CHAPTER I.LOCAL SOCIETY.
I.Human Incentives.
The two Stimuli of human action .-- The egoistic instinct and the social instinct .-- Motives for not weakening the social instinct .-- Influence on society of the law it prescribes.
-- The clauses of a statute depend on the legislator who adopts or imposes them .-- Conditions of a good statute .-- It favors the social instinct .-- Different for different societies.
-- Determined by the peculiar and permanent traits of the society it governs .-- Capital defect of the statute under the new regime.
So long as a man takes an interest only in himself, in his own fortune, in his own advancement, in his own success, his interests are trivial: all that is, like himself, of little importance and of short duration.
Alongside of the small boat which he steers so carefully there are thousands and millions of others of like it; none of them are worth much, and his own is not worth more.

However well he may have provisioned and sailed it, it will always remain what it is, slight and fragile; in vain will he hoist his flags, decorate it, and shove ahead to get the first place; in three steps he has reached its length.
However well he handles and maintains it, in a few years it leaks; sooner or later it crumbles and sinks, and with it goes all his effort.
Is it reasonable to work so hard for this, and is so slight an object worth so great an effort?
Fortunately, man has, for a better placement of his effort, other aims, more vast and more substantial: a family, a commune, a church, a country, all the associations of which he is or becomes a member, all the collective undertakings in behalf of science, education, and charity, of local or general utility, most of them provided with legal statutes and organized as corporations or even as a legal entity.

They are as well defined and protected as he is, but more precious and more viable: for they are of service to a large number of men and last for ever.

Some, even, have a secular history, and their age predicts their longevity.

In the countless fleet of boats which so constantly sink, and which are so constantly replaced by others, they last like top rated liners.