er
either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert
themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be
exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to.
The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the
greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the
raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the
benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that
we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these
objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how
distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to
render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an
equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated
herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority
of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour
and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social
purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But
the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor
is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of
the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as
readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow
degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive
generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But
the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature.
Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the
generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind
is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on
things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity,
as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred
from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is
capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions
as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which
forms the general character of the existing state of society, is _so_
deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions
tends to foster it; and modern institutions in some respects more than
ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do
anything for