as much varied as his physiognomy. This variety gives birth to that
continual series of action and reaction, which constitutes the life of
the moral world: from this discordance results the harmony which at once
maintains and preserves the human race.

The diversity found among the individuals of the human species, causes
inequalities between man and man: this inequality constitutes the
support of society. If all men were equal in their bodily powers, in
their mental talents, they would not have any occasion for each other:
it is the variation of his faculties, the inequality which this places
him in, with regard to his fellows, that renders morals necessary to
man: without these, he would live by himself, he would remain an
isolated being. From whence it may be perceived, that this inequality of
which man so often complains without cause--this impossibility which
each man finds when in an isolated state, when left to himself, when
unassociated with his fellow men, to labour efficaciously to his own
welfare, to make his own security, to ensure his own conservation;
places him in the happy situation of associating with his like, of
depending on his fellow associates, of meriting their succour, of
propitiating them to his views, of attracting their regard, of calling
in their aid to chase away, by common and united efforts, that which
would have the power to trouble or derange the order of his existence.
In consequence of man's diversity, of the inequality that results, the
weaker is obliged to seek the protection of the stronger; this, in his
turn, recurs to the understanding, to the talents, to the industry of
the weaker, whenever his judgment points out he can be useful to him:
this natural inequality furnishes the reason why nations distinguish
those citizens who have rendered their country eminent services. It is
in consequence of his exigencies that man honors and recompenses those
whose understanding, good deeds, assistance, or virtues, have procured