But the division of labour is, it is said, more advantageous. Advantageous for whom? Is it more advantageous to make with all speed as many boots and cotton-prints as possible? But who will make these boots and cotton-prints? Men who from generation to generation have been making only pin-heads? How, then, can it be more advantageous for people? If the object were to make as many cotton-prints and pins as possible, it would be so; but the question is, how to make people happy?
The happiness of men consists in life. And life is in labour.
How, then, can the necessity of painful, oppressing work be advantageous for men? If the question were only for the advantage of some men without any consideration of the welfare of all, then it might be most advantageous for some men to eat others. They say it is savoury!
The thing most advantageous for all men is what I wish for myself,—the greatest welfare and the satisfying of all my wants which are ingrafted in me, those of body as well as those of soul, of conscience, and of reason.
Now, for myself I have found, that for my welfare and for the satisfying of these wants, I need only to be cured of the folly in which I (as well as the Krapivensky madman) have lived, consisting in the idea that gentlefolk need not work, and that all must be done for them by others, and that, producing nothing, I have to do only what is proper to man,—satisfy my own wants.
Having discovered this, I became persuaded that this labour for the satisfying of my own wants, is divisible into various kinds of labour, each of which has its own charm, and is not only no burden, but serves as rest after some other labour.
I have roughly divided labour, not in the least insisting on the propriety of such a division, into four parts parallel to the four parts of the labourer's day's work, divided by his meals; and thus I try to satisfy my wants.
These are, then, the answers to the question, “What shall we do?” which I have found for myself.
First, Not to lie to myself. However far I have gone astray from that road of life which my reason shows to me, I must not be afraid of the truth.
Secondly, To renounce my own righteousness, my own advantages, peculiarities, distinguishing me from others, and to own my guilt.