impolitic not to acknowledge that the Socialists often point to undeniable evils, and tender proposals whose aim must be admitted to be legitimate. They have the clearest right to urge their views; let their advice be calmly refuted or accepted.

For the most part, the proposals emanating from Socialistic quarters have been more political than economical. When eminent writers urge that the fruits of labour shall belong to the labourer alone, and work shall be imposed upon all-that the rich sluggard shall cease to exist, that special taxes shall be placed on land--that land shall be the exclusive property of the State, and all rents paid into the Exchequer-that interest on money borrowed shall be forbidden-that there shall be no such thing as one's country, but that all shall be formed into one universal cosmopolitan community-that there shall be no masters and no wages, nothing but proprietors-that these proprietors shall be the whole community, who shall regulate the distribution of wealth upon their own ideas and shall appoint officers to judge who are the deserving and who are not, who shall receive more and who less-when such things are proposed in the name of incontestable principles, it is clear that new constructions of society, new modes of associated life, new positions of human beings towards one another, in a word new political revolutions, are demanded. Economical truth is not thought of here; its teaching is held not to deserve notice, much less refutation. If the new ideal organisations lead to a diminution of the general wealth of society, what matters it? The social gain, the raised mode of life for all, the personal dignity

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thrown over every human being, will bring ample compensation.

Other proposals exhibit a totally different character. To demand that work shall be found by the State for all, that national workshops shall be established, and that profits shall be limited in amount by law, is to ask for pure confiscation.

Abandoning, then, the ground of abstract inalienable right, and taking our stand on the basis of facts, we find that history shows that nations have always consisted of rich and poor. Their relative numbers incessantly vary; but at all times there has ever been a richer and a poorer class. In the early days of national existence property has included a larger portion of the people; but population was small, the arts very backward, the products of industry simple in kind, comforts and enjoyments few and of inferior quality. There are communities now existing which exhibit this type. Often they live on the extreme margin of subsistence. When harvests fail, destitution and death ensue. Europe presents a different spectacle under the action of powerful causes, especially in these more modern times. long ago emerged from the purely agricultural and pastoral state. Manufacturing industry sprang up, and its results were felt, and have told powerfully upon human desires. As comforts increased, that "progressive desire" which is the characteristic of men, as compared with animals, prompted greater efforts to obtain more. Capital was accumulated by saving; the means of setting more men to work were provided. Inventive genius applied itself to improve the processes of production, and to multiply and cheapen its results. Thus

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in the end an enormously large population was enabled to exist with an immeasurably raised standard of living. No feature was more striking in this amazing progress than the wonderful power of machinery. This greatest of industrial forces, the gift of mind to mankind, may be said with truth to be the foundation of modern civilisation. Conceive steam suddenly to lose its power, and who can think of the consequences without shuddering? The extinction of steam would send millions of human beings out of existence-and yet the steam engine is an invention but of yesterday. Such has been the march of modern development. It has built up the colossal establishments and the dense populations of Manchester and Lyons, Liverpool and New York, Paris and London; but it has also showered down refined comforts over the dwellings of all classes of the people.

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But the progress has brought out a tendency amongst industrial nations of the most marked character, and of the highest moment. The proportion which the labourers, who live by wages, bear to the rest of the population, is ever on the increase. over, they are congregated together in denser masses. They are not dispersed in small groups like agricultural peasants. Hence they are becoming a more combined and united class, in closer sympathy with each other entertaining the same ideas and governed by the same feelings. They tend to adopt common action, and thereby they acquire social and political power towards their employers and towards the State. These facts impart incalculable importance to the question of wages, Economists have to deal with a body of doc

M. Proudhon. There can be no such thing as property without violation of a right of which every man carries the unchallengable title in his own heart. Property belongs to all. Human nature forbids poverty so long as there is anything to divide. Men must work in common, and share its products in common.

These claims take us out of the domain of Political Economy; they send us to the higher authority of political philosophy. The answer to them is simple and decisive; they are founded on pure illusions. Such a thing as an absolute definite right, belonging to a man personally, which cannot be taken from him, even by the law of his nation, except by a deed of force and violence, equivalent in nature to murder, does not exist. "Man was born to live in society," said Aristotle, and that fact is supreme over his whole being. He must live in combination with others.

Against the supreme control in all things of that society of which he forms a part, a man can plead no absolute title or right which that society must respect, whatever may be his opinion as to its fitness or desirableness. No man can say to the State to which he belongs "I claim, on the ground of personal right given to me by the Creator, to do this, and I forbid you to do that in respect of me." Every man is embodied in his own people; he must share their fortunes and be involved in their acts; and their acts are finally and necessarily determined by the will of the whole society as expressed by its laws.

Every man has lived his life on earth under the dominion of these laws ever since the world began. The law of the nation has always, and ever will, dispose

of everything within it. Even his own body absolutely belongs to no man. In many of the most civilised nations he is taken away from his home, and made to expose himself to wounds and death, whatever may be his own feelings. He can plead no right to prevent such a seizure of his person. He is told—Salus populi suprema lex. This very expression is only a manner of declaring that society is supreme over everything. Such language as public policy, the good of the people, public duty, proclaims the same idea. Man is a member of a society and must obey it, not because it wields the power of the sword, but because it is constituted, by the very nature of human life, the final ruler in all things.

But, it will be said, this is to surrender man's life to the dominion of force. In the last resort it is so. Every people on earth have so acted. But does, then, might make right? God forbid! For then-human life would not be worth the having. The very question itself reveals a power distinct from force which comes to the protection of human existence, and raises a strength powerful enough to control force. This power reviews and judges, and though lodged in the weakness of each individual human breast, is able to modify and conquer mere might. This force is moral feeling, the sense of right and wrong, the perception and the acknowledgment of the supremacy of what is morally and reasonably fitting and proper. This sense of right exists in every individual human being, and it possesses an authority over the mind and conscience which no mere might can destroy. Every man can judge the law for himself, whether its commands are right or wrong, and the collective judgment of many men becomes public