we cannot help thinking that the so-called method of observation has a very pronounced trait of dogmatism in its constitution.
[1050] “The principal object to aim at here is the limitation of the ecclesiastical personnel with a view to keeping them all fully employed,” as he adds later on. He had the same antipathy to religious congregations as he had to other forms of association.
[1051] “No social phenomenon can ever be explained if it is taken out of its own setting. All social science is based upon this law.” (Demolins, La Classification sociale.)
[1052] The similarity noted here has given rise to emphatic protests on the part of certain members of this school. There is no need to take offence at the epithet, however, provided we are careful to distinguish it from philosophic materialism and recognise that it does not necessarily exclude idealism.
[1053] This branch of the school, of which Tourville and Demolins were the earliest leaders, has given us several excellent books. Demolins’ own work on the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons caused quite a stir. Then there is M. de Rousiers’ book on producers’ industrial unions, and P. du Maroussem’s. We would also specially mention Paul Bureau’s Le Contrat de Travail (1902), La Participation aux Bénéfices, and La Crise morale des Temps nouveaux. Bureau’s work is characterised by precise impartial analysis of facts combined with great moral fervour.
[1054] Huet was a professor at Ghent, which accounts for his being considered a Belgian, just as Walras is generally considered a Swiss.
[1055] He was the first to emphasise the importance of borrowers combining. Only in this way can the poor hope to offer some real security. “How is it that the worker cannot borrow? Simply because he has no security to offer except just his work in the future. That future guarantee can only become real and certain by means of combination. Union eliminates the uncertainty which hitherto made the security worthless and the loan impossible.” (La Question du Travail, p. 25.)
“The problem is to outline a state of society where working men will work only for themselves and not for others; where none will reap but has already sown, and where each will enjoy the fruits of his own labour.” (Ibid.)
[1056] “Christianity and revolution as far as humanity is concerned have identical aims, and the one is the natural outcome of the other.” (Buchez, Traité de la Politique, vol. ii, p. 504.)
[1057] Moufang’s principal writings were published in 1864 under the title of Le Question ouvrière et le Christianisme. He could never make up his mind as between the corporative and the co-operative ideal, however. The latter was very much to the front just then, not only in France, but also with the English Christian Socialists and with the German socialist Lassalle. This was before the co-operative movement was eclipsed by trade unionism.