capitalist yesterday. It is the _unnatural position_ or
_relation_ of _capital and labor_ that makes him what he is.
To change this relation to a more just one was among the grandest ideas
of the Brook Farmers, and the only way it could possibly be done, in
their estimation, was by reorganizing society on a new basis; by
combining the capital of the workers and others interested and using it
so as finally to control machinery for the benefit of labor, and to
reduce its hours of toil so that the laborer could have time for self-
improvement.

Having traced the progress of society from its earliest forms to our
present civilization, it can be easily shown how the supreme or
governing power is first in the hands of the most powerful physically;
then passes to the one most able by prowess to sway a tribe or people;
then passes into the hierarchy of the church, that rules by swaying
mental terrors; next into the hierarchy of the state, that rules by
both mental and physical terrors; and, in our present civilization, has
passed or is passing rapidly into the hands of a moneyed class ruling
with powers according to the amount of capital swayed; and it can be
proved that these changes are but the natural result of forces that are
as sure and constant as sunlight and electricity.

This present form of social power, it is argued, is transient, and like
the others, will pass away and be replaced, and can only be replaced by
anarchy, or by a hierarchy of organized talent arranged in serial order
from the most talented down to the humblest laborer, and this was
another of the grand ideas of the Brook Farmers. From the seeds of this
civilization will spring--is springing--a higher order. It is an order
that the teacher Fourier called "_guaranteeism_." It is an order
in which the _governing power_ passes from the moneyed aristocracy