OBSERVATION IX SOCIAL SCIENCE. 



If one result has been an energy of production 

 that has created unheard-of wealth, another re- 

 sult is no less evident, namely, the infliction of 

 evils that, owing to their continuity, are more 

 formidable than the most cruel ravages ever 

 wrought in tinier past by famines and other tem- 

 porary scourges. Formerly, the working-popu- 

 lation, simple in their desires and frugal in their 

 lives, were contented with their lot. This is still 

 the case in many regions of Europe, wherever the 

 soil is not strictly measured out to them, and 

 especially in the Mussulman countries of which 

 we know so little. Not only is this fact estab- 

 lished by the precise observations of travelers, 

 but we daily see confirmation of it in the letters 

 of newspaper correspondents. Indeed, no " spe- 

 cial correspondent," however frivolous he may 

 be, can fail being struck, in the East, by two 

 plain tokens of the well-being and tranquillity of 

 the people, viz., that every one, however humble, 

 owns his home, and that no one, even the poor- 

 est, is reduced to absolute destitution. But in the 

 West, despite the augmentation of wealth, and 

 the wonderful progress that has been made, the 

 working-classes are restless under suffering, and 

 utter only cries of hatred. In the manufacturing 

 centres of Great Britain this suffering manifests 

 itself in a degree of wretchedness which, accord- 

 ing to the official reports, reduces the working, 

 people to the level of beasts. Incomparably bet- 

 ter was the lot of the slave in ancient times, of 

 the puer, the child of the family ; or that of the 

 rnedieeval serf, the tranquil possessor of his lowly 

 paternal cabin. True, our French factories are, 

 in some respects, not so ill organized, but never- 

 theless the evil exists among us under a different 

 form, and in a greatly aggravated character, as 

 social antagonism and political instability. As 

 for the moral corruption, they who have seen 

 what it is, in the low quarters of our cities, know 

 that the most highly-drawn pictures of it fall far 

 short of the hideous reality. Finally, in Ger- 

 many, the self-same inquietude is causing society 

 to rock upon its old feudal foundations, which 

 are falling to ruin under the attacks of doctrina- 

 rian socialism. It seems as though, by the in- 

 vention of the " fire-machine," modern civiliza- 

 tion had repeated the bold theft of Prometheus, 

 with all its dread consequences : 



" Post ignem rotherea domo 

 Subductum, maeies et nova febrium 



Terris incubuit cohors ; 

 Semotique prius tarda necessitas 



Leti corripuit gradum." « 



1 After fire was stolen from the celestial mansions, con- 



In France, more than in any other country, 

 the people seem to have lost the secret of order 

 which nations are wont to retain while gradually 

 improving their social constitution — a certain 

 agreement of ideas concerning religion, the fami- 

 ly, property, labor, and the organization of the 

 state. The progress of the physical sciences, 

 though the way was prepared for it by long-con- 

 tinued application to the experimental method, 

 has of late been especially rapid, owing to certain 

 discoveries unparalleled in the past. From an 

 erroneously-assumed analogy between the mate- 

 rial relations of things and the moral relations 

 of men, it has been inferred that the social state 

 might be suddenly bettered by means of certain 

 new-fangled theories which should break with old 

 traditions. So far from regarding as worthy of 

 respect institutions that have received the " con- 

 secration of time," men have come to consider 

 those to be least commendable which have stood 

 longest. According to Karl Marx, the accumula- 

 tion of capital in the hands of a few will inevita- 

 bly lead to that social liquidation so eagerly 

 longed for by many, and which will make com- 

 mon property of all the instrumentalities of pro- 

 duction. In the opinion of Mr. Herbert Spencer, 

 property and capital are nothing but historic cate- 

 gories ; that is to say, transitory forms which will 

 be swept away in the fatal evolution of progress. 

 Some there are who hope, in spite of the experi- 

 ences of 1848 and many more recent failures, 

 that cooperation will free them from the yoke of 

 the employer, and do away with the oppression 

 of capital. Others, like the Katheder-Socialisten, 

 would fain see in state intervention a middle 

 term between the laissez-faire doctrine and the 

 most advanced tendencies. Again, moralists and 

 positivists agree in maintaining that the benefi- 

 cent influence of property is not so well assured 

 under the constraint of laws of succession dic- 

 tated by the Revolution as under the regime of 

 liberty which prevails in America and England. 

 They who do not content themselves with mere 

 words are asking whether the arts and trades 

 corporations that were dissolved a century ago 

 should not be resuscitated in such forms as might 

 best suit our times. 



In view of opinions so conflicting, can wc 

 still, with a learned academician, hold economic 

 priaciples to be the only firm basis of morality? 

 Is not one rather prepared, with an eminent 



sumption and 9 new train of fevers settled upon the earth, 

 and the slow-approaching necessity of death, which, till 

 now, was remote, accelerated its pace. — (Smart's '"Horace," 

 Ode III.) 



