bourgeois, and to get the better of him in
argument; if celestial matters remain very mixed for him in spite of all
the effort of the preachers, he sees all the more clearly into
terrestrial, political, and social questions. We shall have occasion to
refer again to this point; and pass now to the moral characteristics of
our workers.

It is sufficiently clear that the instruction in morals can have no
better effect than the religious teaching, with which in all English
schools it is mixed up. The simple principles which, for plain human
beings, regulate the relations of man to man, brought into the direst
confusion by our social state, our war of each against all, necessarily
remain confused and foreign to the working-man when mixed with
incomprehensible dogmas, and preached in the religious form of an
arbitrary and dogmatic commandment. The schools contribute, according to
the confession of all authorities, and especially of the Children's
Employment Commission, almost nothing to the morality of the
working-class. So short-sighted, so stupidly narrow-minded is the
English bourgeoisie in its egotism, that it does not even take the
trouble to impress upon the workers the morality of the day, which the
bourgeoisie has patched together in its own interest for its own
protection! Even this precautionary measure is too great an effort for
the enfeebled and sluggish bourgeoisie. A time must come when it will
repent its neglect, too late. But it has no right to complain that the
workers know nothing of its system of morals, and do not act in
accordance with it.

Thus are the workers cast out and ignored by the class in power, morally
as well as physically and mentally. The only provision made for them is
the law, which fastens upon them when they become obnoxious to the
bourgeoisie. Like the dullest of the brutes, they are treated to but one
form of education, the whip, in the shape of force, not convincing but
intimidating. There is, therefore, no cause for surprise if the workers,
treated as brutes, actually become such; or if they can maintain their
consciousness of manhood only by cherishing the most glowing hatred, the
most unbroken inward rebellion against the bourgeoisie in power. They
are men so long only as they burn with wrath against the reigning class.
They become brutes the moment they bend in patience under the yoke, and
merely strive to make life endurable while abandoning the effort to break
the yo