ly as possible the most thorough
satisfaction of his wants, seeks RULE. In the beginning, this rule is
to him living, visible, and tangible. It is his father, his master, his
king. The more ignorant man is, the more obedient he is, and the more
absolute is his confidence in his guide. But, it being a law of man's
nature to conform to rule,--that is, to discover it by his powers of
reflection and reason,--man reasons upon the commands of his chiefs.
Now, such reasoning as that is a protest against authority,--a beginning
of disobedience. At the moment that man inquires into the motives which
govern the will of his sovereign,--at that moment man revolts. If
he obeys no longer because the king commands, but because the king
demonstrates the wisdom of his commands, it may be said that henceforth
he will recognize no authority, and that he has become his own king.
Unhappy he who shall dare to command him, and shall offer, as his
authority, only the vote of the majority; for, sooner or later, the
minority will become the majority, and this imprudent despot will be
overthrown, and all his laws annihilated.

In proportion as society becomes enlightened, royal authority
diminishes. That is a fact to which all history bears witness. At the
birth of nations, men reflect and reason in vain. Without methods,
without principles, not knowing how to use their reason, they cannot
judge of the justice of their conclusions. Then the authority of kings
is immense, no knowledge having been acquired with which to contradict
it. But, little by little, experience produces habits, which develop
into customs; then the customs are formulated in maxims, laid down as
principles,--in short, transformed into laws, to which the king, the
living law, has to bow. There comes a time when customs and laws are so
numerous that the will of the prince is, so to speak, entwined by the
public will; and that, on taking the crown, he is obliged to swear that
he will govern in conformity with established customs and usages; and
that he is but the executive power of a society whose laws are made
independently of him.

Up to this point, all is done instinctively, and, as it were,
unconsciously; but see where this movement must end.

By means of self-instruction and the acquisition of ideas, man finally
acquires the idea of SCIENCE,--that is, of a system of knowledge in
harmony with the reality of things, and inferred from observation.
He searches for the science