"I feel as deeply as you, sir, the abuses which you point out;but I have so great an affection for order,--not that common and strait-laced order with which the police are satisfied, but the majestic and imposing order of human societies,--that I sometimes find myself embarrassed in attacking certain abuses.I like to rebuild with one hand when I am compelled to destroy with the other.In pruning an old tree, we guard against destruction of the buds and fruit.You know that as well as any one.You are a wise and learned man; you have a thoughtful mind.The terms by which you characterize the fanatics of our day are strong enough to reassure the most suspicious imaginations as to your intentions; but you conclude in favor of the abolition of property! You wish to abolish the most powerful motor of the human mind; you attack the paternal sentiment in its sweetest illusions; with one word you arrest the formation of capital, and we build henceforth upon the sand instead of on a rock.That Icannot agree to; and for that reason I have criticised your book, so full of beautiful pages, so brilliant with knowledge and fervor!
"I wish, sir, that my impaired health would permit me to examine with you, page by page, the memoir which you have done me the honor to address to me publicly and personally; I think I could offer some important criticisms.For the moment, I must content myself with thanking you for the kind words in which you have seen fit to speak of me.We each possess the merit of sincerity;I desire also the merit of prudence.You know how deep-seated is the disease under which the working-people are suffering; I know how many noble hearts beat under those rude garments, and I feel an irresistible and fraternal sympathy with the thousands of brave people who rise early in the morning to labor, to pay their taxes, and to make our country strong.I try to serve and enlighten them, whereas some endeavor to mislead them.You have not written directly for them.You have issued two magnificent manifestoes, the second more guarded than the first; issue a third more guarded than the second, and you will take high rank in science, whose first precept is calmness and impartiality.
"Farewell, sir! No man's esteem for another can exceed mine for you.
"BLANQUI."
I should certainly take some exceptions to this noble and eloquent letter; but I confess that I am more inclined to realize the prediction with which it terminates than to augment needlessly the number of my antagonists.So much controversy fatigues and wearies me.The intelligence expended in the warfare of words is like that employed in battle: it is intelligence wasted.M.Blanqui acknowledges that property is abused in many harmful ways; I call PROPERTY the sum these abuses exclusively.To each of us property seems a polygon whose angles need knocking off; but, the operation performed, M.
Blanqui maintains that the figure will still be a polygon (an hypothesis admitted in mathematics, although not proven), while Iconsider that this figure will be a circle.Honest people can at least understand one another.
For the rest, I allow that, in the present state of the question, the mind may legitimately hesitate before deciding in favor of the abolition of property.To gain the victory for one's cause, it does not suffice simply to overthrow a principle generally recognized, which has the indisputable merit of systematically recapitulating our political theories; it is also necessary to establish the opposite principle, and to formulate the system which must proceed from it.Still further, it is necessary to show the method by which the new system will satisfy all the moral and political needs which induced the establishment of the first.On the following conditions, then, of subsequent evidence, depends the correctness of my preceding arguments:--The discovery of a system of absolute equality in which all existing institutions, save property, or the sum of the abuses of property, not only may find a place, but may themselves serve as instruments of equality: individual liberty, the division of power, the public ministry, the jury system, administrative and judicial organization, the unity and completeness of instruction, marriage, the family, heredity in direct and collateral succession, the right of sale and exchange, the right to make a will, and even birthright,--a system which, better than property, guarantees the formation of capital and keeps up the courage of all; which, from a superior point of view, explains, corrects, and completes the theories of association hitherto proposed, from Plato and Pythagoras to Babeuf, Saint Simon, and Fourier; a system, finally, which, serving as a means of transition, is immediately applicable.
A work so vast requires, I am aware, the united efforts of twenty Montesquieus; nevertheless, if it is not given to a single man to finish, a single one can commence, the enterprise.The road that he shall traverse will suffice to show the end and assure the result.
