dollars worth of them annually, and disposing of them, then the country could be congratulated upon the blossoming of such an interesting industry and the workmen upon their diligence and ability.
According to established theories, this train of thought is without a flaw. According to actual practice it is a scholastic sophistry of the worst kind. Certainly it is true that if a man can get as much money for a rocket as for a fowl, then the rocket is worth as much as the fowl, and he who makes a rocket adds as much to the wealth of the nation as he who raises a fowl. And yet it is a lie. No, it is not the same to humanity whether rockets or fowls are produced. No, the Alpine guide is not as valuable to the human race as the fireman of the steam thrashing machine, although it may pay him higher wages than the latter. I know that my distinctions are leading me to attack all articles of luxury. 1 do not hesitate then to declare that no human being has the right to demand the gratification of his whims, as long as the actual necessities of others are unsatisfied, to employ workmen in the production of fire-works, for example, as long as others are famishing, because this workman is withdrawn from the cultivation of the soil, or to condemn the factory operatives to fourteen hours a day of slavish toil, so that the price of velvet may be low enough for him to clothe himself in the material the most pleasing to his esthetic taste.
The great end and aim of humanity in the field of political economy, is not the production of commodities for which a price can be obtained, but to satisfy with its labor the actual organic wants of the body. There are but two kinds of organic wants: food and propagation. The former has for its purpose the preservation of the individual, the latter the preservation of the race. We might apparently trace these two wants to one single
