Page:Anti-slavery and reform papers by Thoreau, Henry David.djvu/134

 Life zvitJiout Principle. 123 logic ? Ifc is pertiaeut to ask if Plato got his livlwj in a better way or more successfully than his contemporaries, — or did he succumb to the difficulties of life like other meu ? Did he seem to prevail over some of them merely by iudiffereuce, or by assumiug grand airs ? or find ic easier to live, because his aunt remembered him in her will ? The ways in which most men get their living, that is, live, are mere make-shifts, and a shirking of the real business of life, — chiefly because they do not know, but partly because they do not mean, auy better.

The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and pro- phets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society ! And that is called enterprise ! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of tj^ettina- a livingr. The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a pufl'-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did npt make this world in jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentlemen who scatters a handful of pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world's raffle ! A subsistence iii the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for ! What a comment, what a satire, on our institutions! The conclusion will be, that mankind will hancr itself upon a tree. And have all the precepts in all the Bibles