xpress, sometimes
tacit, which became the rule for the action of individuals, the measure
of their rights, the law of their reciprocal relations; and persons were
appointed to superintend their observance, to whom the people confided
the balance to weigh rights, and the sword to punish transgressions.

Thus was established among individuals a happy equilibrium of force and
action, which constituted the common security. The name of equity and of
justice was recognized and revered over the earth; every one, assured
of enjoying in peace, the fruits of his toil, pursued with energy the
objects of his attention; and industry, excited and maintained by the
reality or the hope of enjoyment, developed, all the riches of art
and of nature. The fields were covered with harvests, the valleys with
flocks, the hills with fruits, the sea with vessels, and man became
happy and powerful on the earth. Thus did his own wisdom repair the
disorder which his imprudence had occasioned; and that wisdom was only
the effect of his own organization. He respected the enjoyments of
others in order to secure his own; and cupidity found its corrective in
the enlightened love of self.

Thus the love of self, the moving principle of every individual, becomes
the necessary foundation of every association; and on the observance
of that law of our nature has depended the fate of nations. Have the
factitious and conventional laws tended to that object and accomplished
that aim? Every one, urged by a powerful instinct, has displayed all
the faculties of his being; and the sum of individual felicities has
constituted the general felicity. Have these laws, on the contrary,
restrained the effort of man toward his own happiness? His heart,
deprived of its exciting principle, has languished in inactivity, and
from the oppression of individuals has resulted the weakness of the
state.

As self-love, impetuous and improvident, is ever urging man against
his equal, and consequently tends to dissolve society, the art of
legislation and the merit of administrators consists in attempering
the conflict of individual cupidities, in maintaining an equilibrium of
powers, and securing to every one his happiness, in order that, in the
shock of society against society, all the members may have a common
interest in the preservation and defence of the public welfare.

The internal splendor and prosperity of empires then, have had for
their efficient cause the equity of the