What, I ask, does this pious litany amount to?
To the prayer of the savages: O! All the most reasonable teachings of human wisdom concerning justice are summed up in that famous adage: DO UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU; DO NOT UNTO OTHERS THAT WHICH YOU WOULD NOT THAT OTHERS SHOULD DO UNTO YOU.

But this rule of moral practice is unscientific: what have I a right to wish that others should do or not do to me?
It is of no use to tell me that my duty is equal to my right, unless I am told at the same time what my right is.
Let us try to arrive at something more precise and positive.
Justice is the central star which governs societies, the pole around which the political world revolves, the principle and the regulator of all transactions.

Nothing takes place between men save in the name of RIGHT; nothing without the invocation of justice.

Justice is not the work of the law: on the contrary, the law is only a declaration and application of JUSTICE in all circumstances where men are liable to come in contact.

If, then, the idea that we form of justice and right were ill-defined, if it were imperfect or even false, it is clear that all our legislative applications would be wrong, our institutions vicious, our politics erroneous: consequently there would be disorder and social chaos.
This hypothesis of the perversion of justice in our minds, and, as a necessary result, in our acts, becomes a demonstrated fact when it is shown that the opinions of men have not borne a constant relation to the notion of justice and its applications; that at different periods they have undergone modifications: in a word, that there has been progress in ideas.