who knows how to classify facts, and to
deduce their law or the idea which governs them. Existing society seems
abandoned to the demon of falsehood and discord; and it is this sad
sight which grieves so deeply many distinguished minds who lived too
long in a former age to be able to understand ours. Now, while the
short-sighted spectator begins to despair of humanity, and, distracted
and cursing that of which he is ignorant, plunges into scepticism and
fatalism, the true observer, certain of the spirit which governs
the world, seeks to comprehend and fathom Providence. The memoir on
"Property," published last year by the pensioner of the Academy of
Besancon, is simply a study of this nature.

The time has come for me to relate the history of this unlucky treatise,
which has already caused me so much chagrin, and made me so unpopular;
but which was on my part so involuntary and unpremeditated, that I would
dare to affirm that there is not an economist, not a philosopher, not a
jurist, who is not a hundred times guiltier than I. There is something
so singular in the way in which I was led to attack property, that if,
on hearing my sad story, you persist, sir, in your blame, I hope at
least you will be forced to pity me.

I never have pretended to be a great politician; far from that, I always
have felt for controversies of a political nature the greatest aversion;
and if, in my "Essay on Property," I have sometimes ridiculed our
politicians, believe, sir, that I was governed much less by my pride
in the little that I know, than by my vivid consciousness of their
ignorance and excessive vanity. Relying more on Providence than on
men; not suspecting at first that politics, like every other science,
contained an absolute truth; agreeing equally well with Bossuet and
Jean Jacques,--I accepted with resignation my share of human misery,
and contented myself with praying to God for good deputies, upright
ministers, and an honest king. By taste as well as by discretion and
lack of confidence in my powers, I was slowly pursuing some commonplace
studies in philology, mingled with a little metaphysics, when I suddenly
fell upon the greatest problem that ever has occupied philosophical
minds: I mean the criterion of certainty.

Those of my readers who are unacquainted with the philosophical
terminology will be glad to be told in a few words what this criterion
is, which plays so great a part in my work.

The criterion of certaint