Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/266

252 a primitive state of blessedness where nature did everything for his physical wants, and that labour therefore is a necessary evil, a kind of punishment. 'In the sweat of his brow' man has to earn his bread. This conception takes account of certain inevitable incidents of labour and regards these as its essential significance in the economy of human life. Such a view ignores altogether the positive contribution labour makes to man's well-being, first of all by the intimate association of man with his fellows which it makes possible and establishes, and secondly by the expression and development of the individual life which it brings about, through conflict with and control over the resources of nature. Even from the Hebrew point of view these results more than make up for the loss of the somewhat animal ease of a primitive state of nature, in which man doubtless may obtain without trouble the satisfaction of ordinary physical needs, but in which he must also acquiesce helplessly in the unpredictable events of nature. Still the fact of arduous struggle with its consequent diminution of vitality is undoubtedly an element in labour, even though such effort cannot be used as a principle for interpreting labour completely. This element is in part the source of the social subordination which labour entails, and of the desire which impels man to lift himself out of it either by adopting another and a higher kind of work, or by introducing machinery to perform the labour for him. The importance of this element must therefore be carefully borne in mind.

Another view lays stress exclusively on this fact of the subordination of labour and thereupon builds its conception of a labour status. Labour we saw was an activity directed towards an end which in general lies outside the actual labour itself. A man breaks up the earth's crust or builds houses or ships, not for the sake of merely doing so, but for the sake of some further end, such as food, comfort, commerce. Strictly speaking, a man never labours for the sake of labouring; if he did so, his work would pass from the sphere of toil into that of art. The end of labour thus lies outside labour; labour is a means and hence subordinate. Those who engage exclusively in labour are therefore looked upon as themselves means to some end