An examination of Louis Blanc’s social philosophy is best begun by asking the question: what is in his opinion the aim of life? The answer to it is the starting-point from which all his arguments proceed. Louis Blanc finds the purpose of human existence to be happiness and development. Any acceptable, any tolerable organization of society must make both possible for every single human being. While development may come first, “it is repugnant to reason to admit in the theory of progress that humanity ought forever to be a victim of I do not know what strange and terrible combat between the flesh and the spirit.”[103] But what does development imply? It signifies that every one should enjoy precisely those means which are required for his largest mental, moral, and physical growth; or, to express it in a word, for the perfection of his personality. These requirements are for each individual his _needs_. The next question we have to ask is this: Does our present society guarantee to every member of it his needs? If it does not, it must be condemned. Obviously it does not. It is a war of all against all, a _bellum omnium contra omnes_. It is a society whose fundamental principle is competition, and competition means universal warfare. Every man’s hand is against his brother. Individualism reigns, the principle of which is that, “taking man outside of society, it renders him the sole and exclusive judge of that which surrounds him, gives him an exalted sentiment of his rights without indicating to him his duties, abandons him to his own powers, and proclaims _laissez-faire_ as the only rule of government.”[104] The result of this is want and misery, rendering the fulfilment of his destiny impossible to man. This must be corrected by a new organization of labor, which, abandoning individualism, private property, and private competition, the fundamentals of existing society, shall adopt fraternity as its controlling principle. “Fraternity means that we are all common members (_membres solidaires_) of one great family; that society, the work of man, ought to be organized on the model of the human body, the work of God; and found the power of governing upon persuasion, upon the voluntary consent of the hearts of the governed.”[105]