OF
MEANS, and not in EQUALITY OF COMFORT,--which it is the business of the
laborers to achieve for themselves, when provided with equal means,--in
no way violates justice and equite.

2. That LAW, resulting from the knowledge of facts, and consequently
based upon necessity itself, never clashes with independence.

3. That individual INDEPENDENCE, or the autonomy of the private reason,
originating in the difference in talents and capacities, can exist
without danger within the limits of the law.

4. That PROPORTIONALITY, being admitted only in the sphere of
intelligence and sentiment, and not as regards material objects, may be
observed without violating justice or social equality.

This third form of society, the synthesis of communism and property, we
will call LIBERTY. [32]

In determining the nature of liberty, we do not unite communism and
property indiscriminately; such a process would be absurd eclecticism.
We search by analysis for those elements in each which are true, and
in harmony with the laws of Nature and society, disregarding the rest
altogether; and the result gives us an adequate expression of the
natural form of human society,--in one word, liberty.

Liberty is equality, because liberty exists only in society; and in the
absence of equality there is no society.

Liberty is anarchy, because it does not admit the government of the
will, but only the authority of the law; that is, of necessity.

Liberty is infinite variety, because it respects all wills within the
limits of the law.

Liberty is proportionality, because it allows the utmost latitude to the
ambition for merit, and the emulation of glory.

We can now say, in the words of M. Cousin: "Our principle is true; it is
good, it is social; let us not fear to push it to its ultimate."

Man's social nature becoming JUSTICE through reflection, EQUITE through
the classification of capacities, and having LIBERTY for its formula,
is the true basis of morality,--the principle and regulator of all our
actions. This is the universal motor, which philosophy is searching for,
which religion strengthens, which egotism supplants, and whose place
pure reason never can fill. DUTY and RIGHT are born of NEED, which, when
considered in connection with others, is a RIGHT, and when considered in
connection with ourselves, a DUTY.

We need to eat and sleep. It is our right to procure those things which
are necessary to rest and nourishment. It is our dut