CIVILIZATION AS ACCUMULATED FORCE. 607 



property, and the safeguards they threw around capital. Unhappily, 

 in modern European legislation, there are still to be found enactments 

 which are nothing better than attacks upon the rights and liberties 

 of capital. If a man has to save not alone for himself, but also for 

 others, his economy will be more strict than if he had to save for 

 himself alone. If you do away with the right of freely disposing of 

 property, a man will take care to consume all his capital, rather than 

 let it fall into the hands of those for whose benefit he has no mind to 

 accumulate. 



The accumulation of capital is often regarded with alarm, which, 

 however, is baseless. We must not forget that capital is only the 

 means of production, and that consequently it must always be profita- 

 bly employed, else all its value is gone. Where capital is abundant, 

 the capitalist is constrained to lend it at reasonable rates, and to go in 

 search of labor, in order to find an advantageous investment. On the 

 other hand, when there is but little capital, then labor must go -in search 

 of the capitalist, and pay him whatever interest he requires. Thus, 

 individual property and the liberty of disposal are upheld by the very 

 arguments that socialists bring to overturn them. The chief benefit 

 of these institutions is to make accumulation of capital possible : this 

 the socialists regard as an injury, for their aim is absolute equality, 

 and they make small account of the interests of civilization. But we 

 who regard civilization as the great aim of humanity find no more 

 difficulty with inequality of capital than with inequality of wages. 

 Some workmen get ten or twenty times as much pay as others, and 

 some save ten or twenty times as much as others. If the capitalist has 

 only to preserve what others have accumulated, or what has come to 

 him by gift or inheritance, does not the workman in like manner profit 

 by his capital of health and intellectual faculties, which he owes partly 

 to inheritance and partly to his education, in order to demand higher 

 pay? 



In no country is the habit of saving so general as in France, and 

 this is the securest basis of our prosperity and civilization. The French 

 have been unjustly charged with prodigality ; but the reproach should 

 be confined to that quartler of Paris which lies between the Champs 

 Elysees and the Faubourg Montmartre. Without these bounds, all 

 France is steady and industrious. A very moderate estimate puts the 

 annual increase of wealth in France at three milliards of francs. Un- 

 fortunately, however, we lose much of the benefit of this saving as 

 a nation by embarking in ruinous adventures. The national debt, 

 which will soon be twenty milliards, has doubled within twenty years. 

 Though we make an annual increase of capital to the amount of three 

 milliards, we annually burden posterity with a debt of a half milliard. 

 Another and more serious defect of the French nation is, that this 

 saving tends to check population ; and this fact leads us to consider 

 another element of civilization, viz., the value of the individual. 



