But it was unfortunately impossible for the National Assembly to adopt this course, or make these sentiments heard. They were not in accordance either with the ideas of the Assembly or the expectations of the public. They would have terrified society as much as the proclamation of Communism. To be responsible to ourselves, forsooth! To trust to the State only for the maintenance of order and peace! To expect from it neither wealth nor knowledge! To be able no longer to make it responsible for our faults, our folly, our imprudence! To trust only to ourselves for the means of subsistence and physical amelioration, or moral and intellectual improvement! What on earth is to become of us? Is not society on the eve of being invaded by poverty, ignorance, error, irreligion, and perversity? We allow that such undoubtedly would have been the fears which would have manifested themselves on all sides had the revolution of February proclaimed Liberty, that is to say, the reign of the natural laws of society. Then we were either unacquainted with these laws, or we wanted confidence in them. We could not get rid of the idea that the motives and springs of action which God has implanted in the mind of man are essentially perverse; that rectitude resides nowhere but in the views and intentions of the governing power; that the tendencies of human nature lead to disorganization, to anarchy,—in a word, we believed in the inevitable antagonism of interests. So far was the revolution of February from displaying any tendency towards a natural organization, that never were the hopes and ideas of French society so decidedly turned to artificial combinations as at that epoch. Which of these combinations was in most favour? I really cannot very well tell. The business, in the language of the day, was to make experiments—‹Faciamus experimentum in corpore vili›. Such was their contempt for individuality, so thoroughly did they assimilate human nature to inert matter, that they talked of making social experiments with men, just as we make chemical experiments with acids and alkalies. The first tentative was begun at the Luxembourg, we know with what success. Erelong the Constituent Assembly instituted a Committee of Labour, in which a thousand social schemes were engulfed and swallowed up. A Fourierist representative seriously demanded lands and money (he would soon have asked for men also) to enable him to manipulate his model society. Another [p123] ‹Egalitaire› representative offered his recipe, which was rejected. The manufacturers were more lucky, and succeeded in maintaining theirs. In the meantime, the Legislative Assembly named a commission to organize “assistance.”