What would an universal society be that should have no particular country, that should not be French, nor English, nor German, nor Spanish, nor Portuguese, nor Italian, nor Russian, nor Tartar, nor Turkish, nor Persian, nor Indian, nor Chinese, nor American, or rather that should be all these societies at once? What would be the outcome for its manners, its science, its arts, its poetry? How would passions be expressed felt at the same time in the manner of different peoples in different climates? How would the language entertain that confusion of needs and images produced by the various suns that should have cast their light upon a common youth, manhood and old age? And what would that language be? Would an universal idiom result from this fusion of societies, or would there be a dialect of compromise, employed for daily use, while each nation would talk its own language, or else would the different languages be understood by all? Under what like rule, under what one law would this society have its being? How would one find one's place on an earth enlarged by the power of ubiquitousness and narrowed by the petty proportions of a globe tainted on every hand? There would be nothing for it but to apply to science for means to change one's planet. Are you weary of private ownership and do you wish to turn the government into a sole proprietor, distributing to what will have become a mendicant community a share commensurate with the merit of each individual? Who shall judge of the merits? Who will have the strength and the authority to compel the execution of your decrees? Who will keep and make the most of that bank of living real estate? [Sidenote: Socialism.] Will you seek to bring about the association of labour? What will the weak, the sick, the unintelligent bring to the community left burdened with their unfitness? Here is another contrivance: one might form, in place of wages, a sort of limited company or partnership between manufacturers and workmen, between mind and matter, to which the one would bring his capital and his idea, the others their industry and their labour; the eventual profits to be shared in common. That would be very good, admitting complete perfection among men; very good, if you meet with no quarrelling, avarice, nor envy: but, if a single partner protests, the whole crumbles to the ground; divisions and law-suits begin. This method, which seems a little more possible in theory, is quite as impossible in practice.