ving loose rein to all the passions
of mankind. How the two are to be practically reconciled--how the utmost
license of the individual is to be combined with the utmost and most
minute supervision of the laws, we leave the socialist to determine.
Such is the miserable tissue of error and confusion which these projects
present to view.

These socialists are fond of inventing new Christianities, and in some
_salons_ in Paris it is, or was till very lately, the fashion to have a
new Christianity propounded every full moon. New enough! They present at
least a sufficient contrast with the old Christianity, and in no other
point more than in this--the complete dependence for the formation of
the character of individuals on the art of grouping and regimenting
them. Christianity has supported for ages monastic institutions,
institutions the most counter to the passions of men, solely by its
strong appeal to the individual conscience. St Simonian institutions, or
delightful _phalansteres_, will in vain flatter every passion and
indulge every sense; if they leave the conscience inert, if nothing is
built on the sense of duty, they will no sooner rise but they will
crumble back again into dust.

But we do not touch upon these fundamental errors of the socialists,
with the superfluous view of showing the impossibility of realizing
their schemes; we note them because their recognition demonstrates at
once the ill influence which must attend on the teaching and constant
agitation of such schemes. On the one hand, all our desires authorized,
and self-control put out of countenance as a mere marplot; on the other
hand, perpetual representations that a government or social organization
could effect every thing, or almost every thing that can be desired for
the happiness of man. What must follow but that men learn to indulge
themselves in a very lax morality, and to make most extravagant demands
on the government, or the legislative force of society? Their notions of
right and wrong, and their ideas of the duty and office of government,
become equally unsettled and erroneous.

We have the authority of M. Reybaud--and we could bring other
authorities if it were necessary--for saying that, in France, the habit
of attributing the vices of individuals, not to their own weakness or
ungoverned propensities, but to the malorganization of society, has
shown itself in a strange and ominous indulgence to crime. It was the
old fashion, he says,