NEGOTIUM.

NEGOTIUM. I was taught in my Latin classes that the Romans regarded leisure as the norm for a free man and that work was defined as the absence of leisure—literally, “negotium” or “not-leisure.” The English word “negotiate” is derived from “negotium.” De Botton points out that our society (dating it for this purpose from the eighteenth century) is “the first to suggest that [work] could be something much more than a punishment or a penance.”, that one would want to work even without financial need. (I posted here that by 1880 Henry James could write in WASHINGTON SQUARE, that the United States was “a country in which, to play a social part you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it.”) De Botton cites a theory that the valuing of work arose from Protestant thought. For Catholics, noble work was done by priests in the service of God. For Protestants, “humility, wisdom, respect and kindness could be practised in a shop no less sincerely than in a monastery.” And now, of course, as De Botton explores, many people look for meaningful work, a “calling.”