t effecting
by positive institution. The owner of capital is by no means to consider
himself its absolute proprietor. Legally he is not to be controlled in
his dealings with it, for power should be in proportion to
responsibility: but it does not belong to him for his own use; he is
merely entrusted by society with a portion of the accumulations made by
the past providence of mankind, to be administered for the benefit of
the present generation and of posterity, under the obligation of
preserving them unimpaired, and handing them down, more or less
augmented, to our successors. He is not entitled to dissipate them, or
divert them from the service of Humanity to his own pleasures. Nor has
he a moral right to consume on himself the whole even of his profits. He
is bound in conscience, if they exceed his reasonable wants, to employ
the surplus in improving either the efficiency of his operations, or the
physical and mental condition of his labourers. The portion of his gains
which he may appropriate to his own use, must be decided by himself,
under accountability to opinion; and opinion ought not to look very
narrowly into the matter, nor hold him to a rigid reckoning for any
moderate indulgence of luxury or ostentation; since under the great
responsibilities that will be imposed on him, the position of an
employer of labour will be so much less desirable, to any one in whom
the instincts of pride and vanity are not strong, than the "heureuse
insouciance" of a labourer, that those instincts must be to a certain
degree indulged, or no one would undertake the office. With this
limitation, every employer is a mere administrator of his possessions,
for his work-people and for society at large. If he indulges himself
lavishly, without reserving an ample remuneration for all who are
employed under him, he is morally culpable, and will incur sacerdotal
admonition. This state of things necessarily implies that capital should
be in few hands, because, as M. Comte observes, without great riches,
the obligations which society ought to impose, could not be fulfilled
without an amount of personal abnegation that it would be hopeless to
expect. If a person is conspicuously qualified for the conduct of an
industrial enterprise, but destitute of the fortune necessary for
undertaking it, M. Comte recommends that he should be enriched by
subscription, or, in cases of sufficient importance, by the State. Small
landed proprietors and capitalis