Part 16

No doubt equality of goods is just, but since they are unable to bring about that power should obey justice, people have judged it right to obey power; not being able to add power to justice they have justified power, so that justice and power should coalesce, and peace, the sovereign good, result.

Do we follow the majority because they have more reason? No; but because they have more power.

Do we follow ancient laws and opinions because they are more sound? No; but because they stand alone and take from us the root of diversity.

Summum jus, summa injuria.

The way of the majority is the best way, because it is plain, and has power to make itself obeyed; yet it is the opinion of the least able.

If men could have done so, they would have placed power in the hands of justice, since we cannot deal with power as we please, because it is a tangible quality, while justice is a spiritual quality of which we dispose as we please, they have placed justice in the hands of power, and thus that is called just which we are forced to obey.

Thence arises the right of the sword, for the sword gives a true right.

Otherwise we should see violence on one side and justice on the other. The end of the twelfth Provincial.

Thence the injustice of the Fronde, which raises its so-called justice against power.

It is not the same in the Church, for there is true justice and no violence.

Injustice.--That presumption should be joined to insignificance is extreme injustice.

Tyranny consists in the desire of universal rule outside its sphere.

There are different societies, in which are the strong, the fair, the judicious, the devout, in which each man rules at home, not elsewhere. Sometimes they meet, and the strong and the fair contend for the mastery, foolishly, for their mastery is each in a different kind. They do not agree, and their fault is that each aims at universal dominion. None can obtain this, not even power, which is of no avail in the realm of the wise; she is only mistress of our external actions.

Tyranny.--Thus the following expressions are false and tyrannical: "I am beautiful, therefore I should be feared; I am strong, therefore I should be loved. I am...."

Tyranny is the wishing to have in one way what can only be had in another. Divers duties are owing to divers merits, the duty of love to the pleasant, of fear to the strong, of belief to the wise.

These duties should be paid, it is unjust to refuse them, unjust also to require others. In the same way it is false and tyrannous to say, "He is not strong, therefore I will not esteem him; he is not clever, therefore I will not fear him."

It is necessary that men should be unequal. True; but that being granted, the door is open, not only to the greatest domination, but to the greatest tyranny.

It is necessary to relax the mind a little, but that opens the door to extreme dissipation.

We must mark the limits.--There are no fixed boundaries in these matters, law wishes to impose them, but the mind will not bear them.

Mine, Thine.--"This is my dog," say poor children, "that is my place in the sunshine." Here is the beginning and the image of the usurpation of the whole earth.

Good birth is a great advantage, for it gives a man a chance at the age of eighteen, making him known and respected as an ordinary man is on his merits at fifty. Here are thirty years gained at a stroke.

It is the result of power and not of custom. For those who are able to originate are few, the greater number will only follow, and refuse glory to those inventors who seek it by their inventions. And if they persist in wishing to gain glory, and in despising those who do not originate, the others will give them ridicule and would fain give them blows. Let no one then pride himself on this subtle capacity, or else let him keep his content to himself.

The reason of effects.--It is strange that men would not have me honour a man clothed in brocade, and followed by seven or eight footmen! Yet he will have them give me the strap if I do not salute him. This custom is a power. It is the same with a horse in fine trappings compared with another. It is odd that Montaigne does not see what difference there is, wonders that we find any, and asks the reason. "Indeed," he says, "how comes it," etc....

When power attacks craft, when a mere soldier takes the square cap of a first president, and flings it out of the window.

Injustice.--Men have found no means to gratify their sensuality without wrong to others.

The greatness of man even in his sensuality, to have known how to extract from it an admirable code, and to have drawn from it a picture of love to others.

Greatness.--The reasons of effects mark the greatness of man, in having formed so fair an order out of sensuality.

The reason of effects.--Sensuality and power are the source of all our actions; sensuality causes those which are voluntary, power the involuntary.