amusing the upper classes, commercialism killed all art for the workman, depriving him necessarily of the power of appreciating its higher and the opportunity of producing its subsidiary form. In fact popular art and popular religion were alike unsuitable to the working of the new system of society, and were swept away by it.
It is no wonder then that almost all 305 modern economists (who seldom study history, and never art), judging from what is going on before their eyes, assume that labour generally must be repulsive, and that hence coercion must be always employed on the necessarily lazy majority. Though it must be said, to the credit of the Utopist socialists and of Fourier especially, that they perceived instinctively how futile was any hope of the improvement of the race under such circumstances.
We have seen that the divorce of the workman from pleasure in his labour has only taken place in modern times, for we assert that, however it may be with artless labour, art of any kind can never be produced without pleasure. In this case then, as in others, we believe that the New Society will revert to the old method, though on a higher plane. With a very few exceptions Fourier was right in asserting that all labour could be made pleasurable under certain conditions. These conditions are, briefly: freedom from anxiety as to livelihood; shortness of hours in proportion to the stress of the work; variety of occupation 306 if the work is of its nature monotonous; due use of machinery, i.e. the use of it in labour which is essentially oppressive if done by the hand; opportunity for every one to choose the occupation suitable to his capacity and idiosyncrasy; and lastly, the solacing of labour by the introduction of ornament, the making of which is enjoyable to the labourer. As to this matter of occupation we may here say a word on machinery, which, as is now supposed (not without reason), will one day do away with all handiwork except, as is thought, with the highest arts.
We should say that machinery will be used in a way almost the reverse of the present one. Whereas we now abstain from using it in the roughest