on the floor? Let us rather discuss together, apprentice philosopher,” his father said. He lost his sparkling expression as he continued, after a short pause: “I prefer the ideas that are tried out in the full light of day to those that areallowed to grow rancid within oneself. It is these last that poison, and sometimes kill.”
He recovered his serenity on the instant and began to smile again.
“To come back to the idea that is worrying you—it seems to me, my young philosopher, that we ought to get a better hold on it, to get it pure and simple, so to speak. Now the idea of work for the preservation of life does not appear to me as sufficiently simple. It has anterior stages.”
“Certainly: for example, the very idea of life, insofar as it has value.”
“Bravo! Let us consider work in the case where it is linked to life by a relation of justification. I say that everything which justifies life and gives it its meaning, in the same way and
a posteriori
, gives work its meaning, too.”
“I see your conclusion,” Samba Diallo said. “When a life justifies itself before God, everything that tends to preserve it—hence, work—is also justified in His eyes.”
“Correct. Work, in effect, is justified before God in strict measure as the life it preserves justifies itself before Him. If a man believes in God, the time he takes from prayer for work is still prayer. It is even a very beautiful prayer.”
Samba Diallo was silent for a long time. The knight was absorbed in his thoughts. He was no longer smiling.
“I add—but this is no more than the expression of a personal conviction—that a life which justifies itself before God would not know how to love exuberance, superabundance. It finds its full flowering, on the contrary, in the consciousness it has of its own littleness compared to the greatness of God. As it goes on its way it becomes larger, but that is of no importance to it.”
“But if the life does not justify itself before God?” the boy asked. “I mean to say, if the man who is working does not believe in God?”
“Then what does it matter to him to justify his work in any other way than by the profit he gets from it? Life in this case is not a work of piety. Life is life, short as that may seem to you.”
They were silent again for some time. Then the knight spoke once more:
“The West is in process of overturning these simple ideas, of which we are part and parcel. They began, timidly, by relegating God to a place ‘between inverted commas.’ Then two centuries later, having acquired more assurance, they decreed, ‘God is dead.’ From that day dates the era of frenzied toil. Nietzsche is the contemporary of the industrial revolution. God was no longer there to measure and justify man’s activity. Was it not industry that did that? Industry was blind, although, finally, it was still possible to domicile all the good it produced.… But already this phase is past.… After the death of God, what they are now announcing is the death of man.”
“I do not understand,” Samba Diallo said.
“Life and work are no longer commensurable. In former times there existed a sort of iron law which decreed, in action, that the labor of one single life was able to provide for only one single life. Man’s art has destroyed this law. The work of a single being supplies nourishment for several others, for more and more persons. But now see: the West is on the point of being able to do without man in the production of work. There will no longer be need of more than a very little life to furnish an immense amount of labor.”
“But it seems to me,” the boy objected, “that we ought to rejoice in this prospect instead of regretting it.”
“No,” his father replied. “At the same time that work gets along without human life, at that same time it ceases to make human life its final aim; it ceases to value man. Man has never been so unhappy as at this moment when he is accumulating so
He recovered his serenity on the instant and began to smile again.
“To come back to the idea that is worrying you—it seems to me, my young philosopher, that we ought to get a better hold on it, to get it pure and simple, so to speak. Now the idea of work for the preservation of life does not appear to me as sufficiently simple. It has anterior stages.”
“Certainly: for example, the very idea of life, insofar as it has value.”
“Bravo! Let us consider work in the case where it is linked to life by a relation of justification. I say that everything which justifies life and gives it its meaning, in the same way and
a posteriori
, gives work its meaning, too.”
“I see your conclusion,” Samba Diallo said. “When a life justifies itself before God, everything that tends to preserve it—hence, work—is also justified in His eyes.”
“Correct. Work, in effect, is justified before God in strict measure as the life it preserves justifies itself before Him. If a man believes in God, the time he takes from prayer for work is still prayer. It is even a very beautiful prayer.”
Samba Diallo was silent for a long time. The knight was absorbed in his thoughts. He was no longer smiling.
“I add—but this is no more than the expression of a personal conviction—that a life which justifies itself before God would not know how to love exuberance, superabundance. It finds its full flowering, on the contrary, in the consciousness it has of its own littleness compared to the greatness of God. As it goes on its way it becomes larger, but that is of no importance to it.”
“But if the life does not justify itself before God?” the boy asked. “I mean to say, if the man who is working does not believe in God?”
“Then what does it matter to him to justify his work in any other way than by the profit he gets from it? Life in this case is not a work of piety. Life is life, short as that may seem to you.”
They were silent again for some time. Then the knight spoke once more:
“The West is in process of overturning these simple ideas, of which we are part and parcel. They began, timidly, by relegating God to a place ‘between inverted commas.’ Then two centuries later, having acquired more assurance, they decreed, ‘God is dead.’ From that day dates the era of frenzied toil. Nietzsche is the contemporary of the industrial revolution. God was no longer there to measure and justify man’s activity. Was it not industry that did that? Industry was blind, although, finally, it was still possible to domicile all the good it produced.… But already this phase is past.… After the death of God, what they are now announcing is the death of man.”
“I do not understand,” Samba Diallo said.
“Life and work are no longer commensurable. In former times there existed a sort of iron law which decreed, in action, that the labor of one single life was able to provide for only one single life. Man’s art has destroyed this law. The work of a single being supplies nourishment for several others, for more and more persons. But now see: the West is on the point of being able to do without man in the production of work. There will no longer be need of more than a very little life to furnish an immense amount of labor.”
“But it seems to me,” the boy objected, “that we ought to rejoice in this prospect instead of regretting it.”
“No,” his father replied. “At the same time that work gets along without human life, at that same time it ceases to make human life its final aim; it ceases to value man. Man has never been so unhappy as at this moment when he is accumulating so
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