Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/189

 LEITER TO PETER VERIGIX— 11 17J

looking at all the material labours mankind lias accom- plished^ 1 cannot admit that they have done it all by mistake. As a man and not an ant, 1 see defects iu the human ant-hill, and cannot but wish to rectify them — iu that lies my share of the common work — but 1 do not wish to destroy the whole hill of human labour, but only to arranj^re better what is ill-arranired in it. And in the human ant-hill there is very much that is ill-arranired, concerning' which 1 have written and yet write, have suffered and yet suffer, and which as far as I have strength 1 try to alter.

What is wrong in our life is, first and foremost, the fact that the means are put in place of the aim, and what should be the aim (the welfare of our fellow-men) is sacri- ficed to the means. The welfare of man, even liis life itself, is sacrificed to produce things of wiiich only some are wanted by everyone, but some of which are only good to serve the ca])rice of a single man. So that human lives are sacrificed to produce articles wanted only by a few, or wanted by no one, or that are even simply harmful.

What is wrong is that people forget, have forgotten, or do not know, that (not to speak of the production of such things as looking-glasses) not even to produce the most important and necessary things — such as plough- shares or scythes — is it permissible or justifiable to sacrifice a single life, or to destroy tlie hap])iness of a single man — even the most apparently insignificant ; for the meaning of human life lies solely in the welfare of all men. '1 o infringe the life and welfare of any man for the welfare of mankind in general, is the same as if for an animal's welfare we were to cut off' one of his limbs.

'lliat is where the terrible mistake of our times is to be found ; not in the fact that printing-offices, rail- roads, and other such things exist, but in the fact that men consider it allowable to sacrifice the welfare, were it only of a single man, for the accomplishment of any business however great. As soon as people lose sight of the meaning and aim of their activity (and there is