that we deposit it with you, but not as a property or a heritage; that
you must be the first to obey the laws you make; that to-morrow you
redescend among us, and that you will have acquired no other right but
that of our esteem and gratitude. And consider what a tribute of glory
the world, which reveres so many apostles of error, will bestow on the
first assembly of rational men, who shall have declared the unchangeable
principles of justice, and consecrated, in the face of tyrants, the
rights of nations.



CHAPTER XVII.

UNIVERSAL BASIS OF ALL RIGHT AND ALL LAW.


The men chosen by the people to investigate the true principles of
morals and of reason then proceeded in the sacred object of their
mission; and, after a long examination, having discovered a fundamental
and universal principle, a legislator arose and said to the people:

Here is the primordial basis, the physical origin of all justice and of
all right.

Whatever be the active power, the moving cause, that governs the
universe, since it has given to all men the same organs, the same
sensations, and the same wants, it has thereby declared that it has
given to all the same right to the use of its treasures, and that all
men are equal in the order of nature.