SCIENTIFIC PHILANTHROPY. 533 



ance to working-men is, then, still only a moral and general duty of the 

 state. 



We can not enter here into the detail of the economical or political 

 reforms which would render the giving of assistance more sure and 

 more effective by removing the inconveniences (moral and physical) 

 of what is properly called charity ; we have only desired to show forth 

 an ideal, and to give an apprehension of the difficulty no less than of 

 the necessity of progressively attaining realization of it. The particu- 

 lar means by which the ideal is to be realized lie within the domain of 

 applied sociology and politics. We merely indicate as among them 

 the most perfect laws respecting property, the more equitable reparti- 

 tion of imposts, which should not be allowed to aggravate the proleta- 

 riat by falling most heavily on the proletaries themselves ; a better 

 application of the imposts ; the encouragement of institutions of credit, 

 and of other means of credit less onerous than the mons-de-piete ; 

 the establishment of intelligence-offices for workmen seeking work ; 

 the extension of the system of mutual assurance on the initiative of 

 the state and the communes, to a vast scale, in order to avert the most 

 frequent and most grave material disasters ; colonies, removal to which 

 should be the natural destination of every healthy citizen who has no 

 trade or profession, and who, by begging, or a vagabond life, puts him- 

 self under suspicion ; and, lastly, the encouragement and increase of 

 particular associations within the grand association of the state. Real 

 benevolence is that which encourages, not idleness, improvidence, and 

 the degeneration of the race, but labor, economy, and the moral and 

 physical progress of generations. 



" The state," says a writer who will be little suspected of social- 

 ism, M. Thiers, " ought to undertake to contrive means of preparation 

 for panics. It may not be able to do all that could be asked of it, but 

 with foresight it might do something, and even much, for the state 

 has forts, machines, vessels, cordage, guns, cannons, wagons, harness, 

 shoes, dresses, hats, cloth, linen, palaces, and churches to be made ; 

 and a competent administration, which would reserve these works, so 

 varied, for the times of panic, which should have for some articles, 

 such as machines, arms, wagons, and cloths, establishments capable of 

 being extended or contracted at will ; which should have designs for 

 the strong places or the palaces it has to build prepared and kept ready 

 for the seasons when the labors of private industry are suffering from 

 interruption ; which should thus gather up upon the general market 

 the unemployed arms as speculators buy depreciated public securities, 

 which should add financial foresight to an administrative foresight of 

 this kind, and should keep its floating debt free and disengaged, so 

 that it could find money when no one had any an administration 

 which should take upon itself all of these difficult but not impossible 

 cases, would succeed in greatly reducing distress without, however, 

 suppressing it entirely. ... Do not assert, then, that we must let the 



