Pure rhetoric: society exists from the day that individuals,
communicating by labor and speech, assume reciprocal obligations
and give birth to laws and customs. Undoubtedly society becomes
perfect in proportion to the advances of science and economy, but
at no epoch of civilization does progress imply any such
metamorphosis as those dreamed of by the builders of utopia; and
however excellent the future condition of humanity is to be, it
will be none the less the natural continuation, the necessary
consequence, of its previous positions.
For the rest, no system of association being exclusive in itself,
as I have shown, of fraternity and justice, it has never been
possible to confound the political ideal with God, and we see in
fact that all peoples have distinguished society from religion.
The first was taken as END, the second regarded only as MEANS;
the prince was the minister of the collective will, while God
reigned over consciences, awaiting beyond the grave the guilty
who escaped the justice of men.
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