Our interpretation rests on the most certain and most authentic
grounds, on the greatest authority to which men can appeal, the
metaphysical construction of ideas and facts. Yes, the human
being is vicious because he is illogical, because his
constitution is but an eclecticism which holds in perpetual
struggle the potentialities of his being, independently of the
contradictions of society. The life of man is only a continual
compromise between labor and pain, love and enjoyment, justice
and egoism; and the voluntary sacrifice which man makes in
obedience to his inferior attractions is the baptism which
prepares the way for his reconciliation with God and renders him
worthy of that beatific union and eternal happiness.
The object of social economy, in incessantly securing order in
labor and favoring the education of the race, is then to render
charity--that charity which knows not how to rule its
slaves--superfluous as far as possible by equality, or better, to
make charity develop from justice, as a flower from its stem.
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