All that I can say is, that I understand better than any one how the anger which injustice causes may render an author harsh and violent in his criticisms.

When, after twenty years of labor, a man still finds himself on the brink of starvation, and then suddenly discovers in an equivocation, an error in calculation, the cause of the evil which torments him in common with so many millions of his fellows, he can scarcely restrain a cry of sorrow and dismay.
But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not to pride that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the simple-minded, whom I perhaps have scandalized.

My angry dialectics may have produced a bad effect on some peaceable minds.

Some poor workingman--more affected by my sarcasm than by the strength of my arguments--may, perhaps, have concluded that property is the result of a perpetual Machiavelianism on the part of the governors against the governed,--a deplorable error of which my book itself is the best refutation.

I devoted two chapters to showing how property springs from human personality and the comparison of individuals.