to say, "_I am
ignorant_."

"I am ignorant, for I begin to believe there is something delusive in
the sweets of Scarcity."

"I am no longer so much edified by the charms of Obstruction."

"Effort without Result no longer seems to me so desirable as Result
without Effort."

"It may probably be true that the secret of commerce does not consist,
as that of arms does, _in giving and not receiving_, according to the
definition which the duellist in the play gives of it."

"I consider an article is increased in value by passing through
several processes of manufacture; but, in exchange, do two equal
values cease to be equal because the one comes from the plough and the
other from the power-loom?"

"I confess that I begin to think it singular that humanity should be
ameliorated by shackles, or enriched by taxes: and, frankly, I should
be relieved of a heavy weight, I should experience a pure joy, if I
could see demonstrated, which the author assures us of, that there is
no incompatibility between comfort and justice, between peace and
liberty, between the extension of labor and the progress of
intelligence."

"So, without feeling satisfied by his arguments, to which I do not
know whether to give the name of reasoning or of objections, I will
interrogate the masters of the science."

Let us terminate by a last and important observation this monograph of
sophisms. The world does not know, as it ought, the influence which
sophistry exerts upon it. If we must say what we think, when the Right
of the Strongest was dethroned, sophistry placed the empire in the
Right of the Most Cunning; and it would be difficult to say which of
these two tyrants has been the more fatal to humanity.

Men have an immoderate love for pleasure, influence, position,
power--in one word, for wealth.

And at the same time men are impelled by a powerful impulse to procure
these things at the expense of another. But this other, which is the
public, has an inclination not less strong to keep what it has
acquired, provided it can and knows how. Spoliation, which plays so
large a part in the affairs of the world, has, then, two agents only:
Strength and Cunning; and two limits: Courage and Right.

Power applied to spoliation forms the groundwork of human savagism. To
retrace its history would be to reproduce almost entire the history of
all nations--Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians,
Greeks, Romans, Goths, Franks, Huns, Turks, Ara