Page:Life and Works of Abraham Lincoln, v3.djvu/134

112 sell well." "So they did use to sell well; but it was to you we sold them, and now you tell us you have nothing to buy with. Of course I cannot sell such things to the other farmers, because each of them raises enough for himself, and in fact rather wishes to sell than to buy. Neither can I send them to Europe for a market, because, to say nothing of European markets being stocked with such articles at lower prices than I can afford, they are of such a nature as to rot before they could reach there. The truth is, Vulcan, I am compelled to quit raising these things altogether, except a few for my own use; and this leaves part of my own time idle on my hands, instead of my finding employment for you."

If at any time all labor should cease, and all existing provisions be equally divided among the people, at the end of a single year there could scarcely be one human being left alive: all would have perished by want of subsistence. So, again, if upon such division all that sort of labor which produces provisions should cease, and each individual should take up so much of his share as he could, and carry it continually around his habitation, although in this carrying the amount of labor going on might be as great as ever so long as it could last, at the end of the year the result would be precisely the same—that is, none would be left living.

The first of these propositions shows that universal idleness would speedily result in universal ruin; and the second shows that useless labor is in this respect the same as idleness. I submit, then, whether it does not follow that partial