ndred and
fifty years, as I further go on to show, is now essentially concluded.
With the French Revolution of 1848 comes the dawning of a new, a third
historical period. By its proclamation of universal and equal
suffrage, regardless of property qualifications, this third period
assigns to each and every one an equal share in the sovereignty, in
the guidance of public affairs and public policy. And so it installs
free labor as the dominating principle of social life, conditioned by
neither the possession of land nor of capital.

I then develop the difference in point of ethical principles between
the _bourgeoisie_ and the laboring class, as well as the resulting
difference in the political ideals of the two classes. The
aristocratic principle assigned the individual his status on the basis
of descent and social rank, whereas the principal for which the
_bourgeoisie_ stands contends that all such legal restriction is
iniquitous, and that the individual must be counted simply as such,
with no prerogative beyond guaranteeing him the unhindered
opportunity to make the most of his capacities as an individual. Now,
I claim, if we all were by native gift equally wealthy, equally
capable, equally well educated, then this principle of equal
opportunity would be adequate to the purpose. But since such equality
does not prevail, and indeed cannot come to pass, and since we do not
come into the world simply as undifferentiated individuals, but
endowed in varying degree with wealth and capacities, which in turn
result in differences of education; therefore, this principle is not
an adequate principle. For, if under these actual circumstances,
nothing were guaranteed beyond the unhindered opportunity of the
individual to make the most of himself, the consequence must be an
exploitation of the weaker by the stronger. The principle for which
the working classes stand is this, that free opportunity alone will
not suffice, but that to this, for the purposes of any morally
defensible organization of society, there must be added the further
principle of a solidarity of interests, a community and mutuality in
development.

From this difference between the two classes, in point of ethical
principle, follows, as a matter of course, the difference in political
ideals.

The _bourgeoisie_ has elaborated the principle that the end of the
State is to protect the personal liberty of the individual and his
property. This is the doctrine put fo