There is no argument which could more clearly demonstrate the terror
of those who make use of it than this. The burlaki {3} drag their
bark against the current. There cannot be found a burlak so stupid
that he will refuse to pull away at his towing-rope because he alone
is not able to drag the bark against the current. He who, in
addition to his rights to an animal life, to eat and sleep,
recognizes any sort of human obligation, knows very well in what that
human obligation lies, just as the boatman knows it when the tow-rope
is attached to him. The boatman knows very well that all he has to
do is to pull at the rope, and proceed in the given direction. He
will seek what he is to do, and how he is to do it, only when the
tow-rope is removed from him. And as it is with these boatmen and
with all people who perform ordinary work, so it is with the affairs
of all humanity. All that each man needs is not to remove the tow-
rope, but to pull away on it in the direction which his master
orders. And, for this purpose, one sort of reason is bestowed on all
men, in order that the direction may be always the same. And this
direction has obviously been so plainly indicated, that both in the
life of all the people about us, and in the conscience of each
individual man, only he who does not wish to work can say that he
does not see it. Then, what is the outcome of this?

This: that one, perhaps two men, will pull; a third will look on,
and will join them; and in this manner the best people will unite
until the affair begins to start, and make progress, as though itself
inspiring and bidding thereto even those who do not understand what
is being done, and why it is being done. First, to the contingent of
men who are consciously laboring in order to comply with the law of
God, there will be added the people who only half understand and who
only half confess the faith; then a still greater number of people