From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason ending full in Man. Bastiat undertakes to demonstrate the harmony of the Economic laws,—that is to say, their tendency towards a common design, which is the progressive improvement of the human race. He proves convincingly that individual interests, taken in the aggregate, far from being antagonistic, aid each other mutually; and that, so far is it from being true that the gain of one is necessarily the loss of another, each individual, each family, each country has an interest in the prosperity of all others. He shows that, between agriculturist and manufacturer, capitalist and labourer, producer and consumer, native and foreigner, there is in reality no antagonism, but, on the contrary, a community of interest; and that, in order that the natural Economic laws should act constantly so as to produce this result, one thing alone is necessary—namely, respect for Liberty and Property. His design is best explained in his own words: “I undertake in this work,” he says, “to demonstrate the Harmony of those laws of Providence which govern human society. What makes these laws harmonious and not discordant is, that all principles, all motives, all springs of action, all interests, co-operate towards a grand final result, which humanity will never reach by reason of its native ‹imperfection›, [p029] but to which it will always approximate more and more by reason of its unlimited ‹capability of improvement›. And that result is, the indefinite approximation of all classes towards a level, which is always rising; in other words, the ‹equalization› of individuals in the general ‹amelioration›.” Bastiat was not one of those pessimists who persist in looking at the existing fabric of Society as if it were some ill-made, ill-going clock, requiring constantly to be wound up, and to have its springs adjusted, its wheels lubricated, and its hands altered and set right. Far from this, he regarded Society as a self-acting, self-regulating mechanism, bearing the stamp of the Divine hand by which it was constructed, and subject to laws and checks not less wise, not less immutable, not less trustworthy, than the laws which govern the inanimate and material world. “God made the country, but man made the towns,” was the exclamation of an amiable but a morbid poet. He might as well have said—God made the blossom, but bees make the comb. Reason asks, who then made the bees? Who made man, with all his noble instincts, and admirable inventive reasoning and reflective faculties?