WHEN GOD, according to Bossuet, FORMED THE BOWELS OF MAN, HE
ORIGINALLY PLACED GOODNESS THERE. Thus love is our first law;
the prescriptions of pure reason, as well as the promptings of
the senses, take second and third rank only. Such is the
hierarchy of our faculties,--a principle of love forming the
foundation of our conscience and served by an intelligence and
organs. Hence of two things one: either the man who violates
charity to obey his cupidity is guilty; or else, if this
psychology is false, and the need of luxury in man must hold a
place beside charity and reason, man is a disorderly animal,
utterly wicked, and the most execrable of beings.
Thus the organic contradictions of society cannot cover the
responsibility of man; viewed in themselves, moreover, these
contradictions are only the theory of the hierarchical regime,
the first form and consequently an irreproachable form of
society. By the antinomy of their development labor and capital
have been continually led back to equality at the same time as to
subordination, to solidarity as well as to dependence; one was
the agent, the other the stimulator and guardian of the common
wealth.
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