eded
them.

_Absence_ of plunder.--This is the principle of justice, peace, order,
stability, conciliation, and of good sense, which I shall proclaim with
all the force of my lungs (which is very inadequate, alas!) till the day
of my death.

And, in all sincerity, can anything more be required at the hands of the
law? Can the law, whose necessary sanction is force, be reasonably
employed upon anything beyond securing to every one his right? I defy
any one to remove it from this circle without perverting it, and
consequently turning force against right. And as this is the most fatal,
the most illogical social perversion which can possibly be imagined, it
must be admitted that the true solution, so much sought after, of the
social problem, is contained in these simple words--LAW IS ORGANISED
JUSTICE.

Now it is important to remark, that to organise justice by law, that is
to say by force, excludes the idea of organising by law, or by force any
manifestation whatever of human activity--labour, charity, agriculture,
commerce, industry, instruction, the fine arts, or religion; for any one
of these organisations would inevitably destroy the essential
organisation. How, in fact, can we imagine force encroaching upon the
liberty of citizens without infringing upon justice, and so acting
against its proper aim?

Here I am encountering the most popular prejudice of our time. It is
not considered enough that law should be just, it must be philanthropic.
It is not sufficient that it should guarantee to every citizen the free
and inoffensive exercise of his faculties, applied to his physical,
intellectual, and moral development; it is required to extend
well-being, instruction, and morality, directly over the nation. This is
the fascinating side of socialism.

But, I repeat it, these two missions of the law contradict each other.
We have to choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be
free and not free. M. de Lamartine wrote to me one day thus:--"Your
doctrine is only the half of my programme; you have stopped at liberty,
I go on to fraternity." I answered him:--"The second part of your
programme will destroy the first." And in fact it is impossible for me
to separate the word _fraternity_ from the word _voluntary_. I cannot
possibly conceive fraternity _legally_ enforced, without liberty being
_legally_ destroyed, and justice _legally_ trampled under foot. Legal
plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have alr