ords while
equality is a fact. Equality should be the great human formula--social
equality, for while individuals have varying values, each must have an
equal share in the social life; and that is only just, because the life
of one human being is equal to the life of another. That formula is of
prodigious importance. The principle of the equal rights of every
living being and the sacred will of the majority is infallible and must
be invincible; all progress will be brought about by it, all, with a
force truly divine. It will bring first the smooth bed-rock of all
progress--the settling of quarrels by that justice which is exactly the
same thing as the general advantage.

And these men of the people, dimly seeing some unknown Revolution
greater than the other, a revolution springing from themselves and
already rising, rising in their throats, repeat "Equality!"

It seems as if they were spelling the word and then reading it
distinctly on all sides--that there is not upon the earth any
privilege, prejudice or injustice that does not collapse in contact
with it. It is an answer to all, a word of sublimity. They revolve the
idea over and over, and find a kind of perfection in it. They see
errors and abuses burning in a brilliant light.

"That would be fine!" said one.

"Too fine to be true!" said another.

But the third said, "It's because it's true that it's fine. It has no
other beauty, mind! And it's not because it's fine that it will come.
Fineness is not in vogue, any more than love is. It's because it's true
that it has to be."

"Then, since justice is wanted by the people, and the people have the
power, let them do it."

"They're beginning already!" said some obscure lips.

"It's the way things are running," declared another.

"When all men have made themselves equal, we shall be forced to unite."

"And there'll no longer be appalling things done in the face of heaven
by thirty million men who don't wish them."

It is true, and there is nothing to reply to it. What pretended
argument or shadow of an answer dare one oppose to it--"There'll no
longer be the things done in the face of heaven by thirty millions of
men who don't want to do them!"

Such is the logic that I hear and follow of the words, spoken by these
pitiful fellows cast upon the field of affliction, the words which
spring from their bruises and pains, the words which bleed from them.

Now, the sky is all overcast. Low down it is armored i