute the thirty-seven
+rubles among the poor. I visited all whom I knew in the
+lodgings, but found only one invalid, to whom I gave
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_45" title="45"> </a>
+something,&mdash;five rubles, I think. There was nobody else
+to give to. Of course, many began to beg; but, as I did
+not know them, I made up my mind to take the advice
+of Iván Fedotitch, the tavern-keeper, respecting the distribution
+of the remaining thirty-two rubles.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first day of the carnival. Everybody was
+smartly dressed, all had had food, and many were drunk.
+In the yard near the corner of the house stood an old-clothes
+man, dressed in a ragged peasant's coat and bark
+shoes. He was still hale and hearty. Sorting his purchases,
+he was putting them into different heaps,&mdash;leather,
+iron, and other things,&mdash;and was singing a merry song at
+the top of his voice.</p>
+
+<p>I began to talk with him. He was seventy years of
+age; had no relatives; earned his living by dealing in
+old clothes, and not only did not complain, but said he
+had enough to eat, drink, and to spare. I asked him who
+in the place were particularly in want. He became cross,
+and said plainly that there was no one in want but
+drunkards and idlers; but on learning my object in asking,
+he begged me five kopeks for drink, and ran to the
+tavern for it.</p>
+
+<p>I also went to the tavern to see Iván Fedotitch, to ask
+him to distribute the money for me. It was full; gayly-dressed
+tipsy prostitutes were walking to and fro; all
+the tables were occupied; many people were already
+drunk; and in the small room someone was playing a
+harmonium, and two people were dancing. Iván Fedotitch,
+out of respect for me, ordered them to leave off,
+and sat down next me at a vacant table. I asked him, as
+he knew his lodgers well, to point out those most in
+want, as I was intrusted with a little money for distribution,
+and wished him to direct me. The kind-hearted
+man (he died a year after) gave me his attention for a
+time in order to oblige me, although he had to wait on
+his customers. He began to think it over, and was evidently
+puzzled. One old waiter had overheard us, and
+took his part in the conference.</p>
+
+<p>They began to go over his lodgers, some of whom were
+known to me, but they could not agree. &ldquo;Paramonovna,&rdquo;
+suggested the waiter.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well; yes, she does go hungry sometimes; but she
+drinks.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What difference does that make?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well, Spiridon Ivanovitch, he has children; that's
+the man for you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But Iván Fedotitch had doubts about Spiridon too.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_46" title="46"> </a>&ldquo;Akulina, but she has a pension. Ah, but there is the
+blind man!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>To him I myself objected: I had just seen him. This
+was an old man of eighty years of age, without any relatives.
+One could scarcely imagine any condition to be
+worse; and yet I had just seen him lying drunk on a
+feather bed, cursing at his comparatively young mistress
+in the most filthy language.</p>
+
+<p>They then named a one-armed boy and his mother. I
+saw that Iván Fedotitch was in great difficulty owing to
+his conscientiousness, for he knew that every thing given
+away by me would be spent at his tavern. But as I had
+to get rid of my thirty-two rubles, I insisted, and we
+managed somehow or other to distribute the money.
+Those who received it were mostly well-dressed, and we
+had not far to go to find them: they were all in the
+tavern. The one-armed boy came in top-boots and a red
+shirt and waistcoat.</p>
+
+<p>Thus ended all my benevolent enterprises; and I left
+for the country vexed with everyone, as it always happens
+when one does something foolish and harmful. Nothing
+came of it all, except the train of thoughts and feelings
+which it called forth in me, which not only did not cease,
+but doubly agitated my mind.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">What</span> did it all mean?</p>
+
+<p>I had lived in the country and had entered into relations
+with the country-poor. It is not out of false
+modesty, but that I may state the truth, which is necessary
+in order to understand the run of all my thoughts
+and feelings, that I must say that in the country I had
+done perhaps but little for the poor, the help which had
+been required of me was so small; but even the little I
+had done had been useful, and had formed round me an
+atmosphere of love and sympathy with my fellow-creatures,
+in the midst of whom it might yet be possible for
+me to quiet the gnawing of my conscience as to the unlawfulness
+of my life of luxury.</p>
+
+<p>On going to the city I had hoped for the same happy
+relations with the poor, but here things were upon quite
+another footing. In the city, poverty was at once less
+truthful, more exacting, and more bitter, than in the
+country. It was chiefly because there was so much more
+of it accumulated together, that it produced upon me a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_47" title="47"> </a>
+most harrowing impression. What I experienced at
+Liapin's house made my own luxurious life seem monstrously
+evil. I could not doubt the sincerity and strength
+of this conviction; yet, notwithstanding this, I was quite
+incapable of carrying out a revolution which demanded an
+entire change in my mode of life: I was frightened at
+the prospect, and so I resorted to compromises. I accepted
+what I was told by everyone, and what has been said
+by everybody since the world began,&mdash;that riches and
+luxury are in themselves no evil, that they are given by
+God, and that whilst continuing to live luxuriously it is
+possible to help those in need. I believed this and
+wanted to do so. And I wrote an article in which I
+called upon all rich people to help. These all admitted
+themselves morally obliged to agree with me, but evidently
+did not wish to do or give anything for the poor, or could
+not do so.</p>
+
+<p>I then began visiting, and discovered what I had in
+no way expected to see. On the one hand, I saw in these
+dens (as I had at first called them) men whom it was
+impossible for me to help, because they were working-men,
+accustomed to labour and privation, and therefore having
+a much firmer hold on life than I had. On the other hand,
+I saw miserable men whom I could not aid because they
+were just such as I was myself. The majority of the poor
+whom I saw were wretched, merely because they had lost
+the capacity, desire, and habit of earning their bread; in
+other words, their misery consisted in the fact that they
+were just like myself. Whereas, of poor people to whom
+it was possible to give immediate assistance&mdash;those suffering
+from illness, cold, and hunger,&mdash;I found none, except
+the starving Agafia; and I became persuaded that, being
+so far removed from the life of those whom I wished to
+succour, it was almost impossible to find such need as I
+sought, because all real need was attended to by those
+amongst whom these unhappy creatures lived: and my
+principal conviction now was, that, with money, I could
+never reform that life of misery which these people led.</p>
+
+<p>I was persuaded of this: yet a feeling of shame to leave
+off all I had begun, and self-deception as to my own
+virtues, made me continue my plan for some time longer
+till it died a natural death; thus, only with great difficulty
+and the help of Iván Fedotitch, I managed to distribute
+in the tavern at Rzhanoff's house the thirty-seven rubles
+which I considered were not my own.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I might have continued this style of thing
+and have transformed it into a kind of charity; and, by
+importuning those who promised to give me money, I
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_48" title="48"> </a>
+might have obtained and distributed more, thus comforting
+myself with the idea of my own excellence: but I
+became convinced on the one hand that we rich people do
+not wish,&mdash;and are also unable,&mdash;to distribute to the poor
+a portion of our superfluities (we have so many wants ourselves),
+and that money should not be given to any one
+if we really wish to do good, instead of merely distributing
+it at random as I had done in the Rzhanoff tavern. So I
+dropped the affair entirely and in despair quitted Moscow
+for my own village.</p>
+
+<p>I intended on returning home to write a pamphlet on
+my experience, and to state why my project had
+not succeeded. I wanted to justify myself from
+the imputations which resulted from my article on
+the census; I wanted also to denounce society
+and its heartless indifference; and I desired to point
+out the causes of this town misery, and the necessity
+for endeavouring to remedy it, as well as the means
+which I thought were requisite for this purpose. I began
+even then to write, and fancied I had many very important
+facts to communicate. But in vain did I rack my
+brain: I could not manage it, notwithstanding the super-abundance
+of material at my command, because of the
+irritation under which I wrote, and because I had not
+yet learned by experience what was necessary to grasp the
+question rightly; still more because I had not become
+fully conscious of the cause of it all,&mdash;a very simple
+cause, deep-rooted in myself. So the pamphlet was not
+finished at the commencement of the present year (1884&ndash;1885).</p>
+
+<p>In the matter of moral law we witness a strange
+phenomenon to which men pay too little attention. If I
+speak to an unlearned man about geology, astronomy,
+history, natural philosophy, or mathematics, he receives
+the information as quite new to him, and never says to me,
+&ldquo;There is nothing new in what you tell me; every one
+knows it, and I have known it for a long time.&rdquo; But
+tell a man one of the highest moral truths in the simplest
+manner, in such a way as it has never been before formulated,
+and every ordinary man, particularly one who
+does not take any interest in moral questions, and, above
+all, one who dislikes them, is sure to say, &ldquo;Who does not
+know that? It has been always known and expressed.&rdquo;
+And he really believes this. Only those who can appreciate
+moral truths know how to value their elucidation
+and simplification by a long and laborious process, or can
+prize the transition from a proposition or desire at first
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_49" title="49"> </a>
+vaguely understood to a firm and determined expression
+calling for a corresponding change of conduct.</p>
+
+<p>We are all accustomed to consider moral doctrine to
+be a very insipid and dull affair in which there can be
+nothing new or interesting; whereas, in reality, human
+life, with all its complicated and varied actions which
+seem to have no connection with morals,&mdash;political activity,
+activity in the sciences, in the arts, and in commerce,&mdash;has
+no other object than to elucidate moral truths more
+and more, and to confirm, simplify, and make them
+accessible to all.</p>
+
+<p>I recollect once while walking in a street in Moscow I
+saw a man come out and examine the flag-stones
+attentively; then, choosing one of them, he sat down by
+it and began to scrape and rub it vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is he doing with the pavement?&rdquo; I wondered;
+and, having come up close to him, I discovered he was a
+young man from a butcher's shop, and was sharpening
+his knife on the flag-stone. He was not thinking about
+the stones when examining them, and still less while doing
+his work; he was merely sharpening his knife. It was
+necessary for him to do so in order to cut the meat, but
+to me it seemed that he was doing something to the pavement.</p>
+
+<p>In the same way mankind seems to be occupied with
+commerce, treaties, wars, sciences, arts; and yet for
+them one thing only is important, and they do only that,&mdash;they
+are elucidating those moral laws by which they
+live.</p>
+
+<p>Moral laws are already in existence, and mankind has
+been and is merely re-discovering them: this elucidation
+appears to be unimportant and imperceptible to one who
+has no need of moral law, and who does not desire to live
+by it. Yet this is not only the chief but is the sole business
+of all men. The elucidation is imperceptible in the
+same way as the difference between a sharp knife and a
+blunt one is imperceptible. A knife remains a knife;
+and one who has not to cut anything with it will not
+notice its edge: but for one who understands that all
+his life depends more or less upon whether his knife is
+blunt or sharp, every improvement in sharpening it is
+important; and such a man knows that there must be
+no limit to this improvement, and that the knife is only
+really a knife when it is sharp, and when it cuts what it
+has to cut.</p>
+
+<p>The conviction of this truth flashed upon me when I
+began to write my pamphlet. Previously it seemed to
+me that I knew everything about my subject, that I had a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_50" title="50"> </a>
+thorough understanding of everything connected with
+those questions which had been awakened in me by the
+impressions made in Liapin's house and during the
+census; but when I tried to sum them up, and to put
+them on paper, it turned out that the knife would not
+cut, and had to be sharpened: so it is only now after
+three years that I feel my knife is sharp enough for me to
+cut out what I want. It is not that I have learned new
+things: my thoughts are still the same; but they were
+blunt formerly; they kept diverging in every direction;
+there was no edge to them; nor was anything brought,
+as it is now, to one central point, to one most simple and
+plain conclusion.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">I recollect</span> that during the whole time of my unsuccessful
+endeavours to help the unfortunate inhabitants of
+Moscow, I felt I was like a man trying to help others out
+of a bog, who was all the time stuck fast in it himself.
+Every effort made me feel the instability of the ground
+upon which I was standing. I felt that I myself was in
+this bog, but the acknowledgement did not help me to
+look more closely under my feet to find out the nature
+of the ground on which I stood: I kept looking for some
+external means to remedy the evil.</p>
+
+<p>I felt my life was a bad one, and that people ought
+not to live so; yet I did not come to the most natural
+and obvious conclusion: that I must first reform my own
+mode of life before I could have any conception of how
+to reform others. And so I began at the wrong end, as
+it were. I was living in town, and wished to improve
+the lives of the men there; but I soon became convinced
+that I had no power to do so; and then I began to ponder
+over the <em>nature</em> of town life and town misery.</p>
+
+<p>I said to myself over and over again, &ldquo;What is this
+town life and town misery? And why, while living in
+town, am I unable to help the town poor?&rdquo; The only
+reply I found was, that I was powerless to do anything for
+them, First, because there were too many collected together
+in one place; Secondly, because none of them were
+at all like those in the country. And again I asked myself,
+&ldquo;Why are there so many here, and in what do they
+differ from the country poor?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>To both these questions the answer was the same. The
+poor are numerous in towns because all who have nothing
+to subsist on in the country are collected there round the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_51" title="51"> </a>
+rich; and their peculiarity is due to the fact that they
+have all come into the towns from the country to get a
+living. (If there are any town poor born there, whose
+fathers and grandfathers were town born, these in their
+turn originally came there to get a living.) But what
+are we to understand by the expression, &ldquo;getting a living
+in town&rdquo;? There is something strange in the expression;
+it sounds like a joke when we reflect on its meaning. How
+is it that from the country,&mdash;i.e., from places where there
+are woods, meadows, corn and cattle, where the earth
+yields the treasures of fertility&mdash;men come away, to get
+a living in a place where there are none of these advantages,
+but only stones and dust? What then, do the
+words, &ldquo;getting a living in town,&rdquo; mean?</p>
+
+<p>Such a phrase is constantly used, both by the employed
+and their employers, as if it were quite clear and intelligible.
+I remember now all the hundreds and thousands
+of town people living well or ill with whom I had spoken
+about their object in coming here; and all of them, without
+exception, told me they had quitted their villages
+&ldquo;to get a living&rdquo;; that &ldquo;Moscow neither sows nor reaps,
+yet lives in wealth&rdquo;; that in Moscow there is abundance
+of everything; and that, therefore, in Moscow one may
+get the money which is needed in the country for corn,
+cottages, horses, and the other essentials of life.</p>
+
+<p>But, in fact, the country is the source of all wealth;
+there, only, are real riches,&mdash;corn, woods, horses, and
+everything necessary. Why go to towns, then, to get what
+is to be had in the country? And why should people
+carry away from the country into the towns the things
+that are necessary for country people,&mdash;flour, oats, horses,
+and cattle?</p>
+
+<p>Hundreds of times I have spoken thus with peasants
+who live in towns; and from my talks with them, and
+from my own observations, it became clear to me that
+the accumulation of country people in our cities is partly
+<em>necessary</em>, because they could not otherwise earn their
+livelihood, and partly voluntary, because they are attracted
+by the temptations of a town life.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that the circumstances of a peasant are such,
+that, in order to satisfy the pecuniary demands made on
+him in his village, he cannot do otherwise than sell that
+corn and cattle which he knows very well will be necessary
+for himself; and he is compelled, whether he will
+or not, to go to town to earn back what was his own.
+But it is also true that he is attracted to town by the
+charms of a comparatively easy way of getting money,
+and by the luxury of life there; and, under the pretext
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_52" title="52"> </a>
+of earning his living, he goes there in order to have easier
+work and better food, to drink tea three times a day, to
+dress himself smartly, and even to get drunk and lead a
+dissolute life.</p>
+
+<p>The cause is a simple one; for property passing from
+the hands of the agriculturalists into those of non-agriculturalists
+accumulates in towns. Observe towards autumn
+how much wealth is gathered together in the villages.
+Then come the demands of taxes, rents, recruiting; then
+the temptations of vodka, marriages, feasts, peddlers, and
+all sorts of other snares; so that in one way or other, this
+property, all in its various forms (sheep, calves, cows,
+horses, pigs, poultry, eggs, butter, hemp, flax, rye, oats,
+buckwheat, peas, hemp-seed, and flax-seed), passes into
+the hands of strangers, and is taken first to provincial
+towns, and thence to the capitals. A villager is compelled
+to dispose of all these things in order to satisfy the
+demands made upon him and the temptations offered him;
+and, having thus parted with his goods, he is left in want,
+and must follow where his wealth has been taken; and
+there he tries to earn back the money which is necessary
+for his most urgent needs at home; and so, being partly
+carried away by these temptations, he himself, along with
+others, makes use of the accumulated wealth.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere throughout Russia, and, I think, not only
+in Russia but all over the world, the same thing happens.
+The wealth of the country people who produce it passes
+into the hands of tradespeople, landowners, government
+officials, manufacturers. The men who receive this
+wealth want to enjoy it, and to enjoy it fully they must
+be in town.</p>
+
+<p>In the country, in the first place, it is difficult for the
+rich to gratify all their desires, owing to the inhabitants
+being scattered: you do not find there the shops, banks,
+restaurants, theatres, and various kinds of public amusements.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, another of the chief pleasures procured by
+wealth,&mdash;vanity, the desire to astonish, to make a display
+before others,&mdash;cannot be gratified in the country
+for the same reason: its inhabitants being too scattered.
+There is no one in the country to appreciate luxury;
+there is no one to astonish. There you may have what
+you like to embellish your dwelling,&mdash;pictures, bronze
+statues, all sorts of carriages, and fine toilets,&mdash;but there
+is nobody to look at them or to envy you. The peasants
+do not understand the value of all this, and cannot make
+head or tail of it. Thirdly, luxury in the country is even
+disagreeable to a man who has a conscience, and is an
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_53" title="53"> </a>
+anxiety to a timid person. One feels uneasy or ashamed
+at taking a milk bath, or in feeding puppies with milk,
+when there are children close by needing it; one feels
+the same in building pavilions and gardens among a
+people who live in cottages covered with stable litter, and
+who have no wood to burn.</p>
+
+<p>There is no one in the village to prevent the stupid,
+uneducated peasants from spoiling our comforts.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, rich people gather together in towns, and
+settle near those who, in similar positions, have similar
+desires. In towns, the enjoyment of luxuries is carefully
+protected by a numerous police. The principal inhabitants
+of towns are government officials, round whom
+all the rich people, master-workmen, and artisans have
+settled. There, a rich man has only to think about a
+thing, and he can get it. It is also more agreeable for
+him to live there, because he can gratify his vanity; there
+are people with whom he may try to compete in luxury,
+whom he may astonish or eclipse. But it is especially
+pleasant for a wealthy man to live in town, because,
+where his country life was uncomfortable, and even somewhat
+incongruous because of his luxury, in town, on the
+contrary, it would be uncomfortable for him <em>not</em> to live
+splendidly, as his equals in wealth do. What seemed out
+of place there, appears indispensable here.</p>
+
+<p>Rich people collect together in towns, and, under the
+protection of the authorities, enjoy peacefully all that has
+been brought there by the villagers. A countryman often
+cannot help going to town, where a ceaseless round of
+feasting is going on, where what has been procured from
+the peasants is being spent. He comes into the town to
+feed on those crumbs which fall from the tables of the
+rich; and partly by observing the careless, luxurious, and
+generally approved mode of living of these men, he begins
+to desire to order his own affairs in such a manner that
+he, too, may be able to work less and avail himself more
+of the labour of others. At last he decides to settle
+down in the neighbourhood of the wealthy, trying by
+every means in his power to get back from them what
+is necessary for him, and submitting to all the conditions
+which the rich enforce. These country people assist in gratifying
+all the fancies of the wealthy: they serve them in
+public baths, in taverns, as coachmen, and as prostitutes.
+They manufacture carriages, make toys and dresses, and
+little by little learn from their wealthy neighbours how to
+live like them, not by real labour, but by all sorts of
+tricks, squeezing out from others the money they have
+collected,&mdash;and so they become depraved, and are ruined.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_54" title="54"> </a>It is then this same population, depraved by the wealth
+of towns, which forms that city misery which I wished to
+relieve, but could not.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, if one only reflects on the condition of
+these country folk coming to town to earn money to buy
+bread or to pay taxes, and who see everywhere thousands
+of rubles squandered foolishly, and hundreds very easily
+earned while they have to earn their pence by the hardest
+of labour, one cannot but be astonished that there are still
+many such people at work, and that they do not all have
+recourse to a more easy way of getting money,&mdash;trading,
+begging, vice, cheating, and even robbery.</p>
+
+<p>It is only we who join in the ceaseless orgie going
+on in the towns who can get so accustomed to our own
+mode of life that it seems quite natural to us that one fine
+gentleman should occupy five large rooms heated with
+sufficient firewood to enable twenty families to warm
+their homes and cook their food with. To drive a short
+distance, we employ two thoroughbreds and two men;
+we cover our inlaid floors with carpets, and spend five or
+ten thousand rubles on a ball, or even twenty-five for a
+<ins title="Chistmas">Christmas</ins>-tree, and so on. Yet a man who needs ten
+rubles to buy bread for his family, or from whom his
+last sheep has been taken to meet a tax of seven rubles
+which he cannot save by the hardest of labour, cannot
+get accustomed to all this which we imagine must seem
+quite natural to the poor. There are even people <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">naĂŻve</i>
+enough to say that the poor are thankful to us because
+we feed them by living so luxuriously!</p>
+
+<p>But poor people do not lose their reasoning powers
+because they are poor: they reason quite in the same
+manner as we do. When we have heard that some one
+has lost a fortune at cards, or squandered ten or twenty
+thousand rubles, the first thought that comes into our
+minds is: &ldquo;How stupid and bad this man must be to
+have parted with such a large sum without any equivalent;
+and how well <em>I</em> could have employed this money
+for some building I have long wanted to get done, or for
+the improvement of my estate,&rdquo; and so on.</p>
+
+<p>The poor reason in the same way on seeing how
+foolishly we waste our wealth; all the more forcibly,
+because this money is needed, not to satisfy their <em>whims</em>,
+but for the chief necessaries of life, of which they are in
+want. We are greatly mistaken in thinking that the poor,
+while able to reason thus, still look on unconcernedly at
+the luxury around them.</p>
+
+<p>They have never acknowledged, and never will, that
+it is right for one man to be always idling, and for another
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_55" title="55"> </a>
+to be continually working. At first they are astonished
+and offended; then, looking closer into the question, they
+see that this state of things is acknowledged to be legal,
+and they themselves try to get rid of work, and to take
+part in the feasting. Some succeed in so doing, and
+acquire similar wanton habits; others, little by little,
+approach such a condition; others break down before they
+reach their object, and, having lost the habit of working,
+fill the night-houses and the haunts of vice.</p>
+
+<p>The year before last we took from the village a young
+peasant to be our butler's assistant. He could not agree
+with the footman, and was sent away; he entered the
+service of a merchant, pleased his masters, and now wears
+a watch and chain, and has smart boots.</p>
+
+<p>In his place we took another peasant, a married man.
+He turned out a drunkard, and lost money. We took a
+third: he began to drink, and, having drunk all he had,
+was for a long time in distress in a night-lodging-house.
+Our old cook took to drinking in the town, and fell ill.
+Last year a footman who used formerly to have fits of
+drunkenness, but who, while living in the village kept
+himself from it for five years, came to live in Moscow
+without his wife (who used to keep him in order), began
+again to drink, and ruined himself. A young boy of our
+village is living as butler's assistant at my brother's. His
+grandfather, a blind old man, came to me while I was living
+in the country, and asked me to persuade this grandson
+to send ten rubles for taxes, because, unless this
+were done, the cow would have to be sold.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;He keeps telling me that he has to dress himself
+respectably,&rdquo; said the old man. &ldquo;He got himself long
+boots, and that ought to be enough; but I actually believe
+he would like to buy a watch!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In these words the grandfather expressed what he felt
+was the utmost degree of extravagance. And this was
+really so; for the old man could not afford a drop of oil
+for his food during the whole of Lent, and his wood was
+spoilt because he had not the ruble and a quarter necessary
+for cutting it up. But the old man's irony turned
+out to be reality. His grandson came to me dressed in
+a fine black overcoat, and in long boots for which he had
+paid eight rubles. Recently he had got ten rubles from
+my brother, and spent them on his boots. And my
+children, who have known the boy from his infancy, told
+me that he really considers it necessary to buy a watch.
+He is a very good boy, but he considers that he will be
+laughed at for not having one.</p>
+
+<p>This year a housemaid, eighteen years of age, formed
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_56" title="56"> </a>
+an intimacy with the coachman, and was sent away. Our
+old nurse, to whom I related the case, reminded me of
+a girl whom I had quite forgotten. Ten years ago, during
+a short stay in Moscow, she formed an intimacy with
+a footman. She also was sent away, and drifted at last
+into a house of ill-fame, and died in a hospital before she
+was twenty years of age.</p>
+
+<p>We have only to look around us to become alarmed by
+the infection which (to say nothing of manufactories and
+workshops existing only to gratify our luxury) we directly,
+by our luxurious town life, spread among those very people
+whom we desire afterwards to help.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, having got at the root of that town misery which
+I was not able to alleviate, I saw that its first cause is in
+our taking from the villagers their necessaries and carrying
+them to town. The second cause is, that in those
+towns we avail ourselves of what we have gathered from
+the country, and, by our foolish luxury, tempt and deprave
+the peasants who follow us there in order to get back
+something of what we have taken from them in the country.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">From</span> another point of view than the one stated, I also
+came to the same conclusion. Recollecting my connection
+with the town-poor during this period, I saw that one
+cause which prevented me from helping them was their
+insincerity and falseness. They all considered me, not
+as an individual but merely as a means to an end. I felt
+I could not become intimate with them; I thought I did
+not perhaps understand how to do so; but without truthfulness,
+no help was possible. How can one help a man
+who does not tell all his circumstances? Formerly I
+accused the poor of this (it is so natural to accuse others),
+but one word spoken by a remarkable man, Sutaief, who
+was then on a visit at my house, cleared up the difficulty,
+and showed me wherein lay the cause of my failure.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that even then what he said made a deep
+impression on me; but I did not understand its full
+meaning until afterwards. It happened that while in the
+full ardour of my self-deception I was at my sister's house,
+Sutaief being also there; and my sister was questioning
+me about my work.</p>
+
+<p>I was relating it to her; and, as is always the case when
+one does not fully believe in one's own enterprises, I
+related with great enthusiasm, ardour, and at full length,
+all I had been doing, and all the possible results. I was
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_57" title="57"> </a>
+telling her how we should keep our eyes open to what
+went on in Moscow; how we should take care of orphans
+and old people; how we should afford means for impoverished
+villagers to return to their homes, and pave the way
+to reform the depraved. I explained, that, if we succeeded
+in our undertaking, there would not be in Moscow a single
+poor man who could not find help.</p>
+
+<p>My sister sympathized with me; and while speaking,
+I kept looking now and then at Sutaief; knowing his
+Christian life, and the importance attached by him to
+works of charity, I expected sympathy from him, and I
+spoke so that he might understand me; for, though I was
+addressing my sister, yet my conversation was really more
+directed to him.</p>
+
+<p>He sat immovable, dressed in his black-tanned-sheepskin
+coat, which he, like other peasants, wore in-doors as
+well as out. It seemed that he was not listening to us,
+but was thinking about something else. His small eyes
+gave no responding gleam, but seemed to be turned inwards.
+Having spoken out to my own satisfaction, I
+turned to him and asked him what he thought about it.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The whole thing is worthless,&rdquo; he replied.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;The plan is an empty one, and no good will come of
+it,&rdquo; he repeated with conviction.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But why will nothing come of it? Why is it a useless
+business, if we help thousands, or even hundreds, of
+unhappy ones? Is it a bad thing, according to the gospel,
+to clothe the naked, or to feed the hungry?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I know, I know; but what you are doing is not that.
+Is it possible to help thus? You are walking in the
+street; somebody asks you for a few kopeks; you give
+them to him. Is that charity? Do him some spiritual
+good; teach him. What you give him merely says,
+&lsquo;Leave me alone.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;No; but that is not what we were speaking of: we
+wish to become acquainted with the wants, and then to
+help by money and by deeds. We will try to find for the
+poor people some work to <ins title="do.">do.&rdquo;</ins></p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;That would be no way of helping them.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How then? must they be left to die of starvation and
+cold?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Why left to die? How many are there of them?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;How many?&rdquo; said I, thinking that he took the matter
+so lightly from not knowing the great number of these
+men; &ldquo;you are not aware, I dare say, that there are in
+Moscow about twenty thousand cold and hungry. And
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_58" title="58"> </a>
+then, think of those in St. Petersburg and other towns!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Twenty thousand! And how many households are
+there in Russia alone? Would they amount to a million?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Well; but what of that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What of that?&rdquo; said he, with animation, and his eyes
+sparkled. &ldquo;Let us unite them with ourselves; I am not
+rich myself, but will at once take two of them. Here is
+a fellow you settled in your kitchen; I asked him to go
+with me, but he refused. If there were ten times as many,
+we should take them all into our families. You one, I
+another. We shall work together; he will see how I
+work; he will learn how to live, and we shall eat out of
+one bowl, at one table; and they will hear a good word
+from me, and from you also. That is charity; but all
+this plan of yours is no good.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>These plain words made an impression upon me. I
+could not help recognizing that they were true. But it
+seemed to me then, that, notwithstanding the justice of
+what he said, my proposed plan might perhaps be useful
+also.</p>
+
+<p>But the longer I was occupied with this affair; and the
+closer my intercourse with the poor, the oftener I recollected
+these words and the greater meaning I found in them.</p>
+
+<p>I, indeed, go in an expensive fur coat, or drive in my
+own carriage to a man who is in want of boots: he sees
+my house which costs two hundred rubles a month, or he
+notices that I give away, without thinking, five rubles,
+only because of a caprice; he is then aware that if I give
+away rubles in such a manner, it is because I have accumulated
+so many that I have a lot to spare which I am
+not only never in the habit of giving to any one, but which
+I have taken away from others without compunction.
+What can he see in me but one of those persons who have
+become possessed of something which should belong to
+him? And what other feelings can he have towards me
+than the desire to get back as many as possible of these
+rubles which were taken by me from him and from others?</p>
+
+<p>I should like to become intimate with him, and complain
+that he is not sincere. But I am afraid to sit down
+upon his bed for fear of lice or some infectious disease;
+I am also afraid to let him come into my room; and when
+he comes to me half-dressed, he has to wait, if fortunate,
+in the entrance-hall, but oftener in the cold porch.
+And then I say that it is all his fault that I cannot become
+intimate with him, and that he is not sincere.</p>
+
+<p>Let the most hard-hearted man sit down to dine upon
+five courses among hungry people who have little or
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_59" title="59"> </a>
+nothing to eat except dry bread, and no one could have the
+heart to eat while these hungry people are around him
+licking their lips.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, before one can eat well when living among
+half-starved men, the first thing necessary is to hide ourselves
+from them, and to eat so that they may not see us.
+This is the very thing we do in the first place.</p>
+
+<p>I looked into our own mode of life without prejudice, and
+became aware that it was not by chance that closer intercourse
+with the poor is difficult for us, but that we ourselves
+are intentionally ordering our lives in such a way
+as to make this intercourse impossible. And not only
+this; but, on looking at our lives, or at the lives of rich
+people from without, I saw that all that is considered
+as the <em>happiness</em> of these lives consists in being separated
+as much as possible from the poor, or is in some way or
+other connected with this desired separation.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the entire aim of our lives, beginning with
+food, dress, dwelling and cleanliness, and ending with
+our education, consists in placing a gulf between us and
+them. And we spend nine-tenths of our wealth to erect
+impassable barriers in order to establish this distinction
+and separation.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing a man who has grown rich does is to
+leave off eating with others out of one bowl. He arranges
+plates for himself and his family, and separates himself
+from the kitchen and the servants. He feeds his servants
+well so that their mouths may not water, and he dines
+alone. But eating alone is dull. He invents whatever
+he can to improve his food, embellish his table; and the
+very manner of taking food, as at dinner-parties, becomes
+a matter of vanity and pride. His manner of eating his
+food is a means of separating himself from other people.
+For a rich man it is out of the question to invite a poor
+person to his table. One must know how to hand a lady
+to table, how to bow, how to sit, to eat, to use a finger-bowl,
+all of which the rich alone know how to do.</p>
+
+<p>The same holds good with dress.</p>
+
+<p>If a rich man wore ordinary dress,&mdash;a jacket, a fur
+coat, felt shoes, leather boots, an undercoat, trousers, a
+shirt,&mdash;he would require very little to cover his body and
+protect it from cold; and, having two fur coats, he could
+not help giving one away to somebody who had none.
+But the wealthy man begins with wearing clothes which
+consist of many separate parts, of use only on particular
+occasions, and therefore of no use to a poor man. The
+man of fashion must have evening dress-coats, waistcoats,
+frock-coats, patent-leather shoes; his wife must have
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_60" title="60"> </a>
+bodices, and dresses which, according to fashion, are made
+of many parts, high-heeled shoes, hunting and travelling
+jackets, and so on. All these articles can be useful only
+to people in a condition far removed from poverty.</p>
+
+<p>And thus dressing also becomes a means of isolation.
+Fashions make their appearance, and are among the chief
+things which separate the rich man from the poor one.</p>
+
+<p>The same thing shows itself more plainly still in our
+dwellings. In order that one person may occupy ten
+rooms we must manage so that he may not be seen by
+the people who are living by tens in one room.</p>
+
+<p>The richer a man is, the more difficult it is to get at
+him; the more footmen there are between him and people
+not rich, the more impossible it is for him to receive a
+poor guest, to let him walk on his carpets and sit on his
+satin-covered chairs.</p>
+
+<p>The same thing happens in travelling. A peasant who
+drives in a cart or on a carrier's sledge must be very hard-hearted
+if he refuses to give a pedestrian a lift; he has
+enough room, and can do it. But the richer the carriage
+is, the more impossible it is to put any one in it besides
+the owner. Some of the most elegant carriages are so
+narrow as to be termed &ldquo;<em>egotists</em>.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The same thing applies to all the modes of living expressed
+by the word &ldquo;cleanliness.&rdquo; Cleanliness! Who does not
+know human beings, especially women, who make a great
+virtue of cleanliness? Who does not know the various
+phrases of this cleanliness, which have no limit whatever
+when it is procured by the labour of others? Who among
+self-made men has not experienced in his own person the
+pains with which he carefully accustomed himself to this
+cleanliness, which illustrates the saying, &ldquo;White hands
+are fond of another's labour&rdquo;?</p>
+
+<p>To-day cleanliness consists in changing one's shirt daily;
+to-morrow it will be changed twice a day. At first, one
+has to wash one's hands and neck every day, then one will
+have to wash one's feet every day, and afterwards it will
+be the whole body, and in peculiar methods. A clean
+table-cloth serves for two days, then it is changed every
+day, and afterwards two table-cloths a day are used. To-day
+the footman is required to have clean hands; to-morrow
+he must wear gloves, and clean gloves, and he
+must hand the letters on a clean tray.</p>
+
+<p>There are no limits to this cleanliness, which is of
+no other use to anyone except to separate us, and to make
+our intercourse with others impossible while the cleanliness
+is obtained through the labour of others.</p>
+
+<p>Not only so, but when I had deeply reflected upon this,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_61" title="61"> </a>
+I came to the conclusion that what we term education is a
+similar thing. Language cannot deceive: it gives the
+right name to everything. The common people call education
+fashionable dress, smart conversation, white hands,
+and a certain degree of cleanliness. Of such a man they
+say, when distinguishing him from others, that he is an
+educated man.</p>
+
+<p>In a little higher circle men denote by education the
+same things, but add playing on the piano, the knowledge
+of French, good Russian spelling, and still greater
+cleanliness.</p>
+
+<p>In the still higher circle education consists of all this,
+with the addition of English, and a diploma from a high
+educational establishment, and a still greater degree of
+cleanliness. But in all these shades, education is in substance
+quite the same.</p>
+
+<p>It consists in those forms and various kinds of information
+which separate a man from his fellow-creatures. Its
+object is the same as that of cleanliness: to separate us
+from the crowd, in order that they, hungry and cold, may
+not see how we feast. But it is impossible to hide ourselves,
+and our efforts are seen through.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I became aware that the reason why it was impossible
+for us rich men to help the town poor was nothing
+more or less than the impossibility of our having closer
+intercourse with them, and that this barrier we ourselves
+create by our whole life and by all the uses we make of
+our wealth. I became persuaded that between us rich men
+and the poor there stood, erected by ourselves, a barrier
+of cleanliness and education which arose out of our
+wealth; and that, in order to be able to help them, we
+have first to break down this barrier and to render possible
+the realization of the means suggested by Sutaief: to take
+the poor into our respective homes. And so, as I have
+already said at the beginning of this chapter, I came to the
+same conclusion from a different point of view from that
+to which the train of thought about town misery had led
+me; viz., the cause of it all lay in our wealth.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">I began</span> again to analyze the matter from a third and
+purely personal point of view. Among the phenomena
+which particularly impressed me during my benevolent
+activity, there was one,&mdash;a very strange one,&mdash;which I
+could not understand for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever I happened, in the street or at home, to give
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_62" title="62"> </a>
+a poor person a trifling sum without entering into conversation
+with him, I saw on his face, or imagined I saw,
+an expression of pleasure and gratitude, and I myself
+experienced an agreeable feeling at this form of charity.
+I saw that I had done what was expected of me. But
+when I stopped and began to question the man about his
+past and present life, entering more or less into particulars,
+I felt it was impossible to give him 3 or 20 kopeks;
+and I always began to finger the money in my purse, and,
+not knowing how much to give, I always gave more under
+these circumstances; but, nevertheless, I saw that the
+poor man went away from me dissatisfied. When I
+entered into still closer intercourse with him, my doubts
+as to how much I should give increased; and, no matter
+what I gave, the recipient seemed more and more gloomy
+and dissatisfied.</p>
+
+<p>As a general rule, it always happens that if, upon nearer
+acquaintance with the poor man I gave him three rubles
+or even more, I always saw gloominess, dissatisfaction,
+even anger depicted on his face; and sometimes, after
+having received from me ten rubles, he has left me without
+even thanking me, as if I had offended him.</p>
+
+<p>In such cases I was always uncomfortable and ashamed,
+and felt myself guilty. When I watched the poor person
+during weeks, months, or years, helped him, expressed
+my views, and became intimate with him, then our intercourse
+became a torment, and I saw that the man despised
+me. And I felt that he was right in doing so. When in
+the street a beggar asks me, along with other passers-by,
+for three kopeks, and I give it him, then, in his estimation,
+I am a kind and good man who gives &ldquo;one of the
+threads which go to make the shirt of a naked one&rdquo;: he
+expects nothing more than a thread, and, if I give it, he
+sincerely blesses me.</p>
+
+<p>But if I stop and speak to him as man to man, show
+him that I wish to be more than a mere passer-by, and,
+<ins title="if as,">if, as</ins> it often happened, he shed tears in relating his misfortune,
+then he sees in me not merely a chance helper,
+but that which I wish him to see,&mdash;a kind man. If I am
+a kind man, my kindness cannot stop at twenty kopeks,
+or at ten rubles, or ten thousand. One cannot be a
+slightly kind man. Let us suppose that I give him much;
+that I put him straight, dress him, and set him on his
+legs so that he can help himself; but, from some reason
+or other, either from an accident or his own weakness,
+he again loses the great-coat and clothing and money I
+gave him, he is again hungry and cold, and he again
+comes to me, why should I refuse him assistance? For if
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_63" title="63"> </a>
+the cause of my benevolent activity was merely the attainment
+of some definite, material object, such as giving him
+so many rubles or a certain great-coat, then, having given
+them I could be easy in my mind; but the cause of my
+activity was not this: the cause of it was my desire to
+be a kind man&mdash;i.e., to see myself in everybody else.
+Everyone understands kindness in this way, and not otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore if such a man should spend in drink all
+you gave him twenty times over, and be again hungry
+and cold, then, if you are a benevolent man, you cannot
+help giving him more money, you can never leave off
+doing so while you have more than he has; but if you
+draw back, you show that all you did before was done
+not because you are benevolent, but because you wish to
+appear so to others and to him. And it was because I
+had to back out of such cases, and to cease to give, and
+thus to disown the good, that I felt a painful sense of
+shame.</p>
+
+<p>What was this feeling, then?</p>
+
+<p>I had experienced it in Liapin's house and in the
+country, and when I happened to give money or anything
+else to the <ins title="poor,,">poor,</ins> and in my adventures among the town
+people. One case which occurred lately reminded me
+of it forcibly, and led me to discover its cause.</p>
+
+<p>It happened in the country. I wanted twenty kopeks
+to give to a pilgrim. I sent my son to borrow it from
+somebody. He brought it to the man, and told me that
+he had borrowed it from the cook. Some days after,
+other pilgrims came, and I was again in need of twenty
+kopeks. I had a ruble. I recollected what I owed the
+cook, went into the kitchen, hoping that he would have
+some more coppers. I said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I owe you twenty kopeks: here is a ruble.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I had not yet done speaking when the cook called to
+his wife from the adjoining room: &ldquo;Parasha, take it,&rdquo;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking she had understood what I wanted, I gave
+her the ruble. I must tell you that the cook had been
+living at our house about a week, and I had seen his
+wife, but had never spoken to her. I merely wished to
+tell her to give me the change, when she briskly bowed
+herself over my hand and was about to kiss it, evidently
+thinking I was giving her the ruble. I stammered out
+something and left the kitchen. I felt ashamed, painfully
+ashamed, as I had not felt for a long time. I actually
+trembled, and felt that I was making a wry face;
+and, groaning with shame, I ran away from the kitchen.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_64" title="64"> </a>This feeling, which I fancied I had not deserved, and
+which came over me quite unexpectedly, impressed me
+particularly, because it was so long since I had felt anything
+like it and also because I fancied that I, an old man,
+had been living in a way I had no reason to be ashamed
+of.</p>
+
+<p>This surprised me greatly. I related the case to my
+family, to my acquaintances, and they all agreed that
+they also would have felt the same. And I began to reflect:
+Why is it that I felt so?</p>
+
+<p>The answer came from a case which had formerly
+occurred to me in Moscow. I reflected upon this case,
+and I understood the shame which I felt concerning the
+incident with the cook's wife, and all the sensations of
+shame I had experienced during my charitable activity
+in Moscow, and which I always feel when I happen to
+give anything beyond trifling alms to beggars and pilgrims,
+which I am accustomed to give, and which I consider
+not as charity, but as politeness and good breeding.
+If a man asks you for a light, you must light a match if
+you have it. If a man begs for three or twenty kopeks,
+or a few rubles, you must give if you have them. It is
+a question of politeness, not of charity.</p>
+
+<p>The following is the case I referred to. I have already
+spoken about the two peasants with whom I sawed wood
+three years ago. One Saturday evening, in the twilight,
+I was walking with them back to town. They were going
+to their master to receive their wages. On crossing the
+Dragomilor bridge we met an old man. He begged, and
+I gave him twenty kopeks. I gave, thinking what a good
+impression my alms would make upon Simon, with whom
+I had been speaking on religious questions.</p>
+
+<p>Simon, the peasant from VladĂ­mir, who had a wife
+and two children in Moscow, also stopped, turned up the
+lappet of his kaftan, and took out his purse; and, after
+having looked over his money, he picked out a three-kopek
+piece, gave it to the old man, and asked for two
+kopeks back. The old man showed him in his hand two
+three-kopek pieces and a single kopek. Simon looked at
+it, was about to take one kopek, but, changing his mind,
+took off his cap, crossed himself, and went away, leaving
+the old man the three-kopek piece.</p>
+
+<p>I was acquainted with all Simon's pecuniary circumstances.
+He had neither house nor other property. When
+he gave the old man the three kopeks, he possessed six
+rubles and fifty kopeks, which he had been saving up,
+and this was all the capital he had.</p>
+
+<p>My property amounted to about six hundred thousand
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_65" title="65"> </a>
+rubles. I had a wife and children, so also had Simon.
+He was younger than I, and had not so many children;
+but his children were young, and two of mine were grown-up
+men, old enough to work, so that our circumstances,
+independently of our property, were alike, though even
+in this respect I was better off than he.</p>
+
+<p>He gave three kopeks, I gave twenty. What was, then,
+the difference in our gifts? What should I have given in
+order to do as he had done? He had six hundred kopeks;
+out of these he gave one, and then another two. I had
+six hundred thousand rubles. In order to give as much
+as Simon gave, I ought to have given three thousand
+rubles, and asked the man to give me back two thousand;
+and, in the event of his not having change, to leave him
+these two also, cross myself, and go away calmly, conversing
+about how people live in the manufactories, and
+what is the price of liver in the Smolensk market.</p>
+
+<p>I thought about it at the time, but it was long before
+I was able to draw from this case the conclusion which
+inevitably follows from it. This conclusion appears to
+be so uncommon and strange, notwithstanding its mathematical
+accuracy, that it requires time to get accustomed
+to it. One is inclined to think there is some mistake,
+but there is none. It is only the terrible darkness of
+prejudice in which we live.</p>
+
+<p>This conclusion, when I arrived at it and recognized
+its inevitableness, explained to me the nature of my feelings
+of shame in the presence of the cook's wife, and
+before all the poor to whom I gave and still give money.
+Indeed, what is that money which I give to the poor,
+and which the cook's wife thought I was giving her?
+In the majority of cases it forms such a minute part of
+my income that it cannot be expressed in a fraction comprehensible
+to Simon or to a cook's wife,&mdash;it is in most
+cases a millionth part or thereabout. I give so little that
+my gift is not, and cannot be, a sacrifice to me: it is
+only a something with which I amuse myself when and
+how it pleases me. And this was indeed how my cook's
+wife had understood me. If I gave a stranger in the
+street a ruble or twenty kopeks, why should I not give
+her also a ruble? To her, such a distribution of money
+is the same thing as a gentleman throwing gingerbread
+nuts into a crowd. It is the amusement of people who
+possess much &ldquo;fool's money.&rdquo; I was ashamed, because
+the mistake of the cook's wife showed me plainly what
+ideas she and all poor people must have of me. &ldquo;He
+is throwing away &lsquo;fool's money&rsquo;&rdquo;; that is, money not
+earned by him.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_66" title="66"> </a>And, indeed, what is my money, and how did I come
+by it? One part of it I collected in the shape of rent
+for my land, which I had inherited from my father. The
+peasant sold his last sheep or cow in order to pay it.</p>
+
+<p>Another part of my money I received from the books
+I had written. If my books are harmful, and yet sell,
+they can only do so by some seductive attraction, and
+the money which I receive for them is badly earned
+money; but if my books are useful, the thing is still
+worse. I do not give them to people, but say, &ldquo;Give
+me so many rubles, and I will sell them to you.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As in the former case a peasant sells his last sheep,
+here a poor student or a teacher does it: each poor person
+who buys denies himself some necessary thing in order
+to give me this money. And now that I have gathered
+much of such money what am I to do with it? I take
+it to town, give it to the poor only when they satisfy all
+my fancies and come to town to clean pavements, lamps,
+or boots, to work for me in the factories, and so on.
+And with this money I draw from them all I can. I try
+to give them as little as I can and take from them as
+much as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Now, quite unexpectedly, I begin to share all this
+said money with these same poor persons for nothing;
+but not with everyone, only as fancy prompts me. And
+why should not every poor man expect that his turn
+might come to-day to be one of those with whom I amuse
+myself by giving them my &ldquo;fool's money&rdquo;?</p>
+
+<p>So everyone regards me as the cook's wife did.
+And I had gone about with the notion that this was
+charity,&mdash;this taking away thousands with one hand, and
+with the other throwing kopeks to those I select!</p>
+
+<p>No wonder I was ashamed. But before I can begin
+to do good I must leave off the evil and put myself in
+a position in which I should cease to cause it. But all
+my course of life is evil. If I were to give away a hundred
+thousand, I should not yet have put myself in a condition
+in which I could do good, because I have still five hundred
+thousand left.</p>
+
+<p>It is only when I possess nothing at all that I shall be
+able to do a little <ins title="good ;such">good; such</ins> as, for instance, the poor
+prostitute did who nursed a sick woman and her child
+for three days. Yet this seemed to me to be but so little!
+And <em>I</em> ventured to think of doing good! One thing only
+was true, which I at first felt on seeing the hungry and
+cold people outside Liapin's house,&mdash;that <em>I</em> was guilty
+of that; and that to live as I did was impossible, utterly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_67" title="67"> </a>
+impossible. What shall we do then? If somebody still
+needs an answer to this question, I will, by God's permission,
+give one, in detail.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">It</span> was hard for me to own this; but when I had got so
+far I was terrified at the delusion in which I had been
+living. I had been head over ears in the mud myself, and
+yet I had been trying to drag others out of it.</p>
+
+<p>What is it that I really want? I want to do good; I
+want to contrive so that no human beings shall be
+hungry and cold, and that men may live as it is proper
+for them to live. I desire this; and I see that in consequence
+of all sorts of violence, extortions, and various
+expedients in which I too take part, the working people
+are deprived of the necessary things, and the non-working
+community, to whom I also belong, monopolize the labour
+of others. I see that this use of other people's labour is
+distributed thus: That the more cunning and complicated
+the devices employed by the man himself (or by
+those from whom he has inherited his property), the more
+largely he employs the labours of other people, and the
+less he works himself.</p>
+
+<p>First come the millionaires; then the wealthy bankers,
+merchants, land-owners, government officials; then the
+smaller bankers, merchants, government officials and land-owners,
+to whom I belong too; then shopmen, publicans,
+usurers, police sergeants and inspectors, teachers, sacristans,
+clerks; then, again, house-porters, footmen, coachmen,
+water-carters, cabmen, pedlers; and then, last of
+all, the workmen, factory hands and peasants, the number
+of this class in proportion to the former being as ten to one.</p>
+
+<p>I see that the lives of nine-tenths of the working people
+essentially require exertion and labour, like every other
+natural mode of living; but that, in consequence of the
+devices by which the necessaries of life are taken away
+from these people, their lives become every year more
+difficult, and more beset with privations; and our lives,
+the lives of the non-labouring community, owing to the
+co-operation of sciences and arts which have this very
+end in view, become every year more sumptuous, more
+attractive and secure.</p>
+
+<p>I see that in our days the life of a labouring man,
+and especially the lives of the old people, women, and
+children of the working-classes, are quite worn away by
+increased labour out of proportion to their nourishment,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_68" title="68"> </a>
+and that even the very first necessaries of life are not
+secured for them. I see that side by side with these the
+lives of the non-labouring class, to which I belong, are
+each year more and more filled up with superfluities and
+luxury, and are becoming continually more secure. The
+lives of the wealthy have reached that degree of security
+of which in olden times men only dreamed in fairy-tales,
+to the condition of the owner of the magic purse with the
+&ldquo;inexhaustible ruble&rdquo;; to a state where a man not only
+is entirely free from the law of labour for the sustenance
+of his life, but has the possibility of enjoying all the goods
+of this life without working, and of bequeathing to his
+children, or to anyone he chooses, this purse with the
+&ldquo;inexhaustible ruble.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I see that the results of the labour of men pass over
+more than ever from the masses of labourers to those of
+the non-labourers; that the pyramid of the social structure
+is, as it were, being rebuilt, so that the stones of
+the foundation pass to the top, and the rapidity of this
+passage increases in a kind of geometric progression.</p>
+
+<p>I see that there is going on something like what would
+take place in <ins title="a">an</ins> ant-hill if the society of ants should lose
+the sense of the general law, and some of them were to
+take the results of labour out of the foundations and carry
+them to the top of the hill, making the foundation narrower
+and narrower and thus enlarging the top, and so by that
+means cause their fellows to pass also from the foundation
+to the top.</p>
+
+<p>I see that instead of the ideal of a laborious life, men
+have created the ideal of the purse with the &ldquo;inexhaustible
+ruble.&rdquo; The rich, I among their number,
+arrange this ruble for themselves by various devices; and
+in order to enjoy it we locate ourselves in towns, in a
+place where nothing is produced but everything is swallowed
+up.</p>
+
+<p>The poor labouring man, swindled so that the rich may
+have this magic ruble, follows them to town; and there
+he also has recourse to tricks, either arranging matters
+so that he may work little and enjoy much (thus making
+the condition of other workingmen still more heavy), or,
+not having attained this state, he ruins himself and drifts
+into the continually and rapidly increasing number of cold
+and hungry tenants of doss-houses.</p>
+
+<p>I belong to the class of those men who by means of
+these various devices take away from the working people
+the necessaries of life, and who thus, as it were, create
+for themselves the inexhaustible fairy ruble which tempts
+in turn these unfortunate ones.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_69" title="69"> </a>I wish to help men; and therefore it is clear that first
+of all I ought on the one side to cease to plunder them
+as I am doing now, and on the other to leave off tempting
+them. But by means of most complicated, cunning,
+and wicked contrivances practised for centuries, I have
+made myself the owner of this ruble; that is, have got
+into a condition where, never doing anything myself, I
+can compel hundreds and thousands of people to work for
+me, and I am really availing myself of this privileged
+monopoly notwithstanding that all the time I imagine I
+pity these men and wish to help them.</p>
+
+<p>I sit on the neck of a man, and having quite crushed
+him down compel him to carry me and will not alight from
+off his shoulders, though I assure myself and others that
+I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his condition
+by every means in my power&mdash;except by getting off his
+back.</p>
+
+<p>Surely this is plain. If I wish to help the poor, that
+is, to make the poor cease to be poor, I ought not to create
+the poor. Yet I give money capriciously to those who
+have gone astray, and take away tens of rubles from men
+who have not yet become bad, thereby making them poor
+and at the same time depraved.</p>
+
+<p>This is very clear; but it was exceedingly difficult for
+me to understand at first, without some modification or
+reserve which would justify my position. However as
+soon as I come to see my own error, all that formerly appeared
+strange, complicated, clouded, and inexplicable,
+became quite simple and intelligible; but the important
+matter was, that the direction of my life indicated by this
+explanation, became at once, simple, clear, and agreeable,
+instead of being, as formerly, intricate, <ins title="incomprehensible">incomprehensible,</ins>
+and painful.</p>
+
+<p>Who am I, I thought, that desire to better men's condition?
+I say I desire this, and yet I do not get up till
+noon, after having played cards in a brilliantly lighted
+saloon all night,&mdash;I, an enfeebled and effeminate man requiring
+the help and services of hundreds of people, I
+come to help them! to help these men who rise at five,
+sleep on boards, feed on cabbage and bread, understand
+how to plough, to reap, to put a handle to an axe, to hew,
+to harness horses, to sew; men who, by their strength
+and perseverance and skill and self-restraint are a hundred
+times stronger than I who come to help them.</p>
+
+<p>What <em>could</em> I experience in my intercourse with these
+people but shame? The weakest of them, a drunkard, an
+inhabitant of Rzhanoff's house, he whom they call &ldquo;the
+sluggard,&rdquo; is a hundred times more laborious than I;
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_70" title="70"> </a>
+his balance, so to say,&mdash;in other words the relation
+between what he takes from men and what he gives to
+them,&mdash;is a thousand times more to his credit than mine
+when I count what I receive from others and what I give
+them in return. And such men I go to assist!</p>
+
+<p>I go to help the poor. But of the two who is the
+poorer? No one is poorer than myself. I am a weak,
+good-for-nothing parasite who can only exist under very
+peculiar conditions, can live only when thousands of
+people labour to support this life which is not useful to
+anyone. And I, this very caterpillar which eats up the
+leaves of a tree, I wish to help the growth and the health
+of the tree and to cure it!</p>
+
+<p>All my life is spent thus: I eat, talk, and listen; then
+I eat, write, or read, which are only talking and listening
+in another form; I eat again, and play; then eat, talk,
+and listen, and finally eat and go to sleep: and thus every
+day is spent; I neither do anything else nor understand
+how to do it. And in order that I may enjoy this life it
+is necessary that from morning till night house-porters,
+dvorniks, cooks (male and female), footmen, coachmen,
+and laundresses, should work; to say nothing of the
+manual labour necessary so that the coachmen, cooks,
+footmen, and others may have the instruments and articles
+by which and upon which they work for me,&mdash;axes, casks,
+brushes, dishes, furniture, glasses, shoe-black, kerosene,
+hay, wood, and food. All these men and women work
+hard all the day and every day in order that I may talk,
+eat, and sleep. And I, this useless man, imagined I was
+able to benefit the very people who were serving me!
+That I did not benefit any one and that I was ashamed of
+myself, is not so strange as the fact that such a foolish
+idea ever came into my mind.</p>
+
+<p>The woman who nursed the sick old man helped him;
+the peasant's wife, who cut a slice of her bread earned
+by herself, from the very sowing of the corn that made it,
+helped the hungry one; Simon, who gave three kopeks
+which he had earned, assisted the pilgrim, because these
+three kopeks really represented his labour; but I had
+served nobody, worked for no one, and knew very well
+that my money did not represent my labour.</p>
+
+<p>And so I felt that in money, or in money's worth, and
+in the possession of it, there was something wrong and
+evil; that the money itself, and the fact of my having it,
+was one of the chief causes of those evils which I had
+seen before me; and I asked myself, What is money?</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_71" title="71"> </a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Money!</span> Then what is money?</p>
+
+<p>It is answered, money represents labour. I meet educated
+people who even assert that money represents labour
+performed by those who possess it. I confess that I myself
+formerly shared this opinion, although I did not very
+clearly understand it. But now it became necessary for
+me to learn thoroughly what money is.</p>
+
+<p>In order to do so, I addressed myself to science.
+Science says that money in itself is neither unjust nor
+pernicious; that money is the natural result of the conditions
+of social life, and is indispensable, first, for convenience
+of exchange; secondly, as a measure of value;
+thirdly, for saving; and fourthly, for payments.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that when I have in my pocket three rubles to
+spare, which I am not in need of, I have only to whistle
+and in every civilized town I can obtain a hundred people
+ready for these three rubles to do the worst, most disgusting,
+and humiliating act I require, it is said, comes not
+from money, but from the very complicated conditions of
+the economical life of nations!</p>
+
+<p>The dominion of one man over others does not come
+from money, but from the circumstance that a workingman
+does not receive the full value of his labour; and
+the fact that he does not get the full value of his labour
+depends upon the nature of capital, rent, and wages, and
+upon complicated connections between the distribution and
+consumption of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>In plain language, it means that people who have money
+may twist round their finger those who have none. But
+science says that this is an illusion; that in every kind of
+production three factors take part,&mdash;land, savings of
+labour (capital), and labour, and that the dominion of the
+few over the many proceeds from the various connections
+between these factors of production, because the two first
+factors, land and capital, are not in the hands of working
+people; and from this fact and from the various combinations
+which result from it this domination proceeds.</p>
+
+<p>Whence comes the great power of money, which strikes
+us all with a sense of its injustice and cruelty? Why is
+one man, by the means of money, to have dominion over
+others? Science says, &ldquo;It comes from the division of the
+factors of production, and from the consequent combinations
+which oppress the worker.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This answer has always appeared to me to be strange,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_72" title="72"> </a>
+not only because it leaves one part of the question unnoticed
+(namely, the significance of money), but also because
+of the division of the factors of production, which
+to an unprejudiced man will always appear artificial and
+out of touch with reality. Science asserts that in every
+production three agents come into operation,&mdash;land,
+capital and labour; and along with this division it is
+understood that property (or its value in money) is naturally
+divided among those who possess one of these agents;
+thus, rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the <ins title="land.owner">land-owner</ins>;
+interest belongs to the capitalist; and wages to
+the worker.</p>
+
+<p>Is this really so?</p>
+
+<p>First, is it true that in every production only three
+agencies operate? Now, while I am writing proceeds the
+production of hay around me. Of what is this production
+composed? I am told of the land which produces
+the grass; of capital (scythes, rakes, pitch-forks, carts
+which are necessary for the housing of the hay); and of
+labour. But I see that this is not true. Besides the land,
+there is the sun and rain; and, in addition, social order,
+which has been keeping these meadows from any damage
+which might be caused by letting stray cattle graze upon
+them, the skill of workmen, their knowledge of language,
+and many other agencies of production,&mdash;which, for some
+unknown reason, are not taken into consideration by
+political economy.</p>
+
+<p>The power of the sun is as necessary as the land, even
+more. I may mention the instances when men (in a town,
+for example), assume the right to keep out the sun from
+others by means of walls or trees. Why, then, is the sun
+not included among the factors of production?</p>
+
+<p>Rain is another means as necessary as the ground itself.
+The air too. I can imagine men without water and pure
+air because other men had assumed to themselves the right
+to monopolise these essential necessaries of all. Public
+security is likewise a necessary element. Food and dress
+for workmen are similar factors in production; this is
+even recognized by some economists. Education, the
+knowledge of language which creates the possibility to
+apply work, is likewise an agent. I could fill a volume
+by enumerating such combinations, not mentioned by
+science.</p>
+
+<p>Why, then, are three only to be chosen, and laid as a
+foundation for the science of political economy? Sunshine
+and water equally with the earth are factors in production,
+so with the food and clothes of the workers, and the
+transmission of knowledge. All may be taken as distinct
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_73" title="73"> </a>
+factors in production. Simply because the right of men
+to enjoy the rays of the sun, rain, food, language, and
+audience, are challenged only on rare occasions; but the
+use of land and of the instruments of labour are constantly
+challenged in society.</p>
+
+<p>This is the true foundation; and the division of the
+factors of production into three, is quite arbitrary, and
+is not involved in the nature of things. But it may perhaps
+be urged that this division is so suitable to man,
+that wherever economic relationships are formed these
+three factors appear at once and alone.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see whether this is really so.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, I look at what is around me,&mdash;at Russian
+colonists, of whom millions have for ages existed. They
+come to a land, settle themselves on it, and begin to
+work; and it does not enter the mind of any of them that
+a man who does not use the land can have any claim to
+it,&mdash;and the land does not assert any rights of its own.
+On the contrary, the colonists conscientiously recognize
+the communism of the land and the right of every one of
+them to plough and to mow wherever he likes.</p>
+
+<p>For cultivation, for gardening, for building houses, the
+colonists obtain various implements of labour: nor does
+it enter the mind of any of them that these instruments
+of labour may be allowed to bring profit in themselves,
+and the capital does not assert any rights of its own. On
+the contrary, the colonists consciously recognize among
+themselves that all interest for tools, or borrowed corn or
+capital, is unjust.</p>
+
+<p>They work upon a free land, labour with their own tools,
+or with those borrowed without interest, each for himself,
+or all together, for common business; and in such a community,
+it is impossible to prove either the existence of
+rent, interest accruing from capital, or remuneration for
+labour.</p>
+
+<p>In referring to such a community I am not indulging
+my fancy but describing what has always taken place, not
+only among Russian colonists, but everywhere, as long
+as human nature is not sinned against.</p>
+
+<p>I am describing what appears to everyone to be natural
+and rational. Men settle on land, and each member
+undertakes the business which suits him, and, having
+procured the necessary tools, does his own work.</p>
+
+<p>If these men find it more convenient to work together,
+they form a workmen's association. But neither
+in separate households, nor in associations, will separate
+agents of production appear till men artificially and
+forcibly divide them. There will be simply labour and the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_74" title="74"> </a>
+necessary conditions of labour,&mdash;the sun which warms
+all, the air which they breathe, water which they drink,
+land on which they labour, clothes on the body, food in
+the stomach, stakes, shovels, ploughs, machines with
+which they work. And it is evident that neither the rays
+of the sun, nor the clothes on the body, nor the stakes,
+nor the spade, nor the plough, with which each man
+works, nor the machines with which they labour in the
+workmen's association, can belong to anyone else than
+those who enjoy the rays of the sun, breathe the air, drink
+the water, eat the bread, clothe their bodies, and labour
+with the spade or with the machines, because all these
+are necessary only for those who use them. And when
+men act thus, we see they act rationally.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, observing all the economic conditions created
+among men, I do not see that division into three is natural.
+I see, on the contrary, that it is neither natural nor
+rational.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps the setting apart of these three does not
+occur in primitive societies, only when the population increases
+and cultivation begins to develop it is unavoidable.
+And we cannot but recognise the fact that this
+division has occurred in European society.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see whether it is really so.</p>
+
+<p>We are told that in European society this division of
+agencies has been; that is, that one man possesses land,
+another accomplished the instruments of labour, and the
+third is without land and instruments.</p>
+
+<p>We have grown so accustomed to this assertion that
+we are no longer struck by the strangeness of it. But in
+this assertion lies an inner contradiction. The conception
+of a labouring man, includes the land on which he lives
+and the tools with which he works. If he did not live on
+the land and had no tools he would not be a labourer. A
+workman deprived of land and tools never existed and
+never can exist. There cannot be a bootmaker without a
+house for his work built on land, without water, air, and
+tools to work with.</p>
+
+<p>If the peasant has no land, horse, water or scythe; if
+the bootmaker is without a house, water, or awl, then that
+means that some one has driven him from the ground,
+or taken it from him, and has cheated him out of his
+scythe, cart, horse, or awl; but it does not in any way
+mean that there can be country labourers without scythes
+or bootmakers without tools.</p>
+
+<p>As you cannot think of a fisherman on dry land without
+fishing implements, unless you imagine him driven
+away from the water by some one who has taken his
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_75" title="75"> </a>
+fishing implements from him; so also you cannot picture
+a workman without land on which to live, and without
+tools for his trade, unless somebody has driven him from
+the former, or robbed him of the latter.</p>
+
+<p>There may be men who are hunted from one place to
+another, and who, having been robbed, are compelled
+perforce to work for another man and make things necessary
+for themselves, but this does not mean that such is
+the nature of production. It means only that in such case,
+the natural conditions of production are violated.</p>
+
+<p>But if we are to consider as factors of production all
+of which a workman may be deprived by force, why not
+count among these the claim on the person of a slave?
+Why not count claims on the rain and the rays of the
+sun?</p>
+
+<p>One man might build a wall and so keep the sun from
+his neighbour; another might come who would turn the
+course of a river through his own pond and so contaminate
+its water; or claim a fellow-being as his own property.
+But none of these claims, although enforced by violence,
+can be recognised as a basis. It is therefore as wrong to
+accept the artificial rights to land and tools as separate
+factors in production, as to recognise as such the invented
+rights to use sunshine, air, water, or the person of another.</p>
+
+<p>There may be men who claim the land and the tools of a
+workman, as there were men who claimed the persons of
+others, and as there may be men who assert their rights
+to the exclusive use of the rays of the sun, or of water
+and air. There may be men who drive away a workman
+from place to place, taking from him by force the products
+of his labour as they are produced, and the very
+instruments of its production, who compel him to work,
+not for himself, but for his master, as in the factories;&mdash;all
+this is possible; but the conception of a workman
+without land and tools is still an impossibility, as much
+as that a man can willingly become the property of another,
+notwithstanding men have claimed other men for many
+generations.</p>
+
+<p>And as the claim of property in the person of another
+cannot deprive a slave of his innate right to seek his own
+welfare and not that of his master; so, too, the claim to
+the exclusive possession of land and the tools of others
+cannot deprive the labourer of his inherent rights as a man
+to live on the land and to work with his own tools, or
+with communal tools, as he thinks most useful for himself.</p>
+
+<p>All that science can say in examining the present
+economic question, is this: that in Europe certain claims
+to the land and the tools of workmen are made, in consequence
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_76" title="76"> </a>
+of which, for some of these workmen (but by no
+means for all of them), the proper conditions of production
+are violated, so that they are deprived of land and
+implements of labour and compelled to work with the
+tools of others. But it is certainly not established that
+this accidental violation of the law of production is the
+fundamental law itself.</p>
+
+<p>In saying that this separate consideration of the factors
+is the fundamental law of production, the economist is
+doing the very thing a zoölogist would do, if on seeing
+a great many siskins with their wings cut, and kept in
+little cages, he should assert that this was the essential
+condition of the life of birds, and that their life is composed
+of such conditions.</p>
+
+<p>However many siskins there may be, kept in paste-board
+houses, with their wings cut, a zoölogist cannot
+say that these, and a tiny pail of water running up rails,
+are the conditions of the birds' lives. And however
+great the number of workpeople there may be, driven
+from place to place, and deprived of their productions
+as well as their tools, the natural right of man to live
+on the land, and to work with his own tools, is essential
+to him, and so it will remain forever.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there are some who lay claim to the land
+and to the tools of workmen, just as in former ages there
+were some who laid claim to the persons of others; but
+there can be no real division of men into lords and
+slaves&mdash;as they wanted to establish in the ancient world&mdash;any
+more than there can be any real division in the agents
+of production (land and capital, etc.), as the economists
+are trying to establish.</p>
+
+<p>These unlawful claims on the liberty of other men,
+science calls &ldquo;the natural conditions of production.&rdquo;
+Instead of taking its fundamental principles from the
+natural properties of human societies, science took them
+from a special case; and desiring to justify this case, it
+recognized the right of some men to the land on which
+other men earn their living, and to the tools with which
+others again work; in other words, it recognized as a
+right something which had never existed, and cannot
+exist, and which is in itself a contradiction, because the
+claim of the man to the land on which he does not labour,
+is in essence nothing else than the right to use the land
+which he does not use; the claim on the tools of others
+is nothing else than the assumption of a right to work
+with implements with which a man does not work.</p>
+
+<p>Science, by dividing the factors of production, declares
+that the natural condition of a workman&mdash;that is, of a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_77" title="77"> </a>
+man in the true sense of the word&mdash;is the unnatural condition
+in which he lives at present, just as in ancient
+times, by the division of men into citizens and slaves, it
+was asserted that the unnatural condition of slavery was
+the natural condition of life.</p>
+
+<p>This very division, which science has accepted only
+for the purpose of justifying the existing injustice, and
+the recognition of this division as the foundation of all
+its inquiries, is responsible for the fact that science vainly
+tries to explain existing phenomena and, denying the
+clearest and plainest answers to the questions that arise,
+gives answers which have absolutely no meaning in them.</p>
+
+<p>The question of economic science is this: What is the
+cause of the fact that some <ins title="men">men,</ins> by means of money,
+acquire an imaginary right to land and capital, and may
+make slaves of those who have no money? The answer
+which presents itself to common sense is, that it is the
+result of money, the nature of which is to enslave men.</p>
+
+<p>But economic science denies this, and says: This
+arises, not from the nature of money, but from the fact
+that some men have land and capital, and others have
+neither.</p>
+
+<p>We ask: Why do persons who possess land and capital
+oppress those who possess neither? And we are
+answered: Because they possess land and capital.</p>
+
+<p>But this is just what we are inquiring about. Is not
+deprivation of land and tools enforced slavery? And
+the answer is like saying, &ldquo;A remedy is narcotic because
+its effects are narcotic.&rdquo; Life does not cease to put this
+essential question, and even science herself notices and
+tries to answer it, but does not succeed, because, starting
+from her own fundamental principles, she only turns
+herself round in a vicious circle.</p>
+
+<p>In order to give itself a satisfactory answer to the question,
+science must first of all deny that wrong division of the
+agents of production, and cease to acknowledge the result
+of the phenomena as being their cause; and she must
+seek, first the more obvious, and then the remoter, causes
+of those phenomena which constitute the matter
+questioned.</p>
+
+<p>Science must answer the question, Why are some men
+deprived of land and tools while others possess both? or,
+Why is it that lands and tools are taken from the people
+who labour on the land and work with the tools?</p>
+
+<p>And as soon as economic science puts this question to
+herself she will get new ideas which will transform all
+the previous ideas of sham science,&mdash;which has been
+moving in an unalterable circle of propositions,&mdash;that the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_78" title="78"> </a>
+miserable condition of the workers proceeds from the
+fact that they are miserable.</p>
+
+<p>To simple-minded persons it must seem unquestionable
+that the obvious reason of the oppression of some men
+by others is money. But science, denying this, says that
+money is only a medium of exchange, which has no connection
+with slavery of men.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see whether it is so or not.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">What</span> is the origin of money? What are the conditions
+under which nations always have money, and under what
+circumstances need nations not use money?</p>
+
+<p>There are small tribes in Africa, and one in Australia,
+who live as the Sknepies and the Drevlyans lived in olden
+times. These tribes lived by breeding cattle and cultivating
+gardens. We become acquainted with them at the
+dawn of history, and history begins by recording the
+fact that some invaders appear on the scene. And
+invaders always do the same thing: they take away from
+the aborigines everything they can take,&mdash;cattle, corn,
+and cloth; they even make prisoners, male and female,
+and carry them away.</p>
+
+<p>In a few years the invaders appear again, but the
+people have not yet got over the consequences of their
+first misfortunes, and there is scarcely anything to take
+from them; so the invaders invent new and better means
+of making use of their victims.</p>
+
+<p>These methods are very simple, and present themselves
+naturally to the mind of all men. The <em>first</em> is personal
+slavery. There is a drawback to this, because the invaders
+must take over the entire control and administration
+of the tribe, and feed all the slaves; hence, naturally,
+there appears the <em>second</em>. The people are left on
+their own land, but this becomes the recognized property
+of the invaders, who portion it out among the leading
+military men, by whose means the labour of the tribe is
+utilized and transferred to the conquerors.</p>
+
+<p>But this, too, has its drawback. It is inconvenient to
+have to oversee all the production of the conquered
+people, and thus the <em>third</em> means is introduced, as primitive
+as the two former; this is, the levying of a certain
+obligatory tax to be paid by the conquered at stated
+periods.</p>
+
+<p>The object of conquest is to take from the conquered
+the greatest possible amount of the product of their labour.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_79" title="79"> </a>
+It is evident, that, in order to do this, the conquerors
+must take the articles which are the most valuable to
+the conquered, and which at the same time are not cumbersome,
+and are convenient for keeping,&mdash;skins of
+animals, and gold.</p>
+
+<p>So the conquerors lay upon the family or the tribe
+a tax in these skins or gold, to be paid at fixed times; and
+thus, by means of this tribute, they utilize the labour of
+the conquered people in the most convenient way.</p>
+
+<p>When the skins and the gold have been taken from the
+original owners, they are compelled to sell all they have
+amongst themselves to obtain more gold and skins for
+their masters; that is, they have to sell their property
+and their labour.</p>
+
+<p>So it was in ancient times, in the Middle Ages, and so
+it occurs now. In the ancient world, where the subjugation
+of one people by another was frequent, personal
+slavery was the most widespread method of subjugation,
+and the centre of gravity in this compulsion, owing to
+the non-recognition of the equality of men. In the Middle
+Ages, feudalism&mdash;land-ownership and the servitude connected
+with it&mdash;partly takes the place of personal slavery,
+and the centre of compulsion is transferred from persons
+to land. In modern times, since the discovery of
+America, the development of commerce, and the influx
+of gold (which is accepted as a universal medium of exchange),
+the money tribute has become, with the increase
+of state power, the chief instrument for enslaving men,
+and upon this all economic relations are now based.</p>
+
+<p>In &ldquo;The Literary Miscellany&rdquo; there is an article by
+Professor Yanjoul in which he describes the recent history
+of the Fiji Islands. If I were trying to find the most
+pointed illustration of how in our day the compulsory
+money payment became the chief instrument in enslaving
+some men by others, I could not imagine anything more
+striking and convincing than this trustworthy history,&mdash;history
+based upon documents of facts which are of recent
+occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>In the South-Sea Islands, in Polynesia, lives a race
+called the Fiji. The group on which they live, says Professor
+Yanjoul, is composed of small islands, which altogether
+comprise about forty thousand square miles.
+Only half of these islands are inhabited, by a hundred
+and fifty thousand natives and fifteen hundred white men.
+The natives were reclaimed from savagery a long time
+ago, and were distinguished among the other natives of
+Polynesia by their intellectual capacities. They appear
+to be capable of labour and development, which they
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_80" title="80"> </a>
+proved by the fact that within a short period they became
+good workmen and cattle breeders.</p>
+
+<p>The inhabitants were well-to-do, but in the year 1859
+the condition of their state became desperate: the nation
+and its representative, Kakabo, were in need of money.
+This money, forty-five thousand dollars, was wanted as
+compensation or indemnification demanded of them by
+the United States of America for violence said to have
+been done by Fijis to some citizens of the American
+Republic.</p>
+
+<p>To collect this, the Americans sent a squadron, which
+unexpectedly seized some of the best islands under the
+pretext of guaranty, and threatened to bombard and ruin
+the towns if the indemnification were not paid over on
+a certain date to the representatives of America.</p>
+
+<p>The Americans were among the first colonists who came
+to the Fiji Islands with the missionaries. They chose
+and (under one pretext or another) took possession of the
+best pieces of land on the islands, and established there
+cotton and coffee plantations. They hired whole crowds
+of natives, binding them by contracts unknown to this
+half-civilized race, or they acted through special contractors
+and dealers of human merchandise.</p>
+
+<p>Misunderstandings between these master planters and
+the natives, whom they considered almost as slaves, were
+unavoidable, and it was some of these quarrels which
+served as a pretext for the American indemnification.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding their prosperity the Fijis had preserved
+almost up to that time the forms of the so-called natural
+economy which existed in Europe during the Middle
+Ages: money was scarcely in circulation among them,
+and their trade was almost exclusively on the barter
+basis,&mdash;one merchandise being exchanged for another,
+and the few social taxes and those of the state being paid
+in rural products. What could the Fijis and their King
+Kakabo do, when the Americans demanded forty-five
+thousand dollars under terrible threats in the event of
+nonpayment? To the Fijis the very figures seemed inconceivable,
+to say nothing of the money itself, which
+they had never seen in such large quantities. After deliberating
+with other chiefs, Kakabo made up his mind
+to apply to the Queen of England, at first merely asking
+her to take the islands under her protection, but afterwards
+requesting definite annexation.</p>
+
+<p>But the English regarded this request cautiously, and
+were in no hurry to assist the half-savage monarch out
+of his difficulty. Instead of giving a direct answer, they
+sent special commissioners to make inquiries about the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_81" title="81"> </a>
+Fiji Islands in 1860, in order to be able to decide whether
+it was worth while to annex them to the British Possessions,
+and to lay out money to satisfy the American
+claims.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile the American Government continued to
+insist upon payment, and as a pledge held in their <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">de
+facto</i> dominion some of the best parts, and, having looked
+closely into the national wealth, raised their former claim
+to ninety thousand dollars, threatening to increase it still
+more if Kakabo did not pay at once.</p>
+
+<p>Being thus pushed on every side, and knowing nothing
+of European means of credit accommodation, the poor
+king, acting on the advice of European colonists, began
+to try to raise money in Melbourne among the <ins title="mrechants">merchants</ins>,
+cost what it might, if even he should be obliged to yield
+his kingdom into private hands.</p>
+
+<p>So in consequence of his application a commercial
+society was formed in Melbourne. This joint-stock company,
+which took the name of the &ldquo;Polynesian Company,&rdquo;
+formed a treaty with the chiefs of the Fiji-Islanders
+on the most advantageous terms. It took over
+the debt to the American Government, pledging itself to
+pay it by several instalments; and for this the company
+received, according to the first treaty, one, and then two
+hundred thousand acres of the best land, selected by
+itself; perpetual immunity from all taxes and dues for
+all its factories, operations, and colonies, and the exclusive
+right for a long period to establish banks in the Fiji
+Islands, with the privilege of issuing unlimited notes.</p>
+
+<p>This treaty was definitely concluded in the year 1868,
+and there has appeared in the Fiji Islands, side by side
+with the local government, of which Kakabo is the head,
+another powerful authority,&mdash;a commercial organization,
+with large estates over all the islands, exercising a powerful
+influence upon the government.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time the wants of the government of Kakabo
+had been satisfied with a payment in local products, and
+a small custom tax on goods imported. But with the conclusion
+of the treaty and the formation of the influential
+&ldquo;Polynesian Company,&rdquo; the king's financial circumstances
+had changed.</p>
+
+<p>A considerable part of the best land in his dominion
+having passed into the hands of the company, his income
+from the land had therefore diminished; on the other
+hand the income from the custom taxes also diminished,
+because the company had obtained for itself the right to
+import and export all kinds of goods free of duties.</p>
+
+<p>The natives&mdash;ninety-nine per cent. of the population&mdash;had
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_82" title="82"> </a>
+never paid much in custom duties, as they bought
+scarcely any of the European productions except some
+stuffs and hardware; and now, from the freeing of custom
+duties of many well-to-do Europeans along with the Polynesian
+Company, the income of King Kakabo was reduced
+to <em>nil</em>, and he was obliged to take steps to resuscitate it
+if possible.</p>
+
+<p>He began to consult his white friends as to the best
+way to remedy the trouble, and they advised him to
+create the first direct tax in the country; and, in order,
+I suppose, to have less trouble about it, to make it in
+money. The tax was established in the form of a general
+poll-tax, amounting to one pound for every man, and to
+four shillings for every woman, throughout the islands.</p>
+
+<p>As I have already said, there still exists on the Fiji
+Islands a natural economy and a trade by barter. Very
+few natives possess money. Their wealth consists chiefly
+of raw products and cattle; whilst the new tax required
+the possession of considerable sums of money at fixed
+times.</p>
+
+<p>Up to that date a native had not been accustomed to
+any individual burden in the interests of his government,
+except personal obligations; all the taxes which had to be
+paid, were paid by the community or village to which he
+belonged, and from the common fields from which he
+received his principal income.</p>
+
+<p>One alternative was left to him,&mdash;to try to raise money
+from the European colonists; that is, to address himself
+either to the merchant or to the planter.</p>
+
+<p>To the first he was obliged to sell his productions on
+the merchant's own terms (because the tax-collector required
+money at a certain fixed date), or even to raise
+money by the sale of his expected harvest, which enabled
+the merchant to take iniquitous interest. Or he had to
+address himself to the planter, and sell him his labour;
+that is, to become his workman: but the wages on the
+Fiji Islands were very low (owing, I suppose, to the exceptionally
+great supply of labour); not exceeding a
+shilling a week for a grown-up man, or two pounds twelve
+shillings a year; and therefore, merely to be able to get
+the money necessary to pay his own tax, to say nothing
+of his family, a Fiji had to leave his house, his family,
+and his own land, often to go far away to another island,
+and enslave himself to the planter for at least half a year;
+even then there was the payment for his family, which
+he must provide by some other means.</p>
+
+<p>We can understand the result of such a state of affairs.
+From his hundred and fifty thousand subjects, Kakabo
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_83" title="83"> </a>
+collected only six thousand pounds; and so there began
+a forcible extortion of taxes, unknown till then, and a
+whole series of coercive measures.</p>
+
+<p>The local administration, formerly incorruptible, soon
+made common cause with the European planters, who
+began to have their own way with the country. For nonpayment
+of the taxes the Fijis were summoned to the
+court, and sentenced not only to pay the expenses but
+also to imprisonment for not less than six months. The
+prison really meant the plantations of the first white man
+who chose to pay the tax-money and the legal expenses
+of the offender. Thus the white settlers received cheap
+labour to any amount.</p>
+
+<p>At first this compulsory labour was fixed for not longer
+than half a year; but afterwards the bribed judges found
+it possible to pass sentence for eighteen months, and even
+then to renew the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>Very quickly, in the course of a few years, the picture
+of the social condition of the inhabitants of Fiji was quite
+changed.</p>
+
+<p>Whole districts, formerly flourishing, lost half of their
+population, and were greatly impoverished. All the male
+population, except the old and infirm, worked far away
+from their homes for European planters, to get money
+necessary for the taxes, or in consequence of the law
+court. The women on the Fiji Islands had scarcely ever
+worked in the fields, so that in the absence of the men,
+all the local farming was neglected and went to ruin.
+And in the course of a few years, half the population of
+Fiji had become the slaves of the colonists.</p>
+
+<p>To relieve their position the Fiji-Islanders again appealed
+to England. A new petition was got up, subscribed
+by many eminent persons and chiefs, praying to
+be annexed to England; and this was handed to the
+British consul. Meanwhile, England, thanks to her scientific
+expeditions, had time not only to investigate the
+affairs of the islands, but even to survey them, and duly
+to appreciate the natural riches of this fine corner of the
+globe.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to all these circumstances, the negotiations this
+time were crowned with full success; and in 1874, to the
+great dissatisfaction of the American planters, England
+officially took possession of the Fiji Islands, and added
+them to its colonies. Kakabo died, his heirs had a small
+pension assigned to them, and the administration of the
+islands was intrusted to Sir Hercules Robinson, the
+Governor of New South Wales. In the first year of its
+annexation the Fiji-Islanders had no self-government, but
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_84" title="84"> </a>
+were under the direction of Sir Hercules Robinson, who
+appointed an administrator.</p>
+
+<p>Taking the islands into their hands, the English Government
+had to undertake the difficult task of gratifying
+various expectations raised by them. The natives, of
+course, first of all expected the abolition of the hated poll-tax;
+one part of the white colonists (the Americans)
+looked with suspicion upon the British rule; and another
+part (those of English origin) expected all kinds of confirmations
+of their power over the natives,&mdash;permission
+to enclose the land, and so on. The English Government,
+however, proved itself equal to the task; and its
+first act was to abolish for ever the poll-tax, which had
+created the slavery of the natives in the interest of a few
+colonists.</p>
+
+<p>But here Sir Hercules Robinson had at once to face a
+difficult dilemma. It was necessary to abolish the poll-tax,
+which had made the Fijis seek the help of the English
+Government; but, at the same time, according to English
+colonial policy, the colonies had to support themselves;
+they had to find their own means for covering the expenses
+of the government. With the abolition of the poll-tax,
+all the incomes of the Fijis (from custom duties) did
+not amount to more than six thousand pounds, while the
+government expenses required at least seventy thousand
+a year.</p>
+
+<p>Having abolished the money tax, Sir Hercules Robinson
+now thought of a labour tax; but this did not yield
+the sum necessary to feed him and his assistants. Matters
+did not mend until a new governor had been appointed,&mdash;Gordon,&mdash;who,
+to get out of the inhabitants the money
+necessary to keep him and his officials, resolved not to
+demand money until it had come sufficiently into general
+circulation on the islands, but to take from the natives
+their products, and to sell them himself.</p>
+
+<p>This tragical episode in the lives of the Fijis is the
+clearest and best proof of the nature and true meaning
+of money in our time.</p>
+
+<p>In this illustration every essential is represented. The
+first fundamental condition of slavery,&mdash;the guns, threats,
+murders, and plunder,&mdash;and lastly, money, the means of
+subjugation which has supplanted all the others. That
+which in an historical sketch of economical development,
+has to be investigated during centuries, we have
+here, where all the forms of monetary violence have fully
+developed themselves, concentrated in a space of ten
+years.</p>
+
+<p>The drama begins thus: the American Government
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_85" title="85"> </a>
+sends ships with loaded guns to the shores of the islands,
+whose inhabitants they want to enslave. The pretext
+of this threat is monetary; but the beginning of the
+tragedy is the levelling of guns against all the inhabitants,&mdash;women,
+children, old people, and men,&mdash;though innocent
+of any crime. &ldquo;Your money or your life,&rdquo;&mdash;forty-five
+thousand dollars, then ninety thousand or slaughter.
+But the ninety thousand are not to be had. So now
+begins the second act: it is the postponement of a
+measure which would be bloody, terrible, and concentrated
+in a short period; and the substitution of a suffering
+less perceptible, which can be laid upon all, and
+will last longer. And the natives, with their representative,
+seek to substitute for the massacre a slavery of
+money. They borrow money, and the method at once
+begins to operate like a disciplined army. In five years
+the thing is done,&mdash;the men have not only lost their right
+to utilize their own land and their property, but also their
+liberty,&mdash;they have become slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Here begins act three. The situation is too painful,
+and the unfortunate ones are told they may change their
+master and become the slaves of another. Of freedom
+from the slavery brought about by the means of money
+there is not one thought. And the people call for another
+master, to whom they give themselves up, asking him to
+improve their condition. The English come, see that
+dominion over these islanders will give them the possibility
+of feeding their already too greatly multiplied parasites,
+and take possession of the islands and their inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>But it does not take them in the form of personal
+slaves, it does not take even the land, nor distribute it
+among its assistants. These old ways are not necessary
+now: only one thing is necessary,&mdash;taxes which must be
+large enough on the one hand to prevent the workingmen
+from freeing themselves from virtual slavery, and on
+the other hand, to feed luxuriously a great number of
+parasites. The inhabitants must pay seventy thousand
+pounds sterling annually,&mdash;that is the fundamental condition
+upon which England consents to free the Fijis
+from the American despotism, and this is just what was
+wanting for the final enslaving of the inhabitants. But
+it turns out that the Fiji-Islanders cannot under any
+circumstances pay these seventy thousand pounds in
+their present state. The claim is too great.</p>
+
+<p>The English temporarily modify it, and take a part of
+it out in natural products in order that in time, when
+money has come into circulation, they may receive the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_86" title="86"> </a>
+full sum. They do not behave like the former company,
+whose conduct we may liken to the first coming of savage
+invaders into an uncivilized land, when they want only
+to take as much as possible and then decamp; but
+England behaves like a more clear-sighted enslaver; she
+does not kill at one blow the goose with the golden eggs,
+but feeds her in order that she may continue to lay them.
+England at first relaxes the reins for her own interest
+that she may hold them tight forever afterwards, and so
+has brought the Fiji-Islanders into that state of permanent
+monetary thraldom in which all civilized European
+people now exist, and from which their chance of escape
+is not apparent.</p>
+
+<p>This <ins title="phenomena">phenomenon</ins> repeats itself in America, in China, in
+Central Asia; and it is the same in the history of the
+conquest of all nations.</p>
+
+<p>Money is an inoffensive means of exchange when it is
+not collected while loaded guns are directed from the sea-shore
+against the defenceless inhabitants. As soon as it
+is taken by the force of guns, the same thing must inevitably
+take place which occurred on the Fiji Islands, and
+has always and everywhere repeated itself.</p>
+
+<p>Men who consider it their lawful right to utilize the
+labour of others, will achieve their ends by the means
+of a forcible demand of a sum of money which will compel
+the oppressed to become the slaves of the oppressors.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, that will happen which occurred between
+the English and the Fijis,&mdash;the extortioners will
+always, in their demand for money, rather exceed the
+limit to which the amount of the sum required must rise,
+so that the enslaving may be earlier. They will
+respect this limit only while they have moral sense
+and sufficient money for themselves: they will overstep
+it when they lose their moral sense or even do not require
+funds.</p>
+
+<p>As for governments, they will always exceed this limit,&mdash;first,
+because for a government there exists no moral
+sense of justice; and secondly, because, as everyone
+knows, every government is always in the greatest want
+of money, through wars and the necessity of giving
+gratuities to their allies. All governments are insolvent,
+and involuntarily follow a maxim expressed by a Russian
+statesman of the eighteenth century,&mdash;that the peasant
+must be sheared of his wool lest it grow too long. All
+governments are hopelessly in debt, and this debt on an
+average (not taking in consideration its occasional diminution
+in England and America) is growing at a terrible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_87" title="87"> </a>
+rate. So also grow the budgets; that is, the necessity
+of struggling with other extortioners, and of giving presents
+to those who assist in extortion, and because of
+that grows the land rent.</p>
+
+<p>Wages do not increase, not because of the law of rent,
+but because taxes, collected with violence, exist, with
+the object of taking away from men their superfluities,
+so that they may be compelled to sell their labour to
+satisfy them,&mdash;utilizing their labour being the aim of
+raising the taxes.</p>
+
+<p>And their labour can only be utilized when, on a
+general average, the taxes required are more than the
+labourers are able to give without depriving themselves
+of all means of subsistence. The increase of wages would
+put an end to the possibility of slavery; and therefore,
+as long as violence exists, wages can never be increased.
+The simple and plain mode of action of some men towards
+others, political economists term <em>the iron law</em>; the instrument
+by which such action is performed, they call a
+medium of exchange; and money is this inoffensive
+medium of exchange necessary for men in their transactions
+with each other.</p>
+
+<p>Why is it, then, that, whenever there is no violent demand
+for money taxes, money in its true signification has
+never existed, and never can exist; but, as among the
+Fiji-Islanders, the Ph&oelig;nicians, the Kirghis, and generally
+among men who do not pay taxes, such as the
+Africans, there is either a direct exchange of produce,
+sheep, hides, skins, or accidental standards of value, such
+as shells?</p>
+
+<p>A definite kind of money, whatever it may be, always
+becomes not a means of exchange, but a means of ransoming
+from violence; and it begins to circulate among men
+only when a definite standard is compulsorily required
+from all.</p>
+
+<p>It is only then that everybody wants it equally, and
+only then does it receive any value.</p>
+
+<p>And further, it is not the thing that is most convenient
+for exchange that receives exchange value, but that which
+is required by the government. If gold is demanded, gold
+becomes valuable: if knuckle-bones were demanded, they,
+too, would become valuable. If it were not so, why,
+then, has the issue of this means of exchange always been
+the prerogative of the government? The Fiji-Islanders,
+for instance, have arranged among themselves their own
+means of exchange; well, then, let them be free to exchange
+what and how they like, and you, men possessing
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_88" title="88"> </a>
+power, or the means of violence, do not interfere with
+this exchange. But instead of this you coin money, and
+do not allow anyone else to coin it; or, as is the case
+with us, you merely print some notes, engraving upon
+them the heads of the tsars, sign them with a particular
+signature, and threaten to punish every falsification of
+them. Then you distribute this money to your assistants,
+and, under the name of duties and taxes, you
+require everybody to give you such money or such notes
+with such signatures, and so many of them, that a workman
+must give away all his labour in order to get these
+notes or coins; and then you want to convince us that
+this money is necessary for us as a means of exchange!</p>
+
+<p>Here are all men free, and none oppresses the others
+or keeps them in slavery; but money appears in society
+and immediately an iron law exists, in consequence of
+which rent increases and wages diminish to the minimum.</p>
+
+<p>That half (nay, more than half) of the Russian peasants,
+in order to pay direct and indirect taxes, voluntarily sell
+themselves as slaves to the land-owners or to manufacturers,
+does not at all signify (which is obvious); for the
+violent collection of the poll-taxes and indirect and land
+taxes, which have to be paid in money to the government
+and to its assistants (the landowners), <em>compels</em> the workman
+to be a slave to those who own money; but it means
+that this money, as a means of exchange, and an iron
+law, exist.</p>
+
+<p>Before the serfs were free, I could compel Iván to do
+any work; and if he refused to do it, I could send him
+to the police-sergeant, and the latter would give him the
+rod till he submitted. But if I compelled Iván to overwork
+himself, and did not give him either land or food,
+the matter would go up to the authorities, and I should
+have to answer for it.</p>
+
+<p>But now that men are free, I can compel Iván and
+Peter and Sidor to do every kind of work; and if they
+refuse I give them no money to pay taxes, and then they
+will be flogged till they submit: besides this, I may also
+make a German, a Frenchman, a Chinaman, and an
+Indian, work for me by that means, so that, if they do
+not submit, I shall not give them money to hire land,
+or to buy bread, because they have neither land nor
+bread. And if I make them overwork themselves, or
+kill them with excess of labour, nobody will say a word
+to me about it; and, moreover, if I have read books on
+political economy I shall be quite sure that all men are
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_89" title="89"> </a>
+free and that money does not create slavery!</p>
+
+<p>Our peasants have long known that with a ruble one
+can hurt more than with a stick. It is only political
+economists who cannot see it.</p>
+
+<p>To say that money does not create bondage, is the same
+as to have asserted, fifty years ago, that serfdom did not
+create slavery. Political economists say that money is
+an inoffensive medium of exchange, notwithstanding the
+fact that its possession enables one man to enslave
+another. Why, then, was it not said half a century ago
+that servitude was, in itself, an inoffensive medium of
+reciprocal services, notwithstanding the fact that no man
+could lawfully enslave another? Some give their manual
+labour, and the work of others consists in taking care of
+the physical and intellectual welfare of the slaves, and
+in superintending their efforts.</p>
+
+<p>And, I fancy, some really did say this.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">If</span> the object of this sham <ins title="pseudo&mdash;science">pseudo-science</ins> of Political
+Economy had not been the same as that of all other
+legal sciences,&mdash;the justification of coercion,&mdash;it could
+not have avoided noticing the strange phenomena that
+the distribution of wealth, the deprivation of some men
+of land and capital, and the enslavery of some men to
+others, depend upon money, and that it is only by means
+of money that some men utilize the labour of others,&mdash;in
+other words, enslave them.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat that a man who has money may buy up and
+monopolise all the corn and kill others by starvation,
+completely oppressing them, as it has frequently happened
+before our own eyes on a very large scale.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem then that we ought to examine the connection
+of these occurrences with money; but Political
+Science, with full assurance, asserts that money has no
+connection whatever with the matter.</p>
+
+<p>This science says, &ldquo;Money is as much an article of
+merchandise as anything else which contains the value
+of its production, only with this difference,&mdash;that this
+article of merchandise is chosen as the more convenient
+medium of exchange for establishing values, for saving,
+and for making payments. One man has made boots,
+another has grown wheat, the third has bred sheep; and
+now, in order to exchange more conveniently, they put
+money into circulation, which represents the equivalent
+of labour; and by this medium they exchange the soles
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_90" title="90"> </a>
+of boots for a loin of mutton, or ten pounds of flour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Students of this sham science are very fond of picturing
+to themselves such a state of affairs; but there has never
+been such a condition in the world. This idea about
+society is like the fancy about the primitive, prehistoric,
+perfect human state which the philosophers cherished;
+but such a state never existed.</p>
+
+<p>In all human societies where money has been used
+there has also been the oppression by the strong and the
+armed of the weak and the defenceless; and wherever
+there was oppression, there the standard of value, money,
+whatever it consisted of, cattle or hides, skin or metals,
+must have unavoidably lost its significance as a medium
+of exchange, and received the meaning of a ransom from
+<ins title="violence..">violence.</ins></p>
+
+<p>There is no doubt that money does possess the inoffensive
+properties which science enumerates; but it would
+have these properties only in a society in which there was
+no violence,&mdash;in an ideal state. But in such a society
+money would not be found as a general measure of value.
+In such a community, at the advent of violence, money
+would immediately lose its significance.</p>
+
+<p>In all societies known to us where money is used it
+receives the significance of a medium of exchange only
+because it serves as a means of violence. And its chief
+object is to act thus,&mdash;not as a mere medium. Where
+violence exists, money cannot be a true medium of exchange,
+because it is not a measure of value,&mdash;because, as
+soon as one man may take away from another the products
+of his labour, all measures of value are directly
+violated. If horses and cows, bred by one man, and
+violently taken away by others, were brought to a market,
+it is plain that the value of other horses and cows
+there, when brought into competition with stolen animals,
+would no longer correspond with the labour of breeding
+them. And the value of everything else would also
+change with this change, and so money could not determine
+values.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, if one man may acquire by force a cow or a
+horse or a house, he may by the same force acquire money
+itself, and with this money acquire all kinds of produce.
+If, then, money itself is acquired by violence, and spent
+to purchase products, money entirely loses its quality as
+a medium of exchange.</p>
+
+<p>The oppressor who takes money and gives it for the
+products of labour does not exchange anything, but
+obtains from labour all that he wants.</p>
+
+<p>But let us suppose that such an imaginary and impossible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_91" title="91"> </a>
+state of society really existed, in which money is
+in circulation, without the exercise of general violence,&mdash;silver
+or gold serving as a measure of value and as a
+medium of exchange. All the savings in such a society
+are expressed by money. There appears in this society
+an oppressor in the shape of a conqueror. Let us suppose
+that this oppressor claims the cows, horses, clothes,
+and the houses of the inhabitants; but, as it is not convenient
+for him to take possession of all this, he naturally
+thinks of taking that which represents among these
+men all kinds of values and is exchanged for everything,&mdash;money.
+And at once in this community, money receives,
+for the oppressor and his assistants, another signification,
+and its character as a medium of exchange
+therefore immediately ceases.</p>
+
+<p>The measure of the values will always depend on the
+pleasure of the oppressor. The articles most necessary
+to him, and for which he gives more money, are considered
+greater value, and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice versa</i>; so that, in a community
+exposed to violence, money at once receives its
+chief meaning,&mdash;it becomes a means of violence and a
+ransom from violence, and it retains, among the oppressed,
+its significance as a medium of exchange only
+so far as that is convenient to the oppressor.</p>
+
+<p>Let us picture the whole affair in a circle, thus:&mdash;The
+serfs supply their landlord with linen, poultry, sheep,
+and daily labour. The landlord substitutes money for
+these goods, and fixes the value of the various articles
+sent in. Those who have no linen, corn, cattle, or
+manual labour to offer, may bring a definite sum of money.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious, that, in the society of the peasants of
+this landlord, the price of the various articles will always
+depend upon the landlord's pleasure. The landlord uses
+the articles collected among his peasants, and some of
+these articles are more necessary for him than others: he
+fixes the prices for them accordingly, more or less. It
+is clear that the mere will and requirements of the landlord
+must regulate the prices of these articles among the
+payers. If he is in want of corn, he will set a high price
+for a fixed quantity of it, and a low price for linen, cattle,
+or work; and therefore those who have no corn will sell
+their labour, linen, and cattle to others, in order to buy
+corn to give it to the landlord.</p>
+
+<p>If the landlord chooses to substitute money for all his
+claims, then the value of things will again depend, not
+upon the value of labour, but first upon the sum of money
+which the landlord requires, and secondly upon the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_92" title="92"> </a>
+articles produced by the peasants, which are more necessary
+to the landlord, and for which he allows a higher
+price.</p>
+
+<p>The money-claim made by the landlord on the peasants
+ceases to influence the prices of the articles only when
+the peasants of this landlord live separately from other
+people and have no connection with any one; and
+secondly, when the landlord employs money, not in purchasing
+things in his own village, but elsewhere. Only
+under these two conditions would the prices of things,
+though changed nominally, remain relatively the same,
+and money would become a measure of value and a
+medium of exchange.</p>
+
+<p>But if the peasants have any business connections with
+the inhabitants surrounding them, the prices of their produce,
+as sold to their neighbours, would depend on the
+sum required from them by their landlord. (If
+less money is required from their neighbours than
+from themselves, then their products would be sold
+cheaper than the products of their neighbours, and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice
+versa</i>.) Again, the landlord's money-demand would
+cease to influence the prices of the articles, only when
+the sums collected by the landlord were not spent in
+buying the products of his own peasants. But if he
+spends the money in purchasing from them, it is plain
+that the prices of various articles will constantly vary
+among them according as the landlord buys more of one
+thing than another.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose one landlord has fixed a very high poll-tax,
+and his neighbour a very low one: it is clear that on
+the estate of the first landlord every thing will be cheaper
+than on the estate of the second, and that the prices on
+either estate will depend only upon the increase and decrease
+of the poll-taxes. This is one effect of violence
+on value.</p>
+
+<p>Another, rising out of the first, consists in relative
+values. Suppose one landlord is fond of horses, and
+pays a high price for them; another is fond of towels,
+and offers a high figure for them. It is obvious that on
+the estate of either of these two landlords, the horses and
+the towels will be dear, and the prices of these articles
+will be out of proportion to those of cows or of corn.
+If to-morrow the collector of towels dies, and his heirs
+are fond of poultry, then it is obvious that the price of
+towels will fall and that of poultry will rise.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever in society there is the mastery of one man
+over another, there the meaning of money as the measure
+of value at once yields to the will of the oppressor, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_93" title="93"> </a>
+its meaning as a medium of exchange of the products of
+labour is replaced by another,&mdash;that of the most convenient
+means of utilizing other people's labour.</p>
+
+<p>The oppressor wants money neither as a medium of
+exchange,&mdash;for he takes whatever he wants without exchange,&mdash;nor
+as a measure of value,&mdash;for he himself
+determines the value of everything,&mdash;but only for the
+convenience it affords of exercising violence; and this
+convenience consists in the fact that money may be stored
+up, and is the most convenient means of holding in
+slavery the majority of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>It is not convenient to carry away all the cattle in order
+always to have horses, cows, and sheep whenever wanted,
+because they must be fed; the same holds good with corn,
+for it may be spoiled; the same with slaves; sometimes
+a man may require thousands of workmen, and sometimes
+none. Money demanded from those who have not got
+it makes it possible to get rid of all these inconveniences
+and to have everything that is required; and this is why
+the oppressor wants money. Besides which, he wants
+money so that his right to utilize another man's labour
+may not be confined to certain men but may be extended
+to all men who require the money.</p>
+
+<p>When there was no money in circulation each landlord
+could utilize the labour of his own serfs only; but when
+they agreed to demand from the peasants money which
+they had not, they were enabled to appropriate without
+distinction the labour of all men on every estate.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the oppressor finds it more convenient to press
+all his claims on labour in the shape of money, and for
+this sole object is it desired. To the victim from whom
+it is taken away money cannot be of use, either for the purpose
+of exchange (seeing he exchanges without money, as all
+nations have exchanged who had no government); nor for
+a measure of value, because this is fixed without him;
+nor for the purpose of saving, because the man whose
+productions are taken away cannot save; neither for payments,
+because an oppressed man always has more to
+pay than to receive; and if he does receive anything, the
+payment is made, not in money, but in articles of merchandise
+in either case; whether the workman takes his
+goods from his master's shop to remunerate his labour,
+or whether he buys the necessaries of life with his earnings
+in other shops, the money is required from him, and
+he is told by his oppressors that if he does not pay it
+they will refuse to give him land or bread, or will take
+away his cow or his horse, or condemn him to work, or
+put him in prison. He can only free himself from all
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_94" title="94"> </a>
+this by selling the products of his toil, his own labour,
+or that of his children.</p>
+
+<p>He will have to sell this according to the prices
+established, not by a regular exchange, but by the authority
+which demands money of him.</p>
+
+<p>Under the conditions of the influence of tribute and
+taxes on prices,&mdash;which everywhere and always repeat
+themselves, as much with the land-owners in a narrow
+circle, as with the state on a larger scale (in which the
+causes of the modification of prices are as obvious to us,
+as the motion of the hands and feet of puppets is obvious
+to those who look behind the curtain and see who are
+the wire-pullers):&mdash;under these circumstances, to say that
+money is a medium of exchange and a measure of value,
+is at least astonishing.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">All</span> slavery is based solely on the fact that one man can
+deprive another of his life, and by threatening to do so
+can compel him to do his will. We may see for certain
+that whenever one man is enslaved by another, when,
+against his own will and by the will of another, he does
+certain actions contrary to his inclination, the cause, if
+traced to its source, is nothing more nor less than a
+result of this threat. If a man gives to others all his
+labour, has not enough to eat, has to send his little children
+from home to work hard, leaves the land, and devotes
+all his life to a hated and unnecessary task, which happens
+before our own eyes in the world (which we term civilized
+because we ourselves live in it), then we may certainly say
+that he does so only because not to do so would be
+equivalent to loss of life.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore in our civilized world, where the majority
+of the people, amidst terrible privations, perform hated
+labours unnecessary to themselves, the greater number of
+men are in a slavery based on the threat of being deprived
+of their existence. Of what, then, does this slavery
+consist? Wherein lies this power of threat?</p>
+
+<p>In olden times the means of subjugation and the threat
+to kill were plain and obvious to all: the primitive means
+of enslaving men then consisted in a direct threat to kill
+with the sword.</p>
+
+<p>An armed man said to an unarmed, &ldquo;I can kill thee,
+as thou hast seen I have done to thy brother, but I do
+not want to do it: I will spare thee,&mdash;first, because it is
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_95" title="95"> </a>
+not agreeable for me to kill thee; secondly, because, as
+well for me as for thee, it will be more convenient that
+thou shouldst labour for me than that I should kill thee.
+Therefore do all I order thee to do, but know that, if
+thou refusest, I will take thy life.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So the unarmed man submitted to the armed one and
+did everything he was ordered to do. The unarmed man
+laboured, the armed threatened. This was that personal
+slavery which appeared first among all nations, and which
+still exists among primitive races.</p>
+
+<p>This means of enslaving always begins the work; but
+when life becomes more complicated it undergoes a
+change. With the complication of life such a method
+presents great inconveniences to the oppressor. Before
+he can appropriate the labour of the weaker he must
+feed and clothe them and keep them at work, and so their
+number remains small; and, besides, this compels the
+slave-holder to remain continually with the slaves, driving
+them to work by the threat of murdering them. And
+thus another means of subjugation is developed.</p>
+
+<p>Five thousand years ago (according to the Bible) this
+novel, convenient, and clever means of oppression was
+discovered by Joseph the Beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>It is similar to that employed now in the menageries
+for taming restive horses and wild beasts.</p>
+
+<p>It is hunger!</p>
+
+<p>This contrivance is thus described in the Bible (Genesis&nbsp;xli.,
+48&ndash;57):&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>And he (Joseph) gathered up all the food of the seven
+years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the
+food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round
+about every city, laid he up in the same.</p>
+
+<p>And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very
+much, until he left numbering; for it was without
+number.</p>
+
+<p>And the seven years of plenteousness, that was in the
+land of Egypt, were ended.</p>
+
+<p>And the seven years of dearth began to come, according
+as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands;
+but in all the land of Egypt, there was bread.</p>
+
+<p>And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the
+people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said
+unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he said to
+you, do.</p>
+
+<p>And the famine was over all the face of the earth:
+And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_96" title="96"> </a>the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of
+Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to
+buy corn; even because that the famine was so sore in all
+lands.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Joseph, making use of the primitive means of enslaving
+men by the threat of the sword, gathered corn during the
+years of plenty in expectation of years of famine which
+generally follow years of plenty,&mdash;men know all this
+without the dreams of Pharaoh,&mdash;and then by the pangs
+of hunger he made all the Egyptians and the inhabitants of
+the surrounding countries slaves to Pharaoh more
+securely and conveniently. And when the people began
+to be famished, he arranged matters so as to keep them
+in his power <em>forever</em>.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>(Genesis&nbsp;xlvii., 13&ndash;26.) And there was no bread in all
+the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land
+of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason
+of the famine.</p>
+
+<p>And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found
+in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the
+corn which they bought: and Joseph brought the money
+into Pharaoh's house.</p>
+
+<p>And when money failed in the land of Egypt, and in
+the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph,
+and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy
+presence? for the money faileth. And Joseph said, Give
+your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money
+fail. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and
+Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for
+the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and for the
+asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle
+for that year.</p>
+
+<p>When that year was ended, they came unto him the
+second year, and said unto him, We will not hide it from
+my Lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also
+hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the
+sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: Wherefore
+shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land?
+buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land
+will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we
+may live, and not die, and that the land be not desolate.
+And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh;
+for the Egyptians sold every man his field, because the
+famine prevailed over them: so the land became
+Pharaoh's. And as for the people, he removed them
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_97" title="97"> </a>to cities from one end of the borders of Egypt even to
+the other end thereof.</p>
+
+<p>Only the lands of the priests bought he not; for the
+priests had a portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did
+eat their portion which Pharaoh gave them: wherefore
+they sold not their lands.</p>
+
+<p>Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought
+you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here
+is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land. And it shall
+come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth
+part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own,
+for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of
+your households, and for food for your little ones.</p>
+
+<p>And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find
+grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's
+servants.</p>
+
+<p>And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto
+this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except
+the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Formerly, in order to appropriate labour, Pharaoh had
+to use violence towards them; but now, when the stores
+and the land belonged to Pharaoh, he had only to keep
+these stores by force, and hunger compelled the men to
+labour for him.</p>
+
+<p>All the land now belonged to Pharaoh, and he had all
+the stores (which were taken away from the people); and
+therefore, instead of driving them to work individually
+by the sword, he had only to keep food from them and
+they were enslaved, not by the sword, but by hunger.</p>
+
+<p>In a year of scarcity, all men may be starved to death
+at Pharaoh's will; and in a year of plenty, all may be
+killed who, from casual misfortunes, have no stores of
+corn.</p>
+
+<p>Thus comes into operation the second means of enslaving,
+not directly with the sword,&mdash;that is, by the
+strong man driving the weak one to labour under threat
+of killing him,&mdash;but by the strong one having taken
+away from the weak the stores of corn which, keeping
+by the sword, he compels the weak to work for.</p>
+
+<p>Joseph said to the hungry men, &ldquo;I could starve you to
+death, because I have the corn; but I will spare your
+lives, but only under the condition that you do all I
+order you for the food which I will give you.&rdquo; For the
+first means of enslaving, the oppressor only needs
+soldiers to ride to and fro among the inhabitants, and
+make them fulfil the requirements of their master under
+threat of death. And thus the oppressor has only to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_98" title="98"> </a>
+pay his soldiers. But with the second means, besides
+the soldiers, the oppressor must have different assistants
+for keeping and protecting the land and stores from the
+starving people.</p>
+
+<p>These are the Josephs and their stewards and distributors.
+And the oppressor has to reward them, and to give Joseph
+a dress of brocade, a gold ring, and servants, and corn
+and silver to his brothers and relatives. Besides this,
+from the very nature of the second means, not only the
+stewards and their relations, but all who have stores of
+corn become participators in this violence, just as by
+the first means, based upon immediate force, every one
+who has arms becomes a partner in tyranny, so by this
+means, based upon hunger, every one who has stores of
+provision shares in it, and has power over those who have
+no stores.</p>
+
+<p>The advantage of this method over the former consists,
+first and chiefly, in the fact that the oppressor need no
+longer compel the workmen to do his will by force, for
+they themselves come to him and sell themselves to him;
+secondly, in the circumstance that fewer men escape from
+his violence. The drawback is, that he has to employ
+a greater number of men. For the oppressed the advantage
+of it consists in the fact that they are no longer
+exposed to rough violence but are left to themselves; and
+can always hope to pass from being the oppressed to
+becoming oppressors in their turn, which by fortunate
+circumstances they sometimes really do. The drawback
+for them is, that they can never escape from participating
+in the oppression of others.</p>
+
+<p>This new means of enslaving generally comes into
+operation together with the old one; and the oppressor
+lessens the one and increases the other according to his
+desires. But this does not fully satisfy the man who
+wishes to take away as much as possible of the products
+of the labour of as many working-people as he can find,
+and to enslave as many men as possible; and, therefore,
+a third means of oppression is evolved.</p>
+
+<p>This is the slavery of taxation, and, like the second, it is
+based upon hunger; but to the means of subduing men by
+depriving them of bread is added the deprivation of
+other necessaries.</p>
+
+<p>The oppressor requires from the slaves so much of the
+money he himself has coined, that, in order to obtain it,
+the slaves are compelled to sell not only stores of corn in
+greater quantity than the fifth part which was fixed by
+Joseph, but the first necessaries of life as well,&mdash;meat,
+skins, wool, clothes, firewood, even their buildings; and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_99" title="99"> </a>
+therefore the oppressor always keeps his slaves in his
+power, not only by hunger, but by thirst, cold and other
+privations.</p>
+
+<p>And thus the third means of slavery comes into operation,
+a monetary, tributary one, consisting in the oppressor
+saying to the oppressed, &ldquo;I can do with each of
+you just what I like; I can kill and destroy you by taking
+away the land by which you earn your living; I can,
+with this money which you must give me, buy all the
+corn upon which you feed, and sell it to strangers, and
+at any time annihilate you by starvation; I can take from
+you all that you have,&mdash;your cattle, your houses, your
+clothes; but it is neither convenient nor agreeable for
+me to do so, and therefore I let you alone, to work as
+you please; only give me so much of the money which
+I demand of you, either as a poll-tax, or according to
+your land or the quantity of your food and drink, or
+your clothes or your houses. Give me this money, and
+do what you like among yourselves, but know that I
+shall neither protect nor maintain widows nor orphans nor
+invalids nor old people, nor such as have been burned out:
+I shall only protect the regular circulation of this money.
+This right will always be mine, to protect only those who
+regularly give me the fixed number of these pieces of
+money: as to how or where you get it, I shall not in the
+least trouble myself.&rdquo; And so the oppressor distributes
+these pieces of money as an acknowledgement that his
+demand has been complied with.</p>
+
+<p>The second method of enslaving consisted in this, that,
+having taken away the fifth part of the harvest, and collected
+stores of corn, Pharaoh, besides the personal
+slavery by the sword, received, by his assistants, the
+possibility of dominion over the working-people during
+the time of famine, and over some of them during misfortunes
+which happen to them.</p>
+
+<p>The third method consists in this: Pharaoh requires
+from the working-people more money than the value of
+the fifth part of corn which he took from them; he and
+his assistants get a new means of dominion over the
+working-class, not merely during the famine and their
+casual misfortunes, but permanently.</p>
+
+<p>By the second method, men retain some stores of corn
+which help them to bear indifferent harvests and casual
+misfortunes without going into slavery; but by the third,
+when there are more demands, the stores, not of corn
+only but of all other necessaries of life are taken away
+from them, and at the first misfortune a workman, having
+neither stores of corn nor any other stores which he
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_100" title="100"> </a>
+might exchange for corn, falls into slavery to those who
+have money.</p>
+
+<p>To set the first in motion an oppressor need have only
+soldiers, and share the booty with them; for the second,
+besides the protectors of the land and the stores, he must
+have collectors and clerks for the distribution of the
+corn; for the third, besides the soldiers for keeping the
+land and his property, he must have collectors of taxes,
+assessors of direct taxation, <ins title="supervisers">supervisors</ins>, custom-house
+clerks, managers of money, and coiners of it.</p>
+
+<p>The organization of the third method is much more
+complicated than that of the second. By the second, the
+getting in of corn may be leased out, as was done in
+olden times and is still the custom in Turkey; but by
+putting taxes on men there is need of a complicated administration,
+which has to ensure the right levying of
+the taxes. And therefore by the third method the oppressor
+has to share the plunder with a still greater number of
+men than by the second; besides, according to the very
+nature of the thing, all the men of the same or of the
+foreign country who possess money become sharers with
+the oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>The advantage of the third method over the first and
+second consists chiefly in the following fact: that by it
+there is no need to wait for a year of scarcity, as in the
+time of Joseph, but years of famine are established forever,
+and (whilst by the second method the part of the labour
+which is taken away depends upon the harvest, and cannot
+be augmented <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ad libitum</i>, because if there is no corn,
+there is nothing to take) by the new <em>monetary</em> method the
+requirement can be brought to any desired limit, for the
+demand for money can always be satisfied, because the
+debtor, to satisfy it, must sell his cattle, clothes, or
+houses. The chief advantage to the oppressor of this
+method is that he can take away the greatest quantity
+of labour in the most convenient way; for a money-tax,
+like a screw, may easily and conveniently be turned to the
+utmost limit, and golden eggs be obtained though the
+bird that lays them is all but dead.</p>
+
+<p>Another of its advantages for the oppressor is that its
+violence reaches all those also who, by possessing no
+land, formerly escaped from it by giving only a part of
+their labour for corn; whereas now, besides that part
+which they give for corn, they must now give another
+part for taxes. A drawback for the oppressor is that he
+has to share the plunder with a still greater number of
+men, not only with his direct assistants, but also with all
+those men of his own country, and even of foreign
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_101" title="101"> </a>
+countries, who may have the money which is demanded
+from the slaves.</p>
+
+<p>Its <ins title="advantages">advantage</ins> for the oppressed is only that he is
+allowed greater independence than under the second
+method; he may live where he chooses, do what he likes;
+he may sow or not sow; he has to give no account of his
+labour; and if he has money, he may consider himself
+entirely free, and constantly hope, though only for a
+time, to obtain not only an independent position, but
+even to become an oppressor himself, when he has money
+to spare.</p>
+
+<p>The drawback for the oppressed is, that on a general
+average their situation becomes much worse, and they
+are deprived of the greater part of the products of their
+labour, because the number of those who utilize their
+labour has increased, and therefore the burden of keeping
+them falls upon a smaller number of men.</p>
+
+<p>This third method of enslaving men is also very <ins title="old,,">old,</ins>
+and comes into operation with the former two without
+entirely excluding them.</p>
+
+<p>These three methods of enslaving men have always
+been in operation.</p>
+
+<p>They may all be compared to screws which secure the
+board laid on the work-people which presses them down.
+The fundamental, or middle screw, without which the
+other screws could not hold, which is first screwed up,
+and which is never slackened, is the screw of personal
+slavery, the enslaving of some men by others under
+threat of slaughter; the second, which is screwed up after
+the first, is that of enslaving men by taking away the
+land and stores of provisions from them, such alienation
+being maintained by the threat to murder; and the third
+screw is slavery enforced by the requirement of certain
+money taxes; and this demand is also maintained under
+threat of murder.</p>
+
+<p>These three screws are made fast, and it is only when
+one of them is tightened more that the others are slackened.
+For the complete enslavement of the workman, all
+three are necessary; and in our society, all three are in
+operation together. The first method of personal slavery
+under threat of murder by the sword has never been
+abolished, and never will be so long as there is any oppression,
+because every kind of oppression is based on
+this alone.</p>
+
+<p>We are all quite sure that personal slavery is abolished
+in our civilized world; that the last remnant of it has
+been annihilated in America and in Russia, and that it
+is only among the barbarians that real slavery exists, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_102" title="102"> </a>
+that with us it is no longer in being. We forget only
+one small circumstance,&mdash;those hundreds of millions of
+standing troops without which no state exists, and with
+the abolition of which all the economical organization of
+each state would inevitably fall to pieces. Yet what are
+these millions of soldiers but the personal slaves of those
+who rule them? Are not these men compelled to do the
+will of their commanders under the threat of torture and
+death,&mdash;a threat often carried out? the difference consisting
+only in the fact that the submission of these slaves
+is not called slavery, but discipline, and that slaves are
+slaves from their birth, but soldiers only during a more
+or less short period of their so-called &ldquo;service.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Personal slavery, therefore, is not only not abolished in
+our civilized world, but, under the system of conscription,
+it has of late years been confirmed; and it has remained
+as it has always existed, only slightly changed from its
+original form. And it cannot but exist, because, so long
+as there is the enslaving of one man by another there will
+be this personal slavery too, this slavery which, under
+the threat of the sword, maintains serfdom, land-ownership,
+and taxes.</p>
+
+<p>It may be that this slavery of troops is useful, as it is
+said, for the defence and the glory of the country; but
+this kind of utility is more than doubtful, because we see
+how often in the case of unsuccessful wars it serves only
+for the subjugation and shame of the country. But of
+the expediency of this slavery for maintaining that of the
+land and taxes there is no question.</p>
+
+<p>If Irish or Russian peasants were to take possession of the
+land of the proprietors, troops would be sent to dispossess
+them. If you build a distillery or a brewery and do not
+pay excise, then soldiers will be sent to shut it up.
+Refuse to pay taxes, and the same thing will happen to
+you.</p>
+
+<p>The second screw is the method of enslaving men by
+taking away from them their land and their stores of provisions.
+This method has also always been in existence
+wherever men are oppressed; and, whatever changes it
+may undergo, it is everywhere in operation.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes all the land belongs to the sovereign, as
+in Turkey, and there one-tenth is given to the state
+treasury. Sometimes a part of the land belongs to the
+sovereign, and taxes are raised on it. Sometimes all the
+land belongs to a few people and is let out for labour,
+as in England. Sometimes more or less large portions
+of land belong to the land-owners, as in Russia, Germany,
+and France. But wherever there is enslaving there exists
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_103" title="103"> </a>
+also the appropriation of the land by the oppressor, and
+this screw is slackened or tightened only according to the
+condition of the other screws.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, in Russia, when personal slavery was extended
+to the majority of the working-people there was no need
+of land-slavery; but the screw of personal slavery was
+slackened in Russia only when the screws of land and tax
+slavery were tightened. Only when the government had
+appropriated the land and divided it among private individuals,
+and had instituted money payments and taxation,
+did it give the peasants personal freedom.</p>
+
+<p>In England, for instance, land-slavery is pre-eminently
+in operation, and the question about the nationalizing of
+the land consists only in the screw of taxation being
+tightened in order that the screw of land appropriation
+may be slackened.</p>
+
+<p>The third method of enslaving men, by taxes, has also
+been in operation for ages; and in our days, with the
+extension of uniform standards of money and the
+strengthening of state powers it has become an especially
+powerful influence.</p>
+
+<p>This method is so developed in our days that it tends
+to be a substitute for the second method of enslaving,&mdash;the
+land monopoly.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious from the state of the political economy
+of all Europe, that it is by the tightening of this screw
+that the screw of land slavery is slackened.</p>
+
+<p>In our own lifetime we have witnessed in Russia two
+transformations of slavery. When the serfs were liberated,
+and their landlords retained the right to the greater
+part of the soil, the landlords were afraid they would
+lose their power; but experience has shown that having
+let go the whole chain of personal slavery, they had only
+to seize another,&mdash;that of the land. A peasant was short
+of corn; he had not enough to live on. The landlord
+had land and stores of corn: and therefore the peasant
+still remained the same slave.</p>
+
+<p>Another transformation was caused by the government
+screw of taxation being pressed home. The majority of
+working-people, having no stores, were obliged to sell
+themselves to their landlords and to the factories. This
+new form of oppression held the people still tighter, so
+that nine-tenths of the Russian working-people are still
+working for their landlords and in the factories to pay
+these taxes. This is so obvious, that, if the government
+were to remit taxation for one year only, all labour would
+be stopped in the fields of the landlords, and in the
+factories. Nine-tenths of the Russian people hire themselves
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_104" title="104"> </a>
+out during and before the collection of taxes.</p>
+
+<p>All these three methods have never ceased to operate, and
+are still in operation, but people are inclined to ignore them
+or to invent new excuses for them. And, what is most remarkable
+of all is, that the very means on which everything
+is based, that screw which is screwed up tighter
+than all others, which holds everything at the moment
+in question, is not noticed so long as it holds. When in
+the ancient world the entire economical order was upheld
+by personal slavery, the greatest intellects did not notice
+it. To Plato, as well as to Xenophon, and Aristotle,
+and to the Romans, it seemed that it could not be otherwise,
+and that slavery was an unavoidable and natural
+result of wars, without which the existence of mankind
+was inconceivable. Similarly, in the Middle Ages, and
+till recently, people did not apprehend the meaning of
+land-ownership, on which depended the entire economical
+organization of their time.</p>
+
+<p>So also, at present, no one sees or wants to see,
+that in our time the slavery of the majority of the
+people depends on taxes collected by the government from
+its own land slaves, taxes collected <em>by administration and
+the troops</em>,&mdash;by the very same troops which are maintained
+by these taxes.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">No</span> wonder that the slaves themselves, who have always
+been enslaved, do not understand their own position,
+and that this condition in which they have always lived
+is considered by them to be natural to human life, and
+that they hail as a relief any change in their form of
+slavery; no wonder that their owners sometimes quite
+sincerely think they are, in a measure, freeing the slaves
+by slacking one screw, though they are compelled to do
+so by the over-tension of another.</p>
+
+<p>Both become accustomed to their state; and the slaves,
+never having known what freedom is, merely seek an
+alleviation, or only the change of their condition; the
+other, the owners, wishing to mask their injustice, try
+to assign a particular meaning to those new forms of
+slavery which they enforce in place of the older ones.
+But it is wonderful how the majority of the critics of the
+economic conditions of the life of the people fail to see
+that which forms the basis of the entire economic conditions
+of a people.</p>
+
+<p>One would think the duty of a true science would be
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_105" title="105"> </a>
+to try to ascertain the connection of the phenomena and
+general cause of a series of occurrences. But the majority
+of the representatives of modern Political Economy are
+doing just the reverse of this: they carefully hide the
+connection and meaning of the phenomena, and avoid
+answering the most simple and essential questions.</p>
+
+<p>Modern Political Economy, like an idle, lazy cart-horse,
+goes well only down-hill, when it has no collar-work;
+but as soon as it has anything to draw, it at once
+refuses, pretending it has to go somewhere aside after its
+own business. When any grave, essential question is
+put to Political Economy, scientific discussions are
+started about some other matter having only in view to
+divert attention from this subject.</p>
+
+<p>You ask, &ldquo;How are we to account for a fact so unnatural,
+monstrous, unreasonable, and not useless only,
+but harmful, that some men can eat or work only according
+to the will of other men?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>You are gravely answered, &ldquo;Because some men must
+arrange the labour and feeding of others, such is the
+law of production.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>You ask, &ldquo;What is this property-right which allows
+some men to appropriate to themselves the land, food,
+and instruments of labour belonging to others?&rdquo; You
+are again gravely answered, &ldquo;This right is based upon
+the protection of labour,&rdquo;&mdash;that is, the protection of some
+men's labour is effected by taking possession of the labour
+of other men.</p>
+
+<p>You ask, &ldquo;What is that money which is everywhere
+coined and stamped by the governments, by the authorities,
+and which is so exorbitantly demanded from the
+working-people, and which in the shape of national debts
+is levied upon the future generations of workingmen?
+Further, has not this money, demanded from the people
+in the shape of taxes which are raised to the utmost pitch,
+has not this money any influence on the economic relationships
+of men,&mdash;between the payers and the
+receivers?&rdquo; And you are answered in all seriousness,
+&ldquo;Money is an article of merchandise like sugar, or chintz;
+and it differs from other articles only in the fact that it
+is more convenient for exchange.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As for the influence of taxes on the economic conditions
+of a people, it is a different question altogether:
+the laws of production, exchange, and distribution of
+wealth, are one thing, but taxation is quite another. You
+ask whether it has any influence on the economic conditions
+of a people that the government can arbitrarily
+raise or lower prices, and, having increased the taxes,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_106" title="106"> </a>
+can make slaves of all who have no land? The pompous
+answer is, &ldquo;The laws of production, exchange, and distribution
+of wealth constitute one science,&mdash;Political
+Economy; and taxes, and, generally speaking, State
+Economy, come under another head,&mdash;the Law of
+Finance.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>You ask finally, &ldquo;Is no influence exercised on economic
+conditions by the circumstance that all the people are in
+bondage to the government, and that this government
+can arbitrarily ruin them all, can take away all the products
+of their labour, and even carry the men themselves
+away from their work into military slavery?&rdquo; You are
+answered, &ldquo;This is altogether a different question, belonging
+to the State Law.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The majority of the representatives of science discuss
+quite seriously the laws of the economic life of a people,
+while all the functions and activities of this life are dependent
+on the will of the oppressor. Whilst they recognize
+the influence of the oppressor as a natural condition
+of a nation's life, they do just what a critic of the
+economic conditions of the life of the personal slaves of
+different masters would do, were he to omit to consider
+the influence exercised on the life of these slaves by the
+will of that master who compels them to work on this or
+that thing and drives them from one place to another
+according to his pleasure, who feeds them or neglects to
+do so, who kills them or leaves them alive.</p>
+
+<p>A noxious superstition has been long in existence and
+still survives,&mdash;a superstition which has done more harm
+to men than the most terrible religious superstitions.</p>
+
+<p>And so-called science supports this superstition with
+all its power, and with the utmost zeal. This superstition
+exactly resembles religious superstitions. It consists in
+affirming that, besides the duties of man to man, there are
+still more important duties towards an imaginary being,&mdash;which
+the theologians call God, and the political scientists
+the State.</p>
+
+<p>The religious superstition consists in affirming that
+sacrifices, even of human lives, must be offered to this
+imaginary being, and that they can and ought to be enforced
+by every means, even by violence. The political
+superstition consists in the belief that, besides the duties
+of man to man, there are still more important duties to
+an imaginary being, the State; and the offerings,&mdash;often
+of human lives,&mdash;brought to this imaginary being are also
+essential, and can and ought to be enforced by every
+means, even by violence.</p>
+
+<p>This superstition it is, formerly encouraged by the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_107" title="107"> </a>
+priests of different religions, which is now sustained by
+so-called science.</p>
+
+<p>Men are thrown into slavery, into the most terrible
+slavery, worse than has ever before existed; but Political
+Science tries to persuade men that it is necessary and
+unavoidable.</p>
+
+<p>The state must exist for the welfare of the people, and
+it must do its duty, to rule and protect them from their
+enemies. For this purpose the state needs money and
+troops. Money must be subscribed by all the citizens
+of the state. And hence all the relations of men must be
+considered in the light of the existence of the state.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I want to help my father by my labour,&rdquo; says a common
+unlearned man. &ldquo;I want also to marry; but instead,
+I am taken and sent to Kazan, to be a soldier for
+six years. I leave the military service, I want to plough
+the ground to earn food and drink for my family; but
+I am not allowed to plough for a hundred versts around
+me unless I pay money, which I have not got, and pay it
+to those men who do not know how to plough, and who
+demand for the land so much money that I must give
+them all my labour to procure it: however, I still manage
+to save something, and wish to give this to my children;
+but a police official comes and takes from me all I had
+saved, for taxes: I can earn a little more, and again I am
+deprived of it. My entire economic activity is at the
+mercy of state demands; and it seems to me that my
+position and that of my brethren, will certainly improve
+if we are liberated from the demands of the state.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But he is told, &ldquo;Such reasoning is the result of your
+ignorance. Study the laws of production, exchange, and
+distribution of wealth, and do not mix up economical
+questions with those of the state. The phenomena which
+you point to are no restraints on your freedom; they
+are the necessary sacrifices which you, along with others,
+must make for your own freedom and welfare.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;But my son has been taken away from me,&rdquo; says
+again a common man; &ldquo;and they threaten to take away
+all my sons as soon as they are grown up: they took him
+away by force, and drove him to face the enemy's guns
+in some country which we have never heard of, and for
+an object which we cannot understand.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And as for the land which they will not allow us to
+plough, and for want of which we are starving, it belongs
+to a man who got possession of it by force, and whom
+we have never seen, and whose usefulness we cannot
+even understand. And the taxes, to collect which the
+police official has by force taken my cow from my children,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_108" title="108"> </a>
+will, so far as I know, go to this same man who
+took my cow away, and to various members of the committees
+and of departments which I do not know of, and
+in the utility of which I do not believe. How is it, then,
+that all these acts of violence secure my liberty, and all
+this evil procures good?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>You may compel a man to be a slave and to do that
+which he considers to be evil for himself, but you cannot
+compel him to think, that, in suffering violence, he
+is free, and that the obvious evil which he endures constitutes
+his good. This appears impossible. Yet by the
+help of science this very thing has been done in our time.</p>
+
+<p>The state, that is, the armed oppressors, decide what
+they want from those whom they oppress (as in the case
+of England and the Fiji-Islanders): they decide how
+much labour they want from their slaves,&mdash;they decide
+how many assistants they will need in collecting the fruits
+of this labour; they organize their assistants in the shape
+of soldiers, land-owners, and collectors of taxes. And
+the slaves give their labour, and, at the same time, believe
+that they give it, not because their masters demand
+it, but for the sake of their own freedom and welfare;
+and that this service and these bloody sacrifices to the
+divinity called the State are necessary, and that, except
+this service to their Deity, they are free. They believe
+this because the same had been formerly said in the name
+of religion by the priests, and is now said in the name
+of so-called science, by learned men.</p>
+
+<p>But one need only cease to believe what is said by these
+other men who call themselves priests or learned men, for
+the absurdity of such an assertion to become obvious.</p>
+
+<p>The men who oppress others assure them that this oppression
+is necessary for the state,&mdash;and the state is necessary
+for the freedom and welfare of men; so that it
+appears that the oppressors oppress men for the sake of
+their freedom, and do them evil for the sake of good.</p>
+
+<p>But men are furnished with reason so that they may
+understand wherein consists their own good, and do it
+willingly.</p>
+
+<p>As for the acts, the goodness of which is not intelligible
+to men, and to which they are compelled by force,
+these cannot be for their good, because a reasoning being
+can consider as good only the thing which appears so to
+his reason. If men are driven to evil through passion
+or folly, all that those who are not so driven can do is
+to persuade the others into what constitutes their real
+good. You may try to persuade men that their welfare
+will be greater when they are all soldiers, are deprived
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_109" title="109"> </a>
+of land, and have given their entire labour away for
+taxes; but until all men consider this condition to be
+welfare, and undertake it willingly, one cannot call such
+a state of things the common welfare of men.</p>
+
+<p>The sole criterion of a good conception is its willing
+acceptance by men. And the lives of men abound with
+such acts. Ten workmen buy tools in common, in order
+to work together with them, and in so doing they are
+undoubtedly benefitting themselves; but we cannot suppose
+that if these ten workmen were to compel an eleventh,
+by force, to join in their association, they would insist
+that their common welfare will be the same for him.</p>
+
+<p>So with gentlemen who agree to give a subscription
+dinner at a pound a head to a mutual friend; no
+one can assert that such a dinner will benefit a man who,
+against his will, has been <ins title="obiged">obliged</ins> to pay a sovereign for
+it. And so with peasants who decide, for their common
+convenience, to dig a pond. To those who consider the
+existence of a pond more valuable than the labour spent
+on it, digging it will be a common good. But to the one
+who considers the pond of less value than a day's harvesting
+in which he is behind-hand, digging it will appear
+evil. The same holds good with roads, churches, and
+museums, and with all various social and state affairs.</p>
+
+<p>All such work may be good for those who consider it
+good, and who therefore freely and willingly perform it,&mdash;the
+dinner which the gentlemen give, the pond which
+the peasants dig. But work to which men must be driven
+by force ceases to be a common good precisely by the
+fact of such violence.</p>
+
+<p>All this is so plain and simple, that, if men had not
+been so long deceived, there would be no need to explain
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Suppose we live in a village where all the inhabitants
+have agreed to build a road over a swamp which is a
+danger to them. We agree together, and each house
+promises to give so much money or wood or days of
+labour. We agree to this because the making of the road
+is more advantageous to us than what we exchange for
+it; but among us there are some for whom it is more
+advantageous to do without a road than to spend money
+on it, or who at all events think so. Can compelling
+these men to labour make it of advantage to them?
+Obviously not; because those who considered that their
+choosing to join in making the way would have been disadvantageous,
+will consider it <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">a fortiori</i> still more disadvantageous
+when they are <em>compelled</em> to do so. Suppose,
+even, that we all, without exception, were agreed, and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_110" title="110"> </a>
+promised so much money or labour from each house, but
+that it happened that some of those who had promised
+did not give what they agreed, their circumstances having
+meanwhile changed, so that it was more advantageous
+for such now to be without the road than to spend money
+on it; or that they have simply changed their mind about
+it; or even calculate that others will make the road without
+them and that they will then use it. Can coercing
+these men to join in the labour make them consider that
+the sacrifices are enforced for their own good?</p>
+
+<p>Obviously not; because, if these men have not fulfilled
+what they promised, owing to a change in circumstances,
+so that now the sacrifices for the sake of the road
+outbalance their gain by it, the compulsory sacrifices of
+such would be only a worse evil. But if those who refuse
+to join in building the road intend to utilize the labour
+of the others, then in this case also coercing them into
+making a sacrifice would be only a punishment on a supposition,
+and their object, which nobody can prove, will
+be punished before it is made apparent; but in neither
+case can coercing them to join in a work which they do
+not desire be good for them.</p>
+
+<p>If this is so with sacrifices for a work which every
+one can comprehend, obvious, and undoubtedly useful to
+everyone, such as a road over a swamp; how still more
+unjust and unreasonable is it to coerce millions of men
+into making sacrifices for objects which are incomprehensible,
+imperceptible, and often undoubtedly harmful,
+such as military service and taxation.</p>
+
+<p>But, according to science, what appears to every one
+to be an evil is a common good: it appears that there are
+men, a small minority, who alone know of what the common
+good consists, and, notwithstanding the fact that all
+other men consider this good to be an evil, this minority
+can compel the others to do whatever they may consider
+to be for the common good. And it is this belief which
+constitutes the chief superstition and the chief deceit and
+hinders the progress of mankind towards the True and
+the Good.</p>
+
+<p>To nurse this superstitious deceit has been the object
+of political sciences in general, and of so-called &ldquo;Political
+Economy&rdquo; in particular.</p>
+
+<p>Many are making use of its aims in order to hide from
+men the state of oppression and slavery in which they
+now are.</p>
+
+<p>The way they set about doing so is by starting the
+theory that the violence connected with the economy of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_111" title="111"> </a>
+social slavery is a natural and unavoidable evil; and
+men thereby are deceived and turn their eyes from the
+real causes of their misfortunes.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery has long been abolished. It has been
+abolished in Rome as well as in America, and in Russia;
+but only the word has been abolished,&mdash;not the evil.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery is the violent freeing of some men from the
+labour necessary for satisfying their wants, which transfers
+this labour to others; and wherever there is a man
+who does not work, not because others willingly and
+lovingly work for him, but because he has the possibility,
+while not working himself, to make others work for him,
+there slavery exists.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever there are, as in all European societies,
+men who utilize the labour of thousands of others by
+coercion, and consider such to be their right, and others
+who submit to this coercion considering it to be their
+duty,&mdash;there you have slavery in its most dreadful proportions.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery exists. In what, then, does it consist?
+Slavery consists of that of which it has always consisted,
+and without which it cannot exist at all,&mdash;in the coercion
+of a weak and unarmed man by a strong and armed man.</p>
+
+<p>Slavery in its three fundamental modes of operation,&mdash;personal
+violence, the military, land-taxes,&mdash;maintained
+by the military, and direct and indirect taxes put upon
+all the inhabitants, is still in operation now as it has
+been before.</p>
+
+<p>We do not see it because each of these three forms of
+slavery has received a new justification, which hides its
+meaning from us.</p>
+
+<p>The personal violence of armed over unarmed men has
+been justified as the defence of one's country from imaginary
+enemies,&mdash;while in its essence it has the one old
+meaning, the submission of the conquered to the
+oppressors.</p>
+
+<p>The violent <ins title="seizures">seizure</ins> of the labourers' land has been
+justified as the recompense for services rendered to an
+imaginary common welfare, and confirmed by the right
+of heritage; but in reality it is the same dispossession of
+men from their land and enslaving them which was performed
+by the troops.</p>
+
+<p>And the last, the monetary violence by means of taxes,
+the strongest and most effective in our days, has received
+a most wonderful justification.</p>
+
+<p>Dispossessing men of their liberty and their goods is
+said to be done for the sake of the common liberty and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_112" title="112"> </a>
+of the common welfare. But in fact it is the same slavery,
+only an impersonal one.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever violence becomes law, there is slavery.</p>
+
+<p>Whether violence finds its expression in the circumstance
+that princes with their courtiers come, kill, and
+burn down villages; whether slave-owners take labour or
+money for the land from their slaves, and enforce payment
+by means of armed men, or by putting taxes on
+others, and riding armed to and fro in the villages; or
+whether a Home Department collects money through
+governors or police sergeants,&mdash;in one word, as long as
+violence is maintained by the bayonet,&mdash;there will be no
+distribution of wealth, but it will be accumulated among
+the oppressors.</p>
+
+<p>As a striking illustration of the truth of this assertion
+the project of Henry George to nationalize the land may
+serve us. Henry George proposes to declare all land the
+property of the state, and to substitute a land-rent for
+all taxes, direct and indirect. That is, everyone who
+utilizes the land would have to pay to the state the value
+of its rent.</p>
+
+<p>What would be the result? The land would belong to
+the state,&mdash;English land to England, American land to
+America, and so on; that is, there would be slavery,
+determined by the quantity of cultivated land. It might
+be that the condition of some labourers would improve;
+but while a forcible demand for rent remained, the slavery
+would remain too. The cultivator, after a bad harvest,
+being unable to pay the rent exacted of him by force,
+would be obliged to enslave himself to any one who happened
+to have the money in order not to lose everything
+and to retain the land.</p>
+
+<p>If a pail leaks, there must be a hole. Looking at the
+pail, we might imagine the water runs from many holes;
+but no matter how we might try to stop the imaginary holes
+from without, the water would not cease running. In
+order to put a stop to the leakage we must find the place
+from which water runs, and stop it from the inside.</p>
+
+<p>The same holds good with the proposed means of stopping
+the irregular distribution of wealth,&mdash;the holes
+through which the wealth runs away from the people.</p>
+
+<p>It is said, <em>Organize workmen's corporations, make capital
+social property, make land social property</em>. All this is only
+mere stopping from the outside those holes from which
+we fancy the water runs. In order to stop the wealth
+going from the hands of the workers to those of the non-workers,
+it is necessary to try to find from the inside the
+hole through which this leakage takes place. And this
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_113" title="113"> </a>
+hole is the violence of armed men towards unarmed men,
+the violence of troops, by means of which men are carried
+away from their labour, and the land, and the products
+of labour, taken from them.</p>
+
+<p>So long as there is one armed man, whoever he may
+be, with the acknowledged right to kill another man, so
+long will there also exist an unjust distribution of wealth,&mdash;in
+other words, slavery.</p>
+
+<p>I was led into the error that I can help others by the
+fact that I imagined my money was as good as Semion's.
+But it was not so.</p>
+
+<p>The general opinion is that money represents wealth;
+that wealth is the result of work and therefore that money
+represents work. This opinion is as just as the opinion
+asserting that every form of state is the result of a contract
+(contrat social).</p>
+
+<p>All men like to believe that money is only a means
+of exchange of labour. I have made boots, you have
+made bread, he has fed sheep; now, in order to exchange
+our wares the more conveniently, we introduce money,
+which represents the corresponding share of labour, and
+through it we exchange leather soles for a mutton brisket
+and ten pounds of flour.</p>
+
+<p>By means of money we exchange our products and this
+money, belonging to each of us, represents our labour.
+This is perfectly true, but true only while in the community,
+where this exchange takes place, violence of one
+man towards another did not appear, violence not only
+over another man's labour, as happens in war and in
+slavery, but not even violence applied to defend the products
+of labour of one man against another. This could
+be only in a community whose members entirely fulfil
+the Christian law,&mdash;in a community where one gets what
+he demands and where one is not requested to return
+what he gets. But as soon as violence in any form is
+applied in the community, the meaning of money for its
+owner at once loses its significance as a representative of
+labour, and acquires the significance of a right, based
+not on labour, but on violence.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as there is war and one man has taken away
+something from another, then money cannot always represent
+labour; the money received by the soldier for the
+booty he has sold, as well as the money got by his
+superior, is by no means the produce of their work and
+has quite a different meaning from the money received
+for the labour resulting in boots. When there are slave-owners
+and slaves, as have been always in the world,
+then one cannot assert that money represents labour. The
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_114" title="114"> </a>
+women have woven a quantity of linen, have sold it and
+received money; the serfs have woven some linen for
+their master, and the master has sold it and received
+money. The one and the other money are
+the same; but one is the product of labour and
+the other is the product of violence. Likewise,
+if somebody,&mdash;say my father,&mdash;made me a present
+of money and he, when giving it to me, knew, and I knew
+and everybody knew, that no one can take this money
+away from me, that if anybody tried to take it, or even
+merely failed to return it at the date promised, then the
+authorities would defend me and by force compel the man
+to return me this money,&mdash;then again it is evident that
+by no means can this money be called a representative
+of labour, like the money which Semion got for cutting
+wood.</p>
+
+<p>Thus in a community, where by some kind of violence
+somebody's money is taken possession of, or the ownership
+of somebody's money defended against others&mdash;there
+money cannot always represent labour. It represents in
+such a community sometimes labour, sometimes violence.</p>
+
+<p>So it would be if only one fact of violence of one man
+over another appeared in the midst of perfectly free relations;
+but now, when the accumulated money has passed
+through centuries of most various forms of violence,
+when these acts of violence continue under other forms;
+when money itself by its accumulation creates violence,&mdash;which
+is recognized by everybody,&mdash;when the direct products
+of labour constitute only a small part of money
+made up of all sorts of violence,&mdash;to assert now that
+money represents the work of its owner is an obvious
+error, or an open lie. One may say it ought to be so,
+one may say it is desirable that it should be so, but by
+no means can any one say that it is so.</p>
+
+<p>Money represents labour. Yes; money represents
+labour, but whose labour? In our society it is only in
+the rarest cases that money represents the work of its
+owner. Almost always it represents the labour of other
+men,&mdash;the past or future labours of men. It is the representative
+of a claim on the labour of other men by force
+of violence.</p>
+
+<p>Money, in its most exact and at the same time its
+simplest definition, represents conventional signs, which
+bestow the right,&mdash;or rather the possibility,&mdash;to use the
+work of other men. In its ideal meaning, money ought
+to give this right or possibility only when it serves itself
+as a representative of labour, and as such, money could
+exist in a society devoid of any kind of violence. But
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_115" title="115"> </a>
+as soon as violence takes place in a society, i.e., the
+possibility of the utilizing of the labour of others by the
+idler,&mdash;then this possibility of using the labour of others,
+without defining persons over which this violence is committed,
+is also exercised in money.</p>
+
+<p>The landowner taxed his serfs by a contribution in
+kind, making them bring a certain quantity of linen, corn,
+cattle, or a corresponding amount of money. One household
+delivered the cattle, but the linens were replaced
+by money. The landowner accepts the money in a certain
+quantity, only because he knows that for this money
+he can get the same pieces of linen (generally he takes
+a little more money to be sure that he will receive for it
+the same quantity of linen), and this money evidently
+offers for the landowner lien on other men's labour.</p>
+
+<p>The peasant gives money as a security against persons
+unknown but numerous, who would undertake to work
+out so much linen for this money. Those who will
+undertake to work the linen will do it because they did
+not succeed in feeding the sheep, and for these they must
+pay in money; and the peasant who will get the money
+for the sheep will take it, only because he must pay for
+the corn, which was a failure that year. The same goes
+on in the State and all over the world.</p>
+
+<p>A man sells the produce of his past, present or future
+labour, sometimes his food-stuff, not mostly because
+money is a convenient exchange for him,&mdash;he would exchange
+without money,&mdash;but because he is required by
+means of violence to give money, as a security on his
+work.</p>
+
+<p>When Pharaoh has demanded the labour of his slaves,
+then the slaves have given him all their labour, but they
+could give only the past and present labour, and could
+not give that of the future. But with the spread of money
+tokens and their result of &ldquo;credit&rdquo; it becomes possible
+to give also one's future work for money.</p>
+
+<p>Money, with the existence of violence in society, offers
+the means for a new form of impersonal slavery, which
+replaces the personal one. A slave-owner claims a right
+to the work of Peter, <ins title="Ivan">Iván</ins>, Sidor. But wherever money
+is required from everybody, the owner of money acquires
+a claim on the labour of all those unknown people who
+are in need of money. Money removes the painful side
+of slavery, by which the owner knows about his right
+on <ins title="Ivan">Iván</ins>, at the same time it removes all those human
+relations between the owner and the slave, which
+softened down the burden of personal slavery.</p>
+
+<p>I will not dwell on the theory that perhaps such a state
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_116" title="116"> </a>
+is necessary for the development of mankind, for its progress
+and so forth&mdash;I will not dispute it. I only strive
+to make clear to myself the conception of money and to
+discover the general misconception I have made in
+accepting money, as a representative of labour. I became
+convinced by experience that money is not a representative
+of labour, but in the great majority of cases is a
+representative of violence, or of specially complex artifices
+founded on violence.</p>
+
+<p>Money in our time has already altogether lost the desirable
+significance of being the representative of labour;
+such significance it may have in exceptional cases, but
+as a rule it has become the right or the possibility of
+using the labour of others.</p>
+
+<p>This spreading of money, of credit and different conventional
+signs, more and more confirm this meaning
+of money. Money is the possibility or the right to use
+the labours of others.</p>
+
+<p>Money is a new form of slavery differing from the old
+form of slavery only by its impersonality, by the freedom
+it gives from all human relations to the slave.</p>
+
+<p>Money is money, a value always equal to itself, and
+which is always considered quite correct and lawful, and
+the use of which is not considered immoral, as slavery
+was.</p>
+
+<p>In my young days a game of lotto was introduced in
+the clubs. All eagerly played the game and, as was
+said, many lost their fortunes, ruined their families, lost
+money entrusted to them, and government funds, and
+finally shot themselves, so that the game was forbidden
+and is still forbidden.</p>
+
+<p>I remember I have met old, hardened card players who
+told me that this game was especially fascinating, because
+one did not know whom one was to beat, as is the case
+in other games; the attendant does not even serve one
+with money, but with counters, everybody loses a small
+stake and does not betray grief. It is the same in roulette,
+which is rightly forbidden everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>So it is with money. I have a magical, everlasting
+<ins title="rouble">ruble</ins>; I cut off coupons and live apart from all the
+affairs of the world. Whom do I harm? I am the most
+quiet and kind-hearted man. But this is only a game
+of lotto or roulette where I do not see the man, who shoots
+himself after having lost, and who provides for me these
+small coupons, which I carefully cut off under the right
+angle from the tickets.</p>
+
+<p>I have done nothing, I am doing nothing, and
+never will do anything, save cut off the coupons,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_117" title="117"> </a>
+and firmly believe that money represents labour.
+This is really astounding! And people talk of
+lunatics! But what mania could be more horrible
+than this? An intelligent, learned, and in all
+other respects sensible man lives madly, and soothes
+himself by not acknowledging that one thing which he
+should acknowledge to make his argument reasonable,
+and he considers himself in the right! The coupons are
+representatives of labour! Of labour! Yes, but of whose
+labour? Not of his, who owns them, evidently, but of
+the one who works.</p>
+
+<p>Money is the same as slavery; its aim is the same and
+its consequences are the same. Its aim is the freeing of
+some men from the original law, truly called so by a
+thoughtful writer of the working-classes, from the natural
+law of life, as we call it, from the law of personal labour
+for the satisfaction of one's needs. The consequences
+of the slavery for the owner: the begetting, the invention
+of infinitely more and more needs never to be satisfied, of
+effeminate wretchedness and of depravity, and for the
+slaves,&mdash;oppression of the man, and his lowering to the
+level of a beast.</p>
+
+<p>Money is a new and terrible form of slavery and, like
+the old form of personal slavery, it equally demoralises
+the slave and the slave-owner, but it is so much worse,
+because it frees the slave and the slave-owner from personal
+human relations.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">I always</span> wonder at the often repeated words, &ldquo;Yes, it
+is all true in theory, but how is it in practice?&rdquo; As
+though the theory were only a collection of words useful
+for conversation, and not as though all practice,&mdash;that is,
+all activity of life&mdash;were inevitably based upon it.</p>
+
+<p>There must have been an immense number of foolish
+theories in the world for men to employ such wonderful
+reasoning. We know that theory is what a man thinks
+about a thing, and practice is what he does. How can
+a man think that he ought to act in one way, and then do
+quite the reverse? If the theory of baking bread consists
+in this, that first of all one must knead the dough, then
+put it by to rise, anyone knowing it would be a fool to
+do the reverse. But with us it has come into fashion to
+say, &ldquo;It is all very well in theory, but how would it be
+in practice?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>In all that has occupied me practice has unavoidably
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_118" title="118"> </a>
+followed theory, not mainly in order to justify it, but
+because it could not help doing so: if I have understood
+the affair upon which I have meditated I cannot help
+doing it in the way in which I have understood it.</p>
+
+<p>I wished to help the needy only because I had money
+to spare: and I shared the general superstition that
+money represents labour, and, generally speaking, is
+something lawful and good in itself. But, having begun
+to give this money away, I saw that I was only drawing
+bills of exchange collected from poor people; that I was
+doing the very thing the old landlords used to do in compelling
+some of their serfs to work for other serfs.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that every use of money, whether buying anything
+with it, or giving it away gratis, is a drawing of bills
+of exchange on poor people, or passing them to others to
+be drawn by them. And therefore I clearly understood
+the foolishness of what I was doing in helping the poor
+by exacting money from them.</p>
+
+<p>I saw that money in itself was not only not a good thing,
+but obviously an evil one, depriving men of their chief
+good, labour, and that this very good I cannot give to
+anyone because I am myself deprived of it: I have
+neither labour nor the happiness of utilizing my labour.</p>
+
+<p>It might be asked by some, &ldquo;What is there so peculiarly
+important in abstractly discussing the meaning of
+money?&rdquo; But this argument which I have opened is
+not merely for the sake of discussion, but in order to
+find an answer to the vital question which had caused
+me so much suffering, and on which my life depended,
+in order to discover what I was to do.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as I understood what wealth means, what
+money means, then it became clear and certain what I
+have to do, it became clear and certain what all others
+have to do,&mdash;and that they will inevitably do it, what all
+men must do. In reality I merely came to realize what
+I have long known,&mdash;that truth which has been transmitted
+to men from the oldest times, by Buddha, by
+Isaiah, by Laotse, by Socrates, and most clearly and
+definitely by Jesus and his predecessor John the Baptist.</p>
+
+<p>John the Baptist, in answer to men's question &ldquo;What
+shall we do then?&rdquo; answered plainly and briefly, &ldquo;He
+that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath
+none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise&rdquo;
+(Luke&nbsp;iii., 10, 11).</p>
+
+<p>The same thing, and with still greater clearness, said
+Jesus,&mdash;blessing the poor, and uttering woes on the rich.
+He said that no man can serve God and mammon. He
+forbade his disciples not only to take money, but also
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_119" title="119"> </a>
+to have two coats. He said to the rich young man that
+he could not enter into the kingdom of God because he
+was rich, and that it is easier for a camel to go through
+the needle's eye than for a rich man to enter the kingdom
+of God.</p>
+
+<p>He said that he who would not leave every thing&mdash;his
+houses and children and his fields&mdash;in order to follow
+him, was not his disciple. He spoke a parable about a
+rich man who had done nothing wrong (like our own
+rich people), but merely dressed well and ate and drank
+well, yet by this lost his own soul; and about a beggar
+named Lazarus, who had done nothing good, but who
+had saved his soul by his beggar's life.</p>
+
+<p>This truth had long been known to me; but the false
+teaching of the world had so cunningly hidden it that it
+became a theory in the sense which men like to attach
+to this word,&mdash;that is, a pure abstraction. But as soon
+as I succeeded in pulling down in my consciousness the
+sophistry of the world's teaching, then theory became
+one with practice and the reality of my life and the life
+of all men became its unavoidable result.</p>
+
+<p>I came to understand that man, besides living for his
+own good, must work for the good of others; and that if
+we were to draw our comparison from the world of
+animals, as some men are so fond of doing in justifying
+violence and contest by the law of the struggle for existence,
+we must take this comparison from the lives of
+social animals like bees; and therefore man, to say
+nothing of that love to his neighbours which is incumbent
+on him, is called upon to serve his fellows and their
+common object, as much by reason as by his very nature.</p>
+
+<p>I understood that this is the natural law of man, by
+fulfilling which he can alone fulfil his calling and therefore
+be happy. I understood that this law has been and
+is being violated by the fact that men (as robber-bees do)
+free themselves from labour by violence, and utilize the
+labour of others, using this labour not for the common
+purpose but for the personal satisfaction of their constantly
+increasing lusts, and also, like robber-bees, they
+perish thereby. I understood that the misfortune of men
+comes from the slavery in which some men are kept by
+others; and I understood that this slavery is brought
+about in our days by military force, violence, by the
+appropriation of land, and by the exaction of money.</p>
+
+<p>And, having understood the meaning of all these three
+instruments of modern slavery, I could not help desiring
+to free myself from any share in it.</p>
+
+<p>When I was a landlord, possessing serfs, and came to
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_120" title="120"> </a>
+understand the immorality of such a position, I, along
+with other men who had understood the same thing, tried
+to free myself from it. And I freed myself from this
+state thus. Finding it immoral, but not being able as yet
+to free myself wholly from it, I tried meanwhile to assert
+my rights as a serf-owner as little as possible.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot help doing the same now with reference to
+the present slavery&mdash;that is, I try as little as possible to
+assert my claims while I am unable to free myself from
+the power which gives me land-ownership, and from
+money raised by the violence of military force&mdash;and at
+the same time by all means in my power to suggest to
+other men the unlawfulness and inhumanity of these
+imaginary rights.</p>
+
+<p>The share in enslaving men consists, on the standpoint
+of a slave-owner, in utilizing the labour of others. (It is all
+the same whether the enslaving is based on a claim to the
+person of the slave or on the possession of land or
+money.) And, therefore, if a man really does not like
+slavery and does not desire to be a partaker in it, the
+first thing which he must do is this: neither take men's
+labour by serving the government, nor possess land or
+money.</p>
+
+<p>The refusal of all the means in use for taking another's
+labour will unavoidably bring such a man to the necessity
+of lessening his wants on the one hand, and, on the
+other, of doing himself what formerly was done for him
+by other men. This simple and unavoidable conclusion
+enters into every detail of my life, changes it entirely,
+and at once sets me free from the moral sufferings I had
+endured at the sight of the misery and wickedness of men.</p>
+
+<p>The first cause was the accumulation of people in
+towns, and the absorption there of the products of the
+country.</p>
+
+<p>All that a man needs is not to desire to take another's
+labour by serving the government and possessing land
+and money, and then, according to his strength and
+ability, to satisfy unaided his own wants. The idea of
+leaving his village would never enter the mind of such a
+man, because in the country it is easier for him to satisfy
+his wants personally, while in a town everything is the
+product of the labour of others, all must be bought; in
+the country a man will always be able to help the needy,
+and will not experience that feeling of being useless, which
+I felt in the town when I wanted to help men, not with
+my own, but with other men's labours.</p>
+
+<p>The second cause was the estrangement between the
+poor and the rich. A man need only not desire to profit
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_121" title="121"> </a>
+by other men's labour by serving the government and
+possessing land and money, and he would be compelled
+to satisfy his wants himself, and at once involuntarily
+that barrier would be pushed down which separates him
+from the working-people, and he would be one with the
+people, standing shoulder to shoulder with them, and
+seeing the possibility of helping them.</p>
+
+<p>The third cause was shame, based on the consciousness
+of the immorality of possessing money with which I
+wanted to help others. A man need only not desire to
+profit by another man's labour by serving the government
+and possessing land and money, and he will never have
+that superfluous &ldquo;fool's money,&rdquo; the fact of possessing
+which made those who wanted money ask me for pecuniary
+assistance which I was not able to satisfy, and called
+forth in me the consciousness of my unrighteousness.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">I saw</span> that the cause of the sufferings and depravity of
+men lies in the fact that some men are in bondage to
+others; and therefore I came to the obvious conclusion
+that if I want to help men I have first of all to leave off
+causing those very misfortunes which I want to remedy,&mdash;in
+other words, I must not share in the enslaving of men.</p>
+
+<p>I was led to the enslaving of men by the circumstance
+that from my infancy I had been accustomed not to work,
+but to profit by the labour of others, and that I had been
+living in a society which is not only accustomed to this
+slavery but which justifies it by all kinds of sophistry,
+clever and foolish.</p>
+
+<p>I came to the following simple conclusion, that, in order
+to avoid causing the sufferings and depravity of men, I
+ought to make other men work for me as little as possible
+and to work myself as much as possible.</p>
+
+<p>It was by this roundabout way that I arrived at the inevitable
+conclusion to which the Chinese arrived some
+thousand years ago, and which they express thus: &ldquo;If
+there is one idle man, there must be another who is
+starving.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I came to this simple and natural conclusion, that if
+I pity the exhausted horse on whose back I ride the first
+thing for me to do if I really pity him is to get off his
+back and walk. This answer, which gives such complete
+satisfaction to the moral sense, had always been before my
+eyes, as it is before the eyes of every one, but we do not
+all see it, and look aside.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_122" title="122"> </a>In seeking to heal our social diseases we look everywhere,&mdash;to
+the governmental, anti-governmental, scientific,
+and philanthropic superstitions,&mdash;and yet we do not
+see that which meets the eyes of every one. We fill our
+drains with filth and require other men to clean them, and
+pretend to be very sorry for them and want to ease their
+work; and we invent all sorts of devices except one, the
+simplest; namely, that we should ourselves remove our
+slops so long as we find it necessary to produce them in
+our rooms.</p>
+
+<p>For him who really suffers from the sufferings of the
+other men surrounding him, there exists a most <ins title="clear">clear,</ins>
+simple, and easy means, the only one sufficient to heal this
+evil and to confer a sense of the lawfulness of one's life.
+This means is that which John the Baptist recommended
+when he answered the question, &ldquo;What shall we do then?&rdquo;
+and which was confirmed by Christ: not to have more
+than one coat, and not to possess money,&mdash;that is, not to
+profit by another man's labour. And in order not to
+profit by another's labour, we must do with our own
+hands all that we can do. This is so plain and simple!
+But it is plain and simple and clear only when our wants
+are also plain, and when we ourselves are still sound and
+not corrupted to the backbone by idleness and laziness.</p>
+
+<p>I live in a village, lie by the stove, and tell my neighbour,
+who is my debtor, to chop wood and light the stove.
+It is obvious that I am lazy and take my neighbour away
+from his own work; and at last I feel ashamed of it;
+and besides, it grows dull for me to be always lying down
+when my muscles are strong and accustomed to work,&mdash;and
+I go to chop the wood myself.</p>
+
+<p>But slavery of all kinds has been going on so long, so
+many artificial wants have grown about it, so many people
+with different degrees of familiarity with these wants are
+interwoven with one another, through so many generations
+men have been spoiled and made effeminate, such
+complicated temptations and justifications of luxury and
+idleness have been invented by men, that for one who
+stands on the top of the pyramid of idle men, it is not
+at all so easy to understand his sin as it is for the peasant
+who compels his neighbour to light his stove.</p>
+
+<p>Men who stand at the top find it most difficult to understand
+what is required of them. From the height of the
+structure of lies on which they stand they become giddy
+when they look at that spot on the earth to which they
+must descend in order to begin to live, not righteously,
+but only not quite inhumanly; and that is why this plain
+and clear truth appears to these men so strange.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_123" title="123"> </a>A man who employs ten servants in livery, coachmen
+and cooks, who has pictures and pianos, must certainly
+regard as strange and even ridiculous the simple preliminary
+duty of, I do not say a good man, but of every man
+who is not an animal, to hew that wood with which his
+food is cooked and by which he is warmed; to clean those
+boots in which he carelessly stepped into the mud; to
+bring that water with which he keeps himself clean; and
+to carry away those slops in which he has washed himself.</p>
+
+<p>But besides the estrangement of men from the truth,
+there is another cause which hinders them from seeing the
+duty of doing the most simple and natural physical work;
+that is the complication and intermingling of the conditions
+in which a rich man lives.</p>
+
+<p>This morning I entered the corridor in which the stoves
+are heated. A peasant was heating the stove which
+warmed my son's room. I entered his bedroom: he was
+asleep, and it was eleven o'clock in the morning. The
+excuse was, &ldquo;To-day is a holiday; no lessons.&rdquo; A stout
+lad of eighteen years of age, having over-eaten himself
+the previous night, is sleeping until eleven o'clock; and
+a peasant of his own age, who had already that morning
+done a quantity of work, was now lighting the tenth stove.
+&ldquo;It would be better, perhaps, if the peasant did not light
+the stove to warm this stout, lazy fellow!&rdquo; thought I;
+but I remembered at once that this stove also warmed the
+room of our housekeeper, a woman of forty years of age,
+who had been working the night before till three o'clock
+in the morning to prepare everything for the supper which
+my son ate; and then she put away the dishes, and, notwithstanding
+this, got up at seven. She cannot heat the
+stove herself: she has no time for that. The peasant is
+heating the stove for her, too. And under her name my
+lazy fellow was being warmed.</p>
+
+<p>True, the advantages are all interwoven; but without
+much consideration the conscience of each will say, On
+whose side is the labour, and on whose the idleness? But
+not only does conscience tell this, the account-book also
+tells it: the more money one spends, the more people
+work for us. The less one spends, the more one works
+one's self. &ldquo;My luxurious life gives means of living to
+others. Where should my old footman go, if I were to
+discharge him?&rdquo; &ldquo;What! every one must do everything
+for himself? Make his coat as well as hew his wood?
+And how about division of labour? And industry and
+social undertakings?&rdquo; And, last of all, come the most
+horrible of words,&mdash;civilization, science, art!</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_124" title="124"> </a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Last</span> March I was returning home late in the evening.
+On turning into a bye-lane I perceived on the snow in a
+distant field some black shadows. I should not have
+noticed this but for the policeman who stood at the end
+of the lane and cried in the direction of the shadows,
+&ldquo;Vasili, why don't you come along?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;She won't move,&rdquo; answered a voice; and thereupon
+the shadows came towards the policeman. I stopped and
+asked him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;What is the matter?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He said, &ldquo;We have got some girls from Rzhanoff's
+house, and are taking them to the police-station; and one
+of them lags behind, and won't come along.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>A night-watchman in sheepskin coat appeared now driving
+on a girl who slouched along while he prodded her from
+behind. I, the watchman and the policeman, were wearing
+winter coats: she alone had none, having only her
+gown on. In the dark I could distinguish only a brown
+dress and a kerchief round her head and neck. She was
+short, like most starvelings, and had a broad, clumsy
+figure.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;We aren't going to stay here all night for you, you
+hag! Get on, or I'll give it you!&rdquo; shouted the policeman.
+He was evidently fatigued and tired of her. She
+walked some paces and stopped again.</p>
+
+<p>The old watchman, a good-natured man (I knew him),
+pulled her by the hand. &ldquo;I'll wake you up! come
+along!&rdquo; said he, pretending to be angry. She staggered,
+and began to speak with a croaking hoarse voice, &ldquo;Let
+me be; don't you push. I'll get on myself.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You'll be frozen to death,&rdquo; he returned.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;A girl like me won't be frozen: I've lots of hot blood.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>She meant it as a joke, but her words sounded like a
+curse. By a lamp, which stood not far from the gate of
+my house, she stopped again, leaned back against the
+paling, and began to seek for something among her petticoats
+with awkward, frozen hands. They again shouted
+to her; but she only muttered and continued searching.
+She held in one hand a crumpled cigarette and matches
+in the other. I remained behind her: I was ashamed to
+pass by or to stay and look at her. But I made up my
+mind and came up to her. She leaned with her shoulder
+against the paling and vainly tried to light a match on it.</p>
+
+<p>I looked narrowly at her face. She was indeed a starveling
+and appeared to me to be a woman of about thirty.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_125" title="125"> </a>
+Her complexion was dirty; her eyes small, dim, and
+bleared with drinking; she had a squat nose; her lips
+were wry and slavering, with downcast angles; from under
+her kerchief fell a tuft of dry hair. Her figure was long
+and flat; her arms and legs short.</p>
+
+<p>I stopped in front of her. She looked at me and grinned
+as if she knew all that I was thinking about. I felt that
+I ought to say something to her. I wanted to show her
+that I pitied her.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you parents?&rdquo; I asked. She laughed hoarsely,
+then suddenly stopped, and, lifting her brows, began to
+look at me steadfastly.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Have you parents?&rdquo; I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled with a grimace which seemed to say, &ldquo;What
+a question for him to put!&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I have a mother,&rdquo; she said at last; &ldquo;but what's that
+to you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;And how old are you?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I am over fifteen,&rdquo; she said, at once answering a question
+she was accustomed to hear.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Come, come! go on; we shall all be frozen for you,
+the deuce take you!&rdquo; shouted the policeman; and she
+edged off from the paling and staggered along the lane to
+the police-station: and I turned to the gate and entered
+my house, and asked whether my daughters were at home.
+I was told that they had been to an evening party, had enjoyed
+themselves much, and now were asleep.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning I was about to go to the police-station
+to enquire what had become of this unhappy girl. I was
+ready to start early enough, when one of those unfortunate
+men called, who from weakness have dropped out
+of the gentlemanly line of life to which they have been
+accustomed, and who rise and fall by turns. I had been
+acquainted with him three years. During this time he
+had several times sold every thing he had,&mdash;even his
+clothes; and, having just done so again, he passed his
+nights temporarily in Rzhanoff's house, and his days at
+my lodgings. He met me as I was going out, and, without
+listening to me, began at once to relate what had happened
+at Rzhanoff's house the night before.</p>
+
+<p>He began to relate it, yet had not got through one-half
+when, all of a sudden, he, an old man, who had gone
+through much in his life, began to sob, and, ceasing to
+speak, turned his face away from me. This was what he
+related. I ascertained the truth of his story on the spot,
+where I learned some new particulars, which I shall relate
+too.</p>
+
+<p>A washerwoman thirty years of age, fair, quiet, good-looking,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_126" title="126"> </a>
+but delicate, passed her nights in the same lodging-house,
+the ground-floor of No.&nbsp;32 where my friend slept
+among various shifting night-lodgers, men and women,
+who for five kopeks slept with each other.</p>
+
+<p>The landlady at this lodging was the mistress of a boatman.
+In summer her lover kept a boat; and in winter
+they earned their living by letting lodgings to night-lodgers
+at three kopeks without a pillow, and at five kopeks with
+one.</p>
+
+<p>The washerwoman had been living here some months,
+and was a quiet woman; but lately they began to object
+to her because she coughed, and prevented the other
+lodgers from sleeping. An old woman in particular,
+eighty years old, half silly, and a permanent inmate of
+this lodging, began to dislike the washerwoman and kept
+annoying her because she disturbed her sleep; for all night
+she coughed like a sheep.</p>
+
+<p>The washerwoman said nothing. She owed for rent,
+and felt herself guilty, and was therefore compelled to
+endure. She began to work less and less, for her strength
+failed her; and that was why she was unable to pay her
+rent. She had not been to work at all the whole of the
+last week; and she had been making the lives of all, and
+particularly of the old woman, miserable by her cough.</p>
+
+<p>Four days ago the landlady gave her notice to leave.
+She already owed sixty kopeks, and could not pay them,
+and there was no hope of doing so; and other lodgers
+complained of her cough.</p>
+
+<p>When the landlady gave the washerwoman notice, and
+told her she must go away if she did not pay the rent, the
+old woman was glad, and pushed her out into the yard.
+The washerwoman went away, but came back again in
+an hour, and the landlady had not the heart to send her
+away again.... During the second and the third
+day the landlady left her there. &ldquo;Where shall I go?&rdquo;
+she kept saying. On the third day the landlady's lover,
+a Moscow man, who knew all the rules and regulations,
+went for a policeman. The policeman, with a sword and
+a pistol slung on a red cord, came into the lodging and
+quietly and politely turned the washerwoman out into the
+street.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bright, sunny, but frosty day in March. The
+melting snow ran down in streams, the house-porters were
+breaking the ice. The hackney sledges bumped on the
+ice-glazed snow, and creaked over the stones. The
+washerwoman went up the hill on the sunny side, got to
+the church, and sat down in the sun at the church-porch.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_127" title="127"> </a>
+But when the sun began to go down behind the houses
+and the pools of water began to be covered with a thin
+sheet of ice, the washerwoman felt chilly and terrified.
+She got up and slowly walked on.... Where?
+Home,&mdash;to the only house in which she had been living
+lately.</p>
+
+<p>While she was walking there, several times resting herself,
+it began to get dark. She approached the gate,
+turned into it, her foot slipped, she gave a shriek, and fell
+down.</p>
+
+<p>One man passed by, then another. &ldquo;She must be
+drunk,&rdquo; they thought. Another man passed, and stumbled
+up against her, and said to the house-porter, &ldquo;Some tipsy
+woman is lying at the gate. I very nearly broke my neck
+over her. Won't you take her away?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The house-porter came. The washerwoman was dead.
+This was what my friend related to me.</p>
+
+<p>The reader will perhaps fancy I have picked out particular
+cases in the prostitute of fifteen years of age and
+the story of this washerwoman; but let him not think so:
+this really happened in one and the same night. I do
+not exactly remember the date, only it was in March, 1884.</p>
+
+<p>Having heard my friend's story I went to the police-station,
+intending from there to go to Rzhanoff's house
+to learn all the particulars of the washerwoman's story.</p>
+
+<p>The weather was fine and sunny; and again under the
+ice of the previous night, in the shade, you could see the
+water running; and in the sun, in the square, everything
+was melting fast. The trees of the garden appeared blue
+from over the river; the sparrows that were reddish in
+winter, and unnoticed then, now attracted people's attention
+by their merriness; men also tried to be merry, but
+they all had too many cares. The bells of the churches
+sounded; and blending with them were heard sounds of
+shooting from the barracks,&mdash;the hiss of the rifle balls,
+and the crack when they struck the target.</p>
+
+<p>I entered the police-station. There some armed men&mdash;policemen&mdash;led
+me to their chief. He, also armed with
+a sword, sabre, and pistol, was busy giving some orders
+about a ragged, trembling old man who was standing before
+him, and from weakness could not clearly answer
+what was asked of him. Having done with the old man,
+he turned to me. I inquired about the prostitute of last
+night. He first listened to me attentively, then he smiled,
+not only because I did not know why they were taken to
+the police-station, but more particularly at my astonishment
+at her youth. &ldquo;Goodness! there are some of twelve,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_128" title="128"> </a>
+thirteen, and fourteen years of age often,&rdquo; said he, in a
+lively tone.</p>
+
+<p>To my question about the girl of yesterday, he told me
+that she had probably been already sent to the committee
+(if I understood him right). To my question where such
+women passed the night, he gave a vague answer. The
+one about whom I spoke he did not remember. There
+were so many of them every day.</p>
+
+<p>At Rzhanoff's house, in No.&nbsp;32, I already found the
+sacristan reading prayers over the dead washerwoman.
+She had been brought in and laid on her former pallet;
+and the lodgers, all starvelings themselves, contributed
+money for the prayers, the coffin, and the shroud; the
+old woman had dressed her, and laid her out. The clerk
+was reading something in the dark; a woman in a cloak
+stood holding a wax taper; and with a similar wax taper
+stood a man (a gentleman, it is fair to state), in a nice
+great-coat, trimmed with an astrachan collar, in bright
+goloshes, and with a starched shirt. That was her
+brother. He had been hunted up.</p>
+
+<p>I passed by the dead woman to the landlady's room
+in order to ask her all the particulars. She was afraid
+of my questions,&mdash;afraid probably of being charged with
+something; but by and by she grew talkative and told
+me all. On passing by again, I looked at the dead body.
+All the dead are beautiful; but this one was particularly
+beautiful and touching in her coffin, with her clear, pale
+face, with closed, prominent eyes, sunken cheeks, and
+fair, soft hair over her high forehead; her face looked
+weary, but kind, and not sad at all, but rather astonished.
+And indeed, if the living do not see, the dead may well
+be astonished.</p>
+
+<p>On the day I wrote this there was a great ball in Moscow.
+On the same night I left home after eight o'clock.
+I live in a locality surrounded by factories; and I left
+home after the factory whistle had sounded, and when,
+after a week of incessant work, the people were freed for
+their holiday. Factory-men passed by me, and I by
+them, all turning their steps to the public-houses and
+inns. Many were already tipsy: many were with women.</p>
+
+<p>Every morning at five I hear each of the whistles, which
+means that the labour of women, children, and old people
+has begun. At eight o'clock another whistle,&mdash;this means
+half an hour's rest; at twelve the third whistle,&mdash;this
+means an hour for dinner. At eight o'clock the fourth
+whistle, indicating cessation from work. By a strange
+coincidence, all the three factories in my neighbourhood
+produce only the articles necessary for balls.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_129" title="129"> </a>In one factory,&mdash;the one nearest to me,&mdash;they make
+nothing but stockings; in the other opposite, silk stuffs;
+in the third, perfumes and pomades.</p>
+
+<p>One may, on hearing these whistles, attach to them no
+other meaning than that of the indication of time. &ldquo;There,
+the whistle has sounded: it is time to go out for a walk.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But one may associate with them also the meaning they
+have in reality,&mdash;that at the first whistle at five o'clock
+in the morning, men and women, who have slept side by
+side in a damp cellar, get up in the dark, and hurry away
+into the noisy building to take their part in a work of
+which they see neither cessation nor utility for themselves,
+and work often so in the heat, in suffocating exhalations,
+with very rare intervals of rest, for one, two, or three, or
+even twelve or more hours. They fall asleep, and get up
+again, and again do this work, meaningless for themselves,
+to which they are goaded only by want. So it goes on
+from one week to another, interrupted only by holidays.</p>
+
+<p>And now I see these working-people freed for one of
+these holidays. They go out into the street: everywhere
+there are inns, public-houses, and gay women. And they,
+in a drunken state, pull each other by the arms, and carry
+along with them girls like the one whom I saw conducted
+to the police-station: they hire hackney-coaches, and ride
+and walk from one inn to another, and abuse each other,
+and totter about, and say they know not what.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly when I saw the factory people knocking about
+in this way I used to turn aside with disgust, and almost
+reproached them; but since I hear these daily whistles,
+and know what they mean, I am only astonished that all
+these men do not come into the condition of the utter
+beggars with whom Moscow is filled, and the <ins title="woman">women</ins> into
+the position of the girl whom I had met near my house.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I walked on, looking at these men, observing how
+they went about the streets, till eleven o'clock. Then
+their movements became quieter: there remained here and
+there a few tipsy people, and I met some men and women
+who were being conducted to the police-station. And
+now, from every side, carriages appeared, all going in one
+direction. On the coach-box sat a coachman, sometimes
+in a sheepskin coat, and a footman,&mdash;a dandy with a
+cockade. Well-fed horses, covered with cloth, trotted at
+the rate of fifteen miles an hour. In the carriages sat
+ladies wrapped in shawls, taking great care not to spoil
+their flowers and their toilets. All, beginning with the
+harness on the horses, the carriages, indiarubber wheels,
+the cloth of the coachman's coat, down to the stockings,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_130" title="130"> </a>
+shoes, flowers, velvet, gloves, scents,&mdash;all these articles
+have been made by those men, some of whom fell asleep
+on their own pallets in their mean rooms, some in night-houses
+with prostitutes, and others in the police-station.</p>
+
+<p>The ball-goers drive past these men, in and with things
+made by them; and it does not even enter into their minds
+that there could possibly be any connection between the
+ball they are going to, and these tipsy people to whom
+their coachmen shout out so angrily. With easy minds and
+assurance that they are doing nothing wrong, but something
+very good, they enjoy themselves at the ball.</p>
+
+<p>Enjoy themselves!</p>
+
+<p>From eleven o'clock in the evening till six in the morning,
+in the very depth of the night; while with empty
+stomachs men are lying in night-lodgings, or dying as
+the washer-woman had done!</p>
+
+<p>The enjoyment of the ball consists in women and girls
+uncovering their bosoms, putting on artificial protuberances
+at the back, and altogether getting themselves up as
+no girl and no <ins title="women">woman</ins> who is not yet depraved would,
+on any account, appear before men; and in this half-naked
+condition, with uncovered bosoms, and arms bare
+up to the shoulders, with dresses puffed behind and tight
+round the hips, in the brightest light, women and girls,
+whose first virtue has always been modesty, appear among
+strange men, who are also dressed in indecently tight-fitting
+clothes, embrace each other, and pivot round and
+round to the sound of exciting music. Old women, often
+also half naked like the younger ones, are sitting looking
+on, and eating and drinking: the old men do the same.
+No wonder it is done at night when everyone else is sleeping,
+so that no one may see it!</p>
+
+<p>But it is not done at night in order to hide it; there is
+nothing indeed to hide; all is very nice and good; and
+by this enjoyment, in which is swallowed up the painful
+labour of thousands, not only is nobody harmed, but by
+this very thing poor people are fed!</p>
+
+<p>The ball goes on very merrily, may be, but how did it
+come to do so? When we see in society or among ourselves
+one who has not eaten, or is cold, we are ashamed
+to enjoy ourselves, and cannot begin to be merry until he
+is fed, to say nothing of the fact that we cannot even
+imagine that there are people who can enjoy themselves
+by means of anything which produces the sufferings of
+others.</p>
+
+<p>We are disgusted with and do not understand the enjoyment
+of brutal boys who have squeezed a dog's tail
+into a piece of split wood. How is it, then, that in our
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_131" title="131"> </a>
+enjoyment we become blind, and do not see the cleft in
+which we have pinched those men who suffer for our
+enjoyment.</p>
+
+<p>We know that each woman at this ball whose dress costs
+a hundred and fifty rubles was not born at the ball, but
+has lived in the country, has seen peasants, is acquainted
+with a nurse and maid whose fathers and brothers are
+poor, for whom the earning of a hundred and fifty rubles
+to build a cottage with is the end and aim of a long,
+laborious life. She knows all this; how can she, then,
+enjoy herself, knowing that on her half-naked body she
+is wearing the cottage which is the dream of her housemaid's
+brother?</p>
+
+<p>But let us suppose she has not thought about this: still
+she cannot help knowing that velvet and silk, sweetmeats
+and flowers, and laces and dresses, do not grow of themselves,
+but are made by men. One would think she
+could not help knowing that men make all these things,
+and under what circumstances, and why. She cannot
+help knowing that her dressmaker, whom she scolded to-day,
+made this dress not at all out of love to her, therefore
+she cannot help knowing that all these things&mdash;her
+laces, flowers, and velvet&mdash;were made from sheer want.</p>
+
+<p>But perhaps she is so blinded that she does not think
+of this. Well, but, at all events, she could not help
+knowing that five people, old, respectable, often delicate
+men and women, have not slept all night, and have been
+busy on her account. She saw their tired, gloomy faces.
+This, also, she could not help knowing,&mdash;that on this
+night there were twenty-eight degrees of frost, and that
+her coachman&mdash;an old man&mdash;was sitting in this frost all
+night on his coach-box.</p>
+
+<p>But I know that they do not really see this. If from
+the hypnotic influence of the ball these young women and
+girls fail to see all this, we cannot judge them. Poor things!
+They consider all to be good which is pronounced so by
+their elders. How do these elders explain their cruelty?
+They, indeed, always answer in the same way: &ldquo;I compel
+no one; what I have, I have bought; footmen, chambermaids,
+coachman, I hire. There is no harm in engaging
+and in buying. I compel none; I hire; what wrong is
+there in that?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Some days ago I called on a friend. Passing through
+the first room I wondered at seeing two women at a table,
+for I knew my acquaintance was a bachelor. A skinny
+yellow, old-looking woman, about thirty, with a kerchief
+thrown over her shoulders, was briskly doing something
+over the table with her hands, jerking nervously, as if
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_132" title="132"> </a>
+in a fit. Opposite to her sat a young girl, who was also
+doing something and jerking in the same way. They
+both seemed to be suffering from St. Vitus's dance. I
+came nearer and looked closer to see what they were about.</p>
+
+<p>They glanced up at me and then continued their work
+as attentively as before.</p>
+
+<p>Before them were spread tobacco and cigarettes. They
+were making cigarettes. The woman rubbed the tobacco
+fine between the palms of her hands, caught it up by a
+machine, put on the tubes, and threw them to the girl.
+The girl folded the papers, put them over the cigarette,
+threw it aside, and took up another.</p>
+
+<p>All this was performed with such speed, with such
+dexterity, that it was impossible to describe it. I expressed
+my wonder at their quickness. &ldquo;I have been at
+this business fourteen years,&rdquo; said the woman.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Is it hard work?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Yes: my chest aches, and the air is choky with
+tobacco.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But it was not necessary for her to have said so: you
+need only have looked at her or at the girl. The latter
+had been at this business three years; but anyone not
+seeing her at this work would have said that she had a
+strong constitution which was already beginning to be
+broken.</p>
+
+<p>My acquaintance, a kind-hearted man of liberal views,
+hired these women to make him cigarettes at two rubles
+and a half (5s.) a thousand. He has money, and he pays
+it away for this work: what harm is there in it?</p>
+
+<p>My acquaintance gets up at twelve. His evenings, from
+six to two, he spends at cards or at the piano; he eats
+and drinks well; other people do all the work for him.
+He has devised for himself a new pleasure,&mdash;smoking.
+I can remember when he began to smoke. Here are a
+woman and a girl who can scarcely earn their living by
+transforming themselves into machines, and who pass
+all their lives in breathing tobacco, thus ruining their
+lives. He has money which he has not earned, and he
+prefers playing at cards to making cigarettes for himself.
+He gives these women money only on condition that they
+continue to live as miserably as they lived before in making
+cigarettes for him.</p>
+
+<p>I am fond of cleanliness; and I give money on condition
+that the washerwoman washes my shirts, which I
+change twice a day; and the washing of these shirts having
+taxed the utmost strength of the washerwoman, she
+has died.</p>
+
+<p>What is wrong in this?</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_133" title="133"> </a>Men who buy and hire will continue doing so whether
+I do or do not; they will force other people to make velvets
+and dainties, and will buy them whether I do or do
+not; so also they will hire people to make cigarettes and
+to wash shirts. Why should I, then, deprive myself of
+velvets, <ins title="sweatmeats">sweetmeats</ins>, cigarettes, and clean shirts, when
+their production is already set in going. Often,&mdash;almost
+constantly I hear this reasoning.</p>
+
+<p>This is the very reasoning which a crowd, maddened
+with the passion of destruction, will employ. It is the
+same reasoning which leads a pack of dogs, when one of
+their number runs against another and knocks it down,
+the rest attack it and tear it to pieces. Others have already
+begun, have done a little mischief; why shouldn't
+I, too, do the same? What can it possibly signify if I
+wear a dirty shirt and make my cigarettes myself? could
+that help any one? men ask who desire to justify themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Had we not wandered so far from truth one would be
+ashamed to answer this question; but we are so entangled
+that such a question seems natural to us, and, therefore,
+though I feel ashamed, I must answer it.</p>
+
+<p>What difference would it be if I should wear my shirt
+a week instead of a day, and make my cigarettes myself,
+or leave off smoking altogether?</p>
+
+<p>The difference would be this,&mdash;that a certain washerwoman,
+and a certain cigarette-maker, would exert themselves
+less, and what I gave formerly for the washing of
+my shirt, and for the making of my cigarettes, I may give
+now to that or to another woman; and working-people
+who are tired by their work, instead of overworking themselves,
+will be able to rest and to have tea. But I have
+heard objections to this, so ashamed are the rich and
+luxurious to understand their position.</p>
+
+<p>They reply, &ldquo;If I should wear dirty linen, leave off
+smoking, and give this money away to the poor, then this
+money would be all the same taken away from them, and
+my drop will not help to swell the sea.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I am still more ashamed to answer such a reply, but
+at the same time I must do so. If I came among savages
+who gave me chops which I thought delicious, but the
+next day I learned (perhaps saw myself) that these
+delicious chops were made of a human prisoner who had
+been slain in order to make them; and if I think it bad
+to eat men, however delicious the cutlets may be, and
+however general the custom to eat men among the persons
+with whom I live, and however small the utility of
+my refusal to eat them may be,&mdash;to the prisoners who
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_134" title="134"> </a>
+have been prepared for food,&mdash;I shall not and cannot
+eat them.</p>
+
+<p>It <ins title="maybe">may be</ins> that I shall eat human flesh when urged by
+hunger; but I shall not make a feast of it, and shall not
+take part in feasts with human flesh, and shall not seek
+such feasts, nor be proud of my partaking of them.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">But</span> what is to be done, then? We did not do it, did we?
+And if not we, who did?</p>
+
+<p>We say, &ldquo;It is not we who have done all this; it has been
+done of itself&rdquo;; as children say when they break anything,
+that &ldquo;it broke itself.&rdquo; We say that, as towns are
+already in existence, we, who are living there, must feed
+men by buying their labour. But that is not true. It
+need only be observed how we live in the country, and
+how we feed people there.</p>
+
+<p>Winter is over: Easter is coming. In the town the same
+orgies of the rich go on,&mdash;on the boulevards, in gardens,
+in the parks, on the river; music, theatres, riding, illuminations,
+fire-works. But in the country it is still better,&mdash;the
+air is purer; the trees, the meadows, the flowers, are
+fresher. We must go where all is budding and blooming.
+And now we, the majority of rich people, who live by
+other men's labour, go into the country to breathe the
+purer air, to look at the meadows and woods. Here
+in the country among humble villagers who feed on bread
+and onions, work eighteen hours every day, and have
+neither sufficient sleep nor clothes, rich people take up
+their abode. No one tempts these people: here are no
+factories, and no idle hands, of which there are so many
+in town, whom we may imagine we feed by giving them
+work to do. Here people never can do their own work
+in time during the summer; and not only are there no
+idle hands, but much property is lost for want of hands;
+and an immense number of men, children, and old people,
+and women with child, overwork themselves.</p>
+
+<p>How, then, do rich people order their lives here in the
+country? Thus: if there happens to be an old mansion,
+built in the time of the serfs, then this house is renovated
+and re-decorated: if there is not, one is built of two or
+three stories. The rooms, which are from twelve to twenty
+and more in number, are all about sixteen feet high. The
+floors are inlaid; in the windows are put whole panes of
+glass, costly carpets on the floors; expensive furniture is
+procured,&mdash;a sideboard, for instance, costing from twenty
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_135" title="135"> </a>
+to sixty pounds. Near the mansion, roads are made;
+flower-beds are laid out; there are croquet-lawns, giant-strides,
+reflecting globes, conservatories, and hot-houses,
+and always luxurious stables. All is painted in colours,
+prepared with the very oil which the old people and children
+lack for their porridge. If a rich man can afford it
+he buys such a house for himself; if he cannot he hires
+one: but however poor and however liberal a man of our
+circle may be, he always takes up his abode in the country
+in such a house, for building and keeping which it is
+necessary to take away dozens of working-people who have
+not enough time to do their own business in the field to
+earn their living.</p>
+
+<p>Here we cannot say that factories are already in existence
+and will continue so whether we make use of their
+work or no; we cannot say that we are feeding idle hands;
+here we plainly establish the factories for making things
+necessary for us, and simply make use of the surrounding
+people; we divert the people from work necessary for
+them, as for us and for all, and by such system deprave
+some, and ruin the lives and the health of others.</p>
+
+<p>There lives, let us say, in a village, an educated and
+respectable family of the upper class, or that of a government
+officer. All its members and the visitors assemble
+towards the middle of June, because up to June they had
+been studying and passing their examinations: they
+assemble when mowing begins, and they stay until September,
+until the harvest and sowing time. The members
+of the family (as almost all men of this class) remain in
+the country from the beginning of the urgent work,&mdash;hay-making,&mdash;not
+to the end of it, indeed, because in September
+the sowing goes on, and the digging up of potatoes,
+but till labour begins to slacken. During the whole time
+of the stay, around them and close by the peasants' summer
+work has been proceeding, the strain of which, however
+much we may have heard or read of it, however much
+we may have looked at it, we can form no adequate idea
+without having experienced it ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The members of the family, about ten persons have
+been living as they did in town, if possible still worse
+than in town, because here in the village they are supposed
+to be resting (after doing nothing), and offer no
+pretence in the way of work, and no excuse for their
+idleness.</p>
+
+<p>In the midsummer-lent, when people are forced from
+want to feed on kvas<a name="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and bread and onions, begins the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_136" title="136"> </a>
+mowing time. Gentlefolk who live in the country see this
+labour, partly order it, partly admire it; enjoy the smell
+of the drying hay, the sound of women's songs, the noise
+of the scythes, and the sight of the rows of mowers, and
+of the women raking. They see this near their house as
+well as when they, with young people and children who
+do nothing all the day long, drive well-fed horses a distance
+of a few hundred yards to the bathing-place.</p>
+
+<p>The work of mowing is one of the most important in the
+world. Nearly every year, from want of hands and of
+time, the meadows remain half uncut and may remain so
+till the rains begin; so that the degree of intensity of the
+labour decides the question whether twenty or more per
+cent will be added to the stores of the world, or whether
+this hay will be left to rot or spoil while yet uncut.</p>
+
+<p>And if there is more hay, there will be also more meat
+for old people and milk for children; thus matters stand
+in general; but in particular for each mower here is
+decided the question of bread and milk for himself, and
+for his children during the winter.</p>
+
+<p>Each of the working-people, male and female, knows
+this: even the children know that this is an important
+business and that one ought to work with all one's strength,
+carry a jug with kvas for the father to the mowing-place,
+and, shifting it from one hand to another, run barefoot
+as quickly as possible, a distance of perhaps a mile and a
+half from the village, in order to be in time for dinner,
+that father may not grumble. Every one knows, that, from
+the mowing to the harvest, there will be no cessation of
+labour, and no time for rest. And besides mowing, each
+has some other business to do,&mdash;to plough up new land
+and harrow it; the women have the linen to make, bread
+to bake, and the washing to do; and the peasants must
+drive to the mill and to market; they have the official
+affairs of their community to attend to; they have also
+to provide the local government officials with means of
+locomotion, and to pass the night in the fields with the
+pastured horses.</p>
+
+<p>All, old and young and sick, work with all their strength.</p>
+
+<p>The peasants work in such a way, that, when cutting
+the last rows, the mowers, some of them weak people,
+growing youths, and old men, are so tired, that, having
+rested a little, it is with great pain they begin anew; the
+women, often with child, work hard too.</p>
+
+<p>It is a strained, incessant labour. All work to the
+utmost of their strength, and use not only all their provisions
+but what they have in store. During harvest-time
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_137" title="137"> </a>
+all the peasants grow thinner although they never were
+very stout.</p>
+
+<p>There is a small company labouring in the hayfield;
+three peasants&mdash;one an old man, another his married
+nephew, and the third the village cobbler, a thin, wiry
+man. Their mowing this morning decides their fate for
+the coming winter, whether they will be able to keep a
+cow and pay their taxes. This is their second weeks'
+work. The rain hindered them for a while. After the
+rain had left off and the water had dried up they decided
+to make hayricks; and in order to do it quicker they
+decided that two women must rake to each scythe. With
+the old man came out his wife, fifty years of age, worn
+out with labour and the bearing of eleven children; deaf,
+but still strong enough for work; and his daughter, thirteen
+years of age, a short but brisk and strong little girl.</p>
+
+<p>With the nephew came his wife,&mdash;a tall woman, as
+strong as a peasant, and his sister in law,&mdash;a soldier's
+wife, who was with child. With the cobbler came his
+wife,&mdash;a strong working-woman, and her mother,&mdash;an old
+woman about eighty, who for the rest of the year used to
+beg.</p>
+
+<p>They all draw up in a line, and work from morning to
+evening in the burning sun of June. It is steaming hot
+and a thunder-shower is threatening. Every moment of
+work is precious. They have not wished to leave off
+working even to fetch water or kvas. A small boy, the
+grandson of the old woman, brings them water. The old
+woman is evidently anxious only on one point,&mdash;not to be
+sent away from work. She does not let the rake out of
+her hands, and moves about with great difficulty. The
+little boy, quite bent under the jug with water, heavier
+than himself, walks with short steps on his bare feet,
+and carries the jug with many shifts. The little girl takes
+on her shoulders a load of hay which is also heavier than
+herself; walks a few paces, and stops, then throws it
+down, having no strength to carry it farther. The old
+man's wife rakes together unceasingly, her kerchief
+loosened from her disordered hair; she carries the hay,
+breathing heavily and staggering under the burden: the
+cobbler's mother is only raking, but this is also beyond
+her strength; she slowly drags her feet, in baste shoes,
+and looks gloomily before her, like one very ill, or at the
+point of death. The old man purposely sends her far
+away from the others, to rake about the ricks, in order
+that she may not attempt to compete with them; but
+she does not leave off working, but continues with the
+same dead gloomy face as long as the others.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_138" title="138"> </a>The sun is already setting behind the wood and the ricks
+are not yet in order: there is much still to be done.</p>
+
+<p>All feel that it is time to leave off working but no one
+says so; each waiting for the other to suggest it. At last,
+the cobbler, realizing that he has no more strength left,
+proposes to the old man to leave the ricks till to-morrow,
+and the old man agrees to it; and at once the women go
+to fetch their clothes, their jugs, their pitchforks; and
+the old woman sits down where she was standing, and
+then lays herself down with the same fixed stare on her
+face. But as the women go away she gets up groaning,
+and, crawling along, follows them.</p>
+
+<p>Let us turn to the country-house. The same evening,
+when from the side of the village were heard the rattle
+of the scythes of the toil-worn mowers who were returning
+from work, the sounds of the hammer against the
+anvil, the cries of women and girls who had just had time
+to put away their rakes, and were already running to
+drive the cattle in,&mdash;with those blend other sounds from
+the country-house. Rattle, rattle, goes the piano; a Hungarian
+song is heard through the noise of the croquet-balls;
+before the stable an open carriage is standing harnessed
+with four fat horses, which has been hired for
+twenty shillings to bring some guests a distance of ten
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>Horses standing by the carriage rattle their little bells.
+Before them hay has been thrown, which they are scattering
+with their hoofs, the same hay which the peasants
+have been gathering with such hard labour. In the yard
+of this mansion there is movement; a healthy, well-fed
+fellow in a pink shirt, presented to him for his service
+as a house-porter, is calling the coachmen and telling them
+to harness and saddle some horses. Two peasants who
+live here as coachmen come out of their room, and go in
+an easy manner, swinging their arms, to saddle horses
+for the ladies and gentlemen. Still nearer to the house
+the sounds of another piano are heard. It is the music-mistress,&mdash;who
+lives in the family to teach the children,&mdash;practising
+her Schumann. The sounds of one piano
+jangle with those of another. Quite near the house walk
+two nurses; one is young, another old; they lead and
+carry children to bed; these children are of the same age
+as those who ran from the village with jugs. One nurse
+is English: she cannot speak Russian. She was engaged
+to come from England, not from being distinguished by
+some peculiar qualities but simply because she does not
+speak Russian. Farther on is another person, a French
+woman, who is also engaged because she does not know
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_139" title="139"> </a>
+Russian. Farther on a peasant, with two women, is
+watering flowers near the house: another is cleaning a
+gun for one of the young gentlemen. Here two women
+are carrying a basket with clean linen,&mdash;they have been
+washing for all these gentlefolks. In the house two
+women have scarcely time to wash the plates and dishes
+after the company, who have just done eating; and two
+peasants in evening clothes are running up and down the
+stairs, serving coffee, tea, wine, seltzer-water, etc. Up-stairs
+a table is spread. One meal has just ended, and
+another will soon begin, to continue till cock-crow and
+often till morning dawns. Some are sitting smoking, playing
+cards; others are sitting and smoking, engaged in
+discussing liberal ideas of reform; and others, again,
+walk to and fro, eat, smoke, and, not knowing what to do,
+have made up their mind to take a drive.</p>
+
+<p>The household consists of fifteen persons, healthy men
+and women; and thirty persons, healthy working-people,
+male and female, labour for them. And this takes place
+there, where every hour, and each little boy, are precious.</p>
+
+<p>This will be so, also, in July, when the peasants, not
+having had their sleep out, will mow the oats at night in
+order that it may not be lost, and the women will get up
+before dawn in order to finish their threshing in time;
+when this old woman, who had been exhausted during the
+harvest, and the women with child, and the little children
+will again all overwork themselves, and when there is a
+great want of hands, horses, carts, in order to house this
+corn upon which all men feed, of which millions of
+bushels are necessary in Russia in order that men
+should not die: during even such a time, the
+idle lives of ladies and gentlemen will go on. There will
+be private theatricals, picnics, hunting, drinking, eating,
+piano-playing, singing, dancing,&mdash;in fact, incessant orgies.</p>
+
+<p>Here, at least, it is impossible to find any excuse from
+the fact that all this had been going on before: nothing
+of the kind had been in existence. We ourselves carefully
+create such a life, taking bread and labour away from the
+work-worn people. We live sumptuously, as if there were
+no connection whatever between the dying washerwoman,
+child-prostitute, women worn out by making cigarettes and
+all the intense labour around us to which their unnourished
+strength is inadequate. We do not want to see the
+fact that if there were not our idle, luxurious, depraved
+lives, there would not be this labour, disproportioned to
+the strength of people, and that if there were not this
+labour we could not go on living in the same way.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_140" title="140"> </a>It appears to us that their sufferings are one thing and
+our lives another, and that we, living as we do, are
+innocent and pure as doves. We read the description of
+the lives of the Romans, and wonder at the inhumanity of
+a heartless Lucullus, who gorged himself with fine dishes
+and delicious wines while people were starving: we shake
+our heads and wonder at the barbarism of our grandfathers,&mdash;the
+serf-owners,&mdash;who provided themselves with
+orchestras and theatres, and employed whole villages to
+keep up their gardens. From the height of our greatness
+we wonder at their inhumanity. We read the words of
+Isaiah&nbsp;v., 8:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till
+there be no room, and ye be made to dwell alone in the midst of the
+land.</p>
+
+<p>Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may
+follow strong drink; that tarry late into the night, till wine inflame
+them!</p>
+
+<p>The harp, and the lute, the tabret, the pipe, and wine are in their
+feasts: but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither have they
+considered the operation of his hands.</p>
+
+<p>Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it
+were with a cart rope.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their
+own sight!</p>
+
+<p>Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength
+to mingle strong drink:</p>
+
+<p>Which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness
+of the righteous from him.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>We read these words, and it seems to us that they have
+nothing to do with us.</p>
+
+<p>We read in the Gospel, Matthew&nbsp;iii., 10: &ldquo;And even
+now is the axe laid unto the root of the tree: every tree
+therefore that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down,
+and cast into the fire,&rdquo; and we are quite sure that the
+good tree bearing good fruit is we ourselves, and that those
+words are said, not to us, but to some other bad men.</p>
+
+<p>We read the words of Isaiah&nbsp;vi., 10:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>&ldquo;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 heart, and turn again, and be <ins title="healed">healed.</ins>
+Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until cities be
+waste without inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land
+become utterly waste.&rdquo;</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>We read, and are quite assured that this wonderful
+thing has not happened to us, but to some other people.
+For this very reason we do not see that this has happened
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_141" title="141"> </a>
+to us, and is taking place with us. We do not hear, we
+do not see, and do not understand with our heart.</p>
+
+<p>But why has it so happened?</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">How</span> can a man who considers himself to be,&mdash;we will not
+say a Christian or an educated and humane man,&mdash;but
+simply a man not entirely devoid of reason and of conscience,&mdash;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
+<ins title="struggle.">struggle?</ins></p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;that is,
+wealth,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>How could men have fallen into such astounding error?</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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 God 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,&mdash;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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_142" title="142"> </a>
+nomad state, or in modern times with steam-engines,
+steam-ploughs, sewing-machines, and electric light,&mdash;we
+shall see one and the same thing going on,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 circumference, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, we also know that every one of us, wherever
+and however he may live, <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">nolens volens</i>, is every day, and
+every hour of the day, absorbing for himself a part of the
+labour performed by mankind.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;means
+to save themselves and their children from suffering
+and a premature death.</p>
+
+<p>All men are struggling with want. They are struggling
+so intensely that around them always their brethren,
+fathers, mothers, children, are perishing. Men in this
+world are like those on a dismantled or water-logged ship
+with a short allowance of food; all are put by God, or
+by nature, in such a position that they must husband
+their food and unceasingly war with want.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_143" title="143"> </a>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?</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>In olden times men who lived by the labour of others
+asserted, first, that they belonged to a different race; and
+secondly, that they had from God a peculiar mission,&mdash;caring
+for the welfare of others; in other words, to govern
+and teach them: and therefore, they assured 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 God in human
+affairs, and the inequality of human races, was not
+doubted.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It was no longer possible to assert 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.</p>
+
+<p>But though the justification disappeared, the fact itself,&mdash;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 asserting the difference of human
+beings, men might be able with apparent justice to free
+themselves from personal labour.</p>
+
+<p>A great many justifications have been <ins title="invented">invented.</ins>
+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.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_144" title="144"> </a>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>All the legal sciences,&mdash;those of state law, penal law,
+civil law, and international law,&mdash;have this sole aim.</p>
+
+<p>The majority of philosophical theories, especially that
+of Hegel, which reigned over the minds of men for such
+a long time, and maintained the assertion 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.</p>
+
+<p>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,&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+masses and adopted by them.</p>
+
+<p>As in olden times the subtleties of theology, which justified
+violence in church and state, were the special property
+of priests; and among the masses of the people,
+the conclusions, taken by faith, and ready made for them,
+were circulated, that the power of kings, clergy and nobility
+was sacred: so afterwards, the philosophical and legal
+subtleties of so-called science became the property of the
+priests of science; and through the masses only the ready-made
+conclusion, accepted by faith,&mdash;that social order (the
+organization of society) must be such as it is, and cannot
+be otherwise,&mdash;was diffused.</p>
+
+<p>So it is now. It is only in the sanctuaries of the
+modern sages that the laws of life and the development
+of organisms are analyzed. Whereas in the crowd, the
+ready-made conclusion, accepted on trust,&mdash;that division
+of labour is a law confirmed by science, and therefore it
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_145" title="145"> </a>
+must be that some starve and toil and others eternally
+feast, and that this very ruin of some and feasting of others
+is the undoubted law of man's life, to which we must
+submit,&mdash;is circulated.</p>
+
+<p>The current justification of their idleness by all so-called
+educated people, with their various activities, from the
+railway proprietor down to the author or artist, is this:
+We men who have freed ourselves from the common
+human duty of taking part in the struggle for existence,
+are furthering progress, and so we are of great use to all
+human society, of such use that we counterbalance all the
+harm we do the people by consuming their labour.</p>
+
+<p>This reasoning seems to the men of our day to be not
+at all like the reasoning by which the former non-workers
+justified themselves; just as the reasoning of the Roman
+emperors and citizens, that but for them the civilized
+world would go to ruin, seemed to them to be of quite
+another order from that of the Egyptians and Persians;
+and so also an exactly similar kind of reasoning seemed
+in turn to the knights and clergy of the Middle Ages
+totally different from that of the Romans.</p>
+
+<p>But it only <em>seems</em>. One need only reflect on the justification
+of our time in order to ascertain that there is nothing
+new in it. It is only a little differently dressed up, but
+it is the same because it is based on the same principle.
+Every justification of one man's consumption of the labour
+of others, while producing none himself, as with Pharaoh
+and his soothsayers, the emperors of Rome and those of
+the Middle <ins title="ages">Ages</ins> and their citizens, knights, priests, and
+clergy, always consists in these two assertions: First, we
+take the labour of the masses because we are different
+from others, people called by God to govern them and to
+teach them divine truths: Secondly, those who compose
+the masses cannot be judges of the measure of labour
+which we take from them for the good we do for them,
+because, as it has been said by the Pharisees, &ldquo;This multitude
+which knoweth not the law are accursed&rdquo; (John&nbsp;vii. 49).</p>
+
+<p>The people do not understand what is for their good,
+and therefore they cannot be judges of the benefits done
+to them. The justification of our time, notwithstanding
+all apparent originality, consists in facts of the same
+fundamental assertions: First, we are a different people,&mdash;we
+are an educated people,&mdash;we further progress and civilization,
+and by this fact we procure for the masses a great
+advantage. Secondly, the uneducated crowd does not
+understand the advantages we procure for them, and
+therefore cannot be judges of them.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_146" title="146"> </a>The fundamental assertions are the same. We free ourselves
+from labour, appropriate the labour of others, and
+by this increase the burden of our fellows; and then assert
+that in compensation for this we bring them a great advantage,
+of which they, owing to ignorance, cannot be judges.</p>
+
+<p>Is it not, then, the same thing? The only difference lies
+in this: that formerly the claims on other men's labour
+were made by citizens, Roman priests, knights, and
+nobility, and now these claims are put forward by a caste
+who term themselves educated.</p>
+
+<p>The lie is the same, because the men who justify themselves
+are in the same false position. The lie consists in
+the fact, that, before beginning to reason about the advantages
+conferred on the workers by people who have freed
+themselves from labour,&mdash;certain men, Pharaohs, priests,
+or we ourselves, educated people, assume this position
+first, and only afterwards manufacture a justification for it.</p>
+
+<p>The very position universally serves as a basis for the
+justification. The difference of our justification from the
+ancient ones consists merely in the fact that it is more
+false and less well grounded. The old emperors and
+popes, if they themselves, and the people, believed in their
+divine calling, could easily explain why they were to control
+the labour of others: they asserted that they were
+appointed by God himself for this very thing, and from
+God they had a commandment to teach the people divine
+truths revealed to them, and to govern them.</p>
+
+<p>But modern, educated men, who do not labour with their
+hands, and who acknowledge the equality of all men, cannot
+explain why they and their children (for education is
+only by money; that is, by power) should be those lucky
+persons called to an easy, idle life, out of those millions
+who by hundreds and thousands are perishing to make it
+possible for them to be educated. Their only justification
+consists in this, that, just as they are, instead of doing
+harm to the workers by freeing themselves from labour,
+and by swallowing up labour, they bring to the people
+some advantages, unintelligible to them, which compensate
+for all the evil they perpetrate.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> theory by which men who have freed themselves from
+personal labour justify themselves, is, in its simplest and
+most exact form, this: &ldquo;We men, having freed ourselves
+from work, and having by violence appropriated <ins title="the the">the</ins>
+labour of others, we find ourselves better able to benefit
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_147" title="147"> </a>
+them.&rdquo; In other words, certain men, for doing the
+people a palpable and comprehensible harm,&mdash;utilizing
+their labour by violence, and thereby increasing the difficulty
+of their struggles with nature,&mdash;do to them an impalpable
+and incomprehensible good. This is a very
+strange proposition; but the men, both of former as well
+of modern times, who have lived on the labour of workmen,
+believe it, and calm their conscience by it.</p>
+
+<p>Let us see in what way it is justified, in different classes
+of men who have freed themselves from labour in our own
+days.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;I serve men by my activity in church or state,&mdash;as
+king, minister, archbishop; I serve men by my trading or
+by industry; I serve men by my activity in the departments
+of science or art. By our activities we are all as
+necessary to the people as they are to us.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So say various men of to-day who have freed themselves
+from labour.</p>
+
+<p>Let us consider <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">seriatim</i> the principles upon which they
+base the usefulness of their activity.</p>
+
+<p>There are only two indications of the usefulness of any
+activity of one man for another: (1) an exterior indication,&mdash;the
+acknowledgement of the utility of the activity by
+those to whom it is applied; and (2) an interior indication,&mdash;the
+desire to be of use to others lying at the root
+of the activity of the one who is trying to be of use.</p>
+
+<p>Statesmen (I include the Church dignitaries appointed
+by the government in the category of statesmen) are, it is
+said, of use to those whom they govern. The emperor,
+the king, the president of a republic, the prime minister,
+the minister of justice, the minister of war, the minister
+of public instruction, the bishop, and all under them who
+serve the state, all live free from the struggle of mankind
+for existence, having laid all the burden of this struggle
+on someone else, on the ground that their non-activity
+compensates for this.</p>
+
+<p>Let us apply the first indication to those for whose welfare
+the activity of statesmen is bestowed. Do they, I
+ask, recognize the usefulness of this activity?</p>
+
+<p>Yes, it is recognized. Most men consider statesmanship
+necessary to them. The majority recognize the usefulness
+of this activity in principle; but in all its manifestations
+known to us, in all <em>particular</em> cases known to
+us, the usefulness of each of the institutions and of each
+of the manifestations of this activity is not only denied by
+those for whose advantage it is performed, but they assert
+that it is even pernicious and hurtful. There is no state
+function or social activity which is not considered by
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_148" title="148"> </a>
+many men to be hurtful: there is no institution which
+is not considered pernicious,&mdash;courts of justice, banks,
+local self-government, police, clergy. Every state activity,
+from the minister down to the policeman, from the bishop
+to the sexton, is considered by some men to be useful
+and by others to be pernicious. And this is the case not
+only in Russia but throughout the world; in France as
+well as in America.</p>
+
+<p>The activity of the republican party is considered pernicious
+by the radical party, and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice versa</i>: the activity
+of the radical party, if the power is in their hands, is considered
+bad by the republican and other parties. But not
+only is it a fact that the activity of statesmen is never considered
+by all men to be useful, this activity has, besides,
+this peculiarity, that it must always be carried out by
+violence, and that, to attain its end, murders, executions,
+prisons, taxes raised by force, and so on, became necessary.</p>
+
+<p>It appears therefore that besides the fact that the usefulness
+of state activity is not recognized by all men, and is
+always denied by one portion of men, this usefulness has
+the peculiarity of vindicating itself always by violence.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore the usefulness of state activity cannot be confirmed
+by the first indication,&mdash;i.e., the fact that it is recognized
+by those men for whom it is said to be performed.</p>
+
+<p>Let us apply the second test. Let us ask statesmen
+themselves, from the Tsar down to the policeman, from
+the president to the secretary, from the patriarch to the
+sexton, begging for a sincere answer, whether, in occupying
+their respective positions they have in view the good
+which they wish to do for men or something else. In
+their desire to fill the situation of a Tsar, a president, a
+minister, a police-sergeant, a sexton, a teacher, are they
+moved by the desire of being useful to men or for their
+own personal advantage? And the answer of sincere men
+would be that their chief motive is their own personal
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>So it appears that one class of men, who live by the
+labour of some others who are perishing by these labours,
+compensate for this indubitable evil by an activity which
+is always considered by a great many men to be not only
+useless, but pernicious; which cannot be accepted voluntarily,
+but to which men must always be compelled, and
+the aim of which is not the benefit of others but the personal
+advantage of the men who perform it.</p>
+
+<p>What is it, then, that confirms the theory that state
+activity is useful for humanity? Only the fact that the
+men who perform it firmly profess to believe it to be useful,
+and that it has been always in existence. But so some
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_149" title="149"> </a>
+not only useless, but very pernicious institutions, like
+slavery, prostitution, and wars, have always been in existence.</p>
+
+<p>Business people (merchants, manufacturers, railway
+proprietors, bankers, land-owners) believe that they do a
+good which compensates for the harm undoubtedly done
+by them. On what grounds do they believe <ins title="this.">this?</ins> To the
+question, By whom is the usefulness of their activity recognized?
+men in church and in state are able to point to
+the thousands and millions of working-people who in
+principle recognize the usefulness of state and church
+activity. But to whom will bankers, distillers, manufacturers
+of velvet, of bronzes, of looking-glasses, to say
+nothing of guns,&mdash;to whom will they point when we ask
+them, Is their usefulness recognized by public opinion?</p>
+
+<p>If men can be found who recognize the usefulness of
+manufacturing chintzes, rails, beer, and such like things,
+there will be found also a still greater number of men who
+consider the manufacture of these articles pernicious.</p>
+
+<p>As for the merchants whose activity is confined to
+prices, and land-owners, nobody would even attempt to
+justify them.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, this activity is always associated with harm
+to working-people, and with violence, which, if less direct
+than that of the state, is yet just as cruel in its consequences.
+For the activities displayed in industry and in
+trade are entirely based on taking advantage of the wants
+of working-people in every form in order to compel them
+to hard and hated labour; to buying cheap, and to selling
+necessaries at the highest possible price and to raising the
+interest on money. From whatever point we consider this
+activity we can see that the usefulness of business-men
+is not recognised by those for whom it is expended,
+neither generally nor in particular cases; and by the
+majority their activity is considered to be directly pernicious.</p>
+
+<p>If we were to apply the second test and to ask, What is
+the chief motive of the activity of business-men? we should
+receive a still more determinate answer than that on the
+activity of statesmen. If a statesman says that besides a
+personal advantage he has in view the common benefit,
+we cannot help believing him, and each of us knows such
+men. But a business-man, from the very nature of his
+occupations cannot have in view a common advantage,
+and would be ridiculous in the sight of his fellows if he
+were in his business aiming at something besides increasing
+his wealth and keeping it.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_150" title="150"> </a>And, therefore, working-people do not consider the
+activity of business-men of any advantage to them. Their
+activity is associated with violence; and its object is not
+their good but always and only personal advantage; and
+yet, strange to say, these business-men are so assured of
+their own usefulness that they boldly, for the sake of
+their imaginary good, do an undoubted, obvious harm to
+workmen by extricating themselves from labour, and consuming
+the produce of the working-classes.</p>
+
+<p>Scientists and artists have also freed themselves from
+labour by putting it on others, and live with a quiet conscience
+believing that they bring sufficient advantages to
+other men to compensate for it. On what is this assurance
+based? Let us ask them as we have done statesmen
+and business-men. Is the utility of the arts and sciences
+recognized by all, or even by the majority, of working-people?</p>
+
+<p>We shall receive a very sad answer. The activity of
+men in the State Church and government offices is recognized
+to be useful in theory by almost all, and in application
+by the majority of those for whom it is performed.
+The activity of business-men is recognized only by those
+who are engaged in it or who desire to practise it. Those
+who bear on their shoulders all the labour of life and
+who feed and clothe the scientists and artists cannot recognize
+the usefulness of the activity of these men because
+they cannot even form an idea about an activity which
+always appears to workmen useless and even depraving.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, without any exception, working-people think
+the same about universities, libraries, conservatories,
+picture and statue galleries, and theatres, which are built
+at their expense.</p>
+
+<p>A workman considers this activity so decidedly pernicious
+that he does not send his children to be taught;
+and in order to compel people to accept this activity it has
+everywhere been found necessary to introduce a law compelling
+parents to send the children to school.</p>
+
+<p>A workman always looks at this activity with ill-will,
+and only ceases to look at it so when he ceases to be a
+workman, and through gain and so-called education
+passes out of the class of working-people into the class of
+men who live on the neck of others.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the fact that the usefulness of the
+activity of scientists and artists is not recognized and
+even cannot be recognized by any workman, these men are,
+all the same, compelled to make sacrifices for such an
+activity.</p>
+
+<p>A statesman simply sends another to the guillotine or
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_151" title="151"> </a>
+to prison; a business-man, utilizing the labour of someone
+else, takes from him his last resource, leaving him
+the alternative of starvation or labour destructive to his
+health and life: but a man of science or of art seemingly
+compels nobody to do anything; he merely offers the good
+he has done to those who are willing to take it; but, to
+be able to make his productions undesirable to the working-people,
+he takes away from them by violence, through the
+statesmen, a great part of their labour for the building
+and keeping open of academies, universities, colleges,
+schools, museums, libraries, conservatories, and for the
+wages for himself and his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>But if we were to ask the scientists and artists the object
+which they are pursuing in their activity, we should
+receive the most astonishing replies.</p>
+
+<p>A statesman would answer that his aim was the common
+welfare; and in his answer, there would be an admixture
+of truth confirmed by public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>In the answer of the business-man, there would be less
+probability; but we could admit even this also.</p>
+
+<p>But the answer of the scientists and artists strikes one
+at once by its want of proof and by its effrontery. Such
+men say, without bringing any proofs (just as priests used
+to do in olden times) that their activity is the most important
+of all, and that without it mankind would go to ruin.
+They assert that it is so, notwithstanding the fact that
+nobody except themselves either understands or acknowledges
+their activity, and notwithstanding the fact that,
+according to their own definition, true science and true art
+should not have a utilitarian aim.</p>
+
+<p>These men are occupied with the matter they like, without
+troubling themselves what advantage will come out of
+it to men; and they are always assured that they are doing
+the most important and the most necessary thing for all
+mankind.</p>
+
+<p>So that while a sincere statesman, acknowledging that
+the chief motive of his activity is a personal one, tries to
+be as useful as possible to the working-people; while a
+business-man, acknowledging the egotism of his activity,
+tries to give it an appearance of being one of universal
+utility,&mdash;men of science and art do not consider it necessary
+even to seem to shelter themselves under a pretence
+of usefulness, they deny even the object of usefulness, so
+sure are they, not only of the usefulness but even of the
+sacredness of their own business.</p>
+
+<p>So it turns out that the third class of men who have
+freed themselves from labour and laid it on others, are
+occupied with things which are totally incomprehensible
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_152" title="152"> </a>
+to the working-people, and which these people consider
+trifles and often very pernicious trifles; and are occupied
+with these things without any consideration of their usefulness
+but merely for the gratification of their own pleasure:
+it turns out that these men are, from some reason or
+other, quite assured that their activity will always produce
+that without which the work-people would never be able
+to exist.</p>
+
+<p>Men have freed themselves from labouring for their
+living and have thrown the work upon others who perish
+under it: they utilize this labour and assert that their
+occupations, which are incomprehensible to all other
+men, and which are not directed to useful aims, compensate
+for all the evil they are doing to men by freeing themselves
+from the trouble of earning their livelihood and
+by swallowing up the labour of others.</p>
+
+<p>The statesman, to compensate for the undoubted and
+obvious evil which he does to man by freeing himself from
+the struggle with nature and by appropriating the labour
+of others, does men another obvious and undoubted harm
+by countenancing all sorts of violence.</p>
+
+<p>The business-man, to compensate for the undoubted and
+obvious harm which he does to men by using up their
+labour, tries to earn for himself as much wealth as possible;
+that is, as much of other men's labour as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The man of science and art, in compensating for the
+same undoubted and obvious harm which he does to working-people,
+is occupied with matters to which he feels
+attracted and which are quite incomprehensible to work-people,
+and which, according to his own assertion, in
+order to be true, ought not to aim at usefulness.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, all these men are quite sure that their
+right of utilizing other men's labour is secure. Yet it
+seems obvious that all those men who have freed themselves
+from the labour of earning their livelihood have no
+justification for doing so.</p>
+
+<p>But, strange to say, these men firmly believe in their
+own righteousness, and live as they do with an easy
+conscience.</p>
+
+<p>There must be some plausible ground, some false belief,
+at the bottom of such a profound error.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">In</span> reality, the position in which men who live by
+other men's labour are placed, is based not only on a certain
+belief but on an entire doctrine; and not only on
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_153" title="153"> </a>
+one doctrine but on three, which have grown one upon
+another during centuries and are now fused together into
+an awful deceit,&mdash;or humbug as the English call it,&mdash;which
+hides from men their unrighteousness.</p>
+
+<p>The oldest of these, which justifies the treason of men
+against the fundamental duty of labour to earn their own
+living, was the Church-Christian doctrine, which asserts
+that men by the will of God differ one from another as
+the sun differs from the moon and the stars, and as one
+star differs from another. Some men God has ordained to
+have dominion over all, others to have power over many,
+others, still, over a few, and the remainder are ordained
+by God to obey.</p>
+
+<p>This doctrine, though already shaken to its foundations,
+still continues to influence some men, so that many who
+do not accept it, who often even ignore the existence of it,
+are, nevertheless, guided by it.</p>
+
+<p>The second is what I cannot help terming the State-philosophical
+doctrine. According to this, as fully developed
+by Hegel, everything that exists is reasonable, and
+the established order of life is constant, and is sustained
+not merely by men, but as the only possible form of the
+manifestation of the spirit, or, generally, of the life of
+mankind.</p>
+
+<p>This doctrine, too, is no longer accepted by the men who
+direct social opinion, and it holds its position only by the
+power of inertia.</p>
+
+<p>The last doctrine, which is now ruling the minds of men
+and on which is based the justification of leading statesmen,
+men of business, and science and art, is a scientific
+one, not in the evident sense of the word (meaning knowledge
+generally), but in the sense of a knowledge peculiar
+in form as well as in matter, termed <em>Science</em>. On this new
+doctrine, the justification of man's idleness and the hiding
+from him his treason against his calling, is particularly
+based.</p>
+
+<p>This doctrine appeared in Europe contemporaneously
+with a large class of rich and idle people who served
+neither the church nor the state and who were in want
+of a justification of their position.</p>
+
+<p>Not very long ago, before the French revolution in
+Europe, all non-working people, in order to have a right
+to utilize other men's labour, were obliged to have some
+definite occupation,&mdash;to serve in the church, the state, or
+the army.</p>
+
+<p>The men who served the government, &ldquo;governed the
+people&rdquo;; those who served the church, &ldquo;taught the people
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_154" title="154"> </a>
+divine truths&rdquo;; and those who served the army, &ldquo;protected
+the people.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Only these three classes of men&mdash;the clergy, the statesmen,
+and the military men&mdash;claimed for themselves the
+right of utilizing labour, and they could always point out
+their services to the people: the remaining rich men who
+had not this justification, were despised, and, feeling their
+own want of right, were ashamed of their wealth and their
+idleness. But as time went on, this class of rich people,
+who belonged neither to the clergy, to the government, nor
+to the army, owing to the vices of these other three classes,
+increased in number and became a powerful party. They
+were in want of a justification of their position. And one
+was invented for them. A century had not elapsed before
+the men who served neither the State nor the Church and
+took no part whatever in their affairs, received the same
+right to live on labour as the former classes; and they not
+only left off being ashamed of their wealth and idleness
+but began to consider their position quite justified. And
+the number of such men has increased, and is still increasing
+in our days.</p>
+
+<p>The most wonderful of all is this, that these men
+whose claims to be freed from labour were unrecognized
+not long ago, now consider themselves alone to be fully
+right and are attacking the former three classes,&mdash;the servants
+of the Church, State, and Army,&mdash;alleging their
+exemption from labour to be unjust and often even considering
+their activity directly pernicious. What is
+still more wonderful is this, that the former servants of
+Church, State, and Army, do not now lean on the divinity
+of their calling, nor even on the philosophy which considers
+the state necessary for individual development, but
+setting aside these supports which have so long maintained
+them, they are now seeking the same supports on which
+the new reigning class of men, who have found a novel
+justification, stand, and at the head of which are the men
+of Science and Art.</p>
+
+<p>If a statesman now sometimes, appealing to old
+memories, justifies his position by the fact that he was
+set in it by God, or by the fact that the state is a form
+of the development of personality, he does it because he
+is behind the age, and he feels that nobody believes him.</p>
+
+<p>In order to justify himself effectually, he ought to find
+now neither theological nor philosophical but new and
+scientific supports.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary to point to the principle of nationalities,
+or to that of the development of an organism; and to
+gain over the ruling class, as in the Middle Ages it was
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_155" title="155"> </a>
+necessary to gain over the clergy; and as at the end of
+the last century, it was necessary to obtain the sanction of
+philosophers, as seen in the case of Frederick the Great
+and Catherine of Russia. If now a rich man, after the old
+fashion, says sometimes that it is God's providence which
+makes him rich, or if he points to the importance of a
+nobility for the welfare of a state, he does it because he
+is behind the times.</p>
+
+<p>In order to justify himself completely he must point
+to the way he furthers progress by improving the modes
+of production, by lowering the prices of consumption, by
+establishing intercourse between nations. A rich man
+must think and speak in scientific language, and, like the
+clergy formerly, he must offer sacrifices to the ruling class:
+he must publish magazines and books, provide himself
+with a picture-gallery, a musical society, a kindergarten or
+technical school. The ruling class is the class of learned
+men and artists of a definite character. They possess the
+complete justification for having freed themselves from
+labour; and on this justification (as in former times on
+the theological justification, and afterwards on the philosophical
+one) everything is based: and it is these men who
+now give the diploma of exemption to other classes.</p>
+
+<p>The class of men who now feel completely justified in
+freeing themselves from labour, is that of men of science,
+and particularly of experimental, positive, critical, evolutional
+science, and of artists who develop their ideas
+according to the same tendency.</p>
+
+<p>If a learned man or an artist of the old style speaks
+nowadays about prophecy, revelation, or the manifestation
+of the spirit, he does so because he is behind the age, and
+he will not succeed in justifying himself: to stand firm he
+must try to associate his activity with experimental, positive,
+critical science, and he must make this science the
+fundamental principle of his activity. Only then will the
+science or the art with which he is occupied appear true,
+and he will stand on firm ground, and then there will be no
+doubt as to his usefulness to mankind. The justification
+of all who have freed themselves from labour is now based
+upon this experimental, critical, positive science.</p>
+
+<p>The theological and philosophical explanations have
+had their day: now they timidly and bashfully introduce
+themselves to notice and try to humour their scientific
+usurper, who, however, boldly knocks down and destroys
+the remnants of the past, everywhere taking its place, and,
+assured of its own firmness, lifts aloft its head.</p>
+
+<p><em>The theological justification</em> maintained that men are
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_156" title="156"> </a>
+predestined,&mdash;some to govern, others to obey; some to
+live sumptuously, others to labour: and therefore those
+who believed in the revelation of God could not doubt
+the lawfulness of the position of those men, who, by the
+will of God, are called to govern and to be rich.</p>
+
+<p><em>The state-philosophical justification</em> used to say, &ldquo;The
+state with all its institutions and differences of classes
+according to rights and possessions, is that historical
+form which is necessary for the right manifestation of
+the spirit in mankind; and therefore the situation which
+everyone occupies in state and in society according to his
+rights and to his possessions must be such as to ensure
+the sound life of mankind.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><em>The scientific theory</em> says, &ldquo;All this is nonsense and
+superstition: the one is the fruit of the theological period
+of thought, and the other of the metaphysical period. To
+study the laws of the life of human societies, there is
+only one sure method,&mdash;that of a positive, experimental,
+critical science. It is only sociology, based on biology,
+in its turn based on all the other positive sciences, which
+is able to give us new laws for the life of mankind. Mankind,
+or human societies, are organisms either already
+perfect, or in a state of development subject to the laws
+of the evolution of organisms. One of the first of these
+laws is the division of labour among the portions of the
+organs. If some men govern and others obey, some live
+in opulence and others in want, then this is so, neither
+according to the will of God nor because the state is the
+form of the manifestation of personality, but because in
+societies as in organisms a division of labour takes place
+which is necessary for the life of the whole. Some men
+perform in societies the muscular part of labour, and others,
+the mental.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>On this doctrine is built the ruling excuse of the age.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER <ins title="XXII">XXIX</ins></h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">Christ</span> teaches men in a new way, and this teaching is
+written down in the Gospels.</p>
+
+<p>It is first persecuted, and not accepted. Then the fables
+of the fall of man, and of the first angel, are invented,
+and these fables are believed to be the teaching of Christ.
+The fables are absurd, they have no foundation whatever,
+but by virtue of them men are led to believe that they
+may continue to live in an evil way, and none the less
+consider themselves as saved by Christ. This conclusion
+is so agreeable to the mass of weak men who have no affection
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_157" title="157"> </a>
+for moral effort, that the system is eagerly accepted,
+not only as true, but even as the Divine truth as revealed
+by God himself. And the invention becomes the groundwork
+on which for centuries theologians build their
+theories.</p>
+
+<p>Then by degrees these learned men diverge by various
+channels into special systems of their own, and finally
+endeavour to overthrow each other's theories. They begin
+to feel there is something amiss, and cease to understand
+what they themselves are talking about. But the crowd
+still requires them to expound its favourite instruction;
+and thus the theologians, pretending both to understand
+and believe what they are saying, continue to dispense it.</p>
+
+<p>In process of time, however, the conclusions drawn from
+theological conceptions cease to be necessary to the
+masses, who, then, peeping into the very sanctuaries of
+their augurs, discover them to be utterly void of those
+glorious and indubitable truths which the mysteries of
+theology had seemed to be, and see instead that there is
+nothing there but crude deception, and they marvel at
+their own blindness.</p>
+
+<p>The same happened to philosophy, not in the sense of
+the wisdom of men like Confucius or Epictetus, but with
+professional philosophy which humoured the instincts
+of the crowd of rich and idle people. Not long ago a
+moral philosophy was in fashion in the learned world,
+according to which it appeared that everything that is, is
+reasonable; that there is neither good nor evil; that man
+has not to struggle with evil, but has merely to manifest
+the spirit of the age, some in military service, some in
+courts of justice, and some on the violin.</p>
+
+<p>Many and various were the expressions of human wisdom
+known to the men of the nineteenth century,&mdash;of
+Rousseau, Pascal, Lessing, and Spinoza; and all the
+wisdom of antiquity was expounded, but none of its systems
+laid hold of the crowd. We cannot say that Hegel's
+success was due to the harmony of his theory. We had
+no less harmonious theories from Descartes, Leibnitz,
+Fichte, and Schopenhauer.</p>
+
+<p>There was only one reason for the fact that this doctrine
+became for a short time the belief of the civilized world,
+the same reason that caused the success of the theory of
+the fall and redemption of man; to wit, that the deductions
+of this philosophical theory humoured the weak side
+of men's nature. It said, &ldquo;All is reasonable, all is good;
+nobody is to blame for any thing.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>As at first with the church upon theological foundations,
+so also, with the philosophy of Hegel for a base,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_158" title="158"> </a>
+a Babel's tower was built (some who are behind the age
+are still sitting upon it); and here again was a confusion
+of tongues, men feeling that they themselves did not know
+of what they were talking, but were trying to conceal their
+ignorance and keep up their prestige before the crowd; and
+here again the masses found confirmation of their accepted
+teachings, and believed that whatever might seem to
+them bewildering and contradictory is as clear as day-light
+on philosophic altitudes. In the same way, the time
+came when this doctrine wore out and a new one replaced
+it. It had become useless, and the crowd peeped into
+the mysterious temples of the teachers, and saw there was
+nothing there&mdash;nor ever had been, but obscure and unmeaning
+words. I have seen this in my own day.</p>
+
+<p>When I began life, Hegelianism was the order of the
+day; it was in the very air you breathed; it found its
+expression in newspapers and magazines, in lectures on
+history and on law, in novels, in tracts, in art, in sermons,
+in conversation. A man who did not know Hegel
+had no right to open his mouth; those who desired to
+learn the truth were studying Hegel,&mdash;every thing pointed
+to him; and lo! forty years have elapsed and nothing
+is left of him; there is no remembrance of him; all is
+as though he had never existed. And the most remarkable
+of all is, that just as false Christianity, so also
+Hegelianism has fallen, not because someone refuted or
+overthrew it; no, it is now as it was before, but both
+have only become no longer necessary for the learned,
+educated world.</p>
+
+<p>If at the present time we speak to any man of modern
+culture about the fall of the angel, of Adam, about atonement,
+he does not argue or deny;&mdash;he simply asks,
+amazed, &ldquo;What angel? Adam? What for? What atonement?
+What is all this to me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>So also with Hegelianism. No one of our day will
+argue its theses. He will only inquire, &ldquo;What Spirit?&rdquo;
+&ldquo;Where did it come <ins title="from&rdquo;?">from?&rdquo;</ins> &ldquo;With what purpose?&rdquo;
+&ldquo;What good will it do me?&rdquo; Not very long ago the
+sages of Hegelianism were solemnly teaching the crowd;
+and the crowd, understanding nothing, blindly believed
+all, finding the confirmation of what suited them, and
+thinking that what seemed to them to be not quite clear
+or even contradictory, was clearer than day on the
+heights of philosophy: but time went on, the theory was
+worn out, a new one appeared in its place, the former
+one was no longer demanded, and again the crowd looked
+into the mysterious temples of the augurs and saw there
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_159" title="159"> </a>
+was nothing there, and that nothing had ever been there
+but words, very dark and meaningless.</p>
+
+<p>This happened within my memory. These things happened,
+we are told, because they were ravings of the theological
+and metaphysical period, but now we have a
+critical, positive science which will not deceive us, because
+it is based upon induction and experience; now our knowledge
+is no longer uncertain as it formerly was, and it is
+only by following it that one can find the answer to all
+the questions of life.</p>
+
+<p>But this is exactly what was said by the old teachers,
+and they certainly were no fools, and we know that among
+them were men of immense intellect; and within my
+memory the disciples of Hegel said exactly the same
+thing, with no less assurance and no less acknowledgment
+on the side of the crowd of so-called educated people.
+And such men as our Herzen, Stankievich, Bylinsky, were
+no fools either. But why, then, has this wonderful thing
+happened, that clever men preached with the greatest
+assurance and the crowd accepted with veneration, only
+groundless and meaningless doctrines? The reason is
+only that these doctrines justified men in their bad mode
+of living.</p>
+
+<p>A very commonplace English writer, whose books are
+now almost forgotten and recognized as the emptiest of
+all empty ones, wrote a tract upon population, in which
+he invented an imaginary law that the means of living
+do not increase with the increase of population. This
+sham law the author dressed out with the formulæ of
+mathematics which have no foundation whatever, and
+published it. Judged by the lightness of mind and the
+want of talent displayed in this treatise we might have
+supposed that it would have passed unnoticed and been
+forgotten as all other writings of the same author have
+been; but it turned out quite differently. The author
+who wrote it became at once a scientific authority, and
+has maintained this position for nearly half a century.
+Malthus! The Malthusian theory,&mdash;the law of the increase
+of population in geometrical progression, and the
+increase of means of living in arithmetical progression,
+and the natural and prudent means of restraining the
+increase of population,&mdash;all these became scientific, undoubted
+truths which have never been verified, but,
+accepted as axioms, have served for further deductions.</p>
+
+<p>Thus learned and educated men were deceived; whereas
+in the crowd of idle men there was a blind and religious
+trust in the great laws discovered by Malthus. How did
+this happen? These statements seem to be scientific deductions
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_160" title="160"> </a>
+which have nothing in common with the instincts
+of the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>But they are only sacred to those who believe science
+to be something self-existent and infallible, like the
+Church, and not merely the thoughts of weak men liable
+to mistakes, who only for importance' sake call their own
+thoughts and words by a pompous word, <em>science</em>. It was
+only necessary to draw practical conclusions from the
+Malthusian theory in order to see that it was quite a
+human one with very determinate aims.</p>
+
+<p>The deductions which were directly drawn from this
+theory were the following: The miserable condition of
+working-people does not come from the cruelty, egotism,
+and unreasonableness of rich and powerful men, but it
+exists according to an unchangeable law which does not
+depend upon man, and, if anybody is to blame, it is the
+starving working-people themselves: why do these fools
+come into the world when they know that they will not
+have enough to eat? and therefore the wealthy and powerful
+classes are not at all to blame for any thing, and they
+may quietly continue to live as they have done.</p>
+
+<p>This conclusion, being pleasant to the crowd of idle
+men, induced the learned dons to overlook the incorrectness
+and total arbitrariness of the deductions; and the
+crowd of educated, i.e., idle people, instinctively guessing
+to what these deductions led, greeted the theory with
+delight, set upon it the seal of truth, and cherished it
+during half a century. The reason for all this was, that
+these doctrines justified men in their bad mode of life.</p>
+
+<p>Is not the same cause at the bottom of the self-assurance
+of men of the new positive, critical, experimental
+science, and of the reverent regard of the crowd to what
+they preach? At first it seems strange that the theory
+of evolution (like the theory of atonement in theology,
+it serves for the majority of men as a popular expression
+of the new teaching) should justify men in their false
+lives, and it would seem that the scientific theory has only
+to do with facts, and does nothing but observe facts.
+But it only seems so.</p>
+
+<p>It had been so with theological teaching; theology
+seemed to be occupied only with doctrines and to have
+nothing to do with the lives of men. It had been so
+with philosophy, which also seemed to be occupied only
+with facts.</p>
+
+<p>It had been so with the teaching of Hegel on a large
+scale, and with the theory of Malthus on a small one.
+Hegelianism seemed to be occupied merely with its logical
+constructions and to have nothing to do with the lives of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_161" title="161"> </a>
+men; and the theory of Malthus seemed to be occupied
+exclusively with statistics.</p>
+
+<p>But it only seemed so.</p>
+
+<p>Modern science also claims to be occupied exclusively
+with facts: it studies facts.</p>
+
+<p>But what facts? Why some facts and not others?</p>
+
+<p>The disciples of the modern science are very fond of
+saying with a solemn assurance, &ldquo;We study facts alone,&rdquo;
+imagining that these words have some meaning.</p>
+
+<p>To study facts alone is quite impossible, because the
+number of facts which may be objects of our study, are,
+in the strict sense of the word, countless.</p>
+
+<p>Before beginning to study facts, one must have some
+theory according to which the facts are studied; that is,
+determining which shall be selected from the countless
+number of facts. And this theory indeed exists and is
+even very definitely expressed, though many of the agents
+of modern science ignore it; that is, do not want to know
+it, or really do not know it;&mdash;sometimes pretend not to
+know it.</p>
+
+<p>Thus matters stood before with all most important
+beliefs.</p>
+
+<p>The basis of each is always given in theory; and so-called
+learned men seek only further deductions from the
+various bases given to them, though sometimes they ignore
+even these.</p>
+
+<p>But a fundamental theory must always be present, and
+so it is also now. Modern science selects its facts on
+the ground of a determinate theory, which sometimes it
+knows, sometimes does not wish to know, sometimes really
+does not know; but which exists. The theory is this:
+Mankind is an undying organism, having each his special
+calling for the service of the whole. As the cells, growing
+into an organism, divide among themselves the labour
+of the struggle for existence of the whole organism, increase
+one capacity, and diminish another, and all
+together form an organ in order better to satisfy the wants
+of the whole organism; and as among social animals,&mdash;ants
+and bees,&mdash;the individuals divide the labour among
+themselves (queen-bees lay eggs, drone-bees fecundate,
+working-bees labour for the life of the whole),&mdash;so also
+in mankind and in human societies there take place the
+same differentiation and integration of the parts.
+And therefore, in order to find the law of man's
+life, we must study the laws of the lives and development
+of organisms. And in these we find the following laws:
+That each phenomenon is followed by more than one
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_162" title="162"> </a>
+consequence. The failure of uniformity. The law of
+uniformity and diversity; and so on.</p>
+
+<p>All this seems to be very innocent, but we need only
+draw deductions from these observations of facts in order
+to see at once to what they are tending. These facts
+lead to one thing,&mdash;the acknowledgement of humanity or
+human society as an organism, and hence to the acknowledgment
+of the division of activities in human society as
+organic, that is necessary; and as there exist in human
+societies many cruelties and vices, therefore these phenomena
+must not be considered as cruelties and vices,
+but must be accepted as inevitable facts confirming a
+general law&mdash;i.e., that of &ldquo;division of labour.&rdquo; Moral
+philosophy used also to justify every cruelty and wickedness;
+but there it became philosophical, and therefore
+incorrect. According to science, however, the same thing
+turns out to be scientific, and therefore unquestionable.</p>
+
+<p>How can we help accepting such a fine theory! We
+need only look at human society merely as something to
+be observed, and we may quietly devour the labour of
+perishing men, calming ourselves with the idea that our
+activity as a dancing-master, a lawyer, a doctor, a philosopher,
+an actor, an investigator of the theory of
+mediumism and of forms of atoms, and so on, is a functional
+activity of the organism of mankind and therefore
+there can be no question whether it is just that I should
+continue to live doing only what is pleasant, just as there
+can be no question whether the division of labour between
+a mental and a muscular cell is fair or not. How can we
+help accepting such a nice theory which enables us afterwards
+to put our consciences into our pockets forever,
+and live a completely unbridled, animal life, feeling under
+our feet a firm, scientific support? And it is upon this
+new belief that the justification of idleness and the cruelty
+of men is built.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">This</span> doctrine had its commencement about half a century
+ago. Its chief founder was the French philosopher
+Comte. Comte, being a lover of systematic theory, and
+at the same time a man of religious tendency, was impressed
+by the then new physiological researches of
+Bichat; and he conceived the old idea, expressed in bygone
+days by Menenius Agrippa, that human societies,
+indeed all human-kind, may be regarded as one whole,
+An Organism, and men&mdash;as live particles of separate
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_163" title="163"> </a>
+organs, each having his definite destination to fulfil in
+the service of the whole organism.</p>
+
+<p>Comte was so fascinated by this idea that he founded
+his philosophical theory on it; and this theory so captivated
+him that he quite forgot that his point of departure
+was no more than a pretty comparison, suitable enough
+in a fable, but in no way justifiable as the foundation of
+a science. As it often happens, he took his pet hypothesis
+for an axiom, and so imagined that his whole theory was
+based upon the most firm and positive foundations.</p>
+
+<p>According to his theory it appeared that, as mankind
+is an organism, therefore the knowledge of what man is
+and what his relation to the world ought to be, is only
+possible through the knowledge of the properties of this
+organism. And to be able to learn these properties man
+is fitted to make observations upon other lower organisms
+and to draw deductions from their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, first, the true and exclusive method of
+science, according to Comte, is the inductive one, and
+science is only science when it has experiment for its
+basis. Secondly, the final aim and the summit of science
+becomes the new science concerning the imaginary organism
+of Mankind, or the organic being,&mdash;Mankind. This
+new hypothetic science is Sociology. From this view of
+science it generally turns out that all former knowledge
+was false, and that the whole history of mankind, in the
+sense of its self-consciousness, divides itself into three, or
+rather two, periods. First, the theological and metaphysical
+period, from the beginning of the world to Comte.
+And, secondly, the modern period of true science, positive
+science, beginning with Comte.</p>
+
+<p>All this was very well, but there was one mistake in
+it, which was this: that all this edifice was built on the
+sand, on an arbitrary (and incorrect) assertion that mankind,
+collectively considered, was an organism.</p>
+
+<p>This assertion is arbitrary because, if we are to acknowledge
+the existence of mankind as an organism, which
+is beyond observation, we might as well acknowledge the
+existence of the triple God and similar theological propositions.</p>
+
+<p>It was incorrect, because to the idea of mankind, that is,
+of men, the definition of an organism was added, whereas
+man lacks the essential characteristics of an organism,&mdash;a
+centre of sensation or consciousness. We call an elephant,
+as well as a bacterium, organisms, only because
+we suppose by analogy in these beings that there is unification
+of sensations, or consciousness. But human
+societies and mankind lack this essential; and therefore,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_164" title="164"> </a>
+however many other general character-signs we may find
+in mankind and in an organism,&mdash;without this, the assertion
+that man is an organism is incorrect.</p>
+
+<p>But notwithstanding the arbitrariness and incorrectness
+of the fundamental proposition of Positive Philosophy,
+it was accepted by the so-called &ldquo;Educated World&rdquo; with
+great sympathy, because of that great fact, important for
+the crowd, that it afforded a justification of the existing
+order of things by recognizing the lawfulness of the existing
+division of labour; that is, of violence in mankind. It
+is remarkable in this respect that from the writings of
+Comte, composed of two parts,&mdash;a Positive Philosophy
+and a Positive Politics,&mdash;only the first part was accepted
+on new experimental principles by the learned world, that
+which justified the existing evil in human society. The
+second part, treating of the moral, altruistic duties, following
+from this recognition of mankind as an organism,
+was considered not only unimportant but even unscientific.</p>
+
+<p>Here the same thing was repeated which occurred with
+the two parts of Kant's writings. The &ldquo;Critique of Pure
+Reason,&rdquo; was accepted by science; but the &ldquo;Critique of
+Practical Reason,&rdquo; that part which contains the essence
+of moral doctrine, was rejected. In the teaching of Comte,
+that was recognized to be scientific which humoured the
+reigning evil.</p>
+
+<p>But the Positive Philosophy accepted by the crowd,
+based on an arbitrary and incorrect supposition, was by
+itself too ill-grounded, and therefore too unsteady, and
+could not be sustained by itself.</p>
+
+<p>And now, among the idle play of ideas of so-called
+&ldquo;Men of Science,&rdquo; there has appeared a similarly arbitrary
+and incorrect assertion, not at all new, to the effect that
+all living beings (that is, organisms), proceed one from
+another; not only one organism from another, but one
+organism from many; that during a very long period, a
+million of years, for instance, not only may a fish and
+a duck have proceeded from one and the same forefather,
+but also one organism might have proceeded from many
+separate <ins title="organism">organisms</ins>; so, for instance, out of a swarm of
+bees a single animal may proceed. This arbitrary and
+incorrect assertion was accepted by the learned world with
+still greater sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>The assertion was arbitrary, because no one has ever
+seen how one kind of organism is made from others;
+and therefore the hypothesis about the Origin of Species
+will always remain a mere supposition and never become
+an experimental fact.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_165" title="165"> </a>The hypothesis was incorrect, because the solution of
+the problem of the Origin of Species by the theory of the
+laws of inheritance and accommodation during an infinitely
+long period, is not a solution of the problem at
+all, but the mere reiteration of the question in another
+form.</p>
+
+<p>According to the solution of this problem by Moses (to
+oppose which is the object of Comte's theory), it appeared
+that the variety of the species of living beings proceeded
+from the will of God and his infinite omnipotence. According
+to the Theory of Evolution, it appears that the
+variety of species of living beings proceeded from themselves
+in consequence of the infinite variety of conditions
+of inheritance and environment in an infinite period of
+time.</p>
+
+<p>The Theory of Evolution, speaking plainly, asserts
+only that (by chance) in an infinite period of time, anything
+you like may proceed from anything else you choose.</p>
+
+<p>This is no answer to the question; it is simply the same
+question put differently: instead of Will is put Chance,
+and the co-efficient of the Infinite is transferred from
+Omnipotence to Time.</p>
+
+<p>But this new assertion, enforced by Darwin's followers
+in an arbitrary and inaccurate spirit, maintained the first
+assertion of Comte, and therefore it became the Revelation
+for our time, and the foundation of all sciences,
+even that of the history of philosophy and religion; and
+besides, according to the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">naĂŻve</i> confession of Darwin himself,
+the idea was awakened in him by the law of Malthus;
+and therefore he pointed to the &ldquo;Struggle for Existence&rdquo;
+not only of men but of all living beings, as a fundamental
+law of every living thing, and this was exactly what
+was wanted by the crowd of idle people for their own
+justification.</p>
+
+<p>Two unstable theories which could not stand on their
+own feet supported each other, and so received a show
+of stability. Both the theories bore in them a sense,
+precious to the crowd, that men are not to be blamed
+for the existing evil in human societies, that the existing
+order is what should be; and thus the new theory was
+accepted by the crowd in the sense wanted by them, with
+full confidence and unprecedented enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the new scientific doctrine was founded upon
+two arbitrary and incorrect propositions, accepted in the
+same way that dogmas of faith are accepted. Both in
+matter and form this new doctrine is remarkably like
+the Church-Christian one. In matter, the similarity lies
+in the fact that in both doctrines alike a fantastical meaning
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_166" title="166"> </a>
+is attached to really existing things, and this artificial
+meaning is taken as the object of our research.</p>
+
+<p>In the Church-Christian doctrine, to Christ who did
+really exist, is attributed the fantastic conception of being
+God Himself, screened. In the Positive doctrine, to the
+really existing fact of live men is attributed the fantastical
+attributes of an organism.</p>
+
+<p>In form, the similarity of these two doctrines is remarkable,
+since, in both cases, a theory emanating from
+one class of men is accepted as the only and infallible
+truth. In the Church-Christian doctrine, the Church's
+way of understanding God's revelation to men is regarded
+as the sacred and only true one. In the doctrine of
+Positivism, certain men's way of understanding science
+is regarded as absolutely correct and true.</p>
+
+<p>As the Church-Christians regard the foundation of their
+church as the only origin of true knowledge of God, and
+only out of a kind of courtesy admit that former believers
+may also be regarded as having formed a church; so in
+precisely the same manner does Positive science, according
+to its own statement, place its origin in Comte: and
+its representatives, also only out of courtesy, admit the
+existence of previous science, and that only as regarding
+certain thinkers, as, for instance, Aristotle. Both the
+Church and Positive science altogether exclude the ideas
+of all the rest of mankind, and regard all knowledge outside
+their own as <em>erroneous</em>. The similarity persists. Just
+as to the support of the first advental theological dogmas
+of the Trinity and of the divinity of Christ comes the old&mdash;but
+newly-interpreted&mdash;dogmas of man's fall and of his
+redemption by the death of Christ, and out of these
+dogmas is developed popular Church teaching: so in our
+time, the old dogma of Evolution comes in with new
+importance to help the fundamental dogma of Comte concerning
+the organism of mankind; and from these two
+elements the popular scientific doctrine has been formed.
+As in one teaching, so in the other: the new dogma is
+necessary for the support of the old one, and becomes
+comprehensible only in connection with it. If to a believer
+in the Divinity of Christ, it is not clearly comprehensible
+why God should come down to earth, the doctrine
+of atonement explains it. If it is not quite clear
+to a believer in the Organism of Mankind why a collection
+of individuals may be counted as an organism, the
+dogma of Evolution is charged with the explanation. This
+dogma is needed to reconcile the contradictions and certainties
+of the first: mankind is an organism, and we see
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_167" title="167"> </a>
+that it does not contain the chief characteristic of an
+organism; how must we account for it?</p>
+
+<p>Here the dogma of evolution comes in, and explains,
+Mankind is an organism in a state of development. If
+you accept this, you may then consider mankind as such.</p>
+
+<p>As to any man free from superstitions about the trinity
+and the Divinity of Christ, it is impossible even to understand
+the force and the meaning of the teaching of atonement,
+which meaning comes only through the acknowledgment
+of Christ as God Himself, so a man who is
+free from the Positive superstition cannot even understand
+wherein lies the interest of the theory of the Origin
+of Species and of Evolution; and this interest is explained
+only when we learn the fundamental dogma, that &ldquo;Mankind
+is an Organism.&rdquo; And as the subtleties of theology
+are only intelligible to those who believe in its fundamental
+dogmas, so also the subtleties of sociology, which
+now occupy the minds of all adherents of this recent and
+profound science, are intelligible only to believers. The
+doctrine of atonement is necessary to reconcile the contradiction
+between the first dogma and facts. God descended
+on earth to save men. But men are not saved. How
+then explain this? The dogma of atonement asserts &ldquo;He
+saved those, who believed in atonement. If you believe
+in atonement, you are saved.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The similarity between these two doctrines holds good
+yet further. Being founded on dogmas accepted by faith,
+these doctrines neither question nor analyze their own
+principles, which, on the other hand, are used as starting-points
+for the most extraordinary theories. The
+preachers of these call themselves, in Theology, sanctified;
+in Positive knowledge, scientific; in both cases,
+infallible. And at the same time, they conceive the most
+peremptory, incredible, and unfounded assertions, which
+they give forth with the greatest pomp and seriousness,
+and which are with equal pomp and seriousness contradicted
+in all their details by others who do not agree, and
+yet who equally recognize the fundamental dogmas.</p>
+
+<p>The Basil the Great of scientific doctrine, Herbert
+Spencer, in one of his first writings expresses these doctrines
+thus: Societies and organisms, says he, are alike
+in the following points: First, in that, being conceived as
+small aggregates, they imperceptibly grow in mass, so
+that some of them become ten thousand times bigger
+than their originals.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, in that, while in the beginning they have such
+simple structure that they may almost be considered
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_168" title="168"> </a>
+structureless, in their growth they develop an ever-increasing
+complexity of structure.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, in that, though in their early undeveloped
+period there does not exist among them any dependence
+of particles upon one another, these particles by and by
+acquire a mutual dependence, which at last becomes so
+strong that the activity and the life of each part is possible
+only with the activity and the lives of all others.</p>
+
+<p>Fourthly, in this, that the life and the development of
+society is more independent and longer than the life and
+the development of every unit which goes to form it, and
+which is separately born and growing and acting and
+multiplying and dying while the political body formed
+of such continues to live one generation after another,
+developing in mass, in perfection of structure, and in
+functional activity.</p>
+
+<p>Then follow the points of difference between organisms
+and societies, and it is demonstrated that these differences
+are only seeming ones, and that organisms and societies
+are quite similar.</p>
+
+<p>To an impartial man the question at once arises, What
+are you speaking about, then? Why is mankind an
+organism or something similar? You say that societies
+are similar to organisms according to these four points;
+but even this comparison is incorrect. You take only a
+few characteristics of an organism, and you then apply
+them to human societies. You produce four points of
+similarity, then you take the points of difference which
+you say are only seemingly so, and you conclude that
+human societies may be considered as organisms. But
+this is nothing else than an idle play of dialectics. On
+this ground we may consider as an organism everything
+we choose. I take the first thing which comes to my
+mind,&mdash;a forest, as it is planted in a field and grows up:
+first beginning as a small aggregate and imperceptibly increasing
+in mass. Secondly, &ldquo;In the beginning the structure
+of an organism is simple, then the complexity increases,&rdquo;
+and so on. This is the case with the forest: at
+first there are only birch-trees, then hazel, and so on;
+first all the trees grow straight, and afterwards they interlace
+their branches. Thirdly, &ldquo;The dependence of the
+parts increases so that the life of each part depends upon
+the lives and activities of all the others&rdquo;: it is exactly
+the same with the forest; the nut-tree keeps the trunks
+warm (if you hew it down, the other trees will be frozen
+in winter), the underwood keeps off wind, the seed-trees
+continue the species, the tall and leafy ones give shadow,
+and the life of each tree depends upon that of the rest.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_169" title="169"> </a>
+Fourthly, &ldquo;Separate parts may die, but the whole organism
+continues to live.&rdquo; Separate trees perish, but the
+forest continues in life and growth.</p>
+
+<p>The same holds good with the example so often brought
+by the defenders of the scientific doctrine. Cut off an
+arm,&mdash;the arm will die: we may say remove a tree from
+the shadow and the ground of a forest, it will die.</p>
+
+<p>Another remarkable similarity between this scientific
+doctrine and the Church-Christian one,&mdash;and any other
+theory founded upon propositions which are accepted
+through faith,&mdash;lies in their mutual capacity of being
+proof against logic.</p>
+
+<p>Having demonstrated that by this theory a forest may
+be considered as an organism, you think you have proved
+to the followers of the theory the incorrectness of their
+definition? Not at all. Their definition of an organism
+is so loose and plastic that they can apply it to everything
+they like.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, they will say, you may consider the forest, too,
+as an organism. A forest is a mutual co-operation of the
+individuals who do not destroy each other; an aggregate:
+its parts can also pass into a closer relationship, and by
+differentiation and integration it may become an organism.</p>
+
+<p>Then you will say, that in that case, the birds too and
+the insects, and the herbs of this forest, which mutually
+co-operate and do not destroy each other, may be considered,
+with the trees, to be an organism. They would
+agree to this, too. According to their theory, we may
+consider as an organism every collection of living beings
+which mutually co-operate, and do not destroy one
+another. You can establish a connection and co-operation
+between everything you like, and, according to evolution,
+you can assert that from anything may proceed anything
+else you like, if a long enough period is granted.</p>
+
+<p>To those who believe in the Trinity, it is impossible
+to prove that it does not exist. But one can show them
+that their assertion is not based on knowledge, but is an
+assertion of faith, and that if they assert that there are
+three Gods, I have an equal right to assert that there are
+17½ Gods. One may say the same thing with yet better
+ground to the followers of Positive and Evolutional
+science. On the basis of this science one could undertake
+to prove anything one liked. And the strangest thing
+of all is, that this same Positive science regards the scientific
+method as a condition of true knowledge, and that
+it has itself defined the elements of the scientific method.
+It professes that common sense is the scientific method.
+And yet common sense itself discloses the fallacies of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_170" title="170"> </a>
+the doctrine at every step. The moment those who occupied
+the position of saints felt there was no longer anything
+sacred in them, that they are cursed like the Pope
+and our own Synod, they immediately called themselves
+not merely sacred, but &ldquo;most sacred.&rdquo; The moment
+science felt that it had given up common sense, it called
+itself The Science of Reason, The Only Really Scientific
+Science.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent">&ldquo;<span class="small-caps">Division</span> of Labour&rdquo; is the law pervading everything
+that exists, therefore it must exist in human societies <ins title="too.&rdquo;">too.</ins>
+That may be so; but the question still remains, whether
+the existing division of labour in human society is the
+division which ought to exist. And when men consider
+a certain division of labour unreasonable and unjust, no
+science whatever can prove to men that what they consider
+unreasonable and unjust ought to continue.</p>
+
+<p>The theological theory demonstrated that &ldquo;Power is
+of God&rdquo;; and it very well may be so. But the question
+still remains, To whom is the power given, to <ins title="Catharine">Catherine</ins>
+the Empress, or to the rebel Pugatchof? And no theological
+subtleties whatever can solve this difficulty.
+Moral philosophy demonstrates that &ldquo;A State is merely
+a form of the social development of the individual&rdquo;;
+but the question still remains,&mdash;Can the state of a Nero
+or that of a Gengis Khan be considered a form of such
+development? And no transcendentalism whatever can
+solve that difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>It is the same with Scientific Science also. Division
+of Labour is the condition of the life of organisms and
+of human societies; but what have we to consider in
+these human societies as an organic division of labour?
+However much science studies the division of labour in
+the molecules of a tape-worm, all the observations cannot
+compel men to acknowledge as correct a division of labour
+which is repudiated by their reason and conscience.
+However convincing the proofs of the division of labour
+in the cells of investigated organisms may be, a man who
+has not yet lost his reason will say it is wrong that some
+should only weave cloth all their long life, and that this
+is not division of labour, but oppression of human beings.</p>
+
+<p>Herbert Spencer and others affirm that as there is a
+whole population of weavers, the weaver's activity is in
+organic division of labour. In saying this they use a
+similar line of reasoning to the theologians: There is a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_171" title="171"> </a>
+power, therefore it is of God, whatever it may be: there
+are weavers, therefore they exist as a result of the law
+of division of labour. There might be some sense in this
+if the power and the position of weavers were created by
+themselves; but we know that they are not but that it
+is we who create them. Well, then, we ought to ascertain
+whether we have established this power according
+to the will of God or of ourselves, and whether we have
+called these weavers into being by virtue of some organic
+law or from some other cause.</p>
+
+<p>Here are men earning their living by agriculture, as it
+is proper for all men to do: one man has set up a smith's
+forge and mended his plough; his neighbour comes to
+him and asks him to mend his plough, too, and promises
+to give labour or money in return. A second comes with
+a similar request; others follow; and in the society of
+these men a form of division of labour arises. Thus, one
+man becomes a smith.</p>
+
+<p>Another man has taught his children well; his neighbour
+brings him his children and asks him to teach them,
+and thus a teacher is formed: but the smith as well as
+the teacher become, and continue to be, a smith and a
+teacher, only because they were asked, and they remain a
+smith and a teacher only as long as people require their
+trades. If it happens that too many smiths and teachers
+appear, or if their labour is no longer wanted, they at
+once, according to common sense, throw aside their trade
+and become labourers again, as it everywhere and always
+happens where there is no cause for the violation of a
+right division of labour.</p>
+
+<p>Men who behave in such a way are directed both by
+their reason and their conscience; and therefore we who
+are endowed with reason and conscience, all agree that
+such a division of labour is a right one. But if it were
+to happen that smiths, having the possibility of compelling
+other men to labour for them, were to continue
+to make horseshoes when there was no longer a demand
+for them, and teachers were to wish to continue to teach
+when there was nobody to be taught, then, to every impartial
+man endowed with reason and conscience, it
+would be obvious that this is not real division of labour
+but a usurpation of other men's labour; because such a
+division could no longer be tested satisfactorily by the
+sole standard by which we may know whether it is right
+or not,&mdash;the demand of such labour by other men, and
+a voluntary compensation offered for it by them. But
+exactly such a surplus, however, is what Scientific
+Science terms &ldquo;a division of labour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_172" title="172"> </a>Men do what is not required, and they ask to be fed
+for it, and say it is just, because it is division of labour.
+The chief <em>social</em> evil of a people,&mdash;not with us alone,&mdash;is
+the countless horde of State officials. The chief cause
+of the <em>economical</em> misery of our days, is what is called in
+England &ldquo;over-production&rdquo; (that is, the production of
+an enormous quantity of articles, wanted by nobody, and
+which no one knows how to get rid of). All this comes
+simply from the strange idea about the &ldquo;division of
+labour?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>It would be very strange to see a boot-maker who considered
+that men were bound to feed him because, forsooth,
+he continued to produce boots wanted by no one;
+but what shall we say about those men in government,
+church, science, and art, who not only do not produce
+any thing tangibly useful for the people but whose produce
+is wanted by nobody, yet who as boldly require to
+be well fed and clothed on account of &ldquo;The division
+of labour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>There may be magicians for whose activity there is
+a demand and to whom men give casks and spirits; but
+we cannot even imagine the existence of magicians who,
+while their magic is not wanted by anybody, require to
+be fed simply because they wish to practice their art.
+Yet in our world this is the very position of the men in
+church and state, of the men of science and art. And
+it all proceeds from that false conception of the division
+of labour, defined, not by reason and conscience, but by
+deductions to which these scientists so unanimously
+resort.</p>
+
+<p>Division of labour, indeed, has always existed; but
+it is correct only when man decides it by his reason and
+conscience, and not by his making observations on it.
+And the conscience and the reason of all men solve this
+question in the simplest and surest way. They always
+decide the question by recognizing the division of labour
+to be right only when the special activity of a man is
+so necessary to others, that they freely offer to feed him
+in compensation for what <ins title="the y">they</ins> ask him to do for them.
+But when a man from his infancy up to his thirtieth year
+lives on the shoulders of other men, promising to do,
+when he finishes his studies, something very useful, which
+nobody has ever asked him for, and then for the rest of
+his life lives in the same way, promising only to do presently
+something which nobody asks him to do, this
+would not be a true division of labour, but, as it really
+is, only the violation by a strong man of the labour of
+others; the same appropriation of other men's labour
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_173" title="173"> </a>
+by a strong man, which formerly Theology called Divine
+predestination; Philosophy, Inevitable Conditions of
+Life; and now Scientific Science, the Organic Division
+of Labour.</p>
+
+<p>The entire importance of the ruling science consists
+in this alone. This science is now the dispenser of
+diplomas for idleness, because in her temples she alone
+analyzes and determines what activity in the social
+organism is parasitic and what organic. As if each man
+could not decide much better and more quickly, too, by
+consulting his own reason and conscience.</p>
+
+<p>As formerly, both for clergy and for statesmen,
+there could have been no doubt as to who were
+most necessary to other people, so now for the believers
+in Positive Science it seems that there can be no doubt
+about this, that their own activity is undoubtedly an
+organic one: they, the factors of science and art, are
+the cells of the brain, the most precious cells of all the
+human organism.</p>
+
+<p>Let us leave them to reign, eat, drink, and be
+feasted, as priests and sophists of old have before them,
+so long as they do not deprave men!</p>
+
+<p>Since men are reasonable creatures they have discriminated
+good from evil, making use of what has been done
+in this direction before them by others, have struggled
+with evil, seeking a true and better way, and slowly but
+unceasingly have advanced in this way. But always
+across the road different deceptions stood before them,
+trying to assure them that this struggle was not at all
+necessary, and that they should submit to the tide of life.
+First the awful deceptions of the old Church; little by
+little with dreadful struggle and effort men got rid of
+them: but scarcely had they done so when in their place
+arose new ones&mdash;state and philosophical deceptions.</p>
+
+<p>Men freed themselves from these too, and now a new
+deceit, a still worse one, has sprung up in their path,&mdash;the
+scientific deception.</p>
+
+<p>This new deception is exactly what the old ones were:
+its essence consists in the substitution of an externality
+for reason and conscience, and this externality is <em>observation</em>,
+as in theology it was <em>revelation</em>.</p>
+
+<p>The snare of this science consists in this, that having
+exposed some bare-faced perversions of the activity of
+reason and conscience, it destroys men's confidence in both
+reason and conscience. Hiding their lie clothed in a
+scientific theory, scientists assure men that by studying
+external phenomena they study undeniable facts which
+will reveal to them the law of man's life. Things which
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_174" title="174"> </a>
+are the property of conscience and reason are now to
+be discovered by observation alone. These men lose the
+conception of good and evil and thus become unable to
+understand those expressions and definitions of good
+and evil which have been worked out during the entire
+former existence of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>All that reason and conscience say to them, all that
+they have said to the highest representatives of men since
+the world has existed, all this, in their slang, is &ldquo;conditional
+and subjective.&rdquo; All this must be left behind.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that by reason one cannot apprehend the
+truth, because reason is liable to error: there is another
+way, unmistakable and almost mechanical,&mdash;one must
+study facts on the ground of science; that is, on two
+groundless suppositions, Positivism and Evolution, which
+are offered as the most undoubted truths. With mock
+solemnity the ruling science asserts that the solution of
+all the questions of life is only possible through studying
+the facts of nature, and especially those of organisms.</p>
+
+<p>The credulous crowd of youth, overwhelmed by the
+novelty of this authority,&mdash;not only not destroyed, not yet
+even touched by critics,&mdash;rush to the study of these facts
+of natural sciences, to that &ldquo;only way&rdquo; which, according
+to the assertion of the ruling doctrine, alone can lead
+to the elucidation of all questions of life. But the farther
+the students proceed in this study, the farther do
+they remove not only the possibility of solving the questions
+of life, but even the very thought of this solution.
+The more they grow accustomed, not so much to observe
+themselves, as to believe other men's observations on
+their word (to believe in cells, in protoplasm, in the fourth
+dimension of matter, and so on), the more the form
+hides from them the contents. The more they lose the
+consciousness of good and evil and the capacity of understanding
+those expressions and definitions of good and
+evil which have been worked out in all the former career
+of mankind, the more they appropriate to themselves
+that special scientific slang of &ldquo;conditional&rdquo; expressions
+which have no common human meaning in them. The
+farther and farther they get into the thick forest of observations
+lighted by anything, the more they lose the
+capacity, not only of independent thought, but even of
+understanding other men's fresh human ideas which are
+not included in their Talmud. But chiefly they pass their
+best years in losing the habit of life, that is, of labour,
+and accustom themselves to consider their own position
+justified, and thus become, physically, good-for-nothing
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_175" title="175"> </a>
+parasites, and, mentally, dislocate their brains and lose
+all power of thought-production.</p>
+
+<p>So, their capacities more and more blunted, they
+acquire by degrees self-assurance which deprives them
+forever of the possibility of returning to a simple, laborious
+life, and to any plain, clear, common, human manner
+of thinking.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> division of labour has always existed in human
+society, and I daresay always will exist; but the question
+for us is, not if it has been and will still continue,
+but, what should guide us in providing that this division
+may be a right one.</p>
+
+<p>If we take the facts of observation for our standard,
+we refuse to have any standard at all: for every division
+of labour which we see among men, and which may seem
+to us to be right, we shall consider right; and this is
+what the ruling Scientific Science is leading us to.</p>
+
+<p>Division of labour!</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Some are occupied with mental and spiritual, others
+with muscular and physical, labour.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>With what an assurance men express this! They wish
+to think it, and so that which is transparently the ancient
+violence, seems to them in reality a fair exchange of
+services.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;Thou,&rdquo; or rather, &ldquo;you&rdquo; (because it is always the
+many who have to feed the one),&mdash;&ldquo;you feed me, dress
+me, do for me all this rough labour which I require of
+you, and to which you are accustomed from your infancy,
+and I will do for you that mental work to which I have
+already become accustomed. Give me bodily food, <ins title="and and">and</ins>
+in return I will give you the spiritual.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The statement seems fair; and it would really be so if
+such exchange of services were free; if those who supply
+the bodily food were not obliged to supply it before they
+get the spiritual. The producer of the spiritual food
+says, &ldquo;In order that I may be able to give you this food,
+you must feed me, clothe me, and remove all filth from
+my house.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the producer of bodily food must do his work without
+making any claims of his own, and he has to give
+the bodily food whether he receive spiritual food or not.
+If the exchange were a free one the conditions on both
+sides would be equal. We agree that spiritual food is as
+necessary to man as bodily. But the learned man, the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_176" title="176"> </a>
+artist, says, &ldquo;Before we can begin to serve men by giving
+them spiritual food, we want men to provide us with
+bodily food.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But why should not the producers of this say, &ldquo;Before
+we begin to serve you with bodily food, we want spiritual
+food; and until we receive it, we cannot labour?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>You say, &ldquo;I require the labour of a ploughman, a smith,
+a book-maker, a carpenter, masons, and others, in order
+that I may prepare the spiritual food I have to offer.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Every workman might say, too, &ldquo;Before I go to work
+to prepare bodily food for you, I want the fruits of the
+spirit. In order to have strength for labouring, I require
+a religious teaching, the social order of common life,
+application of knowledge to labour, and the joys and
+comforts which art gives. I have no time to work out
+for myself a teaching concerning the meaning of life,&mdash;give
+it to me. I have no time to think out statutes of
+common life which would prevent the violation of justice,&mdash;give
+me this too. I have no time to study mechanics,
+natural philosophy, chemistry, technology; give me
+books with information as to how I am to improve my
+tools, my ways of working, my dwelling, its heating and
+lighting. I have no time to occupy myself with poetry,
+with plastic art, or music. Give me the excitements and
+comforts necessary for life; give me the productions of
+the arts.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>You say it would be impossible for you to do your important
+and necessary business if you were deprived of
+the labour that working-people do for you; and I say, a
+workman may declare, &ldquo;It is impossible for me to do my
+important and necessary business, not less important than
+yours,&mdash;to plough, to cart away refuse, and to clean <em>your</em>
+houses,&mdash;if I am deprived of a religious guidance corresponding
+to the wants of my intellect and my conscience,
+of a reasonable government which will secure my
+labour, of information for easing my labour, and the enjoyment
+of art to ennoble it. All you have hitherto
+offered me in the shape of spiritual food is not only of
+no use to me whatever, I cannot even understand to whom
+it could be of any use. And until I receive this nourishment,
+proper for me as for every man, I cannot produce
+bodily food to feed you with.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>What if the working-people should speak thus? And
+if they did, it would be no jest but the simplest justice.
+If a workman said this, he would be far more in the right
+than a man of intellectual labour; because the labour
+produced by the workman is more urgent and more necessary
+than that of the intellectual worker, and because a
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_177" title="177"> </a>
+man of intellect is hindered by nothing from giving that
+spiritual food which he promised to give, while the
+workingman is hindered in giving the bodily food by the
+fact that he himself is short of it.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, should we intellectual labourers answer,
+if such simple and lawful claims were made upon us?
+How should we satisfy these claims? Should we satisfy
+the religious wants of the people by the catechism of
+Philaret, by sacred histories of Sokolof, by the literature
+sent out by monasteries and cathedrals? Should we
+satisfy their demand for order by the &ldquo;Code of Laws,&rdquo;
+and cassation verdicts of different departments, or by reports
+of committees and commissions? And should we
+satisfy their want of knowledge by giving them spectrum
+analysis, a survey of the Milky Way, speculative geometry,
+microscopic investigations, controversies concerning
+spiritualism and mediumism, the activity of academies of
+science? How should we satisfy their artistic wants?
+By Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Turgenief, L. Tolstoy? By
+pictures of French <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">salons</i>, and of those of our artists who
+represent naked women, satin, velvet, and landscapes,
+and pictures of domestic life; by the music of Wagner,
+and that of our own musicians?</p>
+
+<p>All this is of no use and cannot be of use because we,
+with our right to utilize the labour of the people and
+absence of all duties in preparation of their spiritual food,
+have quite lost from sight the single destination our
+activity should have.</p>
+
+<p>We do not even know what is required by the workman;
+we have even forgotten his mode of life, his views
+of things, his language; we have even lost sight of the
+very working-people themselves, and we study them like
+some ethnographical rarity or newly-discovered continent.
+Demanding for ourselves bodily food, we have
+taken upon ourselves to provide the spiritual; but in
+consequence of the imaginary division of labour, according
+to which we may not only first take our dinner and
+afterwards do our work, but may during many generations
+dine luxuriously and do no work,&mdash;we, in the way of
+compensation for our food, have prepared something
+which is of use, as it seems to us, for ourselves and for
+science and art, but of no use whatever for those very
+people whose labour we consume under the pretext of
+providing them in return with intellectual food; not only
+is of no use, but is quite unintelligible and distasteful
+to them.</p>
+
+<p>In our blindness, we have to such a degree left out of
+sight the duty we took upon us, that we have even forgotten
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_178" title="178"> </a>
+for what our labour is being done; and the very
+people whom we undertook to serve we have made an
+object of our scientific and artistic activities. We study
+them and represent them for our own pleasure and
+amusement: but we have quite forgotten that it is our
+duty, not to study and depict, but to serve them.</p>
+
+<p>We have to such a degree left out of sight the duty
+we assumed that we have not even noticed that other
+people do what we undertook in the departments of
+science and art, and that our place turns out to be
+occupied.</p>
+
+<p>It appears that while we have been in controversy,&mdash;now
+about the immaculate conception, and now about
+spontaneous generation; now about spiritualism, and
+now about the forms of atoms; now about pangenesis,
+now about protoplasms, and so on,&mdash;all this while the
+people none the less required spiritual food, and the
+abortive outcasts of science and art began to provide for
+the people this spiritual food to the order of various
+speculators, who had in view exclusively their own profit
+and gain.</p>
+
+<p>Now, for some forty years in Europe, and ten years in
+Russia, millions of books and pictures and songs have
+been circulating; shows have been opened: and the
+people gaze and sing, and receive intellectual food, though
+not from those who promised to provide it for them;
+and we, who justify our idleness by the need for that
+intellectual food which we pretend to provide for the
+people, are sitting still, and taking no notice.</p>
+
+<p>But we cannot do so, because our final justification
+has vanished from under our feet. We have taken upon
+ourselves a peculiar department: we have a peculiar
+functional activity of our own. We are the brain of the
+people. They feed us, and we have undertaken to teach
+them. Only for the sake of this have we freed ourselves
+from labour. What, then, have we been teaching them?
+They have waited years, tens of years, hundreds of years.
+And we are still conversing among ourselves, and teaching
+each other, and amusing ourselves, and have quite
+forgotten them; we have so totally forgotten them, that
+others have taken upon themselves to teach and amuse
+them, and we have not even become aware of this in our
+flippant talk about division of labour: and it is very
+obvious that all our talk about the utility we offer to
+the people was only a shameful excuse.</p>
+
+<h2><a class="pagenum" name="Page_179" title="179"> </a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">There</span> was a time when the <em>Church</em> guided the intellectual
+life of the men of our world. The Church promised men
+happiness, and, in compensation for this she freed herself
+from taking part in mankind's common struggle for
+life.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she did this she went away from her
+calling, and men turned from her. It was not the <em>errors</em>
+of the Church which originally caused her ruin, but the
+fact that by the help of the secular power, in the time of
+Constantine, her ministers violated the law of labour;
+and then their claim to idleness and luxury gave birth to
+the errors.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she obtained this power she began to care
+for herself, and not for humanity, whom she had taken
+upon herself to serve. The ministers of the Church gave
+themselves up to idleness and depravity.</p>
+
+<p><em>The State</em> took upon itself to guide men's lives. The
+State promised men justice, peace, security, order, satisfaction
+of common intellectual and material wants; and,
+in compensation, men who served the State freed themselves
+from taking part in the struggle for life. And the
+State's servants, as soon as they were able to utilize other
+men's labour, acted in the same way as the ministers of
+the Church.</p>
+
+<p>They had not in view the people; but, from kings down
+to the lowest state functionaries, in Rome, as well as in
+France, England, Russia, and America, they gave themselves
+over to idleness and depravity. Now men have lost
+their faith in the state, and anarchy is now seriously
+advocated as an ideal. The state has lost its prestige
+among men, only because its ministers have claimed the
+right of utilizing the people's labour for themselves.</p>
+
+<p><em>Science and art</em> have done the same, assisted by the
+state power which they took upon themselves to sustain.
+They also have claimed and obtained for themselves
+the right of idleness and of utilizing other men's labour,
+and also have been false to their calling. And their
+errors, too, proceeded only from the fact that their
+ministers, pointing to a falsely conceived principle of
+the division of labour, claimed for themselves the right
+to utilize the work of the people, and so lost the meaning
+of their calling, making the aim of their activity, not
+the utility of the people, but some mysterious activity
+of science and art; and also, like their forerunners, they
+have given themselves over to idleness and depravity,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_180" title="180"> </a>
+though not so much to a fleshly as to an intellectual
+corruption.</p>
+
+<p>It is said that science and art have done much for mankind.</p>
+
+<p>That is quite true.</p>
+
+<p>Church and State have given much to humanity, not
+because they abused their power, or because their ministers
+forsook the common life of men, and the eternal
+duty of labour for life&mdash;but in spite of this.</p>
+
+<p>The Roman Republic was powerful, not because its citizens
+were able to lead a life of depravity, but because it
+could number among them men who were virtuous.</p>
+
+<p>This is the case with science and art.</p>
+
+<p>Science and art have effected much for mankind, not
+because their ministers had sometimes formerly, and
+have always at present, the possibility of freeing themselves
+from labour, but because men of genius, not
+utilizing these rights, have forwarded the progress of
+mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The class of learned men and artists who claim, on
+account of a false division of labour, the right of utilizing
+other men's labour, cannot contribute to the progress
+of true science and true art, because a lie can never produce
+a truth.</p>
+
+<p>We are so accustomed to our pampered or debilitated
+representatives of intellectual labour, that it would seem
+very strange if a learned man or an artist were to plough,
+or cart manure. We think that, were he to do so, all
+would go to ruin; that all his wisdom would be shaken
+out of him, and that the great artistic images he carries
+in his breast would be soiled by the manure: but we are
+so accustomed to our present conditions that we do not
+wonder at our ministers of science, that is, ministers and
+teachers of truth, compelling other people to do for them
+that which they could very well do themselves, passing
+half their time eating, smoking, chattering in &ldquo;liberal&rdquo;
+gossip, reading newspapers, novels, visiting theatres;
+we are not surprised to see our philosopher in an inn,
+in a theatre, at a ball; we do not wonder when we learn
+that those artists who delight and ennoble our souls, pass
+their lives in drunkenness, in playing cards, in company
+with loose women, or do things still worse.</p>
+
+<p>Science and art are fine things: but just because they
+are fine things men ought not to spoil them by associating
+them with depravity;&mdash;by freeing themselves from
+man's duty to serve by labour his own life and the lives
+of other men.</p>
+
+<p>Science and art have forwarded the progress of mankind.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_181" title="181"> </a>
+Yes; but not because men of science and art,
+under the pretext of a division of labour, taught men by
+word, and chiefly by deed, to utilize by violence the
+misery and sufferings of the people in order to free themselves
+from the very first and unquestionable human duty
+of labouring with their hands in the common struggle of
+mankind with nature.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent">&ldquo;<span class="small-caps">But</span>,&rdquo; you say, &ldquo;it is this very division of labour, the
+freeing men of science and of art from the necessity of
+earning their bread, that has rendered possible the extraordinary
+success in science which we see to-day.</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;If everybody were to plough, these enormous results
+would not be attained; you would not have those astonishing
+successes which have so enlarged man's power over
+nature; you would not have those discoveries in
+astronomy which so strike the minds of men and promote
+navigation; there would be no steamers, railways,
+wonderful bridges, tunnels, steam-engines, telegraphs,
+photographs, telephones, sewing-machines, phonographs,
+electricity, telescopes, spectroscopes, microscopes, chloroform,
+Lister bandages, carbolic acid.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I will not attempt to enumerate all the things of which
+our century is proud. This enumeration, and the ecstasy
+of the contemplation of ourselves and of our great deeds
+you can find in almost every newspaper and popular
+book. And these raptures are so often repeated, and we
+are so seldom tired of praising ourselves, that we really
+have come to believe, with Jules Verne, that science and
+art never made such progress as in our time. And as all
+this is rendered possible only by division of labour, how
+can we avoid countenancing it?</p>
+
+<p>Let us suppose that the progress of our century is
+really striking, astonishing, extraordinary; let us suppose,
+too, that we are particularly lucky in living at such an
+extraordinary time: but let us try to ascertain the value
+of these successes, not by our own self-contentment, but
+by the very principle of the division of labour; that is,
+by the intellectual labour of scientists for the advantage
+of the people which has to compensate for the freedom
+of its servants from manual toil.</p>
+
+<p>This progress is very striking indeed; but owing to
+some bad luck, recognized, too, by the men of science,
+this progress has not yet ameliorated, but has rather
+deteriorated, the condition of working men.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_182" title="182"> </a>Though a working man, instead of walking, can use
+the railway, it is this very railway which has caused his
+forest to be burned and has carried away his bread from
+under his very nose, and put him into a condition which
+is next door to slavery to the railway proprietor.</p>
+
+<p>If, thanks to steam-engines and machines, a workman
+can buy cheap and bad calico, it is these very engines
+and machines which have deprived him of his livelihood
+and brought him to a state of entire slavery to the manufacturer.</p>
+
+<p>If there are telegraphs, which he is not forbidden to use
+but which he does not use because he cannot afford it, still
+each of his productions, the value of which rises, is bought
+up at low prices before his very eyes by capitalists, thanks
+to that telegraph, before he has even become aware that
+the article is in demand.</p>
+
+<p>If there are telephones and telescopes, novels, operas,
+picture-galleries, and so on, the life of the workman is
+not at all improved by any of them, because all, owing
+to the same unlucky chance, are beyond his reach.</p>
+
+<p>So that, after all, these wonderful discoveries and productions
+of art, if they have not made the life of working-people
+worse, have by no means improved it: and on this
+the men of science are agreed.</p>
+
+<p>So that, if we apply, not our self-contemplating rapture,
+but the very standard on which the ground of the division
+of labour is defended,&mdash;utility to the working-world,&mdash;to
+the question as to the reality of the successes attained by
+the sciences and arts, we shall see that we have not yet
+any sound reason for the self-contentment to which we
+consign ourselves so willingly.</p>
+
+<p>A peasant uses the railway; a peasant's wife buys
+calico; in the cottage a lamp, and not a pine-knot, burns;
+and the peasant lights his pipe with a match,&mdash;all this
+is comfortable; but what right have I from this to say
+that railways and factories have done good to the people?</p>
+
+<p>If a peasant uses the railway, and buys a lamp, calico,
+and matches, he does it only because we cannot forbid
+his doing so: but we all know very well that railways
+and factories were not built for the use of the people;
+and why, then, should the casual comfort a workman
+obtains by chance be brought forward as a proof of the
+usefulness of these institutions to the people?</p>
+
+<p>We all know very well that if the engineers and capitalists
+who build a railway or a factory thought about the
+working-people, they thought only how to make the most
+possible use of them. And we see they have fully succeeded
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_183" title="183"> </a>
+in doing so in Europe and America, as well as
+in Russia.</p>
+
+<p>In every hurtful thing there is something useful. After
+a house has been burned down we can sit and warm ourselves,
+and light our pipes from one of the fire-brands;
+but should we therefore say that a conflagration is
+beneficial?</p>
+
+<p>Whatever we do, do not let us deceive ourselves. We
+all know very well the motives for building railways and
+factories, and for producing kerosene and matches. An
+engineer builds a railway for the government, to facilitate
+wars, or for the capitalists for their financial purposes.
+He makes machines for manufacturers for his own advantage
+and for the profit of capitalists. All that he makes
+or plans he does for the purpose of the government, the
+capitalists, and other rich people. His most skilful inventions
+are either directly harmful to the people, such as
+guns, torpedoes, solitary prisons, and so on; or they are
+not only useless but quite inaccessible to them, such as
+electric light, telephones, and the innumerable improvements
+of comfort; or lastly, they deprave the people and
+rob them of their last kopek, that is, their last labour,
+for spirits, wine, beer, opium, tobacco, finery, and all
+sorts of trifles.</p>
+
+<p>But if it happens sometimes that the inventions of men
+of science and the works of engineers, are of use to the
+people, as, for instance, railways, calicoes, steel, scythes,
+it only proves that in this world of ours everything is
+mutually connected, and that out of every hurtful activity
+there may arise an accidental good for those to whom the
+activity was hurtful.</p>
+
+<p>Men of science and of art could say that their activity
+was useful for the people, only if in their activity they
+have aimed at serving the people, as they now aim to
+serve the government and capitalists.</p>
+
+<p>We could have said that, only if the men of science
+and art made the wants of the people their object; but
+such is not the case.</p>
+
+<p>All learned men are occupied with their sacred businesses,
+which lead to the investigation of protoplasms,
+the spectrum analysis of stars, and so on: but concerning
+investigations as to how to set an axe, or with what kind
+it is more advantageous to hew; which saw is the most
+handy; with what flour bread shall be made, how it may
+best be kneaded, how to set it to rise; how to heat and
+to build stoves; what food, drink or crockery-ware it is
+best to use; what mushrooms may be eaten, and how they
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_184" title="184"> </a>
+may be prepared more conveniently,&mdash;science never
+troubles itself, or does so very slightly.</p>
+
+<p>Yet all this is the business of science.</p>
+
+<p>I know that, according to its own definition, science
+must be useless; but this is only an excuse, and a very
+impudent one.</p>
+
+<p>The business of science is to serve people. We have
+invented telegraphs, telephones, phonographs, but what
+improvements have we made in the life of the people?
+We have catalogued two millions of insects! but have
+we domesticated a single animal since biblical times,
+when all our animals had long been domesticated, and
+still the elk and the deer, and the partridge and the
+grouse and the wood-hen, are wild?</p>
+
+<p>Botanists have discovered the cells, and in the cells
+protoplasms and in protoplasms something else, and in
+this something else again.</p>
+
+<p>These occupations will go on for a long time and evidently
+never end, and therefore learned men have no time
+to do anything useful. Hence from the times of the
+ancient Egyptians and Hebrews, when wheat and lentils
+were already cultivated, down to the present time, not
+a single plant has been added for the nourishment of
+the people except potatoes, and these were not discovered
+by science. We have invented torpedoes and
+house-drains; but the spinning-wheel, weaving-looms,
+ploughs and axe-handles, flails and rakes, buckets and
+well-sweeps, are still the same as in the time of Rurik.
+If some things have been improved, it is not the
+learned who have improved them, but the unlearned.</p>
+
+<p>The same is the case with art. Many people are
+acclaimed as great writers. We have carefully analyzed
+their works, have written mountains of critiques and
+criticisms upon criticisms, and still more criticisms on
+criticisms; we have collected pictures in galleries, and
+thoroughly studied in detail different schools of art; and
+we possess symphonies and operas that it is with great
+difficulty we ourselves can listen to; but what have we
+added to the folk-lore, legends, tales, songs for the
+people? what pictures, what music, have we created for
+the people?</p>
+
+<p>Books and pictures are published, and harmoniums
+are made for the people, but we did not participate in
+either.</p>
+
+<p>What is most striking and obvious is the false tendency
+of our science and art, which manifests itself in
+those departments which, according to their own propositions,
+would seem to be useful to people, but which, owing
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_185" title="185"> </a>
+to this tendency, appear rather pernicious than useful.
+An engineer, a surgeon, a teacher, an artist, an author,
+seem by their very professions to be obliged to serve the
+people, but what do we see? With the present tendency,
+they can bring to the people nothing but harm. An
+engineer and a mechanic must work with capital: without
+capital they are good for nothing.</p>
+
+<p>All their training is of such a nature that, in order to
+make use of it, they need capital and the employment of
+work-people on a large scale, to say nothing of the fact
+that they themselves are accustomed to spend from fifteen
+hundred to a thousand rubles a year on themselves, and
+therefore cannot go to live in a village, since no one there
+can give them any such remuneration: from their very
+occupations they are not fit for the service of the people.</p>
+
+<p>They understand how to calculate the arch of a bridge
+by means of the higher mathematics, how to calculate
+power and the transfer of power in an engine, and so on:
+but they are at a loss to meet the plain requirements of
+common labour; they do not know how to improve the
+plough or the cart; or how to make a brook passable,
+taking into consideration the conditions of a workman's
+life.</p>
+
+<p>They know and understand nothing of all this, less even
+than the poorest peasant does. Give them workshops,
+and plenty of people, order engines from abroad, and
+then they will arrange these matters. But to find out
+how to ease the labour of the millions of the people in
+their present conditions, they do not know, and cannot
+do it; and therefore, by their knowledge and habits and
+wants, they are not at all fit for this business.</p>
+
+<p>A surgeon is in a still worse condition. His imaginary
+science is of such a nature that he understands how to
+cure those only who have nothing to do and who can
+utilize other men's labour. He requires a countless number
+of expensive accessories, instruments, medicines,
+sanitary dwellings, food, and drains, in order that he may
+act scientifically: besides his fee he demands such expenses
+that, in order to cure one patient, he must kill with
+starvation hundreds of those who bear this expense.</p>
+
+<p>He has studied under eminent persons in the capital
+cities, who attended only to those patients whom they may
+take into hospitals, or who can afford to buy all the necessary
+medicines and machines, and even go at once from
+north to south, to these or those mineral waters, as the
+case may be.</p>
+
+<p>Their science is of such a kind that every country surgeon
+complains that there is no possibility of attending
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_186" title="186"> </a>
+to the work-people who are so poor that they cannot afford
+sanitary accommodations, and that there are no hospitals,
+and that he cannot attend to the business alone, that he
+requires help and assistant-surgeons.</p>
+
+<p>What does this really mean?</p>
+
+<p>It means this,&mdash;that the want of the necessaries of life
+is the chief cause of people's misfortunes, and the source
+of diseases as well as of their spreading and incurability.
+Now science, under the banner of &ldquo;the division of
+labour,&rdquo; calls its champions to help the people. Science
+has settled satisfactorily about the rich classes, and seeks
+how to cure those who can get everything necessary for
+the purpose; and it sends persons to cure in the same way
+those who have nothing to spare. But there are no
+means; and therefore they must be raised from the
+people, who become ill and catch diseases, and cannot be
+cured for want of means.</p>
+
+<p>The advocates of the healing art for the people say,
+that, up to the present time, this business has not been
+sufficiently developed.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently it is not yet developed, because if (which God
+forbid!) it were developed among our people, and, instead
+of two doctors and mid-wives and two assistant-surgeons
+in the district, there should be twenty sent, as they want,
+then there would soon be no one left to attend to. The
+scientific co-operation for the benefit of the people must
+be of quite a different kind. And this, which ought to
+exist, has not yet begun.</p>
+
+<p>It will begin when a man of science, an engineer, or a
+surgeon, ceases to consider lawful that division of labour,
+or rather that taking away other men's labour, which now
+exists, and when he no longer considers that he has the
+right to take,&mdash;I do not say hundreds of thousands,&mdash;but
+even a moderate sum of one thousand or five hundred
+rubles as compensation for his services; but when such
+a man comes to live among labouring-people in the same
+condition and in the same way as they, and applies his
+information in mechanics, technics or hygiene, to cure
+them.</p>
+
+<p>But at present, scientific men, who are fed at the expense
+of the workman, have quite forgotten the conditions of
+the life of these men: they ignore (as they say) these conditions,
+and are quite seriously offended that their imaginary
+knowledge does not find application among the people.</p>
+
+<p>The departments of the healing art as well as of the
+mechanical have not yet been touched: the questions how
+best to divide the period of labour, how and upon what it
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_187" title="187"> </a>
+is best to feed, how best to dress, how to counteract
+dampness and cold, how best to wash, to suckle, and
+swaddle children, and so on, and all these applied to the
+conditions in which the workers now exist,&mdash;all these
+questions have not yet been faced.</p>
+
+<p>The same applies to the activity of scientific teachers,&mdash;the
+pedagogues. Science has arranged this business, too,
+in such a way, that teaching according to science is possible
+only for those who are rich; and the teachers, like
+the engineers and surgeons, are involuntarily drawn towards
+money, and among us in Russia especially towards
+the government.</p>
+
+<p>And this cannot be otherwise, because a school properly
+arranged (and the general rule is that the more scientifically
+a school is arranged the more expensive it is),
+with convertible benches, globes, maps, libraries, and
+manuals for teachers and pupils, is just such a school to
+maintain which it is necessary to double the taxes of the
+people. So science wants to have it. The children are
+necessary for work, and the more so with the poorer
+people. The advocates of science say, &ldquo;Pedagogy is
+even now of use for the people; but let it develop, then
+it will be still better.&rdquo; But if it will develop till instead
+of 20 schools in a district there will be 100&mdash;all of them
+scientific,&mdash;and the parents forced to keep up these
+schools? <ins title="They">Then</ins> they will be still poorer, and will want
+the labour of their children still more urgently.</p>
+
+<p>What is to be done then?</p>
+
+<p>To this they will reply, &ldquo;The government will establish
+schools, and will make education obligatory as it is
+in the rest of Europe.&rdquo; But the money will still have to
+be raised from the people, and labour will be still harder
+for them, and they will have less time to spare from their
+labour, and there will then be no obligatory education
+at all.</p>
+
+<p>There is, again, only one escape,&mdash;for a teacher to live
+in the conditions of a workman, and to teach for that
+compensation which will be freely offered him.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the false tendency of science which deprives it
+of the possibility to fulfil its duty in serving the people.
+But this false tendency of our educated class is still more
+obvious in art-activity, which, for the sake of its very
+meaning ought to be accessible to the people.</p>
+
+<p>Science may point to its stupid excuse that &ldquo;science is
+acting for science,&rdquo; and that, when fully developed it will
+become accessible to the people; but art, if it is art
+indeed, ought to be accessible to all, especially to those
+for whose sake it is created. But our art strikingly
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_188" title="188"> </a>
+denounces its factors in that they do not wish, and do
+not understand, and are not able to be of use to the
+people. A painter, in order to produce his great works,
+must have a large studio, in which at least forty joiners
+or boot-makers might work, who are now freezing or
+suffocating in wretched lodgings. But this is not all: he
+requires models, costumes, journeys from place to place.
+The Academy of Art has spent millions of rubles, collected
+from the people, for the encouragement of art; and
+the productions of this art are hung in palaces, and are
+neither intelligible to the people nor wanted by them.</p>
+
+<p>Musicians, in order to express their great ideas, must
+gather about two hundred men with white neckties or in
+special costumes, and spend hundreds of thousands of
+rubles arranging operas. But this art-production would
+never appear to the people (even if they could afford to
+use it) as anything but perplexing or dull.</p>
+
+<p>The authors, writers, would seem not to need any particular
+accommodations, studios, models, orchestras, or
+actors; but here also it turns out that an author, a writer,
+in order to prepare his great works, wants travelling,
+palaces, cabinets, enjoyments of art, theatres, concerts,
+mineral waters, and so on; to say nothing of all the
+comforts of his dwelling and all the comforts of his life.
+If he himself has not saved up enough money for this
+purpose he is given a pension in order that he may compose
+better. And, again, these writings, which we value
+so highly, remain for the people, rubbish, and are not
+at all necessary to them.</p>
+
+<p>What if, according to the wish of men of science and
+art, such producers of mental food should so multiply,
+that, in every village it would be necessary to build a
+studio, provide an orchestra, and keep an author in the
+conditions which men of art consider indispensable to
+them? I dare say working-people would make a vow
+never to look at a picture, or listen to a symphony, or
+read poetry and novels, in order only not to be compelled
+to feed all these good-for-nothing parasites.</p>
+
+<p>And why should not men of art serve the people? In
+every cottage there are holy images and pictures; each
+peasant, each woman of the people, sings; many have
+instruments of music; and all can relate stories, repeat
+poetry; and many of them read. How came it to pass
+that these two things, which were as much made for one
+another as a key for a lock, were separated, and why are
+they so separated that we cannot imagine how to re-unite
+them?</p>
+
+<p>Tell a painter to paint without a studio, models,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_189" title="189"> </a>
+costumes, and to draw penny pictures, and he will say
+that this would be a denial of art as he understands it.
+Tell a musician to play on a harmonium and to teach
+country-women to sing songs; tell a poet to throw aside
+writing poems and novels and satires, and to compose
+song-books for the people, and stories and tales which
+might be intelligible to illiterate persons,&mdash;they will say
+you are cracked.</p>
+
+<p>But is it not being worse than cracked when the men
+who have freed themselves from labour <ins title="bceause">because</ins> they
+promised to provide mental food for those who have
+brought them up, and are feeding and clothing them,
+have afterwards so forgotten their promise that they have
+ceased to understand how to make food fit for the people?
+Yet this very forsaking of their promises they consider
+dignifies them.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the case everywhere, they say. Then everywhere
+the case is very unreasonable. And it will
+be so while men, under the pretext of division of labour,
+promise to provide mental food for the people, but only
+swallow up the labour of the people. Men will serve the
+people with science and art only when living among them
+and in the same way as the people do, putting forth no
+claims whatever, they offer to the people their scientific
+and artistic services, leaving it to the free will of the
+people to accept or refuse them.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">To</span> say that the activities of the arts and sciences have
+co-operated in forwarding the progress of mankind, and
+by these activities to mean that which is now called by
+this name, is as to say that an awkward moving of the oars,
+hindering the progress of a boat going down the stream,
+is forwarding the progress of the boat; while it only
+hinders it. The so-called division of labour&mdash;that is, the
+violation of other men's labour which has become in our
+time a condition of the activity of men of art and science&mdash;has
+been, and still remains, the chief cause of the slowness
+of the progress of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The proof of it we have in the acknowledgement that
+the acquisitions of art and science are not accessible to
+the working-classes because of a wrong distribution of
+wealth. And the incorrectness of this distribution does
+not diminish in proportion to the progress of art and
+science, but rather increases. Nor is it astonishing that
+such is the case; because the incorrect distribution of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_190" title="190"> </a>
+wealth proceeds solely from the theory of the division
+of labour, preached by men of art and science for selfish
+purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Science, defending the division of labour as an unchangeable
+law, sees that the distribution of wealth based
+upon this division is incorrect and pernicious, and asserts
+that its activity, which recognizes the division of labour,
+will set all right again, and lead men to happiness.</p>
+
+<p>It appears, then, that some men utilize the labour of
+others; but if they will only continue to do this for a
+long time, and on a still larger scale, then this incorrect
+distribution of wealth, that is, utilizing of other men's
+labour, will vanish.</p>
+
+<p>Men are standing by an ever-increasing spring of water,
+and are busy turning it aside from thirsty men, and then
+they assert that it is they who produce this water, and
+that soon there will be so much of it that everybody will
+have enough and to spare. And this water, which has
+been running unceasingly, and nourishing all mankind,
+is not only not the result of the activity of those who,
+standing at its source, turn it aside, but it runs and
+spreads itself in spite of the endeavours to stop it from
+doing so.</p>
+
+<p>There has always existed a true church,&mdash;in other words,
+men united by the highest truth accessible to them at a
+certain epoch,&mdash;but it has never been that church which
+gave herself out for such; and there have always been
+real art and science, but they were not those which call
+themselves now by these names.</p>
+
+<p>Men who consider themselves to be the representatives
+of art and science in a given period of time, always
+imagine that they have been doing, are doing, and the
+important fact is that they are on the point of making
+wonderful things, and that beyond them there has never
+been any art or science. Thus it seemed to the sophists,
+to the scholiasts, alchemists, cabalists, Talmudists, and
+to our own scientific science and to our artistic art.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent">&ldquo;<span class="small-caps">But</span> science! art! You repudiate science, art; that is,
+you repudiate that by which mankind live.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I am always hearing this: people choose this way to
+put aside my arguments altogether without analyzing
+them. &ldquo;He repudiates science and art; he wishes to
+turn men back again to the savage state; why, then,
+should we listen to him, or argue with him?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_191" title="191"> </a>But this is unjust. Not only do I not repudiate science&mdash;human
+reasonable activity&mdash;and art,&mdash;the expression
+of this reasonable activity,&mdash;but it is actually in the name
+of this reasonable activity and its expression that I speak
+what I do, in order that mankind may avoid the savage
+state towards which they are rapidly moving, owing to the
+false teaching of our time.</p>
+
+<p>Science and art are as necessary to men as food, drink,
+and clothes,&mdash;even still more necessary than these; but
+they become such, not because we decide that what we
+call science and art are necessary, but because they are
+truly necessary to men. Now, if I should prepare hay
+for the bodily food of men, my idea that hay is food
+would not make it to be so. I cannot say, Why
+do you not eat hay when it is your necessary food?
+Food is, indeed, necessary, but perhaps what I offer is
+not food at all.</p>
+
+<p>This very thing has happened with our science and
+art. And to us it seems that when we add to a Greek
+word the termination <i>logy</i>, and call this science, it will
+be science indeed; and if we call an indecency, like the
+painting of naked women, by the Greek word &ldquo;choreography,&rdquo;
+and term it art, it will be art indeed.</p>
+
+<p>But however much we may say this, the business which
+we are about, in counting up the insects, and chemically
+analyzing the contents of the Milky Way, in painting
+water-nymphs and historical pictures, in writing novels,
+and in composing symphonies, this, our business, will
+not become science or art until it is willingly accepted
+by those for whom it is being done.</p>
+
+<p>Till now it has not been accepted. If some men only
+were allowed to prepare food, and all others were either
+forbidden to do it, or be rendered incapable of producing
+it, I daresay that the quality of the food would
+deteriorate. If the men who had the exclusive privilege
+of producing food were Russian peasants, then there
+would be no other food than black bread, kvas, potatoes,
+and onions, which they are fond of, and which is agreeable
+to them. The same would be the case with that
+highest human activity in art and science if their exclusive
+privilege were appropriated by one caste, with this
+difference only, that in bodily food there cannot be too
+great digressions from the natural;&mdash;bread as well as
+onions, though unsavoury food, is still eatable:&mdash;but in
+mental food there may be great digressions; and some
+men may for a very long time feed upon an unnecessary,
+or even hurtful and poisonous, mental food; they themselves
+may slowly kill themselves with opium or with
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_192" title="192"> </a>
+spirits, and this sort of food they may offer to the masses
+of the people.</p>
+
+<p>This very thing has happened to us. And it has happened
+because men of art and science are in privileged
+conditions; because art and science in our world are not
+that mental activity of all mankind, without any exception,
+who separate their best powers for the service of
+art and science: but it is the activity of a small company
+of men having the monopoly of these occupations, and
+calling themselves scientists and artists; and therefore
+they have perverted the very conceptions of art and
+science, and lost the sense of their own calling, and are
+merely occupied in amusing a small company of parasites
+and saving them from burdensome dulness.</p>
+
+<p>Since men have existed, they have always had science
+in the plainest and largest sense of the word. Science,
+as the sum of all human information, has always been
+in existence; and without it life is not conceivable, and
+there is no necessity whatever either to attack or to
+defend it.</p>
+
+<p>But the fact is this, that the reason of this knowledge
+is so various, so much information of all kinds enters
+into it, from information how to obtain iron up to the
+knowledge about movements of the celestial bodies, that
+man would be lost among all this varied information if
+he had no clew to help him to decide which of all these
+kinds of information is more important, and which less.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, the highest wisdom of men has always
+consisted in finding out the clew whereby to arrange
+the information of men, and to decide what kinds
+of information are more, and what are less, important.
+This which has directed all other knowledge, men
+have always called science in the strictest sense of the
+word. Such science has always been, up to the
+present time, in human societies which have left the
+savage state behind them. Since mankind has existed
+teachers have appeared in every nation to form science
+in this strict sense,&mdash;the science about what it is most
+necessary for men to know. The object of this science
+has always been the inquiry as to what was the destiny,
+and therefore the true welfare, of each man and of all men.
+This science has served as a clew to determine the importance
+and the expression of all other sciences. Such information
+and art as co-operated with the science of man's
+destiny and welfare were considered highest in public
+opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the science of Confucius, Buddha, Moses,
+Socrates, Christ, Mohammed,&mdash;science such as it has been
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_193" title="193"> </a>
+understood by all men save our own circle of so-called
+educated people.</p>
+
+<p>Such a science has not only always occupied the first
+place, but it is the one science which has determined the
+importance of other sciences. And this, not at all
+because so-called learned men of our time imagine
+that it is only deceitful priests and teachers of this
+science who have given it such an importance,
+but because, as, indeed, everyone can learn by
+his own inward experience, without the science of man's
+destiny and welfare, there cannot be any determining of
+other values, or any choice of art and science for man.
+And, therefore, there cannot be any study of science, for
+there are <em>innumerable</em> quantities of subjects to which
+science may be applied. I italicize the word innumerable,
+as I use it in its exact value.</p>
+
+<p>Without knowledge as to what constitutes the calling
+and welfare of all men, all other arts and sciences
+become, as is really the case with us at present, only an
+idle and pernicious amusement. Mankind have been
+living long, and they have never been living without a
+science relative to the calling and welfare of men:
+it is true that the science of the welfare of men
+to a superficial observation appears to be different
+with Buddists, Brahmins, Hebrews, Christians, with
+the followers of Confucius and those of Laotse,
+though one need only reflect on these teachings
+in order to see their essential unity; where men
+have left the savage state behind them, we find this
+science; and now of a sudden it turns out that modern
+men have decided that this very science which has been
+till now the guide of all human information, is the
+obstacle in the way of everything.</p>
+
+<p>Men build houses; one architect makes one estimate,
+another makes a second, and so on. The estimates are
+a little different, but they are separately correct; and
+every one sees that, if each estimate is fulfilled, the house
+will be erected. Such architects are Confucius, Buddha,
+Moses, Christ. And now certain men come and assure
+us that the chief thing to come by is the absence of any
+estimate, and that men ought to build anyhow according
+to eyesight. And this &ldquo;anyhow&rdquo; these men call the
+most exact science, as the Pope terms himself the &ldquo;most
+holy.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Men deny every science, the most essential science of
+men's calling and welfare; and this denial of science
+they call science. Since men have existed, great intellects
+have always appeared, which, in the struggle with
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_194" title="194"> </a>
+the demands of their reason and conscience, have put to
+themselves questions concerning the calling and welfare,
+not only of themselves individually, but of every man.
+What does that Power, which created me, require from
+me and from each man? And what am I to do in order
+to satisfy the craving ingrafted in me for a personal and
+a common welfare?</p>
+
+<p>They have asked themselves, I am a whole and a part
+of something unfathomable, infinite: what are to be my
+relations to other parts similar to me,&mdash;to men and to the
+whole?</p>
+
+<p>And from the voice of conscience and from reason, and
+from consideration on what men have said who lived
+before, and from contemporaries who have asked themselves
+the same questions, these great teachers have
+deduced teachings,&mdash;plain, clear, intelligible to all men,
+and always such as can be put into practice.</p>
+
+<p>Such men were of the first, second, third, and all magnitudes.
+The world is full of such men. All living men
+put to themselves the question, How am I to reconcile my
+own demands for personal life with conscience and reason,
+which demand the common good of all men? And out
+of this common travail new forms of life are evolved
+slowly, but unceasingly, satisfying more and more the
+demands of reason and conscience.</p>
+
+<p>And of a sudden a new caste of men appears, who say,
+All these are nonsense, and are to be left behind. This
+is the deductive way of thinking (though wherein lies the
+difference between the inductive and the deductive way
+of thinking, nobody ever has been able to understand),
+and this is also the method of the theological and metaphysical
+periods.</p>
+
+<p>All that men have understood by inward experience,
+and have related to each other concerning the consciousness
+of the law of their own life (functional activity, in
+their cant phrase); all that from the beginning of the
+world has been done in this direction by the greatest intellects
+of mankind,&mdash;all these are trifles, having no weight
+whatever.</p>
+
+<p>According to this new teaching, you are the cell of an
+organism, and the problem of your reasonable activity
+consists in trying to ascertain your functional activity.
+In order to ascertain this, you must make observations
+outside yourself.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that you are a cell which thinks, suffers,
+speaks, and understands, and that for that very reason
+you can inquire of another similar speaking, suffering cell
+whether he or she suffers and rejoices in the same way as
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_195" title="195"> </a>
+yourself, and that thus you may verify your own experience;
+and the fact that you may make use of what the
+speaking cells, who lived and suffered before you wrote
+on the subject; and your knowledge that millions of cells
+agreeing with what the past cells have written, confirm
+your own experience, that you yourself are a living cell,
+who always, by a direct inward experience, apprehend
+the correctness or incorrectness of your own functional
+activity,&mdash;all this means nothing, we are told: it is all a
+false and evil method.</p>
+
+<p>The true scientific method is this: If you wish to learn
+in what your functional activity consists, what is your
+destiny and welfare, and what the destiny of mankind,
+and of the whole world, then first you must
+cease to listen to the voice and demands of
+your conscience and of your reason, which manifest themselves
+inwardly to you and to your fellow-men; you must
+leave off believing all that the great teachers of humanity
+have said about their own conscience and reason, and
+you must consider all this to be nonsense, and begin at
+the beginning.</p>
+
+<p>And in order to begin from the beginning, you have to
+observe through a microscope the movements of am&oelig;bæ
+and the cells of tape-worms; or, still easier, you must
+believe everything that people with the diploma of infallibility
+may tell you about them. And observing the movements
+of these am&oelig;bæ and cells, or reading what others
+have seen, you must ascribe to these cells your own human
+feelings and calculations as to what they desire, what are
+their tendencies, their reflections and calculations, their
+habits; and from these <em>observations</em> (in which each word
+contains some mistake of thought or of expression),
+according to analogy, you must deduce what is your own
+destiny, and what that of other cells similar to <ins title="you">you.</ins></p>
+
+<p>In order to be able to understand yourself, you must
+study not merely the tape-worm which you see, but also
+microscopic animalcules which you cannot see, and the
+transformation from one set of things into another, which
+neither you nor anybody else has ever seen, and which
+you certainly will never see.</p>
+
+<p>The same holds good with art. Wherever a true science
+has existed, it has been expressed by art. Since men have
+existed they have always separated out of all their activities,
+from their varied information, the chief expression
+of science, the knowledge of man's destination and welfare;
+and art, in the strict sense of the word, has been
+the expression of this.</p>
+
+<p>Since men have existed, there have always been persons
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_196" title="196"> </a>
+particularly sensitive to the teaching of man's welfare and
+destiny, who have expressed in word, and upon psaltery
+and cymbals, their human struggle with deceit which led
+them aside from their true destiny, and their sufferings
+in this struggle, their hopes about the victory of good,
+their despair about the triumph of evil, and their raptures
+in expectation of coming welfare.</p>
+
+<p>Since men have existed, the true art, that which has
+been valued most highly by men, had no other destiny
+than to be the expression of science on man's destiny and
+welfare.</p>
+
+<p>Always down to the present time art has served the
+teaching of life (afterwards called religion), and it has only
+been this art which men have valued so highly.</p>
+
+<p>But contemporaneously with the fact that in place of
+the science of man's destiny and welfare appears the
+science of universal knowledge,&mdash;since science lost its own
+sense and meaning, and true science has been scornfully
+called religion,&mdash;true art, as an important activity of men,
+has disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>As long as the church existed, and taught men's calling
+and welfare, art served the church, and was true; but
+from the moment it left the church, and began to serve
+a science which served everything it met, art lost its
+meaning, and, notwithstanding its old-fashioned claims,
+and a stupid assertion that art serves merely art itself,
+and nothing else, it has turned out to be a trade which
+procures luxuries for men, and unavoidably mixes itself
+with choreography, culinary art, hair-dressing, and
+cosmetics, the producers of which may call themselves
+artists with as much right as the poets, painters, and
+musicians of our day.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back, we see that during thousands of years,
+from among thousands of millions of men who have lived,
+there came forth a few like Confucius, Buddha, Solon,
+Socrates, Solomon, Homer, Isaiah, David. True artist-producers
+of spiritual food seem to appear seldom among
+men, notwithstanding the fact that they appear, not from
+one caste only, but from among all men; and it is not
+without cause that mankind have always so highly valued
+them. And now it turns out that we have no longer any
+need of all these former great factors of art and science.</p>
+
+<p>Now, according to the law of the division of labour, it
+is possible to manufacture scientific and artistic factors
+almost mechanically; and in the space of ten years we
+shall manufacture more great men of art and science than
+have been born among all men from the beginning of the
+world. Nowadays there is a trade corporation of learned
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_197" title="197"> </a>
+men and artists, and by an improved way they prepare all
+the mental food which is wanted by mankind. And they
+have prepared so much of it, that there need no longer
+be any remembrance of the old producers, not only of the
+very ancient, but also of the more recent,&mdash;all their
+activity, we are told, was the activity of the theological
+and metaphysical period: all had to be destroyed, and the
+true, mental activity began some fifty years ago.</p>
+
+<p>And in these fifty years we have manufactured so many
+great men that in a German university there are more of
+them than have been in the whole world, and of sciences
+we have manufactured a great number too; for one need
+only put to a Greek word the termination <i>logy</i>, and arrange
+the subject according to ready-made paragraphs, and the
+science is created: we have thus manufactured so many
+sciences that not only cannot one man know them all, but
+he cannot even remember all their names,&mdash;these names
+alone would fill a large dictionary; and every day new
+sciences come into existence.</p>
+
+<p>In this respect we are like that Finnish teacher who
+taught the children of a land-owner the Finnish language
+instead of the French. He taught very well; but there
+was one drawback,&mdash;that nobody, except himself, understood
+it. We have learned everything very well, but the
+pity of it is that nobody but ourselves understands it,
+and that everybody else considers it good-for-nothing nonsense.</p>
+
+<p>But to this also there is an explanation: Men do not
+understand all the utility of the scientific science because
+they are still under the influence of the theological period
+of knowledge, that stupid period when all the people of the
+Hebrew race, as well as the Chinese and Indians and
+Greeks, understood everything spoken to them by their
+great teachers.</p>
+
+<p>But whatever may be the cause, the fact is this,&mdash;that
+art and science have always existed among mankind; and
+when they really existed, then they were necessary and
+intelligible to all men.</p>
+
+<p>We are busy about something which we call art and
+science, and it turns out that what we are busy about is
+neither necessary nor intelligible to men. So that we have
+no right to give the name of art or science to our doings.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">But</span> it is said to me, &ldquo;You only give another narrower
+definition of art and science, which science does not agree
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_198" title="198"> </a>
+with; but even this does not exclude them, and notwithstanding
+all you say, there still remains the scientific and
+art activities of men like Galileo, Bruno, Homer, Michael
+Angelo, Beethoven, Wagner, and other learned men and
+artists of lesser magnitude who have devoted all their lives
+to art and science.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Usually this is said in the endeavour to establish
+a link, which in other cases they disown, to
+connect the activity of the former learned men and artists
+with the modern ones, trying to forget that new principle
+of the division of labour by reason of which art and science
+now occupy a privileged position.</p>
+
+<p>First of all, it is not possible to establish any such connection
+between the former factors and the modern ones,
+even as the holy life of the first Christian has nothing in
+common with the lives of popes: thus, the activity of
+men like Galileo, Shakespeare, Beethoven, has nothing
+in common with the activities of men like Tyndal, Hugo,
+and Wagner. As the Holy Fathers would have denied
+any connection with the Popes, so the ancient factors of
+science would have denied any relationship with the
+modern ones.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, owing to that importance which art and
+science ascribe to themselves, they have established a
+very clear standard by means of which we are
+able to determine whether they do, or do not, fulfil their
+destiny; and we therefore decide, not without proofs, but
+according to their own standard, whether that activity
+which calls itself art and science has, or has not, any
+right thus to call itself.</p>
+
+<p>Though the Egyptians or Greek priests performed
+mysteries known to none but themselves, and said that
+these mysteries included all art and science, I could not,
+on the ground of the asserted utility of these to the people,
+ascertain the reality of their science, because this said
+science, according to their <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">ipse dixit</i>, was a supernatural
+one: but now we all have a very clear and plain standard,
+excluding everything supernatural; art and science
+promise to fulfil the mental activity of mankind, for the
+welfare of society, or even of the whole of mankind. Therefore
+we have a right to call only such activity, art and
+science, which has this aim in view, and attains it. And
+therefore, however those learned men and artists may call
+themselves, who excogitate the theory of penal laws, of
+state laws, and of the laws of nations, who invent new
+guns and explosive substances, who compose obscene
+operas and operettas, or similarly obscene novels, we
+have no right to call such activity the activity of art and
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_199" title="199"> </a>
+science, because this activity has not in view the welfare
+of the society or of mankind, but on the contrary is
+directed to the harm of men.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, however these learned men may call
+themselves, who in their simplicity are occupied during
+all their lives with the investigations of the microscopical
+animalcule and of telescopical and spectral phenomena;
+or those artists who, after having carefully investigated
+the monuments of old times, are busy writing historical
+novels, making pictures, concocting symphonies and beautiful
+verses, all these men, notwithstanding all their
+zeal, cannot, according to the definition of their own
+science, be called men of science or art, first because
+their activity in science for the sake of science, and of
+art for art, has not in view man's welfare; and secondly,
+because we do not see any results of these activities for
+the welfare of society or mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that sometimes something useful or agreeable
+for some men comes of their activities, by no means gives
+us any right, according to their own scientific definition,
+to consider them to be men of art and science.</p>
+
+<p>In like manner, however those men may call themselves
+who excogitate the application of electricity to lighting,
+heating, and motion; or who invent some new chemical
+combinations, producing dynamite or fine colours; men
+who correctly play Beethoven's symphonies; who act on
+the stage, or paint portraits well, domestic pictures, landscapes,
+and other pictures; who compose interesting
+novels, the object of which is merely to amuse rich people,&mdash;the
+activity of these men cannot be called art
+and science, because this activity is not directed, like the
+activity of the brain in the organism, to the welfare of
+the whole, but is guided merely by personal gain, privileges,
+money, which one obtains for the inventing and
+producing of so-called art. Therefore this activity cannot
+possibly be separated from other covetous, personal
+activity, which adds agreeable things to life, as the
+activity of innkeepers, jockeys, milliners, prostitutes, and
+so on, because the activity of the first, the second, and
+the last, do not come under the definition of art and
+science, on the ground of the division of labour, which
+promises to serve for the welfare of all mankind.</p>
+
+<p>The scientific definition of art and science is a correct
+one; but unluckily, the activity of modern art and science
+does not come under it. Some produce directly hurtful
+things, others useless things; and a third party invents
+trifles fit only for the use of rich people. They may all
+be very good persons, but they do not fulfil what they
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_200" title="200"> </a>
+have taken upon themselves to fulfil, according to their
+own definition; and therefore they have as little right
+to call themselves men of art and science as the modern
+clergy, who do not fulfil their duties, have right to consider
+themselves the bearers and teachers of divine truth.</p>
+
+<p>It is not difficult to understand why the factors of
+modern art and science have not fulfilled their calling,
+and cannot fulfil it. They do not fulfil it, because they
+have converted their duty into a right. The scientific and
+art activities, in their true sense, are fruitful only when
+they ignore their rights, and know only their duties.
+Mankind value this activity so highly, only because it is
+a self-denying one.</p>
+
+<p>If men are really called to serve others by <em>mental</em> labour,
+they will have to suffer in performing this labour, because
+it is only by suffering that spiritual fruit is produced.
+Selfdenying and suffering are the lot and portion of a
+thinker and an artist, because their object is the welfare
+of men. Men are wretched: they suffer and go to ruin.
+One cannot wait and lose one's time.</p>
+
+<p>A thinker and an artist will never sit on the heights of
+Olympus, as we are apt to imagine: he must suffer in
+company with men in order to find salvation or consolation.
+He will suffer because he is constantly in anxiety
+and agitation; he might have found out and told what
+would give happiness to men, might have saved them
+from suffering; and he has neither found it out nor said
+it, and to-morrow it may be too late&mdash;he may die. And
+therefore suffering and self-sacrifice will always be the
+lot of the thinker and the artist.</p>
+
+<p>He who is brought up in an establishment where learned
+men and artists are created (but, in reality, they create
+only destroyers of art and science), and who obtains a
+diploma, and is well provided for, for life, will not become
+a thinker or an artist, but he who would gladly abstain
+from thinking, and from expressing that which is ingrafted
+in his soul, but which he dare not overlook, being drawn
+to it by two irresistible powers,&mdash;his own inward impulse
+and the wants of men.</p>
+
+<p>Thinkers and artists cannot be sleek, fat men, enjoying
+themselves in self-conceit. Spiritual and mental
+activity and their expressions are really necessary for
+others, and are the most difficult of men's callings,&mdash;a
+cross, as it is called in the gospel.</p>
+
+<p>The only one certain characteristic of the presence
+of a calling is this self-denying,&mdash;the sacrifice of one's
+self in order to manifest the power ingrafted in man for
+the benefit of others. To teach how many insects there
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_201" title="201"> </a>
+are in the world, and to observe the spots on the sun,
+to write novels and operas, can be done without suffering;
+but to teach men their welfare, which entirely consists
+in self denial and in serving others, and to express this
+teaching powerfully, cannot be done without self-denial.</p>
+
+<p>The Church existed in her purity as long as her teachers
+endured patiently and suffered; but as soon as they
+became fat and sleek, their teaching activity ended.
+&ldquo;Formerly,&rdquo; say the people, &ldquo;priests were of gold, and
+chalices of wood; now chalices are of gold, and priests
+of wood.&rdquo; It was not in vain that Jesus Christ died on a
+cross: it is not in vain that sacrifice and suffering conquer
+every thing.</p>
+
+<p>As for our art and sciences, they are provided for:
+they have diplomas, and everybody only thinks about how
+to provide still better for them; that is, to make it impossible
+for them to serve men. A true art and a true
+science have two unmistakable characteristics,&mdash;the first,
+an interior one, that a minister of art or science fulfils his
+calling, not for the sake of gain, but with self-denial; and
+the second, an exterior one, that his productions are intelligible
+to all men, whose welfare he is aiming at.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever men may consider to be their destiny and
+welfare, science will be the teacher of this destiny and
+welfare, and art the expression of this teaching. The
+laws of Solon, of Confucius, are science; the teachings
+of Moses, of Christ, are science; the temples in Athens,
+the psalms of David, church worship, are art: but finding
+out the fourth dimension of matter, and tabulating
+chemical combinations, and so on, have never been, and
+never will be, science.</p>
+
+<p>The place of true science is occupied, in our time, by
+theology and law; the place of true art is occupied by
+the church and state ceremonies, in which nobody believes,
+and which are not considered seriously by anybody;
+while that which with us is called art and science, is only
+the production of idle minds and feelings desirous to
+stimulate similarly idle minds and feelings, and unintelligible
+and dumb for the people, because they have not
+their welfare in view.</p>
+
+<p>Since we have known the lives of men, we have always
+and everywhere found a ruling false doctrine, calling itself
+science, which does not show men the true meaning of
+life, but rather hides it from them.</p>
+
+<p>So it was among the Egyptians, the Indians, the
+Chinese, and partially among the Greeks (sophists); and
+among the mystics, Gnostics, and cabalists; in the Middle
+Ages, in theology, scholasticism, alchemy; and so on
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_202" title="202"> </a>
+down to our days. How fortunate indeed we are to be
+living in such a peculiar time, when that mental activity
+which calls itself science is not only free from errors,
+but, we are assured, is in a state of peculiar progress!
+Does not this good fortune come from the fact that man
+can not and will not see his own deformities? While of
+the sciences of theologians, and that of cabalists, nothing
+is left but empty words, why should we be so particularly
+fortunate?</p>
+
+<p>The characteristics of our times and of former times are
+quite similar; there is the same self-conceit and blind assurance
+that we only are on the true way, and that only with
+us true knowledge begins; there are the same expectations
+that we shall presently discover something very wonderful;
+and there is the same exposure of our error, in the
+fact that all our wisdom remains with us, while the masses
+of the people do not understand it, and neither accept
+nor need it. Our position is a very difficult one, but
+why should we not look it in the face?</p>
+
+<p>It is time to come to our senses, and to look more
+closely to ourselves. We are, indeed, nothing but scribes
+and Pharisees, who, sitting in Moses' seat, and having
+the key of the kingdom of God, do not enter themselves,
+and refuse entrance to others.</p>
+
+<p>We, priests of art and science, are most wretched
+deceivers, who have much less right to our position than
+the most cunning and depraved priests ever had.</p>
+
+<p>For our privileged position, there is no excuse whatever:
+we have taken up this position by a kind of
+swindling, and we retain it by deceit. Pagan priests, the
+clergy, Russian as well as Roman Catholic, however
+depraved they may have been, had rights to their position,
+because they professed to teach men about life and salvation.
+And we, who have cut the ground from under their
+feet, and proved to men that they were deceivers, we
+have taken their place, and not only do not teach men
+about life, we even acknowledge that there is no necessity
+for them to learn. We suck the blood of the people, and
+for this we teach our children Greek and Latin grammars
+so that they also may continue the same parasitic life
+which we are living.</p>
+
+<p>We say, There have been castes, we will abolish them.
+But what means the fact that some men and their children
+work, and other men and their children do not work?</p>
+
+<p>Bring a Hindu who does not know our language, and
+show him the Russian and the European lives of many
+generations, and he will recognize the existence of two
+important definite castes of working-people and of non-working
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_203" title="203"> </a>
+people as they are in existence in his own
+country. As in his country, so also among us, the right
+of not working is acquired through a peculiar initiation
+which we call art and science, and education generally.</p>
+
+<p>It is this education, and the perversions of reason associated
+with it, that have brought to us this wonderful folly,
+whence it has come to pass that we do not see what is so
+plain and certain. We are eating up the lives of our
+brethren, and consider ourselves to be Christians,
+humane, educated, and quite in the right.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">What</span> is to be done? What must we do?</p>
+
+<p>This question, which includes acknowledgment of the
+fact that our life is bad and unrighteous, and at the same
+time hints that there is no possibility of changing it,&mdash;this
+question I hear everywhere, and therefore I chose it
+for the title of my work.</p>
+
+<p>I have described my own sufferings, my search, and the
+answer which I have found to this question.</p>
+
+<p>I am a man like others; and if I distinguish myself
+from an average man of my own circle in any thing, it
+is chiefly in the fact that I, more than this average man,
+have served and indulged the false teaching of our world,
+that I have been more praised by the men of the prevalent
+school of teaching, and that therefore I am more depraved,
+and have gone farther astray, than most of my fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore I think that the answer to this question which
+I have found for myself will do for all sincere persons
+who will put the same question to themselves. First of
+all, to the question, &ldquo;What is to be done?&rdquo; I answer
+that I must neither deceive other men nor myself; that I
+must not be afraid of the truth, whatever the result may
+be.</p>
+
+<p>We all know what it is to deceive other men; and notwithstanding
+this, we do deceive from morning to evening,&mdash;&ldquo;Not
+at home,&rdquo; when I am in; &ldquo;Very glad,&rdquo; when
+I am not at all glad; &ldquo;Esteemed,&rdquo; when I do not esteem;
+&ldquo;I have no money,&rdquo; when I have it, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>We consider the deception of others to be evil, particularly
+a certain kind of deception, but we are not afraid
+to deceive ourselves: yet the worst direct lie to men,
+seeing its result, is nothing in comparison with that lie
+to ourselves according to which we shape our lives. Now,
+this very lie we must avoid if we wish to be able to answer
+the question, &ldquo;<em>What is to be done?</em>&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_204" title="204"> </a>Indeed, how am I to answer the question as to what
+is to be done, when every thing I do, all my life, is based
+upon a lie and I carefully give out this lie to others and
+to myself as truth? Not to lie in this sense means to
+be not afraid of truth; not to invent excuses, and not
+to accept excuses invented by others, in order to hide from
+one's self the deductions of reason and conscience; not
+to be afraid of contradicting all our surroundings, and
+of being left alone with reason and conscience; not to
+be afraid of that condition to which truth and conscience
+lead us: however dreadful it may be, it cannot be worse
+than that which is based upon deceit.</p>
+
+<p>To avoid lying, for men in our privileged position of
+mental labour, means not to be afraid of truth. Perhaps
+we owe so much that we should never be able to pay it
+all; but however much we may owe, we must make out
+our bill: however far we have gone astray, it is better
+to return than to continue straying.</p>
+
+<p>Lying to our fellows is always disadvantageous. Every
+business is always more directly done by truth than by
+lies, and more quickly too. Lying to other men makes
+matters only more complicated, and retards the decision;
+but lying to one's self, which is given out to be the truth,
+entirely ruins the life of man.</p>
+
+<p>If a man considers a wrong road to be a right one,
+then his every step leads him only farther from his aim:
+a man who has been walking for a long time on a wrong
+road may find out for himself, or be told by others, that
+his road is a wrong one; but if he, being afraid of the
+thought how far he has gone astray, tries to assure himself
+that he may, by following this wrong course, still come
+across the right one, then he will certainly never find it.
+If a man becomes afraid of the truth, and, on seeing it,
+will not acknowledge it, but accepts falsehood for truth,
+then this man will never learn what is to be done.</p>
+
+<p>We, not only rich men, but men in privileged position,
+so-called educated men, have gone so far astray that we
+require either a firm resolution or very great sufferings on
+our false way to bring us to our senses again, and to
+recognize the lie by which we live.</p>
+
+<p>I became aware of the lie of our life, thanks to those
+sufferings to which my wrong road led me; and, having
+acknowledged the error of the way on which I was bent,
+I had the boldness to go, first in theory, then in reality,
+wherever my reason and conscience led me, without any
+deliberation as to whither they were tending.</p>
+
+<p>I was rewarded for this boldness.</p>
+
+<p>All the complex, disjointed, intricate, and meaningless
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_205" title="205"> </a>
+<ins title="phenomna">phenomena</ins> of life surrounding me became of a sudden
+clear; and my position among these phenomena, formerly
+so strange and vile, became of a sudden natural and easy.</p>
+
+<p>In this new position my activity has exactly determined
+itself, but it is quite a different activity from that which
+appeared possible to me before: it is a new activity, far
+more quiet, affectionate, and joyous. The very thing
+which frightened me before, now attracts me.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, I think that every one who sincerely puts
+to himself the question, &ldquo;What is to be done?&rdquo; and in
+answering this question, does not lie or deceive himself,
+but goes wherever his reason <em>and conscience</em> may lead him,
+that man has already answered the question.</p>
+
+<p>If he will only avoid deceiving himself, he will find out
+what to do, where to go, and how to act. There is only
+one thing which may hinder him in finding an answer,&mdash;that
+is too high an estimate of himself, and of his own
+position. So it was with me; and therefore the second
+answer to the question, &ldquo;What is to be done?&rdquo; resulting
+from the first, consisted for me in repenting, in the full
+meaning of this word: that is, entirely changing the
+estimate of my own position and activity. Instead of
+considering such to be useful and of importance, we must
+come to acknowledge it to be harmful and trifling; instead
+of considering ourselves educated, we must come to see
+our ignorance; instead of imagining ourselves to be kind
+and moral, we must acknowledge that we are immoral
+and cruel; instead of seeing our importance, we must
+see our own insignificance.</p>
+
+<p>I say, that besides avoiding lying to myself, I had moreover
+to <em>repent</em>, because, though the one results from the
+other, the wrong idea about my great importance was so
+much a part of my own nature, that until I had sincerely
+repented, and had put aside that wrong estimate of myself,
+I did not see the enormity of the lie of which I had been
+guilty.</p>
+
+<p>It was only when I repented,&mdash;that is, left off considering
+myself to be a peculiar man, and began to consider
+myself to be like <em>all</em> other men,&mdash;it was then that my way
+became clear to me. Before this I was not able to answer
+the question, &ldquo;What is to be done?&rdquo; because the very
+question itself was put incorrectly.</p>
+
+<p>Before I repented, I had put the question thus:
+&ldquo;What activity should I choose, I, the man with the
+education and talents I have acquired? How can I compensate
+by this education and these talents for what I
+have been taking away from the people?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>This question was a false one, because it included the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_206" title="206"> </a>
+wrong idea of my not being like other men, but a peculiar
+man, called to serve other men with those talents and
+that education which I had acquired in forty years.</p>
+
+<p>I had put the question to myself, but in reality I had
+already answered it in advance by having determined
+beforehand that I was called upon to serve men by the
+kind of activity agreeable to myself. I really asked myself,
+&ldquo;How can I, so fine a writer, one so very well
+informed, and with such talents, how can I utilize those
+talents for the benefit of mankind?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But the question ought to have been put thus,&mdash;as it
+would have to be put to a learned rabbi who had studied
+all the Talmud, and knew the exact number of letters in
+the Holy Scripture, and all the subtleties of his science:&mdash;&ldquo;What
+can I do, who, from unlucky circumstances, have
+lost my best years in study instead of accommodating
+myself to labour,&mdash;in learning the French language, the
+piano, grammar, geography, law, poetry; in reading
+novels, romances, philosophical theories, and in performing
+military exercises? what can I do, who have passed
+the best years of my life in idle occupations, depraving
+the soul? what can I do, notwithstanding these unlucky
+conditions of the past, in order to requite those men, who,
+during all this time, have fed and clothed me, and who
+still continue to feed and to clothe me?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>If the question had been put thus, after I had repented,
+&ldquo;What can I, so ruined a man, do?&rdquo; the answer would
+have been easy: First of all, I must try to get my living
+honestly,&mdash;that is, learn not to live upon the shoulders of
+others; and while learning this, and after I have learned
+it, to try on every occasion to be of use to men with my
+hands and with my feet, as well as with my brain and my
+heart, and with all of me that is wanted by men.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore I say that for one of my own circle, besides
+avoiding lying to others and ourselves, it is further necessary
+to repent, to lay aside pride about our education,
+refinement, and talents, not considering ourselves to be
+benefactors of the people, advanced men, who are ready
+to share our useful acquirements with the people, but
+acknowledging ourselves to be entirely guilty, ruined,
+good-for-nothing men, who desire to turn over a new leaf,
+and not to be benefactors of the people, but to cease to
+offend and to humiliate them.</p>
+
+<p>Very often good young people, who sympathise with
+the negative part of my writings, put to me the question,
+&ldquo;What must I do then? What have I, who have finished
+my study in the university or in some other high establishment,&mdash;what
+have I to do in order to be useful?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_207" title="207"> </a>These young people ask the question; but in the depths
+of their souls they have already decided that the education
+which they have received is their great advantage,
+and that they wish to serve the people by this very
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, there is one thing which they do not do,&mdash;honestly
+and critically examine what they call their education,
+asking themselves whether it is a good or a bad
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>If they do this, they will be unavoidably led to decry
+their education, and to begin to learn anew; and this
+alone is what is wanted. They will never be able to
+answer the question, as to what there is to be done, while
+they put it wrongly. The question should be put thus:
+&ldquo;How can I, a helpless, useless man, recognizing the
+misfortune of having lost my best years in studying the
+scientific Talmud, pernicious for soul and body, how
+can I rectify this mistake, and learn to serve men?&rdquo; But
+the question is always put thus: &ldquo;How can I, who have
+acquired so much fine information, how can I be useful
+to men with this my information?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, a man can never answer the question,
+&ldquo;What is to be done?&rdquo; until he leaves off deceiving himself
+and repents. And repentance is not dreadful, even
+as truth is not dreadful, but it is equally beneficent and
+fruitful of good. We need only accept the whole truth
+and fully repent in order to understand that in life no
+one has any rights or privileges, and that there is no end
+of duties, and no limits to them, and that the first and
+unquestionable duty of a man is to take part in the struggle
+with nature for his own life and for the lives of other
+men. And this acknowledgment of men's duty forms the
+essence of the third answer to the question, &ldquo;What is to
+be done?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I have tried to avoid deceiving myself. I have endeavoured
+to extirpate the last remnant of the false estimate
+of the importance of my education and talents, and to
+repent; but before answering the question, <em>What is to be
+done?</em> there stands a new difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>There are so many things to be done, that one requires
+to know what is to be done in particular? And the
+answer to this question has been given me by the sincere
+repentance of the evil in which I have been living.</p>
+
+<p>What is to be done? What is there exactly to be done?
+everybody keeps asking; and I, too, kept asking this,
+while, under the influence of a high opinion of my own
+calling, I had not seen that my first and unquestionable
+business is to earn my living, clothing, heating, building,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_208" title="208"> </a>
+and so forth, and in doing this to serve others as well as
+myself, because, since the world has existed, the first and
+unquestionable duty of every man has been comprised in
+this.</p>
+
+<p>In this one business, man receives,&mdash;if he has already
+begun to take part in it,&mdash;the full satisfaction of all the
+bodily and mental wants of his nature; to feed, clothe,
+take care of himself and of his family, will satisfy his bodily
+wants; to do the same for others, will satisfy his spiritual.</p>
+
+<p>Every other activity of man is only lawful when these
+have first been satisfied. In whatever department a man
+thinks his calling lies, whether in governing the people,
+in protecting his countrymen, in officiating at divine services,
+in teaching, in inventing the means of increasing
+the delights of life, in discovering the laws of the universe,
+in incorporating eternal truths in artistic images, the first
+and most unquestionable duty of a reasonable man will
+always consist in taking part in the struggle with nature
+for preserving his own life and the lives of other men.</p>
+
+<p>This duty must always rank first, because the most
+necessary thing for men is life: and therefore, in order
+to protect and to teach men, and to make their lives more
+agreeable, it is necessary to keep this very life; while by
+not taking part in the struggle, and by swallowing up the
+labour of others, other lives are destroyed. And it is folly
+and impossible to endeavour to serve men while destroying
+their lives.</p>
+
+<p>Man's duty to acquire the means of living through the
+struggle with nature will always be unquestionably the
+very first of all duties, because it is the law of life, the
+violation of which unavoidably brings with it a punishment
+by destroying the bodily or mental life of man. If
+a man, living alone, free himself from the duty of
+struggling with nature, he will be at once punished by the
+perishing of his body.</p>
+
+<p>But if a man free himself from this duty by compelling
+other men to fulfil it for him, in ruining their lives, he
+will be at once punished by the destruction of his reasonable
+life; that is, of the life which has a reasonable sense
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>I had been so perverted by my antecedents, and this
+first and unquestionable law of God or nature is so hidden
+in our present world, that the fulfilling of it had seemed
+to me strange, and I was afraid and ashamed of it, as if
+the fulfilment, and not the violation, of this eternal and
+unquestionable law were strange, unnatural, and shameful.
+At first it seemed to me, that, in order to fulfil this law,
+some sort of accommodation was necessary, some established
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_209" title="209"> </a>
+association of fellow-thinkers, the consent of the
+family, and life in the country (not in town): then I felt
+ashamed, as if I were putting myself forward in performing
+things so unusual to our life as bodily labour, and I
+did not know how to begin.</p>
+
+<p>But I needed only to understand that this was not some
+exclusive activity, which I have to invent and arrange, but
+that it was merely returning from the false condition in
+which I had lived to a natural one, merely rectifying that
+lie in which I had been living,&mdash;I had only to acknowledge
+all this, and all the difficulties vanished.</p>
+
+<p>It was not at all necessary to arrange and accommodate
+any thing, nor to wait for the consent of other people,
+because everywhere, in whatever condition I was, there
+were men who fed, dressed, and warmed me as well as
+themselves; and everywhere, under all circumstances, if
+I had sufficient time and strength, I was able to do these
+things for myself and for them.</p>
+
+<p>Nor could I feel a false shame in performing actions
+unusual and strange to me, because, in not doing so, I
+already experienced, not a false, but a real, shame.</p>
+
+<p>Having come to this conclusion, and to the practical
+deduction from it, I have been fully rewarded for not having
+been afraid of the deductions of reason, and for having
+gone where they led me.</p>
+
+<p>Having come to this practical conclusion, I was struck
+by the facility and simplicity of the solution of all those
+problems which had formerly seemed to me so difficult
+and <ins title="complicated">complicated.</ins> To the question, &ldquo;What have we to
+do?&rdquo; I received a very plain answer: Do first what is
+necessary for yourself; arrange all you can do by yourself,&mdash;your
+tea-urn, stove, water, and clothes.</p>
+
+<p>To the question, &ldquo;Would not this seem strange to those
+who had been accustomed to do all this for me?&rdquo; it
+appeared that it was strange only for about a week, and
+after a week it seemed more strange for me to return to
+my former condition.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to the question, &ldquo;Is it necessary to organize
+this physical labour, to establish a society in a village
+upon this basis?&rdquo; it appeared that it was not at all
+necessary to do all this; that if the labour does not aim
+at rendering idleness possible, and at utilizing other men's
+labour,&mdash;as is the case with men who save up money,&mdash;but
+merely the satisfying of necessities, then such labour will
+naturally induce people to leave towns for the country,
+where this labour is most agreeable and productive.</p>
+
+<p>There was also no need to establish a society, because
+a workingman will naturally associate with other working-people.
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_210" title="210"> </a>
+In answer to the question, &ldquo;Would not this
+labour take up all my time, and would it not deprive me
+of the possibility of that mental activity which I am so
+fond of, and to which I have become accustomed, and
+which in moments of doubt I consider to be useful?&rdquo; the
+answer will be quite an unexpected one. The energy of
+my mental activity increased in proportion to bodily
+exercise, being freed from all that was superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, having spent eight hours in physical labour,&mdash;half
+a day,&mdash;which formerly I used to spend in endeavouring
+to struggle with dulness, there still remained for me
+eight hours, out of which in my circumstances I required
+five for mental labour; and if I, a very prolific writer,
+who had been doing nothing but write during forty years,
+and who had written three hundred printed sheets, then
+if during these forty years I had been doing ordinary work
+along with working-people, and, not taking into consideration
+winter evenings and holidays, had been reading and
+learning during the five hours a day, and had written
+only on holidays two pages a day (and I have sometimes
+written sixteen pages a day), I should have written the
+same three hundred printed sheets in fourteen years.</p>
+
+<p>A wonderful thing: a most simple arithmetical calculation
+which every boy of seven years of age may do, but
+which I had never done. Day and night have together
+twenty-four hours; we sleep eight hours; there remain
+sixteen hours. If any man labour mentally five hours a
+day, he will do a vast amount of business; what do we,
+then, do during the remaining eleven hours?</p>
+
+<p>So it appears that physical labour not only does not
+exclude the possibility of mental activity, but improves
+and stimulates it.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to the question, whether this physical labour
+would deprive me of many innocent enjoyments proper
+to man, such as enjoyment of art, acquirement of knowledge,
+of social intercourse, and, generally, of the happiness
+of life, it was really quite the reverse: the more
+intense my physical labour, the more it approached that
+labour which is considered the hardest, to wit, agricultural
+labour, the more I acquired enjoyments, and knowledge,
+and the closer and more affectionate was my intercourse
+with mankind, and the more happiness did I feel
+in life.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to the question (which I hear so often from
+men who are not quite sincere), &ldquo;What result can there
+be from such an awfully small drop in the sea? what is
+all my personal physical labour in comparison with the
+sea of labour which I swallow up?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_211" title="211"> </a>To this question I also received a very unexpected
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared that as soon as I had made physical labour
+the ordinary condition of my life, at once the greatest
+part of the false and expensive habits and wants which I
+had while I had been physically idle, ceased of themselves,
+without any endeavour on my part. To say
+nothing of the habit of turning day into night, and <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">vice
+versa</i>, of my bedding, clothes, my conventional cleanliness,
+which all became impossible and embarrassing when I
+began to labour physically, both the quantity and the
+quality of my food was totally changed. Instead of the
+sweet, rich, delicate, complicated, and highly spiced food,
+which I formerly liked, I now required and obtained plain
+food as being the most agreeable,&mdash;sour cabbage soup,
+porridge, black bread, tea with a bit of sugar.</p>
+
+<p>So that, apart from the example of common workingmen
+satisfied with little, with whom I came in closer intercourse,
+my very wants themselves were gradually changed
+by my life of labour; so that in proportion to my growing
+accustomed to this labour and acquiring the ways of
+it, my drop of physical labour became indeed more perceptible
+in the ocean of common labour; and in proportion
+as my labour grew more fruitful, my demands for
+other men's labour grew less and less, and, without effort
+or privation, my life naturally came nearer to that simple
+life of which I could not even have dreamed without fulfilling
+the law of labour.</p>
+
+<p>It became apparent that my former most expensive
+demands&mdash;the demands of vanity and amusement&mdash;were
+the direct result of an idle life. With physical labour,
+there was no room for vanity, and no need for amusement,
+because my time was agreeably occupied; and after
+weariness, simple rest while drinking tea, or reading a
+book, or conversing with the members of my family, was
+far more agreeable than the theatre, playing at cards,
+concerts, or large parties.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to the question, &ldquo;Would not this unusual
+labour be hurtful to health, which is necessary in order
+that I may serve men?&rdquo; it appeared that, despite the
+positive assurance of eminent doctors that hard physical
+labour, especially at my age, might have the worst results
+(and that Swedish gymnastics, riding, and other
+expedients intended to supply the natural conditions of
+man, would be far better), the harder I worked, the
+sounder, more cheerful, and kinder, I felt myself.</p>
+
+<p>It became undoubtedly certain that even as all those
+inventions of the human mind, such as newspapers,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_212" title="212"> </a>
+theatres, concerts, parties, balls, cards, magazines, novels,
+are nothing but means to sustain the spiritual life of men
+outside its natural condition of labour for others, so in
+the same way all the hygienic and medical inventions of
+the human mind for the provision of food, drink, dwelling,
+ventilation, warming of rooms, clothes, medicines,
+mineral water, gymnastics, electric and other cures, are
+all merely means to sustain the bodily life of man outside
+of its natural conditions of labour; and all these are
+nothing else than an establishment hermetically closed,
+in which, by means of chemical apparatus, the evaporation
+of water for the plants is arranged, when you need
+only to open the window, and do that which is natural,
+not for men alone but to beasts too; in other words, having
+absorbed the food, and thus produced a charge of energy,
+to discharge it by muscular labour.</p>
+
+<p>All the profound study of hygiene and of the art of
+healing for the men of our circle are like the efforts of
+a mechanic, who, having stopped all the valves of an
+overheated engine, should invent something to prevent
+this engine from bursting.</p>
+
+<p>When I had plainly understood all this, it seemed to me
+ridiculous, that I, through a long series of doubt,
+research, and much thinking, had arrived at this extraordinary
+truth, that if man has eyes, they are to be seen
+through; ears, to hear by; feet to walk with, and hands
+and back to work with,&mdash;and that if man will not use
+these, his members, for what they are meant, then it will
+be the worse for him. I came to this conclusion, that
+with us, privileged people, the same thing has happened
+which happened to the horses of a friend of mine:
+The steward, who was not fond of horses, and
+did not understand any thing about them, having
+received from his masters orders to prepare the
+best cobs for sale, chose the best out of the drove
+of horses, put them into the stable, fed them upon
+oats; but being over-anxious, he trusted them to nobody,
+neither rode them himself, nor drove nor led them.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, all these horses became good for nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The same has happened to us with this difference,&mdash;that
+you cannot deceive horses, and, in order not to let
+them out, they must be fastened in; while we are kept
+in unnatural and hurtful conditions by all sorts of temptations,
+which fasten and hold us as with chains.</p>
+
+<p>We have arranged for ourselves a life which is against
+the moral and physical nature of man, and we use all
+the powers of our mind in order to assure men that this
+life is the real one. All that we call culture,&mdash;our science
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_213" title="213"> </a>
+and arts for improving the delights of life,&mdash;all these are
+only meant to deceive man's natural moral requirements:
+all that we call hygiene, and the art of healing, are
+endeavours to deceive the natural physical want of human
+nature.</p>
+
+<p>But these deceits have their limits, and we are come
+to these limits. &ldquo;If such be real human life, then it is
+better not to live at all,&rdquo; says the fashionable philosophy
+of Schopenhauer and Hartman. &ldquo;If such is <ins title="life,&rdquo;">life,</ins> then
+it is better not to live at all,&rdquo; is the witness borne by the
+increasing number of suicides among the privileged
+classes. &ldquo;If such be life, it is better for future generations,
+too, not to live,&rdquo; says the indulgent healing art,
+and invents means to destroy women's fecundity.</p>
+
+<p>In the Bible the law to human beings is expressed thus:
+&ldquo;In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,&rdquo; and
+&ldquo;In sorrow thou shall bring forth children.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The peasant Bondaref, who wrote an article about this,
+threw great light upon the wisdom of this sentence.
+During the whole of my life, two thinking men&mdash;Russians&mdash;have
+exercised a great influence over me: they have
+enriched my thoughts, and enlightened my contemplation
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>These men were neither poets, nor learned men, nor
+preachers: they were two remarkable men, both now living,
+peasants,&mdash;Sutaief and Bondaref. But &ldquo;nous avons
+changé tout ça,&rdquo; as says one of Molière's personages,
+talking at random about the healing art, and saying that
+the liver is on the left side, &ldquo;we have changed all that.&rdquo;
+Men need not work,&mdash;all work will be done by machines;
+and women need not bring forth children. The healing
+art will teach different means of avoiding this, for there
+are already too many people in the world.</p>
+
+<p>In the Krapivensky district,<a name="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> there wanders a ragged
+peasant, who during the war was a purchaser of bread
+for a commissary of stores. Having become acquainted
+with this functionary, and having seen his comfortable
+life, he became mad, and now thinks that he, too, can
+live as gentlemen do, without work, being provided for
+by the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>This peasant now calls himself &ldquo;the Most Serene
+Marshal Prince Blokhin, purveyor of war-stores of all
+kinds.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>He says of himself that he has gone through all ranks,
+and for his services during the war he has to receive from
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_214" title="214"> </a>
+the Emperor an unlimited bank-account, clothes,
+uniforms, horses, carriages, tea, servants, and all kinds
+of provision. When anybody asks him whether he would
+like to work a little, he only answers, &ldquo;Thanks: the
+peasants will attend to all that.&rdquo; When we say to him
+that the peasants also may not be disposed to work, he
+answers, &ldquo;Machines have been invented to ease the labour
+of peasants. They have no difficulty in their business.&rdquo;
+When we ask him what he is living for, he answers, &ldquo;To
+pass away the time.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>I always consider this man as a mirror. I see in him
+myself and all my class. To pass through all ranks in
+order to live to pass away the time, and to receive an
+unlimited bank-account, while peasants attend to every
+thing, and find it easy to do so, because of the invention
+of machines.</p>
+
+<p>This is the exact form of the foolish belief of men of
+our class. When we ask what have we particularly to
+do, we are in reality asking nothing, but only asserting&mdash;not
+so sincerely indeed as the Most Serene Marshal Prince
+Blokhin, who had passed through all ranks, and lost his
+mind&mdash;that we do not wish to do anything.</p>
+
+<p>He who has come to his senses cannot ask this, because
+from one side all that he makes use of has been done,
+and is being done, by the hands of men; on the other
+side, as soon as a healthy man has got up and breakfasted,
+he feels the inclination to work, as well with his feet as
+with his hands and brain. In order to find work, he has
+only not to restrain himself from labour. Only he who
+considers labour to be a shame,&mdash;like the lady who
+asked her guest not to trouble herself to open the door,
+but to wait till she called a servant to do it,&mdash;only such
+persons can ask what is there to be done in particular.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty is not in inventing work,&mdash;every one has
+enough to do for himself and for others,&mdash;but in losing
+this criminal view of life, that we eat and sleep for our
+own pleasure, and in gaining that simple and correct view
+in which every working-person grows up, that man first
+of all is a machine which is charged with food, and that
+therefore it is shameful, difficult, and impossible to eat
+and not to work; that to eat and not to work is a most
+dangerous state, and as bad as incendiarism.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary only to have this consciousness, and we
+shall find work and this work will always be pleasant,
+and capable of satisfying all the wants of our soul and
+body.</p>
+
+<p>I picture to myself the whole matter thus: Every man's
+day is divided by his meals into four parts, or four stages
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_215" title="215"> </a>
+as it is called by the peasants: First, before breakfast;
+secondly, from breakfast to dinner; thirdly, from dinner
+to poldnik (a slight evening meal between dinner and
+supper); and fourthly, from poldnik to night. The
+activity of man to which he is drawn, is also divided into
+four kinds: First, the activity of the muscles, the labour
+of the hands, feet, shoulders, back,&mdash;hard labour by which
+one perspires; secondly, the activity of the fingers and
+wrists, the activity of skill and handicraft; thirdly, the
+activity of the intellect and imagination; fourthly, the
+activity of intercourse with other men.</p>
+
+<p>The goods which man makes use of may also be divided
+into four kinds: First, every man makes use of the productions
+of hard labour,&mdash;bread, cattle, buildings, wells,
+bridges, and so on; secondly, the productions of handicraft,&mdash;clothes,
+boots, hardware, and so on; thirdly, the
+productions of mental activity,&mdash;science, art; and
+fourthly, the intercourse with men, acquaintanceship,
+societies.</p>
+
+<p>I thought that it would be the best thing so to arrange
+the occupations of the day that one might be able to exercise
+all these four faculties, and to return all the four
+kinds of production of labour, which one makes use of;
+so that the four parts of the day were devoted, first, to
+hard labour; secondly, to mental labour; thirdly, to
+handicraft; fourthly, to the intercourse with men. It
+would be good if one could so arrange his labour; but if
+it is not possible to arrange thus, one thing is important,&mdash;to
+acknowledge the duty of labouring, the duty of
+making a good use of each part of the day.</p>
+
+<p>I thought that it would be only then that the false
+division of labour which now rules our society would disappear,
+and a just division would be established which
+should not interfere with the happiness of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>I, for instance, have all my life been busy with mental
+work. I had said to myself that I have thus divided the
+labour: that my special work is writing; that is, mental
+labour: and all other works necessary for me, I left to
+be done by other men, or rather compelled them to do
+it. But this arrangement, seemingly so convenient for
+mental labour, though unjust, became most inconvenient,
+especially for mental labour. I have been writing all my
+life, have accommodated my food, sleep, amusements,
+with reference to this special labour, and besides this
+work I did nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The results of which were, first, that I had been narrowing
+the circle of my observation and information, and
+often I had not any object to study, and therefore, having
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_216" title="216"> </a>
+had to describe the life of men (the life of men is a continual
+problem of every mental activity), I felt my ignorance,
+and had to learn and to ask about such things,
+which everyone not occupied with a special work knows;
+secondly, it happened that when I sat down to write, I
+often had no inward inclination to write, and nobody
+wanted my writing for itself, that is, for my thoughts,
+but people merely wanted my name for profits in the
+magazines.</p>
+
+<p>I made great efforts to write what I could; sometimes
+I did not succeed at all; sometimes succeeded in writing
+something very bad, and I felt dissatisfied and miserable.
+So often and often weeks passed, during which I would
+eat, drink, sleep, warm myself, and do nothing&mdash;or do
+something of no use to anybody&mdash;i.e., commit the worst
+and meanest crime, scarcely ever committed by a man
+of the working class. But since I have acknowledged the
+necessity of physical labour as well as hard labour, and
+also that of handicraft, everything is quite different: my
+time is occupied however humbly, but certainly in a useful
+way, and pleasantly and instructively for me.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore I, for the sake of my speciality, leave off this
+undoubtedly useful and pleasant occupation, only when I
+feel an inward want, or see a direct demand for my literary
+work. And this caused the quality, and therefore the usefulness
+and pleasantness, of my special labour to improve.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it has happened that my occupation with those
+physical works, which are necessary for me as well as
+for every man, not only do not interfere with my special
+activity, but are a necessary condition of the utility,
+quality, and pleasantness of this activity.</p>
+
+<p>A bird is so created that it is necessary for it to fly, to
+walk, to peck, to consider; and when it does all this, it
+is satisfied and happy; then it is a bird. Exactly so with
+a man when he walks, turns over heavy things, lifts them
+up, carries them, works with his fingers, eyes, ears,
+tongue, brain, then only is he satisfied, then only is he
+<em>a man</em>.</p>
+
+<p>A man who has come to recognise his calling to labour
+will be naturally inclined to that change of labour which
+is proper for him for the satisfying of his outward and
+inward wants, and he will reverse this order only when
+he feels an irresistible impulse to some special labour,
+and when other men require this labour from him. The
+nature of labour is such that the satisfying of all men's
+wants requires that very alternation of different kinds of
+labour which renders labour easy and pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Only the erroneous idea that labour is a curse could
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_217" title="217"> </a>
+lead men to free themselves from some kinds of labour,
+that is, to seize other men's labour, requiring from other
+men that forced occupation with a special labour which
+is called nowadays the division of labour.</p>
+
+<p>We have become so accustomed to our false conception
+of the arrangement of labour that it seems to us that for a
+boot-maker, a machinist, a writer, a musician, it would
+be better to be freed from the labour proper to man.
+Where there is no violence over other men's labour, nor
+a false belief in the pleasure of idleness, no man will for
+the sake of his special labour free himself from physical
+labour necessary for the satisfying of his wants, because
+special occupation is not a privilege, but a sacrifice to a
+man's inclination and for the sake of his brethren.</p>
+
+<p>A boot-maker in a village having torn himself from his
+usual pleasant labour in the field, and having begun his
+labour of mending or making boots for his neighbours,
+deprives himself of a pleasant, useful labour in the field
+for the sake of others, only because he is fond of sewing,
+and knows that nobody will do it better than he does,
+and that people will be thankful to him.</p>
+
+<p>But he cannot wish to deprive himself of the pleasant
+alternation of labour for all his life. The same with the
+starosta, the machinist, the writer, the learned man.</p>
+
+<p>It is only to our perverted ideas, that it seems, when
+the master sends his clerk to be a peasant, or government
+sentences one of its ministers to deportation, that they
+are punished and have been dealt with hardly. In reality
+they have had a great good done to them; that is, they
+have exchanged their heavy special work for a pleasant
+alternation of labour.</p>
+
+<p>In a natural society all is different. I know a commune
+where the people earn their living themselves. One of
+the members of this community was more educated than
+the rest; and they require him to deliver lectures, for
+which he has to prepare himself during the day, that he
+may be able to deliver them in the evening. He does it
+joyfully, feeling that he is useful to others, and that he
+can do it well. But he grows tired of the exclusive mental
+labour, and his health suffers accordingly. The members
+of the community therefore pity him, and ask him to come
+and labour in the field again.</p>
+
+<p>For men who consider labour to be the essential thing
+and the joy of life, the ground, the basis, of it will always
+be the struggle with nature,&mdash;not only in agricultural
+labour, but also in that of handicraft, mental work, and
+intercourse with men.</p>
+
+<p>The divergence from one or many of these kinds of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_218" title="218"> </a>
+labour, and specialities of labour, will be performed only
+when a man of special gifts, being fond of this work, and
+knowing that he performs it better than anybody else,
+will sacrifice his own advantage in order to fulfil the
+demands which others put directly to him.</p>
+
+<p>Only with such a view of labour and the natural division
+of labour resulting from it, will that curse disappear which
+in our imagination we have put upon labour; and every
+labour will always be a joy, because man will do either
+an unquestionably useful, pleasant, and easy work, or
+will be conscious that he makes a sacrifice by performing
+a more difficult special labour for the good of others.</p>
+
+<p>But the division of labour is, it is said, more advantageous.
+Advantageous for whom? Is it more advantageous
+to make with all speed as many boots and cotton-prints
+as possible? But who will make these boots and
+cotton-prints? Men who from generation to generation
+have been making only pin-heads? How, then, can it be
+more advantageous for people? If the object were to
+make as many cotton-prints and pins as possible, it would
+be so; but the question is, how to make people happy?</p>
+
+<p>The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in
+labour.</p>
+
+<p>How, then, can the necessity of painful, oppressing
+work be advantageous for men? If the question were only
+for the advantage of some men without any consideration
+of the welfare of all, then it might be most advantageous
+for some men to eat others. They say it is savoury!</p>
+
+<p>The thing most advantageous for all men is what I wish
+for myself,&mdash;the greatest welfare and the satisfying of all
+my wants which are ingrafted in me, those of body as
+well as those of soul, of conscience, and of reason.</p>
+
+<p>Now, for myself I have found, that for my welfare
+and for the satisfying of these wants, I need only to be
+cured of the folly in which I (as well as the Krapivensky
+madman) have lived, consisting in the idea that gentlefolk
+need not work, and that all must be done for them
+by others, and that, producing nothing, I have to do only
+what is proper to man,&mdash;satisfy my own wants.</p>
+
+<p>Having discovered this, I became persuaded that this
+labour for the satisfying of my own wants, is divisible
+into various kinds of labour, each of which has its own
+charm, and is not only no burden, but serves as rest after
+some other labour.</p>
+
+<p>I have roughly divided labour, not in the least insisting
+on the propriety of such a division, into four parts parallel
+to the four parts of the labourer's day's work, divided by
+his meals; and thus I try to satisfy my wants.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_219" title="219"> </a>These are, then, the answers to the question, &ldquo;What
+shall we do?&rdquo; which I have found for myself.</p>
+
+<p><em>First</em>, Not to lie to myself. However far I have gone
+astray from that road of life which my reason shows to
+me, I must not be afraid of the truth.</p>
+
+<p><em>Secondly</em>, To renounce my own righteousness, my own
+advantages, peculiarities, distinguishing me from others,
+and to own my guilt.</p>
+
+<p><em>Thirdly</em>, To fulfil the eternal, unquestionable law of
+man,&mdash;by labouring with all my being to struggle with
+nature, to sustain my own life, and the lives of others.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">I have</span> now finished, having said all that concerns myself;
+but I cannot restrain my desire to say that which concerns
+every one, and to verify my own deductions by several
+considerations.</p>
+
+<p>I wish to explain why I think that a great many of my
+own class must arrive where I myself am, and I must
+also speak of what will result if even a few men arrive
+there; in the first place, if men of our circle, our caste,
+will only seriously think the matter out themselves, the
+younger generation, who seek their own personal happiness,
+will become afraid of the ever-increasing misery of
+lives which obviously lead them to ruin; scrupulous persons
+among us (if they would examine themselves more
+closely) will be terrified at the cruelty and unlawfulness
+of their own lives, and timid persons will be frightened
+at the danger of their mode of life.</p>
+
+<p><em>The misery of our lives!</em> However we, rich men, may
+try to mend and to support, with the assistance of science
+and art, this our false life, it must become weaker every
+day, unhealthier, and more and more painful: with each
+year, suicide, and the sin against the unborn babe,
+increase; with each year the new generations of our class
+grow weaker, with each year we feel more and more the
+increasing misery of our lives.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious that on this road, with all its increase of the
+comforts and delights of life, of cures, artificial teeth
+and hair, and so on, there can be no salvation.</p>
+
+<p>This truth has become such a truism, that in newspapers
+advertisements are printed about stomach powder
+for rich people, under the title &ldquo;Blessings of the poor,&rdquo;
+where they say that only poor people have a good digestion,
+and the rich need help, and among other things this
+powder. You cannot ameliorate this matter by any kind
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_220" title="220"> </a>
+of amusements, comforts, powders, but only by turning
+over a new leaf.</p>
+
+<p><em>The contradiction of our life with our conscience.</em> However
+we may try to justify to ourselves our treason against
+mankind, all our justification falls to pieces before evidence:
+around us, people are dying from overwork and
+want; and we destroy the food, clothes, and labour of
+men merely to amuse ourselves. Therefore the conscience
+of a man of our circle, though he may have but a small
+remainder of it in his breast, cannot be stifled, and poisons
+all these comforts and charms of life which our suffering
+and perishing brethren procure for us. Not only does
+every conscientious man feel this himself, but he must
+feel it more acutely at present, because the best part of
+art and science, that part which still retains a sense of its
+high calling, constantly reminds him of his cruelty, and
+of the unlawfulness of his position.</p>
+
+<p>The old secure justifications are all destroyed; and
+the new ephemeral justifications of the progress of science
+for science's sake, and art for art's sake, will not bear
+the light of plain common sense.</p>
+
+<p>The conscience of men cannot be calmed by new
+devices: it can be calmed only by turning over a new leaf,
+when there will be no longer any need for justification.</p>
+
+<p><em>The danger to our lives!</em> However much we may try to
+hide from ourselves the plain and obvious danger of
+exhausting the patience of those whom we oppress; however
+much we may try to counteract this danger by all
+sorts of deceit, violence and flattery,&mdash;it grows day by day,
+hour by hour,&mdash;it has long been threatening us, but now
+it is so ready that we are scarcely able to hold our course,&mdash;as
+in a vessel tossed by a roaring and overflowing sea,&mdash;a
+sea which will presently swallow us up in wrath.</p>
+
+<p>The workman's revolution, with its terrors of destruction
+and murder, not only threatens us, but we have
+already lived above it for the last thirty years, and it is
+only by various cunning devices that we have postponed
+the explosion.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the state in Europe: such is the state in Russia,
+and still worse there, because we have no safety-valves.
+The classes who oppress the people, with the exception
+of the Tsar, have no longer any justification in the eyes of
+our people; they all keep up their position merely by
+violence, cunning, and expediency, i.e., skill; but the
+hatred towards us of the worst representatives of the
+people, and the contempt of us from the best, increases
+every hour.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Russian people a new word full of significance
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_221" title="221"> </a>
+has been circulating during the last three or four
+years: by this word, which I never heard before, people
+are swearing in the streets, and by it they give us a definition&mdash;&ldquo;parasites.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The hatred and contempt of the oppressed people are
+increasing, and the physical and moral strength of the
+richer classes are decreasing: the deceit which supports
+all is wearing out, and the rich classes have nothing wherewith
+to comfort themselves in this mortal danger. To
+return to the old order of things is impossible, to restore
+the old prestige is impossible. It only remains for those
+who are not willing to change the course of their lives,
+and to turn over a new leaf,&mdash;to hope that, during their
+lives, they may fare well enough, after which the people
+may do as they like. So think the blind crowd of the
+rich; but the danger ever increases, and the awful catastrophe
+comes nearer and nearer.</p>
+
+<p>There are three reasons which should prove to rich
+people the necessity of turning over a new leaf: First,
+desire for their own personal welfare and that of their
+families, which is not secured by the way in which rich
+people are living; secondly, the inability to satisfy the
+voice of conscience, which is obviously impossible in the
+present condition of things; and thirdly, the threatening
+and constantly increasing danger to life, which cannot
+be met by any outward means. All these together ought
+to induce rich people to change their mode of life. This
+change alone would satisfy the desire of welfare and conscience,
+and would remove the danger. There is but one
+means of making such change,&mdash;to leave off deceiving ourselves,
+to repent, and to acknowledge labour to be, not
+a curse, but the joyful business of life.</p>
+
+<p>To this it is replied, &ldquo;What will come out of the fact of
+my physical labour during ten, eight, or five hours, while
+thousands of peasants would gladly do it for the money
+which I have?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>The first good result would be, that you will become
+livelier, healthier, sounder, kinder; and you will learn
+that real life from which you have hidden yourself, or
+which was hidden from you.</p>
+
+<p>The second good result will be, that, if you have a conscience,
+it will not only cease to suffer as it now suffers
+when looking at the labour of men,&mdash;the importance of
+which we always, from our ignorance, either increase or
+diminish,&mdash;but you will constantly experience a joyful
+acknowledgment that with each day you are satisfying
+more and more the demands of your conscience, and are
+leaving behind you that awful state in which so much evil
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_222" title="222"> </a>
+is accumulated in our lives that we feel that we cannot
+possibly do any good in the world; you will experience
+the joy of free life, with the possibility of doing good to
+others; you will open for yourself a way into regions of
+the world of morality which have hitherto been shut to
+you.</p>
+
+<p>The third good result will be this, that, instead of constant
+fear of revenge upon your evil deeds, you will feel
+that you are saving others from this revenge, and are
+principally saving the oppressed from the cruel feeling of
+rancour and resentment.</p>
+
+<p>But it is generally said, that it would be ridiculous if
+we, men of our stamp, with deep philosophical, scientific,
+political, artistic, ecclesiastical, social questions before us,
+we, state ministers, senators, academists, professors,
+artists, singers, we, whose quarter-hours are valued so
+highly by men, should spend our time in doing&mdash;what?
+Cleaning our boots, washing our shirts, digging, planting
+potatoes, or feeding our chickens and cows, and so on,&mdash;in
+business which not only our house-porter, or our cook,
+but thousands of men besides who value our time, would
+be very glad to do for us.</p>
+
+<p>But why do we dress, wash, and comb our hair ourselves?
+Why do we walk, hand chairs to ladies, to our
+guests, open and shut the door, help people into carriages,
+and perform hundreds of actions which were formerly performed
+for us by our slaves?</p>
+
+<p>Because we consider that such may be done by ourselves;
+that they are compatible with human dignity;
+that is, human duty. The same holds good with physical
+labour. Man's dignity, his sacred duty, is to use his
+hands, his feet, for the purpose for which they were given
+him, to spend the swallowed food in work, which produces
+the food, and not to be wasted by disuse, not merely
+that he may wash and clean them and use them only for
+the purpose of stuffing food and cigarettes into his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the meaning of physical labour for every man in
+every society. But in our class, with the divergence from
+this law of nature came the misery of a whole circle of
+men; and for us, physical labour receives another meaning,&mdash;the
+meaning of a preaching and a propaganda which
+divert the terrible evil which threatens mankind.</p>
+
+<p>To say that for an educated man, physical labour is a
+trifling occupation, is the same as to say, in the building
+of a temple, &ldquo;What importance can there be in putting
+each stone exactly in its place?&rdquo; Every great act is done
+under the conditions of quietness, modesty, and simplicity.
+One can neither plough, nor feed cattle, nor think, during
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_223" title="223"> </a>
+a great illumination, or amid thundering of guns, nor
+while in uniform.</p>
+
+<p>Illumination, the roar of cannon, music, uniforms,
+cleanliness, brilliancy, which we usually connect with the
+idea of the importance of any act, are, on the contrary,
+tokens of the absence of importance in that act. Great,
+true deeds are always simple and modest. Such is also
+the greatest deed which is left to us to do,&mdash;the solution
+of those awful contradictions in which we are living.
+The acts which solve these contradictions are modest, imperceptible,
+seemingly ridiculous acts, such as helping
+ourselves by physical labour, and, if possible, helping
+others too: this is what we rich people have to do, if
+we understand the misery, wrong, and danger of the position
+in which we live.</p>
+
+<p>What will result from the circumstance that I, and
+another, and a third, and a tenth man, do not despise
+physical labour, but consider it necessary for our happiness,
+for the calming of our consciences, and for our
+safety? This will result from it,&mdash;that one, two, three,
+ten men, coming into conflict with no one, without violence
+either of government or of revolution, will solve for themselves
+the problem which is before all the world, and
+which has appeared unsolvable; and they will solve it in
+such a way that life will become for them a good thing:
+their consciences will be calm, and the evil which
+oppresses them will cease to be dreadful to them.</p>
+
+<p>Another effect will be this: other men, too, will see
+that the welfare, which they have been looking for everywhere,
+is quite near them, that seemingly unsolvable contradictions
+between conscience and the order of the world
+are solved in the easiest and pleasantest way, and that,
+instead of being afraid of the men surrounding them, they
+must have intercourse with them, and love them.</p>
+
+<p>The seemingly unsolvable economical and social questions
+are like the problem of Krilof's casket. The casket opened
+of itself, without any difficulty: but it will not open until
+men do the simplest and most natural thing; that is,
+open it. The seemingly unsolvable question is the old question
+of the utilizing some men's labour by others: this
+question, in our time, has found its expression in property.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly, other men's labour was used simply by
+violence, by slavery: in our time it is being done by the
+means of property. In our time, property is the root of all
+evil and of the sufferings of men who possess it, or are
+without it, and of all the remorse of conscience of those
+who misuse it, and of the danger from the collision
+between those who have it, and those who have it not.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_224" title="224"> </a>Property is the root of all evil, and, at the same time,
+property is that towards which all the activity of our
+modern society is directed, and that which directs the
+activity of the world. States and governments intrigue,
+make wars, for the sake of property, for the possession
+of the banks of the Rhine, of land in Africa, China, the
+Balkan Peninsula. Bankers, merchants, manufacturers,
+land-owners, labourers, use cunning, torment themselves,
+torment others, for the sake of property; government
+functionaries, artisans, struggle, deceive, oppress, suffer,
+for the sake of property; courts of justice and police protect
+property; penal servitude, prisons, all the terrors of
+so-called punishments,&mdash;all is done for the sake of
+property.</p>
+
+<p>Property is the root of all evil; and now all the world
+is busy with the distribution and protecting of wealth.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, is property? Men are accustomed to think
+that property is something really belonging to man, and
+for this reason they have called it property. We speak
+indiscriminately of our own house and our own land.
+But this is obviously an error and a superstition. We
+know, and if we do not, it is easy to perceive, that property
+is only the means of utilizing other men's labour. And
+another's labour can by no means belong to me. It has
+nothing in common with the conception of property,&mdash;a
+conception very exact and precise.</p>
+
+<p>Man has been, and will always call his own that
+which is subject to his own will and joined with his own
+consciousness. As soon as a man calls his own something
+which is not his body, but which he should like to be
+subject to his will as his body is, then he makes a mistake,
+and gets disappointment, and suffering, and compels other
+people to suffer as well. Man calls his wife his own, his
+children, his slaves, his belongings, his own too; but the
+reality always shows him his error: and he must either
+get rid of this superstition, or suffer, and make others
+suffer.</p>
+
+<p>Now we, having nominally renounced the possessing of
+slaves, owing to money (and to its exactment by the
+government), claim our right also to money; that is, to
+the labour of other men.</p>
+
+<p>But as to our claiming our wives as our property, or
+our sons, our slaves, our horses,&mdash;this is pure fiction contradicted
+by reality, and which only makes those suffer
+who believe in it; because a wife or a son will never be
+so subject to my will as my body is; therefore my own
+body will always remain the only thing I can call my
+true property; so also money, property,&mdash;will never be
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_225" title="225"> </a>
+real property, but only a self-deception and a source of
+suffering, and it is only my own body which will be my
+property, that which always obeys me, and is connected
+with my consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>It is only to us, who are so accustomed to call other
+things than our body our own, that such a wild superstition
+can appear to be useful for us, and without evil
+results; but we have only to reflect upon the nature of
+the matter to see how this, like every other superstition,
+brings with it only dreadful consequences.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take the most simple example. I consider myself
+my own, and another man like myself I consider my own
+too. I must understand how to cook my dinner: if I were
+free from the superstition of considering another man as
+my property, I should have been taught this art as well
+as every other necessary to my real property (that is, my
+body); but now I have it taught to my imaginary property,
+and the result is that my cook does not obey me, does
+not wish to humour me, and even runs away from me,
+or dies, and I remain with an unsatisfied want, and have
+lost the habit of learning, and recognize that I have spent
+as much time in worry about this cook as I should have
+spent in learning the art of cooking for myself.</p>
+
+<p>The same is the case with property in buildings, clothes,
+wares; with property in the land; with property in money.
+Every imaginary property calls forth in me a non-corresponding
+want which cannot always be gratified, and
+deprives me of the possibility of acquiring for my true
+and sure property&mdash;my own body&mdash;that information, that
+skill, those habits, improvements, which I might have
+acquired.</p>
+
+<p>The result is always that I have spent (without gain to
+myself,&mdash;to my true property) strength, sometimes my
+whole life, on that which never has been, and never could
+be, my property.</p>
+
+<p>I provide myself with an imaginary &ldquo;private&rdquo; library,
+a &ldquo;private&rdquo; picture gallery, &ldquo;private&rdquo; apartments,
+clothes; acquire my &ldquo;own&rdquo; money in order to purchase
+with it every thing I want, and the matter stands thus,&mdash;that
+I, being busy about this imaginary property, which
+is not, and cannot be my property, however I may call
+it, and which is no object for activity, leave quite out of
+sight that which is my true property, upon which I may
+really labour, and which really may serve me, and which
+always remains in my power.</p>
+
+<p>Words have always a definite meaning until we purposely
+give them a false signification.</p>
+
+<p>What does property mean?</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_226" title="226"> </a>Property means that which is given to me alone, which
+belongs to me alone, exclusively; that with which I may
+always do everything I like, which nobody can take away
+from me, which remains mine to the end of my life, and
+which I ought to use in order to increase and to improve
+it. For every man such property is only himself.</p>
+
+<p>It is in this very sense that imaginary property is understood,
+that very property for sake of which (making it
+impossible for this imaginary property to become a real
+one) all the sufferings of this world exist,&mdash;wars, executions,
+judgments, prisons, luxury, depravity, murders, and
+the ruin of mankind.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, will result from the circumstance that ten
+men plough, hew wood, make boots, not from necessity,
+but in acknowledgment that man needs work, and that
+the more he works, the better it will be for him?</p>
+
+<p>This will come out of it: that ten men, or even one
+single man, by thought and in deed, will show men that
+this fearful evil from which they are suffering, is not the
+law of their destiny, nor the will of God, nor any historical
+necessity, but is a superstition not at all strong or
+overpowering, but weak and null, which one need only
+leave off believing in, as in idols, in order to get rid of,
+and to destroy it even as a frail cobweb is swept away.</p>
+
+<p>Men who begin to work in order to fulfil the pleasant
+law of their lives, who work for the fulfilment of the law
+of labour, will free themselves from this superstition of
+property which is so full of misery, and then all these
+worldly establishments which exist in order to protect this
+imaginary property outside of one's own body, will become
+not only unnecessary for them, but burdensome; and it
+will become clear to all that these institutions are not
+necessary, but pernicious, imaginary, and false conditions
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>For a man who considers labour not a curse, but a joy,
+property outside his own body&mdash;that is, the right or possibility
+of utilizing other men's labour&mdash;will be not only
+useless, but an impediment. If I am fond of cooking my
+dinner, and accustomed to do it, then the fact that another
+man will do it for me, will deprive me of my usual business,
+and will not satisfy me so well as I have satisfied
+myself; and further, the acquirement of imaginary
+property will not be necessary for such a man: a man
+who considers labour to be his very life, fills up all his
+life with it, and therefore requires less and less the labour
+of others,&mdash;in other words, as property to fill up his unoccupied
+time, and to embellish his life.</p>
+
+<p>If the life of a man is occupied by labour, he does not
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_227" title="227"> </a>
+require many rooms, much furniture, various fine clothes:
+he does not require so much expensive food, or locomotion,
+or amusements. Especially a man who considers
+labour to be the business and the joy of his life, will not
+seek to ease his own labour by utilizing that of others.</p>
+
+<p>A man who considers life to consist in labour, will aim,
+in proportion as he acquires more skill, craft, and endurance,
+at having more and more work to do, to occupy all
+his time. For such a man, who sees the object of his
+life in labour, and not in the results of his labour in
+acquirement of property, there cannot be even a question
+about the instruments of labour. Though such a man
+will always choose the most productive instrument of
+labour, he will have the same satisfaction in working with
+the most unproductive.</p>
+
+<p>If he has a steam-plough, he will plough with it; if
+he has not such, he will plough with a horse-plough; if he
+has not this, he will plough with the plain Russian
+sokhá; if he has not even this, he will use a spade: and
+under any circumstances, he will attain his aim; that is,
+will pass his life in labour useful to man, and therefore
+will have fullest satisfaction. The position of such a
+man, in exterior and interior circumstances, will be happier
+than the condition of a man who gives his life away to
+acquire property.</p>
+
+<p>According to exterior circumstances, he will never want,
+because men, seeing that he does not shirk work, will
+always try to make his labour most productive to them,
+as they arrange a mill by running water; and that his
+labour may be more productive, they will provide for his
+material existence, which they will never do for men who
+aim at acquiring property. The providing for material
+wants, is all that a man requires.</p>
+
+<p>According to interior conditions, such a man will be
+always happier than he who seeks for property, because
+the latter will never get what he is aiming at, and the
+former in proportion to his strength (even the weak, old,
+dying, according to the proverb, with a Kored in his
+hands), will always receive full satisfaction, and the love
+and sympathy of men.</p>
+
+<p>One of the consequences of this will be, that certain
+odd, half-insane persons will plough, make boots, and so
+on, instead of smoking, playing cards, and riding about,
+carrying their dulness with them, from one place to
+another, during the ten hours which every brain worker
+has at his command.</p>
+
+<p>Another result will be, that these silly people will
+demonstrate in deed, that that imaginary property for the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_228" title="228"> </a>
+sake of which men suffer, and torment themselves and
+others, is not necessary for happiness, and even impedes
+it, and is but a superstition; and that true property is
+only one's own head, hands, feet; and that, in order to
+utilize this true property usefully and joyfully, it is necessary
+to get rid of that false idea of property outside one's
+own body, on which we waste the best powers of our life.</p>
+
+<p>Another result will be, that these men will demonstrate,
+that, when a man leaves off believing in imaginary
+property, then only will he make real use of his true
+property,&mdash;his own body, which will yield him fruit an
+hundred-fold, together with happiness such as we have
+no idea as yet; and he will be a useful, strong, kind
+man, who will everywhere stand on his own feet, will be
+always a brother to everybody, will be intelligible to all,
+desired by all, and dear to all.</p>
+
+<p>Then men, looking at one,&mdash;at ten such &ldquo;silly&rdquo; men
+will understand what they have all to do to unfasten that
+dreadful knot in which they have all been tied by the
+superstition respecting property, and to get rid of the
+miserable condition under which they are now groaning,
+and from which they do not know how to free themselves.</p>
+
+<p>There is no reasoning which can so plainly demonstrate
+the unrighteousness of those who employ it as does this.
+The boatmen are dragging vessels against the stream. Is
+it possible that there could be found a stupid boatman
+who would refuse to do his part in dragging, because he
+alone cannot drag the boat up against the stream? He
+who, besides his rights of animal life,&mdash;to eat and to
+sleep,&mdash;acknowledges any human duty, knows very well
+wherein such duty consists: just in the same way as a
+boatman knows that he has only to get into his breast-collar,
+and to walk in the given direction. He will only
+seek to know what to do and how to do it after having
+fulfilled his duty.</p>
+
+<p>As with the boatmen, and with all men who do any
+labour in common, so with the labour of all mankind;
+each man need only keep on his breast-collar, and go
+in the given direction. And for this purpose one and the
+same reason is given to all men that this direction may
+always be the same.</p>
+
+<p>That this direction <em>is</em> given to us, is obvious and certain
+from the lives of those who surround us, as well as in
+the conscience of every man, and in all the previous
+expressions of human wisdom; so that only he who does
+not want work, can say that he does not see it.</p>
+
+<p>What, then, will come out of this?</p>
+
+<p>This, that first one man, then another, will drag; looking
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_229" title="229"> </a>
+at them, a third will join; and so one by one the best
+men will join, until the business will be set a-going, and
+will move as of itself, inducing those also to join who do
+not yet understand why and wherefore it is being done.</p>
+
+<p>First, to the number of men who conscientiously work
+in order to fulfil the law of God, will be added those who
+will accept half conscientiously and half upon faith; then
+to these a still greater number of men, only upon faith
+in the foremost men; and lastly the majority of people:
+and then it will come to pass that men will cease to ruin
+themselves, and will find out happiness.</p>
+
+<p>This will happen (and it will happen soon) when men
+of our circle, and after them all the great majority of
+working-people, will no longer consider it shameful to
+clean sewers, but will consider it shameful to fill them
+up in order that other men, <em>our brethren</em>, may carry their
+contents away; they will not consider it shameful to go
+visiting in common boots, but they will consider it shameful
+to walk in goloshes beside barefooted people; they will
+not think it shameful not to know French, nor about the
+last novel, but they will consider it shameful to eat bread,
+and not to know how it is prepared; they will not consider
+it shameful not to have a starched shirt or a clean
+dress, but that it is shameful to wear a clean coat as a
+token of one's idleness; they will not consider it shameful
+to have dirty hands, but shameful not to have callouses
+on their hands.</p>
+
+<p>All this will come to pass when public opinion
+demands it. Public opinion will demand it, when
+men get rid of those snares which hide the truth
+from them. Great changes in this direction have
+taken place within my memory. These changes
+occurred only as public opinion changed. Within
+my memory has happened this, that whereas rich men
+were ashamed if they could not drive out with a team of
+four horses, with two men-servants, and that it was considered
+shameful not to have a man-servant or a maid,
+to dress one, wash one, attend the chamber, and so on;
+now of a sudden it has become shameful not to dress
+and to wash oneself, without help, or to drive out with
+men-servants. All these changes have been accomplished
+by public opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Can we not see the changes which public opinion is
+now preparing? Twenty-five years ago it sufficed to
+destroy the snare which justified serfdom, and public
+opinion changed its attitude as to what is praiseworthy,
+and what is shameful, and life changed. It would suffice
+to destroy the snares justifying the power of money over
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_230" title="230"> </a>
+men, and public opinion will change its view, concerning
+things praiseworthy and things shameful, and life will
+change.</p>
+
+<p>But the destroying of the snare justifying the power of
+money and the change of public opinion in this direction
+is already quickly taking place. This snare is already
+transparent and but slightly veils the truth. One needs
+only to look more attentively to see clearly that change of
+public opinion, which not only must take place, but which
+has been already accomplished, only not yet consciously
+acknowledged, not yet named. Let a slightly educated
+man of our time think of the consequences ensuing from
+those views he holds concerning the universe, and he
+will see, that the unconscious estimate of good and evil,
+of praiseworthy and shameful, by which he is
+guided in life, directly contradicts all his conceptions
+of life.</p>
+
+<p>Let a man of our times dismiss himself, if only for a
+minute, from his own inert life, and looking at it, as an
+outsider, subject it to that very estimate, resulting from
+his conception of life, and he will stand aghast before the
+definition of his life, which results from his conception of
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>Let us take as an example, a young man (in young
+people the life energy is stronger and the self-consciousness
+is more vague) of the wealthy classes, and of any
+shade of opinions. Every decent youth considers it a
+shame not to help an old man, a child, a woman; he
+considers it a shame to risk the life and health of another
+in common work while avoiding the danger for himself.
+Everybody considers it shameful and barbarous to do what
+Skyler tells about the Kirghiz: who during storms sent
+out their wives and old women to hold the corners of the
+tent, while they remained inside drinking their koumis;
+everybody considers it a shame to force a weak man to
+work for him and still more shameful when in such danger,
+as, say, on a ship on fire, for the strongest to push aside
+the weak and go first into the life-boat, and so on. Men
+consider all this shameful and would by no means act
+so under certain exceptional circumstances; but in everyday
+life the same actions and even worse,&mdash;being hidden
+by snares,&mdash;are constantly committed by them.</p>
+
+<p>One need only think of it earnestly to recognize the
+horror of it.</p>
+
+<p>A young man changes his shirts daily. Who washes
+them? A woman, whatever her state may be, very often
+old enough to be his mother or grandmother, often unwell.
+How would this young man call another who out of whim,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_231" title="231"> </a>
+changes his clean shirt and sends it to be washed by a
+woman old enough to be his mother?</p>
+
+<p>A young man, that he may be smart, provides himself
+with horses and an old man, fit to be his father or grandfather,
+is set to training them, thus endangering his very
+life, and the young man rides on the horse when danger
+is over. What would the young man say about a man
+who, avoiding a dangerous situation for himself, puts
+another into it and for his pleasure allows such a risk?</p>
+
+<p>Yet the whole life of the well-to-do classes consists
+of a chain of such actions. The overtaxing labour of old
+men, children and women, and work connected with
+danger to life done by others, not to help us to work but
+to satisfy our whims&mdash;these fill up our life. The fisherman
+gets drowned while catching fish for us, the washerwomen
+catch colds and die, the smith grows blind, those
+who work in factories get ill and injured by machinery,
+woodcutters are crushed by falling trees, workmen fall
+from roofs and are killed, needlewomen pine away. All
+real work is done with waste and danger to life. To hide
+this and refuse to see it is impossible. There is one salvation,
+one issue out of this situation, to wit&mdash;that if a man
+of our time is not to be obliged&mdash;according to his own
+principles&mdash;to call himself a scoundrel and a coward, who
+burdens others with work and danger to life&mdash;he must
+take from men only what is necessary for his life, and
+submit himself also to true labour associated with waste
+and danger to life.</p>
+
+<p>Within my memory, more striking changes have taken
+place. I remember that at table, a servant stood with a
+plate, behind each chair. Men made visits accompanied
+by two footmen. A Cossack boy and a girl stood in a
+room to give people their pipes, and to clean them, and
+so on. Now this seems to us strange and remarkable.
+But is it not equally strange that a young man or woman,
+or even an elderly man, that he may visit a friend, should
+order his horses to be harnessed, and that well-fed horses
+are kept only for this purpose? Is it not as strange that
+one man lives in five rooms, or that a woman spends tens,
+hundreds, thousands of rubles for her dress when she
+only needs some flax and wool wherewith to spin dresses
+for herself, and clothes for her husband and children?</p>
+
+<p>Is it not strange that men live doing nothing, riding to
+and fro, smoking and playing, and that a battalion of
+people are busy feeding and warming them?</p>
+
+<p>Is it not strange that old people quite gravely talk and
+write in newspapers about theatres and music, and other
+insane people drive to look at musicians or actors?</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_232" title="232"> </a>Is it not strange that tens of thousands of boys and
+girls are brought up so as to make them unfit for every
+work (they return home from school, and their two books
+are carried for them by a servant)?</p>
+
+<p>There will soon come a time,&mdash;and it is already drawing
+near,&mdash;when it will be shameful to dine on five courses
+served by footmen, and cooked by any but the masters
+themselves; it will be shameful not only to ride thoroughbreds
+or to drive in a coach when one has feet to walk
+on; to wear on week-days dress, shoes, gloves, in which
+it is impossible to work; it will be shameful to play on a
+piano which costs one hundred and fifty pounds, or even
+ten pounds, while others work for one; to feed dogs upon
+milk and white bread, when there are men who have
+neither milk nor bread, and to burn lamps and candles
+without working by their light; to heat stoves in which no
+meal is cooked, while there are men who have neither light
+nor fuel. Then it will be impossible to think about giving
+openly not merely one pound, but even six pence, for a
+place in a concert or in a theatre. All this will be when
+the law of labour becomes public opinion.</p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">As</span> it is said in the Bible, there is a law given unto man
+and woman,&mdash;to man, the law of labour; to woman, the
+law of child-bearing. Although with our science, &ldquo;<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">nous
+avons changé tout ça</i>,&rdquo; the law of man as well as of woman
+remains as immutable as the liver in its place; and the
+breach of it is inevitably punished by death. The only
+difference is, that for man, the breach of law is punished
+by death in such a near future that it can almost be called
+present; but for woman, the breach of law is punished in
+a more distant future.</p>
+
+<p>A general breach, by all men, of the law, destroys men
+immediately: the breach by women destroys the men of
+the following generation. The evasion of the law by a
+few men and women does not destroy the human race,
+but deprives the offender of rational human nature.</p>
+
+<p>The breach of this law by men began years ago in
+the classes which could use violence with others; and,
+spreading on its way, it has reached our day, and has
+now attained madness, the ideal contained in a breach of
+the law, the ideal expressed by Prince Blokhin, and
+shared by Renan and the whole educated world: work
+will be done by machines, and men will be bundles of
+nerves enjoying themselves.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_233" title="233"> </a>There has been scarcely any breach of the law by women.
+It has only manifested itself in prostitution, and in private
+cases of crime destroying progeny. Women of the wealthy
+classes have fulfilled their law, while men did not fulfil
+theirs; and therefore women have grown stronger, and
+have continued to govern, and will govern, men, who have
+deviated from their law, and who, consequently, have lost
+their reason. It is generally said that women (the women
+of Paris, especially those who are childless) have become
+so bewitching, using all the means of civilization, that
+they have mastered man by their charms.</p>
+
+<p>This is not only wrong, but it is just the reverse of the
+truth. It is not the childless woman who has mastered
+man, it is the mother, the one who has fulfilled her duty,
+while man has not fulfilled his.</p>
+
+<p>As to the woman who artificially remains childless, and
+bewitches man by her shoulders and curls, she is not a
+woman, mastering man, but a woman corrupted by him,
+reduced to the level of the corrupted man, who, as well
+as he, has deviated from her duty, who, as well as
+he, has lost every reasonable sense of life.</p>
+
+<p>This mistake also produces the astounding nonsense
+which is called &ldquo;woman's rights.&rdquo; The formula of these
+rights is as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;You men,&rdquo; says woman, &ldquo;have deviated from your
+law of true labour, and want us to carry the load of ours.
+No: if so, we also, as well as you, will make a pretence
+of labour, as you do in banks, ministries, universities,
+and academies; we wish, as well as you, by the pretence
+of division of work, to profit by other people's work,
+and to live, only to satisfy our lust.&rdquo; They say so, and
+in deed show that they can make that pretence of labour
+not at all worse, but even better, than men do it.</p>
+
+<p>The so-called question of women's rights arose, and
+could only arise, among men who had deviated from the
+law of real labour. One has only to return to it, and that
+question must cease to exist. A woman who has her own
+particular, inevitable labour will never claim the right
+of sharing man's labour,&mdash;in mines, or in ploughing fields.
+She claims her share only in the sham labour of the
+wealthy classes.</p>
+
+<p>The woman of our class was stronger than man, and
+is now still stronger, not through her charms, not through
+her skill in performing the same pharisaic similitude of
+work as man, but because she has not stepped outside of
+the law; because she has borne that true labour with
+danger of life, with uttermost effort; true labour, from
+which the man of the wealthy classes has freed himself.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_234" title="234"> </a>But within my memory has begun also the deviation
+from the law by woman,&mdash;that is to say, her fall; and
+within my memory, it has proceeded farther and farther.
+A woman who has lost the law, believes that her power
+consists in the charms of her witchery, or in her skill at
+a pharisaic pretence of intellectual labour. Children
+hinder the one and the other. Therefore, with the help
+of science (science is always helpful to everything wicked)
+within my memory it has come to pass that among the
+wealthy classes, scores of means of destroying progeny
+have appeared, and these means become a common attribute
+of the toilet. And behold,&mdash;women, mothers, some of
+them of the wealthy classes, who held their power in their
+hands, let it slip away, and place themselves on a level
+with women of the street. The evil has spread far, and
+spreads farther every day, and will soon grasp all the
+women of the wealthy classes; and then they will be on
+a level with the men, and together with them will lose
+every reasonable sense of life. There will be no return
+for this class then. But there is yet time. For there still
+remain more women than men who accomplish the law
+of their life, therefore there are still reasonable beings
+among them,&mdash;and thus some of the women of our class
+hold in their hands the possibility of salvation.</p>
+
+<p>If only women would understand their worth, their
+power, and would use these for the work of salvation of
+their husbands, brothers, and children,&mdash;the salvation of
+all men!</p>
+
+<p>Women, mothers of the wealthy classes, in your hands
+is the salvation of men of our world from the evils from
+which it suffers.</p>
+
+<p>Not those women who are occupied by their figures,
+bustles, head-dresses, and their charms for men, and who,
+against their will, by accident and in despair, bear
+children, and then give them over to wet-nurses; nor yet
+those who go to different lectures, and talk of psychometrical
+centres of differentiation, and who also try to free
+themselves from bearing children not to hinder their folly,
+which they call development,&mdash;but those women and
+mothers who, having the power of freeing themselves
+from child-bearing, hold strictly and consciously to that
+eternal, immutable law, knowing that the weight and
+labour of that submission is the aim of their life. These
+women and mothers of our wealthy classes are those in
+whose hands, more than in any others, lies the salvation
+of the men of our sphere in life, from the calamities which
+oppress them.</p>
+
+<p>You women and mothers who submit consciously to the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_235" title="235"> </a>
+law of God, you are the only ones who,&mdash;in our miserable,
+mutilated circle, which has lost all semblance of humanity,&mdash;know
+the whole true meaning of life according to the
+law of God; and you are the only ones who, by your
+example, can show men the happiness of that submission
+to God's law, of which they rob themselves.</p>
+
+<p>You are the only ones who know the joy and happiness
+which takes possession of one's whole being,&mdash;the bliss
+which is the share of every man who does not deviate
+from God's law. You know the joy of love to your
+husband,&mdash;a joy never ending, never destroyed, like all
+other joys, but forming the beginning of another new joy&mdash;love
+to your child. You are the only ones, when you are
+simple and submissive to God's law, who know, not the
+farcical pretence of labour, which men of your world call
+labour, but that true labour which is imposed by God
+upon men, and you know the rewards for it,&mdash;the bliss
+which it gives.</p>
+
+<p>You know it, when after the joys of love, you expect
+with emotion, fear, and hope, the torturing state of
+pregnancy, which makes you ill for nine months, and
+brings you to the brink of death and to unbearable sufferings
+and pains: you know the conditions of true labour,
+when with joy you expect the approach and increase of the
+most dreadful sufferings, after which comes the bliss,
+known to you only.</p>
+
+<p>You know it when, directly after those sufferings, without
+rest, without interruption, you undertake another series
+of labours and sufferings,&mdash;those of nursing; for the
+sake of which you subjugate to your feeling, and renounce,
+the strongest human necessity,&mdash;that of sleep, which,
+according to the saying, is sweeter than father and mother.
+For months and years you do not sleep two nights running,
+and often you do not sleep whole nights; walking alone
+to and fro, rocking in your wearied arms an ailing baby,
+whose sufferings tear your heart. When you do all this,
+unapproved and unseen by anybody, not expecting any
+praise or reward for it; when you do this, not as a great
+deed, but as the labourer of the gospel parable, who came
+from the field, considering that you are only doing your
+duty,&mdash;you know then what is false, fictitious labour,&mdash;for
+human fame; and what is true labour,&mdash;the fulfilment
+of God's will, the indication of which you feel in your
+heart. You know, if you are a true mother, that not only
+has nobody seen and praised your labour, considering
+that it is only what ought to be, but even those for whom
+you toiled are not only ungrateful to you, but often torment
+and reproach you. With the next child you do the
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_236" title="236"> </a>
+same,&mdash;again you suffer, again you bear unseen, terrible
+toil, and again you do not expect any reward from anybody,
+and feel the same satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>If you are such, in your hands must lie the power over
+men, and in your hands lies the salvation. Your number
+is decreasing every day: some busy with practising their
+charms over men, become prostitutes; others are engaged
+in competition with men in their artificial, ludicrous occupations;
+the third, who have not yet renounced their
+vocation, begin to repudiate it in their minds:
+they perform all the deeds of women and mothers, but
+accidentally, with grumblings and envy of the free women,
+not bearing children,&mdash;and so deprive themselves of the
+only reward for them&mdash;the inner consciousness of the fulfilment
+of God's will&mdash;and instead of being satisfied they
+suffer from what is really their happiness.</p>
+
+<p>We are so confused by our false life, we, men of our
+circle, have all of us so utterly lost the sense of life, that
+we do not differ from one another. Having loaded others
+with all the burdens and dangers of life, we dare not call
+ourselves by the true names deserved by those who force
+others to perish in providing life for them&mdash;scoundrels,
+cowards.</p>
+
+<p>But among women a distinction still exists. There are
+women,&mdash;human beings, women,&mdash;presenting the highest
+manifestation of a human being; and there are women&mdash;prostitutes.
+This discrimination will be made by succeeding
+generations, and we, too, cannot help making it.</p>
+
+<p>Every woman, however she dresses, however she calls
+herself, however refined she may be, if being married
+she abstains from bearing children, is a prostitute.</p>
+
+<p>However low a lost woman may be, if she consciously
+devotes herself to bearing children, she does the
+best and highest work of life in fulfilling the will of God,
+and she has no superior.</p>
+
+<p>If you are such, you will not say, after two or after
+twenty children, that you have borne children enough;
+as a fifty-year old workman will not say that he has
+worked enough, while he still eats and sleeps, and his
+muscles demand work. If you are such, you will not cast
+the trouble of nursing and care on a strange mother,&mdash;any
+more than a workman will give the work which he has
+begun, and nearly finished, to another man,&mdash;because in
+that work you put your life, and because, the more you
+have of that work, the fuller and happier is your life.</p>
+
+<p>But when you are like this,&mdash;and, happily for men,
+there are yet such women,&mdash;the same law of fulfilment of
+God's will, by which you guide your own life, you will
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_237" title="237"> </a>
+also apply to the life of your husband, of your children,
+and of men near to you. If you are such, and if you know
+by experience that only self-denied, unseen, unrewarded
+labour with danger of life, and uttermost effort for the
+life of others, is the mission of man which gives satisfaction,
+you will claim the same from others, you will encourage
+your husband to do the same labour, you will value
+and appreciate the worth of men by this same labour, and
+for it you will prepare your children.</p>
+
+<p>Only that mother who looks on child-bearing as a disagreeable
+accident, and upon the pleasures of love, comfort,
+education, sociability, as the meaning of life, will
+bring up her children so that they shall have as many
+pleasures, and enjoy them as much as possible; will feed
+them luxuriously, dress them smartly, will artificially
+divert them, and will teach them, not that which will
+make them capable of self-sacrificing man's and woman's
+labour with danger of life and uttermost effort, but that
+which will deliver them from that labour,&mdash;which will
+give them diplomas and idleness. Only such a woman, who
+has lost the significance of her life, will sympathize with
+that false, sham man's labour, by means of which her
+husband, freeing himself from man's duty, may profit,
+together with her, by the labour of others. Only such a
+woman will choose a similar husband for her daughter,
+and will value men, not for what they are in themselves,
+but for what is attached to them,&mdash;position, money, the
+art of profiting by the labour of others.</p>
+
+<p>A true mother, who really knows God's law, will prepare
+her children for the fulfilment of it. For such a
+mother it will be suffering to see her child overfed,
+pampered, overdressed, because all this, she knows, will
+hinder it in the fulfilment of God's law, experienced by
+herself. Such a woman will not teach that which will
+give her son or daughter the possibility of delivering themselves
+from labour, but that which will help them to bear
+the labour of life.</p>
+
+<p>She will not want to ask what to teach her children,
+or for what to prepare them, knowing what it is and in
+what consists the mission of men, and consequently knowing
+what to teach her children, and for what to prepare
+them. Such a woman will not only discourage her husband
+from false, sham labour, the only aim of which is to
+profit by other people's work, but will view with disgust
+and dread an activity that will serve as a double temptation
+for her children. Such a woman will not choose her
+daughter's husband according to the whiteness of his
+hands, and the refinement of his manners, but, knowing
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_238" title="238"> </a>
+thoroughly what is labour and what deceit, will always and
+everywhere, beginning with her husband, respect and
+appreciate men, in claiming from them true labour with
+waste and danger of life, and will scorn that false, sham
+labour which has for its aim the delivering of one's self
+from true labour.</p>
+
+<p>And let not those women say,&mdash;who, while renouncing
+the vocation of women, desire to profit by its rights,&mdash;that
+such a view of life is impossible for a mother, that
+a mother is too intimately connected by love to her
+children to deprive them of sweets, smart dresses, or
+entertainments, or not to fear their being unprovided for,
+if the husband has no fortune or secure position, or not
+to be afraid for the future of the marrying daughters and
+sons, who have not got an &ldquo;education.&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>All this is a lie, a burning lie!</p>
+
+<p>A true mother will never say this: &ldquo;You cannot keep
+yourself from the desire to give them sweets, toys, to
+take them to the circus?&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>But surely you don't give them poisonous berries to
+eat, you do not let them go out alone in a boat, you do
+not take them to a café chantant? Why then can you
+restrain yourselves in this case and not in that? Because
+you do not tell the truth. You say that you love the
+children so much that you fear for their life, you are so
+afraid of hunger, and cold, and that is why you appreciate
+so much the security, which your husband's position
+provides for you, though you consider it unlawful.</p>
+
+<p>You are so afraid of future eventualities, calamities for
+your children which are very distant and doubtful,&mdash;and
+you therefore encourage your husband to do things unjustifiable
+in your opinion; but what are you doing now to
+secure your children in their present conditions of life
+from the unfortunate eventualities of the present life?</p>
+
+<p>Do you spend much of your time during the day with
+your <ins title="children.">children?</ins> You do well if you spend one-tenth of
+the day!</p>
+
+<p>The remaining time they are under the care of strangers,
+hired people, often taken from the street, or they are in
+institutions, open to the dangers of moral and physical
+infection.</p>
+
+<p>Your children eat, they are nourished. Who cooks their
+dinner and what from? Mostly you know nothing about
+it. Who instills moral principles into them? Neither do
+you know that!</p>
+
+<p>Then do not say, that you are suffering evil for the good
+of your children&mdash;it is not true. You do evil because you
+like it.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_239" title="239"> </a>A true mother, the one who in bearing and bringing up
+children sees her self-sacrificing vocation of life and the
+fulfilment of God's will&mdash;will not say it.</p>
+
+<p>She will not say it, because she knows it is not her
+business to make of her children what she herself or current
+opinions require. She knows that children, i.e., the
+following generations,&mdash;are the greatest and most sacred
+thing which is given to men to behold in reality: and, to
+serve with all her being, this sacred cause is her life.</p>
+
+<p>She knows herself,&mdash;being constantly between life and
+death and ever rearing the feebly flickering life,&mdash;that
+life and death are not her business, her business is to serve
+life, and she will not therefore search for distant paths
+of this service but will only endeavour not to avoid the
+near one.</p>
+
+<p>Such a mother <em>will bring forth and nurse her children
+herself</em>, and, above all things else, will feed and provide
+for them, will work for them, wash and teach them, will
+sleep and talk with them, because she makes that her
+life-work. Only such a mother will not seek for her
+children external security through her husband's money,
+or her children's diplomas, but she will exercise in them
+the same capacity of self-sacrificing fulfilment of God's
+will which she knows in herself, the capacity for bearing
+labour with waste and danger of life, because she knows
+that only in that lie the security and welfare of life. Such
+a mother will not have to ask others what is her duty:
+she will know every thing, and will fear nothing, for she
+will always know that she has done what she was called
+to do.</p>
+
+<p>If there can be doubts for a man or for a childless
+woman about the way to fulfil God's will, for a mother
+that way is firmly and clearly drawn; and if she fulfils it
+humbly, with a simple heart, standing on the highest point
+of good, which it is only given to a human being to attain,
+she becomes the guiding-star for all men, tending to the
+same good. Only a mother can before her death say to
+Him who sent her into this world, and to Him whom she
+has served by bearing and bringing up children, beloved
+by her more than herself,&mdash;only she can peacefully say,
+after having served Him in her appointed service,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
+
+<p>And this is that highest perfection, to which, as to the
+highest good, men aspire.</p>
+
+<p>Such women who fulfil their mission, are those who
+reign over reigning men, and serve as a guiding-star to
+humanity,&mdash;those who prepare new generations of men
+and form public opinion: and therefore in the hands of
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_240" title="240"> </a>
+these women lies the highest power of men's salvation
+from the existing and threatening evils of our time.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, women, mothers, in your hands, more than in those
+of any others, lies the salvation of the world!</p>
+
+<h2>NOTE TO CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+<p class="no-indent"><span class="small-caps">The</span> vocation of every man and woman is to serve other
+people. With this general proposition, I think all who
+are not immoral people will agree. The difference between
+men and women in the fulfilment of that vocation, is only
+in the means by which they attain it; that is to say, by
+which they serve men.</p>
+
+<p>Man serves others by physical work,&mdash;procuring food;
+by intellectual work,&mdash;studying the laws of nature in order
+to master it; and by social work,&mdash;instituting forms of
+life, and establishing mutual relationships between
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The means of serving others are various for men. The
+whole activity of mankind, with the exception of bearing
+children and rearing them, is open for his service to men.
+A woman, in addition to the possibility of serving men by
+all the means open to man is, by the construction of her
+body, called and inevitably attracted, to serve others by
+that which alone is excepted from the domain of the
+service of man.</p>
+
+<p>The service of mankind is divided into two parts,&mdash;one,
+the augmentation of the welfare of mankind; the other,
+the continuation of the race. Men are called chiefly to
+the first, as they are deprived of the possibility of fulfilling
+the second. Women are called exclusively to the second,
+as they only are fitted for it. This difference one should
+not, one can not, forget or destroy; and it would be sinful
+to do so. From this difference proceed the duties of each,&mdash;duties
+not invented by men, but which are in the nature
+of things. From the same difference proceeds the estimation
+of virtue and vice for woman and man,&mdash;the estimation
+which has existed in every century, which exists now,
+and which will never cease to exist while reason exists
+in men.</p>
+
+<p>It always has been the case, and it always will be, that
+a man who spends a great part of his life in the various
+physical and mental labours which are natural to him,
+and a woman who spends a great part of her life in the
+labour of bearing, nursing, and rearing children, which
+is her exclusive prerogative, will alike feel that they are
+doing their duty, and will alike rise in the esteem and love
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_241" title="241"> </a>
+of other people, because they both fulfil what is appointed
+because such is the substance of the matter.</p>
+
+<p>The vocation of man is broader and more varied; the
+vocation of woman more uniform and narrower, but more
+profound: and therefore it has always been, and always
+will be, the case, that man, having hundreds of duties,
+will be neither a bad nor a pernicious man, even when he
+has been false to one or ten out of them, if he fulfils the
+greater part of his vocation; while woman, as she has a
+smaller number of duties, if she is false to one of them,
+instantly falls lower than a man, who has been false to
+ten out of his hundreds of duties. Such has always been
+the general opinion, and such it will always remain,&mdash;because
+such is the substance of the matter.</p>
+
+<p>A man, in order to fulfil God's will, must serve him in
+the domain of physical work, thought and morality: in
+all these ways he can fulfil his vocation. Woman's service
+to God consists chiefly and almost exclusively in bearing
+children (because no one except herself can render it).
+Only by means of work, is man called to serve God and
+his fellow-men: only by means of her children, is a
+woman called to serve them.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, that love to her own children which is inborn
+in woman, that exclusive love against which it is quite
+vain to strive by reasoning, will always be, and ought to
+be, natural to a woman and a mother. That love to a
+child in its infancy is not egotism, it is the love of a workman
+for the work which he is doing while it is in his
+hands. Take away that love for the object of one's work,
+and the work becomes impossible. While I am making a
+boot, I love it above everything. If I did not love it, I
+could not work at it. If anybody spoils it for me, I am
+in despair; but I only love it thus while I am working at
+it. When it is completed, there remains an attachment,
+a preference, which is weak and illegitimate.</p>
+
+<p>It is the same with a mother. A man is called to serve
+others by multifarious labours, and he loves those labours
+while he is accomplishing them. A woman is called to
+serve others by her children, and she cannot help loving
+those children of hers while she is rearing them to the age
+of three, seven, or ten years.</p>
+
+<p>In the general vocation of serving God and others, man
+and woman are entirely equal, notwithstanding the difference
+of the form of that service. The equality consists in
+the equal importance of one service and of the other,&mdash;that
+the one is impossible without the other, that the one
+depends upon the other, and that for efficient service,
+<a class="pagenum" name="Page_242" title="242"> </a>
+as well for man as for woman, the knowledge of truth is
+equally necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Without this knowledge, the activity of man and woman
+becomes not useful but pernicious for mankind. Man is
+called to fulfil his multifarious labour; but his labour is
+only useful, and his physical, mental, and social labour
+is only fruitful, when it is fulfilled in the name of truth
+and the welfare of others.</p>
+
+<p>A man can occupy himself as zealously as he will to
+increase his pleasures by vain reasoning and with social
+activity for his own advantage: his labour will not be
+fruitful. It will be so only when it is directed towards
+lessening the suffering of others through want and ignorance
+and from false social organization.</p>
+
+<p>The same with woman's vocation: her bearing, nursing,
+and bringing up children will only be useful to mankind
+when she gives birth to children not only for her own
+pleasure, but when she prepares future servants of mankind;
+when the education of those children is done in the
+name of truth and for the welfare of others,&mdash;that is to
+say, when she will educate her children in such a manner
+that they shall be the very best men possible, and the
+very best labourers for others.</p>
+
+<p>The ideal woman, in my opinion, is the one who,&mdash;appropriating
+the highest view of life of the time in which
+she lives, yet gives herself to her feminine mission, which
+is irresistibly placed in her,&mdash;that of bringing forth, nursing
+and educating, the greatest possible number of
+children, fitted to work for people according to the view
+which she has of life.</p>
+
+<p>In order to appropriate the highest view of life, I think
+there is no need of visiting lectures: all that she requires
+is to read the gospel, and not to shut her eyes, ears, and,
+most of all, her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Well, and if you ask what those are to do who have no
+children, who are not married, or who are widows, I
+answer that those will do well to share man's multifarious
+labour. But one cannot help feeling sorry that such a
+precious tool as woman is, should be bereft of the possibility
+of fulfilling the great vocation which it is given to
+her alone to fulfil.</p>
+
+<p>Especially as every woman, when she has finished bearing
+children, if she has strength left, will have time to
+occupy herself with help in man's labour. Woman's help
+in that labour is very precious; but it will always be a
+pity to see a young woman fit for child-bearing occupied
+by man's labour.</p>
+
+<p><a class="pagenum" name="Page_243" title="243"> </a>To see such a woman, is the same as to see precious
+vegetable soil covered with stones as a place of parade or
+as a walking-ground. Still more a pity, because the earth
+could only produce bread, and a woman could produce
+that for which there cannot be any equivalent, than which
+there is nothing higher,&mdash;man. And only she is able to do
+this.</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE END</p>
+
+<p class="right page-break bold underlined">JUST PUBLISHED, PRICE 6d.</p>
+
+<p class="bold italic underlined sans-serif" style="margin: 1.25em auto;">NEW STORIES by LEO TOLSTOY.</p>
+
+<p class="center bold" style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.6;"><big>King Assarhadon,</big><br/>
+and other Two Stories.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>With Introduction, including quotations from
+the Letters of Leo Tolstoy.</i></p>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<p class="center" style="line-height: 1.6;"><span class="bold small-caps sans-serif">Authorized Translation</span><br/>
+<small>BY</small><br/>
+<big>V. TCHERTKOFF</big> (<i>Editor of &ldquo;The Free Age Press.&rdquo;</i>)<br/>
+AND <big>I. F. M.</big></p>
+
+<p class="center">With Frontispiece, on Plate Paper, of the latest
+Portrait of Tolstoy on Horseback, August, 1903.</p>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<p class="bold italic underlined sans-serif" style="font-size: large;">By request of Tolstoy, the profits
+of this work will be devoted to the
+relief of the families of the Jews
+massacred in Russia.</p>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<p class="center" style="line-height: 1.6;"><b>The Free Age Press</b>,<br/>
+13, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a>
+RĂ©aumur.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a>
+A sbiten-seller: <i>sbiten</i> is a hot drink made of herbs or spices and
+molasses
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a>
+The police certificate of registration as a prostitute.&mdash;<span class="small-caps">Ed.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a>
+An unfermented home-made liquor used by Russian peasants.&mdash;<span class="small-caps">Ed.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a>
+A home-made cheap fermented drink.&mdash;<span class="small-caps">Ed.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a>
+Tolstoy's village of Yasnaya Polyana is situated in this
+district.&mdash;<span class="small-caps">Ed.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="tnote-bottom">
+<p class="center"><a name="tn-bottom"><b>Transcriber's Note:</b></a></p>
+<p>The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The
+first passage is the original passage, the second the corrected one.</p>
+
+<ul id="corrections">
+<li><a href="#free-age-press">Advertisement</a>:<br/>
+eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, <span class="correction">alse</span> feelings,<br/>
+eradicate, each from himself, those false ideas, <span class="correction">false</span> feelings,
+</li>
+<li><a href="#free-age-press">Advertisement</a>:<br/>
+cloth-bound <span class="correction">volumes,</span><br/>
+cloth-bound <span class="correction">volumes.</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_5">Page 5</a>:<br/>
+put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than <span class="correction">raiment?</span><br/>
+put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than <span class="correction">raiment?&rdquo;</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_5">Page 5</a>:<br/>
+(Matt.&nbsp;<span class="correction">vi,</span> 19&ndash;25.)<br/>
+(Matt.&nbsp;<span class="correction">vi.</span> 19&ndash;25.)
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_5">Page 5</a>:<br/>
+a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.&rdquo; (Luke&nbsp;xviii. <span class="correction">25).</span><br/>
+a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.&rdquo; (Luke&nbsp;xviii. <span class="correction">25.)</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_12">Page 12</a>:<br/>
+aside by a big, black, <span class="correction">hook-nosed</span> bare-headed fellow,<br/>
+aside by a big, black, <span class="correction">hook-nosed,</span> bare-headed fellow,
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_12">Page 12</a>:<br/>
+me out of the <span class="correction">crush,.</span> But the crowd that formerly had<br/>
+me out of the <span class="correction">crush.</span> But the crowd that formerly had
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_16">Page 16</a>:<br/>
+the state of pauperism in Moscow, and <span class="correction">te</span> help exterminate<br/>
+the state of pauperism in Moscow, and <span class="correction">to</span> help exterminate
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_20">Page 20</a>:<br/>
+with his air of <span class="correction">decreptitude</span>, feebleness, and poverty.<br/>
+with his air of <span class="correction">decrepitude</span>, feebleness, and poverty.
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_29">Page 29</a>:<br/>
+He was evidently pleased to have <span class="correction">intercouse</span> with the<br/>
+He was evidently pleased to have <span class="correction">intercourse</span> with the
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_29">Page 29</a>:<br/>
+approached them, <span class="correction">Ivan</span> Fedotitch said, &ldquo;Now, here's<br/>
+approached them, <span class="correction">Iván</span> Fedotitch said, &ldquo;Now, here's
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_34">Page 34</a>:<br/>
+<span class="correction">No</span>: it is that woman's there.&rdquo;<br/>
+<span class="correction">&ldquo;No</span>: it is that woman's there.&rdquo;
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_38">Page 38</a>:<br/>
+Rzhanoff's house; where, however, three-<span class="correction">forths</span> of the men<br/>
+Rzhanoff's house; where, however, three-<span class="correction">fourths</span> of the men
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_39">Page 39</a>:<br/>
+And, strange to say, <span class="correction">thought</span> it might seem that to do<br/>
+And, strange to say, <span class="correction">though</span> it might seem that to do
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_40">Page 40</a>:<br/>
+He did not notice me and said <span class="correction">hurredly</span>,&mdash;<br/>
+He did not notice me and said <span class="correction">hurriedly</span>,&mdash;
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_54">Page 54</a>:<br/>
+<span class="correction">Chistmas</span>-tree, and so on. Yet a man who needs ten<br/>
+<span class="correction">Christmas</span>-tree, and so on. Yet a man who needs ten
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_57">Page 57</a>:<br/>
+poor people some work to <span class="correction">do.</span><br/>
+poor people some work to <span class="correction">do.&rdquo;</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_62">Page 62</a>:<br/>
+<span class="correction">if as,</span> it often happened, he shed tears in relating his misfortune,<br/>
+<span class="correction">if, as</span> it often happened, he shed tears in relating his misfortune,
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_63">Page 63</a>:<br/>
+else to the <span class="correction">poor,,</span> and in my adventures among the town<br/>
+else to the <span class="correction">poor,</span> and in my adventures among the town
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_66">Page 66</a>:<br/>
+able to do a little <span class="correction">good ;such</span> as, for instance, the poor<br/>
+able to do a little <span class="correction">good; such</span> as, for instance, the poor
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_68">Page 68</a>:<br/>
+take place in <span class="correction">a</span> ant-hill if the society of ants should lose<br/>
+take place in <span class="correction">an</span> ant-hill if the society of ants should lose
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_69">Page 69</a>:<br/>
+instead of being, as formerly, intricate, <span class="correction">incomprehensible</span><br/>
+instead of being, as formerly, intricate, <span class="correction">incomprehensible,</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_72">Page 72</a>:<br/>
+thus, rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the <span class="correction">land.owner</span>;<br/>
+thus, rent (the value of the ground) belongs to the <span class="correction">land-owner</span>;
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_77">Page 77</a>:<br/>
+cause of the fact that some <span class="correction">men</span> by means of money,<br/>
+cause of the fact that some <span class="correction">men,</span> by means of money,
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_81">Page 81</a>:<br/>
+to try to raise money in Melbourne among the <span class="correction">mrechants</span>,<br/>
+to try to raise money in Melbourne among the <span class="correction">merchants</span>,
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_86">Page 86</a>:<br/>
+This <span class="correction">phenomena</span> repeats itself in America, in China, in<br/>
+This <span class="correction">phenomenon</span> repeats itself in America, in China, in
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_89">Page 89</a>:<br/>
+<span class="small-caps">If</span> the object of this sham <span class="correction">pseudo&mdash;science</span> of Political<br/>
+<span class="small-caps">If</span> the object of this sham <span class="correction">pseudo-science</span> of Political
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_90">Page 90</a>:<br/>
+<span class="correction">violence..</span><br/>
+<span class="correction">violence.</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_100">Page 100</a>:<br/>
+assessors of direct taxation, <span class="correction">supervisers</span>, custom-house<br/>
+assessors of direct taxation, <span class="correction">supervisors</span>, custom-house
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_101">Page 101</a>:<br/>
+Its <span class="correction">advantages</span> for the oppressed is only that he is<br/>
+Its <span class="correction">advantage</span> for the oppressed is only that he is
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_101">Page 101</a>:<br/>
+This third method of enslaving men is also very <span class="correction">old,,</span><br/>
+This third method of enslaving men is also very <span class="correction">old,</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_109">Page 109</a>:<br/>
+against his will, has been <span class="correction">obiged</span> to pay a sovereign for<br/>
+against his will, has been <span class="correction">obliged</span> to pay a sovereign for
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_111">Page 111</a>:<br/>
+The violent <span class="correction">seizures</span> of the labourers' land has been<br/>
+The violent <span class="correction">seizure</span> of the labourers' land has been
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_115">Page 115</a>:<br/>
+to the work of Peter, <span class="correction">Ivan</span>, Sidor. But wherever money<br/>
+to the work of Peter, <span class="correction">Iván</span>, Sidor. But wherever money
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_115">Page 115</a>:<br/>
+on <span class="correction">Ivan</span>, at the same time it removes all those human<br/>
+on <span class="correction">Iván</span>, at the same time it removes all those human
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_116">Page 116</a>:<br/>
+<span class="correction">rouble</span>; I cut off coupons and live apart from all the<br/>
+<span class="correction">ruble</span>; I cut off coupons and live apart from all the
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_122">Page 122</a>:<br/>
+other men surrounding him, there exists a most <span class="correction">clear</span><br/>
+other men surrounding him, there exists a most <span class="correction">clear,</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_129">Page 129</a>:<br/>
+beggars with whom Moscow is filled, and the <span class="correction">woman</span> into<br/>
+beggars with whom Moscow is filled, and the <span class="correction">women</span> into
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_130">Page 130</a>:<br/>
+no girl and no <span class="correction">women</span> who is not yet depraved would,<br/>
+no girl and no <span class="correction">woman</span> who is not yet depraved would,
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_133">Page 133</a>:<br/>
+velvets, <span class="correction">sweatmeats</span>, cigarettes, and clean shirts, when<br/>
+velvets, <span class="correction">sweetmeats</span>, cigarettes, and clean shirts, when
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_134">Page 134</a>:<br/>
+It <span class="correction">maybe</span> that I shall eat human flesh when urged by<br/>
+It <span class="correction">may be</span> that I shall eat human flesh when urged by
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_140">Page 140</a>:<br/>
+ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be <span class="correction">healed</span><br/>
+ears, and understand with their heart, and turn again, and be <span class="correction">healed.</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_141">Page 141</a>:<br/>
+<span class="correction">struggle.</span><br/>
+<span class="correction">struggle?</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_143">Page 143</a>:<br/>
+A great many justifications have been <span class="correction">invented</span><br/>
+A great many justifications have been <span class="correction">invented.</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_145">Page 145</a>:<br/>
+the Middle <span class="correction">ages</span> and their citizens, knights, priests, and<br/>
+the Middle <span class="correction">Ages</span> and their citizens, knights, priests, and
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_146">Page 146</a>:<br/>
+from work, and having by violence appropriated <span class="correction">the the</span><br/>
+from work, and having by violence appropriated <span class="correction">the</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_149">Page 149</a>:<br/>
+by them. On what grounds do they believe <span class="correction">this.</span> To the<br/>
+by them. On what grounds do they believe <span class="correction">this?</span> To the
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_156">Page 156</a>:<br/>
+CHAPTER <span class="correction">XXII</span><br/>
+CHAPTER <span class="correction">XXIX</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_158">Page 158</a>:<br/>
+&ldquo;Where did it come <span class="correction">from&rdquo;?</span> &ldquo;With what purpose?&rdquo;<br/>
+&ldquo;Where did it come <span class="correction">from?&rdquo;</span> &ldquo;With what purpose?&rdquo;
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_164">Page 164</a>:<br/>
+separate <span class="correction">organism</span>; so, for instance, out of a swarm of<br/>
+separate <span class="correction">organisms</span>; so, for instance, out of a swarm of
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_170">Page 170</a>:<br/>
+that exists, therefore it must exist in human societies <span class="correction">too.&rdquo;</span><br/>
+that exists, therefore it must exist in human societies <span class="correction">too.</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_170">Page 170</a>:<br/>
+still remains, To whom is the power given, to <span class="correction">Catharine</span><br/>
+still remains, To whom is the power given, to <span class="correction">Catherine</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_172">Page 172</a>:<br/>
+in compensation for what <span class="correction">the y</span> ask him to do for them.<br/>
+in compensation for what <span class="correction">they</span> ask him to do for them.
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_175">Page 175</a>:<br/>
+already become accustomed. Give me bodily food, <span class="correction">and and</span><br/>
+already become accustomed. Give me bodily food, <span class="correction">and</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_187">Page 187</a>:<br/>
+schools? <span class="correction">They</span> they will be still poorer, and will want<br/>
+schools? <span class="correction">Then</span> they will be still poorer, and will want
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_189">Page 189</a>:<br/>
+who have freed themselves from labour <span class="correction">bceause</span> they<br/>
+who have freed themselves from labour <span class="correction">because</span> they
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_195">Page 195</a>:<br/>
+destiny, and what that of other cells similar to <span class="correction">you</span><br/>
+destiny, and what that of other cells similar to <span class="correction">you.</span>
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_205">Page 205</a>:<br/>
+<span class="correction">phenomna</span> of life surrounding me became of a sudden<br/>
+<span class="correction">phenomena</span> of life surrounding me became of a sudden
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_209">Page 209</a>:<br/>
+and <span class="correction">complicated</span> To the question, &ldquo;What have we to<br/>
+and <span class="correction">complicated.</span> To the question, &ldquo;What have we to
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_213">Page 213</a>:<br/>
+of Schopenhauer and Hartman. &ldquo;If such is <span class="correction">life,&rdquo;</span> then<br/>
+of Schopenhauer and Hartman. &ldquo;If such is <span class="correction">life,</span> then
+</li>
+<li><a href="#Page_238">Page 238</a>:<br/>
+your <span class="correction">children.</span> You do well if you spend one-tenth of<br/>
+your <span class="correction">children?</span> You do well if you spend one-tenth of
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of What Shall We Do?, by Leo Tolstoy
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