All the social virtues are only the habitude of actions useful to society and to the individual who practices them; That they refer to the physical object of man’s preservation; That nature having implanted in us the want of that preservation, has made a law to us of all its consequences, and a crime of everything that deviates from it; That we carry in us the seed of every virtue, and of every perfection; That it only requires to be developed; That we are only happy inasmuch as we observe the rules established by nature for the end of our preservation; And that all wisdom, all perfection, all law, all virtue, all philosophy, consist in the practice of these axioms founded on our own organization:
Preserve thyself; Instruct thyself; Moderate thyself; Live for thy fellow citizens, that they may live for thee.
Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney, The Law of Nature, conclusion.
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C.-F. Volney
1 reply on “C.-F. Volney”
So much better than objectivism which requires living only for self and much much better than the claims of socialism which says all is for others but mostly to benefit the “authority”.