We shall never get out of this circle—­mankind passive, and a great man moving it by the intervention of the law.

Once on this incline, will society enjoy something like liberty?  Without a doubt.  And what is liberty?

     “Once for all:  liberty consists, not only in the right granted, but
     in the power given to man, to exercise, to develop his faculties
     under the empire of justice, and under the protection of the law.

“And this is no vain distinction; there is a deep meaning in it, and its consequences are not to be estimated.  For when once it is admitted that man, to be truly free, must have the power to exercise and develop his faculties, it follows that every member of society has a claim upon it for such instruction as shall enable it to display itself, and for the instruments of labour, without which human activity can find no scope.  Now, by whose intervention is society to give to each of its members the requisite instruction and the necessary instruments of labour, unless by that of the State?”

Thus, liberty is power.  In what does this power consist?  In possessing instruction and instruments of labour.  Who is to give instruction and instruments of labour?  Society, who owes them.  By whose intervention is society to give instruments of labour to those who do not possess them?

By the intervention of the State.  From whom is the State to obtain them?

It is for the reader to answer this question, and to notice whither all this tends.

One of the strangest phenomena of our time, and one which will probably be a matter of astonishment to our descendants, is the doctrine which is founded upon this triple hypothesis:  the radical passiveness of mankind,—­the omnipotence of the law,—­the infallibility of the legislator:—­this is the sacred symbol of the party which proclaims itself exclusively democratic.

It is true that it professes also to be social.

So far as it is democratic, it, has an unlimited faith in mankind.

So far as it is social, it places it beneath the mud.

Are political rights under discussion?  Is a legislator to be chosen?  Oh! then the people possess science by instinct:  they are gifted with an admirable tact; their will is always right; the general will cannot err.  Suffrage cannot be too universal.  Nobody is under any responsibility to society.  The will and the capacity to choose well are taken for granted.  Can the people be mistaken?  Are we not living in an age of enlightenment?  What! are the people to be always kept in leading strings?  Have they not acquired their rights at the cost of effort and sacrifice?  Have they not given sufficient proof of intelligence and wisdom?  Are they not arrived at maturity?  Are they not in a state to judge for themselves?  Do they not know their own interest?  Is there a man or a class who would dare to claim the right of putting himself in the place of the people, of deciding and of acting for them?  No, no; the people would be free, and they shall be so.  They wish to conduct their own affairs, and they shall do so.