Part 18 (1/2)

”In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread!” But every one wants as much bread and as little sweat as possible This is the conclusion of history

Thank Heaven, history also teaches that the division of blessings and burdens tends to aht of the sun, it must be admitted that, in this respect at least, society has ress

If this be true, there exists in society a natural and providential force, a lahich causes iniquity gradually to cease, and makes justice more and more a reality

We say that this force exists in society, and that God has placed it there If it did not exist we should be compelled, with the socialists, to search for it in those artificial e in the physical and moral constitution of man, or rather we should consider that search idle and vain, for the reason that we could not comprehend the action of a lever without a place of support

Let us, then, endeavor to indicate that beneficent force which tends progressively to overcoiven the name spoliation, and the existence of which is only too well explained by reason and proved by experience

Every inning and the point of ending; the man who performs the act and the e of the schools, the active and the passive agent There are, then, two means by which the maleficent act can be prevented: by the voluntary absence of the active, or by the resistance of the passive agent Whence two systeious or philosophical morality, and the morality to which I permit ious morality, to abolish and extirpate the maleficent act, appeals to its author, to ent It says to him: ”Reform yourself; purify yourself; cease to do evil; learn to do well; conquer your passions; sacrifice your interests; do not oppress your neighbor, to succor and relieve whoenerous” This , that which will exhibit the human race in all its majesty; which will the best lend itself to the offices of eloquence, and will most excite the sympathy and admiration of mankind

Utilitarian morality works to the same end, but especially addresses itself to ent It points out to him the consequences of human actions, and, by this siainst those which injure, and to honor those which are useful to hiood sense, enlightenment and just defiance, to render oppression both difficult and dangerous

It may also be remarked that utilitarian morality is not without its influence upon the oppressor An act of spoliation causes good and evil--evil for hiood for him in whose favor it is exercised--else the act would not have been perforood by no means compensates the evil The evil always, and necessarily, predoood, because the very fact of oppression occasions a loss of force, creates dangers, provokes reprisals, and requires costly precautions The simple exhibition of these effects is not then limited to retaliation of the oppressed; it places all, whose hearts are not perverted, on the side of justice, and alarms the security of the oppressors themselves

But it is easy to understand that this morality which is simply a scientific deed its character; which addresses itself not to the heart but to the intelligence; which seeks not to persuade but to convince; which gives proofs not counsels; whose hten, and which obtains over vice no other victory than to deprive it of its booty--it is easy to understand, I say, how thisdry and prosaic The reproach is true without being just It is equivalent to saying that political econo, is not the universal solvent But who has ever made such an exorbitant pretension in its name? The accusation would not be well founded unless political economy presented its processes as final, and denied to philosophy and religion the use of their direct and properhumanity Look at the concurrent action of morality, properly so called, and of political econoainst spoliation by an exposure of itsit into discredit in our judg its evil consequences Concede that the triuiousand more radical; at the same time it is not easy to deny that the triumph of economical science is more facile and more certain

In a few lines, more valuable than many volumes, JB Say has already re the disorder introduced by hypocrisy into an honorable faon Moliere, that great painter of human life, seems constantly to have had in view the second process as the e Tell me what Caesar did, and I will tell you ere the Romans of his day

Tell me what modern diplomacy has accomplished, and I will describe the moral condition of the nations

We should not pay two milliards of taxes if we did not appoint those who consume them to vote them

We should not have so much trouble, difficulty and expense with the African question if ere as well convinced that two and two make four in political economy as in arithmetic

M Guizot would never have had occasion to say: ”France is rich enough to pay for her glory,” if France had never conceived a false idea of glory

The same statesman never would have said: ”_Liberty is too precious for France to traffic in it_,” if France had well understood that _liberty_ and a _large budget_ are incoious morality then, if it can, touch the heart of the Tartuffes, the Caesars, the conquerors of Algeria, the sinecurists, the hten their dupes Of these two processes, which is the ress? I believe it is the second I believe that hu a _defensive ent inquiry, and have been unable to find any abuse, practiced to any considerable extent, that has perished by voluntary renunciation on the part of those who profited by it On the contrary, I have seen many that have yielded to the manly resistance of those who suffered by them

To describe the consequences of abuses, is thethe abuses theard to abuses which, like the protective syste real evil upon the masses, are to those who seem to profit by them only an illusion and a deception

Well, then, does this species of morality realize all the social perfection which the sympathetic nature of the human heart and its noblest faculties cause us to hope for? This I by no eneral diffusion of this defensive e that the best understood interests are in accord with general utility and justice A society, although very well regulated, ht not be very attractive, where there were no knaves, only because there were no fools; where vice, always latent, and, so to speak, overcome by famine, would only stand in need of available plunder in order to be restored to vigor; where the prudence of the individual would be guarded by the vigilance of theexternal acts, would not have penetrated to the consciences of men Such a state of society we soorous and just e impositions You esteem him--possibly you admire him You may make him your deputy, but you would not necessarily choose him for a friend

Let, then, the twoeach other, act in concert, and attack vice at its opposite poles While the econo just and necessary opposition, studying and exposing the real nature of actions and things, let the religious moralist, on his part, perform his more attractive, but more difficult, labor; let him attack the very body of iniquity, follow it to its most vital parts, paint the charms of beneficence, self-denial and devotion, open the fountains of virtue where we can only choke the sources of vice--this is his duty It is noble and beautiful But why does he dispute the utility of that which belongs to us?

In a society which, though not superlatively virtuous, should nevertheless be regulated by the influences of _econoe of the econoress of religious morality?

Habit, it has been said, is a second nature A country where the individual had becohtened public opinion, ht, indeed, be pitiable; but it seems to me it would be well prepared to receive an education more elevated and reat step towards becoood Men cannot remain stationary Turned aside from the paths of vice which would lead only to infamy, they appreciate better the attractions of virtue Possibly it h this prosaic state, where men practice virtue by calculation, to be thence elevated to that er have need of such an exercise