. If enlightened
self-interest is the principle of all morality, it follows that the
private interests of men ought to coincide with human interests. If
man is not free in the materialistic sense, that is to say, is free,
not by reason of his negative strength to avoid this and that, but by
reason of his positive strength to assert his true individuality, then
man must not punish the crimes of individuals, but destroy the
anti-social breeding-places of crime, and afford to each person
sufficient social scope for the expression of his or her
individuality. If man is formed by circumstances, then it is only in
society that he develops his real nature, and the strength of his
nature must be measured, not with the strength of the isolated
individual, but with the strength of society.

These and similar sentences may be found almost word for word in the
writings even of the oldest French materialists. This is not the place
to criticize them. Significant of the socialist tendency of
materialism is Mandeville's (one of the older English pupils of Locke)
apology for vice. He shows that vice is indispensable and useful in
present-day society. This, however, was no justification for
present-day society.

The doctrines of French materialism form the starting-point of
Fourier. The followers of Babeuf were crude, uncivilized
materialists, but even fully-developed communism derived directly
from French materialism.

The latter, in the shape given it by Helvetius, returned to its
motherland, to England. On the morality of Helvetius, Bentham founded
his system of enlightened self-interest, just as Owen, proceeding from
Bentham's system, founded English communism. On being banished to
England, the Frenchman Cabet was stimulated by the communistic ideas
he found there, and returned to France, to become the most popular,
albeit most superficial, representative of communism here.

THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION

Pourquoi la revolution d'Angleterre a-t-elle reussi. Discours
sur l'histoire de la revolution d'Angleterre, Paris, 1850.[10]

The object of M. Guizot's pamphlet is to show why Louis Philippe and
Guizot's policy ought not to have been overthrown on the 24th February
1848, and how the reprehensible character of the French is to blame
for the fact that the July monarchy of 1830 ignominiously collapsed
after eighteen years of laborious existence and was not blessed with
the security of tenure enjoyed by the English monarc