Now as to _the basis of contribution_, which also is a principle admitted first to operate in the assembly of the _commune_. Let us again take _one_ canton, such as is stated above. If the whole of the direct contributions paid by a great trading or manufacturing town be divided equally among the inhabitants, each individual will be found to pay much more than an individual living in the country according to the same average. The whole paid by the inhabitants of the former will be more than the whole paid by the inhabitants of the latter,--we may fairly assume one third more. Then the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of the canton, will pay as much as 19,050 inhabitants, or 3,289 voters of the _other cantons_, which are nearly the estimated proportion of inhabitants and voters of _five_ other cantons. Now the 2,193 voters will, as I before said, send only _ten_ deputies to the assembly; the 3,289 voters will send _sixteen_. Thus, for an _equal_ share in the contribution of the whole _commune_, there will be a difference of _sixteen_ voices to _ten_ in voting for deputies to be chosen on the principle of representing the general contribution of the whole _commune_. By the same mode of computation, we shall find 15,875 inhabitants, or 2,741 voters of the _other_ cantons, who pay _one sixth_ LESS to the contribution of the whole _commune_, will have _three_ voices MORE than the 12,700 inhabitants, or 2,193 voters of the _one_ canton. Such is the fantastical and unjust inequality between mass and mass, in this curious repartition of the rights of representation arising out of _territory_ and _contribution_. The qualifications which these confer are in truth negative qualifications, that give a right in an inverse proportion to the possession of them. In this whole contrivance of the three bases, consider it in any light you please, I do not see a variety of objects reconciled in one consistent whole, but several contradictory principles reluctantly and irreconcilably brought and held together by your philosophers, like wild beasts shut up in a cage, to claw and bite each other to their mutual destruction. I am afraid I have gone too far into their way of considering the formation of a Constitution. They have much, but bad, metaphysics,--much, but bad, geometry,--much, but false, proportionate arithmetic; but if it were all as exact as metaphysics, geometry, and arithmetic ought to be, and if their schemes were perfectly consistent in all their parts, it would make only a more fair and sightly vision. It is remarkable, that, in a great arrangement of mankind, not one reference whatsoever is to be found to anything moral or anything politic,--nothing that relates to the concerns, the actions, the passions, the interests of men. _Hominem non sapiunt_.