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·DUTIES OF MAN
AN ESSAY
BY
JOSEPH MAZZINI
EDITED) ITITII INTRODUCTION
BY
W. W. PEARSON, M. A., B. Sc.
S. K. LAHIRI & Co.
54, College Strcet
CALCUTTA

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·PREFACE. When the idea of bringing out a cheap edition of Mazzini's “Duties of Man" first occurred to ine, some months ago, neither I, nor Mr. Lahiri who so kindly undertook its publication, imagined that it would be necessary to preface it with an assurance that it was not intended to encourage disaffection towards the established Government of India. But recent events have shown that even the life and teaching of so noble a patriot as Mazzini can be misrepresented and exploited to serve ignoble ends. Mazzini was, it is true, a revolutionary but as such he can have no message for India where there is at the present day so little excuse for revolutionary methods. Under the heading "Italy and India" the Editor of “The Indian Interpreter" (Oct. 1907) says "Mazzini the revolutionary has indeed no message for this land, so different in its situation from Italy under Austrian. rule, but Mazzini the idealist has--not the man who plotted to obtain his country's rights, but the man who laboured and who suffered to teach his countrymen their duty." The keynote of Mazzini's teaching is found in his words "The sole origin of every right is in a duty fulfilled", and it is hoped that the readers of this essay, which has been justly termed "the most inspiring statement of personal and political idealism that the modern world has seen," may derive from it a fresh impetus to the more constructive side of their political ideals. It should indeed prove an inspiration to those lovers of India who wish to serve their country in the highest spirit of self-sacrifice for this spirit can only be manifested in the fulfilment of duties. "If you wish to serve your country", said Mazzini, "let ·ii each man among you regard himself as a guarantee, responsible for his fellow countrymen, and learn so to govern his actions as to cause his country to be loved and respected through him." Those who, while professing to follow the teaching of Mazzini, exhort their fellow countrymen so to misgovern their actions as to cause their country to be hated and despised through them are surely either insincere or ignorant of the ideals of the teacher they profess to follow. Nothing is more to be condemned than the efforts which certain misguided men have recently made to serve their country by anarchical acts. Such conduct, however patriotically conceived, only hinders a country's welfare, and does not serve to advance its wellbeing one step. The responsibility, however, does not so much rest with the actual doers of such deeds as with their teachers, and never in India has the need for right teaching been so urgent as at the present time. India has a great past. If she is to have a great future she must see to it that her actions are guided by that reverence for spiritual things which has been so marked a feature of her past, and not surrender herself to excited and imprudent political leaders. In Mazzini, as a study of this essay will prove, she has a worthy exponent of spiritual ideals which will guide the nation to even nobler ends than she has yet achieved. CALCUTTA. W. W. P.

·INTRODUCTION. When Italy entered into freedom •and unity, and began a new life of hope for her future, the names of three great men were held sacred by the Italian people. One represented the intellectual source and power of the revolution, one the physical or military, and one the spiritual. This last was Mazzini. Of the Italy of this period it has been written “Who blew the breath of life into her frame ; Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi -- three : Her brain, her soul, her sword-and set her free From ruinous discord, with one lustrous aim." Without a soul no great national movement can hope for the blessing of true success and therefore a study of the writings of the patriot who was justly termed the soul of the Italian people cannot fail to be an inspiration to all who love their country truly. Though Mazzini was an idealist, a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet it is his great honour that, while in ideas he was so far ahead of his times, he achieved what may be said to have been one of the greatest practical works of the 19th century in Europe-the Unity of Italy. Italy was, at the time of Mazzini's birth in 1805, a mere geographical expression, a country, divided into a number of small independent states whichi, under the influence of Napoleon, was only beginning to be dimly conscious of a national ·iv INTRODUCTION. life. In 1814 Napoleon fell and, at the Congress of Vienna, Italy was divided amongst the European powers without reference to the idea of nationality which was stirring the imagination of the people. Austria was given the dominant power, and Italy under the tyranny of Justrian rule, seemed once more to be in danger of losing her sense of a united national life. "It is the eternal glory of Mazzini thatby a life of unresting effort, constant faith in the face of apparent disaster and unfaltering allegiance to the highest ideal -- he brought his loved land to such a realisation of its duties and potentialities that, at last, unity was achieved and the foot of Austria removed from her neck." Patriotism bad, up to the time of Mazzini been limited in its exteni : the patriots of Venice and Florence had regarded patriotism as a civic rather than a national virtue. True patriotism was revealed for the first time by the work and words of Joseph Mazzini. His was no narrow or exclusive patriotism for it revealed in its passion and intensity a love for his country which was only equalled Ly his love for humanity. To a brief study of his life and works we will now turn. Joseph Mazzini, born in Genoa on the 22nd June 1805, was an extremely delicate and fragile child, but his passionate love for the people showed itself at an early age. He was six years of age vefore he had strength enough to walk beyond the boundaries of ·INTRODUCTIOA. was the little garden in front of his father's house. When he did pass into the outer world an incident occurred which was prophetic of his future career. It is best told in the words of Madame Venturi an intimate friend of Mazzini and his family. “The first occasion upon which his mother ventured to allow him to accompany her some distance beyond the walls of the garden was rendered memorable to her by an incident which she always related with much pleasure. They had gone but a short distance, when the child suddenly stood still, gazing intently upon an old beggar seated upon the steps of a church. So transfixed stood the boy, that his mother, fearing he frightened at the venerable white beard and picturesque rags and staff of the old man, stooped down to carry the child away ; but he broke from her, and, running impetuously forward threw his arms round the poor man's neck, kissing him again and again, and crying out to her, "Give him something, mother ; give him something. The old affected even to tears; he tenderly returned the child's caresses, and addressing Signora Mazzini in pure Roman accents, said : 'Love him well, ludy; he is one who will love the people.' He must have been a remarkable child, for an uncle of his in a letter dated Aug. 28th 1812 wrote, after seeing the boy (then aged 7) "Believe me, Signora Cousin, that dear child is a star of the first magnitude, kindled with genuine light, and one day to be admired by the whole of enlightened Europe. All men should man was ·vi INTRODUCTION. therefore regard him as something belonging to them ; and it is for the interest of all men that the extra ordinary gifts lavished upon him by nature should be turned to the best account. The great geniuses that, at different epochs, arise to become the glory of their century, generally thus give evidence of their great powers even in early infancy; and thus is made manifest your duty of making every conceivable sacrifice for that child's education." As a young man and student his seriousness of purpose seems to have impressed all with whom he came into contact. One fellow student of his writes of him thus : "Joseph was much distinguished at the University by his acuteness in philosophical discussion, and much loved and respected by his fellow students for his good qualities of lead and heart....... His ascendency and influence over his companions were truly astonishing : all appreciated the gentleness of his nature, the loyalty and generosity of his character, and the indomitable love of justice which always caused him at once to interfere to protect any of his companions whom he saw ill-treated, whether by students or professors. Simple and economical in his own habits, he always found means generously to assist the wants of those around him ; indeed, he carried this disposition to excess ; for, not content with giving away his Books, money, etc, he constantly bestowed even his clothes upon the needy among his fellow-students. In dress he was 'scrupulously simple : and from a child he insisted on dressing ·INTRODUCTION. vii entirely in black, a habit which he never altered in after life.” Referring to this habit he himself wrote "In the midst of the noisy, tumultuous life of the scholars around me, I was sombre and absorbed, and appeared like one suddenly grown old. I childishly determined to dress always in black, fancying myself in mourning for my country.” Another college friend wrote of him "All who were at the University with him remember how loving, charitable, and gentle he was; all loved him, and his house was the meeting place of the best and most intellectual students of the college." It is difficult to trace the first dawn of the patriotic idea in a youth who had so early in life ſelt the first thrill of shame at the degradation of his country, but it is clear that he was an enthusiastic patriot as soon as he was able to judge for himself the state of his fellow countrymen. Intended by his father for the medical profession be studied anatomy and medicine for a time, but, owing to the disgust he felt in attending dissections, he began to study law, and for two years he practised as an advocate. During this period, as was the custom, he pleaded gratis the causes of the poor, and won for bimsell the love and esteem of the people by the patient attention he gave to the often wearisome details of this olſice. He gained such a reputation that it was the first hope and endeavour of every poor man who had a cause to be pleaded in Genoa to obtain the services of Joseph Mazzini.

·viii INTRODUCTION. was The natural tendency of Mazzini's mind towards literature. At the age of 13 some of his writings were noticed by a literary association at Savona the members of which elected him a member of their society, little dreaming that they were electing a child of 13 ! In his Autobiographical Notes he refers to his renunciation of a literary career as "his first great sacrifice" to patriotism. It was to to be followed by still nobler sacrifices. Imprisoned, exiled, driven from one country to another, separated from home and friends, and from the land of his birtlı which he lored with a passionate affection, his life may well be said to be an example of supreme self-sacrifice in the cause of patriotism. He did not die the death of a martyr, but he achieved a nobler heroismı--- he lived the life of a martyr. Mazzini's nature was not one which could be happy in an atmosphere of conspiracy and revolution, and to one who loved his country so passionately exile was well nigh unendurable. Of Mazzini it has been written "The beautiful melancholy countenance, the delicate frame, the candid and yearning heart, -- all these indicated a nature born for thought and affection, not meant for suspicions and controversies and the bitterness of a life long war. Courage, indeed, was easy, conspiracy was endurable, but exile broke his heart." But he was early to learn that association with existing political organisations for the emancipation of his country meant suspicion and imprisonment.

·INTRODUCTION: ix a Turning to the problem --- how to gain freedom and unity for Italy - he began his political career by joining a Secret Society called the Carbonari, the members of which, though actuated by sincere motives and a true love of their country, lacked true constructive idealism and pursued an entirely negative and vindictive policy. His connection with this Society did not last long. The members of it looked to France to aid them in them in destro ing the Austrian dominance, but though they kneir that they wanted Liberty and Independence, they had no clear notion of what was implied in either condition. It was while on a propagandist jaission for the Carbonari that Mazzini was arrested by order of the King of Piedmont and imprisoned in the fortress of Savona. The Governor of Genoa informed his father that he had been arrested because "he was a young nian of talent, very fond of solitary walks at night, and habitually silent to the subject of his meditations, and that the government was not fond of young men of talent the subject of whose musings was unknown to it." Mazzini's cell was at the top of the fortress of Savona. "It looked" he says "upon the sea, which was a comfort to me. The sea and sky-two Symbols cí the infinite, and, except the Alps, the subliinest things in nature--were before me whenever I approached my little grated window. The earth beneath was invisible to me, but when the wind blew in my direction, I could hear the voices of the fishermen." as ·X INTRODUCTION. This solitary confinement in which his only companion was a green finch (his fondness for all dumb animals, and especially for birds, was a lifelong characteristic) gave Mazzini opportunity for quiet reflection. It was during this imprisonment that he conceived the design of a new association, a society of young men bound together by a common faith and zeal for the emancipation of their country. He believed that the Carbonari had failed as a political society, and not sympathising with its vindictive methods of conspiracy against the existing order he founded “Young Italy" as a religious society with the watchword "God and the People." The formation of this Society has been thus described "The musings unknown to the Government were continued in the fortress of Savona, and there he evolved his organisation of Young Italy-a new Society to do service for national unity. In place of the secret passwords and mystic symbols of the older revolutionary associations was a bold declaration of principle.” "Young Italy'' he wrote "rejected at materialisni and superstition. It declared that, in order to acquire the strength necessary to become a nation, Italy must emancipate herself not only from the old Catholic belief, but also from the materialisin of the eighteenth century." The members of this Association) swore to consecrate once *This refers to the superstitions prevalent in the religion of that period.

·INTRODUCTION. xi . their lives to the work of uniting their dismembered country into "one free, independent, republican nation.” They swore to unite her, “because, without unity there is no real strength --and Italy, surrounded by powerful, united and jealous and jealous nations, needed strength before all things." They realised that strength could only come through sacrifice and were convinced that their "sole path to victory was through sacrificeconstancy in sacrifice." Mazzini wrote “I never saw any nucleus of young men so devoted, capable or such strong mutual affection, such pure enthusiasm, and such readiness in daily, hourly toil, as were those who laboured with me. llone, without any office, without subordinates, immersed in labour the whole of the day, and the greater part of the night : writing articles and letters, seeing travellers, affiliating the Italian sailors, folding our printed articles, tying up bundles, alternating between intellectual labour and the routine of working men.'' Through the Association of Young Italy the regeneration of the nation was presented to the young Italian mind as an object of religious enthusiasm, to help forward which young Italy "had need of purification from every servile habit, froin every unworthy affection." The aim and endeavour of “Young Italy" Association, a word which had a sacred significance to Mazzini for it stood for brotherhood. “Revolutions must be made by the people and for the people. This is our Word (i.e. Association); it sums up our whole doctrine; was ·xii INTRODUCTION, it is our science, our religion, our heart's affection." But Association in order to be effective had to be preceded by equality of education otherwise there was bound to be a privileged class. The whole problem of the liberty and freedom of his country resolved itself with Mazzini into a problem of education. This is seen in his later writings to which reference will shortly be made as well as in the writings published during this period. In less than a year from the time of its formation "Young Italy" became the dominant Association throughout the whole of Italy. "It was” writes Mazzini "the triumph of principles--the bare fact that in so short a time, a handful of young men, themselves sprung from the people, unknown, without means... found themselves at the head of so powerful an Association.” But the writings of Mazzini in the journal “Young Italy" displeased the government and in 1832 Mazzini was decreed exiled from France to which country he had gone after his first imprisonment. He stayed in France for one year, concealed from the authorities, and there carried on his propagandist campaign. But “Young Italy" was doomed to failure so far as action was concerned. Many of its members were imprisoned as a result of an organised insurrection and Mazzini's dearest friend, Ruffini, committed suicide in his prison cell. Mazzini himself was amongst those condemned to death. But though the efforts of "Young Italy" ended in failure, the spirits of its members were not cruslied.

·INTRODUCTION. xiii Mazzini and three of his friends took reſuge in Switzerland, where they founded a new Association “Young Europe" The Faith of "Young Europe" was expressed in the following words. “We come in the name of God and Hunanity. We believe in one God, author of all that exists, the living absolute Thought, of whom our world is a ray an 1 the Universe an incarnation. We believe in one Law, general and immutable, that constitutes our mode of existence, that embraces every series of possible phenomena, and exercises a continuous influence upon the universe, and on all it contains, both in its physical and in its moral aspect. Since every law requires an end to be attained, we believe in the progressive development in all existing things, of faculties and forces, -- which are faculties in action, - towards that unknown end, without which law would be useless and existence unintelligible. Since every law is interpreted and verified in its own subject, we believe in Humanity--the collective and continuous Being that suins up and comprehends the ascending series of organic creations ; the most perſect maniſestation of the thought of God upon our globe-as the sole interpreter of the law. We believe, that inasmuch as harmony between the subject and the law is the condition of all normal existence, the manifest and immediate end of all our labours is to effect the greater completion and security of that harihony, through the fuller discovery of the law and its realisation in its subject.

·xiv INTRODUCTION. more can We believe in Association which is but the reduction to action of our faith in one sole God, and one sole law, and one sole end-as the only means we possess of realising the iruth ; as the method of progress ; the path leading towards perfection, so that the higher the scale of human progress the embracing may be its corresponding formula of association won for men, and applied to their life. We believe, therefore in the Holy Alliance of the Peoples as the broadest formula of association possible in our age--in the liberty and equality of the peoples, without which no true association exist-in Nationality, which is the conscience of the Peoples, and which by assigning to them their part in the work of association, their function in Humanity, constitutes their mission upon earth, that is to say, their individuality ; without which neither equality nor liberty are possible ;-and we believe in the holy Fatherland, cradle of nationality ; altar and workshop of the individuals of which each nation is composed. And since the law is one ; since it governs alike the two aspects, internal and external, of the life of each being, the two modes -personal and relative- subjective and objective-of every existence, we hold the same creed with regard to each nation, and the individuals of which it is composed, that we hold with regard to humanity, and the nations of which it is composed. As we believe in the association of the peoples, so do we believe in the association of the individuals of which each nation is composed :

·INTRODUCTION. we believe that it is their sole method of progress, the principle destined to predominate over all their institutions, and the pledge of their harmony of action. As we believe in the liberty and equality of the peoples, so do we believe in liberty and equality ainong the men of each country, and in the inviolability of the human Ego, which is the conscience of the individual, and assigns to him his part in the secondary association ; his function in the nation, his special mission of citizenship within the sphere of the Fatherland. And as we believe in Humanity as the sole interpreter of the law of God, so do we believe in the people of every state as the sole master, sole sovereign, and sole interpreter of the law of hunanity, which governs every national mission. We believe in the people one and indivisible, recognising neither castes nor privileges, save those of genius and virtue : neither proletariat nor aristocracy, whether landed or financial ; but simply an aggregate of faculties and forces consecrated to the well-being of all, to the administration of the common substance and heritage, the earth. We believe in the people, independent ; so organised as to harmonise the individual faculties with the social idea : living by the fruits of its own labour, united in seeking the greatest possible amount of general well-being, respecting the rights of individuals. We believe in the people bound together in brotherhood by common faith, tradition, and idea of love ; striving one and a ·Xvi JATRODUC710.V. towards the progressive fulfilment of its special mission; consecrated to an apostolate of duties ; never forgetful of a truth once attained, but never sinking into inertness in consequence of its attainment ; revering the word of past generations, yet bent on using the present as a bridge between the past and the future ; adoring revelation rather than revealers, and capable of the gradual solution of the problem of its destiny' on earth. God and His Law, Humanity and its work of interpretation, progress, association, liberty, equality ; these, with that dogma of the l'eople, which is the vital principle of the republican party, are all united in our belief. No achievement of the past is rejected. Before us spreads a future where meet in close embrace the two eternal principles of every organisation, the individual and Humanity, liberty and association ; where one genuine expression of religion shall embrace in equal balance, every revelation of progress, every holy idea which by providential design has been successively transmitted to us. When in the presence of young Europe now arising, all the altars of the old world have fallen, two altars shall be raised upon the soil made fruitful by the divine word : and the finger of the hierald people shall inscribe upon one, Fatherland, and upon the other, Humanity. Like sons of the same mother, like brothers who will not be parted, the people shall gather around those two altars and offer sacrifice in peace and love. And the incense of those altars shall ascend to heaven in two columns, which shall draw near cach ·INTRODUCTION. xvii other as they mount, until they unite on high, in God. And whensoever they shall be divided in their ascent, there shall be fratricide on earth, and mothers shall weep on earth and angels shall weep in heaven." The mission of this Association is expressed in the ideals to which its founders were devoted. Of them Mazzini said "They were the infants of a new world, the children of a new faith......they saw the nations regenerated, and races long divided advancing together in brotherhood, confidence, and joy, while the Angel of Liberty, Equality and Humanity spread his white wings above them." Mazzini himself expressed this ideal in many of his published writings from which the following passages are taken. “We wish man to be better than he is. We wish him to have more love, more feeling for the beautiful, the great, and the true; that the ideal which he pursues shall be purer, more divine ; that he shall feel his own dignity, shall have more respect for his immortal soul. We wish him to have a faith freely adopted, and we would have his acts correspond to that faith.” “Yes; it is an educational problem with which we have to do ; it is to regenerate man in his ideas and in his sentiments ; it is to elevate and enlarge the sphere of his life.” Madame Venturi says of this period of his career : "Mazzini had already discovered that the fundamental vice which condemned the Italian people to impotence ·xviii INTRODUCTION. was no lack of desire for freedom, but a want of that constancy of purpose without which even virtue is fruitless, “a fatal want of farmony between thought and action.” As the moral education of his countrymen through the press was impossible in an enslaved country, he felt that "a living apostolate” was required, "a nucleus of men capable of defying persecution, and of meeting defeat with the smile of faith in the name of a great idea ; of succumbing one day, only to rise again the next ; men ever ready to do battle and, in spite of time or adverse fortune, ever full of faith in the final victory." Remembering that he had set himself to found "not a sect, but a religion of patriotism," he solemnly determined to persist in spite of time or adverse fortune, and his unshaken adherence to the resolution thus made in youth during the anguish of the first failure and the first betrayal, converted a life-long martyrdom of incessant defeat, into a life-long victory.” Nothing but this sure conviction that he had set himself to found "not a sect, but a religion of patriotism" could have kept Mazzini from utter despondency during the years of trial and isolation which were to follow. It was religious zeal not political enthusiasm that made his life eventually triumphant. His life from this time forward was one of continued self-denial and privation which was nobly shared by his mother during the whole period of their weary separation. He acknowledges his deep debt to the self-sacrificing spirit of his mother in more than one ·INTRODUCTION. xix page of his writings, and we see from accounts of her self-denials on behalf of her son how nobly she too served her country. England, to its lasting honour, was the country which received this political exile, and though during the first period of his stay in that land he was lonely and friendless he was soon to learn that Englishmen admire and love the qualities which go to make a true patriot. He bore testimony to the sincerity and durability of English friendship in these words : "Friendships once formed" in England "are firnily based, and sincerely proved, in action rather than in words, even among those who differ upon this or that question or opinion. Many of my ideas appeared then-some still appear - unrealizable or even dangerous to to many English minds; but the logical proof of the sincerity of my convictions afforded by my life, sufficed to gain me the friendship of some of the best minds of the island. Nor shall I ever forget while I live, nor ever proffer without a throb of gratitude the name of the land wherein I now write, which became to me almost as a second country, and in which I found the lasting consolation of affection, in a life embittered by delusions and destitute of all joy." During the years of his exile in England he was writing continually for the people of his native land, and when, in 1848, he was again in Italy he received with an enthusiasm which showed what a deep impression his writings and teachings had made on the minds of his fellow-countrymen. was ·XX INTRODUCTION. In 1849 Mazzini's ambition seemed to be fulfilled for Italy was declared a Republic. Mazzini was elected a Triumvir of Rome and he accepted the post with the words "You shall have no god but God : no interpreter of His law but the people.” But though the Republic was founded on "God and the People" it was not to last long. The hostility of France to the new Republic led to the invasion of Italy by her troops, and to the fall of Rome. Mazzini returned to England, the land of his adoption, and spent the rest of his life there, with the exception of a few brief periods during which he visited the Continent. In 1871 he returned to his own country to keep alive the democratic movement the aim of which was that "the development of human society should be as far as possible in the likeness of the divine society ; in the likeness of the heavenly country, where all are equal ; where there exists but one love, but one happiness for all." He died in Pisa in the spring of 1872, worn out in body and mind but undaunted in spirit, and buried in the city of his birth where a national monument has been erected to him as the apostle of the Idea of National Unity. Mazzini was a patriot, but he was above all a teacher of a patriotic faith and the Faith he taught had its foundations in religion. The main maxim of his teaching was "The sole origin of every right is in a duty fulfilled.” a duty fulfilled." Round this central thought were grouped the other ideas which summed was ·INTRODUCTION. xxi up his faith-the thought of life conceived as a mission, duty regarded as the fulfilment of a divine law, the essential connection between thought and action, the binding authority of conscience and tradition, and finally the ideal of collective humarsty composed of free nationalities. But his own life was dominated and inspired by the one idea of life conceived as a mission. In his own words: "The life of man is a journey, the end of which is elsewhere. Like the flower, it has its root in the earth, and must force its way through its element to blow in a subtler element-air. Pain and pleasure, happiness and unhappiness, are the incidents of the journey, The wind blows, the rain falls, the traveller fastens his cloak, sets his hat on firmly, and prepares for the struggle ; at a later time the storm passes off, a ray of sunshine breaks forth and warms his numbed limbs; the traveller smiles with pleasure, he thanks God in his heart. But have the sun and the rain changed the end of the journey?" "Life is a mission. Every other definition of life is false, and leads all who adopt it astray. Religion, science, philosophy, though still at variance upon many points, all agree in this, that every existence is an aim. Were it not so, of what avail were the movement, the progress, which all are beginning to recognise as the law of life. And that aim is one,-to develope and bring into action all the faculties which constitute and lie dormant in human nature-Humanity-and ·INTRODUCTION. cause them harmoniously to combine for the discovery and application of that law....... . Life is a mission ; duty, therefore, its highest law. In the comprehension of that mission and fulfilment of that duty lie our means of future progress, the secret of the stage of existence into which we shall be initiated at the conclusion of this earthly stage. Life is immortal ; but the method and time of evolution through which it progresses is in our own hands. Each of us is bound to purify his own soul as a temple ; to free it from egotism ; to set before himself, with a religious sense of the importance of the study, the problem of his own life; to search out what is the most striking, the most urgent need of the men by whom he is surrounded, then to interrogate his own faculties and capacity, and resolutely and unceasingly apply them to the satisfaction of that need. And that examination is not to be undertaken in a spirit of mere analysis, but by hearkening to the voice of his own heart, by the intuition, in short, of a loving soul, fully impressed with the solemnity of life. Young brothers, when once you have conceived and determined your mission within your soul, let nought arrest your steps. Fulfil it with all your strength ; fulfil it, whether blessed by love or visited by hate ; whether strengthened by association with others, or in the sad solitude that almost always surrounds the martyrs of thought. The path is clear before you ; you are cowards, unfaithful to your own future, if, in spite of sorrows and delusions, you do not pursue it to the end."

·INTRODUCTION. xxiii Mazzini himself did indeed live his teaching, for he resolutely and fearlessly followed that path of duty by which alone he felt he could satisfy the needs of his fellow men. In spite of sorrows and delusions he was unfaltering in his fidelity to Duty and after the time of his deepest dejection and doubt he was able to write these words: “Whether the sun shine with the serene splendour of an Italian morn, or the leaden corpselike hue of the northern mist be above us, I cannot see that it changes our duty. God dwells above the earthly heaven, and the holy stars of faith and the future still shine within our own souls, even though their light consume itself unreflected as the sepulchral lamp." Such was the life and faith of one of the greatest patriots the world has seen. In conclusion his own words may be quoted which, though written of Dante, describe Mazzini as no words but his own could have done. "His was, indeed, a tragical life-tragical from the real ills that constantly assailed him-from the lonely thought that ate into his soul, because there were none whom he might inspire with it....... He who bore within himself the soul of Italy, was misunderstood by the whole nation ; but he did not yield; he wrestled nobly with the external world, and ended by conquering it. If for some rare moment he seemed to be borne down by the fury of the storm, it was only to rise up again great as befare......taking refuge in his conscience ; 'beneath the breastplate of conscious purity'......he ·xxiv INTRODUCTION. kept himself faithful to his God, to his purpose, to himself. Nothing could bend or corrupt his soul. It was like the diamond which can only be conquered by its own dust..... Endowed with an immense power of will, and a patience beyond all proof-inflexible from conviction, and calmly resolute...... he was of those who recognise no law but that of conscience, and recur for aid to vone but God. His soul was naturally loving ; but superior as he felt himself to all his contemporaries, it was the human species he loved --Man, as one day he will be--but with the men who surrounded him, and whom, with a very few exceptions, he did not esteem, he could have no intimate communion. The grand thought of a mutual responsibility, uniting in one bond the whole human race, was ever fioating before his eyes ; the consciousness of a link between this world and the next, between one period of life and the remainder....... Life was not sweet or dear enough to him for him to attach much importance to anything personal, but he loved justice and he hated wrong. He was able to look death in the face without egotistical fear or egotistical hope ;.... it appeared to him of more importance to accomplish his mission upon earth, than to mcditate upon the inevitable hour which marks for all men the beginning of a new task. new task. He concerned himself not about the length or the shortness of life, but about the end for which life is given, for he felt God in life, and knew the creative virtue there is in ·INTRODUCTION. XXV action. He wrote as he would have acted, and the pen became in his hand like a sword...... He was one of those men who pass unscathed and erect through the gravest and most perilous crises, nor ever bow the knee save to the power that works within......He had gone through every stage of the growth of an idea, from the moment when it arises for the first time in the soul's horizon, down to that when it incarnates itself in the man, takes possession of all his faculties, and cries to him ‘Thou art mine.' It was the dust of the diamond-the hidden mysterious pain of genius, so real and yet, from its very nature, understood by so few-the torment of having seized and conceived the ideal, and felt the impossibility of reducing it to action in this life—the Titanic dream of an Italy the leader of humanity and angel of light among the nations-contrasted with the reality.” But after all the example of Mazzini's life assures us that the sun and the rain cannot change the end of the journey. 1844. W. W. PEARSON.

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·ON THE DUTIES OF MAN. 1844. noow PREFACE TO THE FIRST COMPLETE EDITION OF THE DUTIES OF MAN. To you, sons and daughters of the People, I dedicate this book. In it I have traced for you the Principles, in the name and by the aid of which, you may, if you will, fulfil your mission in Italy; a mission of Republican progress ſor all your countrymen, and of emancipation for yourselves. Let those among you whom favourable circumstances or superior ability have rendered more capable of penetrating the deep meaning of these principles, explain them to the others in the same loving spirit in which I thought, while waiting, of your sufferings, your aspirations, and that new life which it will be yours to diffuse over our Italian country, so soon as the unjust inequalities now So fatal to the free development of your faculties, shall be overcome. I have loved you from my earliest years. I was taught by the republican instincts of my mother to seek out among my fullows neither the rich man nor the great, but the true Mlan ; while the simple and unconscious virtues of my father, accustomed me to value the silent unniarked spirit of self-sacrifice so frequently found in your class, tar above the external and assumed superiority of semieducation. In later years of our history revealed to me the pages ·2 On the Duties of Man. the fact that the true life of Italy is the life of her People ; and I saw how, during the slow progress of the ages, the shock of different races, and the superficial, ephemeral changes wrought by usurpation and conquest, had been ordained to elaborate and prepare our great, democratic, National Unity. Aud I devoted myself to you, thirty years ago. I saw that our country, our One country of free men and equals, could never be founded by an aristocracy such as ours, possessed neither of initiative power nor collective life; nor by a monarchy destitute of special mission, and devoid of all idea of unity or emancipation-a monarchy which had merely crept in amongst us in the sixteenth century, and in the track of the foreigner. I saw that our United Italian Country could only be founded by the Italian People, and I declared this to the world. I saw the necessity that your class should free themselves from the yoke of hire, and gradually elevate Labour, through the medium of Association, to be master alike of the soil and capital of the state ; and, long before any French sects of socialists had distorted the question amongst us, I proclaimed it. I saw that an Italy such as the aspirations of our hearts foretell, can never exist until the Papacy shall be overthrown in the name of the Moral Law, acknowledged as high above all pretended intermediates between God and the People ; and I avowed it. or, amid the wild accusations, calunnies, and derision by which I have been assailed, have I ever betrayed your cause, nor deserted the banner of the future, even when you-led astray by the teachings of men, not belicvers but ·On the Duties of Man. 3 comidolators-forsook me for those who but trafficked in your blood, to withdraw their thoughts from you in the sequel. The hearty and sincere grasp of the hand of some of the best among you, sons and daughters of the People, has consoled me for the faithlessness of others, and for the many bitter delusions heaped upon me by men whom ! loved, and who professed to love me. I have but few years of life left to me, but the bond sealed between me and those few among yourselves, will remain inviolate to my last day, and will live beyond it. Think, then, of me as I think of you. Let us mune together in affection for our country. The special element of her future is in you. But our country's future, and your own, can only be realized by ridding yourselves of two great sores, which still (though I hope for no long while) contaminate our upper classes, and threaten to nisdirect the advance of Italy. These two sores are Macchiavellis112* and Matcrialism. The first, an ignoble travesty of the doctrine of a great but unhappy man, would lead you away from the frank, brave, and loyal adoration of truth; the second, through the worship of interest, would inevitably drag you down to egotism and anarchy. If you would emancipate yourselves from the arbitrary rule and tyranny of man, you must begin hy rightly * Marchiavelli, an Italian writer on politics (1469-1527), taught that in politics one should follow expediency rather than right. Hence Macchiavellism means "Seeking to accomplish a design by stratagem and artifice, and without any regard to the welfare of others, or the dictates of honour and honesty".

·4 On the Duties of Man. ever adoring God. And in the world's great battle between the two principles of Good and Evil, you rnus: openly eproll yourselves beneath the banner of the first, an ceaselessly combat the second ; rejecting every dubious symbol, and every cowardly compromise or hypocrisy of all leaders who seek to strike a middle course. Beneath the banner of the first yoll will find me by your side while life lasts. It was because I say these two lies--Macchiavellism and Materialism-too often clothe themselves hefore your eyes with the seductive fascinations of hopes which only the worship of God and Truth can realize, that I thought to warn you by this book. I love you too well either to flatter your passions or caress the golden dreams hy which others seek to win your favour. My voice may sound too harsh, and I may too severely insist on proclaiming the necessity of virtue and sacrifice; but I know, and you 100-untainted by false doctrines and unspoiled by wealth-will soon know also that the sole origin of every right is in a Duty fulfilled. Farewell: accept me, now and for ever, as your brother, JOSEPH Mazzini. CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION. I INTEND) to speak to you of your duties. I intend to speak Lo you, according to the dictates of my heart, of ihe holiest things we know: to speak to you of God, of Humanity, of the Fatherland and the Family. Listen to me in love, as I shall speak to you in love. My words are words of conviction, matured by long ·On the Duties of Man. an years of study, of experience, and of sorrow. The duties which I point out to you, I have striven, and shall strive while I live, to fulfil as far as I have the power. I err, but my crror is not of the heart. I I may deceive myself, but I will not deceive you. Listen to me, then, fraternally: judge freely among yourselves whether 1 speak truth or error. If it seem to you that I speak error, leave me; but follow me, and act according to my teachings, if you believe me an apostle of the truth. To err is a misfortune, and (leserving of coministration ; but to know the truth, and fail to regulate our actions according to its teaching, is a crime condemned alike hy heaven and earth. Wherefore do I speak to you of your duties before speaking 10 you of your rights? Wherefore, in it society wherein all, voluntarily or involuntarily, tend to oppreso you ; wherein the exercise of so many of the rights that belong to man is continually denied to you ; wherein your portion is suffering, id all that which men call happiness is for other classes -do I speak to you of self-sacrifice rather than of conquest ? of virtue, of moral improvement, and of education, rather than of material well-being ? This is a question which I am bound to answer clearly before I go.mny farther, because this is precisely the point which constitutes the difference between the school to which I belong, and many others now existing in Europe ; and also because this is a question that naturally arises in the vexed mind of the suffering working-man. We are the slaves of labour---pour and unhappy : speak to us of material improvement, of liberty', of happiness. Tell 14s if we are doomed to suffer for ever ; if we enjoy in our turn. Preach duty to our employers ; to the classes above us, who treat us like machines, and monopolise (21e never to ·6 On the Duties of Man. the sources of well-being, which, in justice, belong to all men. Speak to us of our rights, tell us how to gain them: speak to 225 of our strength : let us first obtain a recognised social and political existence,; then indeed you may talk to us of our duties. So say too many working-men, and they follow doctrines, and join associations, corresponding to such thoughts and desires ; forgetful, however, of one thing, and that is, that these very doctrines to which they still appeal, have been preached during the last fifty years, without resulting in the slightest, material improvement in the condition of the working-man. All that has been achieved or attempted in the cause of progress and improvement in Europe during the last fifty years, whether against absolute governments or the aristocracy of birth, has been atteinpted in the name of the Rights of man, and of Liberty as the means of that wellbeing which has been regarded as the end and aim of life. All the acts of the great French Revolution, and of those revolutions which succeeded and imitated it, were quence of the "Declaration of the Rights of man." All the works of those philosophers whose writings prepared the way for that revolution, were founded upon a theory of Liberty, and of making known to every individual his Rights. The doctrines of all the Revolutionary Schools preached that man was born for happiness; that he had a right 10 seek happiness by every means in his power ; and that no one had a right to impede him in that search ; whilo he had a right to overthrow whatever obstacles he met in his path towards it. And all those obstacles were overthrown ; liberty was achieved. In many countries it lasted for years; in some it exists even yet. conse- ·On the Duties of Man. 7 Has the condition of the people improved ? Have the millions who live by the daily labour of their hands acquired any, the smallest amount of the promised and desired wellbeing ? No, the condition of the people is not improved. On the contrary, in most countries it has even deteriorated; and here especially, where I write, the price of the necessaries of life has continually augmented, the wages of working men in many branches of industry have progressively diminished, while the population has increased. In almost all countries the condition of the workman has become more uncertain, more precarious, while those crises which condemn thousands of workmen to a certain period of inertia, have become more frequent. The annual increase of emigration from country to country, and from Europe to other parts of the world, and the ever-increasing cipher of benevolent institutions, of poor's lates, and other precautions against mendicity, suffice to prove this. They indicate that public attention is continually being attracted to the sufferings of the people ; but their inefficiency visibly to diminish those sufferings, demonstrates an equally progressive augmentation of the misery of the classes in whose behalf they endeavour tn provide. And nevertheless in these last fifty years ihe sources of social wealth, and the inass oſ material means of happiness have been continually on the increase. Commerce, surmounting thuse frequent crises which are inevitable in the absolute absence of all organization, has achieved an increase of power and activity, and a wider sphere of operation. Communication has almost everywhere been rendered rapid and secure, and hence the price of produce has decreased in proportion to the diminished cost of transport. On the ·8 On the Duties of Man. . other hand, the idea that there are rights inherent to human nature is now generally admitted and accepted-hypocritically and in words at least-even by those who seek to withhold those rights. Why then has not the condition of the people improved ? Why has the consumption of produce, instead of being equally distributed among all the members of European society, become concentrated in the hands of a few, of a class forming a new aristocracy? Why has the fresh impulse given to industry and commerce resulted, not in the well-being of the many, but in the luxury of the few? The answer is clear to those who look closely into things. Men are the creatures of education, and their actions are but the consequence of the principle of education given to them. The promoters of revolutions and political transfor. mations have hitherto founded them all upon one idea, the idea of the rights appertaining to the individual. Those revolutions achieved Liberty--individual liberty ; liberty of education, liberty of belief, liberty of commerce, liberty in all things and for all men. But of what use were rights when acquired by men who had not the means of exercising them? Of what we mere liberty of education to men who had neither time nor means to profit by it? Of what use was mere liberty of commerce to those who possessed ucither merchandise, capital, nor credit ? In all the countries wherein these principles were proclaimed, Society was composed of the small nurnber of individuals who were the possessors of land, of capital, and of credit ; and of the vast multitude who possessed nothing but the labour of their hands, and were compelled to sell that labour to the first class, on any terms, in order was ·On the Duties of Man. 9 to live. For such men, compelled to spend the whole day in material and monotonous exertion, and condemned to a continual struggle against hunger and want, what was liberty but an illusion, a bitter irony ? The only way to prevent this state of things would have been for the upper classes voluntarily to consent to reduce the hours of labour, while they increased its remuneration ; to bestow run uniform and gratuitous education upon the multitude; to render the instruments of labour accessible to all, and create it Credit for workmen of good capacity and of good intentions. Now, why should they have done this? Was not wellbeing the end and aiin of life? Was not material prosperity the one thing desired by all? Why should they diminish their own enjoyments in favour of others ? Let those help themselves who call. When Society has once secured to each individual the free exercise of those rights which are inherent in human nature, it has done all it is bound to do. If there be any one who, from some fatality of his own position, is unable to exercise any of these rights, let him resign himself to his fate, and not blame others. It was natural they should speak thus, and thus in fact they spoke. And this mode of regarding the poor by the privileged classes, soon became the mode in which individuals regarded one another. Each man occupied himself. with his own rights ard the amelioration of his own position, without seeking to provide for others; and when those rights clashed with the rights of others, the result was a state of war-a war, not of blood, but of gold and craft ; less manly than the other, but equally fatal ; a relentless war in which those who possessed means, inexorably crushed the weak and inexpert.

·IO On the Duties of Man. In this state of continual warfare, men were educated in egotism and the exclusive greed of material well-being. Mere liberty of belief had destroyed all community of faith. Mere liberty of education generated moral anarchy. Mankind, without any common bond, without unity of religious belief or aim, bent upon enjoyment and naught beyond, sought each and all to tread their own path, little heeding if, in pursuing it, they trampled upon the bodies of their brothers-brothers in nanje, but enemies in fact. This is the state of things we have reached at the present day, thanks to the theory of rights. Rights no doubt exist ; but when the rights of one individual happen to clash with those of another, how can we hope to reconcile and harmonise them, if we do not refer to something which is above all rights? And when the rights of an individual, or of many individuals, clash with the rights of the country, to what tribunal shall we appeal ? If the riglıt to the greatest possible amount of happiness exist in all human beings, low are we to solve the question between the working man and the manufacturer ? If the right to existence is the first inviolable right of every man, who shall demand the Sacrifice of that existence for the benefit of other men ? Will you demand it in the name of the country, of society, of the multitude, your brothers ? What is their country to those who hold the theory 1 describe, if it be not the spot wherein their individual rights are most secure? What is society but an assemblage of men who have agreed to bring the power of the many in support of the rights of each ! And you who for fifty years have been preaching to the ·On the Duties of Man. II individual that society is constituted for the purpose of securing to him the exercise of his rights, how can you ask of him to sacrifice thein all in favour of that society, and submit, if need be, to ceaseless effort, to imprisonment or exile, for the sake of improving it? After having taught him by every means in your power that the end and aim of life is happiness, how can you expect him to sacrifice hoth happiness and life itself to free his country from foreign oppression, or produce some amelioration in the condition of a class to which he does not belong? After you have preached to him for years in the name of material interests, can you pretend that he shall see wealth and power within his own reach, and not stretch forth his hand to grasp them, even though to the injury of his fellow-men ? Working-men, this is no mere individual opinion, the offspring of my own mind, and unsupported by facts : it is history, the history of our own times ; a history whose pages are stained with blood-the blood of the people. Ask the men who transformed the revolution of 1830 mere substitution of persons, and made the corpses your French brothers serve as stepping-stones to raise themselves to power." Their whole doctrine and teaching previously to 1830 was founded on the old theory of the rights, not on a belief in the duties of man. You call them traitors and apostates at the present day, whereas in fact they are only consistent with their own theory. They combated the government of Charles X in all sincerity, because that government was directly inimical to the class from which they sprang, and violated, or sought to suppress, into a of The leaders, who in the name of the People placed Louis Philippe I on the throne of France in place of Charles X, forgot their pledges as soon as they themselves were securely in office.

·12 On the Duties of Man. their rights. They combated in the name of that happiness of which they considered themselves to have less than they were entitled to possess. Some of them were persecuted in their liberty of thought ; others, men of powerful intellect, saw themselves neglected and shut out from offices and employments which were bestowed on men of inſerior capacity to their own. Then even the wrongs of the people irritated them. Then they wrote boldly, and in good faith too, upon the rights inherent to all men. Afterwards, when their own political and intellectual rights were secured ; when the path 10 office was opened to them ; when they had achieved the happiness they sought ; --- they forgot the people, they forgot the millions below them--their inferiors both in education and desires - who were also seeking to achieve a different description of happiness; they ceased to trouble themselves about the matter, and thought only of themselves. Why should you call them traitors ? Why not rather call their doctrine false and treacherous ? In those days there lived a man in France wliom some you have heard of, and whom you ought never to forget. He was opposed to our ideas then, but he believed in Duty. He believed in the duty of sacrificing our whole existence to the common good, to the search after and triumph of truth. He carnestly studied the times and men; he was neither led astray by applause, nor dishe irtened by delusion. When he had tried one way and found it fail, he tried again some other plan for the improvement of the many ; and when the course of events had convinced him that there was only one element capable of achieving it - when the People had descended into the arena, and proved theniselves more virtuous and more believing than all those who had ·On the Duties of Man. 13 pretended to support their cause--he, Lainennais, the author of the Words of a Believer, which some of you have read, became the best apostle of the cause in which we are united. In Lamennais, and in the men of whom I have spoken above, you may see exemplified the difference between the men of Rights and the men of Duty. To the first the conquest of their own individual rights, hy withdrawing their stimulus to action, was sufficient to arrest their course ; the labours of the other will cease only with his life on earth.* And among those peoples who are completely enslaved --where the struggle has far other dangers, where every step taken towards progress is stamped with the blood of a martyr, where the struggle against the governing Injustice is necessarily secret, and deprived of the consolations of publicity and praise--what obligation, what stimulus to constancy, can be sufficient to sustain upon the path of progress those men whose theory reduces the holy social battle we are fighting into a mere struggle for their rights? I speak, be it understood, of the generality, and not of those exceptional individuals who are to be met with in all schools of doctrine. And when that tumult of the blood and that spirit of reaction against tyranny which naturally draw the young into the struggle are passed, wherefore, after a few vears of endeavour, after the incvitable delusions incidental to a similar enterprise, should they not prefer any sort of repose to a liſe full of inquietude, resistance, and danger, liable at any moment to end in imprisonment, on the scaffold, or in exile ? This is but the too conimon story of the Italians of the * This assertion was fully verified. Lamennaisdied a republican, believing in God and the People, and loving his friend Mazzini to the last.

·14 On the Duties of Man. present day, imbued as they are with these French doctrines ; story most sad indeed, but how can we alter it, unless we alter the ruling principle which governs their conduct? How, and in the name of what, shall we convince them that danger and delusion ought only to give theni new strength, and that they are bound to continue the struggle, not only for a few years, but for their whole life? Who shall bid any man to continue the struggle for his rights when that struggle costs him dearer than their renunciation ? And even in a society constituted on a juster basis than our own, who shall persuade the man believing solely in the theory of rights, that he is bound to strive for the cominion good, and occupy himself in the developnient of the social idea ? Suppose he should rebel ; suppose he should feel himself strong enough to say to you, I break the social bond; my tendencies and my faculties invite mc elsewhere, I have a sacred, an inviolable right to develop thosc tendencies and faculties, and I choose to be at war with the rest ; what answer can you make him within the limits of the Doctrine of Rights? What right have you, merely as a majority, to compel his obedience to laws which do not accord with his individual desires and aspirations ? What right have you to punish him should he violate those laws ? The Rights of each individual are equal : the mere fact of living together in society does not create a single one. Society has greater power, not greater rights, than the individual. How, then, will you prove to the individual that he is bound to subdue his will to the will of his brothers, whether of country or of humanity ? By means of the prison or the executioner? Every society that has existed hitherto' has employed these means.

·- On the Duties of Man, 15 But this is a state of war, and we need peace : this is tyrannical repression, and we need Education. EDUCATION, I have said, and my whole doctrine is included and summed up in this grand word. The vital question in agitation at the present day is a question of Education. We do not seek to establish a new order of things through violence. Any order of things established through violence, even though in itself superior to the old, is still a tyranny What we have to do is to propose, for the approval of the nation, an order of things which we believe to be superior to that now existing, and to educate men by every possible means to develop it and act in accordance with it. The theory of Rights may suffice to arouse men to overthrow the obstacles placed in their path by tyranny, but it is impotent where the object in view is to create a noble and powerful harmony betwcen the various elements of which the nation is composed. With the theory of happiness as the primary aim of existence, we shall only produce egotists who will carry the old passions and desires into the new order of things, and introduce corruption into it a few months after. We have therefore to seek a Principle of Education superior to any such theory, and capable of guiding mankind onwards towards their own improvement, of teaching them constancy and self-sacrifice, and of uniting them with their fellow-nien, without making them dependent either on the idea of a single man or the force of the majority. This principle is Duty. We must convince men that they are all sons of one sole God, and bound to fulfil and execute one sole law here on earth : that each of them is bound to live, not for himself, but for others ; that the aim of existence is, not to be more or less happy, but to make themselves and others more virtuous; that to struggle :

·16 On the Duties of Man. against injustice and error (wherever they exist), in the name and for the benefit of their brothers, is not only a right but a Duty ; a duty which may not be neglected without sin, the duty of their whole life Working-mene brothers ! understand ine well. When I say that the consciousness of your rights will never suffice to produce an important and durable progiess, I do not ask you to renounce those rights. I merely say that such rights can only exist as a consequence of duties fulfilled, and that we must begin with fulfilling the last in order to achieve the first. And when I say that in proposing happiness, wellbeing, or material interests, as the aim of existence, we run the risk of producing egotists, I do not say that you ought never to occupy yourselves with these ; but I do say that the exclusive endeavour after material interests, sought for, not as a means, but as an end, always leads to disastrous and deplorable results. When the ancient Romans, under the emperors, contented themselves with broud and umusements, they had become as abject a race as can be conceived ; and after submitting to the stupid and ferocious rule of their cmperois, they vilely succumbed to and were enslaved by their barbarian invaders. In France and elsewhere it has ever been the plan of the opponents of social progress to spread corruption by endeavouring to lead men's minds away from thoughts of change and improvement, through furthering the development of mere material activity. And shall we help our adversaries with our own hands? Material ameliorations are essential, and we will strive to obtain them, not because the one thing necessary to man is that he should be well housed and nourished; but because you can neither acquire a true consciousness of your own ·On the Duties of Man. 17 dignity, nor achieve your own moral development, so long as you are engaged, as at the present day, in a continual struggle with poverty and want. You labour for ten or twelve hours of the day : how can you find time io educate yourselves ? The greater number of you scarcely earn enough to maintain yourselves and your families : huw can you find means to educate yourselves? The frequent interruption and uncertain duration of your work causes you to alternate excessive labour with periods of idleness : how are you to acquire habits of order, regularity, and assiduity? The scantiness of your earnings prevents all hope of saving a sum sufficient to be one day useful to your children, or to provide for the support of your own old age : how can you acquire habits of economy? Many among you are compelled by poverty to withdraw your children- I will not say from the instruction, for what educational instruction can the poor wife of a working-mani bestow upon her children ?-but from the mother's watchfulness and love, in order that they may gain a few pence in the unwholesome and injurious labour of manufactories. How can children so circumstanced be developed under the softening influence of family affection 3 You have no rights of citizenship, nor participation, either of election or vote, in those laws which are to direct 'your actions and govern your life. How can you feel the sentiment of citizenship, zeal for the welfare of the state, or sincere affection for its laws? Your poverty frequently involves the impossibility of your obtaining justice like the other classes : how are ou to learn to love and respect justice ? Society treats you without a shadow of sympathy : how are you to learn sympathy with society?

·18 On the Duties of Man. It is therefore needful that your material condition should be improved, in order that you may morally pro-, gress. It is necessary that you should labour less, so that you may consecrate some hours every day to your soul's innprovement. It is needful that you should receive such remuneration for your labour as may enable you to accumulate a sufficient saring to tranquillise your minds as to your future ; and above all, it is necessary to purify your souls from all reaction, from all sentiment of vengeance, fronı Every thought of injustice, even towards those who have been unjust to you. You are bound, therefore, to strive for all these ameliorations in your condition, and you will obtain them ; but you must seek them as a means, not as an end ; seek them from a sense of duty, and not merely as a right ; seek them in order that you may become more virtlious, not in order that you may be materially happy. If not so, where would be the difference between you and those by whom you have been oppressed? They oppressed you precisely because they only sought happiness, enjoyment, and power. Improve yourselves ! Let this be the aim of your life. It is only by improving yourselves, by becoming more virtuous, that you can render your condition lastingly less unhappy. Petty tyrants would arise among yourselves by thousands, so long as you should merely strive to advance in the name of material interests or a special social organization. A change of social organization is of little moment while you yourselves remain with your present passions and egotism. Social organizations are like certain plants which yield either poison or medicine according to the mode in which they are administered. Good men can work good ·On thc Duties of Man. 19 even out of an evil organization, and bad men can work evil out of good organizations. No doubt it is also necessary to improve the classes who now oppress you, but you will never succeed in doing this, unless you begin by improving yourselves. • When, therefore, you hear those who preach the necessity of a social transformation declare that they can accomplish it solely by invoking your rights, be grateful to them for their good intentions, but be distrustful of their success. The sufferings of the poor are partially known to the wealthier classes; known, but not felt. In the general indifference resulting from the absence of a common faith : in the egotism which is the inevitable consequence of so many years spent in preaching material happiness ; those who do not suffer themselves have, little by little, become accustomed to regard the sufferings of others as a sorrowful necessity of social organization, or to leave the remedy to the generations to come. The difficulty lies, not so much in convincing them, as in rousing them from their inertia, and inducing them, when once convinced, to act; to associate together, and to fraternise with you in order to create such a social organization as shall put an eud---as far as human possibilities allow-to your sufferings and their own fears. No:v, to do this is a work of Faith ; of faith in that mission which God has given to his human creature here on earth ; in the responsibility which weighs upon all those who fail to fulfil that mission; and in the Duty impo:ed upon all, of continual endeavour and sacrifice in the cause of truth. Any conceivable doctrine of Right and material happiness can only lead you to attempts which, so long as you ·. 20 On the Duties of Man. ; remain isolated, and rely solely on your own strength, can never succeed ; and which can but result in that worst of crimes, a civil war between class and class. Working-nien! Brothers! When Christ came, and changed the face of the world, he spoke not of rights to the rich, who needed not to achieve them ; nor to the poor, who would doubtless have abused them, in imitation of the rich ; he spoke not of utility nor of interest to a people whom interest and utility had corrupted; he spoke of Duty, he spoke of Love, of Sacrifice, and of Faith ; and he said that they should be first among all who had contributed most by their labour to the good of all. And the words of Christ, breathed in the ear of a scciety in which all true life was extinct, recalled it to existence, conquered the millions, conquered the world, and caused the education of the human race to ascend one degree on the scale of progress. Working-men! We live in an epoch similar to that of Christ. We live in the midst of a society as corrupt as that of the Roman Empire, feeling in our inmost soul the need of re-animating and transforming it, and of uniting all its various members in one sole faith, beneath one sole law, in one sole Aim-the free and progressive development of all the faculties of which God has given the germ to his creatures, We seek the kingdom of God on carth as it is in heaven, or rather, that earth may become a preparation for heaven, and society an endeavour after the progressive realization of the Divine Idea. But Christ's every act was the visible representation of the Faith he preached ; and around him stood Apostles who incarnated in their actions the faith they had accepted. Be you such, and you will conquer. Preach duty to the classes ·On the Duties of Man. 21 . above you, and fulfil, as far as in you lies, your own. Preach virtue, sacrifice, and love ; and be yourselves virtuous, loving, and ready for self-sacrifice. Speak your thoughts boldly, and make known your wants courageously; but without anger, without reaction, and without threats. The strongest menace, if indeed there be those for whom threats are necessary, will be the firmness, not the irritation of your speech. While you propagate amongst your brothers the idea of a better future, which shall secure to them education, work, its fitting remuneration, and the conscience and mission of Men, strive also to instruct and improve yourselves, and to educate yourselves to the full knowledge and practice of your duties. At present this is a labour rendered impossible to the masses in many parts of England. No plan of popular education can be realized alone : a change both in the political and material condition of the people is also needed ; and they who imagine that an educational transformation may be accomplished alone, deceive themselves. A few among you, once imbued with the true principles on which the moral, social, and political education of a People depend, will suffice to spread them among the millions, as a guide on their way, to protect them from the sophisms and false, doctrines by which it will be sought to lead them astray. CHAPTER II. GOD, The source of your Duties is in God. The definition of your duties is foốnd in his Law. The progressive discovery and application of this law is the inission of Humanity. God exists. I am not bound to prove this to you, nur ·22 On the Duties of Man. shall I endeavour to do so. To me the attempt would seem blasphemous, as the denial appears madness. God exists, because we exist God lives in our conscience, in the conscience of Humanity. Our conscience invokes him in our most solemn moments of grief or joy. Humanity has been able to transform, to disfigure, never to suppress his holy name. The Universe bears witness to him, in the order, harmony, and intelligence of its movements and its laws. There are, I hope, no atheists among you. Were there any, they would deserve pity rather than malediction. He who can deny God either in the face of a starlight night ; when standing beside the tomb of those dearest to him ; or in the presence of inartyrdom, is either greatly unhappy, or greatly guilty. The first atheist was surely one who had concealed some crime from his fellow-men, and who sought by denying God to free himself from the sole witness from whom concealment was impossible, and thus stifle the remorse by which he was tormented. Or perhaps the first atheist was a tyrant, who, having destroyed one half of the soul of his brethren by depriving them of liberty, endeavoured to substitnite the worship of brute force, for faith in duty and eternal right. After these, from age to age, there came men, here and there, who taught atheism from philosophical aberration ; but they were few and ashamed. After these, in days not far removed from our own, came the many who, from reaction gainst a false and absurd idea of God created by some tyranny or caste, denied God himself : but it was only for an instant, and even during that instant--so great was the need they felt of Divinity-that even they worshipped a goddess of reason and a goddess of nature.

·On the Duties of Man. 23 At the present day there are many men who abhor all religion because they see the corruption of the actual creeds, and have no conception of the purity of the Religion of the Future ; but none of these venture to declare themselves atheists. There do indeed exist priests who prostitute the name of God to 'the calculations of a venal* self-interest, and tyrants who falsify His name by invoking it in support of their tyranny ; but because the light of the sun is often obscured by impure vapours, shall we deny the sun himself, and the vivifying influence of his rays throughout the universe ? Because the liberty of the wicked sometimes produces anarchy, shall we curse the name of liberty itself? The undying light of faith in God pierces through all the imposture and corruption wherewith men have darkened His naine. Imposture and corruption pass away ; tyrannies pass away ; but God remains, as the people, image of God on earth, remains. Even as the people passes through slavery, poverty, and suffering, to achieve self-consciousness, power, and emancipation, step by step : so does the holy name of God arise above the ruins of corrupt creeds, to shine forth surrounded by a purer, more intense, and more rational form of worship. I do not therefore speak to you of God in order to demonstrate to you His existence, or to tell you that you are bound to worship Him ; you do worship Him whensoever you deeply feel your own life, and that of the fellow-beings by whom you are surrounded ; but in order to tell you how to worship Him, and to admonish you of an error that predominates in the classes by whom you are governed, and through their "example influences too many among yourselves, an error as grave and fatal as atheism itself. Mercenary.

·24 On the Duties of Man. 1 " It is very This error is the separation, more or less apparent, of God from His work, from that earth upon which you are called to fulfil one period of your existence. On the one side there are men who tell you, true that God exists, but the only thing you can do is to confess His existence, and adore Him. 'None can comprehend or declare the relation between God and your conscience. Reflect upon all this as much as you please, but neither propound your own belief to your fellow-men, nor seck to apply it to the affairs of this earth. « Politics are one thing, Religion another. Do not confound them together. Leave all heavenly things to the spiritual Authorities, whatsoever they may be, reserving to yourselves the right of refusing them your belief if they appear to you to betray their mission. Let cach inan believe in his own way; the only things about which you are bound to concern yourselves in common, are the things of this world. Materialists, or spiritualists, whichsoever you be, do you believe in the liberty and equality nt mankind ? do you desire the wellbeing of the majority ? do you believe in universal suffrage ? Unite together to obtain these things; in order to obtain these, you will have no occasion to come to a common understanding about heavenly things." On the other side you have men who say to you, exists: but He is too great, too superior to all created things, for you to hope to approach Him through any human work. The earth is of clay. Life is but a day. Withdraw yourselves from the first as far as possible, and do not value the other above its worth. What are all earthly interests in comparison with the immortal life of your soul? Think of this! Fix your eyes on heaven. What matters it hoza- you live here below? You are doomci to die, and God will judge you, according to the thoughts you have given, not to carth " God ·On the Duties of Man. 25. but to Him. Are you unhappy. Bless the God who has sent yoil sorrows. Terrestrial existence is but a period of trial, the earth but a land of exile. Despise it, and raise yourscives above it. In the midst of sorrows, poverty, or slavery, you can still turn to God, and sanctify yourselves in adoration | Him, in prayer, and in faith in a future that will largely recompense you for having despised every worldly thing." Of those who thus speak to you, the first do not love God, the second do not know Him. Say to the first that man is One. You cannot divide. him in half, and so contrive that he shall agree with you in those principles which regulate the origin of society, while he differs with you as regards his own origin, destiny, and law of life here below. The world is governed by Religions. When the Indians really believed thal some of them were born from the head, others from the arms, and others from the feet of Bramah, their Divinity, they organized their society by distributing mankind into castes ; assigning to one caste an inheritance of intellectual labour, to another of military, and to others of servile duties; and thus condemned themselves to an immobility that still endures, and that will endure so long as belief in that religious principle-shall last. When the Christians declared to the world that all men were the sons of God, and brethren in His name, all the doctrines of the legislators and philosophers of antiquity, tending to establish the existence of two races of men, availed not lo prevent the abolition of slavery, and a consequent radical re-organization of society, For every advance in religious belief we can point to a corresponding social advance in the history of Humanity, while the only result you can show, as a consequence of your doctrine of indifference in matters of religion, is anarchy.

·26 On the Duties of Man. You have been able to destroy, never to build up. Disprove this if you can. By dint of exaggerating one of the principles of Protestantism*-by dint of deducing all your ideas from the sole principle of the itidependence of the individual, you have achieved--what? In comnierce you have achieved anarchy—that is to say, the oppression of the weak. In politics you have achieved liberty-that is to say, the derision of the weak, who have neither time, nor means, nor instruction sufficient to enable them to exercise their rights. lu morals you have achieved egotism-that is to say, the isolation and ruin of the weak, who cannot raise themselves alone. But what we seek is .Issociation. How shall we realize this securely, unless among brothers, believing in the same ruling principle, united in the same faith, and bearing witness by the same name. What we seek is Education. How shall we give or receive it, unless in virtue of a principle that sums up and expresses our common belief as to the origin, the aim, and the law of life of mankind upon earth? We seek a common Education. How shall we give or receive it without belief in a common faith and a common duty ? And whence can we deduce a common duty, if not from the idea we form of God and of our relation to Him? Doubtless universal suffrage is an excellent thing. It is the only legal means by which a people may govern itself One of the main principles of Protestantism was opposition to the traditional authority of the Roman Catholic Church. This which is an essential principle to progress is also liable to distortion if over emphasised to the exclusion of the rights and principles of others.

·On the Duties of Man. 27 without risk of continual violent crises. Universal suffrage in a country governed by a common faith is the expression of the national will ; but in a country deprived of a common belief, what can it be but the mere expression of the interests of tifose numerically the stronger, to the oppression of all the rest ? All the political reforms achieved in countries either irreligious or indifferent to religion, have lasted as long as interest allowed --10 longer. On this point the experience of political movements in Europe during the last fifty years has taught us lessons enough. To those who socak to you of heaven, and seek to separate it from earth, you will say that heaven and earth are One, even as the way and the goal are one. Tell us not that the earth is of clay. The earth is of God. God created it as the medium through which we may ascend to Him. The earth is not a mere sojourn of temptation or of expiation ; it is the appointed dwelling-place wherein we are bound to work out out own improvement and development, and advance towards a higher stage of existence. God created us, not to contemplate but to act. He created us in His own image, and He is Thought and Action, or rather, in Him there is no Thought which is not simultaneous Action. You tell us to despise all wordly things, to trample under foot our terrestrial life in order to concern ourselves solely with the celestial; but what is our terrestrial life save a prelude to the celestial, a step towards it? See you not that while sanctifying the last step of the ladder by which we must all ascend, by thus declaring the first step accursed, you arrest us on the way ? The life of a soul is sacred in every stage of its existence ; as sacred in the earthly stage as in those which are to follow :

·28 On the Duties of Man. each stage must be made a preparatiop for the next, every temporary advance must aid the gradual ascending progress 'of that immortal life breathed into us all by God himself, as well as the progress of the great Entity-Humanity, which is developed through the labour of each and every individual. God has placed you here upon this earth. He has surrounded you with myriads of fellow-beings, whose minds receive aliment * from your own, whose development progresses simultaneously with your own, whose life is fecundated † by your own. In order to preserve you from the dangers of isolation, He has given you desires which you are incapable of satisfying alone, and those dominating social instincts, which distinguish you from the brute creation, in which they are dormant. He has spread around you a material world, magnificent in beauty and pregnant with life ; a life--be it ever remembered--which, though it reveal itself by divine impulse, yet everywhere awaits your labour, and modifies its manifestations through you, increasing in power and vigour in proportion to your increased activity. God has given you certain sympathies which are inextinguishable. Such are pity for those that mourn, and joy for those that rejoice ; anger against those who oppress their fellow-creatures ; a ceaseless yearning after truth; admiration for the genius that discovers a new portion or form of truth ; enthusiasm for those who reduce it into beneficial action on mankind, and religious veneration for those who, failing to achieve its triumph, yet bear witness to it with their blood, and die in martyrdom : and you deny and reject all the indications of your mission which God has thus clustered around you, when you cry anathema I on * Nourishment. + Made fruitful. # A curse.

·On the Duties of Man. 29 the work of His hand, and call upon us to concentrate all out faculties on a work of mere inward purification, necessarily imperfect, nay impossible, if sought alone. Does not God punish those who strive to do this ? Is not the slave degraded ? Is not one half of the soul of the poor day-labourer, doomed to consume the light divine in a series of physical acts unrelieved by a gleam of education, buried beneath its animal appetites, in those blind instincts which you name material? Do you find more religious faith in the poor Russian serf than in the Pole fighting the battle of country and liberty? Do you find more fervent love of God in the degraded subject of a pope or despotic king, than in the Lombard republicans of the twelfth, or Florerine republicans of the fourteenth century? "Where oever is the spirit of God, there is liberty," has been declared by one of the most powerful Apostles* the world has ku :), and the religion he preached decreed the abolition of slavery. Whɔthat crouches at the foot of the creature, can rightly know and worship the Creator ? Yours is not a Religion, it is the sect of men who have forgotten their origin, forgotten the battles which their fathers fought against a corrupt society, and the victories they gained in transforming the world which you despise, O men of contemplation ! The first real, earnest religious Faith that shall arise upon the ruins of the old worn-out creeds, will transform the whole of our actual social organization, because every strong and earnest faith tends to apply itself to every branch of human activity ; because in every epoch of its existence the rarth has ever tended to conform itself to the Heaven in which it then believed ; and because the whole * St Paul. Sec II Corinthians. 3, 17 ·30 On the Duties of Man. history of Humanity is but the repetition--in form and degree varying according to the diversity of the times--of the words of the Christian Prayer : Thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heal'c11. Thy Kingdom, come ou carth as it is in heaven. Let these words--better understood and better applied than in the past --be the ntterance of your faith, your prayer, () my brothers ! Repeat them, and strive to fulfil them. No matter if others seek to persuade you io passive resignation and indifference to earthly things, if they preach subinission to every temporal authorits, however unjust, by quoting to you-without comprehending them--the words "Render ulito Cæsar the things that irre Casari's, and unto God the things that are God's."* Nothing is of Cæsar unless it be such in conformity with the law of God. Ciesai-that is to say, the Temporal power or Civil government-is but the administrator and executive, as far as lies in its power, of the design of the Almighty: Whensoever it is false to its mission and trust, it is, I do not say your right, but your duty to change it. For what purpose are you placed here, if it be not to work out the providential design in your own sphere, and according to your means? To what purposc do you profess to believe in that Unity of the human race which is the necessary consequence of the Unity of God, if you do not strive to verify it, by destroying the arbitrary divisions and enmities that still separate the different tribes of Humanity ? What avails it to bclicve in human liberty-the basis of human responsibility--if you do not labour to overthrow all the obstacles that impede the first and destroy the second ? St Mark. 12, 17.

·On the Duties of Man. 31 Why do we talk of fraternity, while we allow any of our brethren to be trampled on, degraded, or despised ? The earth is our Workshop. We may not curse it, we are bound to sanctify it. The material forces that surround us are our instruments of labour ; we may not reject them, we are bound to direct them for good. But this we cannot do alone, without God. I have spoken to you of duties : I have told you that the consciousness of your rights will never suffice you as a permanent guide on the path towards per fection ; it will not even suffice to procure for you the continuous progressive improvement in your condition which you seek and desire. Now, apart from God, whence can you derive duty? Without God, whatsoever system you attempt to lean upon, you will find it has no other foundation or basis than Force-- blind, tyrannical, brute force. There is no escape from this. Either the development of human things depends upon a Providential Law which we are all bound to seek to turn to account, or it is entrusted to chance. We must either obey God or serie man : whetller one man or niany, matters little If there be not a governing Mind, supreme over every human mind, what shall preserve us from the dominion of our fellow-men, whenever they are stronger than ourselves ? If there be not one holy inviolable Law, uncreated by man, what rule have we by which to judge whether a given act be just or unjust ? In the name of whom, or of what, shall we protest against inequality and oppression ? Without God there is no other rule than that of Fact, ·32 On the Duties of Man. to the accomplished fact, before which the materialist ever bows his head, whether its name be Bonaparte or Revolution. How can we expect men to sacrifice themselves, or suffer martyrdom, in the name of our individual opinions ? Can we transform theory into practice, abstract principle into action, on the strength of interests alone ? Be not deceived. So long as we endeavour to teach sacrifice as individuals, or 01) whatever theory our mere individual intellect may suggest, we may find adherents in words, never in act. That cry only, which has resounded in all great and noble revolutions, the "God wills it, God wills it," of the Crusades,* will have power to rouse the inert to action, to give courage to the timid, the enthusiasm of sacrifice to the calculating, and faith to those who distrust and reject all mere human ideas. Piove to mankind that the work of progressive development to which you would call them, is a part of the design of God, and none will rebel. Prove to them that the earthly duties to be fulfilled here below, are an essential portion of their immortal life, and all the calculations of the present will vanish before the grandeur of the future. Without God you may compel, but not persuade ; you may become tyrants in your turn, you cannot be Educators or Apostles. CHAPTER III. THE LAW. You live. Therefore you have a law of life. There is no life without its law. Whatever thing exists, exists in * The Crusudes were military expeditions under the banner of the Cross to recover Jerusalem and the Holy Land of Palestine from the Turks. (1095-1271).

·On the Duties of Man. 33 a certain method, according to certain conditions, and is governed by a certain law. The mineral world is governed by a law of aggregation ; * the vegetable world by a law of development ; the stars are ruled by a law of motion. Your liſe is governed by a law higher and nobler than these, even as you are superior to all other created earthly things. To develope yourselves, and act and live according to your law, is your first, or rather your sole duty. God gave you liſe : God therefore gave you the law. God is the sole lawgiver to th: human race. His law is the sole law you are bound to obey. Human laws are only good and valid in so far as they conform to explain, and apply the law of God. They are evil whensoever they contrast with or oppose it, and it is then not only your right, but your duty to disobey and abolish them. He who shall best explain the law of God, and best apply it to human things, is your legitimate ruler. Love him and follow him. But you have not, and cannot have, any Master save God Himself. To accept any other is to be unfaithful and rebellious to Him. The foundation of all morality, therefore, the regulation of all your acts and duties, and the measure of your responsibility, is to be found in the knowledge of your law of life, of the law of God. It is also your defence against the unjust laws which the tyranny of one man, or many men, may seek to impose upon you. Unless you know this law, you may not pretend to the or the rights of men. All rights have their origin in name * A crystal, for example, grows by the addition of new particles. 3 ·. 34 On the Duties of Man. a law, and while you art unable to invoke this law, you may be tyrants or slaves-tyrants if you are strong, the slaves of the stronger if you are weak-naught else. In order to be Men, you must know the law which distinguishes human nature from that of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms, and to it you must conform your actions. Now, how are you to know this law ? This is the question which humanity has ever addressed to those who have pronounced the word Duty, and the answers are various even yet. Some have replied by pointing to a code, or book, saying : The whole law of orals is comprised in this book. Others have said : Let every man interrogale his own conscienil : he will find the definition of good and cvil thcre. Others, again, rejecting the judgment of the individual, invoke the universal judgment, and declare : Whencver humanity is agreed in a belief, that belict is the truth. Each and all of these And facts, unanswerable in the history of the human race, have proved the impotence of all these answers. Those who declare that the whole inoral law is contained in a book, or uttered by one man, forget that there is no single code of morals which Humanity has not abandoned, after an acceptance and belief of some centuries, in order to seek after and diffuse another more advanced than it ; nor is there any special reason for supposing that Humanity will alter its course now. It will be sufficient to remind those who declare the conscience of the individual to be an adequate criterion of the just and true, that no Religion, however holy, has existed without heretics, dissenters who dissented from are in error.

·On the Duties of Man. 35 cop viction, and were ready to endure martyrdom for their conscience' sake. The Protestant world is at the present day divided and subdivided into a thousand sects, all founded on the rights of individual conscience, and perpetuating that anarchy of beliefs, which is the sole true cause of the social and political disturbances that torment the peoples of Europe. And on the other hand, to those who reject the testimony of individual conscience, and invoke the consent of Humanity in their faith, suffice it to say, that all the great ideas that have contributed to the progress of Humanity hitherto, were, at their commencement, in opposition to the belief then accepted by Humanity, and were preached by individuals whom Humanity derided, persecuted and crucified. Each of these rules, then, is insufficient in order to obtain a knowledge of the law of God, of truth. Yet, nevertheless, individual conscience is sacred, and the common consent of Humanity is sacred ; and he who refuses to interrogate eitlier of these, deprives himself of one essential means of reaching truth. The common error hitherto, has been the endeavour to reach truth by the help of one of theie tests alone ; an error fatal and decisive in its consequences, because it is impossible to elevate individual conscience as the sole judge of truth, without falling into anarchy ; and it is impossible to appeal, at a given inoment, to the general consent of Humanity, without crushing human liberty, and producing tyranny. Thus,--- and I quote these examples in order to show how, far more than is generally supposed, the entire social edifice is founded upon these primary bases,-thus some men have fallen into the error of organizing society solely with respect to the rights of the individuals wholly forgetful of the ·36 On the Duties of Man. educational mission of society ; while others have based their organization solely on the rights of society, sacrificing the free action and liberty of the individual.* France after ber great revolution, and (still more markedly) England, have taught us that the first system results in inequality and the oppression of the many. Communism, t were it ever elevated into a Faci, would teach us how the second condenins society to petrifaction, by destroying alike all motive and all opportunity of progress. Thus some, in consideration of the pretended rights of the individual, have organized, or rather disorganized society, by founding it upon the sole basis of unlimited freedom of competition ; while others, merely regarding social unity would give the government the monopoly of all the productive forces of the state. The first of these conceptions has resulted in all the evils of anarchy. The second would result in immobility and all the evils of tyranny. God has given you both the consent of your fellowmen and your own conscience, even as two wings wherewith to elevate yourselves towards Him. Why persist in cutting off one of them ? Wherefore either isolate yourselves froni, or absorb yourselves in, the world ? Why seek to stifle either the voice of the individual, or of the hunian race ? Both are sacred. God speaks through each. Whensoever they agree, whensoever the cry of your own conscience is ratified by the consent of Humanity, God is * I speak, of course, of those countries governed by a constitutional monarchy, and in which a certain organizution of soroty is attempted. In countries despotically governed there is no society ; indiridual and social rights being equally sacrificed. + Communism. Community of property among all the citizens of a state.

·On the Duties of Man. 37 there. Then are you certain of having found the truth, for the one is the verification of the other. If your duties, were merely negative, if they merely consisted in not doing evil, in not injuring your brothermen, perhaps, even in the stage of dovelopment which the least educated among you have reached, the voice of conscience might suffice you for a guide. You are born with a tendency towards good, and every time you act directly contrary to the moral law, every time you commit what mankind has agreed to name sin, there is a something within you that condemns you, a cry of reproval which you may conccal from others, but cannot from yourselves. But your most important duties are positive. It is not enough not to do : you are bound to act. It is not enough to limit yourselves to not acting against the Law : you are bound to act according to the Law. It is not enough not lo do harm to your brethren : you are bound to do good to them. Hitherto morality has too often been presented lo mankind in a form rather negative than affirmative. The interpreters of the law have said to us : “Thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal." liew or none have taught us the active duties of man, how he may be useful to his fellow-creatures, and further the design of God in the creation. Yet this is the primary aim of morals, and no individual can reach that aim by the light of conscience alone, Individual conscience speaks in proportion to the education, tendencies, habits, and passions of the individual, The conscience of the savage speaks a different language to that of the enlightened European of the nineteenth century. The conscience of the freeman suggests duties ..

·38 On the Duties of Man. which the conscience of the slave does not even imagine.' Ask the poor Lombard or Neapolitan peasant," whose only :eacher of morality has been a bad priest, or to whomeven if he know how to read--the Austrian catechism is the sole book allowed ; he will perhaps tell you that his sole duties are to work hard for any remuneration he can obtain, in order to maintain his family ; to submit without examination to the laws of the State, whatsoever they may be, and to do no wrong to others. Should you say to him : But you injure your brother men by accepting a roinuneration below the value of your labour, and you sin against God and J'our own soul, by obeying laws which are unjust, 'he will ansıver you with the fixed gaze of one who understands you not. Interrogate the Italian workman, to whoni more fortunate circumstances and contact with men of greater intellectual enliglıtenment have made known a portion of the truth; he will tell you that his country is enslaved, that his brothers are unjustly condemned to pass their days in moral and material want, and that he feels it his duty to protest as far as he can against that injustice. Whence this great difference between the dictates of the conscience of two individuals at the same epoch in the same country? Wherefore, among ten individuals Delonging substantially to the same religious belief,--that vhich decrees the development and progress of the human ace,-do we find ten different opinions as to the mode of educing that belief to action—that is to say, as to their duties? Evidently the voice of individual conscience does not suffice at all times, without any other guide, to make known to us the law. Conscience alone may teach us that * Written sixty years ago.

·On the Duties of Man. 39 alaw exists ; it cannot teach' us the duties thence derived ; Thus it is that martyrdom has never been extinguished amongst mankind, however great' the predominance of egotism ; but how many martyrs have sacrificed their existence for imaginary duties, or for errors patent to all of us at the present day! Conscience therefore has need of a guide, of a torch to illumine the darkness by which it is surrounded, of a rule by which to direct and verify its instincts. This rule is the Intellect of Humanity. God has given intellect to each of you in order that you may educate it to know His Law. At the present day you are deprived by poverty, and the inveterate errors of ages, of the possibility of full education, and therefore the obstacles to education are the first you have to overcome. But even were all these obstacles, renoved, the intellect of the individual man would still be insufficient to acquire a knowledge of the law of God, unless aided and supported by the intellect of Humanity. Your life is brief, your individual faculties weak and uncertain ; they need alike verification and support. Now God has placed beside you a Being whose life is continuous, whose faculties are the results and sum of all the individual faculties that have existed for perhaps four hundred ages ; a being who, in the midst of the errors and crimes of individuals, yet ever advances in wisdom and morality ; a being in whose development and progress God has inscribed, and from epoch to epoch does still inscribe, a line of His law. This being is Humanity. A thinker of the past century has described Humanity as A man that lives and learns for ever. Individuals die, but the amount of truth they have thought, and the sum ·40 On the Duties of Man. of good they have done, dies not with them. The meh who pass over their graves reap the benefit thereof, and Humanity garners it up: Each of us is born to-day in an atmosphere of ideas and beliefs which has been elaborated by all anterior Humanity, and each of us brings with him (even if unconsciously) an element, more or less important, of the life of Humanity to come. The cducation of Humanity is built up like those Eastern pyramids to which every passing traveller added a stone. We pass along, the voyagers of a day, destined to complete our individual education else. where, but the education of Humanity, which is seen by glimpses in each of us, is slowly, progressively, and continuously evolved through Humanity. Humanity is the Word, living in God. The spirit of God fecundates* it, and manifests itself through it, in greater purity and activity from epoch to epoch, now through the instrumentality of an individual, now through that of a people. From labour to labour, from belief to belief, Humanity gradually acquires a clearer perception of its own life, of its own mission, of its God, and of His law. Humanity is the successivc incarnation of God. The law of God is one, as God Himself is one ; but we only discover it article by article, line by line, according to the accumulated experience of the generations that have preceded us, and according to the extension and increased intensity of association among races, peoples, and individuals. No man, no people, and no age may pretend to have discovered the whole of the Law. The Mural Law, Humanity's law of life, can only be discovered, in its entirety, by all Humanity united in holy * Renders fruitful.

·On the Duties of Man. 41 Association, when all the forces, and all the faculties that constitute our human nature, shall be developed and in action. But meanwhile, that portion of Humanity most advanced in education does, in its progress and development, reveal to us a portion of the Law we seek to know. Its history teaches us the design of God; its wants teach us our duties ; because our first duty is to endeavour to aid the ascent of Humanity upon that stage of education and improvement towards which it has been prepared and matured by time and the Divinity. In order, therefore, to know the Law of God, you must interrogate not only your own conscience, but also the conscience and consent of Humanity. In order to know your own duties, you must interrogate the present wants of Humanity. Morality is progressive, as is your education and that of the human race. The morality of Christianity was different from that of Paganism, the morality of our own age differs from the morality of eighteen hundred years ago. Be assured that without education you cannot know your duties, and that whenever society prevents you from obtaining education, the responsibility of your errors rests upon society, not upon you ; your responsibility begins on the day in which a path to instruction is opened to you, and you neglect to pursue it ; on the day in which the means are offered to you by which to transform the society which has too long condemned you to ignorance, and you neglect to seize them. You are not guilty because you are ignorant, but you are guilty when you resign yourselves to ignorance. You are guilty whenever-although your conscience whispers that God did not give you faculties without imposing upon you the duty of developing them--you allow the faculty of reflection to lie dormant within you ;

·42 On the Duties' of Man. whenever, although you know that God would not haute given you a love of truth without giving you the means' by which to attain it--you yet despairingly renounce every effort to discover it, and accept as truth, without examin. ation, the assertiens either of the temporal powers, or of the priest who has sold himself to them. God, the Father and Educator of Humanity, reveals his Law to Humanity through time and space. Interrogate the tradition of Humanity,---which is the Council of your brother men,-not in the restricted circle of an age or sect, but in all ages, and in the majority of mankind past and present. Wheusoever that consent of Humanity corresponds with the teachings of your own conscience, you are certain of the Truth-certain, that is, of having read one line of the law of God. I believe in Humanity, sole interpreter of the law of God on earth ; and from the consent of Humanity, in harmony with my individual conscience, I deduce what I am now about to tell you with regard to your duties. CHAPTER IV. DUTIES TOWARDS HUMANITY. Your first dụties-first, not as to time, but as to importance ; because unless you understand these, you can only imperfectly fulfil the rest--your first duties are towards Humanity. You have duties as citizens, as soos, as husbands, and as fathers ; duties sacred and inviolable, and of which I shall shortly speak to you in detail ; but that which constitutes the sacredness and inviolability of these duties is, the mission, the duty springing from your Human nature.

·On the Duties of Man. 43 . You ou are fathers in order that you may educate men in the worship and fulfilment of the law of God. You are citizens, you have a country, in order that in a given and limited sphere of action, the concourse and assistance of a certain number of men, already related to you by language, tendencies, and customs, may enable you to labour more effectually for the good of all inen, present and to come ; a task in which your solitary effort would be lost, falling powerless and unheeded amid the immense multitude of your fellow-beings. They who pretend to teach you morality while limiting your duties to those you owe to your family and to your Country, do but teach you a more more or less enlarged egotism, tending to the injury of others and yourself. The Family and the Fatherland are like two circles drawn within a larger circle which contains them both : they are two steps of the ladder you have to climb ; without them your ascent is impossible, but upon them it is forbidden to rest. You are inen : that is to say, creatures capable of rational, social, and intellectual progress, solely through the mediuni of association: a progress to which none may assign a limit. This is all we as yet know with regard to the law of life of Humanity. These characteristics constitute humanı nature : these characteristics distinguish you from the different creatures that surround you, and are given to each of you as the germ you are bound to fructify. Your whole life should tend to the organized development and exercise of these faculties of your nature. Whensoever you suppress, or allow to be suppressed, one of these faculties, whether completely or partially, you descend from the rank of men to that of the inferior animals, and violate your law ·44 On the Duties of Man. of life, the Law of God. You descend to the level of potte brutes whenever you suppress, or allow to be suppressed, any of the faculties that constitute human nature, either in yourself or others. God wills that you shall fulfil his law not as individuals alone. Had he intended this, he would have created you solitary. He wills that the Law be fulfilled over the whole earth, among all the creatures He created after his own image. He wills that the divine idea of perfectibility and love which he has incarnated in the World, shall be revealed in ever-increasing brightness, and worshipped, through its gradual realization, by His creatures. In your terrestrial existence, limited both in education and capacity, the realization of this Divine Idea can only be rnost imperfect and momentary. Humanity only,--continuous in existence through the passing generations, continuous in intellect through the contributions of all its members,-is capable of gradually evolving, applying, and glorifying the Divine Idea. Life therefore was given to you by God in order that you might employ that life for the benefit of Humanity; that you might direct your individual faculties to aid the development of the faculties of your brother men, and contribute by your labour another element to the collective work of Progress, and the discovery of the truth, which the generations are destined slowly but unceasingly to promote. Your duty is to educate yourselves, and to educate others ; to strive to perfect yourselves, and to perfect others. It is true that God lives within you, but God lives in all the men hy whom this earth is peopled. God is in the life of all the generations that have been, are, and are to be. Past generations have progressively improved, ·On the Duties of Man. 45 error Con m011 and coming generations will continue to improve the conception which Humanity forms oí Him, of his Law, and of our duties. You are bound to adore Him and to glorify Him wheresoever He manifes's his presence. The Universe is his Temple, and the sin of every unresisted or unexpiated profanation of the Temple weighs on the head of each and all of the Believers. It is of 110 avail to assert your own puriti, eren were true purity possible in isolation. Whensoever you see corruption by your side, and do 1194 strive against it, you betray your duty. It is of 120 avail that you worship truth ; if you see l'our brother men ruled by in some other portion of the earth-our motherand you do not both desire and endeavour, as far as lies 212 J'our power, to overcome that crror, You betray your duty. The image of God is disfigured in the inmortal souls of your fellow-men. God wills to he adored through His Law, and His lirw is violated and misinterpreted around you. Human nature is falsified in the millions of men to whom, even as to 1'011, God has confided the associato fulfilment of His design. And do you dare to call yourselves bcliezers while rou remain inert!** A People--Greek, Pole, Italian, or Circassian-raises the flag of country and independence, and combats, conquers or dies to deſend it. What is it that causes your hearts to beat at the news of those battles, that makes them swell with joy at their victories, and sink with sorrow at their defeats ? A man-it may be a foreigner in some remote corner of the world- arises, and amidst * Unmoved, inactive.

·On the Duties of Man. the universal silence, gives utterance to certain ideas which he believes to be true ; maintains them throughout persecution, and in chains, or dies upon the scaffold, and denies them not. Wherefore do you honour that man, and call him saint and inartyr ? Why do you respect, and teach your children to respect his memory? Why do you read so eagerly the prodigies of patriotisni registered in Grecian history, and relate them to your children with a sense of pride, as if they belonged to the history of your ancestors ? Those deeds of Greece are two thousand years old, and belong to an epoch of civilisation which is not, and never can be, yours. Those men whom you still call martyrs, perhaps died for a faith which is not yours, and certainly their death cut short their every hope of individual progress on earth. That people whom you admire, in its victories or in its fall, is a foreign people, almost unknown 1o you, and speaking a strange tongue. Their way of life has no influence on yours. What matters it, then, to you whether they be ruled by Pope or Sultan, by the King of Bavaria, the Czar of Russia, or a free government sprung from the consent of the nation ? It is that there is in your heart a voice that cries unto you : "Those men of two thousand years ago, those populations now fighting afar off, that martyr for an idea for which you would not die, are your brothers ; 'brothers not only in community of origin and of nature, but in community of labour and of aim. Those Greeks passed away, but their deeds remained ; and were it not for them, you would not have reached your present degree of moral and intellectual development. Those populations consecrate with their blood an idea of national ·On the Duties of Man, 47 liberty for which you too would combat. That martyr proclaimed by his death that man is bound to sacrifice all things, and, if need be, life itself, for that which he believes to be truth. What matters it that he, and all of those who thus seal their faith with their blood, cut short their individual progress on earth ? God will provide for them elsewhere But it is of import that the coming generation, taught by your struggles and your sacrifice, may arise stronger and nobler than you have been, in fuller comprehension of the Law, in greater adoration of the truth. It is of iniport that human nature fortified by these examples, may improve, develope, and realize still further the Design of God on earth. And wheresoever human nature shall improve or develope, wheresoever a new truth be discovered, wheresoever a step be taken on the path of education, progress, and morality;--that step taken, and that truth discovered, will sooner later benefit all huinanity. "You are all soldiers in one army : an army which is advancing by different paths, and divided into different corps,* to the conquest of one sole aim. As yet you only look to your inimediate leaders ; diversity of uniform and of watchword, the distances which separate the different bodies of troops, and the mountains that conceal them one from another, frequently cause you to forget this great truth, and concentrate your thoughts exclusively on your own immediate goal. But there is One above you who sees the whole and directs all your movernenis. God alone has the plan of the battle, and he at length will unite you in a single cainp, beneath a single banner." How great is the distance between this faith, which or Corps : a French term used to denote a division of an army, ·On the Duties of Man. thrills within our souls, and which will be the basis of the morality of the coming Epoch, and the faith that was the basis of the morality of the generations of what we term antiquity! And how intimate is the connection between the idea we form of the Divine Government and that we form of our own duties! The first men felt God, but without comprehending or even seeking to comprehend Him in His law. They felt Him in His power, not in His love They conceived a confused idea of some sort of relation between Him and their own individuality, but nothing beyond this. Able to withdraw themselves but little from the sphere of visible objects, they sought to incarnate Him in one of these : in the tree they had seen struck by the thunderbolt, the rock beside which they had raised their tent, the animal which first presented itself before them. This was the worship which in the history of Religions is termed Fetishism* In those days men comprehended nothing beyond the Family, the reproduction in a certain form of their own individuality : all beyond the family circle were strangers, or more often enemies: to aid themselves and their families was to them the sole foundation of morality. In later days the idea of God was enlarged. From visible objects men timidly raised their thoughts to abstractions; they learned to generalize. God was no longer regarded as the Protector of the family only, but of the association of many families, of the cities, of the peoples. Thus to fetishism succeeded polytheism, the worship of many gods. The sphere of action of morality was also enlarged. Men recognised the existence of more extended duties than 4 Fetish : an object of Superstitious worship: also a name given by the Portuguese to the roughly made idols of Africa.

·On the Duties of Man. men. these due to the family alone ; they strove for the advancement of the people, of the nation. Yet, nevertheless, Humanity was still ignored. Each nation stigmatised foreigners as barbarians, regarded them as such, and endeavoured to conquer or oppress them by force or fraud. Each nation also contained foreigners or bai barians within its own circle ; millions of men not admitted to join in the religious rites of the citizens, and believed to be of an inferior nature ; slaves among free The idea of the Unity of the human race could only be conceived as a consequence of the Unity of God. And the Unity of God, though forefelt by a few rare thinkers of antiquity, and openly declared by Moses (but with the fatal restriction of believing one sole people His elect)* was not a recognised creed until towards the close of the Roman Empire, and through the teachings of Christianity. Foremost and grandest amid the teachings of Christ were these two inseparable truths-There is but one God; All men are the sons of God; and the promulgation of these two truths changed the face of the world, and enlarged the moral circle to the confines of the inhabited globe. To the duties of men towards the Family and Country were added duties towards Humanity. Man then learned that wheresoever there existed a human being, there existed a brother; a brother with a soul immortal as his own, destined like himself to ascend towards the Creator, and on whom he was bound to bestow love, a knowledge of the faith, and help and counsel when needed. Then did the Apostles utter words of sublime import, in prevision of those great truths of which the germ was Moses, the ancient law-giver of the Jews. regarded the Jewish dation as the elect people of God. 4 ·On the Duties of Man. contained in Christianity ; truths which have been misunderstood or betrayed by their successors. "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another" (St Paul, Rom. xii. 4, 5). "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold them also I must hring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (St John, x. 16). And at the present day, after eighteen hundred years of labour, study, and experience, we have yet to develope these germs, we have yet to apply these truths, not only to each individual, but to all that complex sum of human forces and faculties, present and future, which is named humanity. We have yet to teach mankind mankind not only that Humanity is one sole being, and must be governed by one sole law, but that the first article of the law is Progress ,--progress here, on this earth, where we are bound to realize, as far as in us lies, the design of God, and educate ourselves for higher destinies. We have yet to teach mankind that as humanity is one sole body, all we, being members of that body, are bound to labour for its development, and to seek to render its life more harmonious, vigorous, and active. We have yet to be convinced that we can only elevate ourselves towards God through the souls of our fellowmen, and that it is our duty to improve and purify then, even though they seek not such improvement and purification. And we have yet-since only by entire humanity can the design of God be fully accomplished here below-we have yet to substitute a work of association tending to elevate the mass, for the exercise of charity towards individuals, and to organize both the family and the country to that aim.

·On the Duties of Man. 51 Other and vaster duties will be revealed to us in the future, in proportion as we acquire a clearer and less imperfect conception of our law of Life. Thus does God, the Father, by means of a slow but uninterrupted religious education, direct the advance of Humanity, and our individual improvement corresponds with that advance. Our individual improvement corresponds with that advance; nor, without the advance and improvement of the whole, may you hope for any lasting improvement in your moral or material individual condition. Strictly speaking, you cannot, even if you would, separate your life from that of humanity You live in it, by it, and for it. Your souls--with the exception of certain men of extraordinary power--cannot rid themselves of the influence of the elements amongst which they inove : as your bodies, however robust, cannot rid themselves of the effects of the corrupt air by which they are sorrounded. How many are there among you, who, knowing that they thereby expose them to persecution, yet strive to educate their children to absolute truthfulness, in a society where ignorance or prejudice enforces silence or concealment of two thirds of their opinions ? How many of you strive to teach them to despise wealth in a society wherein gold is the sole power that obtains respect, influence, and honor ? What mother is there among you, who, although belonging to that faith which adores in Christ the voluntary martyr for humanity, yet would not throw her arms round her son's neck, and seek to wean him from all perilous endeavour to benefit his brother men ? And even should you have strength to teach the better lesson, would not all Society, with its thousand tongues even ·On the Duties of Man. can and thousands of evil examples, destroy the effects of your words ? Can you purify and exalt your own souls in an atmosphere of moral degradation and contagion? Or-to descend to your material condition-think you it be duly ameliorated, unless by the amelioration of all ? Here in England, where I now write, millions of pounds sterling are annually bestowed in private charity, for the relief of individual misery ; yet that misery annually increases, and private charity is proved impotent to ineet the evil, and the necessity of collective organic remedies is ever more universally acknowledged. And in countries despotically governed, where taxes and restrictions are imposed at the sole caprice of the ruler, the cost of whose armies, spies, agents, and pensioners, is continually increasing, as the necessity of providing for the safety of the despotism increases, think you that a constant activity and development of industry and manufactures is possible ? Think you that it will suffice to improve the Government and social condition of your own country? No, it will not suffice. No nation lives exclusively on its own produce at the present day. You live by exchanges, by importation and exportation. A foreign nation impoverished, and in which the cipher of consumers is diminished, is one market the less for you. A foreign commerce ruined in consequence of evil administration, produces mischief and crises in your own. Failures in America and elsewhere, entail failures in England. Credit now-a-days is no longer a national but a European institution. Moreover, all other governments will be hostile to your national improvements, for there is an alliance among the princes, who were among the first to understand that the ·On the Duties of Man. 53 man sonjal question has become a general question at the present day. The only lasting hope for you is in the general amelioration, improvement, and fraternity of all the peoples of Europe, and, through Europe, of Humanity.. Therefore, my brothers, in the name of your duty, and for the sake of your interest, never forget that your first duties --duties without fulfilling which, you cannot rightly fulfil those towards your country and family-are towards Humanity. Let your words and your actions be for all men, as God is for all meu in His Law and Love. In whatsoever land' you live, wheresnever live, wheresnever there arises a to combat for the right, the just, and the true, that man is your brother. Wheresoever a man is tortured through error, injustice, or tyranny, that man is your brother. Free men or slaves, you all brothers. You one in origin, one in the divine law that governs you, and one in the goal you are destined to attain. Your faith must be onc, your actions one, and one the banner under which you combai. Say not, The language we speak is different. Acts, tears, and martyrdom, are a language common to all men, and which all understand. Say not, Humanity is too vast, and we are too weak. God does not judge the power, but the intention. Love Humanity. Ask yourselves, as to every act you commit within the circle of family or country: If what I now do were done by and for all men, would it be beneficial or injurious to humanity ? and if your conscience tell you it would be injurious, desist : desist, even though it seem that an immediate advantage to your country or family would be the result. are are ·54 On the Duties of Man. Be you the Apostles of this faith : apostles of pe fraternity of nations, and of that Unity of the human race, which, though it be admitted in principle, is denied in practice, at the present day. Be such, wheresoever and howsoever you are able. Neither God nor man can require more of you than this. But I tell you that by becoming such and even---should more he impossible-- by becoming such to yourselves alone, you will yet serve Humanity. God measures the stages of education. He perinits the human race to ascend, by the number and the purity of the, believers. When the pure among you are many, God who numbers you, will disclose to you the way to action. CHAPTER V. 1858. DUTIES TOWARDS YOUR (OUNTRY. Your first dutiesfirst as regards importance-are, as I have already told you, towards Humanity. You are men before you are cither citizens or fathers. If you do not embrace the whole human fimily in your affection, iſ you do not bear witness to your belief in the Unity of that family, consequent upon the Unity of God, and in that fraternity among the peoples which is destined to reduce that unity to action ; if, wheresoever a fellow-creature suffers, or the dignity of human nature is violated by false. hood or tyranny-you are not ready, if able, to aid the unhappy, and do not feel called upon to combat, if able, for the redemption of the betrayed or oppressed-you ·On the Duties of Man. 55 more. violate your law of life, you comprehend not that Religion which will be the guide and blessing of the future. But what can each of you, singly, do for the moral improvement and progress of Humanity ? You can from time to time give sterileutterance to your belief ; you may, on some rare occasions, perform some act of charity towards a brother man not belonging to your own land ;--no But charity is not the watchword of the Faith of the Future. The watchword of the faith of the future is Association, and faternal co-operation of all towards a common aim ; and this is as far superior to all charity, as the edifice which all of you should unite to raise would be superior to the huble hut each one of you might build alone, or with the more assistance of lending and borrowing stone, mortar, and tools. But, you tell me, you cannot attempt united action, distinct and divided as you are 111 language customs, tendencies, and capacity. The individual is too insignificult, und llumanity 100 vast. The mariner of Brittany t prays to God as he puts to sea : Ilclp me, vizy, God ! my buat is so small and the occan so wide! And this prayer is the true expression of the condition of each one of you, until you find the meails of infinitely multiplying your forces and powers of action. This means was provided for you by God when he gave you a country ; when, even a wise overseer of labour distributes the various branches of eniployment according to the different capacities of the workmen, he divided Humanity into distinct groups or nuclei upon the face of the earth, thus creating the germ of Nationalities. Evil governments have disfigured the divine Unproductive, barren. + French sailor. as ·56 On the Duties of Man. design. Nevertheless you may still trace it, distinctly marked out at least as far as Europe is concerned-by the course of the great rivers, the direction of the higher mountains, and other geographical conditions. They have disfigured it by their conquests, their greed, and their jealousy even of the righteous power of others ; disfigured it so far that, if we except England and France -there is not perhaps a single country whose present boundaries correspond to that design. These governments did not, and do not recognise any country save their own families or dynasty; * But the Divine design will infallibly be realized. Natural divisions, and the spontaneous, innate tendencies of the peoples, will take the place of the arbitrary divisions sanctioned by evil governments. The map of Europe will be redrawn. The countries of the Peoples, defined by the vote of free men, will arise upon the ruins of the countries of kings and privileged castes, and between these countries harmony and fraternity will exist. And the work of Humanity', of general ameliorationt and the gradual discovery and application of its Law of life, being distributed according to local and general capacities, will be wrought out in peaceful and progressive development and advance. Then may each one of you, fortified by the power and the affection of many millions, all speaking the same language, gifted with the same tendencies, and educated by the same historical tradition, hope, even by your own single effort, to be able to benefit all Humanity. O my brothers, love your Country! Our country is our Home, the house that God has given us, placing common * The ruling family of a country. + Improvement.

·On the Duties of Man. 57 ive is our we therein a numerous family that loves us, and whom we love ; a family with whom we sympathise more readily, and whom understand more quickly than we do others ; and which, from its being centred round a given spot, and from the homogeneous* nature of its elements, is adapted to a special branch of activity. Our country common workshop, whence the products of our activity are sent forth for the benefit of the whole world ; wherein the tools and implements of labour we can most usefully eniploy are gathered together : nor may reject them without disobeying the plan of the Almighty, and diminishing our own strength. In labouring for our own countr the right privciple, we labour for Humanity. Our country is the fulcrumt of the lever we have to wield for the common good. If we abandon that fulcruni, we run the risk of rendering ourselves uscless not only to humanity but to our country itself. Before men can associate with the nations of which humanity is composed, they must have a National existence. There is no true association except among equals. It is only thiough our country that we can have a recognised collective existence. Humanity is a vast army advancing to the conquest of lands unknown, against enemies both powerful and astute. The peoples are the different corps, the divisions of that army. Each of them has its post assigned to it, and its special operation to execute ; and the common victory depends upon the exactitude with which those distinct operations shall be fulfilled. Disturb not the order of battle. Forsake not the banner given to you by God. * Similar or like. + The point of support about which a lever moves.

·58 On the Duties of Man. Wheresoever you may be, in the centre of whatsoever people circumstances may have placed you, be ever ready to combat for the liberty of that people should it be necessary, but combat in such wise that the blood you shed may reflect glory, not ou yourselves alone, but on your country. Say not I but we. Let each man among you strive to incarnate his country in himsel). Let each man among you regard himself as a guarantee, responsible for his fellow-countryinen, and Icarn so to govern his actions is to cause his country to be loved and respected through him. Your country is the sign of the mission God has given you to fulfil towards Humanity. The faculties and forces of all her sons should be associated in the accomplishment of that mission. The true country is a community of free men and equals, bound together in fraternal concord to labour towards a common aim. You are bound to make it and to maintain it such. The country is not 11. aggregation, but an association. There is therefore no true country without an uniform right. There is 120 trile country where the uniformity of that right is violated by the cristence of castes, privilege, and inequality. Where the activity of a portion of the powers and faculties of the individual is either cancelled or dormant ; where there is not a common Principle, recognised, accepted, and developed by all, there is no true nation, no People ; but only a multitude, a fortuitous agglomeration* of men whom circumstances have called together, and whom circumstances may again divide. In the name of the love you bear your country you must peacefully but untiringiy combat the existence of privilege and inequality in the land that gave you life. * Chance or accidental collection.

·On the Duties of Man. 59 There is but one sole legitimate privilege, the privilege of Genius when it reveals itself united with virtue. But this is a privilege given by God, and when you acknowledge it' and follow its inspiration, you do so freely, exercising your own reason and your own choice. Every privilege which demands submission from you in virtue of power, inheritance, or any other right than the Right common to all, is a usurpation* ind a tyramy which you are bound to resist and destroy. Be your country your Temple. God at the summit; a people of cquals at the base. lccept no othei formula, no other moral law, if you would not dishonour alike your countıy and yourselves. Let all secondary laws he but the graduai regulation of your existence by the progressive application of this supreme law. Jad in order that they may be such, it is necessary that all of you should aid in framing them. Laws framed only by a single fraction of the citizens, can never, in the very nature of things, he other than the mere expression of the thoughts, aspirations, and desires of that fraction ; the representation, not of the Country, but of a third or fourth pari, of a class or zone of the Country. The laws should be the expression of the universal aspiration, and pronote the universal good. They should be a pulsation of the heart of the nation. The entire nation should, either directly or indirectly, legislate. By yielding up this mission into the hands of a few, you substitute the egotism of one class for the Country, which is the union of all classes. Unjust possession or soizure.

·60 On the Duties of Man. Country is not a mere zone of territory The true country is the Idea to which it gives birth; it is the Thought of love, the sense of communion which unites in one all the sons of that territory. So long as a single one amongst your brothers has no vote to represent him in the development of the national life, so long as there is one left to vegetate in ignorance where others are educated, so long as a single man, able and willing to work, languishes in poverty through want of work to do, you have no country in the sense in which country ought to exist--the country of all and for all. Education, labour, and the franchise,t are the three main pillars of the nation. Rest not until you have built them strongly up up with your own labour and exertions. Never deny your sister nations. Be it yours to evolve the life of your country in loveliness and strength ; free from all servile fears or sceptical doubts; maintaining as its basis the People; as its guide the consequences of the principles of its Religious Faith, logically and energetically applied; its strength, the united strength of all; its aim, the fulfilment of the mission given to it by God. And 50 long as you are ready to die for Humanity, the life of your country will be immortal. Zone of territory: belt or division of land. + Privileged liberty, political freedom.

·On the Duties of Man. 61 CHAPTER VI. 'DUTIES TOWARDS THE FAMILY. The Family is the Heart's Fatherland. There is in the Family an Angel,* possessed of a mysterious influence of grace, sweetness, and love; an Angel who renders our duties less arid,t aud our sorrows less bitter. The only pure and unalloyed happiness, the only joys untainted by grief granted to man on this earth, are-thanks be given to this Angel !--the happiness and the joys of the family. He who, from some fatality of position has been unable to live the calm life of the family, sheltered beneath this Angel's wing, has a shadow of sadness cast over his soul, and a void in his heart which yought can fill, as I who write these pages for you, know. Bless the God who created this Angel, O you who share the joys and consolations of the fainily! Hold them not in light esteem, because you fancy you might find more ardent pleasures and more facile I consolations elsewhere. There is in the family an element rarely found elsewhere --the element of durability. Family affections wind them selves round your heart slowly and all unobserved, but, tenacious and enduring as the ivy round the tree, they cling to you, hour by hour, mingling with and becoming a portion of your very existence. Very often you are unconscious of them, because they are a part of yourselves ; but when once you lose them, you feel as if an intimate and necessary portion of your life were gone. You wander restless and unhappy; it may be that you again succeed in finding some brief delights or consolations, but never the supreme consolation of calm : the calm of the waters A spiritual messenger. + dry. easy.

·On the Duties of Man. of the lake, the calm of trusting sleep, a repose like that of the child on its mother's breast. This Angel of the family is Woman. Whether as mother, wife, or sister, woman is the caress of existence, the soft sweetness of affection diffused over its fatigues, a reflex on the individual of that loving Providence which watches over Humanity. She has in her a treasure of gentle consolation sufficient to soothe every sorrow. Moreover, she is for each of us the Initiatrix of the future. The child learns its first lesson of love from its mother's kiss, In the first sacred kiss of the beloved one, man learns the lesson of hope and faith in life, and hope and faith create that yearning after progress, and that power to achieve it step by step-that future, in short--whose living symbol is the infant, our link with the generations to come. It is through woman that the family--with its divine mystery of reproduction -points to Eternity. Hold then the family sacred, my brothers ! it as one of the indestructible conditions of life, and reject every attempt made to undermine it, either by men imbued with a false and brutish philosophy, or by shallow thinkers, who, irritated at seeing it too often made the nursery of egotism and the spirit of caste, imagine, like the savage, that the sole remedy for this evil growth is the destruction of the tree itself. The conception of the family is not human, but divine, and no human power can extinguish it. Like the Fathernd-even more than the Fatherland the family is an element of existence. I have said even more than the Fatherland. Distinctions of country-sacred now-may possibly disappear whenever man shall bear the moral law of Humanity 1 Look upon ·On the Duties of Man. 63 inscribed upon his own heart, but the family will endure while man himself endures. It is the cradle of Humanity'. Like every other element of human life, it is, of course, susceptible of progress, and from epoch to epach its tendencies and aspirations are improved, but it can never he cancelled. Your mission is ever more to sanctify the family, and to link it ever more closely with the country. That which the country is to Humanity, the family must be to the country. Even as the scope and object of our love of country is, as I have told you, to educate vou as mou, so the scope and object of the family is to educate you as citizens. The family and the country are the two extreme points of one and the same line. And wheresoever this is not the case, the family degenerates into egotism; an egotism the niore odious and brutal, inasmuch as it prostitutes and perverts from their true aim the most sacred things that he-our affections. Love and respect Women. Seek in her not merely a comfort, but a force, an inspiration, the redoubling of your intellectual and nornl faculties. Cancel from your minds every idea of superiority over Woman. You have none whatsoever. Long prejudice, an inferior education, and a perennial legal inequality and injustice, have created that apparent intellectual inferiority which has been converted into an argument of continued oppression. But does not the history of every oppression teach us how the oppressor ever seeks his justification and support by appealing to a fact of his own creation ? The feudal castes that withheld education from the sons of the people, excluded them on the grounds of that very want of education, from the rights of the citizen, from the sanctuary ·64 On the Duties of Man. 1 wherein laws are framed, and from that right of vote which is the initiation of their social mission. The Slaveholders of America declare the black race radically inferior and incapable of education, and yet persecute those who seek to instruct them. For half-a-century the supporters of the reigning families in Italy have declared the Italians unfit for freedom,* and meanwhile, by their laws, and by the brute force of hireling armnies, they close every path tl:rough which we might overcome the obstacles to our improvement, where such really exist, as if tyranny could ever be a means of educating men for liberty. Now, we men have ever been, and still are, guilty of a similar crime towards woman. Avoid even the shadow or semblance of this crine : there is none heavier in the sight of God, for it divides the human family into two classes, and imposes or accepts the subjugation of one class to the other. In the sight of God the Father there is neither man nor woman. There is only the human being, that being in whom, whether the form be of male or female, those characteristics which distinguish humanity from the brute creation are united-namely, the social tendency, and the capacity of education and progress. Wheresoever these characteristics exist, the human nature is revealed, and thence perfect equality both of rights and of duties. Like two distinct branches springing from the same trunk, man and woman are varieties springing from the common basis-Humanity. There is no inequality between them, but, even as is often the case among men, diversity • Written in 1858.

·On the Duties of Man. 65 35 of tendency and of special vocation. Are two notes of the same musical chord unequal or of different nature ? Man and woman are the two notes without which the Human chord is impossible. Suppose two peoples.--one of which is called by circumstances and by special tendencies to the mission of diffusing the idea of human association by means of colonisation, and the other to teach that idea by the production of universally-admired literature and art : are their general rights and duties therefore different ? Both of these peoples are, consciously or unconsciously, Apostles of the same Divine idea, equals and brothers in that idea. Man and Woman, even these two peoples, fulfil different functions in Humanity, but these functions are equally sacred ; equally manifestations of that Thought of God which He has made the soul of the universe. Consider woman, therefore, as the partner and companion, not inerely of your joys and sorrows, but of your thoughts, your aspirations, your studies, and your endeavours after social amelioration. Consider her your equal in vour civil and political life. Be ye the two human wings that lift the soul towards the Ideal we are destined to attain. The Mosaic Bible has declared : God created man, nad woman from man ; but your Bible, the Bible of the Future, will proclaim that God created Humanity, made manifest in the woman and the man. Love the children given to you by God, but love them with a true, deep, and earnest affection ; not with the enervated,* blind, unreasoning love, which is but egotism in you, and ruin to them. In the name of all that is most * Deprived of nerve, hence : weak, feeble. 5 ·66 On the Duties of Man. sacred, never forget that through them you have in charge the future generations ; that towards them, as souls confided to your keeping, towards Humanity, and before God, you are under the heaviest responsibility known to mankind. You are bound to initiate your children, not merely to the joys and desires of life, but to life itself; to its duties, and to its moral law of government. Few mothers, few fathers, in this irreligious age--and even especially in the wealthier classes-understand the true gravity of their educational mission. Few mothers, few fathers, remember that the numerous victims, the incessant struggles, and the lifelong martyrdoms of our day, are in a great measure the fruit of the egotism instilled thirty years back by the weak mothers' and heedless fathers who allowed their children to accustom themselves to regard life, not as a mission and a duty, but as a search after happiness, and a study of their own wellbeing. For you these dangers are less : the greater number of you know only too well what it is to live the life of privation. But, compelled by your position to constant toil, you are also less able to bestow upon your children a fitting education. Nevertheless, even you can in part fulfil your arduous mission, both by word and hy example. You can do it by example. "Your children will resemble you, and become corrupt or virtuous in proportion as you are yourself corrupt or virtuous. How shall they become honest, charitable, and humane, if you are without charity for your brothers ? How shall they restrain their grosser appetites, if they see you given up to intemperance ? How shall they preserve the native innocence, if you shrink not from offending their modesty by indecent act or obscene word? You are the living model by which their pliant nature is fashioned. ..

·On, the Duties of Man. 67 It depends then upon you, whether your children become men or brutes." (Lamennais, Words of a Believer) And you may educate your children by your words. Speak to them of your country ; of what she was, and is, and ought to be. At evening, when beneath the smile of their mother, and amid the innocent prattle of your children seated on your knee, you forget the day's fatigue, repeat to them the names and deeds of the good men who have loved their country and the people, and who have striven, amid sorrows, calumny," and persecution, to elevate their destiny. Instil into their young hearts the strength to resist injustice and oppression. Let them learn from your lips, and the calm approval of their mother, how lovely is the path of virtue ; how noble it is to become postles of the truth, how holy to sacrifice themselves, if need he, for their fellows, Infuse into their tender minds, not merely the energy of resistance to every false or unjust authority, but due reverence for the sole legitimate and true authority-that of virtue crowned by genius. See that they grow up enemies alike to tyranny and anarchy, and in the Religion of a conscience inspired, but not enchained by tradition, The nation is bound to aid you in this work. And you have a right to exact this aid in your children's There is no true nation without a National education. Love and reverence your Parents. Let not the fainily that issues from you make you unmindful of that from which you sprang. Too often do the new ties weaken the old, whereas they should be but another link in the chain of love that should unite the three generations of the family name. *Slander, false accusation.

·68 On the Duties of Man. one. in Surround the gray hairs of your mother and father with tender affection and respectful care even to their last day. Stiew their path to the tomb with flowers. Let your copstant love shed a perfume of faith and immortality over their weary souls. And be the affection you bestow on your own parents a pledge of that you shall receive from your children. Parents, sisters, brothers, wives, and children, be they all to you as branches springing from the same steni. Sanctify the family by unity of love, and make of it the Temple wherein you unite to bear sacriſice to your country. I know not whether you will be happy if you act thus ; but I do know that even in the midst of adversity you will find that serene peace of the heart, that repose of the tranquil conscience, which will give you strength in every trial, and cheer your souls with a glimpse of heavenly azure even in the darkest storm. CHAPTER VII. DUTIES TOWARIIS YOURSELVES. I HAVE already said to you : You have life, therefore you have a Law of life. To develope yourselves, to act and live according to your Law of life, is your first or rather your sole Duty. I have told you that God has given you two means of arriving at a knowledge of your law of life. He has given you your own conscience, and the conscience of Humanity, the consent of of your fellowcommon ·On the Duties of Man. 69 men). of our I have told you that that whenever, on interrogating your own conscience, you find its voice in harmony with the mighty voice of the human race transmitted to you by history, you may be certain of holding an immutable* and eternal truth. At present it is difficult for you fitly to interrogate this might, voice of Humanity transmitted by history. You are in want of really good popular books on this subject, or you have not time to study them. But the men whose intellect and virtue have rendered them the best exponents of historical study, and of the science of Humanity, during the last half century, have deduced from them some of the characteristics Law of life. They have discovered that our humau nature is essentially social, and susceptible of education. They have discerned that as there is, and can be, but one sole God, so there is, and can be, but one sole Law, governing alike indiridual and collectire man. They have discerned that the fundamental character of this law is PROGRESS. From this truth-irrefutable,t because confirmed by every branch of human knowledge--are deduced all your duties towards yourselves, and also all your rights. The last may be summed up in one, viz.-the right to be in 120 way impeded, and to be to a certain extent assisted, in the fulfilment of your duties. You are, and you feel within you that you are, free agents. All the sophismst of the wretched philosophy that seeks to substitute the doctrine * Unchangeable, stedfast. † Undeniable. I A false argument which has the appearance of truth.

·70 On the Duties of Man. not of fatalism for the cry of our human conscience, avail to silence the two invincible* witnesses in favour of human liberty-Remorse and Martyrdom. From Socrates to Jesus, from Jesus down to the men who, from time to time, still die for their country, all the martyrs of Faith protest against the servile doctrine, and cry aloud unto you : “We also loved life, we also loved the beings who made that life dear, and who implored us to yield. Every impulse of our hearts cried Live! But, for the salvation of the generations to come, we chose to die." From Caint down to the vulgar spy of the present day, all the betrayers of their fellows, all the men who have chosen the path of evil, have heard and hear in the depths of their secret soul voice of blame, disquiet, and reproof, which says unto them : "Wherefore did you fursake the night path ?". You are free agents, and therefore responsible. Froni this moral liberty results your right to political liberty, your duty to achieve it and maintain it inviolate, and the duty of others not to restrain you therein. You are susceptible of Education. There is in each of you a certain sum of moral tendencies and intellectual capacity to which education alone can give life and movement, and which, if uneducated, remain inert and steriles, or but reveal themselves by fits, and without regular development. Education is the bread of the soul. a * Not to be conquered. # Cain described in the Old Testament as the first murderer. # Unchanged. Inactive and unfruitful.

·On the Duties of Man. 71 Even as physical physical organic life is unable to flourish and expand without material aliment,* so does our moral and intellectual life require for its expansion and manifestation the external influence, and the assimilation-in part at least-of the affections and tendencies of others. Individual life springs up like the flower. Each variety is gifted with a special existence and a special character, upon the common soil, and is nourished by the elenients common to the life of all. The individual is an offshoot of Humanity, and aliments and renews its vital forces in the vital force of Humanity. This work of alimentation and renovation is accomplished by Education, which transmits (directly or indirectly) to the individual, the results of the progress of the whole human Education therefore is not merely a necessity of your true life ; it is also as a holy comniunion with your fellow-men, with the generations who lived (that is to say, thought and acted) before you, that you are bound to obtain for yourselves a moral and intellectual education which shall embrace and fecundates all the faculties which God has given you, wherewith you shall be able to constitute and maintain the link between your individual life and the life of collective Humanity. And in order that this work of education may be more rapidly achieved, in order that your individual life may be more intimately and surely linked with the collective life of your brothers--the life of Humanity- God has created you beings eminently social. Each of the inferior beings can live alone, without communion save with Nature, with the elements of the race. Food. + Nourishes. | Renewal. § Fertilise, ·72 On the Duties of Man. physical world. You cannot. You have need of your brother men at every step, and cannot satisfy the simplest wants of your existence without aiding yourself by their work. Superior to all other beings when in association with your fellows, you are, when isolated," inferior in force to many of the lower animals, weak, and incapable of development and of fulness of life. All the noblest aspirations of your heart--such as love of country-even the least elevated-such as the desire of glory and praiseindicate your innatct tendency to mingle your existence with the life of the millions by whom you are surrounded. You are then created for Association. Association centuplest your strength ; it makes the thoughts of others, and the progress of others, your own, while it elevates and sanctifies your nature through the affections, and the growing sentiment of the unity of the human family. In proportion as your association with your brother men is extended, in proportion as it is intimate and comprehensive, will you advance on the path of individual improvement. The law of life cannot be fulfilled in its entirety, save by the united labour of all. For every step taken in progress, for every new discovery of a portion of that law, history shows a corresponding extension of human association, extended contact and communication between peoples and peoples. Before the first Christians came to declare the unity of human nature, in opposition to the pagan philosophy that admitted two human natures (that of the master а more * Detached, separate. † Natural, deep-rooted. # Multiplies a hundred fold.

·On the Duties of Man. 73 men and that of the slave), the Roman people had already carrted their eagles* across all the known countries of Europe. Before the idea of liberty--as applied not only to individuals but to peoples-had produced the conception of nationality which now agitates and is destined to triumph in Europe, the wars of the Revolution and the Empire, had aroused and called into action an element until then remote, the Slavonian peoples. Finally, you are progressive beings. This word of Progress, unknown to antiquity, is destined henceforth to be a sacred word to Humanity. In it is included an entire social, political, and religious transformation. The ancients, the of the old Oriental and Pagan religions, believed in fate, in chance, in a hidden incomprehensible power, the arbitratorf of hunan things ; a Power alternately creator and destroyer, the action of which man was neither able to understand, accelerate,f nor promote. They believed be incapable of founding any stableſ or permanent work on earth. They believed that nations, destined to move for ever in a circle, similar to that described by individuals here below, arose, became powerful, and sank in decay, doomed infallibly to perish. With a mental horizon thus restricted, and destitute of all historical knowledge save that of their own nation, or it might be of their own city, they regarded the human mere aggregate of men, without any general collective life or law, and based their ideas solely upon man to race as a * The sign or badge of the Roman Empire. Judge. Hasten. Firm or fixed.

·74 On the Duties of Man. the contemplation of the individual. The natural consequence of such a doctrine was a disposition to accept all dominant and ruling facts, without hoping or endeavouring to modify them. Where circumstances had produced a republican form of government, the men of that day were republicans ; where despotism existed, they were its submissive slaves, indifferent to progress. And both under the republican and tyrannic governments, the human family was everywhere divided, either into four castes, as in the East, or into two (the free citizens and the slaves), as in Greece. This division into castes, and the doctrine of the two natures of men, were accepted by all, even by the most powerful intellects of the Greek world, Plato and Aristotle. The emancipation of your country would have been an impossibility among such men as these. The men who, with the word of Christ upon their lips, founded a religion superior to Paganism or the religions of the East, had but dimly foreseen, not grasped or assimilated, the sacred idea contained in this word Progress. They understood the idea of the unity of the human race, and the unity of the Law ; they understood the idea of the perfectibility of man, but they did not comprehend that God has given man the power of realizing it by his own efforts, nor the mode by which it has to be achieved. They also limited themselves to deducing the rule of life froni the contemplation of the individual. Humanity, as a collective being, remained unknown to them. They comprehended the idea of a Providence, and substituted it for the Fatality of the ancients ; but in this Providence they saw only the protector of the individual, not the Law of Humanity. Finding themselves placed between the immense ideal of perfectibility they had faintly ·On the Duties of Man. 75 conceived, and the poor brief life of the individual, they felt the necessity of an intermediate term or link between man and God; but, not having reached the idea of Collective humanity, they had recourse to that of a divine incarnation, and declared faith in this dogma to be the sole source of strength, of salvation, of grace to man. Not suspecting the continuous Revelation transmitted from God to man, through Humanity, they believed in an unique, immediate revelation, vouchsafed at a particular time, and by a special favour of God. They perceived the link that unites all men, past, present, and future, in Humanity on earth. The sequence of generations being of little moment to those who comprehended nothing of the action of one generation on another, they accustomed themselves to disregard it. They endeavoured to detach man from the earth and from all that regarded Humanity at large, and ended by regarding the earth itself (which they abandoned to the existing Powers and deemed a mere sojourn of expiation) as in antagonism# to that Heaven to which man might, by the help of faith and grace, ascend, but from which all wanting in faith and grace were exiled. Believing Revelation to have been immediate and unique at a given period, they thence deduced the impossibility of all addition thereunto, and the consequent infallibility of its depositaries. They forgot that the Founder of their religion had come, not to destroy the law, but to add to and continue it ; they forgot the solemn * Opposition. + Religious scriptures have always been regarded with peculiar reverence and so tend to be looked upon as infallible, or absolutely reliable.

·:76 On the Duties of Man. occasion when, with a sublime intuition of the future, Jesus declared "that he had many things yet to say, but men could not bear them not bear them then, but that after him would come the Spirit of truth, who would speak not of himself, but of whatsoever he should hear” (St John xvi. 7, 12, 13, 25,) ; words prophetic of the idea of Progress, of collective inspiration, and of the continuous revelation of the truth through the medium of Humanity. The whole edifice of the faith that succeeded Paganism is founded on the bases I have described. It is clear that your earthly emancipation* cannot be founded upon these bases alone. Thirteen hundred years after the above sublime words of Jesus were spoken, a man, an Italian, the greatest of Italians, wrote the following truths : "God is One. The universe is a Thought of God; the universe therefore is also One. All things spring from God. All things participate f in the Divine nature, more or less, according to the end for which they are created. Man is the noblest of created things. God has given to man more of his own nature than to the others. Everything that springs from God tends towards that amount of perfectibility of which it is susceptible.f The capacity of perfectibility is indefinite in man. Humanity is One. God has created no useless thing. Humanity exists ; hence there must be a single aim for all men, a work to be achieved by all. The human race must therefore work in unity, so that all the intellectual forces diffused among * Freedom from bondage. + Share. Capable.

·On the Duties of Man. 77 mp may obtain the highest possible development in the sphere of thought and action. There exists therefore one Universa) Religion for the human race." The man who wrote these words was called Dante. Every city of Italy, when Italy shall be free, is bound to raise a monument to his memory, for these ideas contain the gern of the Religon rf the future. He wrote thus in Latin, and in Italian, in two books, entitled De Monarchia and Il Convito, works difficult of comprehension, and neglected at the present day even by the literary men of his own country. But ideas, once sown in the intellectual world, never die. Others reap and gather them up, even while forgetting whence they sprang. All men admire the oak, but who thinks of the acorn from which it grew? The germ planted by Dante struck root, was fecundated* from time to time by some powerful intellect, and the tree bore fruit towards the close of the last century. The idea of Progress, as the Law of life, accepted, developed, and verifiedt by history and confirmed by science, became the banner of the future. At the present day there is no earnest thinker with whom it is not the cardinali point of his labour and endeavour. We now know that the law of life is PROGRESS-progress for the individual, progress for Humanity. Humanity fulfils the law on earth : the individual, on earth and elsewhere. One sole God, one sole Law. That law has been, is, and will be, gradually but inevitably fulfilled by Humanity from the first moment of its existence. Truth does not manifest itself suddenly, nor entire. * Fertilised. | Proved true. $ Chief or principal.

·78 On the Duties of Man. A continuous Revelation, from epoch, to epoch, males manifest to man a fragment of the truth, a word of the Law. The discovery of every one of these words modifies human life by a sensible advance on the path of improvement, and constitutes a belief, a Faith. The development of the Religious Idea is then indefinitely progressive, and successive beliefs, each one developing and purifying that idea, contribute, like the columns of a temple, to build up the Pantheon* of Humauity, the one grand, sole Religion of our earth The men most blessed by God with genius and virtue are its Apostles: the People--the collective sense of Humanity, its Interpreter ; accepting that revelation of the truth, transmitting it from generation to generation, and reducing it to practice, by applying it to the different branches and manifestations of human life. "Humanity is as a man who lives and learns for ever.” Therefore there is not, there cannot be, infal'ibility either in man or Powers ; there is not, there cannot be, any privileged caste of depositaries or interpreters of the Law ; there is not, there cannot be, need of any interpreter between God and man, save Humanity. God, by ordaining the accomplishment of a providential design of progressive education for Humanity, and infusing the instinct of progress into the heart of every man, granted to human nature the capacity and the power to fulfil that design. Individual man, a free and responsible creature, is able to use or abuse the faculties given to him, in proportion as he follows the path of duty or yields to the seductions of * Pantheon : the name of a temple in Rome which was dedicated to all the gods.

·On the Duties of Man. 79 a blind egotism. He may tnus delay or accelerate his own progress, but the Providential design can be cancelled* by no human means. The education of Humanity must be completed. Thus do we see even the barbarian invasions, which from time time threaten to extinguish the existing civilization, result in a new civilization, superior to the former, and diffused over a wider zone. And even individual tyranny subsequently produces a more rapid and vigorous growth of liberty. Progress, the Law, will be fulfilled on earth even as elsewhere. There is no antagonism between earth and heaven, and it is blasphemous to imagine that God's work, the Home He has given us, may be by us despised, and abandoned to the influence of evil, egotism, or tyranny. The earth is no sojourn of expiation. It is the home wherein we are to strive towards the realization of that ideal of the true and just of which each man has in his own soul the germ. It is the ladder towards that condition of Perfection which we can only reach by glorifying God in Humanity, through our own works, and by consecrating ourselves to realize in action all that we may of His design. The judgment that will be held on each of us, and that will either decree our ascent one step on the ladder of Perfection, or doom us mournfully to pursue again the stage already trod, will be founded on the amount of good done to our brothers, on the degree of progress to which we have aided them to ascend. Association, ever more intimate and more extended with * Destroyed. † The atoning for evil deeds by pious acts- ·80 On the Duties of Man. our fellow-men, is the means by which our strength will be multiplied, and the field wherein we fulfil our duties, and reduce the law of progress to action. We must strive to make of Humanity one single family, every member of which shall be himself a reflex of the inoral law, for the benefit of the others. And as the gradual perfection of Humanity is accomplished from epoch to cpoch, from generation to generation, so the perfection of the individual is wrought out from existence to existence, more or less rapidly in proportion to our own labour and effort. These are some of the truths contained in that word Progress, from which the religion of the future will spring In its name only can your emancipation be achieved. CHAPTER VIII. LIBERTY. You live. The life which is in you is not the work of chance ; the word chance is void of meaning, and was invented to express the ignorance of mankind in certain things. The life which is in you comes from God, and in its progressive development it reveals an intelligent design. Your life, then, has necessarily a scope, an aim. The ultimate aim for which we were created is still unknown to us : it cannot be otherwise ; but this is no reason why we should deny its existence. Does the infant know the aim towards which it must tend through the family, the country, and humanity? No; but this aim exists, and we are beginning to comprehend it for him. Humanity is the infant of God: He knows the end and aim towards which it must develope itself.

·On the Duties of Man. 81 Numanity is only now beginning to understand that progress is the law. It is beginning vaguely to comprehend somewhat of the universe by which it is surrounded ; but the majority of the individuals that compose it are still incapable, through barbarism, slavery, or the absolute absence of all education, of studying that law and obtaining a knowledge of that universe; both of which it is necessary to comprehend before we can truly know ourselves. Only a minority of the inen who people our little Europe are as yet capable of developing themselves towards the right use and understanding of their own intellectual faculties. Amongst yourselves, deprived as the greater number of you are of instruction, and bowed down beneath the necessity of an ill-organised physical labour, those faculties lie dormant, and are unable to bring their tribute to raise the pyramid* of science. How then should we pretend as yet to understand that which will require the associate labour of the whole? Wherefore rebel against our not having already achieved that which will constitute the last stage of progress, while, few in number, and still disunited, we are but learning to lispt its sacred name? Let us resign ourselves then to our ignorance of those things which must yet a long while remain inaccessible to us, and let us not in childish anger abandon the study of the truths we may discover. Impatience and human pride have destroyed or misled more souls than deliberate * The celebrated Pyramids of Egypt are stone structures standing on a square base and rising to a point in some cases 500 feet above the ground. + To speak indistinctly as a child. 6 ·82 On the Duties of Man. we are wickedness. This is the truth which the ancients séught to express when they told us how the despot who strove to scale the heavens, succeeded only in building up a Babel of confusion, and how the giants who attacked Olympus, were cast down by the thunderbolt, and buried beneath our volcanic mountains. That of which it is important to be convinced is this, that whatever be the end and airn, for which created, we can only reach it through the progressive development and exercise of our intellectual faculties. Our faculties are the instruments of labour given to us by God. It is therefore a necessity that their development be aided and promoted and their exercise protected and free. Without liberty you cannot fulfil any of your duties. Therefore you have a right to liberty and a duty to win it. Without liberty there is no true morality, because if there be not free choice between good and evil, between devotion to the common progress and the spirit of egotism, there can be no responsibility. Without liberty there is no true Society, because association between free men and slaves is impossible ; there can only exist the rule of the one over the others. Liberty is sacred, as the individual, of whose life it is the reflex, is sacred. Where liberty is not, life is reduced to a mere organic function, and when man allows the violation of his liberty, he is false to his own nature, and rebels against the decree of God. There is no true liberty whenever a caste, a family, or a man, assumes to rule over Command or law ·On, the Duties of Man. 83 othes in virtue of a pretended right divine, or from any privilege of birth or riches. Liberty must be for all men, and in the face of all men. God does not delegate* the Sovereign, power to any individual. That' degree of sovereign power which can be justly represented on this earth, has been entrusted by God to Humanity, to the Nations, to Society. And even that ceases, and is withdrawn from those collective fractions of Humanity, whensoever they cease to wield † it for good, and in accordance with the providential design. The sovereign rule therefore exists of right in none, the true sovereignty being in the Aim, t and in those acts which bring us nearer to that. These acts, and the aim towards which we are advancing, must be submitted to the judgment of all. There is not, therefore, there cannot be, any permanent Sovereignty. The institution which we term Government is merely a Direction, a mission confided to a few in order more speedily to attain the national intent or Aim ; and should that mission be betrayed, the power of direction confided .to those few must cease. Every man called to the Government is an administrator of the common Thought. He should be elected, and be subject to have his election revokedß whensoever he misconceives for deliberately opposes that thought. Therefore, I repeat, there can exist neither family nor caste possessing the governing power in its own right, * Give or transfer. † Use or exercise. Ambition or ideal. & Set aside or cancelled. Msitakes or misinterprets.

·84 On the Duties of. Man. without a violation of your liberty. How could you call yourselves free, in the face of nen possessing the power to command you without your consent ? The Republic is then the only logical and truly legitimate form of government. You have no master save God in heaven, and the People on earth. Whensoever you discover a line of the law, of the will of God, you are bound to bless and obey it. Whensoever the people, the Collective Unity of your brother men, shall declare that such is their belief, you are bound to bow the head, and abstain* from any act of rebellion. But there are certain things constituting your own individuality, and which are essential elements of human life. Over these not even the People has any right. No majority may decree tyranny, or destroy or alienate its own freedom. You cannot employ force against the people that should commit this suicidal act, but there exists and lives eternally in each of you a right of protest, in the manner circumstances may suggest. You must have liberty in all that is indispensable to the moral and material aliment t of life : personal liberty, liberty of locomotion, liberty of religious faith ; liberty of opinion upon all subjects, liberty of expressing that opinion through the Press, or by any other peaceful meanis ; liberty of association in order to render that opinion fruitful by cultivation, and by contact with the thoughts and opinions of others ; liberty of labour, and of trade and commerce with its produce ; all these are things which may not be taken from you (save in a few exceptional cases which it is unnecessary here to enumerate) without your having a right to protest. 1 * Refrain from, or avoid. + Food.

·On the Duties of Man. 85 . 2 My one has any right to imprison' you, or subject you to personal espionage* or restraint in the name of society, without telling you wherefore, telling it you with the least possible delay, and immediately conducting you before the judicial power of the country. No one has any right of persecution, intolerance, or exclusive legislation as to your religious opinions : no voice, save the grand peaceful voice of Humanity, has any right to interpose itself between God and your conscience. God has given you the faculty of thought ; no one has a right to suppress or restrain its expression, which is the act of communication between your soul and the souls of your brother men, and is our one sole means of progress. The Press must be absolutely free for the rights of intellect are inviolable. Society may, however, punish the errors of the Press, or the teaching of crime or immorality, just as it may punish any other description of error. This right of punishment (decreed in virtue of a solemn public judgment) is a consequence of our human responsibility ; but every anterior interventiont is a negation of liberty. The right of peaceful association is as sacred as thought itself. God gave us the tendency to association perennialş means of progress, and as a pledge of that Unity which the human family is destined one day to attain. No power, then, has a right to limit or impede association. It is the duty of each of you to employ the life given as a * A system of employing spies to watch others secretly. + Interference beforehand. | Denial. & Continuous or constant.

·86 On the Duties of Man a him by God; to preserve it, and to develope it : each of you then is bound to labour, as the sole means of its material support. Labour is sacred. No one has right to impede it, forbid it, or render it impossible by arbitrary* regulations. No one has any right to forbid free trade in its productions. Your country is your lawful markct, which no one may limit or restrain. But when all these various forms of liberty shall be held sacred, when the State shall be constituted according to the universal will, and in such wise that each individual shall have every path towards the free development of his faculties thrown open before him,--forget not that high above each and every individual stands the intent and Aim which it is your duty to achieve, your own inoral perfectibility, and that of others, through an ever more intimate and extended communion between all the members of the human family, so that the day may come when all shall recognise one sole Lav. “Your task is to found the Universal Family, to build up the City of God, and unremittinglyt to labour towards the active, progressive fulfilment of His great work in Humanity. "When each of you, loving all men as brothers, shall reciprocallyt act like brothers ; when each of you, seeking his own wellbeing in the wellbeing of all, shall identify his own life with the life of all, and his own interest with the interest of all ; when each shall be ever ready to sacrifice himself for all the members of the Common Family, equally ready to sacrifice themselves for him ; * Compulsory of Unccasingly | Mutually:

·On the Duties of Man. 87 most of the evils which now weigh upon the human race will disappear, as the gathering vapours of the horizon vanish on the rising of the sun ; and the will of God will be fulfilled, for it is His will that love shall gradually unite the scattered members of Humanity and organize them into a single whole, so that Humanity may be one even as He is One."'* Let not these words, the . words of a man whose life and death were holy, and who loved the people and their future with an immense love, ever be forgotten by you, my brothers. Liberty is but a means. Woe unto you and to your future, should you ever accustom yourselves to regard it as the end! Your own individuality has its rights and duties, which may not be yielded up to any ; but woe unto you and to your future, should the respect you unto that which constitutes your individual life, ever degenerate into the fatal crime of egotism. Liberty is not the negation of all authority ; it is the negation of every authority that fails to represent the ective Aim of the nation, or that presumes to impose or maintain itself upon any other basis than that of your 'free consent. In these later days the sacred idea of liberty has been perverted t by sophistical I doctrines. Some have reduced it to a narrow and immoral egotism ; have made self everything, and have declared the aim of all social organization to be the satisfaction of its desires. Others have declared that all government and all authority are necessary evils, to be restricted and restrained far Ove as Lamennais, “Book of the People" III. + Led astray. False, deceptive.

·88 On the Duties of Man. e dim as possible ; that liberty has no limit, and that the of all society is that of indefinitely promoting liberty, which man has the right of using or abusing, provided his doing so result in no direct evil to others, and that government has no other mission than that of preventing one individual from injuring another. Reject these false doctrines, my brothers! The first has generated the egotism of class: the second makes of society--which, well organised, would be the representation of your collective life and aim-naught better than the soldier or police officer commissioned commissioned to maintain an external and apparent peace. The tendency of all such doctrines is to convert liberty into anarchy; to cancel the idea of collective moral improvement, and that mission of Progress which society ought to If you should understand liberty thus, you would deserve to lose it, and sooner or later you would lose it. Your liberty will be sacred so long as it shall be governed by and evolved beneath an idea of duty, of faith in the common perfectibility. Your liberty will flourish, protected by God and man, so long as you hold it-nut as the right to use or abuse your faculties in the direction it may please you to selectbut as the right of free choice, according to your separate tendencies of the means of doing good. assume.

·On the Duties af Man. 89 CHAPTER IX. EDUCATION. God has created you susceptible of Education. Therefore it is your duty to educate yourselves as far as lies in your power, and it is your right that the society to which you belong shall not impede your education, but assist you in it, and supply you with the means thereof when you have them not. Your liberty, your rights, your emancipation from every injustice in your social position, the task which each of you is bound to fulfil on earth all these depend upon the degree of education you are able to attain. Without education you are incapable of rightly choosing between good and evil ; you cannot acquire a true knowledge of your rights; you cannot attain that participation in political life without which your complete social emancipation is impossible ; you cannot arrive at a correct definition and comprehension of your own mission. Education is the bread of your soul. Without it your faculties lie dormant and unfruiful, even as the vital power lies sterile in the seed cast into untilled soil, and deprived of the benefits of irrigation and the watchful labour of the agriculturist. At the present day your class is either uneducated, or receives its education at the hands of men or governments who, having no ruling principles to guide them, necessarily mutilate or misdirect it. Present directors of education imagine that they have fulfilled their duties towards you when they have opened a certain number of schools distributed unequally over the territory they governwherein your children may receive a certain degree of ·90 On the Duties of Man. our life. elementary instruction, consisting principally of readig writing, and arithmetic. Such teaching is properly called instruction, and it differs. and is as distinct from true education, as the various organs of our existence differ and are distinct from our life. The organs of existence are not They are the mere instruments of our life, and its means of manifestation ; they neither govern nor direct it ; they are equally the manifestation of the holiest or the most corrupt life ; and just so does instruction provide the means of putting in practice that which is taught by education, but it can never take the place of education. Education addresses itself to the moral faculties : instruction to the intellectual. The first developes in man the knowledge of his duties; the second gives him the capacity of achieving them. Without instruction, education would be too often inefficient ; without education. instruction is a lever deprived of its fulcrurn. * You know how to read. What avails this knowledge if you are unfit to judge between the books containing error and those containing truth? You have learned to communicate your thoughts to your fellow-men in writing. What avails this knowledge, if your thoughts are the mere reflection of your own egotism ? Instruction, like wealth, is either a source of good or of evil, according to the manner and motive of its use. Consecrated to aid the progress of all, it is a means of civilisation and of liberty ; turned to mere personal uses, it becomes an agent of tyranny and corruption. In Europe at the present day, instruction, unaccom- * A lever deprived of its fulcrum=ra lever without a point of support.

·On the Duties of Man. 91 panied by a corresponding degree of moral education, is too ofteà a serious evil; it assists in maintaining inequality between class and class of the same people, leads men to false doctrines, and produces a spirit of calculation, of egotism, and of compromise between the just and the unjust. The distinction between those who offer you more or less of instruction and those who preach education, is more important than you are aware of, and deserves to be spoken of at some length. The camp of the liberal party in Europe at the present day is split up into two Schools of doctrine. The first of these schools proclains the sovereignty of the Individual. The second declares that sovereignty belongs to Society alone, and makes the manifest consent of the majority, its law. The first imagines that it has fulfilled its niission when it has proclaimed the rights believed to be inherent in human nature, and preserved liberty. The second looks alniost exclusively to association, and from the Social Pact * that constitutes that association, it deduces the duties of each individual. The first does not go beyond what I have termed instruction, for instruction does in fact tend to develope the individual faculties, without direction or rule. The second understands the necessity of education, and regards it as the manifestation of the Social programme. The first inevitably tends to moral anarchy: The second, unmindful of liberty, runs the risk of upholding despotism--the despotism of the majority: To the first of these schools belonged that generation * Contract or agreemenl.

·92 On the Duties of Man. of men known in France as the Doctrinaires, no betrayed the hopes of the people, after the revolution of 1830, and who, by proclaiming Liberty of Instruction, and nothing more, perpetuated the monopoly of Government in the hand of the bourgeois † class, who did possess the means of developing their individual faculties. The second, unfortunately, is only represented at the present day by Powers or sects belonging to antiquated creeds or beliefs, and hostile to the Dogma of the future, which is Progress. Both of these schools are defective. The tendency of both is narrow and exclusive. The following is the truth : All Sovereignty is in God, in the moral law, in the Providential design-which rules the world, and is from time to time revealed 10 Humanity, in different epochs of its existence, by virtuous Genius--in the Aim we have to reach, in the Mission we have to fulfil. Sovereignty cannot exist in the individual, nor in Society, except in so far as one or the other act in accordance with that design and law, and tend towards that aini. The individual Ruler is either the best interpreter of that Law, and governs in its name, or he is a Usurper to be overthrown. There is no legitimate sovereignty in the mere will of the majority, if it is contrary to the supreme moral law, or deliberately closes the path of future progress. } * Doctrinuires the n.me given to a class of politicians in France who upheld constitutional principles, in opposition to monarchical power, | Common citizen, plebeian. 1. Pretender, one who takes possession unjustly.

·On the Duties of Man. 93 "The social weal,“ liberty, and progress : there can be no real sovereignty beyond these three terms. Education teaches in what the social weal consists. Instruction assures to the individual a free choice of the means of securing a continuous advance in the conception of the social weal That which is most important for you is, that your children be taught what are the ruling principles and beliefs directing the life of their fellowmen, during the spant of existence allotted to them on earth; what the moral, social, and political programme of their nation ; what the spirit of the legislation by which their actions will be judged; what the degree of progress already achieved by Humanity ; what the goal it is destined to attain. And it is important that they should be taught in their earliest years a spirit of equality and love, which links theni in a common aim with the millions, the brothers given them by God. The education that will aftord your children such teaching as thi can only be given thein by the nation At present their moral teaching is a mere anarchy. Left exclusively to the parents, it is non-existent in those cases where poverty and the necessity of constant material labour deprive them alike of the knowledge and time required to enable them to teach their children themselves, and of the means of providing other instructors. It is evil in those cases where egotism and corruption have perverted or contaminated the family. Even where parents have the means of providing instruction for their children, they are too often brought Welfare or interest, + Period. Allowed.

·94 On the Duties of Man. up in materialism or superstition ; in ideas of mere liferty or of passive resignation ; of aristocracy or mere reaction against it, according to the character of the iustructorpriestly or secular--whom the parents select. How can such education in childhood fit men to work together in harmony and fraternity towards a common aim, and to represent in their own persons the unity of the country Society calls upon then to promote the development of a common idea in which they have not been instructed. Society punishes them for the violation of laws of which they were left in ignorance, the scope and spirit of which society has never taught them. Society requires from them co-operation and sacrifice for an aim which no teachers have explained to them at the outset of their civil life. Strange to say, the Doctrinaire School of which I have already spoken* recognises the right of each separate individual, to rule and teach the young, and does not admit the same right in the association of individuals, the nation, Their cry of liberty of instruction disinherits the nation of all moral direction. They proclaim the importance of unity in the monetary systein, and the sy:tem of weights and measures; but that unity of Principle, upon which all national life should be founded and developed, is nothing to them. Without a national education, the nation has no moral existence, for upon it alone can a national conscience be formed. Without a national education--common to all the citizens -all equality of rights and duties is an unmeaning formula, for all knowledge of duties, and all capacity for the exercise of rights, are left to the chances of fortune, or the arbitrary choice of those who select the teacher. # Page 92 ·On the Duties of Man. 95 The opponents of Unity of education invoke liberty in their support. The liberty of whom? Of the fathers, or of the children ? In their system the moral liberty of the children is viulated by the despotism of the father ; the liberty of the young generation is sacrificed to the old ; and liberty of prugress is rendered an illusion. Individual opinions and beliefs-false, it may be, and adverse to progress-are alone transmitted with all the authority of the father to the son, at an age when their examination is impossible. As they advance in life the position of the majority among you, and the necessity of occupying every hour in material employment, will prevent the mind already stamped and impressed with those opinions and beliefs, from modifying them by comparison with others. In the name of this false liberty, the anarchical system I have described, tends to perpetuate that worst of despotisms, a moral caste. This system, in fact, produces a form of despotism, not liberty. True liberty cannot exist without equality and equality can only exist among those who start from a common ground, a common principle, and an uniform consciousness and knowledge of duty. Liberty can only rightly be exercised as a consequence of that knowledge. I said, a few pages back, that true liberty is not the right to choose evil, but the right of choice between the various paths that lead to good. The liberty invoked by these shallow philosophers is, in fact, an arbitrary right given to the father to choose the wrong for his child. What if a father should threaten to mutilate* or in any * Disfigure ·96 On the Duties of Man. way injure the body of his child, Society would interfere, called on and invoked by all ; and shall the soul of that child be of less worth than the body? Shall not Society interfere to protect him from the mutilation of his faculties, from ignorance, from the perversiou* of his moral sense, from superstition ? The cry of Liberty of Instruction was of use in the day when it first arose, and it is useful even now in all countries where moral education is the monopoly of a despotic government, a retrograde + caste, or a priesthood the nature of whose dogma renders it antagonistic to progress. That cry was a cry of emancipation, imperfect, but indispensable and necessary at the time. But I speak to you of a time in which Religion shall inscribe the word Progress over the portal of the Temple ; when all your institutions shall be so many repetitions of that word in various forms, and when a National education shall be given to the people which will conclude its teachings to its pupils with these words :- TO you, as beings destined to live under a common Pact I with ourselyes, we have now declared the fundamental basis of that Pact; the Principles in which your Nation believes at the present day ; but remember that the first of these principles is Progress ; remember that your mission, both as a man and a citizen, is to improve, as far as you may, the minds and hearts of your fellow-men. Go : examine and compare ; and if you discover a truth superior to that which we believe ourselves to possess, diffuse § it freely, and the blessing of your country be with you. * Injury or corruption. # Contract or agreement. + Reactionary. § Spread, scatter.

·On the Duties of Man. 97 Then, though not before, you may renounce the cry of liberty of instruction as inferior to your need, and fatal to the unity of the country ; then you may ask-nay, exact-- the foundation of a system of gratuitous National Education, obligatory upon all." The nation is bound to transmit its programme to cvery citizen. Every citizen should receive in the national schools a moral education, a course of nationality---comprising a summary view of the progress of humanity and of the history of his own country ; a popular exposition of the principles directing the legislation of that country, and the elementary instruction about which we are all agreed. Every citizen should be taught in these schools the lesson of equality and love. The National Programme once transmitted to all the citizens, liberty resumes its rights. Not only family education, but every other, is sacred. Every man has an unlimited right to communicate his ideas to his fellow man; every man has a right to hear then. Society should encourage and promote the free utterance of thought in every shape, and open every path to the modification and development of the National Programme. CHAPTER X. ASSOCIATION-PROGRESS. God has created you social and progressive beings. It is therefore your duty to associate yourselves, and to progress as far as the sphere of activity in which circumstances Free compulsory education. 7 ·98 On the Duties of Man. have placed you, will permit. You have a right to demand that the society to which you belong shall in no way impede your work of association and progress, but, on the contrary, shall assist you, and furnish you with the means of association and progress of which you stand in need. Liberty gives you the power of choosing between good and evil ; that is to say, between duty and egotism. Education will teach you to choose rightly. Association will give you the means of reducing your choice to action. Progress, the Aim, by which you must be guided in your choice, is, at the same time, when visibly achieved, the proof that your choice was not mistaken. Whenever any one of these conditions is neglected or betrayed, the man and the citizen either do not exist, or exist in a state of imperfection and impeded development. You have therefore to strive to realize all these conditions, and above all, the right of association ; without which both liberty and education are useless. The right of association is as sacred as Religion itself, which is the association of souls. You are all the sons of God; you are therefore brothers. Who then nay without guilt set limits to association, the communion among brothers ? This word communion, which I have written advisedly, was taught us by Christianity, which the men of the past declared to be an immutablet religion, but which is, in fact, a step in the scale of the religious manifestations of Humanity. And it is a sacred word. It taught mankind that they * Communion is the rite in which followers of Christ commemorate his death and recall his sufferings. + Unalterable.

·On the Duties of Man. 99 were a single family of equals before God, and unted master and servant in a single thought of salvation, of love, and of hope in Heaven. It was an immense advance upon the preceding ages when both philosophers and people believed the souls of citizens and the souls of slaves to be of different nature and race. And this mission alone would have sufficed to stamp the greatness of Christianity. The communion was the symbol of the equality and fraternity of souls, and it rested with Humanity to amplify and develope the truth hidden under that symbol. The Church did not and could not do this. Timid* and uncertain in the beginning, and allied with the nobles and the Temporal Powers in the sequelt ; imbued, from self-interest, with an aristocratic tendency which had no existence in the mind of its Founder,-the Church wandered out of the true path, and even receded so far as to diminish the moral value of the communion, by limiting it in the case of the laityf. At that time arose a cry frein all who felt within their souls the right of the whole hunian family to the symbols of unlimited communion, without distinction between the lity and ecclesiastics : Communion for the people ! In the fifteenth century that cry became the watchword of the aroused multitudes; it was the prelude to the Religious Reformation, and was sanctified by martyrdom. A holy man named John Huss, of Bohemia, who was the leader of that movement, perished in the flames kindled by the Inquisition. • Faint-hearted. + At a later period, afterwards. Layman or civilians as distinct from priests . $ in ecclesiastical inquiry for the punishment of heresy.

·100 On the Duties of Man. At the present day most of you are ignorant of the history of those struggles, or believe them to have been the quarrels of fanatics about merely theological questions. But when a national education shall have popularised history, and taught you how every religious progress carries with it a corresponding progress in civil life, you will appreciate those contests at their true worth, and honour the memory of those martyrs as of your benefactors. We owe it to those martyrs and their predecessors, that we have learned that their is 110 privileged class of interpreters between God and the people ; that the best amongst us in wisdom and virtue may and ought to counsel and direct us on the path of improvement, but without any monopoly of power or supremacy; and that the right of communion is indeed equal for all men. That which is holy in heaven is holy on earth, and the communion of mankind in God, carries with it the association of mankind in their terrestrial life. The religious association of souls, carries with it the association of intellect and of action, which converts thought into reality. Consider association, therefore, both your duty and your, right. There are those who seek to put a limit to the rights of the citizen by telling you that the true association is the state, the nation : that you ought all to be members of that association, but that every partial association amongst yourselves is either adverse to the state, or superfluous. But the state, the nation, only represents the association of the citizens in those matters and in those tendencies which are common to all the men who compose it. There are tendencies and aims which do not embrace all the citizens, but only a certain number of them. And precisely ·On the Duties of Man. 101 . as the tendencies and the aims which are common to all, constitute the nation; so the tendencies and aims which are common to a portion of the citizens, should constitute special association. Moreover and this is the fundamental basis of the right of association ---association is a guarantee for progress. The state represents a certain sum or mass of principles, in which the universality of the citizens are agreed at the time of its foundation. Suppose that a new and true' principle, a new and rational development of the truths that have given vitality to the state, should be discovered by a few among its citizens. How shall they diffuse the knowledge of this principle, except by association ? Suppose that in consequence of scientific discovery, or of new means of communication opened up between peoples and peoples, or from any other cause, a new interest should arise among a certain number of the individuals composing the state, who shall they who first perceive this, make their way among the various interests of long standing, unless by their efforts and their means ? Inertia, and a disposition to rest satisfied with the order of things long existing and sanctioned by the common consent, are habits too powerful over the minds of most men to allow a single individual to overcome them by his solitary word. The association of a daily increasing minority can do this. Association is the method of the future. Without it, the state would remain motionless, enchained to the degree of civilisation already reached. Association should be progressive in the scope it endeavours to attain, and not contrary to those truths which have been conquered for ever by the universal consent of Humanity and of the nation.

·102 On the Duties of Man are An association founded for the purpose of facilitating theft of the property of others ; an association obliging its members to polygamy; an association which should preach the dissolution of the nation or the establishment of despotism, would be illegal. The nation has the right of declaring to its members : We cannot tolerate the diffusion among us of doctrines in ziolation of that which constitutes human nature, morality, or the country. Go forth, and establish amongst yourselves, bevond our fronticrs, the associations which your tendencies suggest. Association inust be peuceful. It may not use other weapons than the apostolate t of the spoken and written word. Its object must be to persuade, not to compel. Association must be public. Secret associations--which a legitimate weapon of defence where there exists neither liberty nor nation-are illegal, and ought to be dissolved, wherever liberty and the inviolability of thought are rights recognised and protected hy the country. As the scope and intent of association is to open the paths of progress, it must be submitted to the examination and judgment of all, And, finally, association is bound to respect in others those rights which spring from the essential characteristics of human nature. do association which should violate the rights of labour, or which should tend directly to restrict liberty of conscience, ought to be repressed by. the government of the nation. With these exceptions, liberty of association among the citizens is as sacred and inviolable as that progress of which it is the life. * A state of marriage with many wives, + Teaching.

·On the Duties of Man. 103 'Every government which attempts to restrain them betrays its social mission, and it becomes the duty of the people first to admonish it, and all peaceful means being exhausted-to overthrow it. Such, my brothers, are the bases upon which your duties are founded, the sources from which spring your rights An infinite number of questions will arise in the course of your civil life, which it is no part of the present work either to foresee, or to assist you in solving. My sole aim in this book has been to present to you, even as torches to light you on your way, those Principles which should guide you through them all, and in the earnest application of which, you will find a method of solving them for yourselves. And this I believe I have done. I have led you to God, as the source of duty and pledge of the equality of man : to the moral law, as the source of all civil laws and basis of your every judgment as to the conduct of those who frame those laws. I have pointed out to you the people-yourselves, ourselves, the universality of the citizens composing the nation--as the sole interpreter of the law, and the source of all political power. I have told you that the fundamental characteristic of the law is progress ; progress indefinite and continuous from epoch to epoch ; progress in every branch of liuman activity, in every manifestation of thought, from religion down to industry and to the distribution of wealth. I have described to you your duties towards Humanity, your country, your family, and yourselves. And I have deduced those duties from those essential characteristics which constitute the human creature, and which it is your task to develope.

·104 On the Duties of Man. 6 man nor These characteristics-inviolable in every man-are : liberty, susceptibility of education, the social tendency, and the capacity for and necessity of progress. And from these characteristics without which there is neither true true citizen possible- I have deduced, not your duties, but your rights; and the general character of the government you should seek for your country. Never forget these Principles. Watch that they never be violated. Incarnate them in yourselves. You will be free, you will improve. The task I have undertaken for you, would then be complete, were it not for a tremendous obstacle, arising in the bosom of society itself (as it is now constituted), to the possibility of your fulfilling your duties or exercising your rights. This obstacle is the inequality of means. In order to fulfil duties and to exercise rights-time, intellectual development, and the certainty of material existence, are necessary. Now, very many of you do not possess these first elements of progress. Their life is constant and uncertain battle, in order to conquer the means of material existence. For them, the question is not one of progress, but of life itself. There is then some deep and radical vice in the present organization of society. And my work would be rendered useless were I not to define that vice, and indicate a method of correcting it. The economical question will therefore constitute the last portion of my work. a ·On the Duties of Man. 105 . CHAPTER XI. THE ECONOMICAL QUESTION.* ne:11s are MANY, too many, of you are poor. Life, for at least three-fourths of the working-class, whether labourers or mechanics, is a daily struggle to obtain the indispensable material of existence. They occupied in manual labour for ten, twelve, sometimes fourteen hours a day, and by this constant, monotonous, and painful industry, they scircely guin the bare necessaries of physical existence. The attempt to teach such men the duty of progress, to speak to them of their intellectual and moral life, of their political rights, or of education, is. sheer irony t in the present state of things. They have neither time nor means to improve and progress. Wearied, worn-out, half-stupefied by a life consumed in a round of petty I and mechanical toil, all they do learn is a mute, II impotent, and often unjust rancour g against the class of men who employ them. They too often seek forgetfulness of the troubles of the day and the uncertainty of inorrow, in the stimulus of strong drink, and sink to rest in places better described as deus than roonis, to waken to a repetition of he same dull exercise of their merely physical powers. It is a sad condition, and it must be altered. You are men, and as such you possess faculties, not merely physical, but intellectual and moral : faculties which it is your duty to develope. You should be citizens, and, as Of R: skin's "Crown of Wild Olive" Lecture I on "Work." + Mere mockery. | Trivial, unimportant || Silent. $ Spite, anger.

·106 On the Duties of Man. we are such, exercise for the good of all, certain rights, which require a certain degree of education and a certain portion of time. It is clear that you ought to labour less and gain more than you now do. Sons of God, all of us, and brethren in Him and amongst ourselves, called to constitute one sole great Family In this family there may exist such inequality as is the result of diversity of aptitude,* of capacity, or of disposition for labour, but it should be governed by one single principle ; Whosoever is willing to give--for the benefit of the whole that amount of labour of which he is capable, ought to receive such amount of recompense for that labour, (s will rnable him more or less to develope his individual life in cach of the essential characteristics which individual life is defined'.t This is the ideal which all of us ought to strive and study to approach more nearly from age to age. Every change, every revolution which fails to advance us one step towards this ideal, which does not produce a moral and social progress corresponding to the political progress achieved, which does not result in one degree of improvement in the material condition of the poorer classes, violates the Providential design, and reduces itself to the rank of a mere war of faction against faction, each seeking illegitimate doninion, and each alike a falsehood and an evil. But in to what point can we realize this aim at the present day? How sud by what means can we reach this point? * Fitness. † Ruskin 88 41 and 42. | Party.

·On the Duties of Man. 107 Some of the more timid amongst your well-wishers have sought the remedy in the morality of the working-man himself. They have founded Savings-banks, and similar institutions, saying to the operative : Bring your wages here ; economise ; abstain from every excess, whether of drink or otherwise ; emancipate yourselves from poverty by privation. And such advice is excellent, in so far as it tends to the moral improvement of the workman, without which all reforms are useless. But it neither solves the question of poverty itself, nor takes any account of social duty. Very few of you can economise your wages. And all that those few can achieve by their slow accunulation is the possibility of providing to a certain extent for their old age. Now, the economical question has more than this in view. Its object is also to provide for the years of manhood, to develope and expand life, as far as possible, while in its full vigour and activity, while it may most efficaciously aid the progress of the Country and Humanity. Even with regard to the mere material well-being of the working-class, this advice falls short of the aim, as it does not even hint at any method of increasing wealth or production. Moreover, society, which lives by the labour of the sons of the people, and demands from them their tribute of blood in the hour of danger, incurs a sacred debt towards them in return. There are other men, not enemies of the people, but indifferent to the cry of suffering whith bursts from the hearts of the sons of labour, and fearful of every great innovation, * who belong to the school of Economists, and Change.

·108 On the Duties of Man. who have worthily and usefully fought the battle of industry and labour, but without reflecting that the necessity of progress and of association is an irradicable * element of human nature. This school has maintained, and still like the philanthropists of whom I have spoken--does maintain, that every man can, even in the present state of things, build up his own independence by his own activity, that any change in the organization of labour would be either injurious or superfluous, and that the formula, Ench for himself and liberty for us all, is sufficient to create, by degrees, an approximate equilihrium of ease and comfort among the various classes that constitute society. Liberty of internal traffic, liberty of commerce among nations, a progressive reduction of custom duties (especially upon raw f materials), a general encouragement offered to great industrial enterrrises, to the multiplication of means of communication, and of all machinery tending to ir.crease activity of production--these, according to the Economists, are all that society can offer for the amelioration of the position of your class, and any further intervention on its part would, in their opinion, be a source of evil. If this were indeed true, the evil of poverty would be incurable ; but God forbid, my brothers ! that I should ever give your sufferings and your aspirations an answer so despairing, atheistic, and immoral. God has ordained for you a better future than that offered by the remedies of the Economists. Their remedies, in fact, merely point to the possible and temporary increase of the production of wealth : they 1 * Indestructible, deep rooted. † Crude or unprepared.

·On the Duties of Man. 109 do not tend to its more equitable distribution. While the Philanthropists, regarding individual man alone, content themselves with the endeavour to make him inore moral, without seeking to increase the common prosperity so as to give him an opportunity of progress; the Economists think only of increasing the sources of production, without occupying themselves with the condition of the individual man. Under the exclusive regime * of liberty which they preach, and which has more or less regulated the economical world in these later days, the most irrefutable + documentary evidence has shown an increase of productive activity and of capital, but not of universally diffused prosperity. The misery of the working-classes is unchanged. Liberty of competition for him who possesses nothing--for him who, unable to save on his daily carnings, cannot even initiate I a competition--is a lie ; even as political liberty is a lie for those who, from want of education, instruction, time, and material means, are unable to exercise their rights. Increased facilities for the exchange and conveyance of the products of labour would by degrees emancipate labour from the tyranny of trade and commerce, and from the existing classes of intermediates between the producer and the consumer, but they cannot emancipate it from the tyranny of Capital ; they cannot give the means of labour to him who has them not. And from the want of an equal distribution of wealth, and of a just division of produce, combined with the progressive increase of the cypher of consumers, capital * Policy, or administration. Begin. | Undeniable. § Number.

·IIO On the Duties of Man. itself is turned aside from its true economic aim, and becomes in part stationary in the hands of a few, instead of spreading and circulating ; or it is directed towards the production of objects of superfluity, luxury, and fictitious. wants, instead of being concentrated on the production of objects of primary necessity to life, and is risked in perilous and, too often, immoral speculations. At the present day- and this is the course of our actual social economy-capital is the tyrant of labour. Society is at present composed-economically speaking—of three classes ; that is to say, of capitalists, t being the possessors of the means and implements of labour, of land, of factories, ready money, and raw material ; of middlemen, chiefs and organizers of labour, and dealers, who are, or ought to be, the representatives of the intellectual side ; and of operatives, who represent the material side of labour. The first of these three classes is sole master of the field, and is in a position to promote, accelerate, delay, or direct labour towards certain special aims, at will. And the share of this class of the results of labour and the value of production is comparatively settled and defined, the location of the instruments of labour is variable only within certain known and definite limits, and even time itself may be said to be to some extent in their power, as they are removed from the pressure of immediate want. The share of the second class is uncertain. It depends upon their intellect, their activity, and above all, on or * Imaginary. | Those who have large sums of money employed in trade advanced in loans. | Workers, ·On the Duties of Man. III circumstances, such as the greater or less development of competition and the Aux and reflux * of capital, which is regulated by events not within the reach of their calculations. The workman's share consists simply of his wages, determined previously to the execution of the work, and without regard to the greater or less profits of the undertaking ; and the limits within which those wages vary, are determined, by the relation that exists between the supply and demand, or, in other words, Between the population. of operatives and capital. Now, as the first constantly tends to increase, and to an increase generally superior (however slightly) to the increase of the second, the tendency of wages, where no other causes intervene, is of course to decrease. Time also is altogether beyond the power of the working-man. Financial and political crises, the sudden application of new machinery to the different branches of industrial activity, the irregularities of production, and its * frequent excess and accumulation in a given direction (an evil inseparable from partially-enlightened competition), 'the unequal distribution of the working-classes upon certain points, or in certain branches of activity, and a. hundred other causes tending to the interruption of labour, take from the operative all free choice as to his own condition. On the one side he sees absolute starvation, on the other the necessity of accepting whatever terms are offered to him. Such a state of things, I repeat, indicates the germ of moral evil which must be cured. * Flux and reflux : alternation of ebb and flow of the tide.

·TI2 On the Duties of Man. The remedies proposed both by the philanthropists and economists are unequal to this task. And nevertheless there is progress in the class to which you belong; a progiess historical and continuous, and which has overcome still greater difficulties. You were first slaves, then serfs. Now you are hire. lings. You have emancipated yourselves from slavery and from serfdom. Why should you not emancipate yourselves from the yoke of hise, and become free producers, and inasters of the totality of production which you create ? Wherefore should you not accomplish, through your own peaceful endeavours and the assistance of a society having sacred duties towards each of its members, the most beautiful Revolution that can be conceived-- ievolution which, accepting labour as the commercial basis of human intercourse, and the fruits of labou as the basis of property, should gradually abolish the class distinctions, and tryannical dominion of one element of labour over another, and by proclaning one sole law of just equilibrium between production and consumption, harmonise and unite all, the children of the country, the common mother? Owing principally to the teachings of the republican party, the sense of a social duty towards the sons of labour the earnest + of a better future for the peoples--had gradually been awakened in Europe during the last thirty years, when certain schools arose (in France especially), composed for the most part of well-meaning and sincere friends of the people, but led astray by an overweening 1 love of system-making, and by individual vanity. * A Serf was a peasant attached to the soil in such a way that when the land changed hands he was transferred with it to the new owner. Pledge. Excessive.

·On the Duties of Man. 113 These schools introduced certain exclusive and exaggerated doctrines under the name of Socialisin - doctrines frequently antagonistic to the wealth already acquired by other classes, as well as economically impossible. By terrifying the multitude of smaller shopkeepers, and creating a sense of distrust between the different classes of citizens, they caused the social question to recede, and split up the republican party into two separate camps. I cannot now pause to examine these different schools one by one. They were called Saint Simonianism,* * Fourierism, t Communison, I etc., etc. Nearly all of them were based upon ideas good in themselves, and long accepted by all who belonged to the creed of Progress, but they spoiled or nullified § these ideas by the erroneous and tyrannical methods by which they proposed to apply and reduce them 10 practice. And it is necessary that I should briefly point out to you wherein their errors consisted, because the promises held out to the people by these systems are so magnificent as to be likely to seduce your approval, and you would run the risk, by accepting them, of retarding your emancipation, which is inevitable in a not far distant future. It is true -- and this fact alone should awaken a strong sense of doubt in your minds--that when circumstances had placed some of the authors of these systems in power, they never even attenipted to realize their own doctrines 3Claude H. de St. Simon was the founder of a sect of Social Reformers which sprang up in France in 1819. | Fourierism was a social system devised by Charles Fourier, French Social reformer. | Community of property among all the citizens of a state. § Destroyed. 8 ·114 On the Duties of Man. no in practice. Giants on paper, they dwindled and shrank before the difficulties of the practical reality. If, at some ſuture day, you examine these various systems with attention ; bearing in mind the fundamental ideas I have hitherto pointed out to you, and the indestructible characteristics of Human nature, you will find that they all of them violate some of these characteristics, as well as the law of progress, and the method of its accomplishnient through Humanity. Progress is accomplished through laws which human power can break It is accomplished step by step, by the perpetual development and modification of the elements which manifest the activity of life. In certain epochs, in certain countries, and under the influence of certain errors or prejudices, men have frequently given the name of essential clements and characteristics of social life, to things which have no root in nature: but only in the conventional * customs of eiring Society -custoins which disappeared at the expiration of those epochs, or beyond the limits of those countries But you may discern what are the true elements inseparable from our human nature, first by interrogating -as I suggested elsewhere-the instincts of your own souls, and then hy testing and verifying these by the tradition of all the ages, and of every country, in order to judge whether those instincts are such as have ever been the instincts of Humanity. And those things which the innate † voice within yourselves and the grand voice of Humanity alike declare to be essential elements an Habitual, established. | Natural, instinctive- ·On the Duties of Man. 115 constitutive of life itself, have to be modified and developed from'epoch to epoch, but can never be abolished. Among the essential elements of human life--such as Religion, Association, Liberty, and others to which I have alluded in the course of this work-Property is one. The first principle and origin of property is in human nature itself. It represents the necessities of the material life of the individual, which it is his duty to maintain. Even as the individual is bound to transform the moral and intellectual world, through the medium of religion, science, and liberty, so he is bound to transform, ameliorate, and govern the physical world, through the medium of material labour. And property is the sign and representative of the fulfilment of that task, of the amount of labour by which the individual has transformed, developed, and increased the productive forces of nature. The Principle of property is therefore eternal, and you will find it recognised and protected throughout the whole existence of Humanity. But the modes by which it is governed are mutable, † and destined like every other manifestation of life--to undergo the law of progress. They who, finding property property once constituted and established in a certain manner, declare that manner to be inviolable, I and struggle against every effort to transform it, thus deny progress itself. It is enough to take up two volumes of history, treating of two different epochs, lo find an alteration in the constitution of property. And they who, because at a * Methods or forms. ☆ Changeable. | Absolute or authoritative.

·116 On the Duties of Man. (111 OW1 given epoch they happened to find property ill-constituted, declare that it must be abolished, and seek to cancel it from society, deny one of the elements of human nature, and would --were it possible they should succeed--retard progress by mutilating life. Property, however, , would inevitably reappear shortly after, and probably in the identical shape it wore at the period of its abolition. Property is ill-constituted at the picsent day, because the source and origin of its actual division was, generally speaking, in conquest ; in the violence by which, at a period renrote from day, certain invading peoples or classes took possession either of land or of the fruits of labour not their own. Property is ill-constituted at the present day, because the bases of the partition of the fruits of a labour achieved by both proprietor and workman are 110t laid down in a just and equal proportion to the labour done. Property is ill-constituted, because, while it confers on its possessor political and legislative rights which are denied to the workman, it tends to become the monopoly * of the few. inaccessible to the many. Property is ill-constituted, because the system of taxation is ill-constituted, and tends to maintain the privilege of wealth in the hands of the proprietor, while it oppresses the poorer classes, and renders saving impossible to them. But if, instead of correcting the errors, and slowly modifying the constitution of property, you should seek to abolish it, you would suppress a source of wealth, emulation, and of activity, and would resemble the savage who cut down the tree in order to gather its fruit. We must not seek to abolish property because at present of * Exclusive or sole possession.

·On the Duties of Man. 117 we must it is the possession of the few : we must open up the paths by which the many acquire it. We must go back to the principle which is its legitimization, and endeavour that it shall in future be the result of labour alone. We must lead Society, towards establishing a more equable basis of remuneration * between the proprietor or capitalist and the workman. We must transform the system of taxation so as to exempt the first necessaries of life therefrom, and thus render that economy which gradually produces property, possible to working-nen. And in order that these things may be, suppress the political privilege now conceded to property, and allow to all share in the work of legislation. Now all these things are both just and possible. By educating yourselves, and organizing yourselves earnestly to demand them and determine to have them, you may obtain them ; whereas, by seeking the abolition of property, you would seek an impossibility, do an injustice to those who have already acquired it through their own labour, and diminish instead of increasing production. Nevertheless, the abolition of individual property is the remedy proposed by many of the Socialist systens of which I have spoken to you, and above all by Communism. Others have gone even further, and observing that the Religious idea, the idea of government, and the idea of country, are disfigured and falsified by religious error, by class privilege, and dynastic egotism, † they demand the abolition of all religion, of all government, and even of Nationality. This is the conduct of children or bar- D * Reward, wages. * The cgotism of the ruling class or family, ·118 On the Duties of Man. tion * barians. Might they not with as much reason declare that, disease being frequently generated by the corruption of the atmosphere, they demand the suppression of every respiratory gas? But the teachings of those who seek to found anarchy in the name of liberty, and cancel society for the sake of the rights of the individual, require no further confuta. from me to you. The whole of my work is directed against the guilty dream ; which is the negation of progress, of duty, of human fraternity, of the solidarity of nations, and of all those things which you and I hold in veneration, Those who, confining themselves within the limits of the economical question, demand the abolition of individual property, and the organization of communism, fall into another extieme—the negation of the individual and of liberty-which would close the path to progressy and (so to speak) petrify Society: The following is the general formula of Communism : The property of every element of production, such as land, capital-movable 1 immovable- instruments of labour, &c., to be concentrated in the state. The state to assign to each man his portion of labour, and his portion of retribution t, some say with absolute equality, others say according to his wants. Such a mode of existence, were it possible, would be the existence of the beaver, not the life of a man. Liberty, dignity, and individual conscience, would all disappear before this organization of productive machines. The satisfaction of the wants of physical life may be Answer, disproof. Reward.

·On the Duties of Man. 119 # possible by such means, but intellectual and moral life would he entirely cancelled, and with it all emulation, all free choice of labour, all liberty of association, all the joys of property, and-in short - all that stimulates and urges man to production The human family, under such a system, becomes a mere human flock or herd, and all that is necessary for it is a wide pasture-ground. Which of you could reconcile himself to such a programme ? Equality is thus realized, say they. What equality ? Equality in the distribution of labour ? That is impossible. Labour is in its nature various, and cannot be fairly calculated either by its duration or by the amount achieved in a given time ; but rather by its difficulty, by the more or less agreeable nature of the work done, the amount of human vitality it consumes, and its utility to society. How can the equality or difference between an hour's labour passed in a mine, or in purifying the stagnant waters of a marsh, and an hour's labour spent in a spinning-factory, be estimated ? The impossibility of making such calculations fairly has, in fact, suggested to some of the founders of these systenis the idea of compelling every man to perform in his turn a certain amount of labour in every branch of useful activity : an absurd remedy, which would render perfection of production impossible, while it would be impotent to equalise the weak with the strong, the intellectually clever with the slow, the man of nervous temperament with the man of lymphatic † tendency, &c. The labour which is easy and wel. come to the one becomes irksome and difficult to the other. Competition or rivalry. +Weak.

·120 On the Duties of Man. Would it produce equality in the division of the pruducts of labour ? This also is impossible. Either the equality must be absolute--and this would result in great injustice, as there would be no distinction remaining between the different wants arising from organization, nor between the power and capacity created by a sense of duty, and the power and capacity given, without merit or descrt, by natureor the equality must be relative, and calculated according to diversity of wants, and then, by taking no account of individual production, it would violate those rights of property which ought to be the reward of the workman's labour. Moreover, who should be the Arbitrator, and decide upon the just wants of each individual ? Should this Arbitrator be the State ? Working men ! brothers ! are you disposed to accept a hierarchy of lead-m.isters of the common property ? masters of the inind through the superiority given by an exclusive education, masters of the body from their power of determining the work you have to do, your capacity to do it, and your wants when it is done ? Is not this a return to bygone slavery ? Would not these masters, beguiledt by that theory of intersts of which they were the representatives, and seduced by the immense power concentrated in their hands, become again the founders of the hereditary dictatorslupt of bygone castes ? No. Communism would not realize equality among the sons of labour ; it would not tend to increase productionwhich is the great need at the present day-because it is * An order of superior beings. † Misled, deceived. Inherited authority.

·On the Duties of Man. I21 in the nature of most men, when once the means of existence are secured to them, to rest satisfied ; and the amount of incentive* remaining to increase production, diffused over all the members of society would be so small as not, to haye the power of rousing and exciting men's faculties. The quality of production would not be improved, as no encouragement would be offered to progress in unvention, which could never be wisely furthered by an uncertain and unintelligent collcctilic direction and organization. The only remedy Communism has to offer for all the thousand ills that afflict the sons of the people, is security against hunger. Now, are there no other means of achieving this? Cannot the workman's right to life and labour be secured without overturning the whole social organism, without jendering production sterile, and without impeding progress hy cancelling individual liberty to enchain it thus in a tyrannical, military organization ? The remedy for your sufferings cannot be found in any arbitrary general organization built up in a day by one or other individual mind ; opposed to the universally-received bases of civilisation and suddenly imposed by decree.f We are not here to create Hunanity, but to continue it. We may, we ought to modify the organization of its constituent elements, but we cannot suppress or destroy them. Humanity rebels, and ever will rebel, against the attempt. The time spent in an endeavour to realize these illusions would therefore be tirne lost. The reinedy is not to be found in any increase of wages Stimulus, motive, inducement t Command.

·I 22 On the Duties of Man. 1 imposed by governmental authority, and unaccompanied by other changes tending to increase capital. An increased rate of wages--that is to say, an increase of the cost of production--would carry with it an increase in the price of produce, a consequent diminution of consumption, and hence of work for the producers. The remedy is not to be found in any theory tending to cancel individual liberty, which is the consecration of, and stimulus tv, labour, nor in anything tending to diminish capital, which is the source and the instrument of labour and production. The remedy is to be found in the union of labour and capital in the same hands. When society shall recognise no other distinction save the distinction between producers and consumers ; or rather when every man shall be alike producer and consumer ; when the profits of labour, instead of being parcelled out among that series of intermediates-which (beginning with the capitalist and ending with the retailer) + frequently increases the price of production fifty per cent ---shall belong entirely to those who perform the labour, all the permanent causes of your poverty will be removed. Your future depends upon your emancipation from the exactions t of capital, which is at present the arbitrary ruler of a production in which it has no share. Your material and moral future. Look around you. Wherever you find capital and labour in the same handswherever the profits of labour are divided among the workmen in proportion to the increase of those profits and to the amount of aid given by the workmen to the *Distributed. Shop-keeper. Unjust claims.

·On the Duties of Man. 123 collective worked you will find both a decrease of poverty and an increase of morality. In the canton of Zurich, in the Engadine, and many other parts of Switzerland, where the peasant is a proprietor, andutänd, capital, and labour are united in the hands of a sjxigle individual ; in Norway, Flanders, and Eastern Friesland ; in Holstein, in the German Palatinate, in Belgium, and in the island of Guernsey on the English coast, there is visible a prosperity comparatively superior to all the other parts of Europe, where the cultivators are not the proprietors of the soil. These countries are peopled by a race of agriculturists remarkable for their honesty, dignity, independence, and frank and open bearing. The mining population of Cornwall in England, and those American navigators who trade as whalers between China and America, amongst whom this participation in the profits of their labour ohtains, are recognised and admitted by official docuinents to be superior to the workmen who are remunerated by a predeterinined rate of wages. Association of labour, (ind the division of the fruits of labour, or rather of the profits of the sale of its productions between the producers, in proportion to the amount anil zmlue of the work done by each-this is the social future. You were once slaves, then serfs, then hirelings. You have but to will it, in order shortly to become free producers, and brothers, through Association. Association-but free, voluntary, and organized on certain bases, by yourselves, among men who know, esteem, and love each other ; not imposed by the force of governmental authority, and without respect to individual ties and affections, upon men regarded ·124 On the Duties of Man. rather as cyphers * and machines of production, than as beings moved by spontaneous impulse and free will. Association--but to be adıninistered with a truly republican fraternity by your own delegates, and from which you should be free to withdraw at your own discretion ; not subject to thc despotism of the State, or of an arbitrarily-constituted Hierarchy, ignorant of your individual wants and position. An Association of nu lei-groups--Lo be formed according to your own tendencies, and not, (as the authors of the systems of which I have spoken teich) of all the members of a given branch of industrial or agricultural activity. The concentration of all the inembers of the State, or even of all the citizens of a single city, following a given trade, in one sole productive society, would lead us back to the hygone tyrannical monopoly of the Corporations. It would make of the producer the arbitrary judge of prices, to the injury of the consumer ; legalize the oppression of the minority, shut out the workman who might be unsatisfied or discontented with its regulations, from all possibility of finding work ; and suppress the necessity of progress, by extinguishing all rivalry in work, and allº stiniulus to invention. Within the last twenty years Association has occasionally been timidly attempted in France, in Belgium, and in England, and it has been crowned with success wherever it was commenced with energy, resolution, and a spirit of self-sacrifice.t * Nonentities possessing no personality, mere numbers. † See, on this subject, Self-helf by the People, and The History of Cooperation in Halifur",written by G. J. Holyoake (London Book Store, 282 Strand).

·On the Duties of Man. 125 In Association is the germ of an entire social transformation, a transformation which, by emancipating you from the servitude of wages, will gradually promote and increase produce, and improve the economical position of the country. The tendency of the present system is to inake the capitalist seek to increase his gains in order to withdraw from the arena ;* while the tendency of association would be to secure the continuance of labour---that is to say, ot production. At present the master, the director of the work done, who generally owes his position to no special aptitude, but to mere possession of capital, is liable to be improvident, rashly speculative, or incompetent ; an association, directed by chosen delegates, and watched over hy all its members, would not run the risk of suffering from such errors defects. Under the present system, labour is too oft en directed to the production of superfluities rathei than necessaries, and owing to a capricious and unjust inequality of pay: workmen in one branch of activity abound, while they are wanting in another branch. The workman, linnited to a determinate recompense, has 10 motive to spend all the zeal and energy of which he is capable upon his work, in order to multiply and improve its produce. Evidently Association would offer a remedy to this and many other causes both of interruption and inferiority of production. Liberty of withdrawal for individual members, without injury to the Association-equality of all the members in 01 * Field of competition.

·I 26 On the Duties of Man. the choice of an elective administration, with powers either renewable at a given period, or, better, subject to revocation - freedom of admission posterior to the foundation of the Association, without the obligation of introducing new capital, but with permission to supply its place by an annual contribution to the treasury of thc Association, to be deducted from the profits of the first years of unionindivisibility and perpetuity of the collective capital -such an amount of retribution as secures the necessities of life equally to all-free distribution of the tools or instruments of labour to all according to the quantity and quality of the work done ;-such are the general bases upon which you must found your associations, if you are willing to achieve a work of present self-sucrifice for the benefit of the class to which you belong. Each of these bases, and above all that concerning the perpetuity of the Collective capital, which is the pledge of your own emancipation and your link with future generations, would require a chapter to itself. But special study of the question of working-inen's associations does not enter into the plan of my present work. Perhaps, should God grant me some few more years of life, I may make of this study a separate labour of love for you. In the meantime, rest assured that the rules I have just sketched for you are the result of deep reflection and eainest study, and deserve your attentive consideration. But the Capital ? The capital by which association is to be initiated in the first instance ; whence to obtain this? It is a grave question, and I cannot treat it at such length as I should wish. But I may briefly point out your own duty and that of others. al ·On the Duties of Man, 127 • The first source of that capital is in yourselves, in your own economy, your own spirit of self-sacrifice. I know the position of too many of you, but there are some of you who-either owing to continuance of work or its better retribution--are in a position to economise for this aim. Sonie eighteen or twenty of these might thus collect the trifling sum necessary to enable you to commence work on your own account. And the consciousness of fulfilling a solemn duty, and thus descr'ing your emancipation, ought to give you strength to do this. I might quote for you many Industrial Associations, now well established and flourishing, which were begun by a few workmen with their savings of a penny a day. I might relate to you many stories of sacrifices heroically endured in France,* and elsewhere, by the first few * In 1848 the delegates of some hundreds of workmen who had united together with the idea of establishing a pianoforte manufactory upon the Associative principle, finding that a large capital was necessary for their r'ndertaking, applied to the Government for a loan of 300,000 francsot The application was refused The association was dissolved, but 14 workmen determined to overcome every obstacle, and reconstilute it out of their own resources. They had neither money nor credit : they had faith. They initiated their Society with a capital consisting of tools and instruments of labour of the value of about 2000 francs. But a floating capital * was indispensable. Each of these workinen contrived, not without great difficulty, to contribute to francs, and other workmen, not belonging to their society, added some little offerings to swell + their capital. On the roth March, 1849, having collected the sum of 229 francs 50 cents, the Association was declared to be founded. But their little social fund was insufficient for the cost of starting, and the small daily incidental expenses of their establishment. Nothing Paper credit, + Increase. † Franc=10 annas. * ·128 On the Duties of Man, workmen who commenced such enterprises, and are now. in the possession of considerable capital. There is sadeed scarcely any difficulty which may not be overcome by strong will, when sustained by the consciousness of doing good. Almost all of you may contribute some trilling aid to the primary little fund, either in money, raw material, or implement of labour. By a consistent course of conduct and habits of life remained for wages, and two months passed without the members of the Association receiving a single cent in remuneration for their labour. How did they subsist during this time of crisis? As working-men do sulsist ini periods when they are without work, through help given by their comrades, and by selling or pawning * their goods. Some orders, however, had been executed, and these were paid for 013 the 4th Ilay, 1849. That day was to the Association what the first victory is in war, and they deterniined 10 celebrate it. Iaving paid all urgent debts, each associate receiveri a sum of s francs 61 cents. It was agreed that each should keep 5 francs, anıl that the remainder should be spent in a fraternal banquet. The 14 members, most of whom had not tasted wine for more than a year, sat down to a common dinner with their families. The cost was 32 nous a-family. For another month their wages only reached 5 fiancs a week. In June, however, a baker, either a lover of music or a speculator, proposed to buy il pianoforte from thini, and pay for it in bread. The offer was accepted, ind the price agreed upon was 480 francs. This was a piece of gol fortune for the Association, which was thus secure of the first necessary of life. The price of the bread was not considerell in the wages of the menibers. Each man received the amount necessary for his own consumption, and the married men enough for their families. By degrees, the Association, the members or which were very clever workmen, surmounted the obstacles and privations of the first period of its existence. Their books gave excellent testimony to their progress. In the month of August the weekly carnings of each member rose from 10 to giving goods in pledge for money received.

·On the Duties of Man, 129 calculated to win the esteem of your companions or relations, you may induce them to advance small loans, in 'consideration of which they might become shareholders, and receive the interest of their money from the profits of the enterprise. In many branches of industry in which the price of tools or of raw material is trifling, the capital required for commencing work on your own account is small, and you may collect or save it among yourselves if you resolutely dctermine to do so. And it will be in every respect better for you that the capital be all your own, acquired with the sweat of your own brows, and of the credit you have gained by conscientious work. 11 15 and 20 francs ; nor did this represent the whole of their profits, for each member paid into the common fund a weekly contribution larger than the sum he withdrew as wages for his own use. On the 30th December, 1850, the books of the Association revealed the following encouraging facts : The members, at that date, amounted to 32. The establishment was paying 2000 francs per annum for rent, and their premises were already too small for their business. The valuc of the tools, &c., belonging to the Society was 5922 francs 66 cents. The value of their goods and raw material amounted to 22,972 francs 28 cents. The cash-box of the Society contained bills for 3540 francs. Open credits, almost all good, amounted to 5861 francs 99 cents. Their stock, therefore, amounted to 39,317 francs 88 cents. The Society only owed 4737 francs 80 cents of ordinary business debls, and 1650 francs to 80 well-wishers to the Association among working.men in the same trade, for small loans advanced to the Association at its commencement. The nett balance in favour of the Society was therefore 32,930'02 francs. Since then the Association has never ceased to flourish. 9 ·132 On the Duties of Man. fatal to the national welfare, which visibly retards the progress of France at the present day. The following would be important and powerful modes of assistance :- The exercise of a moral influence in favour of Workingmen's Associations by the publicly-manifested approval of the Government agents, by z frequent discussion of their fundamentary principles in the House of Representatives, and by legalizing all the voluntary associations constituted on the basis indicated above. Improved methods of communication, and abolition of the obstacles now impeding the free conveyance of produce. The establishment of public inagazines* and depots t in which the approximate value of the goods or merchandise consigned having been ascertained, the Associations should receive a document or receipt negotiable in the manner of a bank-bill, by which means the Associations would be enabled to carry on their affairs without the ruinous necessity of an immediate sale without regard to prices. The concession of the execution of necessáry public works to Working-men's Associations upon cqual terms to those granted to individual speculation. Simplication of judicial forms, justice being at present ruinously costly, and too often inacessible to the poor. Legal facilities given to the sale and transfer of landed property. A radical transformation of the system of taxation, by the substitution of one sole tax upon income, to the # Stores. † Warehouses.

·On the Duties of. Man. 133 . accuniua present complex and expensive system of direct and indirett taxation. This would give public and practical sanction to the principle of the sacredness of human life, for as neither labour, progress, nor the fulfilment of duty are possible without life, a given amount of money, the amount judged necessary to the maintenance of life. should be exempt from all taxation. Suppose all this mass of wealth and resources lated in the formation of NATIONAL FUND, to be consecrated to the intellectual and economic progress of the whole country. Why should not a considerable portion of such a fund be employed (proper provision being made to guard against its wasteful use or dissipation) as a Fund of Credit, bearing interest at one and a half or two per cent., to be distributed to the Voluntary Working-class Associations, constituted according to the bases indicated above, and giving evidence of morality and capacity. This, sum of capital to be held sacred, not imerely to the promotion of labour in the present generation, but in futurity ; its operations being upon so vast a scale as to ensure compensation for the occasional, inevitable losses it would have to sustain. The distribution of the Fund of Credit ought not to be in the hands either of the Government or of a National Central Bank, but of local Banks, administered by elective Municipal Councils, under the supervison of the Central Government. Without subtracting anything from the actual wealth of any existing class, and without enriching any single class through the medium of that taxation, which, being contributed by all citizens, should be employed for the advantage and benefit of all ; such a series of measures ·134 On the Duties of Man. as are here suggested, by diffusing credit, increasing und improving production, compelling a diminution of the rate of interest, and intrusting the progress and continuity of labour to the zeal and interest of the producers, would replace the limited and ill-directed sum of sealth at present concentrated in a few hands, by a wealthy nation, directress of its own production and consumption. Such, Italian Workmen, is your future. You may hasten this future. Conquer for yourselves your country, and a truly popular Government, the representative of our collective life and mission. Organize yourselves in a vast league of the people, so that your voice be the voice of the million, not merely of a few individuals. Truth and justice will be on your side, and the nation will listen to you. But, he warned' and believe the words of a INUN 10h, has been earnestly studying the course of events in Europe during the last thirty years, and who has seen the holiest enterprises foil in the hour of promised sile.css, thinngh the crrors ui immorality of their supporters. you n'ill nezer succedl mless through wir own improvement. 101 can onli' ótain the corrise of you rights by deserving them throug! your own activity, and your own spirit of love and sacrifice. If you seek our rights in the name of duties fulfilled or to fulfil, you will ohtain them. If you seek them in the name of cgotism, or any theory of happiness and well-being propounded by the teachers of materialisın, you will never achieve other than a moriicitary triumph, to be followed by utter delusion, They who appeal to you in the name of well-being and happiness, will deceive and betray you. They seek also their well-being and happiness, and merely Own ·On the Duties of Man. 135 211 OW12 desire to unite with you as element of strength wherewith to overcome the obstacles in their own path. When once they have obtained their own rights through your help, they will abandon the eſfort to obtain yours in order to enjoy their own. Such is the history of the last half-century, and the name of this last half-century is, Materialism. Sad story of blood and sorrow! I have seen them in my land-these men who denied God, religion, virtile, duty, and sacrifice, and spoke only in the name of the right in happiness and enjoumeut-I have seen them advancu boldly to the struggle with the words people and liberty on their lips, and unite with us men of a better fuith. who imprudently admitted them in oui rauks. As 50011 as a first victory; or the opportunity of some cowardly com romise, opened the path of enjoyment to them, they foisook the cause of the people, and becamc our hitlerest enemies the car after it ten years of danger and persecution were sufficient to worry and discourage them. And wherefore should theri men without any scientious belief in Law of Duty, without faith in it niission imposeci upon man by a Supreme Power, hare persisted in sacrifice even to the last vears of life? And I have seen, with deep sadness, the son of the people, educated in materialism by those men, turn false to their mission and their future, false to their country and themselves, betrayed by some foolish, inmoral hope of obtaining material happiness, through furthering the caprice* or interest of a despotism. I have seen the working-inen of France stand by, CO2- # Fancy or whini.

·136 On the Duties of Man. indifferent spectators of the coup d'etat* of the 2nd December, because all the great social questions had dwindled † in their minds into a question of material prosperity ; and they foolishly believed that the promises, artfully I made to them by him who had destroyed the liberty of their country, would be kept. Now they mourn over their lost liberty, without having acquired even the promised material well-being. No : without God, without the sense of a moral law, without morality, without a spirit of sacrifice, and by merely following after nou who have neither faith, nor reverence for truth, nor holiness of life, nor anght to guide them but the vanity of their vin systems -- I repeat it, with deep conviction--1011 will succeed. You mar achieve rcbcllions but will realize the true Great L'ezolution you and I alike desire--a revolution, 110t the offspring and illusion of irritated ogolism, but of religious convition. Your own improvement and that of others ;; this must be the supreme hope and aim of every social transformation. You cannot change the fate of man by merely enibellishing $ his material dwelling. You will never induce the society to which you belong to substitute' a system of Association for a system of salary and wages, unless you convince them that your association will result in improved never 1'011 nezler * Coup d'etat : any violent measure taken by the Government wllen the safety of the state appears to be in danger. The coup d'etat Icferred to here was that of 1851 when universal suffrage was established and Paris was declared in a state of siege. Diminished. Cleverly, deceitfully. $ Beautifying.

·On the Duties of Man. 137 production and collective prosperity. And you can only prove this by showing yourselves capable of founding and maintaining association through your own honesty, mutual good-will, love of labour, and capacity of self-sacritice in order to Progress, you must show yourselves capable of progress. Tradition Progress, Association. These three things are sacred Twenty years ago, I wrote: "I believe in the grand police of God which the Ages transmit to us throughout the unircisal tradition of Humanity, and it teaches me that the Famili, the Nation, and Humanity, are the three spheres in which the human indiridual is destined to labour for the common gud, towards the moral perfection of himself and others, or rather of himself through others. "It teaches ine that property is destined to be the manifestation of the material activity of the individual, of his share in the transformation of the physical world ; as the franchise is the manifestation of his share in the administration of the political world. It teaches me that the meril demerit of the individual, before God and man, depends upon his use of these rights ; and it teaches me that all these things, being elements ol human nature, ale perennially modified and transformed they gradually approach inore closely to that ideal of which our souls have prevision--but that they can never be cancelled nor des troyed. "It teaches me that the dreams of Coinmunism, of the annihilation or absorption of the individul in the social whole, hat never been other thar fleeting incidents in the life of the human race, icap, euring monentarily als ·138 On the Duties of Man. in every great intellectual and moral crisis, but incapable of realization except upon a trifling scale, as in the Christian Monasteries and Convents.* "I believe in the eternal progressive life of God's creature ; in the progress of Thought and Action, not only in the man of the past, but in the man of the future. I believe that it is of little comparative import to determine the form and method of the future progress, but that it is of great im; oil to open up all the patlıs to progress, by bestowing upou mankind a truly religious education which will enable them to complete it. "I believe that we can never make man worthier, more loving, nobler, or more divine-which is in fact our end and aim on carth-by merely heaping upon hun the means nt enjoyment, and setting before lum as the aini of life, that ironyt which is named happiness " I believe in .l-sociation as the wle means it possess of realising progress, not merely because it multiplies the action of the producive forces, but because it tends to unite all the various marilfestations of the lunan mund, and to bring the life of the wiridual into communion with the allcclr.p lite of the whole, and I know that association will never be truitful of good except among free men sind free peoples, conscious and capable of their mission. "I believe that man should be able to rat and live without having every hour of his existence absorbed by material labour, so that he may be able to cultivate the superior facullies of his natue ;---but I listen with dres to those who tell you that enjoyment is , 0211 night, and * In which the possessions of one were the possession of all + Mockery.

·On the Duties of Man. ..139 inaterial wellbeing your aim, 'because I know that such teachings can only produce egotists, and that these doctrines have been in France, and threaten to be in Italy, the destruction of every noble dea, of every sacrifice, and of every pledge of future greatness. "The life-destroying ill of Humanity at the present day is the want of a cominon faith, a common thought, accepted and admitted by all men, and which shall rclink earth to Heuren, the universe with God. Deprived of this cominon faitli, man has bowed down before lifeless Matter, and become a worshipper of the idol Scll-Interest. And the first priests of that fatal worship were Kings, Princes, and evil Governments. They invented the horrible formula of cach for himself, for they knew that it would increase egotism, and that there is but one step between the egotist and the slave." Italian Workmen, brothers ! avoid that step! Your future depends upon this. Yours is the solemn mission to prove that we are all the sons of God, and brethren in Him. You can only prove this by improving yourselves, and fulfilling your duty. I have pointed out to you, to the best of my power, what your duties aie, the most iniportant being those owed to your country. The amelioration of your present condition can only result from your participation in the political life of the nation. Until you obtain the franchise, your wants and aspirations will never be truly represented. On the day in which you should follow the example of too many French Socialists, and separate the social from the political question, saying : We will work out our own ·On the Duties of Man. emancipation, whatever be the form of Institution by which our country is governed-that day you would have yourselves decreed the perpetuity of your own social servitude. *And in bidding you farewell, I will remind you of another duty not less solemn than that which binds your to achieve and preserve the freedom and unity of your Country. Your complete emancipation can only be founded and secured upon the triumph of a Principle--the principle of the Unity of the Human Family. At the present day one-half of the Human Family that half from which we seek both inspiration and consolation, that half to which the first education of childhood is entrusted-is, by a singular contradiction, declared civilly, politically and socially unequal, and excluded from the great Unity. To you who are seeking your own enfranchisement and emancipation in the name of a Religious Truth, to you it belongs to protest on every occasion and by every means against this negation of Unity. The Emancipation of Woman, then, must be regarded by you as necessarily linked with the emancipation of your Country. This will give to your endeavours the consecration of an Universal Truth.

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