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THE  socialism'OF  TO-DAY.

labourer.”  According  to  him,  property,  as  at  present  existing,
is  only  a  passing  “historical  category.”
Property  as  at  present  constituted,  he  asserts,  consists  in
drawing  an  income,  without  working,  from  land  or  capital  which
the  law  attributes  to  you.  Property  according  to  natural  right,
on  the  contrary,  should  have  no  other  foundation  than  labour.
Far  from  wishing  to  abolish  property,  his  only  aim,  he  says,  is
to  establish  real  individual  ownership,  proportional  to  useful
services.  He  invokes,  for  the  support  of  his  system,  the  theory
of  Smith  and  Ricardo,  which  makes  all  wealth  spring  from
labour  alone.  He  says,  with  Bastiat,  that  what  should  be  paid
for  in  the  product  is  not  the  forces  of  nature,  but  the  labour  of
man.  The  services  of  natural  agents  are,  or  should  be,  gratuitous.
Thus  Bastiat,  through  ignoring  certain  truths  established  by  his
predecessors,  actually  furnished  arms  to  Socialism,  which  he
considered  it  his  special  mission  to  combat.
According  to  Lassalle,  when  productive  societies  shall  have
embraced  all  citizens,  they  will  become  proprietors  of  both  land
and  capital,  and  the  working  man,  on  taking  his  place  in  the
factory,  will  obtain  a  life-interest  in  the  instruments  of  his  labour,
or  of  such  portion  of  the  social  wealth  as  shall  correspond  to
his  work.  This  work  will  be  suited  to  his  ability,  and  his
remuneration  will  be  equal  to  the  product  of  his  labour.  This,
as  may  be  seen,  is  nothing  else  than  the  famous  formula  of
Saint-Simon,  invoked  at  the  working  men’s  congress  in  Paris
in  1876:  “To  each  individual  according  to  his  capacity,  to
each  capacity  according  to  its  works.”
Lassalle  respects  no  more  than  Saint-Simon  the  principle
of  hereditary  succession  as  it  exists  to-day.  It  is,  he  says,  no
longer  a  living  institution,  having  its  roots  in  the  moral  and
juridical  sentiment  of  the  time,  but  rather  a  dead  tradition,  which
at  every  moment  is  being  disturbed  by  the  legislator  or  restricted
in  its  application.  The  Romans  created  testamentary  succession, ­
  because  they  believed  the  will  of  the  deceased  passed  into
the  person  of  the  heir  thus  designated.  The  Germans,  from
whom  we  derived  the  law  of  succession  ab  tníestaío,  looked
upon  the  patrimony  as  belonging,  not  to  the  immediate  successor, ­
  but  conjointly  to  the  whole  family,  and  thus  the  son,  on