76 
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 succes 
sion, 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 suc 
cessor, but conjointly to the whole family, and thus the son, on