Lay Morals | Page 7

Like many invalids, he supposed
that he would die. Now, should he die, he saw no means of repaying
this huge loan which, by the hands of his father, mankind had advanced
him for his sickness. In that case it would be lost money. So he
determined that the advance should be as small as possible; and, so
long as he continued to doubt his recovery, lived in an upper room, and

grudged himself all but necessaries. But so soon as he began to
perceive a change for the better, he felt justified in spending more
freely, to speed and brighten his return to health, and trusted in the
future to lend a help to mankind, as mankind, out of its treasury, had
lent a help to him.
I do not say but that my friend was a little too curious and partial in his
view; nor thought too much of himself and too little of his parents; but I
do say that here are some scruples which tormented my friend in his
youth, and still, perhaps, at odd times give him a prick in the midst of
his enjoyments, and which after all have some foundation in justice,
and point, in their confused way, to some more honourable honesty
within the reach of man. And at least, is not this an unusual gloss upon
the eighth commandment? And what sort of comfort, guidance, or
illumination did that precept afford my friend throughout these
contentions? 'Thou shalt not steal.' With all my heart! But AM I
stealing?
The truly quaint materialism of our view of life disables us from
pursuing any transaction to an end. You can make no one understand
that his bargain is anything more than a bargain, whereas in point of
fact it is a link in the policy of mankind, and either a good or an evil to
the world. We have a sort of blindness which prevents us from seeing
anything but sovereigns. If one man agrees to give another so many
shillings for so many hours' work, and then wilfully gives him a certain
proportion of the price in bad money and only the remainder in good,
we can see with half an eye that this man is a thief. But if the other
spends a certain proportion of the hours in smoking a pipe of tobacco,
and a certain other proportion in looking at the sky, or the clock, or
trying to recall an air, or in meditation on his own past adventures, and
only the remainder in downright work such as he is paid to do, is he,
because the theft is one of time and not of money,--is he any the less a
thief? The one gave a bad shilling, the other an imperfect hour; but both
broke the bargain, and each is a thief. In piecework, which is what most
of us do, the case is none the less plain for being even less material. If
you forge a bad knife, you have wasted some of mankind's iron, and
then, with unrivalled cynicism, you pocket some of mankind's money
for your trouble. Is there any man so blind who cannot see that this is
theft? Again, if you carelessly cultivate a farm, you have been playing

fast and loose with mankind's resources against hunger; there will be
less bread in consequence, and for lack of that bread somebody will die
next winter: a grim consideration. And you must not hope to shuffle out
of blame because you got less money for your less quantity of bread;
for although a theft be partly punished, it is none the less a theft for that.
You took the farm against competitors; there were others ready to
shoulder the responsibility and be answerable for the tale of loaves; but
it was you who took it. By the act you came under a tacit bargain with
mankind to cultivate that farm with your best endeavour; you were
under no superintendence, you were on parole; and you have broke
your bargain, and to all who look closely, and yourself among the rest
if you have moral eyesight, you are a thief. Or take the case of men of
letters. Every piece of work which is not as good as you can make it,
which you have palmed off imperfect, meagrely thought, niggardly in
execution, upon mankind who is your paymaster on parole and in a
sense your pupil, every hasty or slovenly or untrue performance, should
rise up against you in the court of your own heart and condemn you for
a thief. Have you a salary? If you trifle with your health, and so render
yourself less capable for duty, and still touch, and still greedily pocket
the emolument-- what are you but a thief? Have you