ms less like the truth than the truth itself. On the
other hand, according to J. J. Rousseau, "it takes a great deal of
philosophy to enable us to observe once what we see every day;" and,
according to d'Alembert, "the ordinary truths of life make but little
impression on men, unless their attention is especially called to them."
The father of the school of economists (Say), from whom I borrow these
two quotations, might have profited by them; but he who laughs at the
blind should wear spectacles, and he who notices him is near-sighted.

Strange! that which has frightened so many minds is not, after all,
an objection to equality--it is the very condition on which equality
exists!...

Natural inequality the condition of equality of fortunes!... What
a paradox!... I repeat my assertion, that no one may think I have
blundered--inequality of powers is the sine qua non of equality of
fortunes.

There are two things to be considered in society--FUNCTIONS and
RELATIONS.

I. FUNCTIONS. Every laborer is supposed to be capable of performing the
task assigned to him; or, to use a common expression, "every workman
must know his trade." The workman equal to his work,--there is an
equation between functionary and function.

In society, functions are not alike; there must be, then, different
capacities. Further,--certain functions demand greater intelligence
and powers; then there are people of superior mind and talent. For
the performance of work necessarily involves a workman: from the need
springs the idea, and the idea makes the producer. We only know what our
senses long for and our intelligence demands; we have no keen desire
for things of which we cannot conceive, and the greater our powers of
conception, the greater our capabilities of production.

Thus, functions arising from needs, needs from desires, and desires
from spontaneous perception and imagination, the same intelligence which
imagines can also produce; consequently, no labor is superior to the
laborer. In a word, if the function calls out the functionary, it is
because the functionary exists before the function.

Let us admire Nature's economy. With regard to these various needs which
she has given us, and which the isolated man cannot satisfy unaided,
Nature has granted to the race a power refused to the individual. This
gives rise to the principle of the DIVISION OF LABOR,--a principle
founded on the SPECIALITY OF VOCATIONS.

The satisfaction of some nee