Page:The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery.djvu/159

 Robespierre's determination, if he got the power, to put property on a proper basis, that determined the landlords and profitmongers of France to murder him the moment the state of parties and divisions of the people gave them the chance of doing so with safety to themselves.

It is idle to attribute the evils of society to any other source but the ascendancy of these two accursed classes; for no other component parts of society have any interest in oppressing mankind or in debasing humanity. Examine the other constituents of society, and you find them all to be naturally friends and benefactors of their fellow-creatures, and their callings to be essential to the public welfare. All truly Christian ministers give full value for what they get; so do physicians and surgeons; so do engineers, architects, builders, draughtsmen, designers, artists of every kind, sculptors, miniature and portrait painters, musicians, composers, mechanics, and artisans of every description, whether engaged on works of usefulness or ornament, professors and teachers of science and ''belles lettres'', more especially the higher class of scientific men, to whom we owe inventions and discoveries, and the higher class of philosophers, poets, historians, and critics, to whom we owe taste, refinement, and a thousand sources of quiet enjoyment. In short, every man that contributes, either by the labour of his brain or of his hands, to the wealth and enjoyments of society is a valuable member of it, and cannot possibly have an interest in keeping his fellow-creatures in ignorance and bondage. In virtue of their callings, they, and all other persons employed in art and education, as in production and distribution, are naturally interested in just and good government, and in seeing equal rights and equal laws exist for all. But not so landlords and profitmongers: their class-interests are diametrically opposed to the well-being, independence, and happiness of society, of which they have not a right even to form an integral part. We cannot do without Christian pastors, physicians, engineers, architects, builders, professors, artists, and able men devoted to the sciences, without relapsing into barbarism and savagery. But where is the earthly use of a landlord, as a landlord; of a profitmonger, as a profitmonger? All the ingenuity in the world could not point out any legitimate use for these classes. What functions do they perform that could not be better performed without them than with them, and at less than a hundredth part of the cost? What business have they in society at all? They have no lawful business whatever. They are no more a necessary part of the body politic than are wens, tumours, or ulcers necessary parts of the natural human body. Their presence in it is only a proof of the diseased state of the body politic; just as the presence of the others attests an impure state of the blood or functional disorganization. They have no more legitimate right to obtrude themselves on society than a wolf or a tiger has to join and make one of a Christmas party. They exist only for the impoverishment, corruption, enslavement, and destruction of the human race. They are the sole authors of all the calamities known to social existence; and the history of our race is little else than a