defense than most of the other ways of getting a living in
that day, but to talk of dignity attaching to labor of any
sort under the system then prevailing was absurd. There is no
way in which selling labor for the highest price it will
fetch is more dignified than selling goods for what can be
got. Both were commercial transactions to be judged by the
commercial standard. By setting a price in money on his
service, the worker accepted the money measure for it, and
renounced all clear claim to be judged by any other. The
sordid taint which this necessity imparted to the noblest and