man nature. Of course there have been Utopians who applied
the principle indirectly through the intermediary of concepts derived
from it. Thus, _e.g._, in seeking for "perfect legislation," for an
ideal organisation of society, one may start from the concept of the
Rights of Man. But it is evident that in its ultimate analysis this
concept derives from that of human nature.

It is equally evident that one may be a Utopian without being a
Socialist. The bourgeois tendencies of the French Materialists of the
last century are most noticeable in their investigations of a perfect
legislation. But this in no wise destroys the Utopian character of these
enquires. We have seen that the method of the Utopian Socialist does not
in the least differ from that of d'Holbach or Helvetius, those champions
of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie.

Nay, more. One may have the profoundest contempt for all "music of the
future," one may be convinced that the social world in which one has the
good fortune to live is the best possible of all social worlds, and yet
in spite of this one may look at the structure and life of the body
social from the same point of view as that from which the Utopians
regarded it.

This seems a paradox, and yet nothing could be more true. Take but one
example.

In 1753 there appeared Morelly's work, _Les Isles Flottantes ou la
Basiliade du celebre Pelpai, traduit de l'Indien_.[2] Now, note the
arguments with which a review, _La Bibliotheque Impartiale_, combated
the communistic ideas of the author:--"One knows well enough that a
distance separates the finest speculations of this kind and the
possibility of their realisation. For in theory one takes imaginary men
who lend themselves obediently to every arrangement, and who second with
equal zeal the views of the legislator; but as soon as one attempts to
put these things into practice one has to deal with men as they are,
that is to say, submissive, lazy, or else in the thraldom of some
violent passion. The scheme of equality especially is one that seems
most repugnant to the nature of man; they are born to command or to
serve, a middle term is a burden to them."

Men are born to command or to serve. We cannot wonder, therefore, if in
society we see masters and servants, since human nature wills it so. It
was all very well for _La Bibliotheque Impartiale_ to repudiate these
communist speculations. The point of view from which it itself looked
upon social phe