all the rules of the art of war, so thoroughly thrashed the fine armies of the coalition. I can understand why the Socialists approved, controlled, and duly patented by the administrators of Humanité, have not much sympathy for the heroes of Fleurus,[1] who were very badly dressed, and would have cut a sorry figure in the drawing-rooms of the great financiers; but everybody does not adapt his convictions to suit the tastes of M. Jaurès's shareholders.
V
I want now to point out some analogies which show how revolutionary syndicalism is the greatest educative force that contemporary society has at its disposal for the preparation of the system of production, which the workmen will adopt, in a society organised in accordance with the new conceptions.
A. The free producer in a progressive and inventive workshop must never evaluate his own efforts by any external standing; he ought to consider the models given him as inferior, and desire to surpass everything that has been done before. Constant improvement in quality and quantity will be thus assured to production; the idea of continual progress will be realised in a workshop of this kind.
Early socialists had had an intuition of this law, when they demanded that each should produce according to his faculties; but they did not know how to explain this principle, which in their Utopias seemed made for a convent or for a family rather than for modern industrial life. Sometimes, however, they pictured their workers as possessed by an enthusiasm similar to that which we find in the lives of certain great artists; this last point
- ↑ [The battle of Fleurus, won in 1794 by General Jourdain, was one of the first decisive triumphs of the revolutionary army. The Chant du Départ was written by J. M. Chénier shortly before this battle.—Trans.]
