Let us avoid at first the question of the origin of society.[237] The philosophy of the last century delighted in such questions too much. How can we demand light from the regions of darkness, and the explanation of reality from an hypothesis? Why go back to a pretended primitive state in order to account for a present state which may be studied in itself in its unquestionable characters? Why seek what may have been in the germ that which may be perceived, that which it is the question to understand, completed and perfect? Moreover, there is great peril in starting with the question of the origin of society. Has such or such an origin been found? Actual society is arranged according to the type of the primitive society that has been dreamed of, and political society is delivered up to the mercy of historical romances. This one imagines that the primitive state is violence, and he sets out from that in order to authorize the right of the strongest, and to consecrate despotism. That one thinks that he has found in the family the first form of society, and he compares government to the father of a family, and subjects to children; society in his eyes is a minor that must be held in tutelage in the hands of the paternal power, which in the origin is absolute, and consequently, must remain so. Or has one thrown himself to the extreme of the opposite opinion, and into the hypothesis of an agreement, of a contract that expresses the will of all or of the greatest number? He delivers up to the mobile will of the crowd the eternal laws of justice and the inalienable rights of the person. Finally, are powerful religious institutions found in the cradle of society? It is hence concluded, that power belongs of right to priesthoods, which have the secret of the designs of God, and represent his sovereign authority. Thus a vicious method in philosophy leads to a deplorable political system,--the commencement is made in hypothesis, and the termination is in anarchy or tyranny. True politics do not depend on more or less well directed historical researches into the profound night of a past forever vanished, and of which no vestige subsists: they rest on the knowledge of human nature. Wherever society is, wherever it was, it has for its foundations:--1st, The need that we have of our fellow-creatures, and the social instincts that man bears in himself; 2d, The permanent and indestructible idea and sentiment of justice and right.