Page:Philosophical Review Volume 20.djvu/269

255 have a reward or wage for his labour; it procures him the means of subsistence, compels society to take care of his health and training; in short, it is the source of the good which he seeks as an individual member of society.

In view of all this, therefore, we can see at once not only that labour gives a man a place in a social whole of moral beings, not only that labour has a moral significance, but that labour is a form of the moral life itself. To labour is really and strictly to be moral. It is only part of the truth to say that a man's work is the sphere where he shows or can show his moral qualities, for this seems to imply that morality is one thing and his work another. Properly understood a man's labour is his moral life in one of the forms in which his moral life is lived. It is as much morality as the fulfilment of his obligations to his family, or the payment of his debts, or the telling of the truth; for in all of these alike we have primarily the same factors involved which make morality what it is,—the system of conditions connecting a man with his fellows for the common good of all, including himself.

Having thus indicated the moral meaning of labour, we may proceed to indicate its legal aspect, perhaps the more familiar aspect of the two. But before doing this we may bring out the significance of the above argument by a contrast and by some consequences. There is a form of activity dealing with objects of physical nature by physical means which has also an end in view, and yet this form of activity is not labour. I refer to 'play' or a 'game' or 'sport,' or however it be termed. The man who kicks an inflated elastic vessel about a field and assists or opposes some one who is also doing so, is not said to labour but to 'play a game'; yet he is using physical force over a physical body for an end. A man who makes a hole in the ground and propels a small ball in the direction of the hole, is also exerting physical activity, but is again, we say, 'playing,' not 'working.' What is the difference, then, between labour and play? The difference throws an instructive light on the above argument. That difference lies in the character of the end. The characteristics of a game are that its end is determined in a purely arbitrary manner, that the attainment of the end is essentially