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Under the protection

of the Pro

letariate.

Beggarspassive

proletaries.

Fraternity between the Engineers and Work

men.

When proclaiming the gratuitousness of labour in order to organise the sociocratic existence of the proletaries, the Positive religion may not neglect those who, though in spite of the common education, are temporarily or even permanently incompetent to fulfil their own more peculiar duties. Such inability may be due to a defect in their physical, mental, or moral constitution; it may be due to some defect in the collective organism; in either case Humanity requires that these, her exceptional children, be maintained and made available, not however placed on a level with her full servants. The patriciate, nay even the priesthood, may equally with the proletariate, furnish, in the natural course of things, recruits to this supplementary body, into which fall all who have failed either from accident or from defective organisation. Their maintenance cannot devolve on individuals, inasmuch as they contribute nothing industrially, but must in all cases rest on the free extension to them of a noble fraternity. The Protectorate is one which especially pertains to the proletariate, be it that the class is more keenly alive to circumstances more akin to its own, or rather that it has a clearer sense of the value socially of a body with such complete liberty of action.

All those, whom in our present anarchical state we stigmatise as beggars, may be as valuable members of the poorer class as the so-called leisure class is among the rich. By both, the name of parasite is deserved only if they fail to use the freedom which is their characteristic. Both, though in opposite ways, have an existence without any definite purpose, but they may equally contribute to the public welfare, by perfecting the patrician chivalry or the plebeian supervision. It were to attach a degrading importance to the reproduction of wealth to think that inability to take part in it justifies contempt or oppression. Without taking such part, with no definite duty whatever to perform, a citizen may be habitually rendering great service, he may even attain to honour after death, if he duly put to use the capacity as a citizen which is to balance his incapacity as a workman.

Thus arise, at the two extremes of the proletary body, two natural appendices, the one normal, the other exceptional, each in its own way qualified to concentrate and to complete the general supervision exercised by the body. Equally disposed to fraternise with all plebeians, and from different motives prone to

migratory habits, they will be instinctively led to a special intimacy, with the object of increasing the social influence of the proletariate, when the normal habits and feelings shall exist in any considerable extent. As the highest titles to personal consideration are, in the Positive religion, width of intellect and generosity of feeling, the most active class of the plebeians may rationally fraternise with the most passive, in spite of the discrepancy in their characters.

For the full organisation of human life it remains for me to pass from the relations between citizens to the relations of the States, so to gain a clear idea of the way in which the five hundred separate Republics of the regenerated globe constitute the universal Republic, by virtue of a concert, in all cases perfectly free. But, though their convergence, the convergence of instinct and of reason, will be the noblest result of the religion, and more than in the medieval period is the highest of the priesthood's tasks, yet its explanation at present offers no serious difficulty. For their agreement rests directly on the joint supremacy of the spirit of relativity and of peaceful activity, the two foundations of the altruistic synthesis, the only synthesis of universal acceptance. All that I have to do is to characterise the continual concurrence to this end of the patriciate and proletariate with the priesthood, that priesthood aided throughout by the women and the old men. Although the human family in its entirety requires and admits only a spiritual government, with no admixture of temporal rule, unity of sympathies would be unattainable were not the influence of the practical brought to the support of the counsels of the temporal power.

The rela

tions be

tween States.

prevented by

being subor

Humanity.

Common education, common feelings, nay even common Monopoly language, with these bases, the free harmonious action of the the Country several sociocracies of the earth still calls for the habitual dinated to intervention of the priesthood, aided by all classes, to anticipate or settle disputes, to prepare the way for or promote cooperation. Notwithstanding the universal predominance of industry and peace, and the entire abolition of war, there will always be a liability to outbreaks of national selfishness, under the form, as between nations, of monopoly as the substitute for conquest; as between classes, of the despotism of wealth or numbers. Consequently it will be often the duty of the priesthood to enforce on nations, just as much as on classes, the truth, that the

The Priesthood will

need in this

the aid of

the Bankers

and Proletariate.

The peace of the world, how preserved.

Uniformity of legislation-of

weights and measures.

ascendancy, so universally invoked, of the social over the personal instincts can only be permanently secured by our sympathies being extended from the race. It will be necessary to proclaim that it is as indispensable constantly to subordinate the Country to Humanity, as it is to subordinate the Family to the Country. The limitation of area will support this conviction, each separate Sociocracy being thus preserved from the foolish effort to subsist by its own industry alone and to get rid of all dependence upon other nations.

Yet the checks of intellect and feeling would be inadequate in industrial difficulties, without the freely offered assistance of the supreme patriciate and of the whole proletariate. But with the additional aid of these two classes it will commonly be possible to overcome the disturbing action of a disorderly activity or ill-directed patriotism. For monopolist leanings are peculiarly proper to the capitalists who are directly engaged in industry, whether merchants, manufacturers, or even agriculturists. Bankers as a rule are exempt, owing to the extent of their operations; the proletariate from its complete homogeneity. Nay even within the limits of the popular body, I should point to the engineer class as particularly predisposed to secure the triumph of the social principle both at home and abroad, by virtue of its regular relations with all branches of industrialists.

The fourteen thousand bankers who preside over the developement of the earth's resources, the millions of proletaries with whom they are in habitual contact, will enable the Pontiff to maintain, by his hundred and forty thousand organs, peace upon the planet. Sanctioning patriotism, as an indispensable intermedium between family affection and the love of mankind, the Positive religion transforms it into the persistent disposition to perfect the State. The true citizen renounces monopoly and conquest equally, and will love his country as he loves his lady, exerting himself to render his country a better servant of Humanity, without concealing from himself her shortcomings.

Nor is the establishment of peace the sole aim of the spiritual government of Humanity, it must, with the same auxiliaries, organise, systematically, concert. Exercising a constant influence upon the five hundred dictatorships, the priesthood alone can institute and maintain uniformity in legislation, especially as regards marriage and inheritance, in order to

secure complete moral similarity and to facilitate convergence in action. From it too must come the universal adoption of a suitable system of weights and measures, a natural appendix of Positive education.

From the dynamical point of view, the influence of the Church upon the State, industrially, should be directed to the perfecting industrial harmony by directing the local efforts to their best use. The continuous developement of general sociocratic feeling will soon determine the true aptitude of each country as regards particular branches of agriculture or of manufactures which it should pursue. This determined, the bankers, guided by the scientific instructions of the priesthood and instinctively aided by the engineers, will give the whole system of production its right direction, to the avoidance of misdirected and duplicate efforts, so as to secure in every case the appropriate result.

The last step in the systematic direction of Human activity is the ordering of the largest relations, the relations of the human species, as a collective personality, with all the animal races amenable to discipline, with a view to making the order of things in which we live as perfect as possible.

The standing league of free agents against external necessity, the rudiment of which is traceable to the instinct of Fetichism, becomes under Positivism the chief sphere of political action in the true sense of the term, so soon as the requisite harmony has been introduced into the direction of the world. A Being external to the world, which should guide its affairs, would follow the course naturally taken by human Providence, in first perfecting the highest race, the race most susceptible of improvement. This, the basic improvement, is at the present day summarily expressed by the definitive victory of Relativism over Theologism, of peaceful industry over war. So constituted, the Great Being should inaugurate its maturity by the gradual raising of the auxiliary races which with their own consent it associated during its childhood. An imperious necessity forbids its extending its tutelary sympathy to all animal races, yet it has, at least, the satisfaction of feeling that its enemies are the enemies of its allies, and that by the destruction of its rivals in power it guarantees their existence.

Special in

dustrial ap

titudes of

the several

countries.

The relations the animals.

of man with

The Great
Being must

ameliorate
the condition

of its voluntary allies.

cated ani

Amongst the races which have been disciplined, we must Domest!distinguish between the laboratories of our food and our active

mais.

(i) Those which serve

for food.

(ii) Our active auxi

liars.

Animals not

to be employed where inor

will do.

auxiliars. The first class has long been a creation of human foresight, for without it the ruminants would have disappeared by this time under the teeth of the carnivores. But that they are so is an obligation for us, whilst submitting to the law which compels the use of animal food, to submit in a better spirit by protecting its victims as far as is consistent with our necessities. Up to the last moment, we ought with active sympathy to exert ourselves by improvements in their circumstances and by kind treatment, to make them forget the gloomy prospect their predecessors' fate holds out. At the time of death, those on whom the terrible office devolves will do their work with the seriousness it demands, perfecting the means of destruction in order to lessen suffering. Although its encyclopædic education prompts this class to use the opportunity to make experiments, experiments which should be disallowed by Positive morality in every other case, it will not forget to extend to the innocent the merciful treatment customary with the guilty.

For our auxiliars, the sympathy of man may and should take a more satisfactory course, improving not so much their external conditions as their nature, physical, intellectual, and moral, by the habitual encouragement of true fraternity of feeling. The herbivores will be gradually raised by the Great Being to the dignity of carnivores, so to become more active, more intelligent, nay even more devoted, as they more and more are assimilated to the direct servants of Humanity. As for the animals which are nearest the human type, both in brain and in body, it is for Humanity in its maturity to give systematic direction and expansion to its association with them,— the association of feeling and often of action, which its wellgrounded instinct of sympathy led it to institute during its childhood.

The Positive Economy should always consist in the assigning to every agent the task for which it is fitted, not employing ganic forces for its accomplishment forces which might be turned to a better purpose. On this principle, in Western industry we have reached the point of considering it barbarous to use men as a weight or motive power; all purely mechanical services, not merely statical but dynamical, we project out of ourselves, by the aid of a judicious employment of machines. Hence a simultaneous advance both in personal dignity and in social utility, as we can avail ourselves of the mental and moral value inseparable

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