“I suspect that the real secret of the change is in the elevation of individual character. This has done more to better our condition than electricity and all the material improvements and inventions of the age. You must believe me when I say that no sort of labor is considered disgraceful, and, further, that one occupation is just as honorable as another. The man who goes into the mine and superintends the machine which gathers the precious metal is esteemed as highly as he who, with an artist’s brain and fingers, shapes it to its highest use. The carpenter who works with his hands in the building of the house can hold his head as high as the architect who has spent many years in learning how to create the design. Why not? Both are engaged on the same work, each one in his favorite, and so his best, way. Both are working, not for daily bread or other selfish end, but for the sake of doing something useful. The perfect content and satisfaction we all enjoy in our labor come partly from our abundant health and strength, and largely, also, from our entire freedom from anxiety in regard to the means of maintenance for ourselves and our families. In these respects we are all equally fortunate. We are absolutely unconcerned about what material things we shall have for ourselves or leave to our children.” “Do you then all have equal pay for your work, and that so much that it places you above anxiety?” asked the doctor. “Yes,” answered Thorwald, “we are all paid equally, because we are not paid at all. So, having no wages and owning no property, why should we be anxious? You know I have told you we can have for our use anything that is produced or made without even asking anybody for it. The mere fact that we need a thing makes it rightfully ours.” “But what is the incentive to labor if you get nothing for it, and can live just as well without it?” “The incentive is in the love for our work and the consciousness that we are doing something to make someone happier and the world a little better. Let me give you an illustration, a personal one, if you will excuse me. A neighbor asks me to make him a plan for a house. He may be a writer of books or he may be a carriage maker, or what not, it makes not the slightest difference. I enjoy that kind of work and, having obtained his ideas in regard to a house, I do the best I can. I cannot conceive that I could do any better if I knew he would pay me for the work, as you say. In like manner he asks other neighbors to build his house for him, and he has no difficulty in finding enough men who enjoy that occupation as much as I do my part of the work, and the principle which governs them in their labor is as high as that which controls me.” “Then,” said the doctor, “I should think the poor man--I beg your pardon, I mean the hod-carrier--could have as grand a house as the architect himself.”