Therefore, either I die or I cease to be the Grasshopper. But I will be either provident or improvident in summer there is no third alternative. And if I am provident in summer, then I will cease to be the Grasshopper, by definition. For if I am improvident in summer, then I will die in winter. The answer to that argument is that my death is inevitable in any case. The only argument against living the life of the Grasshopper arises from the contingent fact that at present one dies if one does not work. But second, there is also a logic of the case which is as inescapable as fate or, if you like, a fate of the case which is as inescapable as logic. That is, if you like, the theology of the case.

First, evidently I was put on earth just to play out my life and die, and it would be impious of me to go against my destiny. ‘I have three answers to make to what you have said, Skepticus, and I fear I shall have to make them quickly, for the sun has set and the frost is already creeping through the fields.

The true Grasshopper sees that work is not self-justifying, and that his way of life is the final justification of any work whatever.’ This principle, knowledge of which I regard as an indispensable first step on the path to wisdom, the ants seem never even to have entertained. For if it were the case that no sacrifices of goods needed ever to be made, then prudential actions would be pointless, indeed impossible. The ideal of prudence, therefore, like the ideal of preventive medicine, is its own extinction. For prudence may be defined as the disposition 1/ to sacrifice something good (e.g., leisure) if and only if such sacrifice is necessary for obtaining something better (e.g., survival), and 2/ to reduce the number of good things requiring sacrifice-ideally, at least-to zero.

And this logic shows that prudential actions (e.g., those actions we ordinarily call work) are self-defeating in principle. Rather, it is the logic of my position which is at issue. That my way of life may eventually be vindicated in practice is, now that I think of it, really beside the point. ‘No,’ replied the Grasshopper, ‘it’s not quite like that.

The grasshopper games life and utopia