516 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



Hence it is impossible to be satisfied with these pre- 

 tended solutions, for killing riches is not distributing them. 

 The two problems must be solved together in order to be 

 properly solved; the two solutions demand to be combined 

 and only form one. If you solve but the first of these 

 problems you will be Venice, you will be England; you 

 will have, like Venice, an artificial power; like England, a 

 material power, and you will be the wicked rich man ; you 

 will perish by violence, as Venice died, or by bankruptcy, 

 as England will fall, and the world will leave you to die 

 and fall, because it allows everything to die and fall which 

 is solely selfishness, and everything which does not repre- 

 sent a virtue or an idea to the human race. Of course it 

 will be understood that by the words Venice and England 

 we do not mean the peoples, but the social constructions, 

 the oligarchies that weigh down the nations, but not the 

 nations themselves. Nations ever have our respect and 

 sympathy. Venice, as a people, will live again ; England as 

 an aristocracy, will fall, but England, the nation, is 

 immortal. 



u Solve the two problems, encourage the rich and 

 protect the poor, suppress misery, put an end to the unjust 

 exhaustion of the weak by the strong; bridle the iniquitous 

 jealousy which the man still on the road feels for him who 

 has reached the journey's end. Adjust mathematically and 

 paternally the wage of the laborer, blend gratuitous and 

 enforced education with the growth of childhood, and render 

 science the base of manhood; develop intelligence while 

 occupying the arms, be at once a powerful people and a 

 family of happy men; democratize properly, not by abol- 

 ishing, but by universalizing it, so that every citizen 

 without exception may be a land owner, an easier task 

 than it may be supposed; in two words, know how to pro- 

 duce wealth and to distribute it, and you will possess at 

 once material greatness, and moral greatness, and be worthy 



