Introduction

In the social body as in every organized body—that is to say, one in which the parts are arranged in certain relationships to each other relative to a given end—the cessation of vital functions does not come from the annihilation of the parts, but from their displacement and the disturbance of their relationships. A developed reason comprehends all beings, and their existing and even possible relationships, under these three general ideas, the most general the mind can conceive: cause, means, and effect, whose perception is the basis for all judgment, and whose external reality is the foundation for all social order. The sciences which are called natural, and which would be much better named material, because their subject is the relationships between bodies, took precedence over the social and intellectual sciences—theology, ethics, politics, and jurisprudence—which treat the relationships between intelligent beings.