exhorted by reason, by conscience and feeling, to secure to our brother-men their lives, to preserve them from the suffering- and death which result from their unequal contest with nature,[1] and to urge upon them the labor for bread, the most important and most wearisome of all work, and which is distinctly imposed on all men.
Even as the spring may not ask where it shall send its waters, whether it shall sprinkle from above the grass and the leaves of the trees, or seek their roots beneath the earth, so a man who knows the doctrine of truth may not ask in advance what he must do, whether he is to teach men, to defend them from the enemy, to amuse them and give them the pleasures of life, or to succor those who perish in want. A spring does not flow upon the surface, quenching the thirst of animals and filling the ponds,
- ↑ This idea of an incessant struggle with nature as being man's principal duty and occupation occurs frequently in Tolstoï's works, and notably in What should be done. "The first and most undoubted duty of man," he says, "is to partake in the struggle with nature for his own life and his neighbor's." And again: "Whether it results for good or for ill, this is the decree of God, or the law of nature which created man and the world. The situation of man in the world, as we know it, is such that, being naked, without shelter, and unable to find his food in the fields,—like Robinson Crusoe on his island,—he is under the necessity of contending always with nature for food, clothing, and shelter. Food must be prepared to satisfy his own hunger several times in the day, and also that of the children who are too young for labor, as well as of the feeble old folk."
