some labor would be the amount which the majority would consent to have made compulsory on themselves. But the majority, even in our present societies, where the intensity of competition and the exclusive dependence of each on his own energies tend to give a morbid strength to the industrial spirit, are almost everywhere indolent and unambitious; content with little, and unwilling to trouble themselves in order to make it more. The standard of industrial duty would therefore be fixed extremely low. There are, no doubt, some kinds of useful exertion, to which the stimulus would not be weakened in the same degree. Invention is one of these. Invention is in itself an agreeable exercise of the faculties; and when applied successfully to the diminution of labor or the satisfaction of the physical wants of the community, it would in any society be a source of considerable eclat. But though to invent is a pleasant operation, to perfect an invention and render it practical is a dull and toilsome one; requiring also means and appliances which, in a society so constructed, no one would possess of his own. The many and long-continued trials by which the object is at last attained, could only be made by first persuading the majority that the scheme would be advantageous; and might be broken off at the very time when the work approached completion, if the patience of the majority became exhausted. We might expect, therefore, that there would be many projects conceived, and very few perfected; while, the projects being prosecuted, if at all, at the public expense and not at the projector's, if there was any disposition to encourage them, the proportion of bad schemes to good would probably be even greater than at present.

It must be further observed, that the perfect equality contemplated in the theory of the scheme could not be really attained. The produce might be divided equally, but how could the labor? There are many kinds of work, and by what standard are they to be measured one against another?

Who is to judge how much cotton spinning, or distributing goods from the stores, or bricklaying, or chimney sweeping, is equivalent to so much ploughing? In the existing system of industry these things do adjust themselves with some, though but a distant, approach to fairness. If one kind of work is harder or more disagreeable than another, or requires a longer practice, it is better paid, simply because there are fewer competitors for it; and an individual generally finds that he can earn most by doing the thing which he is fittest for. I admit that this self-adjusting machinery does not touch some of the grossest of the existing inequalities of remuneration, and in particular the unjust advantage possessed by almost the commonest mental over almost the hardest and most disagreeable bodily labor. Employments which require any kind of technical education, however simple, have hitherto been the subject of a real monopoly as against the mass. But as popular instruction advances, this monopoly is already becoming less complete, and every increase of prudence and foresight among the people encroaches upon it more and more. On the Communist system the impossibility of making the adjustment between different qualities of labor is so strongly felt, that the advocates of the scheme usually find it necessary to provide that all should work by turns at every description of useful labor; an arrangement which, by putting an end to the division of employments, would sacrifice the principal advantage which coöperative production possesses, and would probably reduce the amount of production still lower than in our supposition. And after all, the nominal equality of labor would be so great a real inequality, that justice would revolt against its being enforced. All persons are not equally fit for all labor; and the same quantity of labor is an unequal burthen on the weak and the strong, the hardy and the delicate, the quick and slow, the dull and the intelligent.

Assuming, however, all the success which is claimed for this state of society by its partisans, it remains to be considered how much would be really gained for mankind, and whether the form that would be given to life, and the character which would be impressed on human nature, can satisfy any but a very low estimate of the capabilities of the species. Those who have never known freedom from anxiety as to the means of subsistence, are apt to overrate what is gained for positive enjoyment by the mere absence of that uncertainty. The necessaries of life, when they have always been secure for the whole of life, are scarcely more a subject of consciousness or a source of happiness than the elements. There is little attractive in a monotonous routine, without vicissitudes, but without excitement; a life spent in the enforced observance of an external rule, and performance of a prescribed task; in which labor would be devoid of its chief sweetener, the thought that every effort tells perceptibly on the laborer's own interests or those of some one with whom he identifies himself; in which no one could by his own exertions improve his condition, or that of the objects of his private affections; in which no one's way of life, occupations, or movements, would depend on choice, but each would be the slave of all; a social system in which identity of education and pursuits would impress on all the same unvarying type of character, to the destruction of that multiform development of human nature, those manifold unlikenesses, that diversity of tastes and talents, and variety of intellectual points of view, which by presenting to each innumerable notions that he could not have conceived of himself, are the great stimulus to intellect and the mainspring of mental and moral progression. The perfection of social arrangements would be to secure to all persons complete independence and freedom of action, subject to no restriction but that of not doing injury to others : but the scheme which we are considering abrogates this

freedom entirely, and places every action of every member of the community under command.

I am aware it may be said that the great majority of the species already suffer, in the existing state of society, all the disadvantages which I ascribe to the Communist system. The factory laborer has as monotonous, indeed a more monotonous existence, than a member of an Owenite community; working a greater number of hours, and at the same dull occupation, without the alternation of employment which the Socialist scheme provides. The generality of laborers, in this and most other countries, have as little choice of occupation or freedom of locomotion, are practically as dependent on fixed rules and on the will of others, as they could be on any system short of actual slavery; to say nothing of the entire domestic subjection of one half the species, to whom it is the signal honor of Owenism and most other forms of Communism that they assign equal rights, in all respects, with those of the hitherto dominant sex. Again, it may be said of almost all laborers, on the present system, namely, of all who work by the day, or for a fixed salary, that laboring for the gain of others, not for their own, they have no interest in doing more than the smallest quantity of work which will pass as a fulfilment of the mere terms of their engagement. Production, therefore, it may be said, should be at least as inefficient on the present plan, as it would be from a similar cause under the other.

To take the last argument first, it is true that, for the very reason assigned, namely, the insufficient interest which day-laborers have in the result of their labor, there is a natural tendency in such labor to be extremely inefficient; a tendency only to be overcome by vigilant superintendence on the part of persons who are interested in the result. The "master's eye" is notoriously the only security to be relied If a delegated and hired superintendence is found

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effectual, it is when the superintendents themselves are well superintended, and have a high salary and a privileged situation to lose on being found neglectful of their trust. Superintend them as you will, day-laborers are so much inferior to those who work by the piece, that the latter system is practiced in all industrial occupations to which it is conveniently applicable. And yet it is by no means true that day-laborers, under the present arrangements, have no inducements of private interest to energetic action. They have a strong inducement, that of gaining a character as workmen, which may secure them a preference in employment; and they have often a hope of promotion, and of rising in the world, nor is that hope always disappointed. Where no such possibility is open to the laboring classes, their condition is confessedly wrong, and demands a remedy. With respect to the other objections which I have anticipated, I freely admit them. I believe that the condition of the operatives in a well-regulated manufactory, with a great reduction of the hours of labor and a considerable variety of the kind of it, is very like what the condition of all would be in a Socialist community. I believe that the majority would not exert themselves for anything beyond this, and that unless they did, nobody else would; and that on this basis human life would settle itself into one invariable round. But to maintain even this state, the limitation of the propagative powers of the community must be as much a matter of public regulation as everything else; since under the supposed arrangements prudential restraint would no longer exist. Now, if we suppose an equal degree of regulation to take place under the present system, either compulsorily, or, what would be so much preferable, voluntarily; a condition at least equal to what the Socialist system offers to all, would fall to the lot of the least fortunate, by the mere action of the competitive principle. Whatever of pecuniary means or freedom of action any one obtained