I maintain that this conduct on the part of society is, as far as
the present is concerned, an act of high prudence; and, as for
the future, I shall prove that it does not lose thereby. I have
already shown in the second chapter, by the solution of the
antinomy of value, that the advantage of every useful discovery
is incomparably less to the inventor, whatever he may do, than to
society; I have carried the demonstration of this point even to
mathematical accuracy. Later I shall show further that, in
addition to the profit assured it by every discovery, society
exercises over the privileges which it concedes, whether
temporarily or perpetually, claims of several kinds, which
largely palliate the excess of certain private fortunes, and the
effect of which is a prompt restoration of equilibrium. But let
us not anticipate.
I observe, then, that social life manifests itself in a double
fashion,--PRESERVATION and DEVELOPMENT.
Development is effected by the free play of individual energies;
the mass is by its nature barren, passive, and hostile to
everything new.
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