Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/478

 do what a man would do with a cart which stupid people would drag with the wheels in the air, while he would turn it over and set on the wheels on the ground. It would not break the cart and it would go easily.

Now, our life with its scorn and dislike of manual labor and our justification of this false life is the cart which we drag with the wheels in the air. And all our justifications of this work do not profit us, since we do not turn the cart over and set it where it should stand.

Such is Bondaref's idea, and I fully share it. His idea presents itself before me as follows: There was a time when men ate one another. The consciousness of the unity of all men developed to such a degree that cannibalism became impossible, and they ceased to eat one another. Then came the time when men by force took away the labor of others and reduced them to slavery. The conscience of men developed to the point that this became impossible. Violence which still persisted in hidden forms was annihilated in its coarser manifestation; man no longer openly took possession of the labor of another.

In our time there exists the form of violence in so far as men, profiting by the necessity of others, subject them to themselves. According to Bondaref's idea, the time has now come for such recognition of the unity of man that it is no longer possible for men to take advantage of others' necessities—in other words, their hunger and nakedness —to bring them into subjection, and for men, acknowledging the law of manual labor as obligatory on every one, to acknowledge their duty unconditionally, by refraining from the sale of objects of the first importance in case of necessity to feed, clothe, and house one another.

Again, on the other hand, I look on Bondaref's work as follows: We often happen to hear criticisms on the insufficiency of certain prohibitory laws or commands, that is to say, regulations concerning what must not be done. They say: Positive laws or commands are necessary, regulations are necessary as to what exactly