561 



the health and vigor of the individual begins to decay; the mind with- 

 out due exercise, also loses its power. 



If, therefore, there is one injunction of the Almighty more obligato- 

 ry, or more legibly written upon all His works than any other, it is the 

 command to labor. It is stamped in letters of light, in language in- 

 telligible to every eye, upon every living, breathing thing, from the 

 meanest insect to the highest form of created being, as a primary law 

 of his existence. It is not even confined to His creatures, but through- 

 out the earth and the heavens, the sun, the planetary system and the 

 numberless worlds scattered through infinite space, created, upheld and 

 kept in motion by His power; the ceaseless activity which prevails 

 proves that labor is an essential attribuie of God Himself. 



Who, then, should be ashamed to labor. He only who is ashamed of 

 his Maker — ashamed of his own existence. Let him hide his head 

 and rid himsel f and others of the burden of his existence ; for while he 

 impiously assumes to be above his Creator, he is beneath the vilest in- 

 sect that crawLs — a hving libel upon his Maker, a hideous excrescence 

 upon the fair face of Nature which he deforms and defiles by his pres- 

 ence. In all the universe of God there is no proper place for such a 

 being. 



Human wants, then, constitute the necessity for human labor ; and 

 these being, as society advances and population increases, almost infi- 

 nite, the kinds of labor necessary for supplying these wants, become a« 

 various as the wants to be supplied. 



But the true and only legitimate object of all human labor is to add 

 to the aggregate of human happiness. All labor which has this ten- 

 dency is useful and honorable ; that which has not is useless, and (as it 

 is a waste of time which ought to be otherwise employed) is dishonor- 

 able. I say all labor which tends to increase the aggregate of human 

 happiness ; not all that which may tend to the momentary enjoyment 

 of the individual, or of a particular class, and the sacrifice of the rights 

 or the enjoyments of others. A man may labor as hard tojob or de- 

 fraud you of the fruits of your labor as he would in producing an equal 

 amount of property by legitimate labor ; but this tends in two ways to 

 lessen the aggregate of human enjoyment; first, by depiiving you of 

 the reward of your industry, and secondly, by wasting in these unjust 

 depredations, the time which should have been employed in prodn- 



71 



