Human Physiology. 453 



economy are founded, is seen in the contests between employ- 

 ers and the employed, the former getting labour at the lowest 

 price by which men, women, and children can be driven by 

 starvation to work a state which is, in some respects, worse 

 than the chattel slavery which it has succeeded. This greed of 

 men who grow rich upon the toil of their fellows, has naturally 

 aroused the animosity and antagonism of the labouring classes 

 against them, and a fierce war is everywhere raging in what 

 should be the peaceful domain of industry. The question of 

 wages is a perfectly simple one, to be settled upon principles 

 of equity. As it is one of the most important interests of 

 society, it should be settled by the State, or courts, or commis- 

 sions of its appointment by intelligent and disinterested men, 

 who should fix upon the proper share of every worker in the 

 value of his work. The industry of the nation is a national 

 interest, and justice between man and man is precisely what we 

 want of a government. To take the labour of any one with- 

 out a just equivalent is theft. To take wages or salary of an 

 individual employer, a public company, or the State, without 

 rendering an equivalent service in return, is a deliberate break- 

 ing of the commandment " Thou shalt not steal." All 

 employers who underpay those who work for them are thieves 

 and robbers. All workmen who sham and cheat their employ- 

 ers' customers by dishonest work, are in the same disgraceful 

 category. And every one knows that our social state is full of 

 the frauds and vices, the strife and crime of a selfish, disorderly, 

 unregulated, unjust, and unnatural industry, based upon free 

 competition, and the law of demand and supply the law that 

 allows every man to seize all he can of his neighbour's goods, 

 and his neighbour's life, for his own advantage which scoffs 

 at honesty and equity, laughs at philanthropy, and has for its 

 purely diabolic motto, " Every one for himself, and the devil 

 take the hindmost." From this selfish principle in society 

 justified by the maxims of a so-called science, which is opposed 



