Comte thinks, can without oppression be governed from a
distant centre. Algeria, therefore, is to be given up to the Arabs,
Corsica to its inhabitants, and France proper is to be, before the end
of the century, divided into seventeen republics, corresponding to the
number of considerable towns: Paris, however, (need it be said?)
succeeding to Rome as the religious metropolis of the world. Ireland,
Scotland, and Wales, are to be separated from England, which is of
course to detach itself from all its transmarine dependencies. In each
state thus constituted, the powers of government are to be vested in a
triumvirate of the three principal bankers, who are to take the foreign,
home, and financial departments respectively. How they are to conduct
the government and remain bankers, does not clearly appear; but it must
be intended that they should combine both offices, for they are to
receive no pecuniary remuneration for the political one. Their power is
to amount to a dictatorship (M. Comte's own word): and he is hardly
justified in saying that he gives political power to the rich, since he
gives it over the rich and every one else, to three individuals of the
number, not even chosen by the rest, but named by their predecessors.
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