fruits, social progress
would be incessant, uninterrupted, inevitable.

But there is also another disposition which is common to them. This is,
to live and to develop, when they can, at the expense of one another.
This is no rash imputation, emanating from a gloomy, uncharitable
spirit. History bears witness to the truth of it, by the incessant wars,
the migrations of races, sacerdotal oppressions, the universality of
slavery, the frauds in trade, and the monopolies with which its annals
abound. This fatal disposition has its origin in the very constitution
of man--in that primitive, and universal, and invincible sentiment which
urges it towards its well-being, and makes it seek to escape pain.

Man can only derive life and enjoyment from a perpetual search and
appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of his faculties to
objects, or from labour. This is the origin of property.

But yet he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the
productions of the faculties of his fellow-men. This is the origin of
plunder.

Now, labour being in itself a pain, and man being naturally inclined to
avoid pain, it follows, and history proves it, that wherever plunder is
less burdensome than labour, it prevails; and neither religion nor
morality can, in this case, prevent it from prevailing.

When does plunder cease, then? When it becomes less burdensome and more
dangerous than labour. It is very evident that the proper aim of law is
to oppose the powerful obstacle of collective force to this fatal
tendency; that all its measures should be in favour of property, and
against plunder.

But the law is made, generally, by one man, or by one class of men. And
as law cannot exist without the sanction and the support of a
preponderating force, it must finally place this force in the hands of
those who legislate.

This inevitable phenomenon, combined with the fatal tendency which, we
have said, exists in the heart of man, explains the almost universal
perversion of law. It is easy to conceive that, instead of being a
check upon injustice, it becomes its most invincible instrument. It is
easy to conceive that, according to the power of the legislator, it
destroys for its own profit, and in different degrees, amongst the rest
of the community, personal independence by slavery, liberty by
oppression, and property by plunder.

It is in the nature of men to rise against the injustice of which they
are the victims. When,