It may be asked: How did the peasant bear all this? We must not forget that, under the simpler and rougher conditions then prevailing everywhere, men did not feel the contrasts as they would be felt in our own day. Again, the medieval labourer did in some ways grapple more directly with nature, and at his actual work (as apart from his leisure) was less tempted to look upon himself as a mere cogwheel than the modern operative. This, however, is often exaggerated beyond all reason by modern writers; and, even so far as it is true, we must counterbalance it by the consideration that the modern wage-earner, when not at work, has the run of a far wider world, both physically and intellectually, that was closed to his forefathers. The sociologist Durkheim has pointed out that, in spite of many things which still remain to be remedied in the modern worker's lot, he has more originality of mind than the noble savage. If we take a hundred of these latter at random, we shall find great uniformity of taste; what one likes, all like, what one dislikes, all dislike. A hundred operatives, on the other hand, liberated from their eight hours of mechanical drudgery in the workshop, scatter to a multitude of various occupations until the work hours come again. At any rate, we have the plainest evidence that the medieval peasant was not content with his lot, quite apart from the bare fact of those bloody revolts which are recorded in almost all countries.