44-O Work for self and the state 



first have been free, is a piece of speculation with which I am not here 

 concerned. 



Tradition then, looking back to times when landowner and citizen 

 were normally but different sides of the same character, both terms 

 alike implying the duty of fighting for the state, idealized and glorified 

 this character with great but pardonable exaggeration of virtues pro- 

 bably not merely fictitious. The peasant citizen and producer was its 

 hero. As the devolution of bodily labour upon slaves or hirelings 

 became more common with the increase of commerce and urban life, 

 and the solid worth of a patriot peasantry became more evident in 

 the hour of its decay, men turned with regret to the past. And the 

 contrast of the real present with an idealized past naturally found a 

 significant difference in the greater or less willingness of men to work 

 with their own hands, particularly on the land. But it was the labour 

 of free citizens, each bearing an active part in the common responsi- 

 bilities of the state and enjoying its common protection, that was 

 glorified, not labour as in itself meritorious or healthy. The wholesome- 

 ness of rustic toil was not ignored, but to urge it as a motive for bodily 

 exertion was a notion developed by town-bred thinkers. That it 

 coloured later tradition is not wonderful : its recognition is most clearly 

 expressed in the admission of superior 'corporal soundness' in the 

 sparely-fed and hard-worked slave or wage-earner. But labour as 

 labour was never, so far as I can learn, dignified and respected in 

 Greco-Roman civilization. Poverty, not choice, might compel a man 

 to do all his own work ; but, if he could and did employ hired or slave 

 labour also, then he was an avrovpybs none the less. This I hold to be 

 an underlying fact that Roman tradition in particular is calculated to 

 obscure. It was voluntary labour, performed in a citizen's own interest 

 and therefore a service to the state, that received sentimental esteem. 



The power of military influences in ancient states is often cited as 

 a sufficient explanation of the social fact that non-military bodily 

 labour was generally regarded with more or less contempt. The army 

 being the state in arms, the inferiority of those who did not form part 

 of it though able-bodied was manifest to all. This is true as far as it 

 goes, but there was something more behind. Why does not the same 

 phenomenon appear in modern states with conscript armies, such as 

 France or Italy or above all Switzerland? I think the true answer is 

 only to be found by noting a difference between ancient and modern 

 views as to the nature and limits of voluntary action. It is only of 

 states in which membership is fairly to be called citizenship that I am 

 speaking; and as usual it is Greek conditions and Greek words that 

 supply distinct evidence. Not that the Roman conditions were 

 materially different, but they were perhaps less clearly conceived, and 



