e conclusions of the author only as far as it likes." I venture
to hope, sir, that, after you have read this letter, if your prudence
still restrains you, your fairness will induce you to do me justice.

MEN, EQUAL IN THE DIGNITY OF THEIR PERSONS AND EQUAL BEFORE THE LAW,
SHOULD BE EQUAL IN THEIR CONDITIONS,--such is the thesis which I
maintained and developed in a memoir bearing the title, "What is
Property? or, An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government."

The idea of social equality, even in individual fortunes, has in all
ages besieged, like a vague presentiment, the human imagination. Poets
have sung of it in their hymns; philosophers have dreamed of it in their
Utopias; priests teach it, but only for the spiritual world. The people,
governed by it, never have had faith in it; and the civil power is never
more disturbed than by the fables of the age of gold and the reign
of Astrea. A year ago, however, this idea received a scientific
demonstration, which has not yet been satisfactorily answered, and,
permit me to add, never will be. This demonstration, owing to its
slightly impassioned style, its method of reasoning,--which was so
at variance with that employed by the generally recognized
authorities,--and the importance and novelty of its conclusions, was of
a nature to cause some alarm; and might have been dangerous, had it not
been--as you, sir, so well said--a sealed letter, so far as the general
public was concerned, addressed only to men of intelligence. I was
glad to see that through its metaphysical dress you recognized the wise
foresight of the author; and I thank you for it. May God grant that my
intentions, which are wholly peaceful, may never be charged upon me as
treasonable!

Like a stone thrown into a mass of serpents, the First Memoir on
Property excited intense animosity, and aroused the passions of many.
But, while some wished the author and his work to be publicly denounced,
others found in them simply the solution of the fundamental problems of
society; a few even basing evil speculations upon the new light which
they had obtained. It was not to be expected that a system of inductions
abstractly gathered together, and still more abstractly expressed, would
be understood with equal accuracy in its ensemble and in each of its
parts.

To find the law of equality, no longer in charity and self-sacrifice
(which are not binding in their nature), but in justice; to base
equality of fu