Erras, as Seneca said, si existumas vitia nobiscum esse: supervenerunt, ingesta sunt.

[Footnote: Seneca, Ep.

124.] We are made good or bad by education, public opinion, laws, government; and here the author points to the significance of the instinct of imitation as a social force, which a modern writer, M.Tarde, has worked into a system.
The evils, which are due to the errors of tyranny and superstition, the force of truth will gradually diminish if it cannot completely banish them; for our governments and laws may be perfected by the progress of useful knowledge.

But the process will be a long one: centuries of continuous mental effort in unravelling the causes of social ill-being and repeated experiments to determine the remedies (des experiences reiterees de la societe).

In any case we cannot look forward to the attainment of an unchangeable or unqualified felicity.