fulfil the purposes, and satisfy the sympathetic wants, to which such
children as there are may happen to be inadequate. The third is a most
important point--the incorporation of domestics as substantive members
of the family. There is hardly any part of the present constitution of
society more essentially vicious, and morally injurious to both parties,
than the relation between masters and servants. To make this a really
human and a moral relation, is one of the principal desiderata in social
improvement. The feeling of the vulgar of all classes, that domestic
service has anything in it peculiarly mean, is a feeling than which
there is none meaner. In the feudal ages, youthful nobles of the highest
rank thought themselves honoured by officiating in what is now called a
menial capacity, about the persons of superiors of both sexes, for whom
they felt respect: and, as M. 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