Liberty, if taken in the first sense, is barbarous and anti-social; it is the infancy, or rather the absence, of society. The word _society_ itself indicates the union of individuals in one common idea, feeling, and interest. Society can exist only by the obedience of individuals to one common rule. If the liberty of each man constitutes his only law, if every restriction to the independence of individual will is considered illegitimate, society is impossible. The law which should rule society, according to truth and justice, is exterior to and independent of individual wills. The object of society is to discover this superior law, and to exact obedience to it alone; but to this law obedience must be given; society is possible only by the reign of brute force, or by the government of true law. If the independence of the individual is regarded as the condition of liberty, we may be certain that force will become the dominant power of society, for society there must be; it is an imperious necessity of human nature; and this necessity will receive its gratification from force, if it cannot obtain it from justice and reason. {155} Object Of Government. The object of government, then, is twofold; it proposes, first, to seek out and discover the true law which must decide all the questions to which social relations give rise, and to subject to this law all adverse individual wills; and secondly, to prevent individuals from being subjected to any other laws but the true law, such, for example, as the arbitrary will of other more powerful individuals. Good and true government, then, does not say to every individual: "Thou shalt be subject only to thy own caprice," for on these terms there could be no society, and no government; but it says: "Thou shalt be subject, not to the caprice of any other individual, but only to reason and justice." The progress of civilization consists, on the one hand, in extending the authority of reason over all individuals, and in neglecting no means to convince their individual reason and to render their obedience voluntary; and, on the other hand, in limiting the sway of the arbitrary will of individuals over one another. Where the arbitrary will of one or more individuals prevails, legitimate liberty does not exist; where the isolated independence of every individual is maintained, society is impossible.