Page:Tolstoy - Essays and Letters.djvu/23

 Rh in work undoubtedly useful, and appointed by God Himself and by the laws of Nature.

Bread-labour, says Bóndaref, is a medicine to save mankind. If men acknowledged this first-born law as an unalterable law of God—if each one admitted bread-labour (to feed himself by the work of his own hands) to be his inexorable duty—all men would unite in belief in one God and in love one to another, and the suffering's which now weigh us down would be destroyed.

We are so accustomed to a way of life which assumes the opposite of this—namely, assumes that riches (means to avoid bread-labour) represent either a blessing from God or a higher social status—that, without analysing Bóndaref's proposition, we wish to consider it narrow, one-sided, empty, and stupid. But we must examine his position carefully, and consider whether it be just or not.

We weigh all kinds of religious and political theories. Let us weigh Bóndaref's also as a theory. Let us consider what the result will be if, in accord with his thought, the influence of religious teaching is directed to the elucidation of this commandment, and all men are brought to admit this sacred, first-born law of labour.

All will then work, and eat the fruit of their own labours. Corn and articles of primary necessity will cease to be objects of purchase or sale.

What will be the result?

The result will be that men will not perish from want. If from unfortunate circumstances one man fails to grow enough food for himself and his family, someone else, who from fortunate circumstances has grown too much, will supply the lack; and will do so the more readily because there is no other use for his corn, it being no longer an article of commerce. Then men will not be tempted by want to get their bread by cunning or by violence. And not being so tempted, they will not use cunning or violence; the need that now compels them will no longer exist.

If a man then still uses cunning or violence, it will