For if levying interest from capital is a sin, the workers have a right to revolt against social order, as it exists.  It is in vain to tell them that they ought to have recourse to legal and pacific means:  it would be a hypocritical recommendation.  When on the one side there is a strong man, poor, and a victim of robbery—­on the other, a weak man, but rich, and a robber—­it is singular enough that we should say to the former, with a hope of persuading him, “Wait till your oppressor voluntarily renounces oppression, or till it shall cease of itself.”  This cannot be; and those who tell us that capital is by nature unproductive, ought to know that they are provoking a terrible and immediate struggle.

If, on the contrary, the interest of capital is natural, lawful, consistent with the general good, as favourable to the borrower as to the lender, the economists who deny it, the tribunes who traffic in this pretended social wound, are leading the workmen into a senseless and unjust struggle, which can have no other issue than the misfortune of all.  In fact, they are arming labour against capital.  So much the better, if these two powers are really antagonistic; and may the struggle soon be ended!  But, if they are in harmony, the struggle is the greatest evil which can be inflicted on society.  You see, then, workmen, that there is not a more important question than this:—­“Is the interest of capital lawful or not?” In the former case, you must immediately renounce the struggle to which you are being urged; in the second, you must carry it on bravely, and to the end.

Productiveness of capital—­perpetuity of interest.  These are difficult questions.  I must endeavour to make myself clear.  And for that purpose I shall have recourse to example rather than to demonstration; or rather, I shall place the demonstration in the example.  I begin by acknowledging that, at first sight, it may appear strange that capital should pretend to a remuneration, and above all, to a perpetual remuneration.  You will say, “Here are two men.  One of them works from morning till night, from one year’s end to another; and if he consumes all which he has gained, even by superior energy, he remains poor.  When Christmas comes he is no forwarder than he was at the beginning of the year, and has no other prospect but to begin again.  The other man does nothing, either with his hands or his head; or at least, if he makes use of them at all, it is only for his own pleasure; it is allowable for him to do nothing, for he has an income.  He does not work, yet he lives well; he has everything in abundance; delicate dishes, sumptuous furniture, elegant equipages; nay, he even consumes, daily, things which the workers have been obliged to produce by the sweat of their brow, for these things do not make themselves; and, as far as he is concerned, he has had no hand in their production.  It is the workmen who have caused this corn to grow, polished this furniture,