Another instance: It is known that the sea is retreating little by little from some of our coasts and invading others; its waves, dashing their foam over certain plains, detach therefrom the materials which leave room for it to encroach upon the land, whilst these same materials, transported to other places, aid the solid earth in gaining upon the sea. The work goes on so slowly that it is scarcely perceptible—a few centimeters per century, it appears. That will not, however, hinder a day from arriving—at the end of ten thousand or a hundred thousand years—what matters the length of time?—when the barrier which resisted the floods will be no longer compact enough to sustain the assault; it will give way before a final shock, and the sea, borrowing new strength from the very resistance it meets upon its march, will invade the plain, destroying everything in its course until it is arrested at the foot of a new barrier, which will dam up the flood afresh for a longer or shorter period, according to the degree of resistance it may possess.
It is the same with our societies: the social organization, the institutions created to defend this organization, represent the barriers which are opposed to progress. Everything in society, on the other hand, tends to overthrow these barriers. Ideas are modified, habits are transformed, gradually sapping respect for ancient institutions which preserve themselves and seek to continue to direct society and individuals. The slow work of dissociation is sometimes imperceptible to a generation. Customs do, indeed, disappear, or a prejudice is effaced; but these disappearances have been brought about so slowly that they take place without anyone being conscious thereof; nobody but old men who compare the customs of their youth with those of the youth that have succeeded them notices that manners have changed. But though manners have changed, institutions, the social organization, have remained the same; they continue to oppose their barriers to the floods which attack them, breaking impotently at their feet, contenting themselves with carrying off a stone here and there. The floods in their rage may tear out thousands of such; what does a stone matter in comparison with the imposing mass of the barriers? Nothing at all, only—this stone, the waves roll it away with them and, in the next attack, hurl it against the wall whence it was torn, make use of it as a battering ram to tear out others, which in turn are transformed into a means of attack. The struggle may last for thousands of years; the cliffs seem undiminished till some day when, undermined, they fall before a new assault, leaving a free passage to the triumphant waves.
Most assuredly we should ask no better than that the evolution of our society should be accomplished in a slow but continuous fashion; we should like it to proceed without shocks; but that does not depend upon us. We fulfill our task of propaganda, we sow our ideas of renovation; it is the drop of water which infiltrates, dissolves the minerals, scoops a pathway, and comes out at the foot of the mountain. Can we prevent the mountain from crumbling, breaking the props by which you have hoped to render it firmer?
The bourgeoisie alone is interested in having this transformation take place without jars. Why, then, instead of trying to keep the mountain as it is, propping it to that end, do they not help us to level it and enable the water to flow slowly toward the plain, carrying away the useless or harmful materials to where they may elevate the surface of the soil till it be equalized? Insensate beings! They are not willing to yield up any portion of their privileges. Like the cliffs they deem themselves invulnerable to the surges that attack them. What matter to them the few concessions that have been wrung from them during a century? Their prerogatives are so great that the void is scarcely felt. But the wave has made the breach; with the very materials torn from the exploiters it renews the attack, creating
