or not desiring to see such a discovery made?
Indeed, the more I reflect upon it, the more do I see that nothing could
be more convenient than that we should all of us have within our reach
an inexhaustible source of wealth and enlightenment--a universal
physician, an unlimited treasure, and an infallible counsellor, such as
you describe Government to be. Therefore it is that I want to have it
pointed out and defined, and that a prize should be offered to the first
discoverer of the phoenix. For no one would think of asserting that this
precious discovery has yet been made, since up to this time everything
presenting itself under the name of the Government is immediately
overturned by the people, precisely because it does not fulfil the
rather contradictory conditions of the programme.

I will venture to say that I fear we are, in this respect, the dupes of
one of the strangest illusions which have ever taken possession of the
human mind.

Man recoils from trouble--from suffering; and yet he is condemned by
nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to
work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he
adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one
way, which is, _to enjoy the labour of others_. Such a course of conduct
prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural
proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of
persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of
slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be--whether that of wars,
impositions, violence, restrictions, frauds, &c.--monstrous abuses, but
consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppression
should be detested and resisted--it can hardly be called absurd.

Slavery is subsiding, thank heaven! and on the other hand, our
disposition to defend our property prevents direct and open plunder from
being easy.

One thing, however, remains--it is the original inclination which exists
in all men to divide the lot of life into two parts, throwing the
trouble upon others, and keeping the satisfaction for themselves. It
remains to be shown under what new form this sad tendency is manifesting
itself.

The oppressor no longer acts directly and with his own powers upon his
victim. No, our conscience has become too sensitive for that. The tyrant
and his victim are still present, but there is an intermediate perso