“In fact, as soon as individuals shall be educated and placed—and it is for the best and permanent interest of society that all should be educated and placed—the saving of time, labour, and capital, between public and private property, will be beyond any estimate the mind of man can form in favour of public property.…
“Therefore the twelfth law[26] will be, that—
“ ‘Under the Rational System of society—after the children shall have been trained to acquire new habits and new feelings, derived from a knowledge of the laws of human nature—there shall be no useless private property.’
“The old system of the world has been created and governed on the assumed principle of man’s responsibility to man, and by man’s rewards and punishments.
“And this principle has been assumed upon the original supposition, that man was born with power to form himself into any character he liked; to believe or disbelieve whatever he pleased; and that he could love, hate, or be indifferent as to all persons and things, according to an independent will which enabled him to do as he liked in all these respects. [[24]]
“The present system is, therefore, essentially a system supported and governed by laws of punishment and reward of man’s creating, in opposition to nature’s laws of punishing and rewarding. The former system is artificial, and always produces crime and misery, continually increasing, and therefore requiring new laws to correct the evils necessarily forced upon society by the old laws; thus laws are multiplied without limit by man to counteract nature’s laws, and ever without success. While nature’s beautiful and benevolent laws, if consistently acted upon in a system made throughout in accordance with them, would produce knowledge, goodness, and happiness, continually increasing, to the human race.
“By man’s laws being forced upon the population of all countries, in continual opposition to nature’s laws; with law added to law, in the vain attempt to remedy endless previous laws, the world had been made and kept criminal, with crimes multiplying as human laws increased.
“The laws of man are made to support injustice, and give additional power to the oppressor and to the man devoid of truth and honesty over the innocent and just. And such must be the result, as long as human laws, lawyers, and law paraphernalia shall be sanctioned by society.…
“Nature’s laws carry with them the only just rewards and punishments that man should experience; and they are, in every case, efficient for nature’s purposes, and to ensure the happiness of man in all countries and climes; and, differing from man’s puny, short-sighted laws, they are always adequate to the end intended to be accomplished. And this end is evidently to increase human knowledge and happiness. It is through these laws of nature, that man has attained the knowledge which he has acquired. He has been continually urged onward to make discoveries, and to invent, through pain experienced, or pleasure enjoyed or anticipated.
“But man has been trained to have his character formed, and to be governed by laws of his own making; his habits, manners, ideas, and associations of ideas have emanated, directly or indirectly, from his artificial and injurious source; and, in consequence, the mind, language, and practice of all individuals have become a chaos of confusion. And this chaos in the character and conduct of individuals has made a yet greater chaos in all the proceedings of society: and, in consequence, man is now opposing man, and nation opposing nation, all over the earth. Yet all nature declares, that it shall be by union of man with man, and nation with nation, that the human [[25]]race can ever attain a high degree of permanent prosperity and happiness, or become rational.