IF the choice were to be made between Communism, with all its chances, and the present state of society, with all its sufferings and injustices; if the institution of private property necessarily carried with it, as a consequence, that the produce of labour should be apportioned as we now see it, almost in an inverse proportion to the labour-the largest portions to those who have never worked at all, the next largest to those whose work is almost nominal, and so in a descending scale, the remuneration dwindling as the work grows harder and more disagreeable, until the most fatiguing and exhausting bodily labour cannot count with certainty on being able to earn even the necessaries of life; if this or Communism were the alternative, all the difficulties, great or small, of Communism, would be but as dust in the balance."-JOHN STUART MILL. PREFACE. HE author of this work, an exile from France, though THE not a Frenchman, feels himself in duty bound to express his warmest gratitude both to the country which he was forced to quit, and to the one which he was compelled to adopt as a place of refuge. To France he offers his hearty thanks for having initiated him into socialism by means of that inestimable liberty of the Press and public discussion which distinguished the reign of Louis Philippe towards the latter years of its existence; and to England he is still more profoundly indebted for that generous asylum, with all its noble privileges of freedom, the enjoyment of which, for more than a quarter of a century, has enabled him to pursue, peaceably and without molestation, his studies in sociology. In living under the liberal institutions of both countries, in deriving instruction and encouragement from the high attainments of their socialistic literature, and in enjoying the proverbial hospitality of their inhabitants, the author was enabled to bring to maturity a plan for a comprehensive sys |