nomena, the point of view of human nature, it had in
common with the Utopian Morelly.

And it cannot be urged that this review was probably not sincere in its
arguments, and that it appealed to human nature with the single object
of saying something in favour of the exploiters, in favour of those who
"command." But sincere or hypocritical in its criticism of Morelly, the
_Bibliotheque Impartiale_ adopted the standpoint common to all the
writers of this period. They all of them appeal to human nature
conceived of in one form or another, with the sole exception of the
retrogrades who, living shadows of passed times, continued to appeal to
the will of God.

As we know, this concept of human nature has been inherited by the 19th
century from its predecessor. The Utopian Socialists had no other. But
here again it is easy to prove that it is not peculiar to the Utopians.

Even at the period of the Restoration, the eminent French historian,
Guizot, in his historical studies, arrived at the remarkable conclusion
that the political constitution of any given country depended upon the
"condition of property" in that country. This was an immense advance
upon the ideas of the last century which had almost exclusively
considered the action of the "legislator." But what in its turn did
these "conditions of property" depend on? Guizot is unable to answer
this question, and after long, vain efforts to find a solution of the
enigma in historical circumstances, he returns, falls back _nolens
volens_, upon the theory of human nature. Augustin Thierry, another
eminent historian of the Restoration, found himself in almost the same
case, or rather he would have done so if only he had tried to
investigate this question of the "condition of property" and its
historical vicissitudes. In his concept of social life, Thierry was
never able to go beyond his master Saint Simon, who, as we have seen
above, held firmly to the point of view of human nature.

The example of the brilliant Saint Simon, a man of encyclopaedic
learning, demonstrates more clearly perhaps than any other, how narrow
and insufficient was this point of view, in what confusion worse
confounded of contradictions it landed those who applied it. Says Saint
Simon, with the profoundest conviction: "The future is made up of the
last terms of a series, the first of which consist of the past. When one
has thoroughly mastered the first terms of any series it is easy to put
down their s