a one. I would rather think Fourier ignorant (which is
generally admitted) than disingenuous. As for his disciples, before they
can formulate any opinion of their own, they must declare once for
all, unequivocally and with no mental reservation, whether they mean to
maintain property or not, and what they mean by their famous motto,--"To
each according to his capital, his labor, and his skill."

II. But, some half-converted proprietor will observe, "Would it not be
possible, by suppressing the bank, incomes, farm-rent, house-rent, usury
of all kinds, and finally property itself, to proportion products to
capacities? That was St. Simon's idea; it was also Fourier's; it is the
desire of the human conscience; and no decent person would dare maintain
that a minister of state should live no better than a peasant."

O Midas! your ears are long! What! will you never understand that
disparity of wages and the right of increase are one and the same?
Certainly, St. Simon, Fourier, and their respective flocks committed
a serious blunder in attempting to unite, the one, inequality and
communism; the other, inequality and property: but you, a man of
figures, a man of economy,--you, who know by heart your LOGARITHMIC
tables,--how can you make so stupid a mistake?

Does not political economy itself teach you that the product of a man,
whatever be his individual capacity, is never worth more than his labor,
and that a man's labor is worth no more than his consumption? You remind
me of that great constitution-framer, poor Pinheiro-Ferreira, the Sieyes
of the nineteenth century, who, dividing the citizens of a nation into
twelve classes,--or, if you prefer, into twelve grades,--assigned to
some a salary of one hundred thousand francs each; to others, eighty
thousand; then twenty-five thousand, fifteen thousand, ten thousand,
&c., down to one thousand five hundred, and one thousand francs, the
minimum allowance of a citizen. Pinheiro loved distinctions, and could
no more conceive of a State without great dignitaries than of an army
without drum-majors; and as he also loved, or thought he loved, liberty,
equality, and fraternity, he combined the good and the evil of our old
society in an eclectic philosophy which he embodied in a constitution.
Excellent Pinheiro! Liberty even to passive submission, fraternity
even to identity of language, equality even in the jury-box and at the
guillotine,--such was his ideal republic. Unappreciated geni