Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy Part 11

There may, however, be acquisition, which is a very different thing.

If, in the exchange, one man is able to give what cost him little labour for what has cost the other much, he "acquires" a certain quant.i.ty of the produce of the other's labour. And precisely what he acquires, the other loses. In mercantile language, the person who thus acquires is commonly said to have "made a profit;" and I believe that many of our merchants are seriously under the impression that it is possible for everybody, somehow, to make a profit in this manner.

Whereas, by the unfortunate const.i.tution of the world we live in, the laws both of matter and motion have quite rigorously forbidden universal acquisition of this kind. Profit, or material gain, is attainable only by construction or by discovery; not by exchange.

Whenever material gain follows exchange, for every _plus_ there is a precisely equal _minus_.

Unhappily for the progress of the science of Political Economy, the plus quant.i.ties, or--if I may be allowed to coin an awkward plural--the pluses, make a very positive and venerable appearance in the world, so that every one is eager to learn the science which produces results so magnificent; whereas the minuses have, on the other hand, a tendency to retire into back streets, and other places of shade,--or even to get themselves wholly and finally put out of sight in graves: which renders the algebra of this science peculiar, and difficultly legible; a large number of its negative signs being written by the account-keeper in a kind of red ink, which starvation thins, and makes strangely pale, or even quite invisible ink, for the present.

The science of Exchange, or, as I hear it has been proposed to call it, of "Catallactics," considered as one of gain, is, therefore, simply nugatory; but considered as one of acquisition, it is a very curious science, differing in its data and basis from every other science known. Thus:--If I can exchange a needle with a savage for a diamond, my power of doing so depends either on the savage's ignorance of social arrangements in Europe, or on his want of power to take advantage of them, by selling the diamond to any one else for more needles. If, farther, I make the bargain as completely advantageous to myself as possible, by giving to the savage a needle with no eye in it (reaching, thus, a sufficiently satisfactory type of the perfect operation of catallactic science), the advantage to me in the entire transaction depends wholly upon the ignorance, powerlessness, or heedlessness of the person dealt with. Do away with these, and catallactic advantage becomes impossible. So far, therefore as the science of exchange relates to the advantage of one of the exchanging persons only, it is founded on the ignorance or incapacity of the opposite person. Where these vanish, it also vanishes. It is therefore a science founded on nescience, and an art founded on artlessness. But all other sciences and arts, except this, have for their object the doing away with their opposite nescience and artlessness. _This_ science, alone of sciences, must, by all available means, promulgate and prolong its opposite nescience; otherwise the science itself is impossible. It is, therefore, peculiarly and alone, the science of darkness; probably a b.a.s.t.a.r.d science--not by any means a _divina scientia_, but one begotten of another father, that father who, advising his children to turn stones into bread, is himself employed in turning bread into stones, and who, if you ask a fish of him (fish not being producible on his estate), can but give you a serpent.

The general law, then, respecting just or economical exchange, is simply this:--There must be advantage on both sides (or if only advantage on one, at least no disadvantage on the other) to the persons exchanging; and just payment for his time, intelligence, and labour, to any intermediate person effecting the transaction (commonly called a merchant): and whatever advantage there is on either side, and whatever pay is given to the intermediate person, should be thoroughly known to all concerned. All attempt at concealment implies some practice of the opposite, or undivine science, founded on nescience. Whence another saying of the Jew merchant's--"As a nail between the stone joints, so doth sin stick fast between buying and selling." Which peculiar riveting of stone and timber, in men's dealing with each other, is again set forth in the house which was to be destroyed--timber and stones together--when Zechariah's roll (more probably "curved sword") flew over it: "the curse that goeth forth over all the earth upon every one that stealeth and holdeth himself guiltless," instantly followed by the vision of the Great Measure;--the measure "of the injustice of them in all the earth"

([Greek: aute he adikia auton en pase te ge]), with the weight of lead for its lid, and the woman, the spirit of wickedness, within it;--that is to say, Wickedness hidden by Dulness, and formalized, outwardly, into ponderously established cruelty. "It shall be set upon its own base in the land on Babel."[53]

[53] Zech. v. 11. See note on the pa.s.sage, at pp. 191-2.

I have hitherto carefully restricted myself, in speaking of exchange, to the use of the term "advantage;" but that term includes two ideas: the advantage, namely, of getting what we _need_, and that of getting what we _wish for_. Three-fourths of the demands existing in the world are romantic; founded on visions, idealisms, hopes, and affections; and the regulation of the purse is, in its essence, regulation of the imagination and the heart. Hence, the right discussion of the nature of price is a very high metaphysical and psychical problem; sometimes to be solved only in a pa.s.sionate manner, as by David in his counting the price of the water of the well by the gate of Bethlehem; but its first conditions are the following:--The price of anything is the quant.i.ty of labour given by the person desiring it, in order to obtain possession of it. This price depends on four variable quant.i.ties. _A_.

The quant.i.ty of wish the purchaser has for the thing; opposed to [Greek: a], the quant.i.ty of wish the seller has to keep it. _B_. The quant.i.ty of labour the purchaser can afford, to obtain the thing; opposed to [Greek: b], the quant.i.ty of labour the seller can afford, to keep it. These quant.i.ties are operative only in excess; _i.e._, the quant.i.ty of wish (_A_) means the quant.i.ty of wish for this thing, above wish for other things; and the quant.i.ty of work (_B_) means the quant.i.ty which can be spared to get this thing from the quant.i.ty needed to get other things.

Phenomena of price, therefore, are intensely complex, curious, and interesting--too complex, however, to be examined yet; every one of them, when traced far enough, showing itself at last as a part of the bargain of the Poor of the Flock (or "flock of slaughter"), "If ye think good, give ME my price, and if not, forbear"--Zech. xi. 12; but as the price of everything is to be calculated finally in labour, it is necessary to define the nature of that standard.

Labour is the contest of the life of man with an opposite:--the term "life" including his intellect, soul, and physical power, contending with question, difficulty, trial, or material force.

Labour is of a higher or lower order, as it includes more or fewer of the elements of life: and labour of good quality, in any kind, includes always as much intellect and feeling as will fully and harmoniously regulate the physical force.

In speaking of the value and price of labour, it is necessary always to understand labour of a given rank and quality, as we should speak of gold or silver of a given standard. Bad (that is, heartless, inexperienced, or senseless) labour cannot be valued; it is like gold of uncertain alloy, or flawed iron.[54]

[54] Labour which is entirely good of its kind, that is to say, effective, or efficient, the Greeks called "weighable,"

or [Greek: axios], translated usually "worthy," and because thus substantial and true, they called its price [Greek: time], the "honourable estimate" of it (honorarium): this word being founded on their conception of true labour as a divine thing, to be honoured with the kind of honour given to the G.o.ds; whereas the price of false labour, or of that which led away from life, was to be, not honour, but vengeance; for which they reserved another word, attributing the exaction of such price to a peculiar G.o.ddess called Tisiphone, the "requiter (or quittance-taker) of death;"

a person versed in the highest branches of arithmetic, and punctual in her habits; with whom accounts current have been opened also in modern days.

The quality and kind of labour being given, its value, like that of all other valuable things, is invariable. But the quant.i.ty of it which must be given for other things is variable: and in estimating this variation, the price of other things must always be counted by the quant.i.ty of labour; not the price of labour by the quant.i.ty of other things.

Thus, if we want to plant an apple sapling in rocky ground, it may take two hours' work; in soft ground, perhaps only half an hour. Grant the soil equally good for the tree in each case. Then the value of the sapling planted by two hours' work is nowise greater than that of the sapling planted in half an hour. One will bear no more fruit than the other. Also, one half-hour of work is as valuable as another half-hour; nevertheless the one sapling has cost four such pieces of work, the other only one. Now the proper statement of this fact is, not that the labour on the hard ground is cheaper than on the soft; but that the tree is dearer. The exchange value may, or may not, afterwards depend on this fact. If other people have plenty of soft ground to plant in, they will take no cognizance of our two hours'

labour, in the price they will offer for the plant on the rock. And if, through want of sufficient botanical science, we have planted an upas-tree instead of an apple, the exchange value will be a negative quant.i.ty; still less proportionate to the labour expended.

What is commonly called cheapness of labour, signifies, therefore, in reality, that many obstacles have to be overcome by it; so that much labour is required to produce a small result. But this should never be spoken of as cheapness of labour, but as dearness of the object wrought for. It would be just as rational to say that walking was cheap, because we had ten miles to walk home to our dinner, as that labour was cheap, because we had to work ten hours to earn it.

The last word which we have to define is "Production."

I have hitherto spoken of all labour as profitable; because it is impossible to consider under one head the quality or value of labour, and its aim. But labour of the best quality may be various in aim. It may be either constructive ("gathering," from con and struo), as agriculture; nugatory, as jewel-cutting; or destructive ("scattering,"

from de and struo), as war. It is not, however, always easy to prove labour, apparently nugatory, to be actually so;[55] generally, the formula holds good, "he that gathereth not, scattereth;" thus, the jeweller's art is probably very harmful in its ministering to a clumsy and inelegant pride. So that, finally, I believe nearly all labour may be shortly divided into positive and negative labour: positive, that which produces life; negative, that which produces death; the most directly negative labour being murder, and the most directly positive, the bearing and rearing of children: so that in the precise degree in which murder is hateful, on the negative side of idleness, in that exact degree child-rearing is admirable, on the positive side of idleness. For which reason, and because of the honour that there is in rearing[56] children, while the wife is said to be as the vine (for cheering), the children are as the olive-branch, for praise; nor for praise only, but for peace (because large families can only be reared in times of peace): though since, in their spreading and voyaging in various directions, they distribute strength, they are, to the home strength, as arrows in the hand of the giant--striking here and there, far away.

[55] The most accurately nugatory labour is, perhaps, that of which not enough is given to answer a purpose effectually, and which, therefore, has all to be done over again. Also, labour which fails of effect through non-cooperation. The cure of a little village near Bellinzona, to whom I had expressed wonder that the peasants allowed the Ticino to flood their fields, told me that they would not join to build an effectual embankment high up the valley, because everybody said "that would help his neighbours as much as himself." So every proprietor built a bit of low embankment about his own field; and the Ticino, as soon as it had a mind, swept away and swallowed all up together.

[56] Observe, I say, "rearing," not "begetting." The praise is in the seventh season, not in [Greek: sporetos], nor in [Greek: phytalia], but in [Greek: opora]. It is strange that men always praise enthusiastically any person who, by a momentary exertion, saves a life; but praise very hesitatingly a person who, by exertion and self-denial prolonged through years, creates one. We give the crown "ob civem servatum,"--why not "ob civem natum"? Born, I mean, to the full, in soul as well as body. England has oak enough, I think, for both chaplets.

Labour being thus various in its result, the prosperity of any nation is in exact proportion to the quant.i.ty of labour which it spends in obtaining and employing means of life. Observe,--I say, obtaining and employing; that is to say, not merely wisely producing, but wisely distributing and consuming. Economists usually speak as if there were no good in consumption absolute.[57] So far from this being so, consumption absolute is the end, crown, and perfection of production; and wise consumption is a far more difficult art than wise production.

Twenty people can gain money for one who can use it; and the vital question, for individual and for nation, is, never "how much do they make?" but "to what purpose do they spend?"

[57] When Mr. Mill speaks of productive consumption, he only means consumption which results in increase of capital, or material wealth. See I. iii. 4, and I. iii. 5.

The reader may, perhaps, have been surprised at the slight reference I have hitherto made to "capital," and its functions. It is here the place to define them.

Capital signifies "head, or source, or root material"--it is material by which some derivative or secondary good is produced. It is only capital proper (caput vivum, not caput mortuum) when it is thus producing something different from itself. It is a root, which does not enter into vital function till it produces something else than a root; namely, fruit. That fruit will in time again produce roots; and so all living capital issues in reproduction of capital; but capital which produces nothing but capital is only root producing root; bulb issuing in bulb, never in tulip; seed issuing in seed, never in bread.

The Political Economy of Europe has. .h.i.therto devoted itself wholly to the multiplication, or (less even) the aggregation, of bulbs. It never saw, nor conceived such a thing as a tulip. Nay, boiled bulbs they might have been--gla.s.s bulbs--Prince Rupert's drops, consummated in powder (well, if it were gla.s.s-powder and not gunpowder), for any end or meaning the economists had in defining the laws of aggregation. We will try and get a clearer notion of them.

The best and simplest general type of capital is a well-made ploughshare. Now, if that ploughshare did nothing but beget other ploughshares, in a polypous manner,--however the great cl.u.s.ter of polypous plough might glitter in the sun, it would have lost its function of capital. It becomes true capital only by another kind of splendour,--when it is seen "splendescere sulco," to grow bright in the furrow; rather with diminution of its substance, than addition, by the n.o.ble friction. And the true home question, to every capitalist and to every nation, is not, "how many ploughs have you?" but, "where are your furrows?" not--"how quickly will this capital reproduce itself?"--but, "what will it do during reproduction?" What substance will it furnish, good for life? what work construct, protective of life? if none, its own reproduction is useless--if worse than none (for capital may destroy life as well as support it), its own reproduction is worse than useless; it is merely an advance from Tisiphone, on mortgage--not a profit by any means.

Not a profit, as the ancients truly saw, and showed in the type of Ixion;--for capital is the head, or fountain head, of wealth--the "well-head" of wealth, as the clouds are the well-heads of rain: but when clouds are without water, and only beget clouds, they issue in wrath at last, instead of rain, and in lightning instead of harvest; whence Ixion is said first to have invited his guests to a banquet, and then made them fall into a pit filled with fire; which is the type of the temptation of riches issuing in imprisoned torment,--torment in a pit (as also Demas' silver mine), after which, to show the rage of riches pa.s.sing from l.u.s.t of pleasure to l.u.s.t of power, yet power not truly understood, Ixion is said to have desired Juno, and instead, embracing a cloud (or phantasm), to have begotten the Centaurs; the power of mere wealth being, in itself, as the embrace of a shadow,--comfortless (so also "Ephraim feedeth on wind and followeth after the east wind"; or "that which is not"--Prov. xxiii. 5; and again Dante's Geryon, the type of avaricious fraud, as he flies, gathers the _air_ up with retractile claws,--"l'aer a se raccolse"[58]), but in its offspring, a mingling of the brutal with the human nature: human in sagacity--using both intellect and arrow; but brutal in its body and hoof, for consuming, and trampling down.

For which sin Ixion is at last bound upon a wheel--fiery and toothed, and rolling perpetually in the air;--the type of human labour when selfish and fruitless (kept far into the middle ages in their wheel of fortune); the wheel which has in it no breath or spirit, but is whirled by chance only; whereas of all true work the Ezekiel vision is true, that the Spirit of the living creature is in the wheels, and where the angels go, the wheels go by them; but move no otherwise.

[58] So also in the vision of the women bearing the ephah, before quoted, "the wind was in their wings," not wings "of a stork," as in our version; but "_milvi_," of a kite, in the Vulgate, or perhaps more accurately still in the Septuagint, "hoopoe," a bird connected typically with the power of riches by many traditions, of which that of its pet.i.tion for a crest of gold is perhaps the most interesting. The "Birds"

of Aristophanes, in which its part is princ.i.p.al, is full of them; note especially the "fortification of the air with baked bricks, like Babylon," l. 550; and, again, compare the Plutus of Dante, who (to show the influence of riches in destroying the reason) is the only one of the powers of the Inferno who cannot speak intelligibly; and also the cowardliest; he is not merely quelled or restrained, but literally "collapses" at a word; the sudden and helpless operation of mercantile panic being all told in the brief metaphor, "as the sails, swollen with the wind, fall, when the mast breaks."

This being the real nature of capital, it follows that there are two kinds of true production, always going on in an active State; one of seed, and one of food; or production for the Ground, and for the Mouth; both of which are by covetous persons thought to be production only for the granary; whereas the function of the granary is but intermediate and conservative, fulfilled in distribution; else it ends in nothing but mildew, and nourishment of rats and worms. And since production for the Ground is only useful with future hope of harvest, all _essential_ production is for the Mouth; and is finally measured by the mouth; hence, as I said above, consumption is the crown of production; and the wealth of a nation is only to be estimated by what it consumes.

The want of any clear sight of this fact is the capital error, issuing in rich interest and revenue of error among the political economists.

Their minds are continually set on money-gain, not on mouth-gain; and they fall into every sort of net and snare, dazzled by the coin-glitter as birds by the fowler's gla.s.s; or rather (for there is not much else like birds in them) they are like children trying to jump on the heads of their own shadows; the money-gain being only the shadow of the true gain, which is humanity.

The final object of political economy, therefore, is to get good method of consumption, and great quant.i.ty of consumption: in other words, to use everything, and to use it n.o.bly; whether it be substance, service, or service perfecting substance. The most curious error in Mr. Mill's entire work (provided for him originally by Ricardo) is his endeavour to distinguish between direct and indirect service, and consequent a.s.sertion that a demand for commodities is not demand for labour (I. v. 9, _et seq._). He distinguishes between labourers employed to lay out pleasure grounds, and to manufacture velvet; declaring that it makes material difference to the labouring cla.s.ses in which of these two ways a capitalist spends his money; because the employment of the gardeners is a demand for labour, but the purchase of velvet is not.[59] Error colossal as well as strange.

It will, indeed, make a difference to the labourer whether we bid him swing his scythe in the spring winds, or drive the loom in pestilential air; but, so far as his pocket is concerned, it makes to him absolutely no difference whether we order him to make green velvet, with seed and a scythe, or red velvet, with silk and scissors.

Neither does it anywise concern him whether, when the velvet is made, we consume it by walking on it, or wearing it, so long as our consumption of it is wholly selfish. But if our consumption is to be in any wise unselfish, not only our mode of consuming the articles we require interests him, but also the _kind_ of article we require with a view to consumption. As thus (returning for a moment to Mr. Mill's great hardware theory[60]): it matters, so far as the labourer's immediate profit is concerned, not an iron filing whether I employ him in growing a peach, or forging a bombsh.e.l.l; but my probable mode of consumption of those articles matters seriously. Admit that it is to be in both cases "unselfish," and the difference, to him, is final, whether when his child is ill, I walk into his cottage and give it the peach, or drop the sh.e.l.l down his chimney, and blow his roof off.

[59] The value of raw material, which has, indeed, to be deducted from the price of the labour, is not contemplated in the pa.s.sages referred to, Mr. Mill having fallen into the mistake solely by pursuing the collateral results of the payment of wages to middlemen. He says:--"The consumer does not, with his own funds, pay the weaver for his day's work."

Pardon me; the consumer of the velvet pays the weaver with his own funds as much as he pays the gardener. He pays, probably, an intermediate ship-owner, velvet merchant, and shopman; pays carriage money, shop rent, damage money, time money, and care money; all these are above and beside the velvet price (just as the wages of a head gardener would be above the gra.s.s price); but the velvet is as much produced by the consumer's capital, though he does not pay for it till six months after production, as the gra.s.s is produced by his capital, though he does not pay the man who mowed and rolled it on Monday, till Sat.u.r.day afternoon. I do not know if Mr. Mill's conclusion--"the capital cannot be dispensed with, the purchasers can"--has yet been reduced to practice in the City on any large scale.

[60] Which, observe, is the precise opposite of the one under examination. The hardware theory required us to discharge our gardeners and engage manufacturers; the velvet theory requires us to discharge our manufacturers and engage gardeners.

The worst of it, for the peasant, is, that the capitalist's consumption of the peach is apt to be selfish, and of the sh.e.l.l, distributive;[61] but, in all cases, this is the broad and general fact, that on due catallactic commercial principles, _somebody's_ roof must go off in fulfilment of the bomb's destiny. You may grow for your neighbour, at your liking, grapes or grapeshot; he will also, catallactically, grow grapes or grapeshot for you, and you will each reap what you have sown.

[61] It is one very awful form of the operation of wealth in Europe that it is entirely capitalists' wealth which supports unjust wars. Just wars do not need so much money to support them; for most of the men who wage such, wage them gratis; but for an unjust war, men's bodies and souls have both to be bought; and the best tools of war for them besides; which makes such war costly to the maximum; not to speak of the cost of base fear, and angry suspicion, between nations which have not grace nor honesty enough in all their mult.i.tudes to buy an hour's peace of mind with: as, at present, France and England, purchasing of each other ten millions sterling worth of consternation annually (a remarkably light crop, half thorns and half aspen leaves,--sown, reaped, and granaried by "the science" of the modern political economist, teaching covetousness instead of truth). And all unjust war being supportable, if not by pillage of the enemy, only by loans from capitalists, these loans are repaid by subsequent taxation of the people, who appear to have no will in the matter, the capitalists' will being the primary root of the war; but its real root is the covetousness of the whole nation, rendering it incapable of faith, frankness, or justice, and bringing about, therefore, in due time, his own separate loss and punishment to each person.

It is, therefore, the manner and issue of consumption which are the real tests of production. Production does not consist in things laboriously made, but in things serviceably consumable; and the question for the nation is not how much labour it employs, but how much life it produces. For as consumption is the end and aim of production, so life is the end and aim of consumption.

I left this question to the reader's thought two months ago, choosing rather that he should work it out for himself than have it sharply stated to him. But now, the ground being sufficiently broken (and the details into which the several questions, here opened, must lead us, being too complex for discussion in the pages of a periodical, so that I must pursue them elsewhere), I desire, in closing the series of introductory papers, to leave this one great fact clearly stated.

THERE IS NO WEALTH BUT LIFE. Life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of n.o.ble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others.

A strange political economy; the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can be: all political economy founded on self-interest[62] being but the fulfilment of that which once brought schism into the Policy of angels, and ruin into the Economy of Heaven.

[62] "In all reasoning about prices, the proviso must be understood, 'supposing all parties to take care of their own interest.'"--Mill, III. i. 5.

"The greatest number of human beings n.o.ble and happy." But is the n.o.bleness consistent with the number? Yes, not only consistent with it, but essential to it. The maximum of life can only be reached by the maximum of virtue. In this respect the law of human population differs wholly from that of animal life. The multiplication of animals is checked only by want of food, and by the hostility of races; the population of the gnat is restrained by the hunger of the swallow, and that of the swallow by the scarcity of gnats. Man, considered as an animal, is indeed limited by the same laws: hunger, or plague, or war, are the necessary and only restraints upon his increase,--effectual restraints. .h.i.therto,--his princ.i.p.al study having been how most swiftly to destroy himself, or ravage his dwelling-places, and his highest skill directed to give range to the famine, seed to the plague, and sway to the sword. But, considered as other than an animal, his increase is not limited by these laws. It is limited only by the limits of his courage and his love. Both of these _have_ their bounds; and ought to have: his race has its bounds also; but these have not yet been reached, nor will be reached for ages.

In all the ranges of human thought I know none so melancholy as the speculations of political economists on the population question. It is proposed to better the condition of the labourer by giving him higher wages. "Nay," says the economist, "if you raise his wages, he will either drag people down to the same point of misery at which you found him, or drink your wages away." He will. I know it. Who gave him this will? Suppose it were your own son of whom you spoke, declaring to me that you dared not take him into your firm, nor even give him his just labourer's wages, because if you did, he would die of drunkenness, and leave half a score of children to the parish. "Who gave your son these dispositions?"--I should inquire. Has he them by inheritance or by education? By one or other they _must_ come; and as in him, so also in the poor. Either these poor are of a race essentially different from ours, and unredeemable (which, however often implied, I have heard none yet openly say), or else by such care as we have ourselves received, we may make them continent and sober as ourselves--wise and dispa.s.sionate as we are--models arduous of imitation. "But," it is answered, "they cannot receive education." Why not? That is precisely the point at issue. Charitable persons suppose the worst fault of the rich is to refuse the people meat; and the people cry for their meat, kept back by fraud, to the Lord of Mult.i.tudes.[63] Alas! it is not meat of which the refusal is cruelest, or to which the claim is validest. The life is more than the meat. The rich not only refuse food to the poor; they refuse wisdom; they refuse virtue; they refuse salvation. Ye sheep without shepherd, it is not the pasture that has been shut from you, but the presence. Meat! perhaps your right to that may be pleadable; but other rights have to be pleaded first. Claim your crumbs from the table, if you will; but claim them as children, not as dogs; claim your right to be fed, but claim more loudly your right to be holy, perfect, and pure.

[63] James v. 4. Observe, in these statements I am not taking up, nor countenancing one whit, the common socialist idea of division of property; division of property is its destruction; and with it the destruction of all hope, all industry, and all justice: it is simply chaos--a chaos towards which the believers in modern political economy are fast tending, and from which I am striving to save them. The rich man does not keep back meat from the poor by retaining his riches; but by basely using them. Riches are a form of strength; and a strong man does not injure others by keeping his strength, but by using it injuriously. The socialist, seeing a strong man oppress a weak one, cries out--"Break the strong man's arms"; but I say, "Teach him to use them to better purpose." The fort.i.tude and intelligence which acquire riches are intended, by the Giver of both, not to scatter, nor to give away, but to employ those riches in the service of mankind; in other words, in the redemption of the erring and aid of the weak--that is to say, there is first to be the work to gain money; then the Sabbath of use for it--the Sabbath, whose law is, not to lose life, but to save. It is continually the fault or the folly of the poor that they are poor, as it is usually a child's fault if it falls into a pond, and a cripple's weakness that slips at a crossing; nevertheless, most pa.s.sers-by would pull the child out, or help up the cripple. Put it at the worst, that all the poor of the world are but disobedient children, or careless cripples, and that all rich people are wise and strong, and you will see at once that neither is the socialist right in desiring to make everybody poor, powerless, and foolish as he is himself, nor the rich man right in leaving the children in the mire.

Strange words to be used of working people: "What! holy; without any long robes nor anointing oils; these rough-jacketed, rough-worded persons set to nameless and dishonoured service? Perfect!--these, with dim eyes and cramped limbs, and slowly wakening minds? Pure!--these, with sensual desire and grovelling thought; foul of body, and coa.r.s.e of soul?" It may be so; nevertheless, such as they are, they are the holiest, perfectest, purest persons the earth can at present show.

They may be what you have said; but if so, they yet are holier than we, who have left them thus.