of working-men, who, directly or indirectly, have aided him in
establishing himself, nor employ them all for ever. He has no other
course left him, then, but a division of the property. But if the
property is divided, all conditions will be equal--there will be no more
large capitalists or large proprietors.

Consequently, when M. Ch. Comte--following out his hypothesis--shows
us his capitalist acquiring one after another the products of his
employees' labor, he sinks deeper and deeper into the mire; and, as his
argument does not change, our reply of course remains the same.

"Other laborers are employed in building: some quarry the stone, others
transport it, others cut it, and still others put it in place. Each
of them adds a certain value to the material which passes through his
hands; and this value, the product of his labor, is his property. He
sells it, as fast as he creates it, to the proprietor of the building,
who pays him for it in food and wages."

_Divide et impera_--divide, and you shall command; divide, and you
shall grow rich; divide, and you shall deceive men, you shall daze their
minds, you shall mock at justice! Separate laborers from each other,
perhaps each one's daily wage exceeds the value of each individual's
product; but that is not the question under consideration. A force of
one thousand men working twenty days has been paid the same wages that
one would be paid for working fifty-five years; but this force of
one thousand has done in twenty days what a single man could not have
accomplished, though he had labored for a million centuries. Is the
exchange an equitable one? Once more, no; when you have paid all the
individual forces, the collective force still remains to be paid.

Consequently, there remains always a right of collective property which
you have not acquired, and which you enjoy unjustly.

Admit that twenty days' wages suffice to feed, lodge, and clothe this
multitude for twenty days: thrown out of employment at the end of that
time, what will become of them, if, as fast as they create, they abandon
their creations to the proprietors who will soon discharge them? While
the proprietor, firm in his position (thanks to the aid of all the
laborers), dwells in security, and fears no lack of labor or bread,
the laborer's only dependence is upon the benevolence of this same
proprietor, to whom he has sold and surrendered his liberty. If, then,
the proprietor, shielding himself beh