authority of the dead, that we must
draw a straight line and clean the darkness away.

The transfer of the riches and authority of the dead, of whatever kind,
to their descendants, is not in accord with reason and the moral law.
The laws of might and of possessions are for the living alone. Every
man must occupy in the common lot a place which he owes to his work and
not to luck.

It is tradition! But that is no reason, on the other hand. Tradition,
which is the artificial welding of the present with the mass of the
past, contrives a chain between them, where there is none. It is from
tradition that all human unhappiness comes; it piles _de facto_, truths
on to the true truth; it overrides justice; it takes all freedom away
from reason and replaces it with legendary things, forbidding reason to
look for what may be inside them.

It is in the one domain of science and its application, and sometimes
in the technique of the arts, that experience legitimately takes the
power of law, and that acquired productions have a right to accumulate.
But to pass from this treasuring of truth to the dynastic privilege of
ideas or powers or wealth--those talismans--that is to make a senseless
assimilation which kills equality in the bud and prevents human order
from having a basis. Inheritance, which is the concrete and palpable
form of tradition, defends itself by the tradition of origins and of
beliefs--abuses defended by abuses, to infinity--and it is by reason of
that integral succession that here, on earth, we see a few men holding
the multitude of men in their hands.

I say all this to Marie. She appears to be more struck by the
vehemence of my tone than by the obviousness of what I say. She
replies, feebly, "Yes, indeed," and nods her head; but she asks me,
"But the moral law that you talk about, isn't it tradition?"

"No. It is the automatic law of the common good. Every time _that_
finds itself at stake, it re-creates itself logically. It is lucid; it
shows itself every time right to its fountain-head. Its source is
reason itself, and equality, which is the same thing as reason. This
thing is good and that is evil, _because_ it is good and because it is
evil, and not because of what has been said or written. It is the
opposite of traditional bidding. There is no tradition of the good.
Wealth and power must be earned, not taken ready-made; the idea of what
is just or right must be reconstructed on every occasi