that there is any practical limit to gold and silver? Has he or any one else ever found it? Second, gold and silver are no more money proper" than copper, paper, or a string of beads. Even a bank check makes very good money for temporary porposes. Anything will do, that can be made to perform the functions of money. Third, there is a limit to credit. I know it because I have tried it; and I know of a good many others who have too. If Mr, Bellamy has not, I congratulate him. Fourth, the volume of credit is not promises of money," and does not depend upon any ascertainable proportion to the money actually in existence."

But the culmination of Mr. Bellamy's scintillations of wisdom, which I commend to those good and venerable ladies in and out of petticoats, who are so diligently seeking his painted heaven, is found when he contrasts our own low degree of civilization with that attained in his new Boston. He says: "Buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence and disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens, and the sense of community of interest which supports our social system. According to our ideas, buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilization."

Now glance at his Twenty-first Century Bostonians who have been trained in his school of "mutual benevolence and disinterestedness," and who have thereby risen to a very high "grade of civilization." They are incapable of judging for themselves what is equitable in an exchange, and before they are permitted to make one, they must ask their guileless and virtuous politicians, the government,-who are supposed to know, 'to inquire into all the circumstances of the transaction so as to be able to guarantee its absolute equity," like school children who must

ask their mothers before they can swap jack-knives. It will be unnecessary specially to consider Mr. Bellamy further, as his positions are mainly those of the professed State socialists, and are sufficiently considered under other heads.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FALLACIES OF P. J. PROUDHON, AND HIS SCHOOL.

In these reviews of prominent authors on social topics, it has doubtless been observed that I make no attempt to cover more than a small part of their field. I could not do so; first, because space will not permit of it within the limits I have set to this work; and, second, because I have not been able to make such an exhaustive examination of their works as would qualify me for the task. This last remark applies with great force to this chapter on the fallacies of Proudhon; and, in a less degree, to that on those of Karl Marx. Although Mr. Proudhon has been one of the most prolific of authors, yet I have only had access to two of his earlier works: that on "Property," and the one on "Economic Contradictions." It has been my purpose to avoid, as far as possible, confusing details, and to confine myself to the general principles which underlie those proposed systems of reform which are being urged upon the people, and which may form a basis for coming social changes. That changes are desirable all admit, but all do not agree as to what changes are necessary, or the steps required to produce them. Even those who are supposed to be most interested in the continuance of the present social relations, recognize the existence of social evils; and contribute money and time, and advocate the passage of laws which they hope will either bring about those changes, or greatly palliate the evils they seek to cure. But while doing so they strive to preserve intact their own advantage. They are all willing to have some one else reformed, only so the reform leaves them undisturbed in their own privileges.

What changes are desirable, and how can they be brought about? Are they inevitable; and if so, can anything be done to hasten, or retard them, and what? This is the problem in a nut-shell; and I have sought to confine this work strictly to its solution.

Mr. Proudhon's first work, "Property,' is devoted to the working out in elaborate detail of the injustice of property; but even with all his details he seems to have seen scarcely more than an outline of the important principles which he enunciated. But even to have seen that outline, I think is destined soon to lead to very important results. He does not appear to have grasped the full significance of possession as a necessary condition of property, or realized what the necessary development of property must be under it. While he saw too, somewhat of the effect of the law in violating this condition, he evidently failed to understand its importance, or he would not have fallen into the error of subordinating the individual to society, and thus laying the foundation for human law. And, as the so-called science of economics is based upon our present institution of property, he would not have considered it necessary to devote a work of upwards of 500 pages, like his "Economic Contradictions," to the consideration of contradictions growing out of an institution which is artificial, and transitory in its nature. In Chap. VI. of Part II., I have more fully elaborated the subject of "property," and shown its necessary development.

One of the most serious mistakes into which Mr. Proudhon fell, but one which has been common to most, if not all previous social writers, was in discussing social questions without first obtaining a clear knowledge of man himself, in his individual character. Thus we see Mr. Proudhon, at one time contending for liberty, and at another advocating the most obnoxious doctrines of state socialism; now denouncing the crime of property, and again defending it; sometimes condemning communism, and then contending

for the principles upon which it is founded; and at other times, wandering off until he loses himself among a multitude of contradictory economic absurdities. This I attribute to a want of a proper analysis, followed by a definite method of development, while keeping close to the cardinal principles of man's

nature.

As an instance of these contradictions he finds the three fundamental conditions of human well-being to be "liberty, equality, and security." He says, "Liberty is an absolute right, because it is to man what impenetrability is to matter,-a sine qua non of existence; equality is an absolute right, because without equality there is no society; security is an absolute right, because in the eyes of every man his own liberty and life are as precious as another's. "These three rights are absolute; that is, susceptible of neither increase or diminution; because in society each associate receives as much as he gives,-liberty for liberty, equality for equality, security for security, body for body, soul for soul, in life and in death."

And yet, on another page of the same book, his Property," page 330, he proposes to violate liberty by adopting almost the entire state socialistic programme, thus: "Gradually lower the rate of interest, organize industry, associate laborers and their functions, and take a census of the large fortunes, not for the granting of privileges, but that we may effect their redemption by settling a life annuity upon their proprietors. We must apply on a large scale the principle of collective production, give the state eminent domain over all capital, make each producer responsible, abolish the custom-house, and transform every profession and trade into a public function."

We have seen already, and it will be made still plainer in the course of this work, how surely any scheme of this kind must violate liberty. If society as a whole can dictate any plan on which to organize industry, and carry out the above programme, not