ons of society; for
the rule and measure of those respective actions is the equilibrium or
equality between the service and the recompense, between what the one
returns and the other gives; which is the fundamental basis of all
society.

Thus all the domestic and individual virtues refer, more or less
mediately, but always with certitude, to the physical object of the
amelioration and preservation of man, and are thereby precepts resulting
from the fundamental law of nature in his formation.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SOCIAL VIRTUES; JUSTICE.

Q. What is society?

A. It is every reunion of men living together under the clauses of
an expressed or tacit contract, which has for its end their common
preservation.

Q. Are the social virtues numerous?

A. Yes; they are in as great number as the kinds of actions useful to
society; but all may be reduced to one principle.

Q. What is that fundamental principle?

A. It is justice, which alone comprises all the virtues of society.

Q. Why do you say that justice is the fundamental and almost only virtue
of society?

A. Because it alone embraces the practice of all the actions useful
to it; and because all the other virtues, under the denominations
of charity, humanity, probity, love of one's country, sincerity,
generosity, simplicity of manners, and modesty, are only varied forms
and diversified applications of the axiom, "Do not to another what you
do not wish to be done to yourself," which is the definition of justice.

Q. How does the law of nature prescribe justice?

A. By three physical attributes, inherent in the organization of man.

Q. What are those attributes?

A. They are equality, liberty, and property.

Q. How is equality a physical attribute of man?

A. Because all men, having equally eyes, hands, mouths, ears, and the
necessity of making use of them, in order to live, have, by this reason
alone, an equal right to life, and to the use of the aliments which
maintain it; they are all equal before God.

Q. Do you suppose that all men hear equally, see equally, feel equally,
have equal wants, and equal passions?

A. No; for it is evident, and daily demonstrated, that one is short, and
another long-sighted; that one eats much, another little; that one has
mild, another violent passions; in a word, that one is weak in body and
mind, while another is strong in both.

Q. They are, therefore, really unequal?

A. Yes, in the development of their means