On the Significance of Science and ArtTolstoy, Leo, graf
Philosophy
On the Significance of Science and Art
Tolstoy, Leo, graf
Art and science; Literature; Philosophy; Tolstoy, Leo, graf, 1828-1910 -- Philosophy
Science and art have arrogated to themselves the right of idleness, and
of the enjoyment of the labor of others, and have betrayed their calling.
And their errors have arisen merely because their servants, having set
forth a falsely conceived principle of the division of labor, have
recognized their own right to make use of the labor of others, and have
lost the significance of their vocation; having taken for their aim, not
the profit of the people, but the mysterious profit of science and art,
and delivered themselves over to idleness and vice--not so much of the
senses as of the mind.
They say, "Science and art have bestowed a great deal on mankind."
Science and art have bestowed a great deal on mankind, not because the
men of art and science, under the pretext of a division of labor, live on
other people, but in spite of this.
The Roman Republic was powerful, not because her citizens had the power
to live a vicious life, but because among their number there were heroic
citizens. It is the same with art and science. Art and science have
bestowed much on mankind, but not because their followers formerly
possessed on rare occasions (and now possess on every occasion) the
possibility of getting rid of labor; but because there have been men of
genius, who, without making use of these rights, have led mankind
forward.
The class of learned men and artists, which has advanced, on the
fictitious basis of a division of labor, its demands to the right of
using the labors of others, cannot co-operate in the success of true
science and true art, because a lie cannot bring forth the truth.
We have become so accustomed to these, our tenderly reared or weakened
representatives of mental labor, that it seems to us horrible that a man
of science or an artist should plough or cart manure. It seems to us
that every thing would go to destruction, and that all his wisdom would
be rattled out of him in the cart, and that all those grand picturesque
images which he bears about in his breast would be soiled in the manure;
but we have become so inured to this, that it does not strike us as
strange that our servitor of science--that is to say, the servant and
teacher of the truth--by making other people do for him that which he
might do for himself, passes half his time in dainty eating, in smoking,
in talking, in free and easy gossip, in reading the newspapers and
romances, and in visiting the theatres. It is not strange to us to see
our philosopher in the tavern, in the theatre, and at the ball. It is
not strange in our eyes to learn that those artists who sweeten and
ennoble our souls have passed their lives in drunkenness, cards, and
women, if not in something worse.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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