The rough
method of settling the labourer's share of the produce, the competition
of the market, may represent a practical necessity, but certainly not a
moral ideal. Its defence is, that civilization has not hitherto been
equal to organizing anything better than this first rude approach to an
equitable distribution. Rude as it is, we for the present go less wrong
by leaving the thing to settle itself, than by settling it artificially
in any mode which has yet been tried. But in whatever manner that
question may ultimately be decided, the true moral and social idea of
Labour is in no way affected by it. Until labourers and employers
perform the work of industry in the spirit in which soldiers perform
that of an army, industry will never be moralized, and military life
will remain, what, in spite of the anti-social character of its direct
object, it has hitherto been--the chief school of moral co-operation.
Thus far of the general idea of M. Comte's ethics and religion. We must
now say something of the details. Here we approach the ludicrous side of
the subject: but we shall unfortunately have to relate other things far
more really ridiculous.
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