Man is free.—1789 put in action the sublime precept of the gospel. He holds his destiny in his own hands. But the rights which he enjoys impose new duties on him. If _equality_ be the sentiment which predominates in our day, we should take care not to confound it with the leveling of Communism. Nor is it externally to us, but within ourselves, that it should be developed, by intellectual and moral culture. History preserves the student from being led astray by a too servile adherence to any system. It exposes the folly of the “social contract,” and of the idyllic dreams of the advantages of savage life. It shows that nature, instead of being prodigal of her treasures, distributes them with a niggardly hand, and that it is necessary to conquer her by labor, intelligence and patience before we can control her. It shows us human liberty growing stronger every day, thanks to moral and intellectual progress, supported by the two powerful props of property, the complement of man, the material reflection of his spiritual power; and capital, the fruit of abstinence, the symbol of moral power and the result of enlightened activity. History walks with a firm step, because it feels secure in a knowledge of the laws of human nature, and in its experience of the successive manifestations of social life. Instead of the vagueness of ideal conceptions, it allows us to grasp and to appreciate what is real in life. It does not confine itself to the study of man. It makes us acquainted with _men_, whose wants extend and are ennobled in proportion to the perfection of their faculties. The feelings and the intellect are simultaneously developed in man. The savage is the most egotistical of men. Hence, we believe that Political Economy cannot dispense with the services of morals and philosophy, of history and law; for these are branches of one common trunk, through all of which the self-same sap circulates. V. The isolation of the theory of Political Economy is peculiar to our own day. In more remote times, we find this study confounded with the other moral sciences, of which it was an integral part. When the genius of Adam Smith gave it a distinct character, he did not desire to separate it from those branches of knowledge without which it could only remain a bleached plant from the absence of the sunlight of ethics. We must renounce the singular idea,(24) that thousands of years could pass away without leaving any trace of what enlightened men had thought and elaborated in the matter of Political Economy, among so many nations, and that people should never have thought of cultivating this rich intellectual domain, while in every other direction, it is easy for us to ascend by a road already cleared up to the most remote antiquity.