Still more; if, as some pretend, kings are public functionaries, the love which is due them is measured by their personal amiability; our obligation to obey them, by the wisdom of their commands; and their civil list, by the total social production divided by the number of citizens.
Thus, jurisprudence, political economy, and psychology agree in admitting the law of equality.

Right and duty--the due reward of talent and labor--the outbursts of love and enthusiasm,--all are regulated in advance by an invariable standard; all depend upon number and balance.
Equality of conditions is the law of society, and universal solidarity is the ratification of this law.
Equality of conditions has never been realized, thanks to our passions and our ignorance; but our opposition to this law has made it all the more a necessity.

To that fact history bears perpetual testimony, and the course of events reveals it to us.

Society advances from equation to equation.

To the eyes of the economist, the revolutions of empires seem now like the reduction of algebraical quantities, which are inter-deducible; now like the discovery of unknown quantities, induced by the inevitable influence of time.