ther on science in general, or on the doctrines
combated by him.

On page 41, speaking of the scientific work of Marx with a disdain which
can not be taken seriously, since it is too much like that of the
theologians for Darwin or that of the jurists for Lombroso, he reasons
in this curious fashion:

"Starting from the hypothesis that all private property is unjust, it is
not logic that is wanting in the doctrine of Marx. But _if one
recognizes_, on the contrary, _that every individual has a right to
possess some thing of his own_, the direct and inevitable consequence is
[the rightfulness of] the profits of capital, and, therefore, the
augmentation of the latter."

Certainly, if one admits _a priori_ the right of individual property in
the land and the means of production ... it is needless and useless to
discuss the question.

But the troublesome fact is that all the scientific work of Marx and the
socialists has been done precisely in order to furnish absolute
scientific proof of the true genesis of capitalist property--the unpaid
surplus-labor of the laborer--and to put an end to the old fables about
"the first occupant," and "accumulated savings" which are only
exceptions, ever becoming rarer.

Moreover, the negation of private property is not "the hypothesis," but
the logical and inevitable consequence of the premises of _facts_ and of
_historical_ demonstrations made, not only by Marx, but by a numerous
group of sociologists who, abandoning the reticence and mental
reservations of orthodox conventionalism, have, by that step, become
socialists.

* * * * *

But contemporary socialism, for the very reason that it is in perfect
harmony with scientific and exact thought, no longer harbors the
illusions of those who fancy that to-morrow--with a dictator of
"wonderful intelligence and remarkable eloquence," charged with the duty
of organizing collectivism by means of decrees and regulations--we could
reach the Co-operative Commonwealth at a bound, eliminating the
intermediate phases. Moreover, is not the absolute and unbridled
individualism of yesterday already transformed into a limited
individualism and into a partial collectivism by legal limitations of
the _jus abutendi_ and by the continuous transformation into social
functions or public properties of the services (lighting, water-supply,
transportation, etc.), or properties (roads, bridges, canals, etc.),
which were former