“They would tell you ‘yes.’ I say ‘no.’ They hold that competition is both the cause and effect of inequality of condition; whereas certain advocates of co-operation in another country hold, (and I think wisely,) that their principle stands a better chance where a gradation of rank and property is allowed. I so far agree with these last as to believe the time to be discernible when co-operation, in a certain sense, shall prevail,—meaning thereby, when all interests shall be harmonized instead of opposed; but that this includes equality of condition, I cannot allow, since varieties of character seem to me to forbid such equality.” “There must be an inequality of physical and mental powers, at all events.” “Surely; and therefore an inequality in the produce of individual labour. No one labours, or ever will labour, without a view to the fruits; and those fruits, however appropriated, are property. If a giant produces ten times as much as a dwarf, and each is allowed the same middle portion of the fruits, for his maintenance and enjoyment, is it to be supposed that the giant will trouble himself henceforth to produce more than the dwarf?” “He will be more likely to seize some of the dwarf’s portion.” “Certainly; and hence it is clear that the only security of society lies in awarding to all their rights, and enforcing upon all their duties; and what are _rights_ but a man’s exclusive power over his own produce? What are his _duties_ but allowing to others the possession of their produce?” “You do not think then that the giant and the dwarf would be alike contented with having everything they could want or wish for administered to them in return for a certain portion of their labour. You do not look forward to the lion dandling the kid.” “I should be afraid the lion would be dandling the kid when he ought to be out in quest of food. If there was no inducement to giants to produce more than dwarfs, there would soon be little to administer to anybody. The consumption of giants would soon have to be provided for by the labour of a community of dwarfs.” “The giants would foresee this, and then....” “Instead of working harder for no recompense, they would withdraw,—the mightiest first, and then the next strongest, and so on, till the weakest of the dwarfs would be left to shift for themselves as they best might.” “And then would come the days of potatoes and wooden trenchers, of which you were speaking one day.—But this is supposing men to have the same passions and desires that they have now; whereas they are to be educated into a better state.” “With all my heart: but the utmost that education can do is to extend man’s views, to exalt his aims, to strengthen and vivify his powers,—not to change his nature. His nature involves inequality of powers; and this decree of Providence can never be set aside, or its operation neutralized by any decree of man that the fruits of those powers shall be equally divided.”