294 TUE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



took from some to give to others. "At the beginning of the third 

 century already the signs of a fatal loss of vitality manifested them- 

 selves Avitb frightful distinctness, and spread with such rapidity that 

 no sagacious observer could deceive himself any longer as to the 

 beginning dissolution of the gigantic body."* 



All violence has the same effect. In the fifth and sixth centuries 

 of our era, the general disorder and violence which prevailed gradually 

 brought about a division of society on a line which, of course, wavered 

 for a long time. A man who was strong enough in his circumstances 

 to just maintain himself in such times became a lord. Another, who 

 could not maintain himself, sought safety by becoming the lord's man. 

 As time went on, every retainer whom the former obtained made him 

 6eem a better man to be selected as lord ; and, as time went on, any 

 man who was weak but independent found his position more and more 

 untenable, f 



Taine's history of the revolution shows distinctly that the mid- 

 dle class were the great sufferers by the revolution. Attention has 

 always been arrested by the nobles who were robbed and guillotined. 

 When, however, we get closer to the life of the period, we see that, 

 taking France over for the years of the revolutionary disorder, the 

 victims were those who had anything, from a peasant or a small 

 tradesman up to the well-to-do citizen. J The rich bought their way 

 through, and the nobles were replaced by a new gang of social para- 

 sites enriched by plunder and extortion. These last come nearer than 

 any others whom history presents to the type of what the "commit- 

 tee " in a socialistic state may be expected to be. # 



All almsgiving has the same effect, especially if it is forced by 

 state authority. The Christian Church of the fourth and fifth centu- 

 ries, by its indiscriminate almsgiving on a large scale, helped on the 

 degeneration of the Roman state. | A poor law is only another case. 

 The poor-rates, as they become heavier, at last drive into the work- 

 houses the poorest of those who have hitherto maintained independ- 

 ence and paid poor-rates. "With this new burden the chance of the 

 next section upward to maintain themselves is imperiled, and so on 

 indefinitely. 



All taxation has the same effect. It presses hardest on those who, 

 under the conditions of their position in life and the demands which 

 are made upon them, are trying to save capital and improve their cir- 

 cumstances. The heavier it becomes, the faster it crushes out this 



* Fricdlaendcr, i, preface. While reading the proof of this article, I have read Pro- 

 i Boccardo's " Manuale di Storia del Comcrcio, dellc Industrie e dell' Economia To- 

 litica" (Torino-Napoli, 1880), in which, pp. 71, 75, he expresses the same view as i3 

 above given more nearly than I have ever seen it elsewhere. 



| See Gibbon, chapter xxxviii; Duruy, "Ilistoiredu Movcn Age," 233, 231; ITallam's 

 " Middle Ages," chapier i, part ii ; Secbohm, " The English Village Community," chap- 

 ter viii. 



\ Sec vol. iii, book iv, chapter i. tt Sec vol. iii, book iii, chapter iii. \ Fohlmann, 62. 



