e are
notions at all stages of civilization about productive labor and wealth,
as parts of the fate of man on earth and of the conditions of his
happiness and welfare. At this point they take the character of a
philosophy, and are turned back on the work, as regulative notions of
how, and how much, to work. The mores of the struggle for existence are
in those notions. From the time when men had any accumulated wealth they
seem to have been struck by its effect on the character of the
possessor. The creature seemed to be stronger than the creator. Here
ethical reflections began. They have been more actively produced since
it has been possible for men to acquire wealth in a lifetime by their
own efforts. Envy has been awakened, and has been gratified by
theoretical discussions of the power, rights, and duties of wealth. When
wealth was due to the possession of land or to the possession of rank
and political power, the facts about its distribution seemed to be like
the differences in health, strength, beauty, etc. It now appears that
the ethics of poverty are as well worth studying as those of wealth, and
that, in short, every man's case brings its own ethics, or that there
are no ethics at all in the matter. The ideas, however, which are
current in the society at the time are conditions for the individual,
and they are a part of the mores of the environment in which the
struggle for existence must be carried on.

+158. Notions of labor.+ Nature peoples generally regard productive
labor as the business of women, unworthy of men. The Jews believed in a
God who worked six days and rested on the seventh. He differed from the
Olympian gods of Greece, who were revelers, and from Buddha who tried to
do nothing, or from Brahma who was only Thought. The Sabbath of rest
implied other days of labor. In the book of Proverbs idleness is
denounced as the cause of poverty and want.[366] Many passages are cited
from the rabbinical literature in honor of productive labor and in
disapproval of idleness.[367] In Book II, Chapter 62, of the Apostolic
Constitutions, the basis of which is a Jewish work, it is taught that
gainful occupations should be incidental and that the worship of God
should be the main work of life. Hellenic shows and theaters are to be
avoided. To this the Christian editor added heathen shows and sports of
any kind. Young men ought to work to earn their own support. The
Zoroastrian religion was a developed form of the st