Section — Koch–Preuss
Section 4: Manual and Intellectual Labor, and Recreation
- Rest or recreation follows labor as inevitably as day follows night or summer follows winter. To the duty of labor, accordingly, there corresponds the right to rest and recreation, —the right to enjoy an earthly Sabbath here below and the hope of a heavenly Sabbath in the world beyond.1
According to the teaching of Revelation there exists the right and, under certain circumstances, the duty of performing mental or spiritual labor, consisting in prayer, study, or contemplation of the eternal truths.2
2 Luke X, 38-42. —Cfr. St. Jerome, Epist., XIV (al. 1), n. 10: “Are you frightened by labor? But no athlete [of Christ] is crowned without sweat.” (Migne, P. L., XXII, 354).
The Schoolmen divided life into the active and the contemplative.3 "All endeavors of human activity," says, e. g., St. Thomas, "if they are ordained towards the necessity of the pres- ent life according to right reason, pertain to the active life, which provides for the necessities of the present by duly disposed actions,... whereas those human endeavors which are ordained towards the consideration of truth, belong to the contemplative life."4
3 Cfr. St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 2a 2ae, qu. 179, art. 1: “Because some men devote themselves chiefly to the contemplation of truth, while others devote themselves principally to external actions, therefore human life is fittingly divided into the active and the contemplative.”
4 Ibid., art. 2, ad 3: “All endeavors of human actions, if they are ordered according to right reason to the necessity of the present life, pertain to the active life, which provides for the necessity of the present life through well-ordered actions,... but human endeavors which are ordained to the consideration of truth pertain to the contemplative life.”
The essential difference between the active and the contemplative life has been frequently lost sight of, even by Catholics. Only a few years ago Pope Leo XIII found it necessary to recall the traditional Catholic teaching on this point in a letter to Cardinal Gibbons.5
5 "Testem benevolentiae," Jan. 22, 1899.
Labor, both bodily and mental, if it is not followed by sufficient rest, will in course of time cause nervous exhaustion (neurasthenia), which with its attendant disorders is apt to prove hereditary. The restless pursuit of wealth is expressly condemned by our Lord in the famous passage: "What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?"6
The intellectual and the material aspects of human labor as a factor in the advancement of civilization and culture are aptly summarized in the ancient Benedictine adage: "Ora et labora —Pray and work!"7
7 See Anonymus, Die Regel des hl. Benedikt, pp. 345 sqq.
The duty of labor, however, must not be urged beyond reasonable limits. A man who retires from business after years of hard work to rest and prepare for death, is not to be accused of idleness. Man owes to his fellowmen, present and future, not his whole being, but only a portion of his power to work. No matter how important his position in life, the individual is never indispensable, but his labor is merged in the collective toil of the race. Work is measured by hours and days, and may cease for hours and days without perceptibly retarding the progress of society. Then again, there are cases in which it is better for a man, especially one advanced in years, to step aside than to cling to a position for which he is no longer fit.8
8 Cfr. F. X. Linsenmann, Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, p. 287.
- There are some species of human activity which afford employment to many thousands, yet do not deserve the noble name of labor. To this class of occupations, which do not produce, but merely consume and destroy, and batten on the financial and moral ruin of men, belong usury, prostitution, gambling in "futures,"9 etc. With these Special Moral Theology deals in connection with economics.10
9 On gambling in "futures" see Th. Slater, S.J., Questions of Moral Theology, New York 1915, pp. 154 sqq.
10 See Vol. V of this Handbook.
There is another kind of (predominantly intellectual) labor which is destructive and therefore worse than useless. It is the writing and publishing of books, magazines, and newspapers that attack or undermine faith and morals.
To adjust the relative claims of manual and intellectual labor is not an easy task. The man who makes his living by the work of his hands, finds it hard to understand that mental labor can be quite as exhausting as physical exertion,11 whereas the man engaged in purely mental work is apt to underestimate the hardships of the physical toiler. This lack of mutual understanding and sympathy leads to envy on the one and undue pride on the other side and frequently gives rise to unjust judgments on both.
11 Shelley speaks of the "agony and sweat of intellectual travail." Newman says that "every book I have written... has been a sort of operation, the distress has been so great." (Ward's Life of Newman, I, 296). And: "The composition of a volume is like gestation and child-birth. I do not think that I ever thought out a question, or wrote my thoughts, without great pain, pain reaching to the body as well as to the mind. It has made me feel practically that labor ‘in sudore vultus sui' is the lot of man." (Ibid., p. 637.)
- Though a few ancient writers, like Hesiod, extolled manual labor as the source of well-being, or, like Homer, spoke of it with respect,12 pagan antiquity for the most part held it in contempt.13 Christianity restored it to honor and respectability. The Gospel emphasized the universal duty of labor and introduced a spirit of fraternal charity among all classes of people, high and low, learned and ignorant.14 The fact that St. Peter "abode many days in Joppe with one Simon, a tanner,"15 shows that even "unclean" and despised trades were regarded by the Apostles as honorable. Protestants assert that it is only since the so-called Reformation that ordinary labor has received its due in the Christian Church. This is not true. The two principal ideas which Protestantism claims for its own, viz.: that labor is a form of prayer, or a sacred office, and that it is a duty which the individual owes to society, were strongly enforced by the Catholic Church all through the Middle Ages.16 Again and again people of all classes were exhorted to labor and warned against idleness.
12 Cfr. M. Heinze, Der Eudämonismus in der griechischen Philosophie, Leipsic 1883, pp. 671 sqq.
13 Cfr. Cicero, De Officiis, I, c. 42.
14 Cfr. A. Sabatier, L'Eglise et le Travail Manuel, Paris 1895, pp. 24 sqq., 45 sqq., 85 sqq., 211 sqq.; A. Stöckl, Das Christentum und die grossen Fragen der Gegenwart, Vol. I, pp. 169 sqq., Mayence 1879.
15 Acts IX, 43; X, 6, 17, 32.
16 Cfr. F. Schaub, Der Kampf gegen den Zinswucher, p. 15; also J. G. Uhlhorn, Die Arbeit im Lichte des Evangeliums betrachtet, Bremen 1877; K. Eger, Die Anschauungen Luthers vom Beruf, Giessen 1900.
Bishop Ratherius of Verona ( + 974) says in a sermon addressed to farmers: "You wish to be a good Christian? Well, then, be not only a just but a constant laborer.”17 To the artisan he says: “Listen to what is written in Ecclesiasticus XXXVIII, 39,18 in order that you may know that you are able with your labors to offer God an acceptable prayer of praise." And to the beggar: "Woe to thee if thou art able to work for a living!" With equal insistence the same prelate admonishes poor soldiers and rich burghers to work.19 The Emperor Charlemagne, in 806, forbade his subjects to feed the many idlers who roamed about the country begging but unwilling to work. Long before Luther, John Herolt, a famous Dominican preacher of the fifteenth century,20 said in a sermon that whatever a man's profession may be, his daily labor is ordained by God and therefore morally good.21 When St. Francis Xavier, on his journey to India, was urged to employ a servant because it was beneath his dignity as Apostolic delegate to wash his clothes and cook his food, he replied: "As long as I have hands and feet, I will allow no one to serve me, for there is but one thing that is unworthy of man, and that is sin."22
17 "Laborator."
18 Ecclus. XXXVIII, 39: "But they shall strengthen the state of the world, and their prayer shall be in the work of their craft, applying their soul, and searching in the law of the most High."
19 Praeloquia, l. I, tit. 1-3, 17, 19 (Migne, P. L., CXXXVI, 149 sqq., 179, 188).
20 He died in 1468.
21 See N. Paulus, "Luther und der Beruf in neuester Beleuchtung," in the Katholik, Mayence, 1902, Vol. I, pp. 327 sqq. Cfr. F. Landmann, Das Predigtwesen in Westfalen, Münster 1906, pp. 179 sq.; K. Braun, Die kath. Predigt während der Jahre 1450-1650, Würzburg 1904, pp. 90 sqq., 100 sq.
22 F. X. Brou, Saint François Xavier, Paris, Vol. I, 1915.
With recreation we have already dealt in the first part of this volume,23 and here will only add that all forms of recreation are licit, provided they do not violate the laws of modesty and chastity, and are rightly ordered according to time, place, duration, and manner. Athletic sports are especially to be recommended, within proper limits, as they help to keep a sound mind in a healthy body, and, in the words of Father Noldin, are apt to serve not only the principal object of recreation, as such, but to aid in preserving and augmenting the virtues of chastity and temperance. Hence there is no reason why pastors of souls should condemn clubs and associations formed for the practice of wholesome sports, but there is every reason why they should promote such and endeavor to have them conducted in accordance with the rules of probity and religion.24
23 Supra, pp. 35 sqq.
24 Noldin, Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, p. 76.
Having dealt with labor, we pass by a natural transition to its product, i. e., property. This, too, may be twofold, material or ideal. Among ideal goods the most valuable is honor.