CHAPTER XXIII

I saw that the cause of the sufferings and depravity of men lies in the fact that some men are in bondage¹ to others; and therefore I came to the obvious conclusion that if I want to help men I have first of all to leave off causing those very misfortunes which I want to remedy,—in other words, I must not share in the enslaving of men.

I was led to the enslaving of men by the circumstance that from my infancy² I had been accustomed not to work, but to profit by the labour of others, and that I had been living in a society which is not only accustomed to this slavery but which justifies³ it by all kinds of sophistry⁴, clever and foolish.

I came to the following simple conclusion, that, in order to avoid causing the sufferings and depravity of men, I ought to make other men work for me as little as possible and to work myself as much as possible.

It was by this roundabout way that I arrived at the inevitable⁵ conclusion to which the Chinese arrived some thousand years ago, and which they express thus: “If there is one idle man, there must be another who is starving.”

I came to this simple and natural conclusion, that if I pity the exhausted⁶ horse on whose back I ride the first thing for me to do if I really pity him is to get off his back and walk. This answer, which gives such complete satisfaction to the moral sense, had always been before my eyes, as it is before the eyes of every one, but we do not all see it, and look aside.

In seeking to heal our social diseases we look everywhere,—to the governmental, anti-governmental, scientific, and philanthropic superstitions,—and yet we do not see that which meets the eyes of every one. We fill our drains with filth⁷ and require other men to clean them, and pretend to be very sorry for them and want to ease their work; and we invent all sorts of devices except one, the simplest; namely, that we should ourselves remove our slops so long as we find it necessary to produce them in our rooms.

For him who really suffers from the sufferings of the other men surrounding him, there exists a most clear, simple, and easy means, the only one sufficient to heal this evil and to confer a sense of the lawfulness⁸ of one's life. This means is that which John the Baptist recommended when he answered the question, “What shall we do then?” and which was confirmed by Christ: not to have more than one coat, and not to possess money,—that is, not to profit by another man's labour. And in order not to profit by another's labour, we must do with our own hands all that we can do. This is so plain and simple! But it is plain and simple and clear only when our wants are also plain, and when we ourselves are still sound and not corrupted⁹ to the backbone¹⁰ by idleness and laziness.

I live in a village, lie by the stove, and tell my neighbour, who is my debtor¹¹, to chop wood and light the stove. It is obvious that I am lazy and take my neighbour away from his own work; and at last I feel ashamed of it; and besides, it grows dull for me to be always lying down when my muscles are strong and accustomed to work,—and I go to chop the wood myself.

But slavery of all kinds has been going on so long, so many artificial wants have grown about it, so many people with different degrees of familiarity with these wants are interwoven with one another, through so many generations men have been spoiled and made effeminate, such complicated temptations and justifications¹² of luxury and idleness have been invented by men, that for one who stands on the top of the pyramid of idle men, it is not at all so easy to understand his sin as it is for the peasant who compels his neighbour to light his stove.

Men who stand at the top find it most difficult to understand what is required of them. From the height of the structure of lies on which they stand they become giddy when they look at that spot on the earth to which they must descend¹³ in order to begin to live, not righteously, but only not quite inhumanly¹⁴; and that is why this plain and clear truth appears to these men so strange.

A man who employs ten servants in livery, coachmen and cooks, who has pictures and pianos, must certainly regard as strange and even ridiculous the simple preliminary duty of, I do not say a good man, but of every man who is not an animal, to hew¹⁵ that wood with which his food is cooked and by which he is warmed; to clean those boots in which he carelessly stepped into the mud; to bring that water with which he keeps himself clean; and to carry away those slops in which he has washed himself.

But besides the estrangement¹⁶ of men from the truth, there is another cause which hinders them from seeing the duty of doing the most simple and natural physical work; that is the complication and intermingling of the conditions in which a rich man lives.

This morning I entered the corridor in which the stoves are heated. A peasant was heating the stove which warmed my son's room. I entered his bedroom: he was asleep, and it was eleven o'clock in the morning. The excuse was, “To-day is a holiday; no lessons.” A stout¹⁷ lad of eighteen years of age, having over-eaten himself the previous night, is sleeping until eleven o'clock; and a peasant of his own age, who had already that morning done a quantity of work, was now lighting¹⁸ the tenth stove. “It would be better, perhaps, if the peasant did not light the stove to warm this stout, lazy fellow!” thought I; but I remembered at once that this stove also warmed the room of our housekeeper¹⁹, a woman of forty years of age, who had been working the night before till three o'clock in the morning to prepare everything for the supper which my son ate; and then she put away the dishes, and, notwithstanding this, got up at seven. She cannot heat the stove herself: she has no time for that. The peasant is heating the stove for her, too. And under her name my lazy fellow was being warmed.

True, the advantages are all interwoven; but without much consideration the conscience of each will say, On whose side is the labour, and on whose the idleness? But not only does conscience tell this, the account-book also tells it: the more money one spends, the more people work for us. The less one spends, the more one works one's self. “My luxurious²⁰ life gives means of living to others. Where should my old footman go, if I were to discharge him?” “What! every one must do everything for himself? Make his coat as well as hew his wood? And how about division of labour? And industry and social undertakings²¹?” And, last of all, come the most horrible of words,—civilization, science, art!

1 bondage   

n.奴役，束缚

参考例句：

• Masters sometimes allowed their slaves to buy their way out of bondage.奴隶主们有时允许奴隶为自己赎身。
• They aim to deliver the people who are in bondage to superstitious belief.他们的目的在于解脱那些受迷信束缚的人。

2 infancy   

n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期

参考例句：

• He came to England in his infancy.他幼年时期来到英国。
• Their research is only in its infancy.他们的研究处于初级阶段。

3 justifies   

证明…有理( justify的第三人称单数 )； 为…辩护； 对…作出解释； 为…辩解（或辩护）

参考例句：

• Their frequency of use both justifies and requires the memorization. 频繁的使用需要记忆，也促进了记忆。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• In my judgement the present end justifies the means. 照我的意见，只要目的正当，手段是可以不计较的。

4 sophistry   

n.诡辩

参考例句：

• Sophistry cannot alter history.诡辩改变不了历史。
• No one can be persuaded by sophistry.强词夺理不能折服人。

5 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

6 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

7 filth   

n.肮脏，污物，污秽；淫猥

参考例句：

• I don't know how you can read such filth.我不明白你怎么会去读这种淫秽下流的东西。
• The dialogue was all filth and innuendo.这段对话全是下流的言辞和影射。

8 lawfulness   

法制，合法

参考例句：

• Einstein declared that randomness rather than lawfulness is the characteristic of natural events. 爱因斯坦宣称自然现象的特征为不可测性而不是规律化。 来自辞典例句
• Does the Lawfulness of War Matter? 战争的合法性有关系吗？ 来自互联网

9 corrupted   

（使）败坏( corrupt的过去式和过去分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏

参考例句：

• The body corrupted quite quickly. 尸体很快腐烂了。
• The text was corrupted by careless copyists. 原文因抄写员粗心而有讹误。

10 backbone   

n.脊骨，脊柱，骨干；刚毅，骨气

参考例句：

• The Chinese people have backbone.中国人民有骨气。
• The backbone is an articulate structure.脊椎骨是一种关节相连的结构。

11 debtor   

n.借方，债务人

参考例句：

• He crowded the debtor for payment.他催逼负债人还债。
• The court granted me a lien on my debtor's property.法庭授予我对我债务人财产的留置权。

12 justifications   

正当的理由，辩解的理由( justification的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• If he a vulgar person, she does not have justifications for him. 如果他是个低级趣味的人，她早就不会理他了。
• It depends on their effect on competition and possible justifications. 这则取决于它们对于竞争的影响和可能存在的正当抗辩理由。

13 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

14 inhumanly   

adv.无人情味地，残忍地

参考例句：

15 hew   

v.砍；伐；削

参考例句：

• Hew a path through the underbrush.在灌木丛中砍出一条小路。
• Plant a sapling as tall as yourself and hew it off when it is two times high of you.种一棵与自己身高一样的树苗，长到比自己高两倍时砍掉它。

16 estrangement   

n.疏远，失和，不和

参考例句：

• a period of estrangement from his wife 他与妻子分居期间
• The quarrel led to a complete estrangement between her and her family. 这一争吵使她同家人完全疏远了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

19 housekeeper   

n.管理家务的主妇，女管家

参考例句：

• A spotless stove told us that his mother is a diligent housekeeper.炉子清洁无瑕就表明他母亲是个勤劳的主妇。
• She is an economical housekeeper and feeds her family cheaply.她节约持家，一家人吃得很省。

20 luxurious   

adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的

参考例句：

• This is a luxurious car complete with air conditioning and telephone.这是一辆附有空调设备和电话的豪华轿车。
• The rich man lives in luxurious surroundings.这位富人生活在奢侈的环境中。

21 undertakings   

企业( undertaking的名词复数 )； 保证； 殡仪业； 任务

参考例句：

• The principle of diligence and frugality applies to all undertakings. 勤俭节约的原则适用于一切事业。
• Such undertakings require the precise planning and foresight of military operations. 此举要求军事上战役中所需要的准确布置和预见。