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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
it into sensuality, and exciting, among those deprived of it, 
envy, hatred, and the spirit of revolt. 
Herr Meyer here joins hands with Montesquieu, who recurs 
again and again to the idea that excessive inequality should be 
prevented from dividing the nations, as it were, into two hostile 
peoples ; and he devotes the sixth and seventh chapters of the 
fifth book of the Esprit des Lois to the elucidation of this 
point. “ It is not enough,” he says, “ in a good democracy 
that the portions of land should be equal ; they must also be 
small, as among the Romans.” One might add, as in France 
to-day. A rural democracy, if only it were an enlightened one, 
would give to Europe a solid base upon which to found free 
institutions, and would save it from social upheavals. Montes 
quieu borrowed his maxims from antiquity, for Aristotle con 
tinually recurs to it. “ Inequality,” he says {Pol., b. v. ch. i.), 
“ is the cause of all revolutions, for no compensation can make 
up for inequality.” “ Men, equal in one respect, wished to be 
equal in everything. Equal in liberty, they demanded absolute 
equality. Not obtaining it, they imagine themselves cheated 
of their rights, and they rise in rebellion.” The only means of 
preventing revolutions, according to Aristotle, is to maintain a 
certain amount of equality. “ Cause even the poor to have a 
small inheritance.” That is precisely what was done, in great 
measure, by the laws of the French Revolution. “ A State,” 
once more says the Stagyrite, “ according to the wish of nature, 
should be composed of elements which approach as near as 
possible to equality.” He then shows that in a State where 
there are but two classes, the rich and the poor, conflicts are 
inevitable. “The conqueror,” he adds, “looks upon the 
government as the price of victory, and uses it to oppress and 
despoil the vanquished.” Therefore, when Rudolf Meyer and 
Rodbertus demand that laws should favour equality and main 
tain it, they only reproduce the thesis of Montesquieu and 
Aristotle. But how is this great object to be gained without 
sacrificing all liberty? Here lies the grand problem. For 
want of solving it, the ancient democracies perished in anarchy. 
Rodbertus admits that slavery was legitimate in ancient 
times. In order that the highest culture should be developed,