They do
not see, on the one hand, that progress in morality is a
continual conquest of mind over animality, just as progress in
wealth is the fruit of the war waged by labor upon the parsimony
of nature; consequently that the idea of native goodness lost
through society is as absurd as the idea of native wealth lost
through labor, and that a compromise with the passions should be
viewed in the same light as a compromise with rest. On the other
hand, they refuse to understand that, if there is progress in
humanity, whether through religion or from some other cause, the
hypothesis of constitutional corruption is nonsense, a
contradiction.
But I anticipate the conclusions at which I must arrive: let us,
for the present, establish simply that the moral perfection of
humanity, like material welfare, is realized by a series of
oscillations between vice and virtue, MERIT and DEMERIT.
Yes, humanity grows in justice, but this growth of our liberty,
due entirely to the growth of our intelligence, surely gives no
proof of the goodness of our nature; and, far from authorizing us
to glorify our passions, it really destroys their sway.
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