Moliere, that great painter of human life, seems constantly to have had in view the second process as the more efficient.
Such is the case on the world's stage.

Tell me what Caesar did, and I will tell you what were the Romans of his day.
Tell me what modern diplomacy has accomplished, and I will describe the moral condition of the nations.
We should not pay two milliards of taxes if we did not appoint those who consume them to vote them.
We should not have so much trouble, difficulty and expense with the African question if we were as well convinced that two and two make four in political economy as in arithmetic.
M.Guizot would never have had occasion to say: "France is rich enough to pay for her glory," if France had never conceived a false idea of glory.
The same statesman never would have said: "_Liberty is too precious for France to traffic in it_," if France had well understood that _liberty_ and a _large budget_ are incompatible.
Let religious morality then, if it can, touch the heart of the Tartuffes, the Caesars, the conquerors of Algeria, the sinecurists, the monopolists, etc.

The mission of political economy is to enlighten their dupes.

Of these two processes, which is the more efficient aid to social progress?
I believe it is the second.

I believe that humanity cannot escape the necessity of first learning a _defensive morality_.