Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/256

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS should give themselves full play. So much is necessary to men who dare not look destiny full in the face: it is necessary to replace the lost religions which promised eternal happiness by the illusion of prophecies, by the terrestrial paradise about to be. Prophesy on; the generations who sleep far away in the future will not rise up from the ground to confound you.

In 1848 the Republic believed itself on the eve of the great day, and we saw many builders of future cities. Do you remember the sittings of the Constituent and of the Legislative Assemblies where Pierre Leroux, where Victor Considérant, where Proudhon detailed, as you are shortly about to do, plans of the new society? A very great number pronounced themselves in favor of the suppression of individual property. Long before them Thomas Morus, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, had condemned individual property in terms more definite than those which you could employ. These men were not inferior to you. Where are they now? Where? You have replaced them, as others will shortly replace you.

The truth is that we must distinguish, in the social organization, two things: the man and the environment. It appears more simple to theoretically reform the environment; every one goes about that at his pleasure, but if you consider that the environment of the social organization is, and can be only the product of successive human conceptions, you will see that to 220