not prevent things
being what they are.

Just imagine some Diogenes putting his head out of his tub and saying,
"Athenians, you are served by slaves. Have you never thought that you
practice on your brothers the most iniquitous spoliation?" Or a tribune
speaking in the forum, "Romans! you have laid the foundation of all your
greatness on the pillage of other nations."

They would state only undeniable truths. But must we conclude from this
that Athens and Rome were inhabited only by dishonest persons? that
Socrates and Plato, Cato and Cincinnatus were despicable characters?

Who could harbor such a thought? But these great men lived amidst
surroundings that relieved their consciences of the sense of this
injustice. Even Aristotle could not conceive the idea of a society
existing without slavery. In modern times slavery has continued to our
own day without causing many scruples among the planters. Armies have
served as the instruments of grand conquests--that is to say, of grand
spoliations. Is this saying that they are not composed of officers and
men as sensitive of their honor, even more so, perhaps, than men in
ordinary industrial pursuits--men who would blush at the very thought
of theft, and who would face a thousand deaths rather than stoop to a
base action?

It is not individuals who are to blame, but the general movement of
opinion which deludes and deceives them--a movement for which society in
general is culpable.

Thus is it with monopoly. I accuse the system, and not individuals;
society as a mass, and not this or that one of its members. If the
greatest philosophers have been able to deceive themselves as to the
iniquity of slavery, how much easier is it for farmers and manufacturers
to deceive themselves as to the nature and effects of the protective
system.

II.

TWO SYSTEMS OF MORALS.

Arrived at the end of the preceding chapter, if he gets so far, I
imagine I hear the reader say:

"Well, now, was I wrong in accusing political economists of being dry
and cold? What a picture of humanity! Spoliation is a fatal power,
almost normal, assuming every form, practiced under every pretext,
against law and according to law, abusing the most sacred things,
alternately playing upon the feebleness and the credulity of the
masses, and ever growing by what it feeds on. Could a more mournful
picture of the world be imagined than this?"

The problem is, not to find whether the picture is mournful,