TWO SYSTEMS OF MORALS. Arrived at the end of the preceding chapter, if he gets so far, I imagine I hear the reader say: "Well, now, was I wrong in accusing political economists of being dry and cold? What a picture of humanity! Spoliation is a fatal power, almost normal, assuming every form, practiced under every pretext, against law and according to law, abusing the most sacred things, alternately playing upon the feebleness and the credulity of the masses, and ever growing by what it feeds on. Could a more mournful picture of the world be imagined than this?" The problem is, not to find whether the picture is mournful, but whether it is true. And for that we have the testimony of history. It is singular that those who decry political economy, because it investigates men and the world as it finds them, are more gloomy than political economy itself, at least as regards the past and the present. Look into their books and their journals. What do you find? Bitterness and hatred of society. The very word _civilization_ is for them a synonym for injustice, disorder and anarchy. They have even come to curse _liberty_, so little confidence have they in the development of the human race, the result of its natural organization. Liberty, according to them, is something which will bring humanity nearer and nearer to destruction. It is true that they are optimists as regards the future. For, although humanity, in itself incapable, for six thousand years has gone astray, a revelation has come, which has pointed out to men the way of safety, and, if the flock are docile and obedient to the shepherd's call, will lead them to the promised land, where well-being may be attained without effort, where order, security and prosperity are the easy reward of improvidence. To this end humanity, as Rousseau said, has only to allow these reformers to change the physical and moral constitution of man. Political economy has not taken upon itself the mission of finding out the probable condition of society had it pleased God to make men different from what they are. It may be unfortunate that Providence, at the beginning, neglected to call to his counsels a few of our modern reformers. And, as the celestial mechanism would have been entirely different had the Creator consulted _Alphonso the Wise_, society, also, had He not neglected the advice of Fourier, would have been very different from that in which we are compelled to live, and move, and breathe. But, since we are here, our duty is to study and to understand His laws, especially if the amelioration of our condition essentially depends upon such knowledge. We cannot prevent the existence of unsatisfied desires in the hearts of men. We cannot satisfy these desires except by labor. We cannot deny the fact that man has as much repugnance for labor as he has satisfaction with its results.