THE CONFLICT OF CLASSES 173 



meaning of Comte's proposition that everything 

 that is destroyed finds something to take its place. 

 Religions and philosophies have succeeded one 

 another, whereas the economic questions, those 

 of capital and labour, seem to have in human 

 consciousness deeper roots, since they endure, 

 whilst around them gods and genii are born and 

 die, rule and disappear. 



I do not consider that any class has the right to 

 tell men of this or that religion or philosophy 

 different from our own that they are liars, because 

 the ideas that form their social ambient crystallise 

 or mould the cerebral structure precisely as their 

 chemical composition modifies the form and 

 structure of crystals. No ; ideas obey the law of 

 inertia, as rocks, and if humanity does not advance 

 or prosper, it is because the number of inert brains 

 is very much greater than the active ones, and the 

 balance inclines always to the side of the greater 

 weight. Revolutions spring up and inevitably 

 triumph when ideas, the force of some brains, 

 overcome the inertia of some and the indifference 

 of the mass. The progress of humanity is in 

 direct ratio to the force of ideas. 



The economic question has resisted the shocks 

 of time and revolution, because the formula of the 

 future has not been established. If the economic 

 question is as ancient as the world, sociology, on 



