The soldier who kills his fellow man of a neighboring nation by a
stroke of his sword will easily lose the respect for the life of
members of his own social group. Then the second educational energy
interferes, the energy of labor, which makes itself felt at the decisive
moment of prehistoric development, when the human race passes from a
pastoral, hunting, and nomadic life Into an agriculture and settled
life. This is the historic stage, in which the collective ownership of
land and instruments of production is displaced by communal property,
family property, and finally individual property. During these stages,
humanity passes from individual and isolated labor in collective,
associated, co-ordinated labor. The remains of the neolithic epoch show
us the progress of the first workshops, in which our ancestors gathered
and fashioned their primitive tools and arms. They give us an idea of
associated and common labor, which then becomes the great uplifting
energy, because, unlike war, it does not carry within itself a disdain
or violation of the rights of others. Labor is the sole perennial energy
of mankind which leads to social perfection. But if you have 100,000
persons in a city like Naples who do not enjoy the certainty and
discipline of employment at methodical and common labor, you need not
wonder that the uncertainty of daily life, an illfed stomach, and an
anemic brain, result in the atrophy of all moral sentiment, and that the
evil plant of the Camorra spreads out over everything.
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