This is precisely the condition of the lower animals. Among them there exists no tie, no influence, which survives the individual, and extends to the race. There is no permanent appropriation, no hereditary transmission, no unity nor progress in the life of the species;--nothing but individuals who appear and then vanish, seizing on their passage their portion of the good things of the earth and the pleasures of life, according to the combined measure of their wants and their strength, which, according to them, constitute their right. Thus, in order to secure to every individual of the human species the equal and incessantly fluctuating share of the goods and pleasures of sense, the doctrines of the Social Republic bring men down to the level of the lower animals. They obliterate the human race. They do worse. There is in the mind of man an imperishable instinct that God presides over his destiny, and that it is not wholly accomplished in this world. Naturally and universally, man believes in God and invokes him as his support in the present, his hope in the future. According to the doctrines of the Social Republic, God is an unknown imaginary power, upon whom the visible and real rulers of men upon earth throw the weight of their own responsibility, and by thus directing the eyes of the suffering towards another master and another state of existence, dispose them to acquiesce in their afflictions, whilst they secure themselves in the maintenance of their usurpations. According then to this doctrine, God is evil, for it is in his name that men are persuaded to acquiesce in evil. To banish evil from the earth, it therefore is necessary to banish God from the mind of man. Men left alone with their earthly masters, and reduced to an earthly existence, will demand the enjoyments of this life and the equal distribution of these enjoyments; and as soon as those who are without them insist on having them, they will have them, for they are the strongest. Thus God and the human race will disappear together. In their place will remain animals still bearing the name of men, more intelligent and more powerful than other animals, but having the same condition and the same destiny; and like them seizing, on their passage through life, their portion of the goods of earth and the pleasures of sense, according to the combined measure of their wants and their strength, which constitute their right. Such is the philosophy of the Social Republic; such, therefore, is the basis of its policy. We have traced its origin and its end. I will not insult the good sense or the dignity of mankind by dwelling on it longer. It is the degradation of man, and the destruction of society.