Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/140

136 produce; and if sometimes one does good to another, he is influenced by the instinct that binds us together and not by love.

Why do they not appreciate this love for others? My reply will be brief: Although love is an excellent virtue, it is narrow and secondary; and besides that, labor, properly speaking, includes love, while love does not include labor. We may add that labor was created by God in the terrestrial paradise, while this love came to the world four thousand years afterwards, with Moses. We see now clearly why labor is the first of all virtues, and the base of all laws. Love without labor is like a man without a head, it is dead. Love is therefore a narrow, secondary virtue.

To prove still further what I have advanced, I propose to you to make this essay: Suppress and erase all the passages in Holy Scripture which rest on love for our neighbor, and replace them by the explanation of this law, "In the sweat of thy face shaft thou knead bread." Make known these modified passages, and soon, before the close of the day, all men will be led, in spite of themselves, to love their neighbor. It is in bread, in the labor of the fields, that we must seek for the love of others. It is to demonstrate the force of this law that the laborer should direct his endeavors, if he be not also a sluggard. Idleness and luxury are, on the contrary, the principal enemies of social love. But you who have never labored, have never tasted the joys which attend the