Liberty would seem not to be wanted in our days. In France, the privileged land of fashion, freedom appears to be no longer in repute. For myself, I say that he who rejects liberty has no faith in human nature. Of late the distressing discovery seems to have been made that liberty leads inevitably to monopoly.[18] This monstrous union, this unnatural conjunction, does not exist; it is the imaginary fruit of an error which the light of Political Economy speedily [p062] dissipates. Freedom engender monopoly! Oppression the offspring of liberty! To affirm this is to affirm that the tendencies of human nature are radically bad—bad in themselves, in their nature, in their essence. It is to affirm that the natural bent of man is to deterioration; that the human mind is irresistibly attracted towards error. To what end, then, our schools, our studies, our inquiries, our discussions, unless to accelerate our progress towards that fatal descent; since to teach men to judge, to distinguish, to select, is only to teach them to commit suicide? And if the tendencies of human nature are essentially perverse, where are the organizers of new social systems to place the fulcrum of that lever by which they hope to effect their changes? It must be somewhere beyond the limits of the present domain of humanity. Do they search for it in themselves—in their own minds and hearts? They are not gods yet; they are men, and tending, consequently, along with the whole human race, towards the fatal abyss. Shall they invoke the intervention of the state? The state also is composed of men. They must therefore prove that they form a distinct class, for whom the general laws of society are not intended, since it is their province to make these laws. Unless this be proved the difficulty is not removed, it is not even diminished. Let us not thus condemn human nature before studying its laws, its forces, its energies, its tendencies. Newton, after he discovered attraction, never pronounced the name of God without uncovering his head. Yet the celestial mechanism is subject to laws of which it has no consciousness; and the social world is as much superior to that which called forth the admiration of Newton as mind is superior to matter. How much more reason, then, have we to bow before Omniscience when we behold the social mechanism, which universal intelligence no less pervades (‹mens agitat molem›); and which presents, moreover, this extraordinary phenomenon, that every atom of which it is composed is an animated thinking being, endued with marvellous energy, and with that principle of all morality, all dignity, all progress, the exclusive attribute of man—«Liberty». [p063] II. WANTS, EFFORTS, SATISFACTIONS.[19] What a profoundly afflicting spectacle France presents to us! It would be difficult to say if anarchy has passed from ideas to facts, or from facts to ideas, but it is certain that it pervades all, and abounds everywhere.