Prometheus, according to the fable, is the symbol of human
activity. Prometheus steals the fire of heaven, and invents the
early arts; Prometheus foresees the future, and aspires to
equality with Jupiter; Prometheus is God. Then let us call
society Prometheus.

Prometheus devotes, on an average, ten hours a day to labor,
seven to rest, and seven to pleasure. In order to gather from
his toil the most useful fruit, Prometheus notes the time and
trouble that each object of his consumption costs him. Only
experience can teach him this, and this experience lasts
throughout his life. While laboring and producing, then,
Prometheus is subject to an infinitude of disappointments. But,
as a final result, the more he labors, the greater is his
well-being and the more idealized his luxury; the further he
extends his conquests over Nature, the more strongly he fortifies
within him the principle of life and intelligence in the exercise
of which he alone finds happiness; till finally, the early
education of the Laborer completed and order introduced into his
occupations, to labor, with him, is no longer to suffer,--it is
to live, to enjoy. But the attractiveness of labor does not
nullify the rule, since, on the contrary, it is the fruit of it;
and those who, under the pretext that labor should be attractive,
reason to the denial of justice and to communism, resemble
children who, after having gathered some flowers in the garden,
should arrange a flower-bed on the staircase.

In society, then, justice is simply the proportionality of
values; its guarantee and sanction is the responsibility of the