Comte observes, there are many families
who can in no other way so usefully serve Humanity, as by ministering to
the bodily wants of other families, called to functions which require
the devotion of all their thoughts. "We will add, by way of supplement
to M. Comte's doctrine, that much of the daily physical work of a
household, even in opulent families, if silly notions of degradation,
common to all ranks, did not interfere, might very advantageously be
performed by the family itself, at least by its younger members; to whom
it would give healthful exercise of the bodily powers, which has now to
be sought in modes far less useful, and also a familiar acquaintance
with the real work of the world, and a moral willingness to take their
share of its burthens, which, in the great majority of the better-off
classes, do not now get cultivated at all.
We have still to speak of the directly political functions of the rich,
or, as M. Comte terms them, the patriciate. The entire political
government is to be in their hands. First, however, the existing nations
are to be broken up into small republics, the largest not exceeding the
size of Belgium, Portugal, or Tuscany; any larger nationalities being
incompatible with the unity of wants and feelings, which is required,
not only to give due strength to the sentiment of patriotism (always
strongest in small states), but to prevent undue compression; for no
territory, M.
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