if sages had this world begun

 

So. One of the ancient wise men -- by accident, of course -- managed to say something very smart: "Love and hunger rule the world." Ergo: To rule the world, man has got to rule the rulers of the world. Our forebears finally managed to conquer Hunger, by paying a terrible price: I'm talking about the 200-Years War, the war between the City and the Country. It was probably religious prejudice that made the Christian savages fight so stubbornly for their "bread"*. But in the year 35 before the founding of OneState our present petroleum food was invented. True, only 0.2 of the world's population survived. On the other hand, when it was cleansed of a thousand years of filth, how bright the face of the earth became! And what is more, the zero point two tenths who survived . . . tasted earthly bliss in the granaries of OneState. 

* This word has come down to us only as a poetic metaphor. It is not known what the chemical composition of this material was.

[From Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (written 1920-1921), Record 5, translation by Clarence Brown (1993).]

Thus writes D-503, still very much signed up to OneState's narrative. As for Love, there is a system of Sex Days, organized by pink ticket.

I expect I'll write a lot more about We in other posts. But for now, let's stick to love and hunger. 

The ultimate origin of the saying seems to be the ending of Friedrich Schiller's 1795 poem "Die Weltweisen". The title means "The World-Wise". In English, it has usually been translated as "The Philosophers". The poem is essentially a satire on philosophers who only say what everyone already knows. In the meanwhile it's Nature who drives the world forward, as ever, through Love and Hunger.  

Here's the German text, interleaved with Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton's lively but not very literal translation in The Poems and Ballads of Schiller (1844). (His version of the end of the first stanza is contentious, as he explains in a note, but I'm not including that here.)

Die Weltweisen   /   Philosophers

      Der Satz, durch welchen alles Ding
Bestand und Form empfangen,
Der Nagel, woran Zeus den Ring
Der Welt, die sonst in Scherben ging,
Vorsichtig aufgehangen,
Den nenn’ ich einen großen Geist,
Der mir ergründet, wie er heißt,
Wenn ich ihm nicht drauf helfe —
Er heißt: Zehn ist nicht Zwölfe.

                    To learn what gives to every thing

                      The form and live which we survey,

                    The law by which the Eternal King

                    Moves all Creation's order'd ring,

                           And keeps it from decay --

                    When to great Doctor Wiseman we go --

                    If help'd not out by Fichté's ego --

                    All from his brain that we can delve,

                    Is this sage answer -- "Ten's not Twelve."

        Der Schnee macht kalt, das Feuer brennt,
Der Mensch geht auf zwei Füßen,
Die Sonne scheint am Firmament,
Das kann, wer auch nicht Logik kennt,
Durch seine Sinne wissen.
Doch wer Metaphysik studiert,
Der weiß, daß, wer verbrennt, nicht friert,
Weiß, daß das Nasse feuchtet
Und daß das Helle leuchtet.

                    The snow can chill, the fire can burn,

                      Men when they walk on two feet go ; --

                    A sun in Heaven all eyes discern --

                    This through the senses we may learn,

                          Nor go to school to know !

                    But the profounder student sees,

                    That that which burns -- will seldom freeze ;

                    And can instruct the astonish'd hearer,

                    How moisture moistens -- light makes clearer.

        Homerus singt sein Hochgedicht,
Der Held besteht Gefahren;
Der brave Mann thut seine Pflicht
Und that sie, ich verhehl’ es nicht,
Eh noch Weltweise waren.
Doch hat Genie und Herz vollbracht,
Was Lock’ und Des Cartes nie gedacht,
Sogleich wird auch von diesen
Die Möglichkeit bewiesen.

                    Homer composed his mighty song,

                      The hero danger dared to scorn,

                    The brave man did his duty, long

                    Before -- (and who shall say I'm wrong) --

                            Philosophers were born !

                    Before Descartes and Locke -- the Sun

                    Saw things by Heart and Genius done,

                    Which those great men have proved, on viewing,

                    The possibility of -- doing !

        Im Leben gilt der Stärke Recht,
Dem Schwachen trotzt der Kühne,
Wer nicht gebieten kann, ist Knecht;
Sonst geht es ganz erträglich schlecht
Auf dieser Erdenbühne.
Doch wie es wäre, fing’ der Plan
Der Welt nur erst von vornen an,
Ist in Moralsystemen
Ausführlich zu vernehmen.

                    Strength in this life prevails and sways --

                      Bold Power oppresses humble Worth --

                    He who can not command obeys --

                    In short there's not too much to praise

                          In this poor orb of earth,

                    But how things might be better done,

                    If sages had this world begun,

                    By moral systems of their own,

                    Most incontestably is shown !

        „Der Mensch bedarf des Menschen sehr
Zu seinem großen Ziele;
Nur in dem Ganzen wirket er,
Viel Tropfen geben erst das Meer,
Viel Wasser treibt die Mühle.
Drum flieht der wilden Wölfe Stand
Und knüpft des Staates dauernd Band.”
So lehren vom Katheder
Herr Puffendorf und Feder.

                    "Man needs mankind, must be confest --

                      In all he labours to fulfil,

                    Must work, or with, or for, the rest ;

                    'Tis drops that swell the ocean's breast --

                          'Tis waves that turn the mill.

                    The savage life for man unfit is,

                    So take a wife and live in cities."

                    Thus ex cathedrá teach, we know,

                    Wise Messieurs Puffendorf and Co.

        Doch weil, was ein Professor spricht,
Nicht gleich zu Allen dringet,
So übt Natur die Mutterpflicht
Und sorgt, daß nie die Kette bricht
Und daß der Reif nie springet.
Einstweilen, bis den Bau der Welt
Philosophie zusammenhält,
Erhält sie das Getriebe
Durch Hunger und durch Liebe.

                    Yet since, what grave professors preach,

                      The crowd may be excused from knowing ;

                    Meanwhile, old Nature looks to each,

                    Tinkers the chain, and mends the breach,

                           And keeps the clockwork going.

                    Some day, Philosophy, no doubt,

                    A better World will bring about :

                    Till then the Old a little longer,

                    Must blunder on -- through Love and Hunger !

[German source: https://kalliope.org/en/text/schiller2001102415 . Translation source. ]

Here's another, more literal, translation:

  The Philosophers

   The principle by which each thing
    Toward strength and shape first tended,—
   The pulley whereon Zeus the ring
   Of earth, that loosely used to swing,
    With cautiousness suspended,—
   he is a clever man, I vow,
   Who its real name can tell me now,
   Unless to help him I consent—
   'Tis: ten and twelve are different!

   Fire burns,—'tis chilly when it snows,
    Man always is two-footed,—
   The sun across the heavens goes,—
   This, he who naught of logic knows
    Finds to his reason suited.
   Yet he who metaphysics learns,
   Knows that naught freezes when it burns—
   Knows that what's wet is never dry,—
   And that what's bright attracts the eye.

   Old Homer sings his noble lays,
    The hero goes through dangers;
   The brave man duty's call obeys,
   And did so, even in the days
    When sages yet were strangers—
   But heart and genius now have taught
   What Locke and what Descartes never thought;
   By them immediately is shown
   That which is possible alone.

   In life avails the right of force.
    The bold the timid worries;
   Who rules not, is a slave of course,
   Without design each thing across
    Earth's stage forever hurries.
   Yet what would happen if the plan
   Which guides the world now first began,
   Within the moral system lies
   Disclosed with clearness to our eyes.

   "When man would seek his destiny,
    Man's help must then be given;
   Save for the whole, ne'er labors he,—
   Of many drops is formed the sea,—
    By water mills are driven;
   Therefore the wolf's wild species flies,—
   Knit are the state's enduring ties."
   Thus Puffendorf and Feder, each
   Is, ex cathedra, wont to teach.

   Yet, if what such professors say,
    Each brain to enter durst not,
   Nature exerts her mother-sway,
   Provides that ne'er the chain gives way,
    And that the ripe fruits burst not.
   Meanwhile, until earth's structure vast
   Philosophy can bind at last,
   'Tis she that bids its pinion move,
   By means of hunger and of love!

[Translation (translator's name not supplied), from here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6796/6796-h/6796-h.htm .]

I think Sigmund Freud credited Schiller's poem with giving him the idea of the two drives described in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930). 

In fact Schiller himself had a theory of drives, according to this intriguing page of jottings (Encyclopaedia of Human Thermodynamics, etc.). In the same place, I found this:

“Hunger and love are two fundamental forces that reign in the living world, they are the primary source of all phenomena, mental and social.”

— Leon Winiarski (1899), Essay on Social Mechanics . (Leon Winiarski (1865-1915) was a Polish sociologist who taught at the University of Geneva.)

So Zamyatin might have been alluding to Winiarski rather than Schiller.