ecclesiastic or laic, noble or commoner, sovereign or subject,
proprietor or proletary, ignorant or cultivated, peasant or citizen,
slave or master, all being phony qualities which we are not to heed,
as their origin is tainted with violence and robbery. Strip off these
superfluous garments; let us take Man in himself, the same under all
conditions, in all situations, in all countries, in all ages, and strive
to ascertain what sort of association is the best adapted to him. The
problem thus stated, the rest follows.--In accordance with the customs
of the classic mentality, and with the precepts of the prevailing
ideology, a political system is now constructed after a mathematical
model.[3402] A simple statement is selected, and set apart, very
general, familiar, readily apparent, and easily understood by the most
ignorant and inattentive schoolboy. Reject every difference, which
separates one man from other men; retain of him only the portion common
to him and to others. The remainder constitutes Man in general, or in
other words, "a sensitive and rational being who, thus endowed, avoids
pain and seeks pleasure," and therefore aspiring to happiness, namely, a
stable condition in which one enjoys greater pleasure than pain,"[3403]
or, again, "a sensitive being capable of forming rational opinions and
of acquiring moral ideas."[3404]

Anyone (they say) may by himself experience this elementary idea, and can
verify it at the first glance. Such is the social unit; let several of
these be combined, a thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, twenty-six
millions, and you have the French people. Men born at twenty-one years
of age, without relations, without a past, without traditions, without
a country, are supposed to be assembled for the first time and, for the
first time, to treat with each other. In this position, at the moment of
contracting together, all are equal: for, as the definition states, the
extrinsic and spurious qualities through which alone all differ have
been rejected. All are free; for, according to the definition, the
unjust thralldom imposed on all by brute force and by hereditary
prejudice has been suppressed.--But if all men are equal, no reason
exists why, in this contract, any special advantage should be conceded
to one more than to another. Accordingly all shall be equal before the
law; no person, or family, or class, shall be allowed any privilege; no
one shall claim a right of which another might be