at of the functionaries which are earliest
required must increase in the same proportion; so that the highest
functions become possible only in the most powerful societies. [17] That
is the peculiar feature of capacities; the character of genius, the seal
of its glory, cannot arise and develop itself, except in the bosom of
a great nation. But this physiological condition, necessary to the
existence of genius, adds nothing to its social rights: far from
that,--the delay in its appearance proves that, in economical and
civil affairs, the loftiest intelligence must submit to the equality
of possessions; an equality which is anterior to it, and of which it
constitutes the crown.

This is severe on our pride, but it is an inexorable truth. And here
psychology comes to the aid of social economy, giving us to understand
that talent and material recompense have no common measure; that, in
this respect, the condition of all producers is equal: consequently,
that all comparison between them, and all distinction in fortunes, is
impossible.

_ _In fact, every work coming from the hands of man--compared with the
raw material of which it is composed--is beyond price. In this respect,
the distance is as great between a pair of wooden shoes and the trunk of
a walnut-tree, as between a statue by Scopas and a block of marble.
The genius of the simplest mechanic exerts as much influence over the
materials which he uses, as does the mind of a Newton over the inert
spheres whose distances, volumes, and revolutions he calculates. You ask
for talent and genius a corresponding degree of honor and reward. Fix
for me the value of a wood-cutter's talent, and I will fix that of
Homer. If any thing can reward intelligence, it is intelligence itself.
That is what happens, when various classes of producers pay to each
other a reciprocal tribute of admiration and praise. But if they
contemplate an exchange of products with a view to satisfying mutual
needs, this exchange must be effected in accordance with a system of
economy which is indifferent to considerations of talent and genius, and
whose laws are deduced, not from vague and meaningless admiration, but
from a just balance between DEBIT and CREDIT; in short, from commercial
accounts.

Now, that no one may imagine that the liberty of buying and selling
is the sole basis of the equality of wages, and that society's sole
protection against superiority of talent lies in a certain force of
ine