the
people,"--if it fails in this, is it not evident that after every
disappointment, which, alas! is more than probable, there will be a no
less inevitable revolution?

I shall now resume the subject by remarking, that immediately after the
economical part[10] of the question, and at the entrance of the
political part, a leading question presents itself? It is the
following:--

What is law? What ought it to be? What is its domain? What are its
limits? Where, in fact, does the prerogative of the legislator stop?

I have no hesitation in answering, _Law is common force organised to
prevent injustice_;--in short, Law is Justice.

It is not true that the legislator has absolute power over our persons
and property, since they pre-exist, and his work is only to secure them
from injury.

It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our
consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our
works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to
prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any
one of these things.

Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have as
its lawful domain the domain of force, which is justice.

And as every individual has a right to have recourse to force only in
cases of lawful defence, so collective force, which is only the union of
individual forces, cannot be rationally used for any other end.

The law, then, is solely the organisation of individual rights, which
existed before legitimate defence.

Law is justice.

So far from being able to oppress the persons of the people, or to
plunder their property, even for a philanthropic end, its mission is to
protect the former, and to secure to them the possession of the latter.

It must not be said, either, that it may be philanthropic, so long as it
abstains from all oppression; for this is a contradiction. The law
cannot avoid acting upon our persons and property; if it does not secure
them, it violates them if it touches them.

The law is justice.

Nothing can be more clear and simple, more perfectly defined and
bounded, or more visible to every eye; for justice is a given quantity,
immutable and unchangeable, and which admits of neither _increase_ or
_diminution_.

Depart from this point, make the law religious, fraternal, equalising,
industrial, literary, or artistic, and you will be lost in vagueness and
uncertainty; you will be upon unknown gro