We continue the methodical study of the Pentateuch Kardec, which focuses on the five major works of the spiritual doctrine, in the order they were first published by Allan Kardec, the Encoder of Spiritualism.
The answers to the questions presented, founded in the 2th edition published by FEB, based on translation of Anna Blackwell, are at the end of the text below.
Questions
A. What is the purpose of work?
B. With regard to work, is there any limit?
C. The man has the right to rest in old age?
D. According to some, like Malthus, human population on Earth grows much faster than the subsistence resources. There will come a time then the population on Earth is over?
E. If the reproduction of living beings is a natural law, how to understand human customs that are designed to create barriers to reproduction?
Text for reading
381. Everything in nature works and the beasts also work, although their work, according to the intelligence they possess, is limited to ensure self-preservation. That's why the work is not any progress gives them, while human labor has a double purpose: the preservation of the body and the development of the faculty of thinking. (L.E., 677)
382. The nature of work is related to the nature of needs. The less these are material, less material is work. The man, however, never keeps inactive and useless whatever the world where you live. Idleness would be an ordeal. (L.E., 678)
383. The wealthy man can be exempted from the necessity of work material, not, however, the obligation to make himself useful to the extent of its possibilities, or to enhance their intelligence or other, which is also a job. The greater it is the obligation to be helpful to similar, more opportunities to practice and gives you the lot which God had said. (L.E., 679)
384. God wants everyone to be useful, according to his faculties, so it is that condemns those who voluntarily became useless his existence on Earth, because he lives at the expense of others' labor. (L.E., 680)
385. The natural law states that children work for their parents, so they have to work for their children. That's why God made the filial and paternal love a natural feeling. (L.E., 681)
386. Everyone who works has the right to rest, which serves for the repair of body forces and is also necessary to give a little more freedom to intelligence, so that it rises above matter. (L.E., 682)
387. The limit is the work of forces. God makes in this respect entirely free man. (L.E., 683)
388. Those who abuse their authority by imposing excessive work to their inferiors, a practice of the worst actions and become responsible for the excess tax to their lower labor, because in so doing transgress the law of God. (L.E., 684)
389. There is an element that does not usually weigh in the balance, without which economic science is nothing more than simple theory: is education, education not intellectual but moral education. No morals bookish, but that is the art of forming the characters, which instills habits, because education is all the acquired habits. (L.E., 685-A, Allan Kardec comment)
390. When this art is known, understood and practiced, the man in the world will have habits of order and security to him and to his, of respect for all that is respectable, habits that will help you through the bad days less painfully inevitable. Disorder and improvidence are two wounds that only an education can heal well understood. This the actual element of welfare the pledge of security for all. (L.E., 685-A, Kardec comment)
391. The men who comprise the current breed are the same spirits who returned to perfect themselves in new bodies, but are still far from perfect. Thus, the present human race will also decrease its phase and disappearing, being replaced by improved breeds, which it would fall in the same way that men today are descendants of civilized and savage brutes of primitive times. (L.E., 689)
392. The dominant character of the primitive races was the development of brute force. Now give the opposite: the man does more by intelligence than by force of the body, and is one hundred times more, because you know to take advantage of the forces of Nature. (L.E., 691)
393. Since the goal for perfection that nature tends to favor this perfection with the help of science is to match the sight of God. (L.E., 692)
Answers to questions
A. What is the purpose of work?
The aim of this work is for man, the perfection of his intelligence. Without work, the man would remain - in terms of intelligence - forever in childhood. That is why their food, their safety and well-being depend on your work and your activity. (The Spirits' Book, questions 674 to 676.)
B. With regard to work, is there any limit?
Yes, the limit of work is the forces, which implies that man, as you can, should work. In the event that no longer can work, as in the case of the elderly, the strong should work for the poor. Not having this family, the society should do this sometimes. It is the law of charity. (Ibid., 683 to 685 questions.)
C. The man has the right to rest in old age?
Yes, because nothing is required, except in accordance with their forces. (Ibid., 682 questions, 683, 685 and 685-A and Kardec comment.)
D. According to some, like Malthus, human population on Earth grows much faster than the subsistence resources. There will come a time then the population on Earth is over?
No, because that God provides and maintains a balance. (Ibid., 686 and 687 questions.)
E. If the reproduction of living beings is a natural law, how to understand human customs that are designed to create barriers to reproduction?
According to Spiritism, all that hinders nature in its way is contrary to the general law. With regard to the species of living beings, animals and plants, whose infinite reproduction would be harmful to other species and from which the man himself would eventually be the victim, God gave to man a power that it should use, not abuse. It can therefore regulate reproduction, according to the needs, but should not oppose him unnecessarily. The intelligent action of man is a balance that God has ordained to restore the balance between the forces of nature and yet this is what distinguishes him from animals, because he knowingly work. (Ibid., 693 and 694 questions.)
