Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/445



OU ask me why manual labor presents itself to us as one of the unavoidable conditions of true happiness. Is it necessary voluntarily to deprive ourselves of intellectual activity in the domain of science and art, which seems to us incompatible with manual labor?

I have never regarded manual labor as a special principle, but as a very simple and natural application of moral bases—an application which before all is presented to every sincere man.

In our perverted society—in the society called civilized—we need, above all things, to speak of manual labor, because the chief fault of our society has been, and up to the present time still is, the striving to rid ourselves of manual labor, and without mutual concessions to profit by the labor of the poor, uneducated, and indigent classes who are in a state of slavery akin to that which obtained in antiquity.

The first indication of sincerity on the part of the people of our class, professing Christian, philosophical or humanitarian principles, is the endeavor, as far as possible, to avoid this injustice. The simplest and most available means of attaining this is manual labor, which begins with each man attending to his own wants.

I never believe in the sincerity of the philosophical and moral principles of a man who compels a servant girl to wait on him.