Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/119

Rh may be very humble; it will not be the less useful. Never mind what it is, so long as it exists and keeps you erect! When you have regulated it, without excess—just the quantity you are able to accomplish each day—it will cause you to live in health and in joy: it will save you from the torments of the Infinite. What a healthy and great society that will be—a society each member of which will bear his reasonable share of work! A man who works is always kind. So I am convinced that the only faith that can save us is a belief in the efficacy of accomplished toil. Certainly it is pleasant to dream of eternity. But for an honest man it is enough to have lived his life, doing his work.

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M. Zola does not approve of this faith in something vague and ill-defined, which is recommended to French youth by its new guides; yet he himself advises belief in something which is neither clearer nor better defined —namely, in science and in work.

A little-known Chinese philosopher, named Lao-Tsze, who founded a religion (the first and best translation of his book, 'Of the Way of Virtue,' is that by Stanislaus Julien), takes as the foundation of his doctrine the Tao—a word that is translated as 'reason, way, and virtue.' If men follow the law of Tao they will be happy. But the Tao, according to M. Julien's translation, can only be reached by non-acting.

The ills of humanity arise, according to Lao-Tsze,not because men neglect to do things that are necessary, but because they do things that are unnecessary. If men would, as he says, but practise non-acting, they would not merely be relieved from their personal calamities, but also from those inherent in all forms of government, which is the subject specially dealt with by the Chinese philosopher.

M. Zola tells us that all should work persistently; work will make their life healthy and joyous, and will save them from the torment of the Infinite. Work! But what are we to work at? The manufacturers of, and the dealers in, opium, or tobacco, or brandy—all the speculators on the Stock Exchange, the inventors