The philosophy of sensation starts with a principle that condemns it to consequences as disastrous as those of the principle of liberty are beneficent. By confounding will with desire, it justifies passion, which is desire in all its force--passion, which is precisely the opposite of liberty. It accordingly unchains all the desires and all the passions, it gives full rein to imagination and the heart; it renders each man much less happy on account of what he possesses, than miserable on account of what he lacks; it makes him regard his neighbors with an eye of envy and contempt, and continually pushes society towards anarchy or tyranny. Whither, in fact, would you have interest lead in the train of desire? My desire is certainly to be the most fortunate possible. My interest is to seek to be so by all means, whatever they may be, under the single reserve that they be not contrary to their end. If I am born the first of men, the richest, the most beautiful, the most powerful, etc., I shall do every thing to preserve the advantages I have received. If fate has given me birth in a rank little elevated, with a moderate fortune, limited talents, and immense desires--for it cannot too often be repeated, desire of every kind aspires after the infinite--I shall do every thing to rise above the crowd, in order to increase my power, my fortune, my joys. Unfortunate on account of my position in this world, in order to change it, I dream of, and call for revolutions, it is true, without enthusiasm and political fanaticism, for interest alone does not produce these noble follies, but under the sharp goad of vanity and ambition. Thereby, then, I arrive at fortune and power; interest, then, claims security, as before it invoked agitation. The need of security brings me back from anarchy to the need of order, provided order be to my profit; and I become a tyrant, if I can, or the gilt servant of a tyrant. Against anarchy and tyranny, those two scourges of liberty, the only rampart is the universal sentiment of right, founded on the firm distinction between good and evil, the just and the useful, the honest and the agreeable, virtue and interest, will and desire, sensation and conscience. 5. Let us again signalize one of the necessary consequences of the doctrine of interest.