Note 17 — Chapter VI · THE SPIRITUALISTS.1

In following the course of life of a proletarian we see that the child of the proletariat carries, often from his birth, the signs of degeneracy, since his mother was forced to work hard during her pregnancy. From his childhood he is ill nourished, and grows up in an unhealthful environment. There can hardly be any question of education, for his father and mother work in the shop, which prevents any family life. The child is not attached to the dwelling of his parents and wanders in the street, where he picks up bad habits. Arrived at adolescence, he enters the factory to pass the greater part of his time in monotonous occupations. And once full grown, life for him consists only in routine labor, monotonous and without end. “However, this man has a soul, he has a mind! But it slumbers in a perpetual inertia. Nothing in his life has awakened what is grand, noble, and divine in this reasonable being. How can we hope to have the moral energy and the sublime ambition for good survive in him?”17