some danger that custom, that tyrant of tongues, authorizes the term,
and the sentiment which it involves. _Advanced!_ This supposes that
these gentlemen can see further than the common people; that their only
fault is that they are too much in advance of their age; and if the time
is not yet come for suppressing certain free services, pretended
parasites, the fault is to be attributed to the public which is in the
rear of Socialism. I say, from my soul and my conscience, the reverse is
the truth; and I know not to what barbarous age we should have to go
back, if we would find the level of Socialist knowledge on this subject.
These modern sectarians incessantly oppose association to actual
society. They overlook the fact that society, under a free regulation,
is a true association, far superior to any of those which proceed from
their fertile imaginations.

Let me illustrate this by an example. Before a mutual services, and to
helping each other in a common object, and that all may be considered,
with respect to others, _intermediates_. If, for instance, in the course
of the operation, the conveyance becomes important enough to occupy one
person, the spinning another, the weaving another, why should the first
be considered a _parasite_ more than the other two? The conveyance must
be made, must it not? Does not he who performs it devote to it his time
and trouble? and by so doing does he not spare that of his colleagues?
Do these do more or other than this for him? Are they not equally
dependent for remuneration, that is, for the division of the produce,
upon the law of reduced price? Is it not in all liberty, for the common
good, that this separation of work takes place, and that these
arrangements are entered into? What do we want with a Socialist then,
who, under pretence of organising for us, comes despotically to break up
our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to
substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilisation