delighted in contradictions, and thought that truth sprang out of their union. This man was Proudhon. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon was born July 15, 1809, in Besançon, of humble parents. His father was a cooper, while his mother was a bright and vigorous country girl. He was of the people, the masses, and he spoke of it freely as an advantage. Proudhon professed that he always remained one of them and thus knew their life. It was early necessary that he should assist in his support, and this he did by agricultural labor, in particular by guarding the cows as they pastured on the mountains of the Jura. Later he became a waiter in a restaurant. Time was, however, found for the school and the college, where he distinguished himself for unusual talents and carried off a large number of prizes and honors. The public library furnished him with reading-matter, so that he read a large number of books before he was fourteen. He used to call for as many as six books at a time. At the age of nineteen Proudhon was compelled to leave the college in order to assist his father, whose business had fallen into a sad condition. He learned the printer’s trade and soon became a corrector in a publishing house of some note, which became to him a school. The house published a large number of theological works, which he perused so carefully that it was afterwards supposed that he had studied at a theological seminary. He learned Hebrew when they published a Bible with an interlinear translation. The result was that he was able to contribute a number of theological articles to the “Encyclopédie Catholique.”