380 SYMBIOGENESIS 



CHAPTER VIII. 



SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY. 



The abolition of personal slavery is the basis of the highest political 

 hope that it can enter into the mind of man to conceive. SHELLEY. 



It is impossible to conclude, of any given mass of acquired wealth, 

 merely by the fact of its existence, whether it signifies good or evil 

 to the nation in the midst of which it exists. Its real value depends 

 on the moral sign attached to it just as sternly as that of a mathematical 

 quantity depends on the algebraical sign attached to it. 



Luxury is indeed possible in the future innocent and exquisite ; 

 luxury for all, and by the help of all ; but luxury at present can only 

 be enjoyed by the ignorant : the cruelest man living could not sit at 

 his feast unless he sat blindfold. 



The increase of both honour and beauty is habitually on the side 

 of restraint. The noblest word in the catalogue of social virtue is 

 " loyalty." RUSKIN. 



Les institutions doivent accomplir les destinees de 1'espece humaine ; 

 elles atteignent d'autant mieux leur but qu'elles elevent le plus grand 

 nombre possible de citoyens a la plus haute dignite morale. 



SISMONDI. 



Si Ton veut que la division du travail, au lieu d'etre contrainte, 

 devienne vraiment libre, il faut que d'egales possibilites soient ouvertes 

 aux puissances inegales. 



Mais toute morale scientifique n'est pas enfermee dans les conjec- 

 tures de 1'anthroposociologie, dans les metaphores de la theorie organique, 

 dans les equivoques du darwinisme social. 



On comprend mieux maintenant combien il etait decevant 

 d'attendre, d'une morale "scientifique" assise sur la biologie, qu'elle 

 jugeat en dernier ressort du bien ou du mal fonde des aspirations 

 egalitaires. En realite le juge ainsi intronise etait incompetent d'une 

 incompetance double. BOUGL^. 



Rousseau brought me to the right view. This blinding superiority 

 vanished. I learned to honour men. KANT. 



I do not think the main conclusions arrived at in the fore- 

 going chapters justify pessimism. The older theories of 



