Let us conclude this monography of sophism with a final and important observation.
The world is not sufficiently alive to the influence exercised over it by sophisms.
If I must speak my mind, when the right of the strongest has been put aside, sophisms have set up in its place the right of the most cunning; and it is difficult to say which of these two tryants has been the more fatal to humanity.
Men have an immoderate love of enjoyment, of influence, of consideration, of power—in a word, of wealth.
At the same time, they are urged on by a strong, an overpowering, inclination to procure the things they so much desire, at the expense of other people.
But these other people—in plain language, the public—have an equally strong desire to keep what they have got, if they can, and if they know it.
Spoliation, which plays so great a part in this world's affairs, has, then, only two agents at command, force and cunning; and two limits, courage and intelligence.
Force employed to effect spoliation forms the groundwork of human annals. To trace back its history, would be to reproduce very nearly the history of all nations—Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Franks, Huns, Turks, Arabs, Monguls, Tartars; not to speak of Spaniards in America, Englishmen in India, Frenchmen in Africa, Russians in Asia, etc.
But civilized nations, at least, composed of men who produce wealth, have become sufficiently numerous, and sufficiently strong to defend themselves. Does this mean that they are no longer plundered? Not at all; they are plundered as much as ever, and, what is more, they plunder one another.
Only, the agent employed has been changed; it is no longer by force, but by cunning, that they seize upon the public wealth.