toiled ten hours in a workshop has not the time, and still less the means, to give himself the high delights of science and art, nor even to prepare himself to appreciate them; he must be content with the crumbs from the table of privileged persons.
We understand that under these conditions manual labour is considered a curse of fate.
We understand that all men have but one dream—that of emerging from, or enabling their children to emerge from this inferior state; to create for themselves an "independent" position, which means what?—To also live by other men's work!
As long as there will be a class of manual workers and a class of "brain" workers, black hands and white hands, it will be thus.
What interest, in fact, can this depressing work have for the worker, when he knows that the fate awaiting him from the cradle to the grave will be to live in mediocrity, poverty, and in- security of the morrow? Therefore, when we see the immense majority of men take up their wretched task every morning, we are surprised at their perseverance, at their zeal for work, at the habit that enables them, like machines blindly obeying an impetus given, to lead this life of misery without hope for the morrow; without foreseeing ever so vaguely that some day they, or at least their children, will be part of a humanity rich in all the treasures of a bountiful nature.
