Among men, society depends less on physical agreements than on moral relations. Man at first measured his strength, his weakness, his ignorance and his curiosity; he felt that, of himself, he could not satisfy the multiplicity of his wants; he discovered the advantage he should have in society; he reflected on the idea of good and evil, he engraved it in his heart, by the help of the natural light communicated to him through the bounty of the Creator; he saw that solitude was a state of danger, and of warfare; he sought for security and peace in society; there he augmented his power and knowledge, by uniting them with those of others: and this union is the noblest use he ever made of his reason. Solely from governing himself, and submitting to the laws of society, it is that man commands the universe.
Every thing has concurred to render man a social being; for though large and civilized societies depend on the use, and sometimes on the abuse of reason, yet they were doubtless preceded by smaller societies, whose sole dependence was on nature. A family is a natural society, which is more permanent, and better founded, because their wants and sources of attachment are more numerous. Far different is man from other animals: when he is born he hardly exists; naked, feeble, incapable of action, his life depends on the assistance he receives. This state of infantine weakness continues for a length of time; and the necessity of assistance becomes a habit, which alone is sufficient to produce an attachment between the child and parent. In proportion as the child advances, he is enabled to do without assistance; the affection of the parent continues, while that of the child daily decreases; and thus love ever descends in a much stronger degree than it ascends: the attachment of the parent becomes excessive, blind, idolatrous, while that of the child remains cold and indifferent, till, by the influence of reason, the seed of gratitude has begun to take root.
Thus society, considered even in the light of a single family, supposes in man the faculty of reason; among animals which seem to unite together freely, and by mutual agreement, society supposes experience and sentiment; and among insects which, like the bees, assemble together involuntarily, and without design, society implies nothing; and whatever may be the effects of such associations, it is evident, they were neither foreseen, nor conceived by those that execute them, and that they depend solely on the universal laws of mechanism, established by the Creator.