wlessly, while Liberty will
scarcely trouble herself to do petty ones lawfully."

"Your reciprocal instruction will turn out counters in human flesh,"
broke in an Absolutist. "All individuality will disappear in a people
brought to a dead level by education."

"For all that, is not the aim of society to secure happiness to each
member of it?" asked the Saint-Simonian.

"If you had an income of fifty thousand livres, you would not think much
about the people. If you are smitten with a tender passion for the race,
go to Madagascar; there you will find a nice little nation all ready to
Saint-Simonize, classify, and cork up in your phials, but here every one
fits into his niche like a peg in a hole. A porter is a porter, and a
blockhead is a fool, without a college of fathers to promote them to
those positions."

"You are a Carlist."

"And why not? Despotism pleases me; it implies a certain contempt for
the human race. I have no animosity against kings, they are so amusing.
Is it nothing to sit enthroned in a room, at a distance of thirty
million leagues from the sun?"

"Let us once more take a broad view of civilization," said the man of
learning who, for the benefit of the inattentive sculptor, had opened a
discussion on primitive society and autochthonous races. "The vigor of a
nation in its origin was in a way physical, unitary, and crude; then as
aggregations increased, government advanced by a decomposition of the
primitive rule, more or less skilfully managed. For example, in remote
ages national strength lay in theocracy, the priest held both sword and
censer; a little later there were two priests, the pontiff and the king.
To-day our society, the latest word of civilization, has distributed
power according to the number of combinations, and we come to the forces
called business, thought, money, and eloquence. Authority thus divided
is steadily approaching a social dissolution, with interest as its one
opposing barrier. We depend no longer on either religion or physical
force, but upon intellect. Can a book replace the sword? Can discussion
be a substitute for action? That is the question."

"Intellect has made an end of everything," cried the Carlist. "Come now!
Absolute freedom has brought about national suicides; their triumph left
them as listless as an English millionaire."

"Won't you tell us something new? You have made fun of authority of all
sorts to-day, which is every bit as vulgar as denying the