This order of things was necessary, and, pending the
establishment of complete equality, it was not impossible that
the welfare of all should be secured by it. But when the master,
in his disorderly egoism, has said to the servant: "You shall
not share with me," and robbed him at one stroke of labor and
wages, where is the necessity, where the excuse? Will it be
necessary further, in order to justify the CONCUPISCIBLE
APPETITE, to fall back on the IRASCIBLE APPETITE? Take care: in
drawing back in order to justify the human being in the series of
his lusts, instead of saving his morality, you abandon it. For
my part, I prefer the guilty man to the wild-beast man.
Nature has made man sociable: the spontaneous development of his
instincts now makes him an angel of charity, now robs him even of
the sentiment of fraternity and the idea of devotion. Did any
one ever see a capitalist, weary of gain, conspiring for the
general good and making the emancipation of the proletariat his
last speculation? There are many people, favorites of fortune,
to whom nothing is lacking but the crown of beneficence: now,
where is the grocer who, having grown rich, begins to sell at
cost? Where the baker who, retiring from business, leaves his
customers and his establishment to his assistants? Where the
apothecary who, under the pretence of winding up his affairs,
surrenders his drugs at their true value? When charity has its
martyrs, why has it not its amateurs? If there should suddenly
be formed a congress of bondholders, capitalists, and men of
business, retired but still fit for service, with a view to
carrying on a certain number of industries gratuitously, in a
short time society would be reformed from top to bottom.
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