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should in industry and general progress. The marriage relation has lost much of its dignity and high value, and in the increasing sterility of marriages is found one of the greatest causes of stagnation in commerce and industry.
2. The method of gaining a livelihood or the occupation. With the exception of government officials and soldiers, there are very few Frenchmen in the French colo- nies. The French do not profit from their colonies, because their people are too closely attached to the mother-country. Their lack of adventure and of a desire for colonial undertakings is due to the nature of their patriotism. The natural resources of the country, its fine climate, the varied fertility of the soil, and the pleasant social relations are some of the causes which hold them to the motherland and make them consider emigration as a sad event in life, while it is emigration which is chiefly sought by the Anglo-Saxon and seems to be the normal and happy consequence of his whole existence.
This attachment of the French to their native soil should be noted, for it is one of the important causes of their lack of national expansion. It has its good side, and is an element of strength, but its influence has been exaggerated. One of the causes of this attachment is the wide diffusion of the means for comfortable existence at home. Saving is a national virtue, few marriages are contracted without the dowry, younger sons are not discriminated against in inheritance, as in England, the families are not large, as in Germany, and wealth is distributed among all classes. In addition to the help received by inheritance, which in general is not large, attention should be given to the national habit of saving as another means of keeping the people at home. It soon brings them sufficient capital to enable them to be contented with a small income and to lead the idle life of the independent. It is not neces- sary to combat their habit of saving, but that which is deplorable is their exagger- ated love of a life exempt from hard work and close application. This exces- sive desire for repose and the lack of ambition are very reprehensible social habits, and are due in large measure to their education, to legislation, and also to the economic conditions in France in the last century. In this respect the difference between the French and the English is very great. The English push effort and enterprise almost to excess and seek the occupations in which gain is large. The Frenchman, without much ambition, an enemy of effort, contenting himself with little, of modest tastes, defended against need by a small number of desires and by a small fortune resulting from inheritance and saving, will choose a career in which pecuniary profits are small, but which offers quietude, security, and especially the allurement of a retiring pension. The occupations most sought in fulfilment of such tastes are those of an employee of the public offices. A large number of the bour- geoisie, attracted by the prospect of an assured salary and a retiring pension, enter the service of the state and find a satisfaction of their tendencies there, the number of public offices having been greatly increased during the nineteenth century. More- over, the industrial evolution of the last century, characterized by invention, by prodigious development of railroads, and by great organization of business under the form of limited joint-stock companies, has extended still farther the taste and search ou the part of the bourgeoisie for places as employees and officials. These bureau- cratic positions and the employments with a fixed salary and a limited responsibility, sought by the majority of the nation, because of habits and tendencies contrary to the spirit of initiative, are themselves destructive of this spirit and of personal effort. Unfortunately the habit of indecision and carelessness contracted in these occupa- tions becomes the predominant note of life. If this lack of initiative were confined to the employment it would not be so bad, but in the personal interest and in the part which individuals play in public affairs this lack of initiative is manifested. The influence of the mode of employment creates by habit a second nature, it develops or atrophies the natural qualities, and it is certain that one of the principal obstacles to the spirit of all initiative in France, after the system of education, is found in the manner in which most of the French are occupied. CHARLES HARDY, "De 1'influence des habitudes sociales sur 1'esprit d'mitiative," in La reforme sociale, November, 1902.
E. M.
The Concept of Society. The word " society " implies the idea of a complex unity, of an ensemble of beings united by a band and by a tie of which they are con-
