prefer his
own boat to the large ship is only too great; if it is desirable for him
to go aboard and work there, he must be provided with the facilities
and motives which prompt him to go aboard and do the work; at the very
least, he must not be deprived of them. Now, that depends on the State,
a sort of central flag-ship, the only one that is armed, and which has
all subordinate vessels under its guns; for, whatever the society may
be, provincial or municipal, educational or charitable, religious or
laic, it is the State which sanctions or adopts its statues, good
or bad, and which, by its laws, tribunals, and police, insures their
execution, whether rigidly or carelessly. Therefore, on this point, it
is responsible; it must adopt or impose the proper statute, the
most suitable social form for strengthening the social instinct, for
maintaining disinterested zeal, for the encouragement of voluntary and
gratuitous labor.

This form, of course, differs according to different societies; the same
charter or constitution is not proper for a church system and a commune,
nor for a Protestant church and a Catholic church, nor for a town of
one hundred thousand inhabitants and a village of five hundred. Each
association has its own peculiar and distinctive features, which grade
it according to its kind, according to its spiritual or temporal aims,
according to its liberal or authoritative spirit, according to is small
or large dimensions, according to the simplicity or complexity of
its affairs, according to the capacity or incapacity of its members:
features which within it are both efficient and permanent; whatever the
legislator may do, these will remain and will regulate all activity.
Thus let him, in each case, keep this in mind. But in all cases his
office is the same; always, on drawing up and countersigning a statute,
he intervenes in the coming conflict between the social instinct and
the egoistic instinct; every provision which he enacts will contribute,
nearby or at a distance, to the final ascendancy of the former or of
the latter. Now, the legislator the natural ally of the former, for the
former is his indispensable auxiliary. In every work or enterprise
of public utility, if the legislator is the external promoter, social
instinct is the internal promoter; and on the inner spring becoming weak
or breaking, the impulsion from outside remains without effect. Hence it
is that, if the legislator would accomplish anyth