How demoralizing is not the effect of the hope of inheriting
upon the children, and, in a still greater degree, upon relatives! What
vile qualities are not awakened; and how many are not the crimes that
such hopes have led to!--murder, forgery, perjury, extortion, etc.
Capitalist society has no reason to be proud of its laws of
inheritance; to them are ascribable part of the crimes that are
committed every year; and yet the large majority of people have nothing
to bequeath or to inherit.[219]

The moral and physical condition of future society; the nature of its
work, homes, food, clothing, its social life--everything will greatly
contribute to avoid accidents, sickness, debility. Natural death by the
decline of the vigor of life will become the rule. The conviction that
"heaven" is on earth, and that to be dead means to be ended, will cause
people to lead rational lives.[220] He enjoys most who enjoys longest.
None know how to appreciate a long life better than the very clergy who
prepare people for the "after world;" a life free from care makes it
possible for these gentlemen to reach the highest age average.[221]

Life requires, first of all, food and drink. Friends of the so-called
"natural way of living" often ask why is Socialism indifferent to
vegetarianism. The question causes us to take up the subject in a few
lines. Vegetarianism, that is, the doctrine that prescribes an exclusive
vegetal diet, found its first supporters in such circles as are in the
agreeable position of being able to choose between a vegetal and an
animal diet. To the large majority of people there is no such choice:
they are forced to live according to their means, the meagerness of
which in many instances keeps them almost exclusively to a vegetal diet,
and to the least nutritive, at that. With our working class population
in Silesia, Saxony, Thuringen, etc., the potato is the principal
nourishment; even bread comes in only secondarily; meat, and then only
of poor quality, is hardly ever seen on the table. Even the largest part
of the rural population, although they are the raisers of cattle, rarely
partake of meat: they must sell the cattle in order to satisfy other
pressing wants with the money obtained therefor.

For the innumerable people, who are compelled to live as vegetarians, an
occasional solid beefsteak, or good leg of mutton, would be a decided
improvement in the diet. When vegetarianism directs itself against the
overrating