ABSTRACT
It aspires to a complete remolding of the social order. But in order to know what the family, property, political, moral, juridical, and economic organization of the European peoples can and ought to be, even in the near future, it is indispensable to have studied this multitude of institutions and practises in the past, to have searched for the ways in which they varied in history, and for the principal conditions which have determined these variations. And only then will it be possible to ask oneself rationally what they ought to be now-under die present conditions of our collective existence. But all this research is still in its infancy... The bases for a rigorous prediction about the future, especially one of such breadth, are not established14.
