Power applied to spoliation forms the groundwork of human savagism. To retrace its history would be to reproduce almost entire the history of all nations--Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Franks, Huns, Turks, Arabs, Moguls, Tartars--without counting that of the Spaniards in America, the English in India, the French in Africa, the Russians in Asia, etc., etc. But, at least, among civilized nations, the men who produce wealth have become sufficiently numerous and sufficiently strong to defend it. Is that to say that they are no longer despoiled? By no means; they are robbed as much as ever, and, what is more, they despoil one another. The agent alone is changed; it is no longer by violence, but by stratagem, that the public wealth is seized upon. In order to rob the public, it must be deceived. To deceive it, is to persuade it that it is robbed for its own advantage; it is to make it accept fictitious services, and often worse, in exchange for its property. Hence sophistry, economical sophistry, political sophistry, and financial sophistry--and, since force is held in check, sophistry is not only an evil, it is the parent of other evils. So it becomes necessary to hold it in check, _in its turn_, and for this purpose to render the public more acute than the cunning; just as it has become more peaceful than the strong.