it render him sociable? does
it make him pacific? does it teach him to be humane? The arbiters, the
sovereigns of society, are they faithful in recompensing punctual in
rewarding, those who have best served their country, in punishing
those who have pillaged, who have robbed, who have plundered, who have
divided, who have ruined it? Justice, does she hold her scales with
a firm, with an even hand, between all the citizens of the state? The
laws, do they never support the strong against the weak, favor the rich
against the poor, uphold the happy against the miserable? In short, is
it an uncommon spectacle to behold crime frequently justified, often
applauded, sometimes crowned with success, insolently triumphing,
arrogantly striding over that merit which it disdains, over that virtue
which it outrages? Well, then, in societies thus constituted, virtue
can only be heard by a very small number of peaceable citizens, a few
generous souls, who know how to estimate its value, who enjoy it in
secret. For the others, it is only a disgusting object; they see in
it nothing but the supposed enemy to their happiness, or the censor of
their individual conduct."

In the tenth chapter, which is upon the soul, the author says:--

"The diversity in the temperament of man, is natural, the necessary
source of the diversity of passions, of his taste, of his ideas of
happiness, of his opinions of every kind. Thus this same diversity
will be the fatal source of his disputes--of his hatreds--of his
injustice--every time he shall reason upon unknown objects, but to which
he shall attach the greatest importance. He will never understand either
himself or others, in speaking of a spiritual soul, or of immaterial
substances distinguished from nature; he will, from that moment, cease
to speak the same language, and he will never attach the same ideas to
the same words. What then shall be the common standard that shall decide
which is the man that thinks with the greatest justice?

"Propose to a man to change his religion for yours, he will believe you
a madman; you will only excite his indignation, elicit his contempt; he
will propose to you, in his turn, to adopt his own peculiar opinions;
after much reasoning, you will treat each other as absurd beings,
ridiculously opinionated, pertinaciously stubborn; and he will display
the least folly who shall first yield. But if the adversaries become
heated in the dispute, which always happens, when the