A notch higher, we find the state called serfdom, where man is not wholly interdicted to own property, and where he is allowed a family, which fact constitutes the superiority of serfdom over slavery. It is obvious that in a state of slavery, there can be no family: a man, the property of another, liable to be bought and sold, can have no family. Serfdom, which in the Middle Ages existed in all European societies, and but recently was abolished in Russia, allowed the individual a family, and in a certain measure even the right of property; but he was a part of the land on which he was born, and, like that land, belonged to a master, a lord.
The serf then was, as it is commonly called, attached to the glebe, to the land, unable to leave it, unable to buy or sell except under extremely restricted conditions, and thus a part of the soil on which he was born, he belonged with that soil to his lord. This state of things was gradually bettered. The serfs, little by little, acquired by their work a small capital; they succeeded in buying their liberty from their lords. It is this which gave rise to that ancient society, called ancien régime, which preceded the French Revolution. But all men were not serfs; things had not reached that point; serfdom had already been abolished by means of certain contracts, certain sums of money which the workingmen paid as a sign of their former thraldom. Yet was there still in force much that was iniquitous, forming what is called an aristocratic society, where, for example, some men had the exclusive right of holding and transmitting to their children territorial property, which they were not allowed to put in trade, the exclusive right of holding public functions, of having grades in the army, the right of hunting and fishing, etc. And conversely, on the other hand, whilst the minority enjoyed so exclusively all these privileges, the costs of society rested on the greater number, and these costs the serfs were obliged to pay. Hence a society in which there were classes, since the law conferred social advantages on some in preference to others, and heavy burdens resting on some without resting on others.
As it is not my purpose to write here the history of modern society, I need not enter into all the details of these facts, which are, besides, quite well known.
You all know that these great social injustices and iniquitous practices disappeared at the time of the Revolution, and that the principal object of the French Revolution of 1789 was precisely to suppress all these privileges conceded to some, and these burdens unequally imposed on others. From that moment, there was equality in law, that is to say, that all men belonging to our present society are allowed to accumulate property, exercise public functions, rise to higher grades—in a word, are considered fit to obtain all the advantages which society has to offer, and which nature allows them to desire and acquire.
Since 1789, society, as a matter of course, has continued to move in the same grooves, and, thanks to work and competition, all that which still existed by way of social inequalities has gradually disappeared; if, by chance, there still remain in our laws such vestiges of former inequality, they will in time, and with the help of all enlightened men, disappear; for it is now a truth fully recognized that the good of humanity demands that at least all legal inequalities should be done away with, and that all men, without distinction, should be allowed to acquire any advantages which their special faculties, and the conditions wherein they are placed, enable them to acquire. I say, then, that this being the case, there is no reason why, in the present state of society, men should any longer be designated by classes. They are men, and men alone, and as such they should be allowed to enjoy common advantages, to live by their work—namely, to constitute themselves into families, to cultivate their intelligence, to worship God according to their conscience—in a word, to enjoy all the rights we call the rights of a man and citizen.
But when in a society all legal inequalities have been suppressed, does it necessarily follow that an absolute equality will be the final result? No. Society can only do away with inequalities of its own making; inequalities which, from causes we have not time here to set forth, were added to the already existing natural inequalities. For there are natural inequalities; inequalities which may be called individual inequalities, there being no two persons in the world exactly the same. From this fact alone—men being in a thousand ways different from each other—it necessarily follows that each man’s condition is different from that of his fellow-men. Hence an infinite multitude of inequalities which have always existed and always will exist, because they result from the nature of things; and such inequalities must be clearly distinguished from those dependent on the law.
What now are the principal causes of these inequalities, which I call individual inequalities? They are of two kinds: the inherent faculties of the individual, and the circumstances wherein he is placed.
The faculties of the individual are the work of nature: they spring from his moral and physical organization; and, as I have said above, there being no two men exactly alike, either physically or morally, it naturally follows that there are differences, and these differences bring with them inequalities. Let us, for instance, take the most important of all these differences, namely, physical strength, health. Man is a living being, an organized being, and his organization is subject to the most delicate, most numerous, most complicated conditions. Hence many differences. Some are born strong, robust, able to brave all kinds of temperatures, all sorts of trials—trials of work, of outside events, sometimes the trials of their own excesses even.
Others, on the contrary, are born with a feeble constitution; they are weak, delicate, they cannot bear trials the same as the others.
This is a first difference, and this difference, you well know, may be subdivided into a multitude of others; for there are no two individuals equally healthy, equally strong. What will be the natural result? This, for example: that where strength is required (and every one needs more or less physical strength to accomplish certain heavy works), the strongest will have the advantage over the others; and, after a certain time, of two men who started at the same time, under the same conditions, with equal moral advantages, one, owing to his physical strength, shall have accomplished a great deal, and the other less; one shall have earned much, the other little: their career is unequal.