Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to … — Essays
SAPIR 861
Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that everything has its price,--and if that price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get anything without its price,--is not less sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop bill as in the history of a state,--do recommend to him his trade, and th
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (WLC), CC BY 4.0