y adhered to an economic
doctrine whose principle clashes so violently with other incontestable
principles, could enjoy one moment's calm and repose of mind. As for
us, it seems to us, that if we had penetrated into science by this
entrance, if we did not clearly perceive that liberty, utility,
justice, peace, are things not only compatible, but closely allied
together, so to say, identical with each other, we would try to forget
all we had learned; we would say to ourselves:

"How could God will that men shall attain prosperity only through
injustice and war? How could He will that they may remove war and
injustice only by renouncing their own well-being?"

Does not the science which has conducted us to the horrible blasphemy
which this alternative implies deceive us by false lights; and shall
we dare take on ourselves to make it the basis of legislation for a
great people? And when a long succession of illustrious philosophers
have brought together more comforting results from this same science,
to which they have consecrated their whole lives; when they affirm
that Liberty and Utility are reconciled with Justice and Peace, that
all these grand principles follow infinite parallels, without
clashing, throughout all eternity; have they not in their favor the
presumption which results from all we know of the goodness and the
wisdom of God, manifested in the sublime harmony of the material
creation? Ought we lightly to believe, against such a presumption, and
in face of so many imposing authorities, that it has pleased this same
God to introduce antagonism and a discord into the laws of the moral
world?

No, no; before taking it for granted that all social principles clash,
shock, and neutralize each other, and are in anarchical, eternal,
irremediable, conflict together; before imposing on our fellow
citizens the impious system to which such reasoning conducts us, we
had better go over the whole chain, and assure ourselves that there is
no point on the way where we may have gone astray.

And if, after a faithful examination, twenty times recommenced, we
should always return to this frightful conclusion, that we must choose
between the advantages and the good--we should thrust science away,
disheartened; we should shut ourselves up in voluntary ignorance;
above all, we should decline all participation in the affairs of our
country, leaving to the men of another time the burden and the
responsibility of a choice so dif