are so exceptionally happy? Surely the signs are identical. There is
the same self-satisfaction and blind confidence that we, precisely we,
and only we, are on the right path, and that the real thing is only
beginning with us. There is the same expectation that we shall discover
something remarkable; and that chief sign which leads us astray convicts
us of our error: all our wisdom remains with us, and the common people do
not understand, and do not accept, and do not need it.

Our position is a very difficult one, but why not look at it squarely?

It is time to recover our senses, and to scrutinize ourselves. Surely we
are nothing else than the scribes and Pharisees, who sit in Moses' seat,
and who have taken the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and will neither go
in ourselves, nor permit others to go in. Surely we, the high priests of
science and art, are ourselves worthless deceivers, possessing much less
right to our position than the most crafty and depraved priests. Surely
we have no justification for our privileged position. The priests had a
right to their position: they declared that they taught the people life
and salvation. But we have taken their place, and we do not instruct the
people in life,--we even admit that such instruction is unnecessary,--but
we educate our children in the same Talmudic-Greek and Latin grammar, in
order that they may be able to pursue the same life of parasites which we
lead ourselves. We say, "There used to be castes, but there are none
among us." But what does it mean, that some people and their children
toil, while other people and their children do not toil?

Bring hither an Indian ignorant of our language, and show him European
life, and our life, for several generations, and he will recognize the
same leading, well-defined castes--of laborers and non-laborers--as there
are in his own country. And as in his land, so in ours, the right of
refusing to labor is conferred by a peculiar consecration, which we call
science and art, or, in general terms, culture. It is this culture, and
all the distortions of sense connected with it, which have brought us to
that marvellous madness, in consequence of which we do not see that which
is so clear and indubitable.

CHAPTER VII.

Then, what is to be done? What are we to do?

This question, which includes within itself both an admission that our
life is evil and wrong, and in connection with this,--as though it were
a