But there are sciences which exercise upon the public an influence
proportionate with the light of the public itself, not from knowledge
accumulated in a few exceptional heads, but from that which is
diffused through the general understanding. Such are morals, hygiene,
social economy, and in countries which men belong to themselves,
politics. It is of these sciences, above all, that Bentham might have
said: "That which spreads them is worth more than that which advances
them." Of what consequence is it that a great man, a God even, should
have promulgated moral laws, so long as men, imbued with false
notions, take virtues for vices, and vices for virtues? Of what value
is it that Smith, Say, and, according to Chamans, economists of all
schools, have proclaimed the superiority of liberty to restraint in
commercial transactions, if those who make the laws and those for
whom the laws are made, are convinced to the contrary.
These sciences, which are well named social, have this peculiarity:
that for the very reason that they are of a general application, no
one confesses himself ignorant of them.
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