This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and,
as a necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact
when it is shown that the opinions of men have not borne a
constant relation to the notion of justice and its applications;
that at different periods they have undergone modifications: in a
word, that there has been progress in ideas. Now, that is what
history proves by the most overwhelming testimony.

Eighteen Hundred years ago, the world, under the rule of the
Caesars, exhausted itself in slavery, superstition, and
voluptuousness. The people--intoxicated and, as it were,
stupefied by their long-continued orgies--had lost the very
notion of right and duty: war and dissipation by turns swept them
away; usury and the labor of machines (that is of slaves), by
depriving them of the means of subsistence, hindered them from
continuing the species. Barbarism sprang up again, in a hideous
form, from this mass of corruption, and spread like a devouring
leprosy over the depopulated provinces. The wise foresaw the
downfall of the empire, but could devise no remedy. What could
they think indeed? To save this old society it would have been
necessary to change the objects of public esteem and veneration,
and to abolish the rights affirmed by a justice purely secular;
they said: "Rome has conquered through her politics and her
gods; any change in theology and public opinion would be folly
and sacrilege. Rome, merciful toward conquered nations,
though binding them in chains, spared their lives; slaves are the
most fertile source of her wealth; freedom of the nations would
be the negation of her rights and the ruin of her finances.
Rome, in fact, enveloped in the pleasures and gorged with the