The well-being of the many comes out more and more distinctly, in
proportion as time goes on, as the object we must pursue. An individual
or a class, concentrating their efforts upon their own well-being
exclusively, do but beget troubles both for others and for themselves
also. No individual life can be truly prosperous, passed, as Obermann
says, in the midst of men who suffer; _passee au milieu des generations
qui souffrent_. To the noble soul, it cannot be happy; to the ignoble,
it cannot be secure. Socialistic and communistic schemes have generally,
however, a fatal defect; they are content with too low and material a
standard of well-being. That instinct of perfection, which is the
master-power in humanity, always rebels at this, and frustrates the
work. Many are to be made partakers of well-being, true; but the ideal
of well-being is not to be, on that account, lowered and coarsened. M.
de Laveleye,[463] the political economist, who is a Belgian and a
Protestant, and whose testimony, therefore, we may the more readily take
about France, says that France, being the country of Europe where the
soil is more divided than anywhere except in Switzerland and Norway, is
at the same time the country where material well-being is most widely
spread, where wealth has of late years increased most, and where
population is least outrunning the limits, which, for the comfort and
progress of the working classes themselves, seem necessary.
Pages:
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491