o deliberately and
freely.

But man acquires skill only by observation and experiment. He reflects,
then, since to observe and experiment is to reflect; he reasons,
since he cannot help reasoning. In reflecting, he becomes deluded; in
reasoning, he makes mistakes, and, thinking himself right, persists in
them. He is wedded to his opinions; he esteems himself, and despises
others. Consequently, he isolates himself; for he could not submit
to the majority without renouncing his will and his reason,--that is,
without disowning himself, which is impossible. And this isolation, this
intellectual egotism, this individuality of opinion, lasts until the
truth is demonstrated to him by observation and experience. A final
illustration will make these facts still clearer.

If to the blind but convergent and harmonious instincts of a swarm
of bees should be suddenly added reflection and judgment, the little
society could not long exist. In the first place, the bees would not
fail to try some new industrial process; for instance, that of making
their cells round or square. All sorts of systems and inventions would
be tried, until long experience, aided by geometry, should show them
that the hexagonal shape is the best. Then insurrections would occur.
The drones would be told to provide for themselves, and the queens to
labor; jealousy would spread among the laborers; discords would burst
forth; soon each one would want to produce on his own account; and
finally the hive would be abandoned, and the bees would perish. Evil
would be introduced into the honey-producing republic by the power of
reflection,--the very faculty which ought to constitute its glory.

Thus, moral evil, or, in this case, disorder in society, is naturally
explained by our power of reflection. The mother of poverty, crime,
insurrection, and war was inequality of conditions; which was the
daughter of property, which was born of selfishness, which was
engendered by private opinion, which descended in a direct line from
the autocracy of reason. Man, in his infancy, is neither criminal
nor barbarous, but ignorant and inexperienced. Endowed with imperious
instincts which are under the control of his reasoning faculty, at first
he reflects but little, and reasons inaccurately; then, benefiting by
his mistakes, he rectifies his ideas, and perfects his reason. In the
first place, it is the savage sacrificing all his possessions for
a trinket, and then repenting and wee