to the Prosperity of the Working Classes. 299 



these contrary propositions, of following them out minutely 

 through their several ramifications, and so arriving at their 

 ultimate logical results ; and the proposition which is incor- 

 rect, and it alone, seldom fails by this process to lead to con- 

 sequences which a correctly constituted mind cannot admit. 

 Let us employ for a moment this method of examination, of 

 which Euclid so often availed himself, and which is so justly 

 termed the reductio ad absurdum. 



The opponents of machinery would annihilate it, or at least 

 would greatly restrict its employment, to preserve, they say, 

 more work for the labouring classes. Let us for a moment 

 adopt this view, and we shall find that the anathema extends 

 far beyond machines properly so called. 



And we must begin by taxing our ancestors with the greatest 

 improvidence. If, instead of founding the city of Paris, and 

 continuing to extend it on both banks of the Seine, they had 

 built it upon the plain of VUlejuif, then, for ages, the corpora- 

 tion of water-carriers would of all others have been the best 

 employed, the most necessary, and the most numerous. The 

 political economists, therefore, with whom we are now contend- 

 ing, should consult the interest of these water-carriers. To 

 divert the Seine from its course is by no means an impossi- 

 bility ; they should, therefore, propose the accomplishment 

 of this great work — they should open a subscription to divert 

 the river from Paris ; and the general laugh would then teach 

 them that the method of the reductio ad ahsurdum is not with- 

 out its use even in political economy ; and the workmen them- 

 selves, in their right senses, would tell them that it is the river 

 which has created that immense Capital where they find so 

 many sources of occupation, and that without it, Paris would 

 probably still have been only another Villejuif. 



Up to the present time, the Parisians have always been con- 

 gratulated upon their proximity to those inexhaustible quarries, 

 whence, for many generations, have been procured the materials 

 employed in the construction of their temples, their palaces, 

 and their private dwellings. But all this is mere illusion ! The 

 new political economy will prove to us, that it would have been 

 eminently advantageous had all our stone and lime been found 

 no neaxer than JBourges, a distance of 120 miles. In this case, 



