Once more, nothing pertains less to man than desire. Desire comes of need which man does not make, which he submits to. He submits in the same way to desire. To reduce will to desire is to annihilate liberty; it is worse still, it is to put it where it is not; it is to create a mendacious liberty that becomes an instrument of crime and misery. To call man to such a liberty is to open his soul to infinite desires, which it is impossible for him to satisfy. Desire is in its nature without limits, and our power is very limited. If we were alone in this world, we should even then be much troubled to satisfy our desires. But we press against each other with immense desires, and limited, diverse, and unequal powers. When right is the force that is in each of us, equality of rights is a chimera,--all rights are unequal, since all forces are unequal and can never cease to be so. It is, therefore, necessary to renounce equality as well as liberty; or if one invents a false equality as well as a false liberty, he puts humanity in pursuit of a phantom. Such are the social elements that the ethics of interest give to politics. From such elements I defy all the politics of the school of sensation and interest to produce a single day of liberty and happiness for the human race. When right is might, the natural state of men among themselves, is war. All desiring the same things, they are all necessarily enemies; and in this war, woe to the feeble, to the feeble in body and the feeble in mind! The stronger are the masters by perfect right. Since right is might, the feeble may complain of nature that has not made them strong, and not complain of the strong man who uses his right in oppressing them. The feeble then call deception to their aid; and it is in this strife between cunning and force that humanity combats with itself. Yes, if there are only needs, desires, passions, interests, with different forces pitted against each other, war, a war sometimes declared and bloody, sometimes silent and full of meannesses, is in the nature of things. No social art can change this nature,--it may be more or less covered; it always reappears, overcomes and rends the veil with which a mendacious legislation envelops it. Dream, then, of liberty for beings that are not free, of equality between beings that are essentially different, of respect for rights where there is no right, and of the establishment of justice on an indestructible foundation of inimical passions! From such a foundation can spring only endless troubles or oppression, or rather all these evils together in a necessary circle.