incapable of defending their rights, but were yet intelligent
enough to perform their toil, which highly perfected machines rendered
extremely simple. Thus the proletarians were unable to do anything to
improve their lot. With difficulty did they succeed by means of strikes
in maintaining the rate of their wages. Even this means began to fail
them. The alternations of production inherent in the capitalist system
caused such cessations of work that, in several branches of industry, as
soon as a strike was declared, the accumulation of products allowed
the employers to dispense with the strikers. In a word, these miserable
employees were plunged in a gloomy apathy that nothing enlightened and
nothing exasperated. They were necessary instruments for the social
order and well adapted to their purpose.

Upon the whole, this social order seemed the most firmly established
that had yet been seen, at least amon kind, for that of bees and ants is
incomparably more stable. Nothing could foreshadow the ruin of a system
founded on what is strongest in human nature, pride and cupidity.
However, keen observers discovered several grounds for uneasiness. The
most certain, although the least apparent, were of an economic order,
and consisted in the continually increasing amount of over-production,
which entailed long and cruel interruptions of labour, though these
were, it is true, utilized by the manufacturers as a means of breaking
the power of the workmen, by facing them with the prospect of a
lock-out. A more obvious peril resulted from the physiological state of
almost the entire population. "The health of the poor is what it must
be," said the experts in hygiene, "but that of the rich leaves much to
be desired." It was not difficult to find the causes of this. The supply
of oxygen necessary for life was insufficient in the city, and men
breathed in an artificial air. The food trusts, by means of the most
daring chemical syntheses, produced artificial wines, meat, milk, fruit,
and vegetables, and the diet thus imposed gave rise to stomach and brain
troubles. The multi-millionaires were bald at the age of eighteen; some
showed from time to time a dangerous weakness of mind. Over-strung and
enfeebled, they gave enormous sums to ignorant charlatans; and it was a
common thing for some bath-attendant or other trumpery who turned healer
or prophet, to make a rapid fortune by the practice of medicine or
theology. The number of lunatics in