They pretend, to stop it in its downward course,
and to give it a better direction. They have, therefore, received from
heaven, intelligence and virtues which place them beyond and above
mankind: let them show their title to this superiority. They would be
our shepherds, and we are to be their flock. This arrangement
presupposes in them a natural superiority, the right to which we are
fully justified in calling upon them to prove.
You must observe that I am not contending against their right to invent
social combinations, to propagate them, to recommend them, and to try
them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk; but I do dispute
their right to impose them upon us through the medium of the law, that
is, by force and by public taxes.
I would not insist upon the Cabetists, the Fourierists, the
Proudhonians, the Universitaries, and the Protectionists renouncing
their own particular ideas; I would only have them renounce that idea
which is common to them all,--viz., that of subjecting us by force to
their own groups and series to their social workshops, to their
gratuitous bank to their Graeco-Romano morality, and to their commercial
restrictions. I would ask them to allow us the faculty of judging of
their plans, and not to oblige us to adopt them, if we find that they
hurt our interests or are repugnant to our consciences.
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