PART SECOND.
% 1 .-- Of the Causes of our Mistakes.

The Origin of Property.
The true form of human society cannot be determined until the following question has been solved:-- Property not being our natural condition, how did it gain a foothold?
Why has the social instinct, so trustworthy among the animals, erred in the case of man?
Why is man, who was born for society, not yet associated?
I have said that human society is COMPLEX in its nature.

Though this expression is inaccurate, the fact to which it refers is none the less true; namely, the classification of talents and capacities.

But who does not see that these talents and capacities, owing to their infinite variety, give rise to an infinite variety of wills, and that the character, the inclinations, and--if I may venture to use the expression--the form of the ego, are necessarily changed; so that in the order of liberty, as in the order of intelligence, there are as many types as individuals, as many characters as heads, whose tastes, fancies, and propensities, being modified by dissimilar ideas, must necessarily conflict?
Man, by his nature and his instinct, is predestined to society; but his personality, ever varying, is adverse to it.
In societies of animals, all the members do exactly the same things.
The same genius directs them; the same will animates them.

A society of beasts is a collection of atoms, round, hooked, cubical, or triangular, but always perfectly identical.