I cannot, I avow, without disgust, and even horror, conceive the absurd notion of a political society, destitute of that governing motive afforded by religion, and restrained only by a pretended connexion of their private interest with the general. What circumscribed judges! What a multiplicity of opinions, sentiments, and wills! All would be in confusion, if we left to men the liberty of drawing their own conclusions: they must absolutely have a simple idea to regulate their conduct, especially when the application of this principle may be infinitely diversified. God in delivering his laws on Mount Sinai, had need but to say, _Thou shalt not steal_; and with the awful idea of that God, whom every thing recals to our minds, whom every thing impresses on the human heart, this short commandment preserves, at all times, a sufficient authority; but when political philosophy says, _Thou shalt not steal_, it would be necessary to add to this precept a train of reasoning, on the laws of right, on the inequality of conditions, and on the various social relations; in order to persuade us that it comprehends every motive, that it answers all objections, and resists all attacks. It is necessary, further, that by the lessons of this philosophy the most uncultivated minds should be qualified to follow the different ramifications which unite, disunite, and reunite afresh the personal to the public interest: what an enterprize! It is, perhaps, like wishing to employ a course of anatomy, in order to direct a child in the choice of such aliments as are proper for it, instead of beginning to conduct it by the counsels and the authority of its mother.