rohibant on the frontier, or that which he
causes to be used by the law, may be judged very differently in a moral
point of view. Some persons consider that plunder is perfectly
justifiable, if only sanctioned by law. But, for myself, I cannot
imagine anything more aggravating. However it may be, the economical
results are the same in both cases.

Look at the thing as you will; but if you are impartial, you will see
that no good can come of legal or illegal plunder. We do not deny that
it affords M. Prohibant, or his trade, or, if you will, national
industry, a profit of five francs. But we affirm that it causes two
losses, one to James B., who pays fifteen francs where he otherwise
would have paid ten; the other to national industry, which does not
receive the difference. Take your choice of these two losses, and
compensate with it the profit which we allow. The other will prove not
the less a _dead loss_. Here is the moral: To take by violence is not to
produce, but to destroy. Truly, if taking by violence was producing,
this country of ours would be a little richer than she is.

VIII.--Machinery.

"A curse on machines! Every year, their increasing power devotes
millions of workmen to pauperism, by depriving them of work, and
therefore of wages and bread. A curse on machines!"

This is the cry which is raised by vulgar prejudice, and echoed in the
journals.

But to curse machines is to curse the spirit of humanity!

It puzzles me to conceive how any man can feel any satisfaction in such
a doctrine.

For, if true, what is its inevitable consequence? That there is no
activity, prosperity, wealth, or happiness possible for any people,
except for those who are stupid and inert, and to whom God has not
granted the fatal gift of knowing how to think, to observe, to combine,
to invent, and to obtain the greatest results with the smallest means.
On the contrary, rags, mean huts, poverty, and inanition, are the
inevitable lot of every nation which seeks and finds in iron, fire,
wind, electricity, magnetism, the laws of chemistry and mechanics, in a
word, in the powers of nature, an assistance to its natural powers. We
might as well say with Rousseau--"Every man that thinks is a depraved
animal."

This is not all. If this doctrine is true, since all men think and
invent, since all, from first to last, and at every moment of their
existence, seek the co-operation of the powers of nature, and try to
make the most