e which he reserves to himself. Point out to us the
rules of conduct--the basis of just and equitable laws. Prepare for us a
new system of government; for we realize that the one which has
hitherto guided us is corrupt. Our fathers have wandered in the paths
of ignorance, and habit has taught us to follow in their footsteps.
Everything has been done by fraud, violence, and delusion; and the true
laws of morality and reason are still obscure. Clear up, then, their
chaos; trace out their connection; publish their code, and we will adopt
it.

And the people raised a large throne, in the form of a pyramid, and
seating on it the men they had chosen, said to them:

We raise you to-day above us, that you may better discover the whole of
our relations, and be above the reach of our passions. But remember that
you are our fellow-citizens; that the power we confer on you is our own;
that we deposit it with you, but not as a property or a heritage; that
you must be the first to obey the laws you make; that to-morrow you
redescend among us, and that you will have acquired no other right but
that of our esteem and gratitude. And consider what a tribute of glory
the world, which reveres so many apostles of error, will bestow on the
first assembly of rational men, who shall have declared the unchangeable
principles of justice, and consecrated, in the face of tyrants, the
rights of nations.

CHAPTER XVII.

UNIVERSAL BASIS OF ALL RIGHT AND ALL LAW.

The men chosen by the people to investigate the true principles of
morals and of reason then proceeded in the sacred object of their
mission; and, after a long examination, having discovered a fundamental
and universal principle, a legislator arose and said to the people:

Here is the primordial basis, the physical origin of all justice and of
all right.

Whatever be the active power, the moving cause, that governs the
universe, since it has given to all men the same organs, the same
sensations, and the same wants, it has thereby declared that it has
given to all the same right to the use of its treasures, and that all
men are equal in the order of nature.

And, since this power has given to each man the necessary means of
preserving his own existence, it is evident that it has constituted them
all independent one of another; that it has created them free; that no
one is subject to another; that each one is absolute proprietor of his
own person.

Equality and liberty are, t