ing bad, like our own rich men, but who only
arrayed himself in costly garments, and ate and drank daintily, and who
lost his soul thereby; and of poor Lazarus, who had done nothing good,
but who was saved merely because he was poor.

This theory was sufficiently familiar to me, but the false teachings of
the world had so obscured it that it had become for me a theory in the
sense which people are fond of attributing to that term, that is to say,
empty words. But as soon as I had succeeded in destroying in my
consciousness the sophisms of worldly teaching, theory conformed to
practice, and the truth with regard to my life and to the life of the
people about me became its conclusion.

I understood that man, besides life for his own personal good, is
unavoidably bound to serve the good of others also; that, if we take an
illustration from the animal kingdom,--as some people are fond of doing,
defending violence and conflict by the conflict for existence in the
animal kingdom,--the illustration must be taken from gregarious animals,
like bees; that consequently man, not to mention the love to his neighbor
incumbent on him, is called upon, both by reason and by his nature, to
serve other people and the common good of humanity. I comprehended that
the natural law of man is that according to which only he can fulfil
destiny, and therefore be happy. I understood that this law has been and
is broken hereby,--that people get rid of labor by force (like the robber
bees), make use of the toil of others, directing this toil, not to the
common weal, but to the private satisfaction of swift-growing desires;
and, precisely as in the case of the robber bees, they perish in
consequence. [I understood that the original form of this disinclination
for the law is the brutal violence against weaker individuals, against
women, wars and imprisonments, whose sequel is slavery, and also the
present reign of money. I understood that money is the impersonal and
concealed enslavement of the poor. And, once having perceived the
significance of money as slavery, I could not but hate it, nor refrain
from doing all in my power to free myself from it.] {135}

When I was a slave-owner, and comprehended the immorality of my position,
I tried to escape from it. My escape consisted in this, that I,
regarding it as immoral, tried to exercise my rights as slave-owner as
little as possible, but to live, and to allow other people to live, as
though th