their position as justifiable; and they convert themselves
physically into utterly useless parasites, and mentally they
dislocate their brains and become mental eunuchs. And in precisely
the same manner, according to the measure of their folly, do they
acquire self-conceit, which deprives them forever of all possibility
of return to a simple life of toil, to a simple, clear, and
universally human train of reasoning.

Division of labor always has existed in human communities, and will
probably always exist; but the question for us lies not in the fact
that it has existed, and that it will exist, but in this,--how are
we to govern ourselves so that this division shall be right? But if
we take investigation as our rule of action, we by this very act
repudiate all rule; then in that case we shall regard as right every
division of labor which we shall descry among men, and which appears
to us to be right--to which conclusion the prevailing scientific
science also leads.

Division of labor!

Some are busied in mental or moral, others in muscular or physical,
labor. With what confidence people enunciate this! They wish to
think so, and it seems to them that, in point of fact, a perfectly
regular exchange of services does take place.

But we, in our blindness, have so completely lost sight of the
responsibility which we have assumed, that we have even forgotten in
whose name our labor is prosecuted; and the very people whom we have
undertaken to serve have become the objects of our scientific and
artistic activity. We study and depict them for our amusement and