ere 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
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