Regarding the first point, we cannot deny, unless we should wish to suppress all human responsibility, all free and personal activity--in a word, all liberty--we cannot deny, I say, that the inequality of merit and of work does not authorize and justify a certain inequality in the distribution of property. But, it is said, this inequality is not always in proportion to the work. It may be answered that as civic laws become more perfect (by the abolition of monopoly, privileges, abuse of rights, such as the feudal rights, etc.,) the distribution of riches will tend to become more and more in proportion to individual merit and efforts. There remain but two sources of inequality which do not proceed from personal work: 1, accidents; 2, hereditary transmission. But in regard to accidents, there is no way of absolutely suppressing the part chance plays in man's destiny; it can only be corrected and diminished, and thereto tend the institutions of life-assurances, savings-banks, banks of assistance, etc., which are means of equalization growing along with the general progress. As to the inequality produced by inheritance, one of two things is to be considered: either the heir keeps and increases by his own work what he has acquired, and thus succeeds in deserving it; or, on the contrary, he ceases to work and consumes without producing, and in this case he destroys his privilege himself without the State's meddling with it. Besides, the question is less concerning the _relative well-being_ of men than their _absolute well-being_. What use would it be to men to be all equal if they were all miserable? There is certainly more equality in a republic of savages than in our European societies; but how many of our poor Europeans are there who would exchange their condition for an existence among savages? In reality, social progress, in continually increasing general wealth, increases at the same time the well-being of each, without increasing the sum of individual efforts. This superaddition of well-being is in reality gratuitous, as Bastiat has demonstrated. "Hence," as he says, "with a community increasing in well-being,[23] as by property ever better guaranteed, we leave behind us the community of misery from which we came." "Property," says Bastiat, "tends to transform onerous into gratuitous utility. It is that spur which obliges human intelligence to draw from the inertia of matter its latent natural forces. It struggles, certainly for its own benefit, against the obstacles which make utility onerous; and when the obstacle is overthrown, it is found that its disappearance benefits all. Then the indefatigable proprietor attacks new obstacles, and continually raising the human level, he more and more realizes community, and with it equality in the midst of the great human family."