cannot resist; but you can never destroy my arguments, or prove them to be false.
During 6884 years[1] we have been silent before you. Now we have spoken a word that you have never before heard, even in your dreams. I do not depend on you, but on your conscience. I hope it will come to my aid.
70. There are in the world many inventions that astonish the mind. To produce one object, of however little importance, machines have been invented. A labor that formerly required the efforts of several men, is now done more perfectly by a machine than any hand of man could have accomplished it.
But the labor for bread has been done by peasants from time immemorial.
71. Would it not be easy for an inventor to say these simple words, "Make this or that," that men and beasts should be delivered from a wearisome labor?
No! He would not come near the labor he abhors, or the people who perform it He would have no pity for the poor martyrs,—I mean the laborers,—nor even for the animals themselves, although he will several times in a day eat this bread—or rather the blood and tears of both beasts and men.
It is thus, O you of the upper class, that you offend us, and at the same time you disobey God's command.
- ↑ This article was written in 1884.
