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ties, b One child is born with a faculty or predisposition for painting. Another has no such faculty; his very organization is against it (he is perhaps too short-sighted to be a painter). What would be meaned by the word Equality applied to these two children? Must both be painters, or neither? Would this be equality? Would it be equality to prohibit one from exercising a power of good or enjoyment naturally possessed by him? To prohibit only one recollect! Republican equality is not any such prohibitory equality as this. The true equality would be to give each child the space, the material, the culture most fitted for his growth, and support, and improvement: that each might be nurtured and educated to the utmost capability of his nature, even though one should grow to be far greater than the other. Or again: Two children will not grow to the same height: must therefore the taller-growing be stunted? Two men have not the same appetite; one needs for health and sustenance twice as much meat as is needed by the other: must one starve while the other fattens to apoplexy; and because their daily rations are of the same weight, shall that be called equality? The equality we desire is at the starting point, and to keep the course, -not to check the career of the fleetest, and make all reach the goal at once or not at all.

This is the equality which the Suffrage alone can give us. It is for this that we require the Suffrage as the public recognition and legal guarantee of our equality. For we cannot believe that we shall be treated equally (which means justly) by any who would hesitate to acknowledge and assure our equality. And this, spite of all that may be said in denial of rights, is the equality of birthright, the sense in which all men are born equal, and so should live equal. The tyrant, the aristocrat, the liberal utilitarian, deny that I have any right—even to my own life, to myself; and so they refuse me the suffrage-the public recognition and legal means of using that right. But if I have no right to my own life, who has? Some other man or men? Surely such a theory is too preposterous. Or is it the State alone in which all rights are vested? But what is the State? Am I a part of it? If not, what right can a foreign State have in me? If I am a part of it, only passive, what right have any to kidnap me and make me a passive part, a tool, a slave, of some collection of my fellow men, calling themselves a State? If I am recognized as an active part of the State,-that is conceding me the Suffrage-the claim to stand upon equal ground before the law, that the law made by all may care for all-may care that all are treated equally: that is to say, that the nature of each shall have full room for development, the life of none be hindered or cleared away to foster or make room for the rankness of another. Without this equality liberty is only a deception.'

For the Liberty we want is for the growth of all. Liberty, except upon the ground of equality, would be only the liberty of the stronger,-the liberty which exists in France and England, and among savage tribes,—the liberty which would satisfy Messrs. Proudhon, Girardin, Cobden, and others of the 'free-trade' and

It matters not here to go into the much vexed question of circumstances. Whatever weight may be attached to the force of circumstances after birth, it cannot be denied that circumstances before birth have also weight. No two children are absolutely alike: no two are born with precisely the same aptitude or capacity.

anti-monopoly school, the liberty which is not regulated, of the Arab kind, every-man's hand against every man, and the weakest going to the wall. We want not this liberty, but that diviner liberty which must be regulated by law, guaranteed upon the ground of human equality-the liberty which is unchecked opportunity of growth even for the least and weakest. The least, whose growth is stunted by the overshadowing of another, is a victim; there is liberty there for one, but not equality and liberty for both. The weakest whose growth must take the bent of another's stronger will, is a slave; there is liberty there too for the stronger, but not equal liberty for both.

And as liberty falls without equality; so also equality fails without liberty. There may be equality under a despot, or in a well-ordered community, without liberty; but how then shall there be various growth, free growth, and progress? We want equal liberty for all: because we want the various growth of all for the collective progress of Humanity. Fraternity is the organization of this equal liberty, the harmonization of this various growth. We do not believe that any man lives only for himself; or that a man's life is bounded by his family, or his neighbours, or his parish, or his country. Family, parish or city, country, these are but so many spheres in which the human life is perfected, in which it lives, from which it draws its growth; to which it therefore owes the product of its growth. Humanity we believe to be one whole, which ought to be harmonized together, continually reciprocating all the advantages which commerce or science (physical or mental science) can procure,-which ought to be organized so that a physical victory once gained by a part of the race should be a triumph for the whole,— so that a moral gain achieved by an individual should be a possession for the whole,—a mutual assurance and copartnership, by means of which the whole world should uphold the weakest, through which the universal progress should step steadily on from aspiration to acquirement, higher and ever higher. This is our definition of Fraternity.

The organization of Humanity is, therefore, the problem which the Republican proposes to himself. This is the meaning of his formula-Equality, Liberty, Fraternity. Equality of right, freedom of growth, organization of duty,-these for our means, and the progress of Humanity for end.

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PERFECTIBILITY-DUTY.

We believe in the progressive development of human faculties and forces in the direction of the moral law which has been imposed upon us.'

We cannot be said to believe in Humanity, unless we believe in its progressive development. Deny progress and development, and Humanity is but an idle word. It would mean only the men and women of the present generation, to whom any one might dispute his owing any duty, if he chose to live secluded and severed from them, helping and hurting none, refusing to receive or give, to have any dealings, to make any bargains with them. For cut off the past and the future, and one may well consider all connection with mankind as matter of bargain, and be not in anywise his brother's keeper,' but as careless of his next neighbour as of one at the antipodes.

But Humanity means the whole, the totality of human kind: not only the men and women of this 'present generation,' but of all ages, past, present and

to come. You cannot confine yourself to the present generation. What, indeed, is the 'present generation,' when every day adds and takes away a thousand lives in this little corner of Britain alone? Every minute how many of the 'present generation' becoming numbered with the past-every minute the future generation coming into presence.

Here is the basis of duty toward Humanity-the duty which is imposed upon us as a moral law, a law of God-the duty which is the relation of a part to the whole. As well might the atoms of a diamond, or the several parts of a flower, deny their position with relation to the perfect diamond or the flower, as man deny his position as a part of Humanity,-disclaiming the duties which such position entails, refusing the service to which he is so bound, with the poor current excuse, that it is not his place' to perform such dutiful service. The common expression intimates the common duty. It is a man's place' to serve Humanity: the place of the part, in subservience to the whole.

What shall he serve except this progressive development? What is the meaning of all history, if it is not this ?-that the struggles and sacrifices of one generation are made for another; that the triumphs of the Past are inherited by the Future; that a gain in any corner of the world spreads, slowly or rapidly, over the whole globe; and that To-day stores all the harvest of the former ages, not for its own consuming, but for transmission to the Future-borrowing the sustenance and support needful for its own brief journey, and repaying with the interest of whatever its own exertions can accumulate. To-day is but the steward, who hands the wealth of the Past to the real heir-the Future. Let us mount never so high over the piled-up-treasures of the Past, the summit of our achievement will be only a vantage ground, from which the Future shall start in quest of loftier worth.

How shall one isolate himself from the Future or from the Past? How from the Future, when not a deed he may do, nor a word he may utter, nor a thought that stirs his innermost soul, but is as the first touch upon the electric wire, repeating its consequences to countless ages? How from the Past? Take any Englishman among us; is not his nature and organization, his very conformation, the result of ages? Is he nothing changed, in no way advanced from the first savage of the world? Have not Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, each and all, contributed to form him such as he is? Nor only Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, but also all who had previously helped to form them. Is not his very physical structure a growth and combination, fed and collected from nearly every portion of the world? Is not his mind somewhat richer for the thoughts of all time; his knowledge the sum of the acquirements of all times? Be he never so poor, is he not a debtor to the Past? Have not the religions of the Past done something for him? has not the science of the Past done something too? Which of us taught himself to till the earth? Which of us has discovered, for his own behoof, the whole art and mystery of clothing? Which of us crosses the ocean without aid from those who have gone before? Which of us is not indebted for some of those high-soaring and holy thoughts, which light even the darkest hearts, and brighten even the dullest eyes, to the buried poets and prophets of Humanity? In infancy, youth, sickness, accident, and age, we depend, upon the services of others: in vigorous manhood we are no more independent,

through sometimes we compel the contribution without which we should scarcely exist? What more argument is needed to prove that man is a part of Humanity -a debtor to Humanity; that the part must bear relation to the whole, that the debtor owes has duties. Let the honest man pay his debt! This is the moral law imposed upon us; and the fulfilment of this consists in aiding to our uttermost by thought, and word, and act, the progressive development of human faculties and forces.'

ASSOCIATION.

We believe in association as the only regular means which can attain this end. How else? If men would navigate a ship they associate. If they would work a mine, or reclaim a waste land, they associate. If they would build a town, they associate. If they would make war, for conquest or in self-defence, still they must associate. The Laissez-faire (the let-alone) system can only suit those who have no recognition of Humanity as a whole, nor knowledge of any relation between men except that of buyers and sellers whose sole business is personal gain. Yet even in the market there is association, though it be only of some few over-crafty men, to monopolize, to steal an exaggerated price. If buying and selling be the end of society, the purpose and religion of life, and no matter how many of God's creatures are naked, starved, stunted, or trodden into the dust, then association may be of little consequence. But the human world has

higher destinies than this. Yet the very wolves hunt in packs. The old fable of the bundle of sticks retains its significance: woc to the disunited; strength only to the combined.

We believe in Association: that is to say, in

Government-which is association of forces,

Religion-association for the development of the moral law.

Education-the application of that law, the association of intellect.

Social Economy-the association of labour.

The Nation-the association of all the divers faculties of man, in their natural and peculiar spheres.

And Humanity-the association of nations.

But the association we require is not a compulsory association. That was the way they built the pyramids; that has ever been the mode in which tyrants have used the masses-their slaves. We would not even have the finest compulsory association, though it might be regulated by the patriarchs; nor the most admirable community of beavers, content so long as every one can take what he deems his just share out of the common storehouse.

Not chance association either. We would not trust to the accidental partnerships of men combined for some special end: an East India Company, or a classgovernment, associating to rob the world.

We need an association bound together by faith and identity of purpose, rather than by so weak a tie as that of interest,'-an association that shall be expansive, with power of growth, not stationary,―an association in which the tyranny of a centre shall be impossible, in which the fullest growth and widest range of the individual shall be held compatible with the most devoted service to the Republic, yet an association kept together not only by the careful protection of

individual rights, but rather by the harmonious rendering and ordering of social duties, every member of the State intent upon building up the glory and advaneing the progress of the whole, even as he would build an altar to the Eternal, or advance his own progress toward the perfection of the Most Perfect.

We need the organized association of the People-the universality of the citizens free and equal in the several spheres of family, city, and country; and the association of countries. And we need this in order to develope, to economise, and to direct all the faculties and forces of Humanity to make the whole one strong life, healthily educated, maturely wise, self-sustained, and self-collected, surely aimed. Association would leave no powers unused, no efforts undirected. Without association men either bury themselves in miserable egotisms, or, but too often, waste valuable energies in foolish-albeit generous-endeavours to serve their race. Without association the brotherhood of Humanity would be 'an unrealizable programme,' and the progression of Humanity a never-accomplished dream.

FAMILY-CITY-COUNTRY.

'We believe in Family, City, and Country, as so many progressive spheres in which man ought to successively grow in the knowledge and practice of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Association.'

THE first sphere of association is the Family,—the first step out of self, the first phase in the practical education of the mature human being.

The child lives for itself: is, (or should be) employed, not for Humanity, but for itself. The natural course of a child's life is the perception, the search, and the gathering, of good for itself, in order to perfect its own nature, to prepare it for serving Humanity. To this end parents and friends wait upon it, and minister to it, requiring no return. Hope sings to it his sweetest songs, furling his vast wings, and walking, as if he were an earthly playmate, with the inexperienced young one. All great and joyous influences are but its playthings, the world its foot-ball, and delights its proper food. For the child's business is not to do, nor to suffer (truly, it must both do and suffer, but that is not its business), but to be fostered, and so enabled to grow to its full strength and stature. Childhood over, the world claims the fresh worker, God calls his martyr. Self perfected, the sacrifice of Self (that is to say-service) is next. The child enjoys -the adult loves. For enjoyment is neither the object nor the end of love. Ask of any man who has truly loved,-or rather ask of any woman who has loved (not merely accepted a husband) whether the passion meaned possession-enjoyment; whether it was not utterly independent of possession or enjoyment, an adoration rather than a desire; whether it was not a sublime soaring out of Self, the first endeavour to realize a good not necessarily to be shared, and rather strengthened than diminished if bringing suffering instead of joy. God has given us love to lead us from the narrowness of Self to the divine width and grandeur of the unselfish spirit of the true worker-the worshipper and realizer of beauty. The lovers are united, and the two becoming one, in their very union is danger of stepping back to selfishness; but now children preach the doctrine of sacrifice of duty and service. In these two relations of life are the types of the present, and future, in which is involved the whole of human duty.

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