driving motor of unlimited capitalism as well, a
driving force only to be tempered by the law and by a desire for social
admiration of different kinds. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3370: "Travels in France during the years 1814 and 1815."
(Edinburgh, 1816, 2 vols.)--The author, a very good observer, thus sums
up the principle of the system: "To give active employment to all men of
talent and enterprise." There is no other condition: "Birth, education,
moral character were completely set aside."--Hence the general defect of
the system. "The French have literally no idea of any duties which they
must voluntarily, without the prospect of reward, undertake for their
country. It never enters their heads that a man may be responsible
for the neglect of those public duties for the performance of which he
receives no regular salary."]

BOOK FOURTH. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM.

CHAPTER I. LOCAL SOCIETY.

I. Human Incentives.

The two Stimuli of human action.--The egoistic instinct and
the social instinct.--Motives for not weakening the social
instinct.--Influence on society of the law it prescribes.
--The clauses of a statute depend on the legislator who adopts
or imposes them.--Conditions of a good statute.--It favors
the social instinct.--Different for different societies.
--Determined by the peculiar and permanent traits of the
society it governs.--Capital defect of the statute under the
new regime.

So long as a man takes an interest only in himself, in his own fortune,
in his own advancement, in his own success, his interests are trivial:
all that is, like himself, of little importance and of short duration.
Alongside of the small boat which he steers so carefully there are
thousands and millions of others of like it; none of them are
worth much, and his own is not worth more. However well he may have
provisioned and sailed it, it will always remain what it is, slight and
fragile; in vain will he hoist his flags, decorate it, and shove ahead
to get the first place; in three steps he has reached its length.
However well he handles and maintains it, in a few years it leaks;
sooner or later it crumbles and sinks, and with it goes all his effort.
Is it reasonable to work so hard for this, and is so slight an object
worth so great an effort?

Fortunately, man has, for a better placement of his effort, other
aims, more vast and more substantial: a family, a comm