organization of labor, distribution of wages, valuation of
products, and universal solidarity. For social order is
established upon the basis of inexorable justice, not at all upon
the paradisical sentiments of fraternity, self-sacrifice, and
love, to the exercise of which so many honorable socialists are
endeavoring now to stimulate the people. It is in vain that,
following Jesus Christ, they preach the necessity, and set the
example, of sacrifice; selfishness is stronger, and only the law
of severity, economic fatality, is capable of mastering it.
Humanitarian enthusiasm may produce shocks favorable to the
progress of civilization; but these crises of sentiment, like the
oscillations of value, must always result only in a firmer and
more absolute establishment of justice. Nature, or Divinity, we
distrust in our hearts: she has never believed in the love of man
for his fellow; and all that science reveals to us of the ways of
Providence in the progress of society--I say it to the shame of
the human conscience, but our hypocrisy must be made aware of
it--shows a profound misanthropy on the part of God. God helps
us, not from motives of goodness, but because order is his
essence; God promotes the welfare of the world, not because he
deems it worthy, but because the religion of his supreme
intelligence lays the obligation upon him: and while the vulgar
give him the sweet name Father, it is impossible for the
historian, for the political economist, to believe that he
either loves or esteems us.

Let us imitate this sublime indifference, this stoical ataraxia,
of God; and, since the precept of charity always has failed to
promote social welfare, let us look to pure reason for the
conditions of harmony and virtue.