by the plunder of ancient times, exercised in the way of
conquests; and by plunder of later times, effected through the medium of
the laws? He ought to ask himself whether, granting the aspiration of
all men after well-being and perfection, the reign of justice would not
suffice to realise the greatest activity of progress, and the greatest
amount of equality compatible with that individual responsibility which
God has awarded as a just retribution of virtue and vice?

He never gives this a thought. His mind turns towards combinations,
arrangements, legal or factitious organisations. He seeks the remedy in
perpetuating and exaggerating what has produced the evil.

For, justice apart, which we have seen is only a negation, is there any
one of these legal arrangements which does not contain the principle of
plunder?

You say, "There are men who have no money," and you apply to the law.
But the law is not a self-supplied fountain, whence every stream may
obtain supplies independently of society. Nothing can enter the public
treasury, in favour of one citizen or one class, but what other citizens
and other classes have been _forced_ to send to it. If every one draws
from it only the equivalent of what he has contributed to it, your law,
it is true, is no plunderer, but it does nothing for men who want
money--it does not promote equality. It can only be an instrument of
equalisation as far as it takes from one party to give to another, and
then it is an instrument of plunder. Examine, in this light, the
protection of tariffs, prizes for encouragement, right to profit, right
to labour, right to assistance, right to instruction, progressive
taxation, gratuitousness of credit, social workshops, and you will
always find at the bottom legal plunder, organised injustice.

You say, "There are men who want knowledge," and you apply to the law.
But the law is not a torch which sheds light abroad which is peculiar to
itself. It extends over a society where there are men who have
knowledge, and others who have not; citizens who want to learn, and
others who are disposed to teach. It can only do one of two things:
either allow a free operation to this kind of transaction, _i.e._, let
this kind of want satisfy itself freely; or else force the will of the
people in the matter, and take from some of them sufficient to pay
professors commissioned to instruct others gratuitously. But, in this
second case, there cannot fail to be a violati