that you do better.” All this, as I have said, increases the difficulty of recognising the real immorality of mankind.

The state — this masterpiece, which sums up the self-conscious, intelligent egoism of all — consigns the rights of each person to a power, which, being enormously superior to that of the individual, compels him to respect the rights of all others. This is the leash that restrains the limitless egoism of nearly every one, the malice of many, the cruelty of not a few. The illusion thus arising is so great that, when in special cases, where the executive power is ineffective, or is eluded, the insatiable covetousness, the base greed, the deep hypocrisy, or the spiteful tricks of men are apparent in all their ugliness, we recoil with horror, supposing that we have stumbled on some