CONCLUSIONS

=Utopia and the Realizable Ideal.=--The term Utopia may be applied to
every ideal project elaborated by human imagination for the future
welfare of society, which has no healthy and real foundation, is
contrary to human nature and the results of experience, and has
consequently no chance of success. Persons of conservative minds who
live in prejudice and in the faith of authority apply the term Utopia
to every ideal which has not been legalized and sanctioned by time,
custom, or authority. This is a grave error, which, if it always
prevailed, would bar the way to all social progress.

As regards the ideal, the future may realize much progress that the
past has not known, and on this point Ben Akiba was wrong in saying
that "there is nothing new under the sun." International
communication, universal postage, the suppression of slavery in
civilized countries, the artificial feeding of new-born infants, the
telephone, wireless telegraphy, etc., are realized advances which had
formerly never appeared on the horizon of humanity, and which would
have been regarded as impossible fantasies, or Utopias.

Why should the common use of an international language and the
suppression of war between civilized countries be Utopias? The most
diverse races already speak English, and all might learn Esperanto. In
the interior of countries such as France and Germany, etc., the old
feudal wars ceased long ago. Why should a more and more international
union between men be impossible?

Why should the suppression of the use of narcotic substances such as
alcohol, opium, hashish, etc., which poison entire nations, be
Utopian? Why should it be the same with the economic reform desired by
socialists, that is the equitable division of wages; for example, by
the aid of a cooperative system or by the reduction of capital to a
minimum?

These things are all possible, and even necessary for the natural and
progressive development of humanity. It is only the prejudice of old
customs, based on the conservative tendency of sentiments, which
opposes these projects and tries to ridicule them by calling them
Utopian. In its shortsightedness, it does not see the change which
occurs all over the world in the social relations of men, or does not
estimate them at their true value, and it cannot abandon its old
idols.

Lastly, why should rational reforms in the sexual domain be more
difficult to realize than the artificial feeding of infa