ABSTRACT
In France, where the reconstruction of the political edifice afforded an ampler scope for the radical renovation of the social system, the labors of the Communists, Fourierites and Saint Simonians have only increased the misery and degradation of the masses whose condition they sought to elevate. In the overthrow of Louis Philippe the interests of a whole community preponderated over those of a dynasty. But the plan proposed by Communism to remedy inequality in the distribution of property, is to be condemned not alone because of the apparently insuperable obstacles in the way of its execution, and because of the fruitless strife and bloodshed that would ensue from forcible efforts to establish it, but, in addition to these important considerations, because of its inefficacy to produce more than temporary relief. The necessaries of life, when they have always been secure for the whole of life, are scarcely more a subject of consciousness are a source of happiness than the elements.
