We not only can exchange efforts and render reciprocal services, but we do so necessarily. What I affirm is this, that our organization is such that we are obliged to work for one another under pain of death, of instant death. If it be so, society is our state of nature, since it is the only state in which we can live at all.
There is one observation which I have to make upon the equilibrium between our wants and our faculties, an observation which has always led me to admire the providential plan which regulates our destinies:—
In the state of isolation our wants exceed our powers;
In the social state our powers exceed our wants.
Hence it follows that man in an isolated state cannot subsist, whilst in the social state his most imperious wants give place to desires of a higher order, and continue to do so in an ascending career of progress and improvement to which it is impossible to set limits.
This is not declamation, but an assertion capable of being [p099] rigorously demonstrated by reasoning and analogy, if not by experience. And why can it not be demonstrated by experience, by direct observation? Precisely because it is true—precisely because, man not being able to exist in a state of isolation, it becomes impossible to exhibit in actual nature the effects of absolute solitude. You cannot lay hold of a nonentity. You can prove to me that a triangle never has four sides, but you cannot, in support of your demonstration, place before my eyes a tetragonal triangle. If you could, the exhibition of such a triangle would disprove your assertion. In the same way, to ask me for experimental proof, to ask me to study the effects of isolation in actual nature, is to palm a contradiction upon me; for life and isolation being incompatible, we have never seen, and never shall see, men without social relations.
If there are animals (of which I am ignorant) destined by their organization to make the round of their existence in absolute isolation, it is very clear that nature must exactly proportion their wants and their powers. It is possible to conceive that their powers have the superiority, in which case these animals would be progressive and capable of improvement. An equilibrium of wants and powers would render them stationary beings; but the superiority of their wants to their powers it is impossible to conceive. From their birth, from their first appearance in life, their faculties must be complete—relatively to the wants for which they have to provide, or at least both must be developed in just proportion. Otherwise the species would die the moment they came into existence, and, consequently, could not be the subject of our observation.
Of all the species of living beings which surround us, undoubtedly none have so many wants as man. In none is infancy so long, so feeble, and so helpless—in none is maturity loaded with so much responsibility—in none is old age so frail and so liable to suffering. And, as if we had not enough of wants, man has tastes also, the satisfaction of which exercises his faculties quite as much as his wants. Scarcely has he appeased his hunger than he begins to pamper himself with dainties—no sooner has he clothed himself than he sighs for finery—no sooner has he obtained shelter than he proceeds to embellish and decorate his residence. His mind is as restless as his body is exacting. He seeks to fathom the secrets of nature, to tame animals, to control the elements, to dive into the bowels of the earth, to traverse broad seas, to soar above the clouds, to annihilate time and space. He desires to know the motions, the springs, the laws, of his mind and heart—to [p100] control his passions—to conquer immortality—to become a god—to bring all things into subjection; nature, his fellow-men, himself. In a word, his desires and aspirations expand continually, and tend towards the infinite.
Thus, in no other species are the faculties so susceptible of vast development as in man. It is his alone to compare and to judge, to reason and to speak, to foresee, to sacrifice the present to the future. He alone can transmit, from generation to generation, his works, his thoughts, the treasures of his experience. He alone is capable of a perfectibility which is indefinite, which forms a chain the countless links of which would seem to stretch beyond the limits of the present world.
Let me here set down an observation which belongs properly to Political Economy. However extended may be the domain of our faculties, they do not reach the length of creating anything. Man cannot, in truth, augment or diminish the number of existing particles of matter. His action is limited to subjecting the substances which he finds around him to modifications and combinations which fit them for his use.[25]