The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Invocation.
• The Ruins: Or, a Survey of the Revolutions of Empires.
• Chap. I.: The Tour.
• Chap. II.: Meditations.
• Chap. III.: The Apparition.
• Chap. IV.: The Hemisphere.
• Chap. V.: Condition of Man In the Universe.
• Chap. VI.: Original State of Man.
• Chap. VII.: Principles of Society.
• Chap. VIII.: Source of the Evils of Society.
• Chap. IX.: The Origin of Government and Laws.
• Chap. X.: General Causes of the Prosperity of Ancient States.
• Chap. XI.: General Causes of the Revolutions and Ruin of Ancient States.
• Chap. XII.: Lessons Taught By Ancient, Repeated In Modern Times.
• Chap. XIII.: Will the Human Race Be Ever In a Better Condition Than At Present.
• Chap. XIV.: Grand Obstacle to Improvement.
• Chap. XV.: New Age.
• Chap. XVI.: A Free and Legislative People.
• Chap. XVII.: Universal Basis of All Right and All Law.
• Chap. XVIII.: Consternation and Conspiracy of Tyrants.
• Chap. XIX.: General Assembly of the People.
• Chap. XX.: Investigation of Truth.
• Chap. XXI.: Problem of Religious Contradictions.
• Chap. XXII.: Origin and Genealogy of Religious Ideas.
• Sect. I.: Origin of the Idea of God: Worship of the Elements, and the Physical Powers of Nature.
• Sect. II.: Second System: Worship of the Stars, Or Sabeism.
• Sect. III.: Third System: Worship of Symbols, Or Idolatry.
• Sect. IV.: Fourth System: Worship of Two Principles, Or Dualism.
• Sect. V.: Mystical Or Moral Worship, Or the System of a Future State.
• Sect. VI.: Sixth System: the Animated World, Or Worship of the Universe Under Different Emblems.
• Sect. VII.: Seventh System: Worship of the Soul of the World, That Is, the Element of Fire, the Vital Principle of the Universe.
• Sect. VIII.: Eighth System: the World a Machine: Worship of the Demi-ourgos, Or Supreme Artificer.
• Sect. IX.: Religion of Moses, Or Worship of the Soul of the World (you-piter).
• Sect. X.: Religion of Zoroaster.
• Sect. XI.: Budoism, Or Religion of the Samaneans.
• Sect. XII.: Braminism, Or the Indian System.
• Sect. XIII.: Christianity, Or the Allegorical Worship of the Sun, Under the Cabalistical Names of Chris-en Or Christ, and Y
• Chap. XXIII.: End of All Religions the Same.
• Chap. XXIV.: Solution of the Problem of Contradictions.

CHAP. VIII.

SOURCE OF THE EVILS OF SOCIETY.

In reality, scarcely were the faculties of men expanded, than, seized by the attraction of objects which flatter the senses, they gave themselves up to unbridled desires. The sweet sensations which nature had annexed to their true wants, to attach them to life, no longer sufficed. Not satisfied with the fruits which the earth offered them, or their industry produced, they were desirous of heaping up enjoyments, and they coveted those which their fellow-creatures possessed. A strong man rose up against a weak one to tear from him the profit of his labour: the weak man solicited the succour of a neighbour, weak like himself, to repel the violence. The strong man in his turn associated himself with another strong man, and they said: “Why should we fatigue our arms in producing enjoyments which we find in the hands of the feeble, who are unable to defend themselves? Let us unite, and plunder them. They shall toil for us, and we shall enjoy in indolence the fruit of their exertions.” The strong thus associating for the purpose of oppression, and the weak for resistance, men reciprocally tormented each other, and a fatal and general discord was established upon the earth, in which the passions, assuming a thousand new forms, have never ceased to generate a regular train of calamities.

Thus that very principle of self-love, which, when restrained within the limits of prudence, was a source of improvement and felicity, became transformed, in its blind and disordered state, into a contagious poison. Cupidity, the daughter and companion of ignorance, has produced all the mischiefs that have desolated the globe.

Yes, ignorance and the love of accumulation, these are the two sources of all the plagues that infest the life of man! They have inspired him with false ideas of his happiness, and prompted him to misconstrue and infringe the laws of nature, as they related to the connection between him and exterior objects. Through them his conduct has been injurious to his own existence, and he has thus violated the duty he owes to himself; they have fortified his heart against compassion, and his mind against the dictates of justice, and he has thus violated the duty he owes to others. By ignorance and inordinate desire, man has armed himself against man, family against family, tribe against tribe, and the earth is converted into a bloody theatre of discord and robbery. They have sown the seeds of secret war in the bosom of every state, divided the citizens from each other, and the same society is constituted of oppressors and oppressed, of masters and slaves. They have taught the heads of nations, with audacious insolence, to turn the arms of the society against itself, and to build upon mercenary avidity the fabric of political despotism: or they have taught a more hypocritical and deep-laid project, that imposed, as the dictate of heaven, lying sanctions and a sacrilegious yoke: thus rendering avarice the source of credulity. In fine, they have corrupted every idea of good and evil, just and unjust, virtue and vice: they have misled nations in a never-ending labyrinth of calamity and mistake. Ignorance and the love of accumulation!....These are the malevolent beings that have laid waste the earth; these are the decrees of fate that have overturned empires; these are the celestial maledictions that have struck those walls once so glorious, and converted the splendour of a populous city into a sad spectacle of ruins!...Since then it was from his own bosom all the evils proceeded that have vexed the life of man, it was there also he ought to have sought the remedies, where only they are to be found.