Everybody is not in a position to make a present to his
fellow-citizens of a road or a machine: generally the inventor,
after exhausting his health and substance, expects reward. Deny
then, while still scoffing at them, to Arkwright, Watt, and
Jacquard the privilege of their discoveries; they will shut
themselves up in order to work, and possibly will carry their
secret to the grave. Deny to the settler possession of the soil
which he clears, and no one will clear it.
But, they say, is that true right, social right, fraternal right?
That which is excusable on emerging from primitive communism, an
effect of necessity, is only a temporary expedient which must
disappear in face of a fuller understanding of the rights and
duties of man and society.
I recoil from no hypothesis: let us see, let us investigate. It
is already a great point that the opponents confess that, during
the first period of civilization, things could not have gone
otherwise. It remains to ascertain whether the institutions of
this period are really, as has been said, only temporary, or
whether they are the result of laws immanent in society and
eternal.
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