log 



This shows how little substance there is in 

 the objection which an illustrious Italian 

 professor, M. Vanni, raised recently against 

 socialism in the name of a learned but vague 

 sociological eclecticism. 



" Contemporary socialism does not identify 

 itself with individualism because it puts at 

 the basis of social organisation a principle 

 which is not that of the autonomy of the 

 individual, but its negation. If in spite of 

 that it affirms individualist ideas which are in 

 contradiction to its principles, that does not 

 mean that it has changed its nature or ceased 



to, and opposes, the minimum programme of the three 

 eights eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and 

 eight for meals and recreation. 



A more scientific physio-psychological observation 

 proves on the contrary as I said long ago that " man is 

 a machine, but he does not work like a machine " in the 

 sense that man is a living and not an inorganic machine. 



One understands that a locomotive or a sewing machine 

 does a third more work in twelve hours than in eight, but 

 man is a living machine subject to the laws of physical 

 mechanics, and also to those of biological mechanics. 

 Intellectual work, like muscular work, has not a uniform 

 continuity. In the individual limits of fatigue and 

 exhaustion, it obeys the law which Quetelet expressed by 

 his binomial curve, and which I believe to be one of the 

 fundamental laws of living and non-living nature. At the 

 beginning the force or the speed is very feeble, then a 

 maximum of force or speed is attained, at length the end 

 comes with a very feeble force or speed. 



With manual as with intellectual work there is a maxi- 

 mum after which the muscular and cerebral forces decline, 

 and then the work is carried on slowly and without vigour 

 until the end of the forced daily work. Add to that the 

 beneficent suggestive influence of the reduction of hours, 

 and it is easy to understand why the recent enquiries of 

 the English manufacturers into the excellent results, even 

 from the capitalist point of view, of the eight hours 

 reform are irrefutable. The workers are less fatigued 

 and the production has not diminished. 



When these economic reforms and all those that rest on 

 a positive physio-psychology are carried into effect under 



