Section Seventh.: Conclusion.

The general considerations on which we have just dwelt, are those which first present themselves to our understanding when we begin to observe our will. However little we reflect thereon, we see first that it is a mode of our sensibility, which arises from a judgment, clear or confused, formed on what we feel, that if our pure and simple sensibility begins to give us an obscure idea of our self, and of the possession of its affections, this admirable mode of our sensibility, which we call will, by the resistance it experiences, causes us to know beings different from us, and completes our idea of individuality, of personality, and property, exclusive of whatsoever affects us. It is not less visible, that this faculty of willing is the source of all our wants, and of all our miseries; for an indifferent being would be impassive; and it is equally manifest that this same faculty, by the wonderful power it has of putting our organs into action, and of giving motion to our members, is also the source of all our means and of all our resources; for all our power consists in the employment of our physical and intellectual forces.

It follows from this, that every animated being, in virtue of the laws of his nature, has the right of satisfying all his desires, which are his wants, and the sole duty of employing his means in the best possible manner for the attainment of this object; for endowed with passion, he cannot be condemned to suffer but as little as possible, and endowed with action, he ought to avail himself of it to this end. It follows thence, further, that liberty, the power of executing his will, is for a willing being the first good, and includes them all, for he would be always happy if he had always the power of satisfying all his desires; and all his ills consist always in constraint, that is to say in the inability to satisfy himself.

We see moreover that the employment of our force, labour of every kind, is our only primitive riches, the source of all others, the first cause of their value, and that labour itself has always two values. The one is natural and necessary: it is that of all those things which are indispensable to the satisfaction of the wants of the animated being which performs this labour during the time he is performing it. The other is eventual, and often conventional: it consists in the mass of utility that results from this same labour.

In fine we see, with equal clearness, that the manner of fulfilling our single duty, that of well employing our means, varies according to the circumstances in which we are placed; whether it be when we are in contact with those beings only which do not manifest any sensibility, or when we have to do with animated beings, but to which we can make ourselves but imperfectly understood, or when we are in relation with sensible beings like ourselves, with whom we can perfectly correspond and make conventions. At this point justice and injustice, properly so called, and true society, commence; the object and motive of which is always to augment the power of every one, by making that of others concur with it, and by preventing them from reciprocally hurting one another.

All these first ideas are good and sound, at least I think so, and begin already to throw some light on the subject with which we are occupied; but they are far from being sufficient. They do not sufficiently inform us what are the numerous results of the employment of our force, of our labour, in a word of our actions, and what new interests their combinations produce among us, nor what are the different sentiments which germinate from our first desires, or what they have useful or injurious to the happiness of all and every one: nor, finally, what is the best possible direction of these actions and sentiments. These are, however, so many subjects necessary to be treated of in order to give a complete history of the will and its effects; and it is there we find again the division we announced. It is requisite then to enterinto further details, and I will now begin to speak of our actions.