he efforts of the human species,
since its origin, sorely tends to emerge from that violent state by the
pressing necessity of self-preservation.

Q. But does not this necessity of preservation engender in individuals
egotism, that is to say self-love? and is not egotism contrary to the
social state?

A. No; for if by egotism you mean a propensity to hurt our neighbor, it
is no longer self-love, but the hatred of others. Self-love, taken in
its true sense, not only is not contrary to society, but is its firmest
support, by the necessity we lie under of not injuring others, lest in
return they should injure us.

Thus mans preservation, and the unfolding of his faculties, directed
towards this end, teach the true law of nature in the production of the
human being; and it is from this essential principle that are derived,
are referred, and in its scale are weighed, all ideas of good and evil,
of vice and virtue, of just and unjust, of truth or error, of lawful or
forbidden, on which is founded the morality of individual, or of social
man.

CHAPTER IV.

BASIS OF MORALITY; OF GOOD, OF EVIL, OF SIN, OF CRIME, OF VICE AND OF
VIRTUE.

Q. What is good, according to the law of nature?

A. It is everything that tends to preserve and perfect man.

Q. What is evil?

A. That which tends to man's destruction or deterioration.

Q. What is meant by physical good and evil, and by moral good and evil?

A. By the word physical is understood, whatever acts immediately on the
body. Health is a physical good; and sickness a physical evil. By moral,
is meant what acts by consequences more or less remote. Calumny is a
moral evil; a fair reputation is a moral good, because both one and the
other occasion towards us, on the part of other men, dispositions and
habitudes,* which are useful or hurtful to our preservation, and which
attack or favor our means of existence.

* It is from this word habitudes, (reiterated actions,) in
Latin mores, that the word moral, and all its family, are
derived.

Q. Everything that tends to preserve, or to produce is therefore a good?

A. Yes; and it is for that reason that certain legislators have classed
among the works agreeable to the divinity, the cultivation of a field
and the fecundity of a woman.

Q. Whatever tends to cause death is, therefore, an evil?

A. Yes; and it is for that reason some legislators have extended the
idea of evil and of sin even to the killing o