It must not be forgotten that social harmony is the result of the adjustment of conflicting rights and duties. One has to-day to take into consideration the fact that the humblest artisan is working for the good of society just as is the most famous engineer, the greatest inventor, the noblest writer, or the most celebrated statesman. Therefore, being “morally equal in duty, they are morally equal in rights.”
Education, that leveller of castes, dispenser of good, justice, and harmony, is the outcome of the experience of each utilised for the good of all. It should come from ourselves as well as from others, and pass through the way of reason.
“It is through the combined working of all systems of education and hygiene,” says the author of Pessimisme Heroïque, “it is through the combined energy of all educators and hygienists, that we shall with certainty obtain some day fundamental reforms, and immense progress in the physical, intellectual, and moral life of humanity.”
SOCIALISM
Opposed to Individualism, Socialism is the idea of social equality in utilising the power, capital, property, labour, etc., of the community. The generalisation of the term means a social compact, a contract between the members of a society.
Born in the eighteenth century, with the theory of good to be shared by the community, Socialism, which should be a united inherent organisation of the social classes, and of the relations of different classes to one another, has become divided into several hostile cliques. Each has its partisans; there is Possibilist Socialism, the Socialism of Marx, Agrarian Socialism, Parliamentary Socialism, English Municipal Socialism, Collectivist Socialism, State Socialism, Christian Socialism, Pulpit Socialism—and more for aught I know.
The very splitting up of the initial idea which aimed at the regulation of the needs of society, proves that it is a very difficult thing to create, in its entirety, a new social machine, capable of satisfying everyone.
It is above all a question, in my opinion, of discovering a form of association which shall defend and protect by its collective force the person and property of each of its members, and through which each one, while united to all, is answerable only to himself (apart from obligations agreed upon), and remains free in his actions.