[8] He is not even qualified to comprehend the great
discoverers of his age, Laplace, Monge, Lavoisier, or Fourcroy; on the
contrary, he libels them in the style of a low rebellious subordinate,
who, without the shadow of a claim, aims to take the place of
legitimate authorities. In Politics, he adopts every absurd idea in
vogue growing out of the "Contrat-Social" based on natural right, and
which he renders still more absurd by repeating as his own the
arguments advanced by those bungling socialists, who, physiologists
astray in the moral world, derive all rights from physical
necessities.
"All human rights issue from physical wants[9]... If a man has
nothing, he has a right to any surplus with which another gorges
himself. What do I say? He has a right to seize the indispensable,
and, rather than die of hunger, he may cut another's throat and eat
his throbbing flesh. . . . Man has a right to self-preservation,
to the property, the liberty and even the lives of his fellow
creatures. To escape oppression he has a right to repress, to bind
and to massacre. He is free to do what he pleases to ensure his own
happiness."
It is plain enough what this leads to.
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