Here the second principle, that advanced against individual independence, operates inversely, and, instead of being an adversary, it becomes a champion.
Far from setting the State free, it puts another chain around its neck, and thus strengthens the fence within which modern conscience and modern honor have confined the public guardian.
V.Direct common interest.
Direct common interest .-- This consists in the absence of constraint .-- Two reasons in favor of freedom of action .-- Character, in general, of the individual man .-- Modern complication.
In what, indeed, does the common weal (l'interet de tous, the interest of everyone) consist ?--In the interest of each person, while that which interests each person is the things of which the possession is agreeable and deprivation painful.

The whole world would in vain gainsay this point; every sensation is personal.

My suffering and my enjoyments are not to be contested any more than my inclination for objects which procure me the one, and my dislike of objects which procure me the other.

There is, therefore, no arbitrary definition of each one's particular interest; this exists as a fact independently of the legislator; all that remains is to show what this interest is, and what each individual prefers.

Preferences vary according to race, time, place and circumstance.