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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Science and Art, by Leo Tolstoy
+#14 in our series by Leo Tolstoy/Lyof Tolstoi
+
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+Title: On the Significance of Science and Art
+
+Author: Leo Tolstoy/Lyof N. Tolstoi
+
+Release Date: January, 2003 [Etext #3631]
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext of Science and Art, by Leo Tolstoy
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+This etext was produced by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk,
+from the 1887 Thomas Y. Crowell "What to Do?" edition.
+
+
+
+
+
+ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENCE AND ART.
+
+by Leo Tolstoy/Lyof Tolstoi
+
+
+
+
+Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+
+. . . {1} The justification of all persons who have freed themselves
+from toil is now founded on experimental, positive science. The
+scientific theory is as follows:-
+
+"For the study of the laws of life of human societies, there exists
+but one indubitable method,--the positive, experimental, critical
+method
+
+"Only sociology, founded on biology, founded on all the positive
+sciences, can give us the laws of humanity. Humanity, or human
+communities, are the organisms already prepared, or still in process
+of formation, and which are subservient to all the laws of the
+evolution of organisms.
+
+"One of the chief of these laws is the variation of destination
+among the portions of the organs. Some people command, others obey.
+If some have in superabundance, and others in want, this arises not
+from the will of God, not because the empire is a form of
+manifestation of personality, but because in societies, as in
+organisms, division of labor becomes indispensable for life as a
+whole. Some people perform the muscular labor in societies; others,
+the mental labor."
+
+Upon this doctrine is founded the prevailing justification of our
+time.
+
+Not long ago, their reigned in the learned, cultivated world, a
+moral philosophy, according to which it appeared that every thing
+which exists is reasonable; that there is no such thing as evil or
+good; and that it is unnecessary for man to war against evil, but
+that it is only necessary for him to display intelligence,--one man
+in the military service, another in the judicial, another on the
+violin. There have been many and varied expressions of human
+wisdom, and these phenomena were known to the men of the nineteenth
+century. The wisdom of Rousseau and of Lessing, and Spinoza and
+Bruno, and all the wisdom of antiquity; but no one man's wisdom
+overrode the crowd. It was impossible to say even this,--that
+Hegel's success was the result of the symmetry of this theory.
+There were other equally symmetrical theories,--those of Descartes,
+Leibnitz, Fichte, Schopenhauer. There was but one reason why this
+doctrine won for itself, for a season, the belief of the whole
+world; and this reason was, that the deductions of that philosophy
+winked at people's weaknesses. These deductions were summed up in
+this,--that every thing was reasonable, every thing good; and that
+no one was to blame.
+
+When I began my career, Hegelianism was the foundation of every
+thing. It was floating in the air; it was expressed in newspaper
+and periodical articles, in historical and judicial lectures, in
+novels, in treatises, in art, in sermons, in conversation. The man
+who was not acquainted with Hegal had no right to speak. Any one
+who desired to understand the truth studied Hegel. Every thing
+rested on him. And all at once the forties passed, and there was
+nothing left of him. There was not even a hint of him, any more
+than if he had never existed. And the most amazing thing of all
+was, that Hegelianism did not fall because some one overthrew it or
+destroyed it. No! It was the same then as now, but all at once it
+appeared that it was of no use whatever to the learned and
+cultivated world.
+
+There was a time when the Hegelian wise men triumphantly instructed
+the masses; and the crowd, understanding nothing, blindly believed
+in every thing, finding confirmation in the fact that it was on
+hand; and they believed that what seemed to them muddy and
+contradictory there on the heights of philosophy was all as clear as
+the day. But that time has gone by. That theory is worn out: a
+new theory has presented itself in its stead. The old one has
+become useless; and the crowd has looked into the secret sanctuaries
+of the high priests, and has seen that there is nothing there, and
+that there has been nothing there, save very obscure and senseless
+words. This has taken place within my memory.
+
+"But this arises," people of the present science will say, "from the
+fact that all that was the raving of the theological and
+metaphysical period; but now there exists positive, critical
+science, which does not deceive, since it is all founded on
+induction and experiment. Now our erections are not shaky, as they
+formerly were, and only in our path lies the solution of all the
+problems of humanity."
+
+But the old teachers said precisely the same, and they were no
+fools; and we know that there were people of great intelligence
+among them. And precisely thus, within my memory, and with no less
+confidence, with no less recognition on the part of the crowd of so-
+called cultivated people, spoke the Hegelians. And neither were our
+Herzens, our Stankevitches, or our Byelinskys fools. But whence
+arose that marvellous manifestation, that sensible people should
+preach with the greatest assurance, and that the crowd should accept
+with devotion, such unfounded and unsupportable teachings? There is
+but one reason,--that the teachings thus inculcated justified people
+in their evil life.
+
+A very poor English writer, whose works are all forgotten, and
+recognized as the most insignificant of the insignificant, writes a
+treatise on population, in which he devises a fictitious law
+concerning the increase of population disproportionate to the means
+of subsistence. This fictitious law, this writer encompasses with
+mathematical formulae founded on nothing whatever; and then he
+launches it on the world. From the frivolity and the stupidity of
+this hypothesis, one would suppose that it would not attract the
+attention of any one, and that it would sink into oblivion, like all
+the works of the same author which followed it; but it turned out
+quite otherwise. The hack-writer who penned this treatise instantly
+becomes a scientific authority, and maintains himself upon that
+height for nearly half a century. Malthus! The Malthusian theory,-
+-the law of the increase of the population in geometrical, and of
+the means of subsistence in arithmetical proportion, and the wise
+and natural means of restricting the population,--all these have
+become scientific, indubitable truths, which have not been
+confirmed, but which have been employed as axioms, for the erection
+of false theories. In this manner have learned and cultivated
+people proceeded; and among the herd of idle persons, there sprung
+up a pious trust in the great laws expounded by Malthus. How did
+this come to pass? It would seem as though they were scientific
+deductions, which had nothing in common with the instincts of the
+masses. But this can only appear so for the man who believes that
+science, like the Church, is something self-contained, liable to no
+errors, and not simply the imaginings of weak and erring folk, who
+merely substitute the imposing word "science," in place of the
+thoughts and words of the people, for the sake of impressiveness.
+
+All that was necessary was to make practical deductions from the
+theory of Malthus, in order to perceive that this theory was of the
+most human sort, with the best defined of objects. The deductions
+directly arising from this theory were the following: The wretched
+condition of the laboring classes was such in accordance with an
+unalterable law, which does not depend upon men; and, if any one is
+to blame in this matter, it is the hungry laboring classes
+themselves. Why are they such fools as to give birth to children,
+when they know that there will be nothing for the children to eat?
+And so this deduction, which is valuable for the herd of idle
+people, has had this result: that all learned men overlooked the
+incorrectness, the utter arbitrariness of these deductions, and
+their insusceptibility to proof; and the throng of cultivated, i.e.,
+of idle people, knowing instinctively to what these deductions lead,
+saluted this theory with enthusiasm, conferred upon it the stamp of
+truth, i.e., of science, and dragged it about with them for half a
+century.
+
+Is not this same thing the cause of the confidence of men in
+positive critical-experimental science, and of the devout attitude
+of the crowd towards that which it preaches? At first it seems
+strange, that the theory of evolution can in any manner justify
+people in their evil ways; and it seems as though the scientific
+theory of evolution has to deal only with facts, and that it does
+nothing else but observe facts.
+
+But this only appears to be the case.
+
+Exactly the same thing appeared to be the case with the Hegelian
+doctrine, in a greater degree, and also in the special instance of
+the Malthusian doctrine. Hegelianism was, apparently, occupied only
+with its logical constructions, and bore no relation to the life of
+mankind. Precisely this seemed to be the case with the Malthusian
+theory. It appeared to be busy itself only with statistical data.
+But this was only in appearance.
+
+Contemporary science is also occupied with facts alone: it
+investigates facts. But what facts? Why precisely these facts, and
+no others?
+
+The men of contemporary science are very fond of saying,
+triumphantly and confidently, "We investigate only facts," imagining
+that these words contain some meaning. It is impossible to
+investigate facts alone, because the facts which are subject to our
+investigation are INNUMERABLE (in the definite sense of that word),-
+-innumerable. Before we proceed to investigate facts, we must have
+a theory on the foundation of which these or those facts can be
+inquired into, i.e., selected from the incalculable quantity.
+
+And this theory exists, and is even very definitely expressed,
+although many of the workers in contemporary science do not know it,
+or often pretend that they do not know it. Exactly thus has it
+always been with all prevailing and guiding doctrines. The
+foundations of every doctrine are always stated in a theory, and the
+so-called learned men merely invent further deductions from the
+foundations once stated. Thus contemporary science is selecting its
+facts on the foundation of a very definite theory, which it
+sometimes knows, sometimes refuses to know, and sometimes really
+does not know; but the theory exists.
+
+The theory is as follows: All mankind is an undying organism; men
+are the particles of that organism, and each one of them has his own
+special task for the service of others. In the same manner, the
+cells united in an organism share among them the labor of fight for
+existence of the whole organism; they magnify the power of one
+capacity, and weaken another, and unite in one organ, in order the
+better to supply the requirements of the whole organism. And
+exactly in the same manner as with gregarious animals,--ants or
+bees,--the separate individuals divide the labor among them. The
+queen lays the egg, the drone fructifies it; the bee works his whole
+life long. And precisely this thing takes place in mankind and in
+human societies. And therefore, in order to find the law of life
+for man, it is necessary to study the laws of the life and the
+development of organisms.
+
+In the life and development of organisms, we find the following
+laws: the law of differentiation and integration, the law that
+every phenomenon is accompanied not by direct consequences alone,
+another law regarding the instability of type, and so on. All this
+seems very innocent; but it is only necessary to draw the deductions
+from all these laws, in order to immediately perceive that these
+laws incline in the same direction as the law of Malthus. These
+laws all point to one thing; namely, to the recognition of that
+division of labor which exists in human communities, as organic,
+that is to say, as indispensable. And therefore, the unjust
+position in which we, the people who have freed ourselves from
+labor, find ourselves, must be regarded not from the point of view
+of common-sense and justice, but merely as an undoubted fact,
+confirming the universal law.
+
+Moral philosophy also justified every sort of cruelty and harshness;
+but this resulted in a philosophical manner, and therefore wrongly.
+But with science, all this results scientifically, and therefore in
+a manner not to be doubted.
+
+How can we fail to accept so very beautiful a theory? It is merely
+necessary to look upon human society as an object of contemplation;
+and I can console myself with the thought that my activity, whatever
+may be its nature, is a functional activity of the organism of
+humanity, and that therefore there cannot arise any question as to
+whether it is just that I, in employing the labor of others, am
+doing only that which is agreeable to me, as there can arise no
+question as to the division of labor between the brain cells and the
+muscular cells. How is it possible not to admit so very beautiful a
+theory, in order that one may be able, ever after, to pocket one's
+conscience, and have a perfectly unbridled animal existence, feeling
+beneath one's self that support of science which is not to be shaken
+nowadays!
+
+And it is on this new doctrine that the justification for men's
+idleness and cruelty is now founded.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+
+This doctrine had its rise not so very long--fifty years--ago. Its
+principal founder was the French savant Comte. There occurred to
+Comte,--a systematist, and a religious man to boot,--under the
+influence of the then novel physiological investigations of Biche,
+the old idea already set forth by Menenius Agrippa,--the idea that
+human society, all humanity even, might be regarded as one whole, as
+an organism; and men as living parts of the separate organs, having
+each his own definite appointment to serve the entire organism.
+
+This idea so pleased Comte, that upon it he began to erect a
+philosophical theory; and this theory so carried him away, that he
+utterly forgot that the point of departure for his theory was
+nothing more than a very pretty comparison, which was suitable for a
+fable, but which could by no means serve as the foundation for
+science. He, as frequently happens, mistook his pet hypothesis for
+an axiom, and imagined that his whole theory was erected on the very
+firmest of foundations. According to his theory, it seemed that
+since humanity is an organism, the knowledge of what man is, and of
+what should be his relations to the world, was possible only through
+a knowledge of the features of this organism. For the knowledge of
+these qualities, man is enabled to take observations on other and
+lower organisms, and to draw conclusions from their life.
+Therefore, in the fist place, the true and only method, according to
+Comte, is the inductive, and all science is only such when it has
+experiment as its basis; in the second place, the goal and crown of
+sciences is formed by that new science dealing with the imaginary
+organism of humanity, or the super-organic being,--humanity,--and
+this newly devised science is sociology.
+
+And from this view of science it appears, that all previous
+knowledge was deceitful, and that the whole story of humanity, in
+the sense of self-knowledge, has been divided into three, actually
+into two, periods: the theological and metaphysical period,
+extending from the beginning of the world to Comte, and the present
+period,--that of the only true science, positive science,--beginning
+with Comte.
+
+All this was very well. There was but one error, and that was
+this,--that the whole edifice was erected on the sand, on the
+arbitrary and false assertion that humanity is an organism. This
+assertion was arbitrary, because we have just as much right to admit
+the existence of a human organism, not subject to observation, as we
+have to admit the existence of any other invisible, fantastic being.
+This assertion was erroneous, because for the understanding of
+humanity, i.e., of men, the definition of an organism was
+incorrectly constructed, while in humanity itself all actual signs
+of organism,--the centre of feeling or consciousness, are lacking.
+{2}
+
+But, in spite of the arbitrariness and incorrectness of the
+fundamental assumption of positive philosophy, it was accepted by
+the so-called cultivated world with the greatest sympathy. In this
+connection, one thing is worthy of note: that out of the works of
+Comte, consisting of two parts, of positive philosophy and of
+positive politics, only the first was adopted by the learned world,-
+-that part which justifieth, on new promises, the existent evil of
+human societies; but the second part, treating of the moral
+obligations of altruism, arising from the recognition of mankind as
+an organism, was regarded as not only of no importance, but as
+trivial and unscientific. It was a repetition of the same thing
+that had happened in the case of Kant's works. The "Critique of
+Pure Reason" was adopted by the scientific crowd; but the "Critique
+of Applied Reason," that part which contains the gist of moral
+doctrine, was repudiated. In Kant's doctrine, that was accepted as
+scientific which subserved the existent evil. But the positive
+philosophy, which was accepted by the crowd, was founded on an
+arbitrary and erroneous basis, was in itself too unfounded, and
+therefore unsteady, and could not support itself alone. And so,
+amid all the multitude of the idle plays of thought of the men
+professing the so-called science, there presents itself an assertion
+equally devoid of novelty, and equally arbitrary and erroneous, to
+the effect that living beings, i.e., organisms, have had their rise
+in each other,--not only one organism from another, but one from
+many; i.e., that in a very long interval of time (in a million of
+years, for instance), not only could a duck and a fish proceed from
+one ancestor, but that one animal might result from a whole hive of
+bees. And this arbitrary and erroneous assumption was accepted by
+the learned world with still greater and more universal sympathy.
+This assumption was arbitrary, because no one has ever seen how one
+organism is made from another, and therefore the hypothesis as to
+the origin of species will always remain an hypothesis, and not an
+experimental fact. And this hypothesis was also erroneous, because
+the decision of the question as to the origin of species--that they
+have originated, in consequence of the law of heredity and fitness,
+in the course of an interminably long time--is no solution at all,
+but merely a re-statement of the problem in a new form.
+
+According to Moses' solution of the question (in the dispute with
+whom the entire significance of this theory lies), it appears that
+the diversity of the species of living creatures proceeded according
+to the will of God, and according to His almighty power; but
+according to the theory of evolution, it appears that the difference
+between living creatures arose by chance, and on account of varying
+conditions of heredity and surroundings, through an endless period
+of time. The theory of evolution, to speak in simple language,
+merely asserts, that by chance, in an incalculably long period of
+time, out of any thing you like, any thing else that you like may
+develop.
+
+This is no answer to the problem. And the same problem is
+differently expressed: instead of will, chance is offered, and the
+co-efficient of the eternal is transposed from the power to the
+time. But this fresh assertion strengthened Comte's assertion.
+And, moreover, according to the ingenuous confession of the founder
+of Darwin's theory himself, his idea was aroused in him by the law
+of Malthus; and he therefore propounded the theory of the struggle
+of living creatures and people for existence, as the fundamental law
+of every living thing. And lo! only this was needed by the throng
+of idle people for their justification.
+
+Two insecure theories, incapable of sustaining themselves on their
+feet, upheld each other, and acquired the semblance of stability.
+Both theories bore with them that idea which is precious to the
+crowd, that in the existent evil of human societies, men are not to
+blame, and that the existing order of things is that which should
+prevail; and the new theory was adopted by the throng with entire
+faith and unheard-of enthusiasm. And behold, on the strength of
+these two arbitrary and erroneous hypotheses, accepted as dogmas of
+belief, the new scientific doctrine was ratified.
+
+Spencer, for example, in one of his first works, expresses this
+doctrine thus:-
+
+"Societies and organisms," he says, "are alike in the following
+points:-
+
+"1. In that, beginning as tiny aggregates, they imperceptibly grow
+in mass, so that some of them attain to the size of ten thousand
+times their original bulk.
+
+"2. In that while they were, in the beginning, of such simple
+structure, that they can be regarded as destitute of all structure,
+they acquire during the period of their growth a constantly
+increasing complication of structure.
+
+"3. In that although in their early, undeveloped period, there
+exists between them hardly any interdependence of parts, their parts
+gradually acquire an interdependence, which eventually becomes so
+strong, that the life and activity of each part becomes possible
+only on condition of the life and activity of the remaining parts.
+
+"4. In that life and the development of society are independent,
+and more protracted than the life and development of any one of the
+units constituting it, which are born, grow, act, reproduce
+themselves, and die separately; while the political body formed from
+them, continues to live generation after generation, developing in
+mass in perfection and functional activity."
+
+The points of difference between organisms and society go farther;
+and it is proved that these differences are merely apparent, but
+that organisms and societies are absolutely similar.
+
+For the uninitiated man the question immediately presents itself:
+"What are you talking about? Why is mankind an organism, or similar
+to an organism?"
+
+You say that societies resemble organisms in these four features;
+but it is nothing of the sort. You only take a few features of the
+organism, and beneath them you range human communities. You bring
+forward four features of resemblance, then you take four features of
+dissimilarity, which are, however, only apparent (according to you);
+and you thence conclude that human societies can be regarded as
+organisms. But surely, this is an empty game of dialectics, and
+nothing more. On the same foundation, under the features of an
+organism, you may range whatever you please. I will take the fist
+thing that comes into my head. Let us suppose it to be a forest,--
+the manner in which it sows itself in the plain, and spreads abroad.
+1. Beginning with a small aggregate, it increases imperceptibly in
+mass, and so forth. Exactly the same thing takes place in the
+fields, when they gradually seed themselves down, and bring forth a
+forest. 2. In the beginning the structure is simple: afterwards it
+increases in complication, and so forth. Exactly the same thing
+happens with the forest,--in the first place, there were only bitch-
+trees, then came brush-wood and hazel-bushes; at first all grow
+erect, then they interlace their branches. 3. The interdependence
+of the parts is so augmented, that the life of each part depends on
+the life and activity of the remaining parts. It is precisely so
+with the forest,--the hazel-bush warms the tree-boles (cut it down,
+and the other trees will freeze), the hazel-bush protects from the
+wind, the seed-bearing trees carry on reproduction, the tall and
+leafy trees afford shade, and the life of one tree depends on the
+life of another. 4. The separate parts may die, but the whole
+lives. Exactly the case with the forest. The forest does not mourn
+one tree.
+
+Having proved that, in accordance with this theory, you may regard
+the forest as an organism, you fancy that you have proved to the
+disciples of the organic doctrine the error of their definition.
+Nothing of the sort. The definition which they give to the organism
+is so inaccurate and so elastic that under this definition they may
+include what they will. "Yes," they say; "and the forest may also
+be regarded as an organism. The forest is mutual re-action of
+individuals, which do not annihilate each other,--an aggregate; its
+parts may also enter into a more intimate union, as the hive of bees
+constitutes itself an organism." Then you will say, "If that is so,
+then the birds and the insects and the grass of this forest, which
+re-act upon each other, and do not destroy each other, may also be
+regarded as one organism, in company with the trees." And to this
+also they will agree. Every collection of living individuals, which
+re-act upon each other, and do not destroy each other, may be
+regarded as organisms, according to their theory. You may affirm a
+connection and interaction between whatever you choose, and,
+according to evolution, you may affirm, that, out of whatever you
+please, any other thing that you please may proceed, in a very long
+period of time.
+
+And the most remarkable thing of all is, that this same identical
+positive science recognizes the scientific method as the sign of
+true knowledge, and has itself defined what it designates as the
+scientific method.
+
+By the scientific method it means common-sense.
+
+And common-sense convicts it at every step. As soon as the Popes
+felt that nothing holy remained in them, they called themselves most
+holy.
+
+As soon as science felt that no common-sense was left in her she
+called herself sensible, that is to say, scientific science.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+
+Division of labor is the law of all existing things, and, therefore,
+it should be present in human societies. It is very possible that
+this is so; but still the question remains, Of what nature is that
+division of labor which I behold in my human society? is it that
+division of labor which should exist? And if people regard a
+certain division of labor as unreasonable and unjust, then no
+science whatever can convince men that that should exist which they
+regard as unreasonable and unjust.
+
+Division of labor is the condition of existence of organisms, and of
+human societies; but what, in these human societies, is to be
+regarded as an organic division of labor? And, to whatever extent
+science may have investigated the division of labor in the cells of
+worms, all these observations do not compel a man to acknowledge
+that division of labor to be correct which his own sense and
+conscience do not recognize as correct. No matter how convincing
+may be the proofs of the division of labor of the cells in the
+organisms studied, man, if he has not parted with his judgment, will
+say, nevertheless, that a man should not weave calico all his life,
+and that this is not division of labor, but persecution of the
+people. Spencer and others say that there is a whole community of
+weavers, and that the profession of weaving is an organic division
+of labor. There are weavers; so, of course, there is such a
+division of labor. It would be well enough to speak thus if the
+colony of weavers had arisen by the free will of its member's; but
+we know that it is not thus formed of their initiative, but that we
+make it. Hence it is necessary to find out whether we have made
+these weavers in accordance with an organic law, or with some other.
+
+Men live. They support themselves by agriculture, as is natural to
+all men. One man has set up a blacksmith's forge, and repaired his
+plough; his neighbor comes to him, and asks him to mend his also,
+and promises him in return either work or money. A third comes, and
+a fourth; and in the community formed by these men, there arises the
+following division of labor,--a blacksmith is created. Another man
+has instructed his children well; his neighbor brings his children
+to him, and requests him to teach them also, and a teacher is
+created. But both blacksmith and teacher have been created, and
+continue to be such, merely because they have been asked; and they
+remain such as long as they are requested to be blacksmith and
+teacher. If it should come to pass that many blacksmiths and
+teachers should set themselves up, or that their work is not
+requited, they will immediately, as commonsense demands and as
+always happens when there is no occasion for disturbing the regular
+course of division of labor,--they will immediately abandon their
+trade, and betake themselves once more to agriculture.
+
+Men who behave thus are guided by their sense, their conscience; and
+hence we, the men endowed with sense and conscience, all assert that
+such a division of labor is right. But if it should chance that the
+blacksmiths were able to compel other people to work for them, and
+should continue to make horse-shoes when they were not wanted, and
+if the teachers should go on teaching when there was no one to
+teach, then it is obvious to every sane man, as a man, i.e., as a
+being endowed with reason and conscience, that this would not be
+division, but appropriation, of labor. And yet precisely that sort
+of activity is what is called division of labor by scientific
+science. People do that which others do not think of requiring, and
+demand that they shall be supported for so doing, and say that this
+is just because it is division of labor.
+
+That which constitutes the cause of the economical poverty of our
+age is what the English call over-production (which means that a
+mass of things are made which are of no use to anybody, and with
+which nothing can be done).
+
+It would be odd to see a shoemaker, who should consider that people
+were bound to feed him because he incessantly made boots which had
+been of no use to any one for a long time; but what shall we say of
+those men who make nothing,--who not only produce nothing that is
+visible, but nothing that is of use for people at large,--for whose
+wares there are no customers, and who yet demand, with the same
+boldness, on the ground of division of labor, that they shall be
+supplied with fine food and drink, and that they shall be dressed
+well? There may be, and there are, sorcerers for whose services a
+demand makes itself felt, and for this purpose there are brought to
+them pancakes and flasks; but it is difficult to imagine the
+existence of sorcerers whose spells are useless to every one, and
+who boldly demand that they shall be luxuriously supported because
+they exercise sorcery. And it is the same in our world. And all
+this comes about on the basis of that false conception of the
+division of labor, which is defined not by reason and conscience,
+but by observation, which men of science avow with such unanimity.
+
+Division of labor has, in reality, always existed, and still exists;
+but it is right only when man decides with his reason and his
+conscience that it should be so, and not when he merely investigates
+it. And reason and conscience decide the question for all men very
+simply, unanimously, and in a manner not to be doubted. They always
+decide it thus: that division of labor is right only when a special
+branch of man's activity is so needful to men, that they, entreating
+him to serve them, voluntarily propose to support him in requital
+for that which he shall do for them. But, when a man can live from
+infancy to the age of thirty years on the necks of others, promising
+to do, when he shall have been taught, something extremely useful,
+for which no one asks him; and when, from the age of thirty until
+his death, he can live in the same manner, still merely on the
+promise to do something, for which there has been no request, this
+will not be division of labor (and, as a matter of fact, there is no
+such thing in our society), but it will be what it already is,--
+merely the appropriation, by force, of the toil of others; that same
+appropriation by force of the toil of others which the philosophers
+formerly designated by various names,--for instance, as
+indispensable forms of life,--but which scientific science now calls
+the organic division of labor.
+
+The whole significance of scientific science lies in this alone. It
+has now become a distributer of diplomas for idleness; for it alone,
+in its sanctuaries, selects and determines what is parasitical, and
+what is organic activity, in the social organism. Just as though
+every man could not find this out for himself much more accurately
+and more speedily, by taking counsel of his reason and his
+conscience. It seems to men of scientific science, that there can
+be no doubt of this, and that their activity is also indubitably
+organic; they, the scientific and artistic workers, are the brain
+cells, and the most precious cells in the whole organism.
+
+Ever since men--reasoning beings--have existed, they have
+distinguished good from evil, and have profited by the fact that men
+have made this distinction before them; they have warred against
+evil, and have sought the good, and have slowly but uninterruptedly
+advanced in that path. And divers delusions have always stood
+before men, hemming in this path, and having for their object to
+demonstrate to them, that it was not necessary to do this, and that
+it was not necessary to live as they were living. With fearful
+conflict and difficulty, men have freed themselves from many
+delusions. And behold, a new and a still more evil delusion has
+sprung up in the path of mankind,--the scientific delusion.
+
+This new delusion is precisely the same in nature as the old ones;
+its gist lies in secretly leading astray the activity of our reason
+and conscience, and of those who have lived before us, by something
+external. In scientific science, this external thing is--
+investigation.
+
+The cunning of this science consists in this,--that, after pointing
+out to men the coarsest false interpretations of the activity of the
+reason and conscience of man, it destroys in them faith in their own
+reason and conscience, and assures them that every thing which their
+reason and conscience say to them, that all that these have said to
+the loftiest representatives of man heretofore, ever since the world
+has existed,--that all this is conventional and subjective. "All
+this must be abandoned," they say; "it is impossible to understand
+the truth by the reason, for we may be mistaken. But there exists
+another unerring and almost mechanical path: it is necessary to
+investigate facts."
+
+But facts must be investigated on the foundation of scientific
+science, i.e., of the two hypotheses of positivism and evolution,
+which are not borne out by any thing, and which give themselves out
+as undoubted truths. And the reigning science announces, with
+delusive solemnity, that the solution of all problems of life is
+possible only through the study of facts, of nature, and, in
+particular, of organisms. The credulous mass of young people,
+overwhelmed by the novelty of this authority, which has not yet been
+overthrown or even touched by criticism, flings itself into the
+study of natural sciences, into that sole path, which, according to
+the assertion of the reigning science, can lead to the elucidation
+of the problems of life.
+
+But the farther the disciples proceed in this study, the farther and
+farther does not only the possibility, but even the very idea, of
+the solution of the problems of life withdraw from them, and the
+more and more do they become accustomed, not so much to investigate,
+as to believe in the assertions of other investigators (to believe
+in cells, in protoplasm, in the fourth condition of bodies, and so
+forth); the more and more does the form veil the contents from them;
+the more and more do they lose the consciousness of good and evil,
+and the capacity of understanding those expressions and definitions
+of good and evil which have been elaborated through the whole
+foregoing life of mankind; and the more and more do they appropriate
+to themselves the special scientific jargon of conventional
+expressions, which possesses no universally human significance; and
+the deeper and deeper do they plunge into the debris of utterly
+unilluminated investigations; the more and more do they lose the
+power, not only of independent thought, but even of understanding
+the fresh human thought of others, which lies beyond the bounds of
+their Talmud. But the principal thing is, that they pass their best
+years in getting disused to life; they grow accustomed to consider
+their position as justifiable; and they convert themselves
+physically into utterly useless parasites, and mentally they
+dislocate their brains and become mental eunuchs. And in precisely
+the same manner, according to the measure of their folly, do they
+acquire self-conceit, which deprives them forever of all possibility
+of return to a simple life of toil, to a simple, clear, and
+universally human train of reasoning.
+
+Division of labor always has existed in human communities, and will
+probably always exist; but the question for us lies not in the fact
+that it has existed, and that it will exist, but in this,--how are
+we to govern ourselves so that this division shall be right? But if
+we take investigation as our rule of action, we by this very act
+repudiate all rule; then in that case we shall regard as right every
+division of labor which we shall descry among men, and which appears
+to us to be right--to which conclusion the prevailing scientific
+science also leads.
+
+Division of labor!
+
+Some are busied in mental or moral, others in muscular or physical,
+labor. With what confidence people enunciate this! They wish to
+think so, and it seems to them that, in point of fact, a perfectly
+regular exchange of services does take place.
+
+But we, in our blindness, have so completely lost sight of the
+responsibility which we have assumed, that we have even forgotten in
+whose name our labor is prosecuted; and the very people whom we have
+undertaken to serve have become the objects of our scientific and
+artistic activity. We study and depict them for our amusement and
+diversion. We have totally forgotten that what we need to do is not
+to study and depict them, but to serve them. To such a degree have
+we lost sight of this duty which we have taken upon us, that we have
+not even noticed that what we have undertaken to perform in the
+realm of science and art has been accomplished not by us, but by
+others, and that our place has turned out to be occupied.
+
+It proves that while we have been disputing, one about the
+spontaneous origin of organisms, another as to what else there is in
+protoplasm, and so on, the common people have been in need of
+spiritual food; and the unsuccessful and rejected of art and
+science, in obedience to the mandate of adventurers who have in view
+the sole aim of profit, have begun to furnish the people with this
+spiritual food, and still so furnish them. For the last forty years
+in Europe, and for the last ten years with us here in Russia,
+millions of books and pictures and song-books have been distributed,
+and stalls have been opened, and the people gaze and sing and
+receive spiritual nourishment, but not from us who have undertaken
+to provide it; while we, justifying our idleness by that spiritual
+food which we are supposed to furnish, sit by and wink at it.
+
+But it is impossible for us to wink at it, for our last
+justification is slipping from beneath our feet. We have become
+specialized. We have our particular functional activity. We are
+the brains of the people. They support us, and we have undertaken
+to teach them. It is only under this pretence that we have excused
+ourselves from work. But what have we taught them, and what are we
+now teaching them? They have waited for years--for tens, for
+hundreds of years. And we keep on diverting our minds with chatter,
+and we instruct each other, and we console ourselves, and we have
+utterly forgotten them. We have so entirely forgotten them, that
+others have undertaken to instruct them, and we have not even
+perceived it. We have spoken of the division of labor with such
+lack of seriousness, that it is obvious that what we have said about
+the benefits which we have conferred on the people was simply a
+shameless evasion.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+
+Science and art have arrogated to themselves the right of idleness,
+and of the enjoyment of the labor of others, and have betrayed their
+calling. And their errors have arisen merely because their
+servants, having set forth a falsely conceived principle of the
+division of labor, have recognized their own right to make use of
+the labor of others, and have lost the significance of their
+vocation; having taken for their aim, not the profit of the people,
+but the mysterious profit of science and art, and delivered
+themselves over to idleness and vice--not so much of the senses as
+of the mind.
+
+They say, "Science and art have bestowed a great deal on mankind."
+
+Science and art have bestowed a great deal on mankind, not because
+the men of art and science, under the pretext of a division of
+labor, live on other people, but in spite of this.
+
+The Roman Republic was powerful, not because her citizens had the
+power to live a vicious life, but because among their number there
+were heroic citizens. It is the same with art and science. Art and
+science have bestowed much on mankind, but not because their
+followers formerly possessed on rare occasions (and now possess on
+every occasion) the possibility of getting rid of labor; but because
+there have been men of genius, who, without making use of these
+rights, have led mankind forward.
+
+The class of learned men and artists, which has advanced, on the
+fictitious basis of a division of labor, its demands to the right of
+using the labors of others, cannot co-operate in the success of true
+science and true art, because a lie cannot bring forth the truth.
+
+We have become so accustomed to these, our tenderly reared or
+weakened representatives of mental labor, that it seems to us
+horrible that a man of science or an artist should plough or cart
+manure. It seems to us that every thing would go to destruction,
+and that all his wisdom would be rattled out of him in the cart, and
+that all those grand picturesque images which he bears about in his
+breast would be soiled in the manure; but we have become so inured
+to this, that it does not strike us as strange that our servitor of
+science--that is to say, the servant and teacher of the truth--by
+making other people do for him that which he might do for himself,
+passes half his time in dainty eating, in smoking, in talking, in
+free and easy gossip, in reading the newspapers and romances, and in
+visiting the theatres. It is not strange to us to see our
+philosopher in the tavern, in the theatre, and at the ball. It is
+not strange in our eyes to learn that those artists who sweeten and
+ennoble our souls have passed their lives in drunkenness, cards, and
+women, if not in something worse.
+
+Art and science are very beautiful things; but just because they are
+so beautiful they should not be spoiled by the compulsory
+combination with them of vice: that is to say, a man should not get
+rid of his obligation to serve his own life and that of other people
+by his own labor. Art and science have caused mankind to progress.
+Yes; but not because men of art and science, under the guise of
+division of labor, have rid themselves of the very first and most
+indisputable of human obligations,--to labor with their hands in the
+universal struggle of mankind with nature.
+
+"But only the division of labor, the freedom of men of science and
+of art from the necessity of earning them living, has rendered
+possible that remarkable success of science which we behold in our
+day," is the answer to this. "If all were forced to till the soil,
+those VAST results would not have been attained which have been
+attained in our day; there would have been none of those STRIKING
+successes which have so greatly augmented man's power over nature,
+were it not for these astronomical discoveries WHICH ARE SO
+ASTOUNDING TO THE MIND OF MAN, and which have added to the security
+of navigation; there would be no steamers, no railways, none of
+those WONDERFUL bridges, tunnels, steam-engines and telegraphs,
+photography, telephones, sewing-machines, phonographs, electricity,
+telescopes, spectroscopes, microscopes, chloroform, Lister's
+bandages, and carbolic acid."
+
+I will not enumerate every thing on which our age thus prides
+itself. This enumeration and pride of enthusiasm over ourselves and
+our exploits can be found in almost any newspaper and popular
+pamphlet. This enthusiasm over ourselves is often repeated to such
+a degree that none of us can sufficiently rejoice over ourselves,
+that we are seriously convinced that art and science have never made
+such progress as in our own time. And, as we are indebted for all
+this marvellous progress to the division of labor, why not
+acknowledge it?
+
+Let us admit that the progress made in our day is noteworthy,
+marvellous, unusual; let us admit that we are fortunate mortals to
+live in such a remarkable epoch: but let us endeavor to appraise
+this progress, not on the basis of our self-satisfaction, but of
+that principle which defends itself with this progress,--the
+division of labor. All this progress is very amazing; but by a
+peculiarly unlucky chance, admitted even by the men of science, this
+progress has not so far improved, but it has rather rendered worse,
+the position of the majority, that is to say, of the workingman.
+
+If the workingman can travel on the railway, instead of walking,
+still that same railway has burned down his forest, has carried off
+his grain under his very nose, and has brought his condition very
+near to slavery--to the capitalist. If, thanks to steam-engines and
+machines, the workingman can purchase inferior calico at a cheap
+rate, on the other hand these engines and machines have deprived him
+of work at home, and have brought him into a state of abject slavery
+to the manufacturer. If there are telephones and telescopes, poems,
+romances, theatres, ballets, symphonies, operas, picture-galleries,
+and so forth, on the other hand the life of the workingman has not
+been bettered by all this; for all of them, by the same unlucky
+chance, are inaccessible to him.
+
+So that, on the whole (and even men of science admit this), up to
+the present time, all these remarkable discoveries and products of
+science and art have certainly not ameliorated the condition of the
+workingman, if, indeed, they have not made it worse. So that, if we
+set against the question as to the reality of the progress attained
+by the arts and sciences, not our own rapture, but that standard
+upon the basis of which the division of labor is defended,--the good
+of the laboring man,--we shall see that we have no firm foundations
+for that self-satisfaction in which we are so fond of indulging.
+
+The peasant travels on the railway, the woman buys calico, in the
+isba (cottage) there will be a lamp instead of a pine-knot, and the
+peasant will light his pipe with a match,--this is convenient; but
+what right have I to say that the railway and the factory have
+proved advantageous to the people?
+
+If the peasant rides on the railway, and buys calico, a lamp, and
+matches, it is only because it is impossible to forbid the peasant's
+buying them; but surely we are all aware that the construction of
+railways and factories has never been carried out for the benefit of
+the lower classes: so why should a casual convenience which the
+workingman enjoys lead to a proof of the utility of all these
+institutions for the people?
+
+There is something useful in every injurious thing. After a
+conflagration, one can warm one's self, and light one's pipe with a
+firebrand; but why declare that the conflagration is beneficial?
+
+Men of art and science might say that their pursuits are beneficial
+to the people, only when men of art and science have assigned to
+themselves the object of serving the people, as they now assign
+themselves the object of serving the authorities and the
+capitalists. We might say this if men of art and science had taken
+as their aim the needs of the people; but there are none such. All
+scientists are busy with their priestly avocations, out of which
+proceed investigations into protoplasm, the spectral analyses of
+stars, and so on. But science has never once thought of what axe or
+what hatchet is the most profitable to chop with, what saw is the
+most handy, what is the best way to mix bread, from what flour, how
+to set it, how to build and heat an oven, what food and drink, and
+what utensils, are the most convenient and advantageous under
+certain conditions, what mushrooms may be eaten, how to propagate
+them, and how to prepare them in the most suitable manner. And yet
+all this is the province of science.
+
+I am aware, that, according to its own definition, science ought to
+be useless, i.e., science for the sake of science; but surely this
+is an obvious evasion. The province of science is to serve the
+people. We have invented telegraphs, telephones, phonographs; but
+what advances have we effected in the life, in the labor, of the
+people? We have reckoned up two millions of beetles! And we have
+not tamed a single animal since biblical times, when all our animals
+were already domesticated; but the reindeer, the stag, the
+partridge, the heath-cock, all remain wild.
+
+Our botanists have discovered the cell, and in the cell protoplasm,
+and in that protoplasm still something more, and in that atom yet
+another thing. It is evident that these occupations will not end
+for a long time to come, because it is obvious that there can be no
+end to them, and therefore the scientist has no time to devote to
+those things which are necessary to the people. And therefore,
+again, from the time of Egyptian and Hebrew antiquity, when wheat
+and lentils had already been cultivated, down to our own times, not
+a single plant has been added to the food of the people, with the
+exception of the potato, and that was not obtained by science.
+
+Torpedoes have been invented, and apparatus for taxation, and so
+forth. But the spinning-whined, the woman's weaving-loom, the
+plough, the hatchet, the chain, the rake, the bucket, the well-
+sweep, are exactly the same as they were in the days of Rurik; and
+if there has been any change, then that change has not been effected
+by scientific people.
+
+And it is the same with the arts. We have elevated a lot of people
+to the rank of great writers; we have picked these writers to
+pieces, and have written mountains of criticism, and criticism on
+the critics, and criticism on the critics of the critics. And we
+have collected picture-galleries, and have studied different schools
+of art in detail; and we have so many symphonies and orchestras and
+operas, that it is becoming difficult even for us to listen to them.
+But what have we added to the popular bylini [the epic songs],
+legends, tales, songs? What music, what pictures, have we given to
+the people?
+
+On the Nikolskaya books are manufactured for the people, and
+harmonicas in Tula; and in neither have we taken any part. The
+falsity of the whole direction of our arts and sciences is more
+striking and more apparent in precisely those very branches, which,
+it would seem, should, from their very nature, be of use to the
+people, and which, in consequence of their false attitude, seem
+rather injurious than useful. The technologist, the physician, the
+teacher, the artist, the author, should, in virtue of their very
+callings, it would seem, serve the people. And, what then? Under
+the present regime, they can do nothing but harm to the people.
+
+The technologist or the mechanic has to work with capital. Without
+capital he is good for nothing. All his acquirements are such that
+for their display he requires capital, and the exploitation of the
+laboring-man on the largest scale; and--not to mention that he is
+trained to live, at the lowest, on from fifteen hundred to two
+thousand a year, and that, therefore, he cannot go to the country,
+where no one can give him such wages,--he is, by virtue of his very
+occupation, unfitted for serving the people. He knows how to
+calculate the highest mathematical arch of a bridge, how to
+calculate the force and transfer of the motive power, and so on; but
+he is confounded by the simplest questions of a peasant: how to
+improve a plough or a cart, or how to make irrigating canals. All
+this in the conditions of life in which the laboring man finds
+himself. Of this, he neither knows nor understands any thing,--
+less, indeed, than the very stupidest peasant. Give him workshops,
+all sorts of workmen at his desire, an order for a machine from
+abroad, and he will get along. But how to devise means of
+lightening toil, under the conditions of labor of millions of men,--
+this is what he does not and can not know; and because of his
+knowledge, his habits, and his demands on life, he is unfitted for
+this business.
+
+In a still worse predicament is the physician. His fancied science
+is all so arranged, that he only knows how to heal those persons who
+do nothing. He requires an incalculable quantity of expensive
+preparations, instruments, drugs, and hygienic apparatus.
+
+He has studied with celebrities in the capitals, who only retain
+patients who can be cured in the hospital, or who, in the course of
+their cure, can purchase the appliances requisite for healing, and
+even go at once from the North to the South, to some baths or other.
+Science is of such a nature, that every rural physic-man laments
+because there are no means of curing working-men, because he is so
+poor that he has not the means to place the sick man in the proper
+hygienic conditions; and at the same time this physician complains
+that there are no hospitals, and that he cannot get through with his
+work, that he needs assistants, more doctors and practitioners.
+
+What is the inference? This: that the people's principal lack,
+from which diseases arise, and spread abroad, and refuse to be
+healed, is the lack of means of subsistence. And here Science,
+under the banner of the division of labor, summons her warriors to
+the aid of the people. Science is entirely arranged for the wealthy
+classes, and it has adopted for its task the healing of the people
+who can obtain every thing for themselves; and it attempts to heal
+those who possess no superfluity, by the same means.
+
+But there are no means, and therefore it is necessary to take them
+from the people who are ailing, and pest-stricken, and who cannot
+recover for lack of means. And now the defenders of medicine for
+the people say that this matter has been, as yet, but little
+developed. Evidently it has been but little developed, because if
+(which God forbid!) it had been developed, and that through
+oppressing the people,--instead of two doctors, midwives, and
+practitioners in a district, twenty would have settled down, since
+they desire this, and half the people would have died through the
+difficulty of supporting this medical staff, and soon there would be
+no one to heal.
+
+Scientific co-operation with the people, of which the defenders of
+science talk, must be something quite different. And this co-
+operation which should exist has not yet begun. It will begin when
+the man of science, technologist or physician, will not consider it
+legal to take from people--I will not say a hundred thousand, but
+even a modest ten thousand, or five hundred rubles for assisting
+them; but when he will live among the toiling people, under the same
+conditions, and exactly as they do, then he will be able to apply
+his knowledge to the questions of mechanics, technics, hygiene, and
+the healing of the laboring people. But now science, supporting
+itself at the expense of the working-people, has entirely forgotten
+the conditions of life among these people, ignores (as it puts it)
+these conditions, and takes very grave offence because its fancied
+knowledge finds no adherents among the people.
+
+The domain of medicine, like the domain of technical science, still
+lies untouched. All questions as to how the time of labor is best
+divided, what is the best method of nourishment, with what, in what
+shape, and when it is best to clothe one's self, to shoe one's self,
+to counteract dampness and cold, how best to wash one's self, to
+feed the children, to swaddle them, and so on, in just those
+conditions in which the working-people find themselves,--all these
+questions have not yet been propounded.
+
+The same is the case with the activity of the teachers of science,--
+pedagogical teachers. Exactly in the same manner science has so
+arranged this matter, that only wealthy people are able to study
+science, and teachers, like technologists and physicians, cling to
+money.
+
+And this cannot be otherwise, because a school built on a model plan
+(as a general rule, the more scientifically built the school, the
+more costly it is), with pivot chains, and globes, and maps, and
+library, and petty text-books for teachers and scholars and
+pedagogues, is a sort of thing for which it would be necessary to
+double the taxes in every village. This science demands. The
+people need money for their work; and the more there is needed, the
+poorer they are.
+
+Defenders of science say: "Pedagogy is even now proving of
+advantage to the people, but give it a chance to develop, and then
+it will do still better." Yes, if it does develop, and instead of
+twenty schools in a district there are a hundred, and all
+scientific, and if the people support these schools, they will grow
+poorer than ever, and they will more than ever need work for their
+children's sake. "What is to be done?" they say to this. The
+government will build the schools, and will make education
+obligatory, as it is in Europe; but again, surely, the money is
+taken from the people just the same, and it will be harder to work,
+and they will have less leisure for work, and there will be no
+education even by compulsion. Again the sole salvation is this:
+that the teacher should live under the conditions of the working-
+men, and should teach for that compensation which they give him
+freely and voluntarily.
+
+Such is the false course of science, which deprives it of the power
+of fulfilling its obligation, which is, to serve the people.
+
+But in nothing is this false course of science so obviously
+apparent, as in the vocation of art, which, from its very
+significance, ought to be accessible to the people. Science may
+fall back on its stupid excuse, that science acts for science, and
+that when it turns out learned men it is laboring for the people;
+but art, if it is art, should be accessible to all the people, and
+in particular to those in whose name it is executed. And our
+definition of art, in a striking manner, convicts those who busy
+themselves with art, of their lack of desire, lack of knowledge, and
+lack of power, to be useful to the people.
+
+The painter, for the production of his great works, must have a
+studio of at least such dimensions that a whole association of
+carpenters (forty in number) or shoemakers, now sickening or
+stifling in lairs, would be able to work in it. But this is not
+all; he must have a model, costumes, travels. Millions are expended
+on the encouragement of art, and the products of this art are both
+incomprehensible and useless to the people. Musicians, in order to
+express their grand ideas, must assemble two hundred men in white
+neckties, or in costumes, and spend hundreds of thousands of rubles
+for the equipment of an opera. And the products of this art cannot
+evoke from the people--even if the latter could at any time enjoy
+it--any thing except amazement and ennui.
+
+Writers--authors--it appears, do not require surroundings, studios,
+models, orchestras, and actors; but it then appears that the author
+needs (not to mention comfort in his quarters) all the dainties of
+life for the preparation of his great works, travels, palaces,
+cabinets, libraries, the pleasures of art, visits to theatres,
+concerts, the baths, and so on. If he does not earn a fortune for
+himself, he is granted a pension, in order that he may compose the
+better. And again, these compositions, so prized by us, remain
+useless lumber for the people, and utterly unserviceable to them.
+
+And if still more of these dealers in spiritual nourishment are
+developed further, as men of science desire, and a studio is erected
+in every village; if an orchestra is set up, and authors are
+supported in those conditions which artistic people regard as
+indispensable for themselves,--I imagine that the working-classes
+will sooner take an oath never to look at any pictures, never to
+listen to a symphony, never to read poetry or novels, than to feed
+all these persons.
+
+And why, apparently, should art not be of service to the people? In
+every cottage there are images and pictures; every peasant man and
+woman sings; many own harmonicas; and all recite stories and verses,
+and many read. It is as if those two things which are made for each
+other--the lock and the key--had parted company; they have sprung so
+far apart, that not even the possibility of uniting them presents
+itself. Tell the artist that he should paint without a studio,
+model, or costumes, and that he should paint five-kopek pictures,
+and he will say that that is tantamount to abandoning his art, as he
+understands it. Tell the musician that he should play on the
+harmonica, and teach the women to sing songs; say to the poet, to
+the author, that he ought to cast aside his poems and romances, and
+compose song-books, tales, and stories, comprehensible to the
+uneducated people,--they will say that you are mad.
+
+The service of the people by science and art will only be performed
+when people, dwelling in the midst of the common folk, and, like the
+common folk, putting forward no demands, claiming no rights, shall
+offer to the common folk their scientific and artistic services; the
+acceptance or rejection of which shall depend wholly on the will of
+the common folk.
+
+It is said that the activity of science and art has aided in the
+forward march of mankind,--meaning by this activity, that which is
+now called by that name; which is the same as saying that an
+unskilled banging of oars on a vessel that is floating with the
+tide, which merely hinders the progress of the vessel, is assisting
+the movement of the ship. It only retards it. The so-called
+division of labor, which has become in our day the condition of
+activity of men of science and art, was, and has remained, the chief
+cause of the tardy forward movement of mankind.
+
+The proofs of this lie in that confession of all men of science,
+that the gains of science and art are inaccessible to the laboring
+masses, in consequence of the faulty distribution of riches. The
+irregularity of this distribution does not decrease in proportion to
+the progress of science and art, but only increases. Men of art and
+science assume an air of deep pity for this unfortunate circumstance
+which does not depend upon them. But this unfortunate circumstance
+is produced by themselves; for this irregular distribution of wealth
+flows solely from the theory of the division of labor.
+
+ Science maintains the division of labor as a unalterable law; it
+sees that the distribution of wealth, founded on the division of
+labor, is wrong and ruinous; and it affirms that its activity, which
+recognizes the division of labor, will lead people to bliss. The
+result is, that some people make use of the labor of others; but
+that, if they shall make use of the labor of others for a very long
+period of time, and in still larger measure, then this wrongful
+distribution of wealth, i.e., the use of the labor of others, will
+come to an end.
+
+Men stand beside a constantly swelling spring of water, and are
+occupied with the problem of diverting it to one side, away from the
+thirsty people, and they assert that they are producing this water,
+and that soon enough will be collected for all. But this water
+which has flowed, and which still flows unceasingly, and nourishes
+all mankind, not only is not the result of the activity of the men
+who, standing at its source, turn it aside, but this water flows and
+gushes out, in spite of the efforts of these men to obstruct its
+flow.
+
+There have always existed a true science, and a true art; but true
+science and art are not such because they called themselves by that
+name. It always seems to those who claim at any given period to be
+the representatives of science and art, that they have performed,
+and are performing, and--most of all--that they will presently
+perform, the most amazing marvels, and that beside them there never
+has been and there is not any science or any art. Thus it seemed to
+the sophists, the scholastics, the alchemists, the cabalists, the
+talmudists; and thus it seems to our own scientific science, and to
+our art for the sake of art.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+
+"But art,--science! You repudiate art and science; that is, you
+repudiate that by which mankind lives!" People are constantly
+making this--it is not a reply--to me, and they employ this mode of
+reception in order to reject my deductions without examining into
+them. "He repudiates science and art, he wants to send people back
+again into a savage state; so what is the use of listening to him
+and of talking to him?" But this is unjust. I not only do not
+repudiate art and science, but, in the name of that which is true
+art and true science, I say that which I do say; merely in order
+that mankind may emerge from that savage state into which it will
+speedily fall, thanks to the erroneous teaching of our time,--only
+for this purpose do I say that which I say.
+
+Art and science are as indispensable as food and drink and
+clothing,--more indispensable even; but they become so, not because
+we decide that what we designate as art and science are
+indispensable, but simply because they really are indispensable to
+people.
+
+Surely, if hay is prepared for the bodily nourishment of men, the
+fact that we are convinced that hay is the proper food for man will
+not make hay the food of man. Surely I cannot say, "Why do not you
+eat hay, when it is the indispensable food?" Food is indispensable,
+but it may happen that that which I offer is not food at all. This
+same thing has occurred with our art and science. It seems to us,
+that if we add to a Greek word the word "logy," and call that a
+science, it will be a science; and, if we call any abominable thing-
+-like the dancing of nude females--by a Greek word, choreography,
+that that is art, and that it will be art. But no matter how much
+we may say this, the business with which we occupy ourselves when we
+count beetles, and investigate the chemical constituents of the
+stars in the Milky Way, when we paint nymphs and compose novels and
+symphonies,--our business will not become either art or science
+until such time as it is accepted by those people for whom it is
+wrought.
+
+If it were decided that only certain people should produce food, and
+if all the rest were forbidden to do this, or if they were rendered
+incapable of producing food, I suppose that the quality of food
+would be lowered. If the people who enjoyed the monopoly of
+producing food were Russian peasants, there would be no other food
+than black bread and cabbage-soup, and so on, and kvas,--nothing
+except what they like, and what is agreeable to them. The same
+thing would happen in the case of that loftiest human pursuit, of
+arts and sciences, if one caste were to arrogate to itself a
+monopoly of them: but with this sole difference, that, in the
+matter of bodily food, there can be no great departure from nature,
+and bread and cabbage-soup, although not very savory viands, are fit
+for consumption; but in spiritual food, there may exist the very
+greatest departures from nature, and some people may feed themselves
+for a long time on poisonous spiritual nourishment, which is
+directly unsuitable for, or injurious to, them; they may slowly kill
+themselves with spiritual opium or liquors, and they may offer this
+same food to the masses.
+
+It is this very thing that is going on among us. And it has come
+about because the position of men of science and art is a privileged
+one, because art and science (in our day), in our world, are not at
+all a rational occupation of all mankind without exception, exerting
+their best powers for the service of art and science, but an
+occupation of a restricted circle of people holding a monopoly of
+these industries, and entitling themselves men of art and science,
+and who have, therefore, perverted the very idea of art and science,
+and have lost all the meaning of their vocation, and who are only
+concerned in amusing and rescuing from crushing ennui their tiny
+circle of idle mouths.
+
+Ever since men have existed, they have always had science and art in
+the simplest and broadest sense of the term. Science, in the sense
+of the whole of knowledge acquired by mankind, exists and always has
+existed, and life without it is not conceivable; and there is no
+possibility of either attacking or defending science, taken in this
+sense.
+
+But the point lies here,--that the scope of the knowledge of all
+mankind as a whole is so multifarious, ranging from the knowledge of
+how to extract iron to the knowledge of the movements of the
+planets, that man loses himself in this multitude of existing
+knowledge,--knowledge capable of ENDLESS possibilities, if he have
+no guiding thread, by the aid of which he can classify this
+knowledge, and arrange the branches according to the degrees of
+their significance and importance.
+
+Before a man undertakes to learn any thing whatever, he must make up
+his mind that that branch of knowledge is of weight to him, and of
+more weight and importance than the countless other objects of study
+with which he is surrounded. Before undertaking the study of any
+thing, a man decides for what purpose he is studying this subject,
+and not the others. But to study every thing, as the men of
+scientific science in our day preach, without any idea of what is to
+come out of such study, is downright impossible, because the number
+of subjects of study is ENDLESS; and hence, no matter how many
+branches we may acquire, their acquisition can possess no
+significance or reason. And, therefore, in ancient times, down to
+even a very recent date, until the appearance of scientific science,
+man's highest wisdom consisted in finding that guiding thread,
+according to which the knowledge of men should be classified as
+being of primary or of secondary importance. And this knowledge,
+which forms the guide to all other branches of knowledge, men have
+always called science in the strictest acceptation of the word. And
+such science there has always been, even down to our own day, in all
+human communities which have emerged from their primal state of
+savagery.
+
+Ever since mankind has existed, teachers have always arisen among
+peoples, who have enunciated science in this restricted sense,--the
+science of what it is most useful for man to know. This science has
+always had for its object the knowledge of what is the true ground
+of the well-being of each individual man, and of all men, and why.
+Such was the science of Confucius, of Buddha, of Socrates, of
+Mahomet, and of others; such is this science as they understood it,
+and as all men--with the exception of our little circle of so-called
+cultured people--understand it. This science has not only always
+occupied the highest place, but has been the only and sole science,
+from which the standing of the rest has been determined. And this
+was the case, not in the least because, as the so-called scientific
+people of our day think, cunning priestly teachers of this science
+attributed to it such significance, but because in reality, as every
+one knows, both by personal experience and by reflection, there can
+be no science except the science of that in which the destiny and
+welfare of man consist. For the objects of science are INCALCULABLE
+in number,--I undermine the word "incalculable" in the exact sense
+in which I understand it,--and without the knowledge of that in
+which the destiny and welfare of all men consist, there is no
+possibility of making a choice amid this interminable multitude of
+subjects; and therefore, without this knowledge, all other arts and
+branches of learning will become, as they have become among us, an
+idle and hurtful diversion.
+
+Mankind has existed and existed, and never has it existed without
+the science of that in which the destiny and the welfare of men
+consist. It is true that the science of the welfare of men appears
+different on superficial observation, among the Buddhists, the
+Brahmins, the Hebrews, the Confucians, the Tauists; but
+nevertheless, wherever we hear of men who have emerged from a state
+of savagery, we find this science. And all of a sudden it appears
+that the men of our day have decided that this same science, which
+has hitherto served as the guiding thread of all human knowledge, is
+the very thing which hinders every thing. Men erect buildings; and
+one architect has made one estimate of cost, a second has made
+another, and a third yet another. The estimates differ somewhat;
+but they are correct, so that any one can see, that, if the whole is
+carried out in accordance with the calculations, the building will
+be erected. Along come people, and assert that the chief point lies
+in having no estimates, and that it should be built thus--by the
+eye. And this "thus," men call the most accurate of scientific
+science. Men repudiate every science, the very substance of
+science,--the definition of the destiny and the welfare of men,--and
+this repudiation they designate as science.
+
+Ever since men have existed, great minds have been born into their
+midst, which, in the conflict with reason and conscience, have put
+to themselves questions as to "what constitutes welfare,--the
+destiny and welfare, not of myself alone, but of every man?" What
+does that power which has created and which leads me, demand of me
+and of every man? And what is it necessary for me to do, in order
+to comply with the requirements imposed upon me by the demands of
+individual and universal welfare? They have asked themselves: "I
+am a whole, and also a part of something infinite, eternal; what,
+then, are my relations to other parts similar to myself, to men and
+to the whole--to the world?"
+
+And from the voices of conscience and of reason, and from a
+comparison of what their contemporaries and men who had lived before
+them, and who had propounded to themselves the same questions, had
+said, these great teachers have deduced their doctrines, which were
+simple, clear, intelligible to all men, and always such as were
+susceptible of fulfilment. Such men have existed of the first,
+second, third, and lowest ranks. The world is full of such men.
+Every living man propounds the question to himself, how to reconcile
+the demands of welfare, and of his personal existence, with
+conscience and reason; and from this universal labor, slowly but
+uninterruptedly, new forms of life, which are more in accord with
+the requirements of reason and of conscience, are worked out.
+
+All at once, a new caste of people makes its appearance, and they
+say, "All this is nonsense; all this must be abandoned." This is
+the deductive method of ratiocination (wherein lies the difference
+between the deductive and the inductive method, no one can
+understand); these are the dogmas of the technological and
+metaphysical period. Every thing that these men discover by inward
+experience, and which they communicate to one another, concerning
+their knowledge of the law of their existence (of their functional
+activity, according to their own jargon), every thing that the
+grandest minds of mankind have accomplished in this direction, since
+the beginning of the world,--all this is nonsense, and has no weight
+whatever. According to this new doctrine, it appears that you are
+cells: and that you, as a cell, have a very definite functional
+activity, which you not only fulfil, but which you infallibly feel
+within you; and that you are a thinking, talking, understanding
+cell, and that you, for this reason, can ask another similar talking
+cell whether it is just the same, and in this way verify your own
+experience; that you can take advantage of the fact that speaking
+cells, which have lived before you, have written on the same
+subject, and that you have millions of cells which confirm your
+observations by their agreement with the cells which have written
+down their thoughts,--all this signifies nothing; all this is an
+evil and an erroneous method.
+
+The true scientific method is this: If you wish to know in what the
+destiny and the welfare of all mankind and of all the world
+consists, you must, first of all, cease to listen to the voices of
+your conscience and of your reason, which present themselves in you
+and in others like you; you must cease to believe all that the great
+teachers of mankind have said with regard to your conscience and
+reason, and you must consider all this as nonsense, and begin all
+over again. And, in order to understand every thing from the
+beginning, you must look through microscopes at the movements of
+amoebae, and cells in worms, or, with still greater composure,
+believe in every thing that men with a diploma of infallibility
+shall say to you about them. And as you gaze at the movements of
+these cells, or read about what others have seen, you must attribute
+to these cells your own human sensations and calculations as to what
+they desire, whither they are directing themselves, how they compare
+and discuss, and to what they have become accustomed; and from these
+observations (in which there is not a word about an error of thought
+or of expression) you must deduce a conclusion by analogy as to what
+you are, what is your destiny, wherein lies the welfare of yourself
+and of other cells like you. In order to understand yourself, you
+must study not only the worms which you see, but microscopic
+creatures which you can barely see, and transformations from one set
+of creatures into others, which no one has ever beheld, and which
+you, most assuredly, will never behold. And the same with art.
+Where there has been true science, art has always been its exponent.
+
+Ever since men have been in existence, they have been in the habit
+of deducing, from all pursuits, the expressions of various branches
+of learning concerning the destiny and the welfare of man, and the
+expression of this knowledge has been art in the strict sense of the
+word.
+
+Ever since men have existed, there have been those who were
+peculiarly sensitive and responsive to the doctrine regarding the
+destiny and welfare of man; who have given expression to their own
+and the popular conflict, to the delusions which lead them astray
+from their destinies, their sufferings in this conflict, their hopes
+in the triumph of good, them despair over the triumph of evil, and
+their raptures in the consciousness of the approaching bliss of man,
+on viol and tabret, in images and words. Always, down to the most
+recent times, art has served science and life,--only then was it
+what has been so highly esteemed of men. But art, in its capacity
+of an important human activity, disappeared simultaneously with the
+substitution for the genuine science of destiny and welfare, of the
+science of any thing you choose to fancy. Art has existed among all
+peoples, and will exist until that which among us is scornfully
+called religion has come to be considered the only science.
+
+In our European world, so long as there existed a Church, as the
+doctrine of destiny and welfare, and so long as the Church was
+regarded as the only true science, art served the Church, and
+remained true art: but as soon as art abandoned the Church, and
+began to serve science, while science served whatever came to hand,
+art lost its significance. And notwithstanding the rights claimed
+on the score of ancient memories, and of the clumsy assertion which
+only proves its loss of its calling, that art serves art, it has
+become a trade, providing men with something agreeable; and as such,
+it inevitably comes into the category of choreographic, culinary,
+hair-dressing, and cosmetic arts, whose practitioners designate
+themselves as artists, with the same right as the poets, printers,
+and musicians of our day.
+
+Glance backward into the past, and you will see that in the course
+of thousands of years, out of milliards of people, only half a score
+of Confucius', Buddhas, Solomons, Socrates, Solons, and Homers have
+been produced. Evidently, they are rarely met with among men, in
+spite of the fact that these men have not been selected from a
+single caste, but from mankind at large. Evidently, these true
+teachers and artists and learned men, the purveyors of spiritual
+nourishment, are rare. And it is not without reason that mankind
+has valued and still values them so highly.
+
+But it now appears, that all these great factors in the science and
+art of the past are no longer of use to us. Nowadays, scientific
+and artistic authorities can, in accordance with the law of division
+of labor, be turned out by factory methods; and, in one decade, more
+great men have been manufactured in art and science, than have ever
+been born of such among all nations, since the foundation of the
+world. Nowadays there is a guild of learned men and artists, and
+they prepare, by perfected methods, all that spiritual food which
+man requires. And they have prepared so much of it, that it is no
+longer necessary to refer to the elder authorities, who have
+preceded them,--not only to the ancients, but to those much nearer
+to us. All that was the activity of the theological and
+metaphysical period,--all that must be wiped out: but the true, the
+rational activity began, say, fifty years ago, and in the course of
+those fifty years we have made so many great men, that there are
+about ten great men to every branch of science. And there have come
+to be so many sciences, that, fortunately, it is easy to make them.
+All that is required is to add the Greek word "logy" to the name,
+and force them to conform to a set rubric, and the science is all
+complete. They have created so many sciences, that not only can no
+one man know them all, but not a single individual can remember all
+the titles of all the existing sciences; the titles alone form a
+thick lexicon, and new sciences are manufactured every day. They
+have been manufactured on the pattern of that Finnish teacher who
+taught the landed proprietor's children Finnish instead of French.
+Every thing has been excellently inculcated; but there is one
+objection,--that no one except ourselves can understand any thing of
+it, and all this is reckoned as utterly useless nonsense. However,
+there is an explanation even for this. People do not appreciate the
+full value of scientific science, because they are under the
+influence of the theological period, that profound period when all
+the people, both among the Hebrews, and the Chinese, and the
+Indians, and the Greeks, understood every thing that their great
+teachers said to them.
+
+But, from whatever cause this has come about, the fact remains, that
+sciences and arts have always existed among mankind, and, when they
+really did exist, they were useful and intelligible to all the
+people. But we practise something which we call science and art,
+but it appears that what we do is unnecessary and unintelligible to
+man. And hence, however beautiful may be the things that we
+accomplish, we have no right to call them arts and sciences.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+
+"But you only furnish a different definition of arts and sciences,
+which is stricter, and is incompatible with science," I shall be
+told in answer to this; "nevertheless, scientific and artistic
+activity does still exist. There are the Galileos, Brunos, Homers,
+Michael Angelos, Beethovens, and all the lesser learned men and
+artists, who have consecrated their entire lives to the service of
+science and art, and who were, and will remain, the benefactors of
+mankind."
+
+Generally this is what people say, striving to forget that new
+principle of the division of labor, on the basis of which science
+and art now occupy their privileged position, and on whose basis we
+are now enabled to decide without grounds, but by a given standard:
+Is there, or is there not, any foundation for that activity which
+calls itself science and art, to so magnify itself?
+
+When the Egyptian or the Grecian priests produced their mysteries,
+which were unintelligible to any one, and stated concerning these
+mysteries that all science and all art were contained in them, I
+could not verify the reality of their science on the basis of the
+benefit procured by them to the people, because science, according
+to their assertions, was supernatural. But now we all possess a
+very simple and clear definition of the activity of art and science,
+which excludes every thing supernatural: science and art promise to
+carry out the mental activity of mankind, for the welfare of
+society, or of all the human race.
+
+The definition of scientific science and art is entirely correct;
+but, unfortunately, the activity of the present arts and sciences
+does not come under this head. Some of them are directly injurious,
+others are useless, others still are worthless,--good only for the
+wealthy. They do not fulfil that which, by their own definition,
+they have undertaken to accomplish; and hence they have as little
+right to regard themselves as men of art and science, as a corrupt
+priesthood, which does not fulfil the obligations which it has
+assumed, has the right to regard itself as the bearer of divine
+truth.
+
+And it can be understood why the makers of the present arts and
+sciences have not fulfilled, and cannot fulfil, their vocation.
+They do not fulfil it, because out of their obligations they have
+erected a right.
+
+Scientific and artistic activity, in its real sense, is only
+fruitful when it knows no rights, but recognizes only obligations.
+Only because it is its property to be always thus, does mankind so
+highly prize this activity. If men really were called to the
+service of others through artistic work, they would see in that work
+only obligation, and they would fulfil it with toil, with
+privations, and with self-abnegation.
+
+The thinker or the artist will never sit calmly on Olympian heights,
+as we have become accustomed to represent them to ourselves. The
+thinker or the artist should suffer in company with the people, in
+order that he may find salvation or consolation. Besides this, he
+will suffer because he is always and eternally in turmoil and
+agitation: he might decide and say that that which would confer
+welfare on men, would free them from suffering, would afford them
+consolation; but he has not said so, and has not presented it as he
+should have done; he has not decided, and he has not spoken; and to-
+morrow, possibly, it will be too late,--he will die. And therefore
+suffering and self-sacrifice will always be the lot of the thinker
+and the artist.
+
+Not of this description will be the thinker and artist who is reared
+in an establishment where, apparently, they manufacture the learned
+man or the artist (but in point of fact, they manufacture destroyers
+of science and of art), who receives a diploma and a certificate,
+who would be glad not to think and not to express that which is
+imposed on his soul, but who cannot avoid doing that to which two
+irresistible forces draw him,--an inward prompting, and the demand
+of men.
+
+There will be no sleek, plump, self-satisfied thinkers and artists.
+Spiritual activity, and its expression, which are actually necessary
+to others, are the most burdensome of all man's avocations; a cross,
+as the Gospels phrase it. And the sole indubitable sign of the
+presence of a vocation is self-devotion, the sacrifice of self for
+the manifestation of the power that is imposed upon man for the
+benefit of others.
+
+It is possible to study out how many beetles there are in the world,
+to view the spots on the sun, to write romances and operas, without
+suffering; but it is impossible, without self-sacrifice, to instruct
+people in their true happiness, which consists solely in
+renunciation of self and the service of others, and to give strong
+expression to this doctrine, without self-sacrifice.
+
+Christ did not die on the cross in vain; not in vain does the
+sacrifice of suffering conquer all things.
+
+But our art and science are provided with certificates and diplomas;
+and the only anxiety of all men is, how to still better guarantee
+them, i.e., how to render the service of the people impracticable
+for them.
+
+True art and true science possess two unmistakable marks: the
+first, an inward mark, which is this, that the servitor of art and
+science will fulfil his vocation, not for profit but with self-
+sacrifice; and the second, an external sign,--his productions will
+be intelligible to all the people whose welfare he has in view.
+
+No matter what people have fixed upon as their vocation and their
+welfare, science will be the doctrine of this vocation and welfare,
+and art will be the expression of that doctrine. That which is
+called science and art, among us, is the product of idle minds and
+feelings, which have for their object to tickle similar idle minds
+and feelings. Our arts and sciences are incomprehensible, and say
+nothing to the people, for they have not the welfare of the common
+people in view.
+
+Ever since the life of men has been known to us, we find, always and
+everywhere, the reigning doctrine falsely designating itself as
+science, not manifesting itself to the common people, but obscuring
+for them the meaning of life. Thus it was among the Greeks the
+sophists, then among the Christians the mystics, gnostics,
+scholastics, among the Hebrews the Talmudists and Cabalists, and so
+on everywhere, down to our own times.
+
+How fortunate it is for us that we live in so peculiar an age, when
+that mental activity which calls itself science, not only does not
+err, but finds itself, as we are assured, in a remarkably
+flourishing condition! Does not this peculiar good fortune arise
+from the fact that man can not and will not see his own hideousness?
+Why is there nothing left of those sciences, and sophists, and
+Cabalists, and Talmudists, but words, while we are so exceptionally
+happy? Surely the signs are identical. There is the same self-
+satisfaction and blind confidence that we, precisely we, and only
+we, are on the right path, and that the real thing is only beginning
+with us. There is the same expectation that we shall discover
+something remarkable; and that chief sign which leads us astray
+convicts us of our error: all our wisdom remains with us, and the
+common people do not understand, and do not accept, and do not need
+it.
+
+Our position is a very difficult one, but why not look at it
+squarely?
+
+It is time to recover our senses, and to scrutinize ourselves.
+Surely we are nothing else than the scribes and Pharisees, who sit
+in Moses' seat, and who have taken the keys of the kingdom of
+heaven, and will neither go in ourselves, nor permit others to go
+in. Surely we, the high priests of science and art, are ourselves
+worthless deceivers, possessing much less right to our position than
+the most crafty and depraved priests. Surely we have no
+justification for our privileged position. The priests had a right
+to their position: they declared that they taught the people life
+and salvation. But we have taken their place, and we do not
+instruct the people in life,--we even admit that such instruction is
+unnecessary,--but we educate our children in the same Talmudic-Greek
+and Latin grammar, in order that they may be able to pursue the same
+life of parasites which we lead ourselves. We say, "There used to
+be castes, but there are none among us." But what does it mean,
+that some people and their children toil, while other people and
+their children do not toil?
+
+Bring hither an Indian ignorant of our language, and show him
+European life, and our life, for several generations, and he will
+recognize the same leading, well-defined castes--of laborers and
+non-laborers--as there are in his own country. And as in his land,
+so in ours, the right of refusing to labor is conferred by a
+peculiar consecration, which we call science and art, or, in general
+terms, culture. It is this culture, and all the distortions of
+sense connected with it, which have brought us to that marvellous
+madness, in consequence of which we do not see that which is so
+clear and indubitable.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+
+Then, what is to be done? What are we to do?
+
+This question, which includes within itself both an admission that
+our life is evil and wrong, and in connection with this,--as though
+it were an exercise for it,--that it is impossible, nevertheless, to
+change it, this question I have heard, and I continue to hear, on
+all sides. I have described my own sufferings, my own gropings, and
+my own solution of this question. I am the same kind of a man as
+everybody else; and if I am in any wise distinguished from the
+average man of our circle, it is chiefly in this respect, that I,
+more than the average man, have served and winked at the false
+doctrine of our world; I have received more approbation from men
+professing the prevailing doctrine: and therefore, more than
+others, have I become depraved, and wandered from the path. And
+therefore I think that the solution of the problem, which I have
+found in my own case, will be applicable to all sincere people who
+are propounding the same question to themselves.
+
+First of all, in answer to the question, "What is to be done?" I
+told myself: "I must lie neither to other people nor to myself. I
+must not fear the truth, whithersoever it may lead me."
+
+We all know what it means to lie to other people, but we are not
+afraid to lie to ourselves; yet the very worst downright lie, to
+other people, is not to be compared in its consequences with the lie
+to ourselves, upon which we base our whole life.
+
+This is the lie of which we must not be guilty if we are to be in a
+position to answer the question: "What is to be done?" And, in
+fact, how am I to answer the question, "What is to be done?" when
+every thing that I do, when my whole life, is founded on a lie, and
+when I carefully parade this lie as the truth before others and
+before myself? Not to lie, in this sense, means not to fear the
+truth, not to devise subterfuges, and not to accept the subterfuges
+devised by others for the purpose of hiding from myself the
+deductions of my reason and my conscience; not to fear to part
+company with all those who surround me, and to remain alone in
+company with reason and conscience; not to fear that position to
+which the truth shall lead me, being firmly convinced that that
+position to which truth and conscience shall conduct me, however
+singular it may be, cannot be worse than the one which is founded on
+a lie. Not to lie, in our position of privileged persons of mental
+labor, means, not to be afraid to reckon one's self up wrongly. It
+is possible that you are already so deeply indebted that you cannot
+take stock of yourself; but to whatever extent this may be the case,
+however long may be the account, however far you have strayed from
+the path, it is still better than to continue therein. A lie to
+other people is not alone unprofitable; every matter is settled more
+directly and more speedily by the truth than by a lie. A lie to
+others only entangles matters, and delays the settlement; but a lie
+to one's self, set forth as the truth, ruins a man's whole life. If
+a man, having entered on the wrong path, assumes that it is the true
+one, then every step that he takes on that path removes him farther
+from his goal. If a man who has long been travelling on this false
+path divines for himself, or is informed by some one, that his
+course is a mistaken one, but grows alarmed at the idea that he has
+wandered very far astray and tries to convince himself that he may,
+possibly, still strike into the right road, then he never will get
+into it. If a man quails before the truth, and, on perceiving it,
+does not accept it, but does accept a lie for the truth, then he
+never will learn what he ought to do. We, the not only wealthy, but
+privileged and so-called cultivated persons, have advanced so far on
+the wrong road, that a great deal of determination, or a very great
+deal of suffering on the wrong road, is required, in order to bring
+us to our senses and to the acknowledgment of the lie in which we
+are living. I have perceived the lie of our lives, thanks to the
+sufferings which the false path entailed upon me, and, having
+recognized the falseness of this path on which I stood, I have had
+the boldness to go at first in thought only--whither reason and
+conscience led me, without reflecting where they would bring me out.
+And I have been rewarded for this boldness.
+
+All the complicated, broken, tangled, and incoherent phenomena of
+life surrounding me, have suddenly become clear; and my position in
+the midst of these phenomena, which was formerly strange and
+burdensome, has become, all at once, natural, and easy to bear.
+
+In this new position, my activity was defined with perfect accuracy;
+not at all as it had previously presented itself to me, but as a new
+and much more peaceful, loving, and joyous activity. The very thing
+which had formerly terrified me, now began to attract me. Hence I
+think, that the man who will honestly put to himself the question,
+"What is to be done?" and, replying to this query, will not lie to
+himself, but will go whither his reason leads, has already solved
+the problem.
+
+There is only one thing that can hinder him in his search for an
+issue,--an erroneously lofty idea of himself and of his position.
+This was the case with me; and then another, arising from the first
+answer to the question: "What is to be done?" consisted for me in
+this, that it was necessary for me to repent, in the full sense of
+that word,--i.e., to entirely alter my conception of my position and
+my activity; to confess the hurtfulness and emptiness of my
+activity, instead of its utility and gravity; to confess my own
+ignorance instead of culture; to confess my immorality and harshness
+in the place of my kindness and morality; instead of my elevation,
+to acknowledge my lowliness. I say, that in addition to not lying
+to myself, I had to repent, because, although the one flows from the
+other, a false conception of my lofty importance had so grown up
+with me, that, until I sincerely repented and cut myself free from
+that false estimate which I had formed of myself, I did not perceive
+the greater part of the lie of which I had been guilty to myself.
+Only when I had repented, that is to say, when I had ceased to look
+upon myself as a regular man, and had begun to regard myself as a
+man exactly like every one else,--only then did my path become clear
+before me. Before that time I had not been able to answer the
+question: "What is to be done?" because I had stated the question
+itself wrongly.
+
+As long as I did not repent, I put the question thus: "What sphere
+of activity should I choose, I, the man who has received the
+education and the talents which have fallen to my shame? How, in
+this fashion, make recompense with that education and those talents,
+for what I have taken, and for what I still take, from the people?"
+This question was wrong, because it contained a false
+representation, to the effect that I was not a man just like them,
+but a peculiar man called to serve the people with those talents and
+with that education which I had won by the efforts of forty years.
+
+I propounded the query to myself; but, in reality, I had answered it
+in advance, in that I had in advance defined the sort of activity
+which was agreeable to me, and by which I was called upon to serve
+the people. I had, in fact, asked myself: "In what manner could I,
+so very fine a writer, who had acquired so much learning and
+talents, make use of them for the benefit of the people?"
+
+But the question should have been put as it would have stood for a
+learned rabbi who had gone through the course of the Talmud, and had
+learned by heart the number of letters in all the holy books, and
+all the fine points of his art. The question for me, as for the
+rabbi, should stand thus: "What am I, who have spent, owing to the
+misfortune of my surroundings, the year's best fitted for study in
+the acquisition of grammar, geography, judicial science, poetry,
+novels and romances, the French language, pianoforte playing,
+philosophical theories, and military exercises, instead of inuring
+myself to labor; what am I, who have passed the best years of my
+life in idle occupations which are corrupting to the soul,--what am
+I to do in defiance of these unfortunate conditions of the past, in
+order that I may requite those people who during the whole time have
+fed and clothed, yes, and who even now continue to feed and clothe
+me?" Had the question then stood as it stands before me now, after
+I have repented,--"What am I, so corrupt a man, to do?" the answer
+would have been easy: "To strive, first of all, to support myself
+honestly; that is, to learn not to live upon others; and while I am
+learning, and when I have learned this, to render aid on all
+possible occasions to the people, with my hands, and my feet, and my
+brain, and my heart, and with every thing to which the people should
+present a claim."
+
+And therefore I say, that for the man of our circle, in addition to
+not lying to himself or to others, repentance is also necessary, and
+that he should scrape from himself that pride which has sprung up in
+us, in our culture, in our refinements, in our talents; and that he
+should confess that he is not a benefactor of the people and a
+distinguished man, who does not refuse to share with the people his
+useful acquirements, but that he should confess himself to be a
+thoroughly guilty, corrupt, and good-for-nothing man, who desires to
+reform himself and not to behave benevolently towards the people,
+but simply to cease wounding and insulting them.
+
+I often hear the questions of good young men who sympathize with the
+renunciatory part of my writings, and who ask, "Well, and what then
+shall I do? What am I to do, now that I have finished my course in
+the university, or in some other institution, in order that I may be
+of use?" Young men ask this, and in the depths of their soul it is
+already decided that the education which they have received
+constitutes their privilege and that they desire to serve the people
+precisely by means of thus superiority. And hence, one thing which
+they will in no wise do, is to bear themselves honestly and
+critically towards that which they call their culture, and ask
+themselves, are those qualities which they call their culture good
+or bad? If they will do this, they will infallibly be led to see
+the necessity of renouncing their culture, and the necessity of
+beginning to learn all over again; and this is the one indispensable
+thing. They can in no wise solve the problem, "What to do?" because
+this question does not stand before them as it should stand. The
+question must stand thus: "In what manner am I, a helpless, useless
+man, who, owing to the misfortune of my conditions, have wasted my
+best years of study in conning the scientific Talmud which corrupts
+soul and body, to correct this mistake, and learn to serve the
+people?" But it presents itself to them thus: "How am I, a man who
+has acquired so much very fine learning, to turn this very fine
+learning to the use of the people?" And such a man will never
+answer the question, "What is to be done?" until he repents. And
+repentance is not terrible, just as truth is not terrible, and it is
+equally joyful and fruitful. It is only necessary to accept the
+truth wholly, and to repent wholly, in order to understand that no
+one possesses any rights, privileges, or peculiarities in the matter
+of this life of ours, but that there are no ends or bounds to
+obligation, and that a man's first and most indubitable duty is to
+take part in the struggle with nature for his own life and for the
+lives of others.
+
+And this confession of a man's obligation constitutes the gist of
+the third answer to the question, "What is to be done?"
+
+I tried not to lie to myself: I tried to cast out from myself the
+remains of my false conceptions of the importance of my education
+and talents, and to repent; but on the way to a decision of the
+question, "What to do?" a fresh difficulty arose. There are so many
+different occupations, that an indication was necessary as to the
+precise one which was to be adopted. And the answer to this
+question was furnished me by sincere repentance for the evil in
+which I had lived.
+
+"What to do? Precisely what to do?" all ask, and that is what I
+also asked so long as, under the influence of my exalted idea of any
+own importance, I did not perceive that my first and unquestionable
+duty was to feed myself, to clothe myself, to furnish my own fuel,
+to do my own building, and, by so doing, to serve others, because,
+ever since the would has existed, the first and indubitable duty of
+every man has consisted and does consist in this.
+
+In fact, no matter what a man may have assumed to be his vocation,--
+whether it be to govern people, to defend his fellow-countrymen, to
+divine service, to instruct others, to invent means to heighten the
+pleasures of life, to discover the laws of the world, to incorporate
+eternal truths in artistic representations,--the duty of a
+reasonable man is to take part in the struggle with nature, for the
+sustenance of his own life and of that of others. This obligation
+is the first of all, because what people need most of all is their
+life; and therefore, in order to defend and instruct the people, and
+render their lives more agreeable, it is requisite to preserve that
+life itself, while my refusal to share in the struggle, my monopoly
+of the labors of others, is equivalent to annihilation of the lives
+of others. And, therefore, it is not rational to serve the lives of
+men by annihilating the lives of men; and it is impossible to say
+that I am serving men, when, by my life, I am obviously injuring
+them.
+
+A man's obligation to struggle with nature for the acquisition of
+the means of livelihood will always be the first and most
+unquestionable of all obligations, because this obligation is a law
+of life, departure from which entails the inevitable punishment of
+either bodily or mental annihilation of the life of man. If a man
+living alone excuses himself from the obligation of struggling with
+nature, he is immediately punished, in that his body perishes. But
+if a man excuses himself from this obligation by making other people
+fulfil it for him, then also he is immediately punished by the
+annihilation of his mental life; that is to say, of the life which
+possesses rational thought.
+
+In this one act, man receives--if the two things are to be
+separated--full satisfaction of the bodily and spiritual demands of
+his nature. The feeding, clothing, and taking care of himself and
+his family, constitute the satisfaction of the bodily demands and
+requirements; and doing the same for other people, constitutes the
+satisfaction of his spiritual requirements. Every other employment
+of man is only legal when it is directed to the satisfaction of this
+very first duty of man; for the fulfilment of this duty constitutes
+the whole life of man.
+
+I had been so turned about by my previous life, this first and
+indubitable law of God or of nature is so concealed in our sphere of
+society, that the fulfilment of this law seemed to me strange,
+terrible, even shameful; as though the fulfilment of an eternal,
+unquestionable law, and not the departure from it, can be terrible,
+strange, and shameful.
+
+At first it seemed to me that the fulfilment of this matter required
+some preparation, arrangement or community of men, holding similar
+views,--the consent of one's family, life in the country; it seemed
+to me disgraceful to make a show of myself before people, to
+undertake a thing so improper in our conditions of existence, as
+bodily toil, and I did not know how to set about it. But it was
+only necessary for me to understand that this is no exclusive
+occupation which requires to be invented and arranged for, but that
+this employment was merely a return from the false position in which
+I found myself, to a natural one; was only a rectification of that
+lie in which I was living. I had only to recognize this fact, and
+all these difficulties vanished. It was not in the least necessary
+to make preparations and arrangements, and to await the consent of
+others, for, no matter in what position I had found myself, there
+had always been people who had fed, clothed and warmed me, in
+addition to themselves; and everywhere, under all conditions, I
+could do the same for myself and for them, if I had the time and the
+strength. Neither could I experience false shame in an unwonted
+occupation, no matter how surprising it might be to people, because,
+through not doing it, I had already experienced not false but real
+shame.
+
+And when I had reached this confession and the practical deduction
+from it, I was fully rewarded for not having quailed before the
+deductions of reason, and for following whither they led me. On
+arriving at this practical deduction, I was amazed at the ease and
+simplicity with which all the problems which had previously seemed
+to me so difficult and so complicated, were solved.
+
+To the question, "What is it necessary to do?" the most indubitable
+answer presented itself: first of all, that which it was necessary
+for me to do was, to attend to my own samovar, my own stove, my own
+water, my own clothing; to every thing that I could do for myself.
+To the question, "Will it not seem strange to people if you do
+this?" it appeared that this strangeness lasted only a week, and
+after the lapse of that week, it would have seemed strange had I
+returned to my former conditions of life. With regard to the
+question, "Is it necessary to organize this physical labor, to
+institute an association in the country, on my land?" it appeared
+that nothing of the sort was necessary; that labor, if it does not
+aim at the acquisition of all possible leisure, and the enjoyment of
+the labor of others,--like the labor of people bent on accumulating
+money,--but if it have for its object the satisfaction of
+requirements, will itself be drawn from the city to the country, to
+the land, where this labor is the most fruitful and cheerful. But
+it is not requisite to institute any association, because the man
+who labors, naturally and of himself, attaches himself to the
+existing association of laboring men.
+
+To the question, whether this labor would not monopolize all my
+time, and deprive me of those intellectual pursuits which I love, to
+which I am accustomed, and which, in my moments of self-conceit, I
+regard as not useless to others? I received a most unexpected reply.
+The energy of my intellectual activity increased, and increased in
+exact proportion with bodily application, while freeing itself from
+every thing superfluous. It appeared that by dedicating to physical
+toil eight hours, that half of the day which I had formerly passed
+in the oppressive state of a struggle with ennui, eight hours
+remained to me, of which only five of intellectual activity,
+according to my terms, were necessary to me. For it appeared, that
+if I, a very voluminous writer, who had done nothing for nearly
+forty years except write, and who had written three hundred printed
+sheets;--if I had worked during all those forty years at ordinary
+labor with the working-people, then, not reckoning winter evenings
+and leisure days, if I had read and studied for five hours every
+day, and had written a couple of pages only on holidays (and I have
+been in the habit of writing at the rate of one printed sheet a
+day), then I should have written those three hundred sheets in
+fourteen years. The fact seemed startling: yet it is the most
+simple arithmetical calculation, which can be made by a seven-year-
+old boy, but which I had not been able to make up to this time.
+There are twenty-four hours in the day; if we take away eight hours,
+sixteen remain. If any man engaged in intellectual occupations
+devote five hours every day to his occupation, he will accomplish a
+fearful amount. And what is to be done with the remaining eleven
+hours?
+
+It proved that physical labor not only does not exclude the
+possibility of mental activity, but that it improves its quality,
+and encourages it.
+
+In answer to the question, whether this physical toil does not
+deprive me of many innocent pleasures peculiar to man, such as the
+enjoyment of the arts, the acquisition of learning, intercourse with
+people, and the delights of life in general, it turned out exactly
+the reverse: the more intense the labor, the more nearly it
+approached what is considered the coarsest agricultural toil, the
+more enjoyment and knowledge did I gain, and the more did I come
+into close and loving communion with men, and the more happiness did
+I derive from life.
+
+In answer to the question (which I have so often heard from persons
+not thoroughly sincere), as to what result could flow from so
+insignificant a drop in the sea of sympathy as my individual
+physical labor in the sea of labor ingulfing me, I received also the
+most satisfactory and unexpected of answers. It appeared that all I
+had to do was to make physical labor the habitual condition of my
+life, and the majority of my false, but precious, habits and my
+demands, when physically idle, fell away from me at once of their
+own accord, without the slightest exertion on my part. Not to
+mention the habit of turning day into night and vice versa, my
+habits connected with my bed, with my clothing, with conventional
+cleanliness,--which are downright impossible and oppressive with
+physical labor,--and my demands as to the quality of my food, were
+entirely changed. In place of the dainty, rich, refined,
+complicated, highly-spiced food, to which I had formerly inclined,
+the most simple viands became needful and most pleasing of all to
+me,--cabbage-soup, porridge, black bread, and tea v prikusku. {3}
+So that, not to mention the influence upon me of the example of the
+simple working-people, who are content with little, with whom I came
+in contact in the course of my bodily toil, my very requirements
+underwent a change in consequence of my toilsome life; so that my
+drop of physical labor in the sea of universal labor became larger
+and larger, in proportion as I accustomed myself to, and
+appropriated, the habits of the laboring classes; in proportion,
+also, to the success of my labor, my demands for labor from others
+grew less and less, and my life naturally, without exertion or
+privations, approached that simple existence of which I could not
+even dream without fulfilling the law of labor.
+
+It proved that my dearest demands from life, namely, my demands for
+vanity, and diversion from ennui, arose directly from my idle life.
+There was no place for vanity, in connection with physical labor;
+and no diversions were needed, since my time was pleasantly
+occupied, and, after my fatigue, simple rest at tea over a book, or
+in conversation with my fellows, was incomparably more agreeable
+than theatres, cards, conceits, or a large company,--all which
+things are needed in physical idleness, and which cost a great deal.
+
+In answer to the question, Would not this unaccustomed toil ruin
+that health which is indispensable in order to render service to the
+people possible? it appeared, in spite of the positive assertions of
+noted physicians, that physical exertion, especially at my age,
+might have the most injurious consequences (but that Swedish
+gymnastics, the massage treatment, and so on, and other expedients
+intended to take the place of the natural conditions of man's life,
+were better), that the more intense the toil, the stronger, more
+alert, more cheerful, and more kindly did I feel. Thus it
+undoubtedly appeared, that, just as all those cunning devices of the
+human mind, newspapers, theatres, concerts, visits, balls, cards,
+journals, romances, are nothing else than expedients for maintaining
+the spiritual life of man outside his natural conditions of labor
+for others,--just so all the hygienic and medical devices of the
+human mind for the preparation of food, drink, lodging, ventilation,
+heating, clothing, medicine, water, massage, gymnastics, electric,
+and other means of healing,--all these clever devices are merely an
+expedient to sustain the bodily life of man removed from its natural
+conditions of labor. It turned out that all these devices of the
+human mind for the agreeable arrangement of the physical existence
+of idle persons are precisely analogous to those artful contrivances
+which people might invent for the production in vessels hermetically
+sealed, by means of mechanical arrangements, of evaporation, and
+plants, of the air best fitted for breathing, when all that is
+needed is to open the window. All the inventions of medicine and
+hygiene for persons of our sphere are much the same as though a
+mechanic should hit upon the idea of heating a steam-boiler which
+was not working, and should shut all the valves so that the boiler
+should not burst. Only one thing is needed, instead of all these
+extremely complicated devices for pleasure, for comfort, and for
+medical and hygienic preparations, intended to save people from
+their spiritual and bodily ailments, which swallow up so much
+labor,--to fulfil the law of life; to do that which is proper not
+only to man, but to the animal; to fire off the charge of energy
+taken win in the shape of food, by muscular exertion; to speak in
+plain language, to earn one's bread. Those who do not work should
+not eat, or they should earn as much as they have eaten.
+
+And when I clearly comprehended all this, it struck me as
+ridiculous. Through a whole series of doubts and searchings, I had
+arrived, by a long course of thought, at this remarkable truth: if
+a man has eyes, it is that he may see with them; if he has ears,
+that he may hear; and feet, that he may walk; and hands and back,
+that he may labor; and that if a man will not employ those members
+for that purpose for which they are intended, it will be the worse
+for him.
+
+I came to this conclusion, that, with us privileged people, the same
+thing has happened which happened with the horses of a friend of
+mine. His steward, who was not a lover of horses, nor well versed
+in them, on receiving his master's orders to place the best horses
+in the stable, selected them from the stud, placed them in stalls,
+and fed and watered them; but fearing for the valuable steeds, he
+could not bring himself to trust them to any one, and he neither
+rode nor drove them, nor did he even take them out. The horses
+stood there until they were good for nothing. The same thing has
+happened with us, but with this difference: that it was impossible
+to deceive the horses in any way, and they were kept in bonds to
+prevent their getting out; but we are kept in an unnatural position
+that is equally injurious to us, by deceits which have entangled us,
+and which hold us like chains.
+
+We have arranged for ourselves a life that is repugnant both to the
+moral and the physical nature of man, and all the powers of our
+intelligence we concentrate upon assuring man that this is the most
+natural life possible. Every thing which we call culture,--our
+sciences, art, and the perfection of the pleasant thing's of life,--
+all these are attempts to deceive the moral requirements of man;
+every thing that is called hygiene and medicine, is an attempt to
+deceive the natural physical demands of human nature. But these
+deceits have their bounds, and we advance to them. "If such be the
+real human life, then it is better not to live at all," says the
+reigning and extremely fashionable philosophy of Schopenhauer and
+Hartmann. If such is life, 'tis better for the coming generation
+not to live," say corrupt medical science and its newly devised
+means to that end.
+
+In the Bible, it is laid down as the law of man: "In the sweat of
+thy face shalt thou eat bread, and in sorrow thou shalt bring forth
+children;" but "nous avons change tout ca," as Moliere's character
+says, when expressing himself with regard to medicine, and asserting
+that the liver was on the left side. We have changed all that. Men
+need not work in order to eat, and women need not bear children.
+
+A ragged peasant roams the Krapivensky district. During the war he
+was an agent for the purchase of grain, under an official of the
+commissary department. On being brought in contact with the
+official, and seeing his luxurious life, the peasant lost his mind,
+and thought that he might get along without work, like gentlemen,
+and receive proper support from the Emperor. This peasant now calls
+himself "the Most Serene Warrior, Prince Blokhin, purveyor of war
+supplies of all descriptions." He says of himself that he has
+"passed through all the ranks," and that when he shall have served
+out his term in the army, he is to receive from the Emperor an
+unlimited bank account, clothes, uniforms, horses, equipages, tea,
+pease and servants, and all sorts of luxuries. This man is
+ridiculous in the eyes of many, but to me the significance of his
+madness is terrible. To the question, whether he does not wish to
+work, he always replies proudly: "I am much obliged. The peasants
+will attend to all that." When you tell him that the peasants do
+not wish to work, either, he answers: "It is not difficult for the
+peasant."
+
+He generally talks in a high-flown style, and is fond of verbal
+substantives. "Now there is an invention of machinery for the
+alleviation of the peasants," he says; "there is no difficulty for
+them in that." When he is asked what he lives for, he replies, "To
+pass the time." I always look on this man as on a mirror. I behold
+in him myself and all my class. To pass through all the ranks
+(tchini) in order to live for the purpose of passing the time, and
+to receive an unlimited bank account, while the peasants, for whom
+this is not difficult, because of the invention of machinery, do the
+whole business,--this is the complete formula of the idiotic creed
+of the people of our sphere in society.
+
+When we inquire precisely what we are to do, surely, we ask nothing,
+but merely assert--only not in such good faith as the Most Serene
+Prince Blokhin, who has been promoted through all ranks, and lost
+his mind--that we do not wish to do any thing.
+
+He who will reflect for a moment cannot ask thus, because, on the
+one hand, every thing that he uses has been made, and is made, by
+the hands of men; and, on the other side, as soon as a healthy man
+has awakened and eaten, the necessity of working with feet and hands
+and brain makes itself felt. In order to find work and to work, he
+need only not hold back: only a person who thinks work disgraceful-
+-like the lady who requests her guest not to take the trouble to
+open the door, but to wait until she can call a man for this
+purpose--can put to himself the question, what he is to do.
+
+The point does not lie in inventing work,--you can never get through
+all the work that is to be done for yourself and for others,--but
+the point lies in weaning one's self from that criminal view of life
+in accordance with which I eat and sleep for my own pleasure; and in
+appropriating to myself that just and simple view with which the
+laboring man grows up and lives,--that man is, first of all, a
+machine, which loads itself with food in order to sustain itself,
+and that it is therefore disgraceful, wrong, and impossible to eat
+and not to work; that to eat and not to work is the most impious,
+unnatural, and, therefore, dangerous position, in the nature of the
+sin of Sodom. Only let this acknowledgement be made, and there will
+be work; and work will always be joyous and satisfying to both
+spiritual and bodily requirements.
+
+The matter presented itself to me thus: The day is divided for
+every man, by food itself, into four parts, or four stints, as the
+peasants call it: (1) before breakfast; (2) from breakfast until
+dinner; (3) from dinner until four o'clock; (4) from four o'clock
+until evening.
+
+A man's employment, whatever it may be that he feels a need for in
+his own person, is also divided into four categories: (1) the
+muscular employment of power, labor of the hands, feet, shoulders,
+back,--hard labor, from which you sweat; (2) the employment of the
+fingers and wrists, the employment of artisan skill; (3) the
+employment of the mind and imagination; (4) the employment of
+intercourse with others.
+
+The benefits which man enjoys are also divided into four categories.
+Every man enjoys, in the first place, the product of hard labor,--
+grain, cattle, buildings, wells, ponds, and so forth; in the second
+place, the results of artisan toil,--clothes, boots, utensils, and
+so forth; in the third place, the products of mental activity,--
+science, art; and, in the forth place, established intercourse
+between people.
+
+And it struck me, that the best thing of all would be to arrange the
+occupations of the day in such a manner as to exercise all four of
+man's capacities, and myself produce all these four sorts of
+benefits which men make use of, so that one portion of the day, the
+first, should be dedicated to hard labor; the second, to
+intellectual labor; the third, to artisan labor; and the forth, to
+intercourse with people. It struck me, that only then would that
+false division of labor, which exists in our society, be abrogated,
+and that just division of labor established, which does not destroy
+man's happiness.
+
+I, for example, have busied myself all my life with intellectual
+labor. I said to myself, that I had so divided labor, that writing,
+that is to say, intellectual labor, is my special employment, and
+the other matters which were necessary to me I had left free (or
+relegated, rather) to others. But this, which would appear to have
+been the most advantageous arrangement for intellectual toil, was
+precisely the most disadvantageous to mental labor, not to mention
+its injustice.
+
+All my life long, I have regulated my whole life, food, sleep,
+diversion, in view of these hours of special labor, and I have done
+nothing except this work. The result of this has been, in the first
+place, that I have contracted my sphere of observations and
+knowledge, and have frequently had no means for the study even of
+problems which often presented themselves in describing the life of
+the people (for the life of the common people is the every-day
+problem of intellectual activity). I was conscious of my ignorance,
+and was obliged to obtain instruction, to ask about things which are
+known by every man not engaged in special labor. In the second
+place, the result was, that I had been in the habit of sitting down
+to write when I had no inward impulse to write, and when no one
+demanded from me writing, as writing, that is to say, my thoughts,
+but when my name was merely wanted for journalistic speculation. I
+tried to squeeze out of myself what I could. Sometimes I could
+extract nothing; sometimes it was very wretched stuff, and I was
+dissatisfied and grieved. But now that I have learned the
+indispensability of physical labor, both hard and artisan labor, the
+result is entirely different. My time has been occupied, however
+modestly, at least usefully and cheerfully, and in a manner
+instructive to me. And therefore I have torn myself from that
+indubitably useful and cheerful occupation for my special duties
+only when I felt an inward impulse, and when I saw a demand made
+upon me directly for my literary work.
+
+And these demands called into play only good nature, and therefore
+the usefulness and the joy of my special labor. Thus it turned out,
+that employment in those physical labors which are indispensable to
+me, as they are to every man, not only did not interfere with my
+special activity, but was an indispensable condition of the
+usefulness, worth, and cheerfulness of that activity.
+
+The bird is so constructed, that it is indispensable that it should
+fly, walk, peek, combine; and when it does all this, it is satisfied
+and happy,--then it is a bird. Just so man, when he walks, turns,
+raises, drags, works with his fingers, with his eyes, with his ears,
+with his tongue, with his brain,--only then is he satisfied, only
+then is he a man.
+
+A man who acknowledges his appointment to labor will naturally
+strive towards that rotation of labor which is peculiar to him, for
+the satisfaction of his inward requirements; and he can alter this
+labor in no other way than when he feels within himself an
+irresistible summons to some exclusive form of labor, and when the
+demands of other men for that labor are expressed.
+
+The character of labor is such, that the satisfaction of all a man's
+requirements demands that same succession of the sorts of work which
+renders work not a burden but a joy. Only a false creed, [Greek
+text which cannot be reproduced], to the effect that labor is a
+curse, could have led men to rid themselves of certain kinds of
+work; i.e., to the appropriation of the work of others, demanding
+the forced occupation with special labor of other people, which they
+call division of labor.
+
+We have only grown used to our false comprehension of the regulation
+of labor, because it seems to us that the shoemaker, the machinist,
+the writer, or the musician will be better off if he gets rid of the
+labor peculiar to man. Where there is no force exercised over the
+labor of others, or any false belief in the joy of idleness, not a
+single man will get rid of physical labor, necessary for the
+satisfaction of his requirements, for the sake of special work;
+because special work is not a privilege, but a sacrifice which man
+offers to inward pressure and to his brethren.
+
+The shoemaker in the country, who abandons his wonted labor in the
+field, which is so grateful to him, and betakes himself to his
+trade, in order to repair or make boots for his neighbors, always
+deprives himself of the pleasant toil of the field, simply because
+he likes to make boots, because he knows that no one else can do it
+so well as he, and that people will be grateful to him for it; but
+the desire cannot occur to him, to deprive himself, for the whole
+period of his life, of the cheering rotation of labor.
+
+It is the same with the starosta [village elder], the machinist, the
+writer, the learned man. To us, with our corrupt conception of
+things, it seems, that if a steward has been relegated to the
+position of a peasant by his master, or if a minister has been sent
+to the colonies, he has been chastised, he has been ill-treated.
+But in reality a benefit has been conferred on him; that is to say,
+his special, hard labor has been changed into a cheerful rotation of
+labor. In a naturally constituted society, this is quite otherwise.
+I know of one community where the people supported themselves. One
+of the members of this society was better educated than the rest;
+and they called upon him to read, so that he was obliged to prepare
+himself during the day, in order that he might read in the evening.
+This he did gladly, feeling that he was useful to others, and that
+he was performing a good deed. But he grew weary of exclusively
+intellectual work, and his health suffered from it. The members of
+the community took pity on him, and requested him to go to work in
+the fields.
+
+For men who regard labor as the substance and the joy of life, the
+basis, the foundation of life will always be the struggle with
+nature,--labor both agricultural and mechanical, and intellectual,
+and the establishment of communion between men. Departure from one
+or from many of these varieties of labor, and the adoption of
+special labor, will then only occur when the man possessed of a
+special branch, and loving this work, and knowing that he can
+perform it better than others, sacrifices his own profit for the
+satisfaction of the direct demands made upon him. Only on condition
+of such a view of labor, and of the natural division of labor
+arising from it, is that curse which is laid upon our idea of labor
+abrogated, and does every sort of work becomes always a joy; because
+a man will either perform that labor which is undoubtedly useful and
+joyous, and not dull, or he will possess the consciousness of self-
+abnegation in the fulfilment of more difficult and restricted toil,
+which he exercises for the good of others.
+
+But the division of labor is more profitable. More profitable for
+whom? It is more profitable in making the greatest possible
+quantity of calico, and boots in the shortest possible time. But
+who will make these boots and this calico? There are people who,
+for whole generations, make only the heads of pins. Then how can
+this be more profitable for men? If the point lies in manufacturing
+as much calico and as many pins as possible, then this is so. But
+the point concerns men and their welfare. And the welfare of men
+lies in life. And life is work. How, then, can the necessity for
+burdensome, oppressive toil be more profitable for people? For all
+men, that one thing is more profitable which I desire for myself,--
+the utmost well-being, and the gratification of all those
+requirements, both bodily and spiritual, of the conscience and of
+the reason, which are imposed upon me. And in my own case I have
+found, that for my own welfare, and for the satisfaction of these
+needs of mine, all that I require is to cure myself of that folly in
+which I had been living, in company with the Krapivensky madman, and
+which consisted in presupposing that some people need not work, and
+that certain other people should direct all this, and that I should
+therefore do only that which is natural to man, i.e., labor for the
+satisfaction of their requirements; and, having discovered this, I
+convinced myself that labor for the satisfaction of one's own needs
+falls of itself into various kinds of labor, each one of which
+possesses its own charm, and which not only do not constitute a
+burden, but which serve as a respite to one another. I have made a
+rough division of this labor (not insisting on the justice of this
+arrangement), in accordance with my own needs in life, into four
+parts, corresponding to the four stints of labor of which the day is
+composed; and I seek in this manner to satisfy my requirements.
+
+These, then, are the answers which I have found for myself to the
+question, "What is to be done?"
+
+First, Not to lie to myself, however far removed my path in life may
+be from the true path which my reason discloses to me.
+
+Second, To renounce my consciousness of my own righteousness, my
+superiority especially over other people; and to acknowledge my
+guilt.
+
+Third, To comply with that eternal and indubitable law of humanity,-
+-the labor of my whole being, feeling no shame at any sort of work;
+to contend with nature for the maintenance of my own life and the
+lives of others.
+
+
+
+Footnote:
+
+{1} An omission by the censor, which I am unable to supply. TRANS.
+
+{2} We designate as organisms the elephant and the bacterian, only
+because we assume by analogy in those creatures the same conjunction
+of feeling and consciousness that we know to exist in ourselves.
+But in human societies and in humanity, this actual sign is absent;
+and therefore, however many other signs we may discover in humanity
+and in organism, without this substantial token the recognition of
+humanity as an organism is incorrect.
+
+{3} v prikusku, when a lump of sugar is held in the teeth instead
+or being put into the tea.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Science and Art, by Leo Tolstoy
+
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