Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/476

 necessary that first of all men may cease dying of starvation. We forget that there may be many duties, but that there is a first and a last, and that it is impossible to fulfil the last until the first is fulfilled, just as it is impossible to harrow before the plowing is done.

Here we are recalled to this first indubitable duty in the domain of practical activity by Bondaref's teaching. Bondaref shows that the fulfilment of this obligation does not interfere with any one, presents no difficulties, and at the same time saves people from the calamity of need and superfluity. The fulfilment of this duty especially annihilates the terrible division into two classes which hate each other, and by flattery palliate their mutual hatred. Manual labor, says Bondaref, equalizes all, and clips the wings of luxury and lust.

It is impossible to plow and dig wells in costly raiment and with clean hands and after feeding on delicate food. Occupation in one sacred labor common to all brings men close together. Labor for daily bread, says Bondaref, restores reason to those that have lost it by separation from the life natural to mankind, and gives happiness and contentment to men by occupying them in work, which is undoubtedly advantageous and cheery, assigned by God Himself or by the laws of nature.

Labor for daily bread, says Bondaref, is a remedy which saves humanity. Let men acknowledge this first law as the law of God and unchangeable, let each man acknowledge it as his infallible duty to labor for his daily bread, in other words, to earn his own living with his hands, and all men will be united in faith in one God, in love to one another, and the calamities which overwhelm mankind will be done away with.

We are so accustomed to an order of life which takes the opposite for granted, that is, that wealth, as a means of freeing men from the necessity of daily labor, is either the blessing of God or the highest social position, that, if we do not examine into this position, we prefer to call it narrow, one-sided, idle, and stupid. But we must seriously consider the matter, and judge whether this stand is not just.