It is not essential to the preservation of society and the race that such inequalities should be removed, that all men should be reduced to a dead level of capacity, that human nature should be ignored. It is strongly felt, however, that society should not itself create artificial inequalities, should not allow one man or set of men a liberty it will not allow to others, should not impose burdens on one man or set of men to be borne by them alone while others are exempt; or if it does undertake to do so it should be able to demonstrate that such artificial inequality is necessary for the safety of all. The intensity of this feeling against artificial inequalities is so great that men sometimes prefer equality before the law even to liberty. When the British ambassador said to Madam De Stael that Frenchmen had no more liberty after the Revolution than before, she answered that they had acquired equality before the law and they preferred that to more liberty. This sentiment was tersely and well expressed in the French Declaration of Rights of 1795. "Equality consists in this, that the law is the same for all whether it protects or punishes." Of course, no assertion of rights can be carried to the extent of the dictum, "Fiat Justitia ruat Respublica," for if the state fall, all hopes of justice fall with it. When the alternative is the conquest of the particular society by invasion or its disorganization by rebellion or rioting or otherwise, some of its members must submit to the sacrifice of some or all of their rights. Nature will sacrifice individuals for the preservation of the race. Society must sometimes do the same. "Inter arma silent leges." But such times are exceptional and not within the scope of our inquiry. To sum up the matter, justice is the according to every one his right, and that right is such freedom of action in gratifying one's desires as can be exercised in harmony with like freedom by others. In other words, it is equal freedom, equal restraint. It is order and harmony. Plato and Aristotle were right in teaching that order is an essential element of justice.