Here the second principle, that advanced against
individual independence, operates inversely, and, instead of being an
adversary, it becomes a champion. Far from setting the State free, it
puts another chain around its neck, and thus strengthens the fence
within which modern conscience and modern honor have confined the
public guardian.
V.
Direct common interest. - This consists in the absence of constraint.
- Two reasons in favor of freedom of action. - Character, in general,
of the individual man. - Modern complication.
In what, indeed, does the common weal (l'int?r?t de tous, the interest
of everyone) consist? - In the interest of each person, while that
which interests each person is the things of which the possession is
agreeable and deprivation painful. The whole world would in vain
gainsay this point; every sensation is personal. My suffering and my
enjoyments are not to be contested any more than my inclination for
objects which procure me the one, and my dislike of objects which
procure me the other. There is, therefore, no arbitrary definition of
each one's particular interest; this exists as a fact independently of
the legislator; all that remains is to show what this interest is, and
what each individual prefers.
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