I can sense that these truths, however certain they might be, are likely to
provoke something like embarrassment in a state which was not formed
under the auspices of reason and political equity. Nothing, however, can be
done about this. If the house that you built is held together by all sorts of
artificial devices and supported by a forest of scaffolding put in place without
any other taste or design than to prop up its various parts as and when
they threaten to fall down, then you will either have to rebuild it or resign
yourself to living, as they say, from one day to the next, constantly short of
ease or comfort and perpetually anxious about being finally crushed under
its debris. Everything in the social order is connected. If you neglect one
part, the others will not be exempt. If you begin with disorder, you will
soon necessarily experience its effects. These consequences are necessary. If
it were as possible to gain as much from injustice and absurdity as from reason
and equity, what would be the advantage of the latter?