the greatest thinker of antiquity, “if every tool, when summoned, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it, just as the creations of Dædalus moved of themselves, or the tripods of Hephæstos went of their own accord to their sacred work, if the weavers’ shuttles were to weave of themselves, then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers, or of slaves for the lords.”[1] And Antipatros, a Greek poet of the time of Cicero, hailed the invention of the water-wheel for grinding corn, an invention that is the clementary form of all machinery, as the giver of freedom to female slaves, and the bringer back of the golden age.[2] Oh! those heathens! They understood, as the learned Bastiat, and before him the still wiser MacCulloch have discovered, nothing of political economy and Christianity. They did not, for example, comprehend that machinery is the surest means of lengthening the working day. They perhaps excused the slavery of one on the ground that it was a means to the full development of another. But to preach slavery of the masses, in order that a few crude and half-educated parvenus, might become “eminent spinners,” “extensive sausage-makers,” and “influential shoe-black dealers,” to do this, they lacked the bump of Christianity.
- ↑ F. Biese. “Die Philosophie des Aristoteles,” Vol. 2. Berlin, 1842, p. 408.
- ↑ I give below the translation of this poem by Stolberg, because it brings into relief, quite in the spirit of former quotations referring to division of labour, the antithesis between the views of the ancients and the moderns. “Spare the hand that grinds the corn, Oh, miller girls, and softly sleep. Let Chanticleer announce the morn in vain! Deo has commanded the work of the girls to be done by the Nymphs, and now they skip lightly over the wheels, so that the shaken axles revolve with their spokes and pull round the load of the revolving stones. Let us live the life of our fathers, and let us rest from work and enjoy the gifts that the Goddess sends us.”
"Schonet der mablenden Hand, o Müllerinnen und schlafet
Sanft! es verkünde der Habn euch den Morgen umsonst!
Däo hat die Arbeit der Mädchen den Nymphen befoblen,
Und itzt hiipfen sie leicht tiber die Rader dahin,
Dass die erscbütterten Achsen mit ihren Speichen sich wälzen,
Und im Kreise die Last drehen des wälzenden Steins.
Lasst uns leben das Leben der Väter, und lasst uns der Gahen
Arheitslos uns freun, welche die Göttin uns schenkt.”
(Gedichte aus dem Griechischen ühersetzt von Christian Graf zu Stolberg, Hamburg, 1782.)
