CHAPTER XX.

LIFE IN THE CITY.

Last year, in March, I was returning home late at night. As I turned

from the Zubova into Khamovnitchesky Lane, I saw some black spots on the

snow of the Dyevitchy Pole (field). Something was moving about in one

place. I should not have paid any attention to this, if the policeman

who was standing at the end of the street had not shouted in the

direction of the black spots,--

"Vasily! why don't you bring her in?"

"She won't come!" answered a voice, and then the spot moved towards the

policeman.

I halted and asked the police-officer, "What is it?"

He said,--"They are taking a girl from the Rzhanoff house to the station-

house; and she is hanging back, she won't walk." A house-porter in a

sheepskin coat was leading her. She was walking forward, and he was

pushing her from behind. All of us, I and the porter and the policeman,

were dressed in winter clothes, but she had nothing on over her dress. In

the darkness I could make out only her brown dress, and the kerchiefs on

her head and neck. She was short in stature, as is often the case with

the prematurely born, with small feet, and a comparatively broad and

awkward figure.

"We're waiting for you, you carrion. Get along, what do you mean by it?

I'll give it to you!" shouted the policeman. He was evidently tired, and

he had had too much of her. She advanced a few paces, and again halted.

The little old porter, a good-natured fellow (I know him), tugged at her

hand. "Here, I'll teach you to stop! On with you!" he repeated, as

though in anger. She staggered, and began to talk in a discordant voice.

At every sound there was a false note, both hoarse and whining.

"Come now, you're shoving again. I'll get there some time!"

She stopped and then went on. I followed them.

"You'll freeze," said the porters

"The likes of us don't freeze: I'm hot."

She tried to jest, but her words sounded like scolding. She halted again

under the lantern which stands not far from our house, and leaned

against, almost hung over, the fence, and began to fumble for something

among her skirts, with benumbed and awkward hands. Again they shouted at

her, but she muttered something and did something. In one hand she held

a cigarette bent into a bow, in the other a match. I paused behind her;

I was ashamed to pass her, and I was ashamed to stand and look on. But I

made up my mind, and stepped forward. Her shoulder was lying against the

fence, and against the fence it was that she vainly struck the match and

flung it away. I looked in her face. She was really a person

prematurely born; but, as it seemed to me, already an old woman. I

credited her with thirty years. A dirty hue of face; small, dull, tipsy

eyes; a button-like nose; curved moist lips with drooping corners, and a

short wisp of harsh hair escaping from beneath her kerchief; a long flat

figure, stumpy hands and feet. I paused opposite her. She stared at me,

and burst into a laugh, as though she knew all that was going on in my

mind.

I felt that it was necessary to say something to her. I wanted to show

her that I pitied her.

"Are your parents alive?" I inquired.

She laughed hoarsely, with an expression which said, "he's making up

queer things to ask."

"My mother is," said she. "But what do you want?"

"And how old are you?"

"Sixteen," said she, answering promptly to a question which was evidently

customary.

"Come, march, you'll freeze, you'll perish entirely," shouted the

policeman; and she swayed away from the fence, and, staggering along, she

went down Khamovnitchesky Lane to the police-station; and I turned to the

wicket, and entered the house, and inquired whether my daughters had

returned. I was told that they had been to an evening party, had had a

very merry time, had come home, and were in bed.

Next morning I wanted to go to the station-house to learn what had been

done with this unfortunate woman, and I was preparing to go out very

early, when there came to see me one of those unlucky noblemen, who,

through weakness, have dropped from the gentlemanly life to which they

are accustomed, and who alternately rise and fall. I had been acquainted

with this man for three years. In the course of those three years, this

man had several times made way with every thing that he had, and even

with all his clothes; the same thing had just happened again, and he was

passing the nights temporarily in the Rzhanoff house, in the

night-lodging section, and he had come to me for the day. He met me as I

was going out, at the entrance, and without listening to me he began to

tell me what had taken place in the Rzhanoff house the night before. He

began his narrative, and did not half finish it; all at once (he is an

old man who has seen men under all sorts of aspects) he burst out

sobbing, and flooded has countenance with tears, and when he had become

silent, turned has face to the wall. This is what he told me. Every

thing that he related to me was absolutely true. I authenticated his

story on the spot, and learned fresh particulars which I will relate

separately.

In that night-lodging house, on the lower floor, in No. 32, in which my

friend had spent the night, among the various, ever-changing lodgers, men

and women, who came together there for five kopeks, there was a

laundress, a woman thirty years of age, light-haired, peaceable and

pretty, but sickly. The mistress of the quarters had a boatman lover. In

the summer her lover kept a boat, and in the winter they lived by letting

accommodations to night-lodgers: three kopeks without a pillow, five

kopeks with a pillow.

The laundress had lived there for several months, and was a quiet woman;

but latterly they had not liked her, because she coughed and prevented

the women from sleeping. An old half-crazy woman eighty years old, in

particular, also a regular lodger in these quarters, hated the laundress,

and imbittered the latter's life because she prevented her sleeping, and

cleared her throat all night like a sheep. The laundress held her peace;

she was in debt for her lodgings, and was conscious of her guilt, and

therefore she was bound to be quiet. She began to go more and more

rarely to her work, as her strength failed her, and therefore she could

not pay her landlady; and for the last week she had not been out to work

at all, and had only poisoned the existence of every one, especially of

the old woman, who also did not go out, with her cough. Four days before

this, the landlady had given the laundress notice to leave the quarters:

the latter was already sixty kopeks in debt, and she neither paid them,

nor did the landlady foresee any possibility of getting them; and all the

bunks were occupied, and the women all complained of the laundress's

cough.

When the landlady gave the laundress notice, and told her that she must

leave the lodgings if she did not pay up, the old woman rejoiced and

thrust the laundress out of doors. The laundress departed, but returned

in an hour, and the landlady had not the heart to put her out again. And

the second and the third day, she did not turn her out. "Where am I to

go?" said the laundress. But on the third day, the landlady's lover, a

Moscow man, who knew the regulations and how to manage, sent for the

police. A policeman with sword and pistol on a red cord came to the

lodgings, and with courteous words he led the laundress into the street.

It was a clear, sunny, but freezing March day. The gutters were flowing,

the house-porters were picking at the ice. The cabman's sleigh jolted

over the icy snow, and screeched over the stones. The laundress walked

up the street on the sunny side, went to the church, and seated herself

at the entrance, still on the sunny side. But when the sun began to sink

behind the houses, the puddles began to be skimmed over with a glass of

frost, and the laundress grew cold and wretched. She rose, and dragged

herself . . . whither? Home, to the only home where she had lived so

long. While she was on her way, resting at times, dusk descended. She

approached the gates, turned in, slipped, groaned and fell.

One man came up, and then another. "She must be drunk." Another man

came up, and stumbled over the laundress, and said to the potter: "What

drunken woman is this wallowing at your gate? I came near breaking my

head over her; take her away, won't you?"

The porter came. The laundress was dead. This is what my friend told

me. It may be thought that I have wilfully mixed up facts,--I encounter

a prostitute of fifteen, and the story of this laundress. But let no one

imagine this; it is exactly what happened in the course of one night

(only I do not remember which) in March, 1884. And so, after hearing my

friend's tale, I went to the station-house, with the intention of

proceeding thence to the Rzhanoff house to inquire more minutely into the

history of the laundress. The weather was very beautiful and sunny; and

again, through the stars of the night-frost, water was to be seen

trickling in the shade, and in the glare of the sun on Khamovnitchesky

square every thing was melting, and the water was streaming. The river

emitted a humming noise. The trees of the Neskutchny garden looked blue

across the river; the reddish-brown sparrows, invisible in winter,

attracted attention by their sprightliness; people also seemed desirous

of being merry, but all of them had too many cares. The sound of the

bells was audible, and at the foundation of these mingling sounds, the

sounds of shots could be heard from the barracks, the whistle of rifle-

balls and their crack against the target.

I entered the station-house. In the station some armed policemen

conducted me to their chief. He was similarly armed with sword and

pistol, and he was engaged in taking some measures with regard to a

tattered, trembling old man, who was standing before him, and who could

not answer the questions put to him, on account of his feebleness. Having

finished his business with the old man, he turned to me. I inquired

about the girl of the night before. At first he listened to me

attentively, but afterwards he began to smile, at my ignorance of the

regulations, in consequence of which she had been taken to the station-

house; and particularly at my surprise at her youth.

"Why, there are plenty of them of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years of

age," he said cheerfully.

But in answer to my question about the girl whom I had seen on the

preceding evening, he explained to me that she must have been sent to the

committee (so it appeared). To my question where she had passed the

night, he replied in an undecided manner. He did not recall the one to

whom I referred. There were so many of them every day.

In No. 32 of the Rzhanoff house I found the sacristan already reading

prayers over the dead woman. They had taken her to the bunk which she

had formerly occupied; and the lodgers, all miserable beings, had

collected money for the masses for her soul, a coffin and a shroud, and

the old women had dressed her and laid her out. The sacristan was

reading something in the gloom; a woman in a long wadded cloak was

standing there with a wax candle; and a man (a gentleman, I must state)

in a clean coat with a lamb's-skin collar, polished overshoes, and a

starched shirt, was holding one like it. This was her brother. They had

hunted him up.

I went past the dead woman to the landlady's nook, and questioned her

about the whole business.

She was alarmed at my queries; she was evidently afraid that she would be

blamed for something; but afterwards she began to talk freely, and told

me every thing. As I passed back, I glanced at the dead woman. All dead

people are handsome, but this dead woman was particularly beautiful and

touching in her coffin; her pure, pale face, with closed swollen eyes,

sunken cheeks, and soft reddish hair above the lofty brow,--a weary and

kind and not a sad but a surprised face. And in fact, if the living do

not see, the dead are surprised.

On the same day that I wrote the above, there was a great ball in Moscow.

That night I left the house at nine o'clock. I live in a locality which

is surrounded by factories, and I left the house after the

factory-whistles had sounded, releasing the people for a day of freedom

after a week of unremitting toil.

Factory-hands overtook me, and I overtook others of them, directing their

steps to the drinking-shops and taverns. Many were already intoxicated,

many were women. Every morning at five o'clock we can hear one whistle,

a second, a third, a tenth, and so forth, and so forth. That means that

the toil of women, children, and of old men has begun. At eight o'clock

another whistle, which signifies a breathing-spell of half an hour. At

twelve, a third: this means an hour for dinner. And a fourth at eight,

which denotes the end of the day.

By an odd coincidence, all three of the factories which are situated near

me produce only articles which are in demand for balls.

In one factory, the nearest, only stockings are made; in another

opposite, silken fabrics; in the third, perfumes and pomades.

It is possible to listen to these whistles, and connect no other idea

with them than as denoting the time: "There's the whistle already, it is

time to go to walk." But one can also connect with those whistles that

which they signify in reality; that first whistle, at five o'clock, means

that people, often all without exception, both men and women, sleeping in

a damp cellar, must rise, and hasten to that building buzzing with

machines, and must take their places at their work, whose end and use for

themselves they do not see, and thus toil, often in heat and a stifling

atmosphere, in the midst of dirt, and with the very briefest breathing-

spells, an hour, two hours, three hours, twelve, and even more hours in

succession. They fall into a doze, and again they rise. And this, for

them, senseless work, to which they are driven only by necessity, is

continued over and over again.

And thus one week succeeds another with the breaks of holidays; and I see

these work-people released on one of these holidays. They emerge into

the street. Everywhere there are drinking-shops, taverns, and loose

girls. And they, in their drunken state, drag by the hand each other,

and girls like the one whom I saw taken to the station-house; they drag

with them cabmen, and they ride and they walk from one tavern to another;

and they curse and stagger, and say they themselves know not what. I had

previously seen such unsteady gait on the part of factory-hands, and had

turned aside in disgust, and had been on the point of rebuking them; but

ever since I have been in the habit of hearing those whistles every day,

and understand their meaning, I am only amazed that they, all the men, do

not come to the condition of the "golden squad," of which Moscow is full,

{152a} [and the women to the state of the one whom I had seen near my

house]. {152b}

Thus I walked along, and scrutinized these factory-hands, as long as they

roamed the streets, which was until eleven o'clock. Then their movements

began to calm down. Some drunken men remained here and there, and here

and there I encountered men who were being taken to the station-house.

And then carriages began to make their appearance on all sides, directing

their course toward one point.

On the box sits a coachman, sometimes in a sheepskin coat; and a footman,

a dandy, with a cockade. Well-fed horses in saddle-cloths fly through

the frost at the rate of twenty versts an hour; in the carriages sit

ladies muffled in round cloaks, and carefully tending their flowers and

head-dresses. Every thing from the horse-trappings, the carriages, the

gutta-percha wheels, the cloth of the coachman's coat, to the stockings,

shoes, flowers, velvet, gloves, and perfumes,--every thing is made by

those people, some of whom often roll drunk into their dens or sleeping-

rooms, and some stay with disreputable women in the night-lodging houses,

while still others are put in jail. Thus past them in all their work,

and over them all, ride the frequenters of balls; and it never enters

their heads, that there is any connection between these balls to which

they make ready to go, and these drunkards at whom their coachman shouts

so roughly.

These people enjoy themselves at the ball with the utmost composure of

spirit, and assurance that they are doing nothing wrong, but something

very good. Enjoy themselves! Enjoy themselves from eleven o'clock until

six in the morning, in the very dead of night, at the very hour when

people are tossing and turning with empty stomachs in the night-lodging

houses, and while some are dying, as did the laundress.

Their enjoyment consists in this,--that the women and young girls, having

bared their necks and arms, and applied bustles behind, place themselves

in a situation in which no uncorrupted woman or maiden would care to

display herself to a man, on any consideration in the world; and in this

half-naked condition, with their uncovered bosoms exposed to view, with

arms bare to the shoulder, with a bustle behind and tightly swathed hips,

under the most brilliant light, women and maidens, whose chief virtue has

always been modesty, exhibit themselves in the midst of strange men, who

are also clad in improperly tight-fitting garments; and to the sound of

maddening music, they embrace and whirl. Old women, often as naked as

the young ones, sit and look on, and eat and drink savory things; old men

do the same. It is not to be wondered at that this should take place at

night, when all the common people are asleep, so that no one may see

them. But this is not done with the object of concealment: it seems to

them that there is nothing to conceal; that it is a very good thing; that

by this merry-making, in which the labor of thousands of toiling people

is destroyed, they not only do not injure any one, but that by this very

act they furnish the poor with the means of subsistence. Possibly it is

very merry at balls. But how does this come about? When we see that

there is a man in the community, in our midst, who has had no food, or

who is freezing, we regret our mirth, and we cannot be cheerful until he

is fed and warmed, not to mention the impossibility of imagining people

who can indulge in such mirth as causes suffering to others. The mirth

of wicked little boys, who pitch a dog's tail in a split stick, and make

merry over it, is repulsive and incomprehensible to us.

In the same manner here, in these diversions of ours, blindness has

fallen upon us, and we do not see the split stick with which we have

pitched all those people who suffer for our amusement.

[We live as though there were no connection between the dying laundress,

the prostitute of fourteen, and our own life; and yet the connection

between them strikes us in the face.

We may say: "But we personally have not pinched any tail in a stick;" but

we have no right, to deny that had the tail not been pitched, our merry-

making would not have taken place. We do not see what connection exists

between the laundress and our luxury; but that is not because no such

connection does exist, but because we have placed a screen in front of

us, so that we may not see.

If there were no screen, we should see that which it is impossible not to

see.] {154}

Surely all the women who attended that ball in dresses worth a hundred

and fifty rubles each were born not in a ballroom, or at Madame

Minanguoit's; but they have lived in the country, and have seen the

peasants; they know their own nurse and maid, whose father and brother

are poor, for whom the earning of a hundred and fifty rubles for a

cottage is the object of a long, laborious life. Each woman knows this.

How could she enjoy herself, when she knew that she wore on her bared

body at that ball the cottage which is the dream of her good maid's

father and brother? But let us suppose that she could not make this

reflection; but since velvet and silk and flowers and lace and dresses do

not grow of themselves, but are made by people, it would seem that she

could not help knowing what sort of people make all these things, and

under what conditions, and why they do it. She cannot fail to know that

the seamstress, with whom she has already quarrelled, did not make her

dress in the least out of love for her; therefore, she cannot help

knowing that all these things were made for her as a matter of necessity,

that her laces, flowers, and velvet have been made in the same way as her

dress.

But possibly they are in such darkness that they do not consider this.

One thing she cannot fail to know,--that five or six elderly and

respectable, often sick, lackeys and maids have had no sleep, and have

been put to trouble on her account. She has seen their weary, gloomy

faces. She could not help knowing this also, that the cold that night

reached twenty-eight degrees below zero, {155} and that the old coachman

sat all night long in that temperature on his box. But I know that they

really do not see this. And if they, these young women and girls, do not

see this, on account of the hypnotic state superinduced in them by balls,

it is impossible to condemn them. They, poor things, have done what is

considered right by their elders; but how are their elders to explain

away this their cruelty to the people?

The elders always offer the explanation: "I compel no one. I purchase my

things; I hire my men, my maid-servants, and my coachman. There is

nothing wrong in buying and hiring. I force no one's inclination: I

hire, and what harm is there in that?"

I recently went to see an acquaintance. As I passed through one of the

rooms, I was surprised to see two women seated at a table, as I knew that

my friend was a bachelor. A thin, yellow, old-fashioned woman, thirty

years of age, in a dress that had been carelessly thrown on, was doing

something with her hands and fingers on the table, with great speed,

trembling nervously the while, as though in a fit. Opposite her sat a

young girl, who was also engaged in something, and who trembled in the

same manner. Both women appeared to be afflicted with St. Vitus' dance.

I stepped nearer to them, and looked to see what they were doing. They

raised their eyes to me, but went on with their work with the same

intentness. In front of them lay scattered tobacco and paper cases. They

were making cigarettes. The woman rubbed the tobacco between her hands,

pushed it into the machine, slipped on the cover, thrust the tobacco

through, then tossed it to the girl. The girl twisted the paper, and,

making it fast, threw it aside, and took up another. All thus was done

with such swiftness, with such intentness, as it is impossible to

describe to a man who has never seen it done. I expressed my surprise at

their quickness.

"I have been doing nothing else for fourteen years," said the woman.

"Is it hard?"

"Yes: it pains my chest, and makes my breathing hard."

It was not necessary for her to add this, however. A look at the girl

sufficed. She had worked at this for three years, but any one who had

not seen her at this occupation would have said that here was a strong

organism which was beginning to break down.

My friend, a kind and liberal man, hires these women to fill his

cigarettes at two rubles fifty kopeks the thousand. He has money, and he

spends it for work. What harm is there in that? My friend rises at

twelve o'clock. He passes the evening, from six until two, at cards, or

at the piano. He eats and drinks savory things; others do all his work

for him. He has devised a new source of pleasure,--smoking. He has

taken up smoking within my memory.

Here is a woman, and here is a girl, who can barely support themselves by

turning themselves into machines, and they pass their whole lives

inhaling tobacco, and thereby running their health. He has money which

he never earned, and he prefers to play at whist to making his own

cigarettes. He gives these women money on condition that they shall

continue to live in the same wretched manner in which they are now

living, that is to say, by making his cigarettes.

I love cleanliness, and I give money only on the condition that the

laundress shall wash the shirt which I change twice a day; and that shirt

has destroyed the laundress's last remaining strength, and she has died.

What is there wrong about that? People who buy and hire will continue to

force other people to make velvet and confections, and will purchase

them, without me; and no matter what I may do, they will hire cigarettes

made and shirts washed. Then why should I deprive myself of velvet and

confections and cigarettes and clean shirts, if things are definitively

settled thus? This is the argument which I often, almost always, hear.

This is the very argument which makes the mob which is destroying

something, lose its senses. This is the very argument by which dogs are

guided when one of them has flung himself on another dog, and overthrown

him, and the rest of the pack rush up also, and tear their comrade in

pieces. Other people have begun it, and have wrought mischief; then why

should not I take advantage of it? Well, what will happen if I wear a

soiled shirt, and make my own cigarettes? Will that make it easier for

anybody else? ask people who would like to justify their course. If it

were not so far from the truth, it would be a shame to answer such a

question, but we have become so entangled that this question seems very

natural to us; and hence, although it is a shame, it is necessary to

reply to it.

What difference will it make if I wear one shirt a week, and make may own

cigarettes, or do not smoke at all? This difference, that some laundress

and some cigarette-maker will exert their strength less, and that what I

have spent for washing and for the making of cigarettes I can give to

that very laundress, or even to other laundresses and toilers who are

worn out with their labor, and who, instead of laboring beyond their

strength, will then be able to rest, and drink tea. But to this I hear

an objection. (It is so mortifying to rich and luxurious people to

understand their position.) To this they say: "If I go about in a dirty

shirt, and give up smoking, and hand over this money to the poor, the

poor will still be deprived of every thing, and that drop in the sea of

yours will help not at all."

Such an objection it is a shame to answer. It is such a common retort.

{158}

If I had gone among savages, and they had regaled me with cutlets which

struck me as savory, and if I should learn on the following day that

these savory cutlets had been made from a prisoner whom they had slain

for the sake of the savory cutlets, if I do not admit that it is a good

thing to eat men, then, no matter how dainty the cutlets, no matter how

universal the practice of eating men may be among my fellows, however

insignificant the advantage to prisoners, prepared for consumption, may

be my refusal to eat of the cutlets, I will not and I can not eat any

more of them. I may, possibly, eat human flesh, when hunger compels me

to it; but I will not make a feast, and I will not take part in feasts,

of human flesh, and I will not seek out such feasts, and pride myself on

my share in them.

LIFE IN THE COUNTRY.

But what is to be done? Surely it is not we who have done this? And if

not we, who then?

We say: "We have not done this, this has done itself;" as the children

say, when they break any thing, that it broke itself. We say, that, so

long as there is a city already in existence, we, by living in it,

support the people, by purchasing their labor and services. But this is

not so. And this is why. We only need to look ourselves, at the way we

have in the country, and at the manner in which we support people there.

The winter passes in town. Easter Week passes. On the boulevards, in

the gardens in the parks, on the river, there is music. There are

theatres, water-trips, walks, all sorts of illuminations and fireworks.

But in the country there is something even better,--there are better air,

trees and meadows, and the flowers are fresher. One should go thither

where all these things have unfolded and blossomed forth. And the

majority of wealthy people do go to the country to breathe the superior

air, to survey these superior forests and meadows. And there the wealthy

settle down in the country, and the gray peasants, who nourish themselves

on bread and onions, who toil eighteen hours a day, who get no sound

sleep by night, and who are clad in blouses. Here no one has led these

people astray. There have been no factories nor industrial

establishments, and there are none of those idle hands, of which there

are so many in the city. Here the whole population never succeeds, all

summer long, in completing all their tasks in season; and not only are

there no idle hands, but a vast quantity of property is ruined for the

lack of hands, and a throng of people, children, old men, and women, will

perish through overstraining their powers in work which is beyond their

strength. How do the rich order their lives there? In this fashion:--

If there is an old-fashioned house, built under the serf _regime_, that

house is repaired and embellished; if there is none, then a new one is

erected, of two or three stories. The rooms, of which there are from

twelve to twenty, and even more, are all six arshins in height. {161a}

Wood floors are laid down. The windows consist of one sheet of glass.

There are rich rugs and costly furniture. The roads around the house are

macadamized, the ground is levelled, flower-beds are laid out, croquet-

grounds are prepared, swinging-rings for gymnastics are erected,

reflecting globes, often orangeries, and hotbeds, and lofty stables

always with complicated scroll-work on the gables and ridges.

And here, in the country, an honest educated official, or noble family

dwells. All the members of the family and their guests have assembled in

the middle of June, because up to June, that is to say, up to the

beginning of mowing-time, they have been studying and undergoing

examinations; and they live there until September, that is to say, until

harvest and sowing-time. The members of this family (as is the case with

nearly every one in that circle) have lived in the country from the

beginning of the press of work, the suffering time, not until the end of

the season of toil (for in September sowing is still in progress, as well

as the digging of potatoes), but until the strain of work has relaxed a

little. During the whole of their residence in the country, all around

them and beside them, that summer toil of the peasantry has been going

on, of whose fatigues, no matter how much we may have heard, no matter

how much we may have heard about it, no matter how much we may have gazed

upon it, we can form no idea, unless we have had personal experience of

it. And the members of this family, about ten in number, live exactly as

they do in the city.

At St. Peter's Day, {161b} a strict fast, when the people's food consists

of kvas, bread, and onions, the mowing begins.

The business which is effected in mowing is one of the most important in

the commune. Nearly every year, through the lack of hands and time, the

hay crop may be lost by rain; and more or less strain of toil decides the

question, as to whether twenty or more per cent of hay is to be added to

the wealth of the people, or whether it is to rot or die where it stands.

And additional hay means additional meat for the old, and additional milk

for the children. Thus, in general and in particular, the question of

bread for each one of the mowers, and of milk for himself and his

children, in the ensuing winter, is then decided. Every one of the

toilers, both male and female, knows this; even the children know that

this is an important matter, and that it is necessary to strain every

nerve to carry the jug of kvas to their father in the meadow at his

mowing, and, shifting the heavy pitcher from hand to hand, to run

barefooted as rapidly as possible, two versts from the village, in order

to get there in season for dinner, and so that their fathers may not

scold them.

Every one knows, that, from the mowing season until the hay is got in,

there will be no break in the work, and that there will be no time to

breathe. And there is not the mowing alone. Every one of them has other

affairs to attend to besides the mowing: the ground must be turned up and

harrowed; and the women have linen and bread and washing to attend to;

and the peasants have to go to the mill, and to town, and there are

communal matters to attend to, and legal matters before the judge and the

commissary of police; and the wagons to see to, and the horses to feed at

night: and all, old and young, and sickly, labor to the last extent of

their powers. The peasants toil so, that on every occasion, the mowers,

before the end of the third stint, whether weak, young, or old, can

hardly walk as they totter past the last rows, and only with difficulty

are they able to rise after the breathing-spell; and the women, often

pregnant, or nursing infants, work in the same way. The toil is intense

and incessant. All work to the extreme bounds of their strength, and

expend in this toil, not only the entire stock of their scanty

nourishment, but all their previous stock. All of them--and they are not

fat to begin with--grow gaunt after the "suffering" season.

Here a little association is working at the mowing; three peasants,--one

an old man, the second his nephew, a young married man, and a shoemaker,

a thin, sinewy man. This hay-harvest will decide the fate of all of them

for the winter. They have been laboring incessantly for two weeks,

without rest. The rain has delayed their work. After the rain, when the

hay has dried, they have decided to stack it, and, in order to accomplish

this as speedily as possible, that two women for each of them shall

follow their scythes. On the part of the old man go his wife, a woman of

fifty, who has become unfit for work, having borne eleven children, who

is deaf, but still a tolerably stout worker; and a thirteen-year-old

daughter, who is short of stature, but a strong and clever girl. On the

part of his nephew go his wife, a woman as strong and well-grown as a

sturdy peasant, and his daughter-in-law, a soldier's wife, who is about

to become a mother. On the part of the shoemaker go his wife, a stout

laborer, and her aged mother, who has reached her eightieth year, and who

generally goes begging. They all stand in line, and labor from morning

till night, in the full fervor of the June sun. It is steaming hot, and

rain threatens. Every hour of work is precious. It is a pity to tear

one's self from work to fetch water or kvas. A tiny boy, the old woman's

grandson, brings them water. The old woman, evidently only anxious lest

she shall be driven away from her work, will not let the rake out of her

hand, though it is evident that she can barely move, and only with

difficulty. The little boy, all bent over, and stepping gently, with his

tiny bare feet, drags along a jug of water, shifting it from hand to

hand, for it is heavier than he. The young girl flings over her shoulder

a load of hay which is also heavier than herself, advances a few steps,

halts, and drops it, without the strength to carry it. The old woman of

fifty rakes away without stopping, and with her kerchief awry she drags

the hay, breathing heavily and tottering. The old woman of eighty only

rakes the hay, but even this is beyond her strength; she slowly drags

along her feet, shod with bast shoes, and, frowning, she gazes gloomily

before her, like a seriously ill or dying person. The old man has

intentionally sent her farther away than the rest, to rake near the cocks

of hay, so that she may not keep in line with the others; but she does

not fall in with this arrangement, and she toils on as long as the others

do, with the same death-like, gloomy countenance. The sun is already

setting behind the forest; but the cocks are not yet all heaped together,

and much still remains to do. All feel that it is time to stop, but no

one speaks, waiting until the others shall say it. Finally the

shoemaker, conscious that his strength is exhausted, proposes to the old

man, to leave the cocks until the morrow; and the old man consents, and

the women instantly run for the garments, jugs, pitchforks; and the old

woman immediately sits down just where she has been standings and then

lies back with the same death-like look, staring straight in front of

her. But the women are going; and she rises with a groan, and drags

herself after them. And this will go on in July also, when the peasants,

without obtaining sufficient sleep, reap the oats by night, lest it

should fall, and the women rise gloomily to thresh out the straw for the

bands to tie the sheaves; when this old woman, already utterly cramped by

the labor of mowing, and the woman with child, and the young children,

injure themselves overworking and over-drinking; and when neither hands,

nor horses, nor carts will suffice to bring to the ricks that grain with

which all men are nourished, and millions of poods {165} of which are

daily required in Russia to keep people from perishing.

And we live as though there were no connection between the dying

laundress, the prostitute of fourteen years, the toilsome manufacture of

cigarettes by women, the strained, intolerable, insufficiently fed toil

of old women and children around us; we live as though there were no

connection between this and our own lives.

It seems to us, that suffering stands apart by itself, and our life apart

by itself. We read the description of the life of the Romans, and we

marvel at the inhumanity of those soulless Luculli, who satiated

themselves on viands and wines while the populace were dying with hunger.

We shake our heads, and we marvel at the savagery of our grandfathers,

who were serf-owners, supporters of household orchestras and theatres,

and of whole villages devoted to the care of their gardens; and we

wonder, from the heights of our grandeur, at their inhumanity. We read

the words of Isa. v. 8: "Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay

field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in

the midst of the earth! (11.) Woe unto them that rise up early in the

morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night,

till wine inflame them! (12.) And the harp and the viol, and tabret and

pipe, and wine are in their feasts; but they regard not the work of the

Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands. (18.) Woe unto them

that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart-

rope. (20.) Woe unto then that call evil good, and good evil; that put

darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet,

and sweet for bitter! (21.) Woe unto them that are wise in their own

eyes, and prudent in their own sight--(22.) Woe unto them that are mighty

to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink."

We read these words, and it seems to us that this has no reference to us.

We read in the Gospels (Matt. iii. 10): "And now also the axe is laid

unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth

good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire."

And we are fully convinced that the good tree which bringeth forth good

fruit is ourselves; and that these words are not spoken to us, but to

some other and wicked people.

We read the words of Isa. vi. 10: "Make the heart of this people fat, and

make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their

eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and

convert and be healed. (11.) Then said I: Lord, how long? And he

answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses

without man, and the land be utterly desolate."

We read, and are fully convinced that this marvellous deed is not

performed on us, but on some other people. And because we see nothing it

is, that this marvellous deed is performed, and has been performed, on

us. We hear not, we see not, and we understand not with our heart. How

has this happened?

Whether that God, or that natural law by virtue of which men exist in the

world, has acted well or ill, yet the position of men in the world, ever

since we have known it, has been such, that naked people, without any

hair on their bodies, without lairs in which they could shelter

themselves, without food which they could find in the fields,--like

Robinson {167} on his island,--have all been reduced to the necessity of

constantly and unweariedly contending with nature in order to cover their

bodies, to make themselves clothing, to construct a roof over their

heads, and to earn their bread, that two or three times a day they may

satisfy their hunger and the hunger of their helpless children and of

their old people who cannot work.

Wherever, at whatever time, in whatever numbers we may have observed

people, whether in Europe, in America, in China, or in Russia, whether we

regard all humanity, or any small portion of it, in ancient times, in a

nomad state, or in our own times, with steam-engines and sewing-machines,

perfected agriculture, and electric lighting, we behold always one and

the same thing,--that man, toiling intensely and incessantly, is not able

to earn for himself and his little ones and his old people clothing,

shelter, and food; and that a considerable portion of mankind, as in

former times, so at the present day, perish through insufficiency of the

necessaries of life, and intolerable toil in the effort to obtain them.

Wherever we have, if we draw a circle round us of a hundred thousand, a

thousand, or ten versts, or of one verst, and examine into the lives of

the people comprehended within the limits of our circle, we shall see

within that circle prematurely-born children, old men, old women, women

in labor, sick and weak persons, who toil beyond their strength, and who

have not sufficient food and rest for life, and who therefore die before

their time. We shall see people in the flower of their age actually

slain by dangerous and injurious work.

We see that people have been struggling, ever since the world has

endured, with fearful effort, privation, and suffering, against this

universal want, and that they cannot overcome it . . . {168}

ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENCE AND ART.

CHAPTER I.

. . . {169} 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. {178}

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 common-sense 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.