e genuine gentile order, the
mark communes, to the feudal states of at least three of the most
important countries--Germany, North of France, and England--and thus
give a local coherence and the means of resistance to the oppressed
class, the peasants, even under the hardest medieval serfdom; means
which neither the slaves of antiquity nor the modern proletarian found
ready at hand--to whom did they owe this, unless it was again their
barbarism, their exclusively barbarian mode of settling in gentes?

And in conclusion, if they could develop and universally introduce the
mild form of servitude which they had been practicing at home, and which
more and more displaced slavery also in the Roman empire--to whom was it
due, unless it was again their barbarism, thanks to which they had not
yet arrived at complete slavery, neither in the form of the ancient
labor slaves, nor in that of the oriental house slaves?

This milder form of servitude, as Fourier first stated, gave to the
oppressed the means of their gradual emancipation as a class (fournit
aux cultivateurs des moyens d'affranchissement collectif et progressif)
and is therefore far superior to slavery, which permits only the
immediate enfranchisement of the individual without any transitory
stage. Antiquity did not know any abolition of slavery by rebellion, but
the serfs of the middle ages gradually enforced their liberation as a
class.

Every vital and productive germ with which the Germans inoculated the
Roman world, was due to barbarism. Indeed, only barbarians are capable
of rejuvenating a world laboring under the death throes of unnerved
civilization. And the higher stage of barbarism, to which and in which
the Germans worked their way up previous to the migrations, was best
calculated to prepare them for this work. That explains everything.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] Author's note.

The number assumed here is confirmed by a passage of Diodorus on the
Celts of Gaul: "Many nations of unequal strength are living in Gaul. The
strongest of them numbers about 200,000, the weakest 50,000." (Diodorus
Siculus, V., 25.) That gives an average of 125,000. The individual
nations of Gaul, being more highly developed, should be gauged more
numerous than those of Germany.

[31] Translator's note.

3861 square statute miles.

[32] A German geographical mile contains 7,420.44 meters, or 7.42044
kilometers; hence a German geographical square mile contains 55.0629
square kilomet