The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-04

or NJ Louis Blanc, who is still alive and
living in this country, / hesitate TO express
any personal opinion. The reader may ind
his theory in little book called "Orga-
nisation du Travail, and q still more com
pact exposition of the foundation of this
theory is to be found on page 100 of his "His-
torical Revelations" inscribed TO Lord Nor
manly. His formula is, in opposition to his
predecessor, From every man according to
his faculties; to every man (within the limits
OF the resources of the community according
to his wants. Many objected that by this
formula the most gifted men would be forced
to spend the whole Of their life in supporting
incapables, and even idiots but still the
theory had considerable success amongst
Partisan work1ngmen some twenty Years ago.
Yet the opinion of thinking men of his own
country was opposed to it. Here is the OPT
nion of one of them
an. Blanc would be greatly surprised II any one
were to show him the perpetual mixture he makes
in his book OF the most opposite principles Of autho
aristocracy and equality OF labor and capital of in
terest and self-denal, Of liberty and Dictatorship
Blanc, placed on the confines OF democracy and
socialism, one degree lower than the republic, two
degrees under M. Barrot three under NJ THEIRS is
notwithstanding all he .may say and do-a de-
scendant in the fourth generation of NJ, Gulzot, a
tions EcOnomiques" Vol. /, 226)
There exists amongst Frenchmen convic-
tion of some special logical qualification of
the French mind, a conviction which is fully
shared by nj. Louis Blanc, and which he has
lately made in the Temps basis of a criti-
cism of leading article of the Pal MdU
Gazette. This conviction seems not to be
generally shared by Englishmen, who sup
pose that the amount of logical power is
pretty equal amongst equally civilized people.
But, at all events, nobody who has read the
works of PrOudhon will DENY to him the NOS
session of this power in the high degree
claimed by Nenchmen in general And
those who have not read his work should do
so, or at least the one just quoted. 1t is not
always easy reading, for Proudhon is full of
German philosophy, and more especially of
Hegel; but nowhere else can he reader find
a better exposition and refutation
of communism; and this not
by defender of existing social arrangements,
but by man who declared property to be
robbery He attacks the present state of
things, but he despises the innovators
"Les sujets formes par les soins du communisme
nauront plus besoin de parer, de penser nj d'agir
ce seront des huitres attaches cote q cete sans
activite nj sentiment, sur lie rocher de la
fraternite A quel degre d'abaissement in
ellectuel faut que nous soyons parvenus, pour que
aH Ia GrqTe cToe oogee en AZ Fan @ SS de
votre presence NEST une puanteur ct votre vue me
degoute. Ibid, Vol. II, p 267-271.
Proudhon should certainly be one of the
first to be considered in reviewing modern
radicals; but abstain because, in the first
place, hold it an offense to his memory to
speak of him, in few lines, in a country
where he is almost unknown; and in the
| second place, because the whole work of his
life was one of criticism, not one of organiza-
ton or reconstruction of society. And it is
only this last category of radicals which had
in view in these letters.