It certainly cannot be said that to be charitable is not obligatory. But this obligation must not be regarded as precise, as inflexible as the obligation to be just. Charity is a sacrifice; and who can find the rule of sacrifice, the formula of self-renunciation? For justice, the formula is clear,--to respect the rights of another. But charity knows neither rule nor limit. It transcends all obligation. Its beauty is precisely in its liberty. But it must be acknowledged that charity also has its dangers. It tends to substitute its own action for the action of him whom it wishes to help; it somewhat effaces his personality, and makes itself in some sort his providence,--a formidable part for a mortal! In order to be useful to others, one imposes himself on them, and runs the risk of violating their natural rights. Love, in giving itself, enslaves. Doubtless it is not interdicted us to act upon another. We can always do it through petition and exhortation. We can also do it by threatening, when we see one of our fellows engaged in a criminal or senseless action. We have even the right to employ force when passion carries away liberty and makes the person disappear. So we may, we even ought to prevent by force the suicide of one of our fellow-men. The legitimate power of charity is measured by the more or less liberty and reason possessed by him to whom it is applied. What delicacy, then, is necessary in the exercise of this perilous virtue! How can we estimate with sufficient certainty the degree of liberty still possessed by one of our fellow-men to know how far we may substitute ourselves for him in the guiding of his destiny? And when, in order to assist a feeble soul, we take possession of it, who is sufficiently sure of himself not to go farther, not to pass from the person governed to the love of domination itself? Charity is often the commencement and the excuse, and always the pretext of usurpation. In order to have the right of abandoning one's self to the emotions of charity, it is necessary to be fortified against one's self by a long exercise of justice. To respect the rights of others and do good to men, to be at once just and charitable,--such are social ethics in the two elements that constitute them. We speak of social ethics, and we do not yet know what society is. Let us look around us:--everywhere society exists, and where it is not, man is not man. Society is a universal fact which must have universal foundations.