Thus it is as important and necessary for the universal interest of human society as it is for our individual interest for us to be well educated with the knowledge that shows us the unique and universal remedy against poverty in all its breadth so that our will, which has no other desire but happiness, can be satisfied by following the path that nature shows it. There is no difference to be made among men in this: an emperor, a king, a prince, a gentleman, a merchant, an artisan, (108) a farmer, in a word, everyone together is obliged either to go this way or to be neither rich nor happy.

However, the knowledge of this affliction[^1] would be imperfect if we were not taught the remedy. It is true that when we are informed of our indigence, we are immediately shown the remedy; we see it first, and we feel it, but this initial idea is still very muddled and very defective. We only notice a will, common to all men, to preserve us, but we do not know at first that everyone who takes part in (104) our preservation wants the same thing from us. They want to give, but they also want to receive. They have the same needs, the same desires, and the same indigence as we do.

The second maxim that I take from my general principle is that all the knowledge and all the truths with which men’s minds must necessarily be educated can easily be reduced to only one, equally necessary for all men without any distinction. _This is to inform them of their natural poverty and the remedy for getting out of it._ This proposition is very simple, but with everything that I have shown above, it seems very important and very wide-ranging, generally encompassing all the knowledge that our minds need to be educated.

Gourmands, or all those who convert the natural use of food into conveniences and superfluities, are in the same class as drunkards.

The first degree of this wealth is a large number of contributors[^1] that first watch over the baby to preserve his health and life. If the mother is barbarous enough to abandon him, an infinite number of others come to his aid and work to punish severely this inhuman woman: the spirit of vengeance against those who kill a baby is as natural to all humans as the feeling of pain or pleasure. The Creator inspired this feeling in them and confirmed it with this severe law against the murderers: that they be eliminated from human society.

To tell the truth, there is no satisfaction superior to that of a prince who, by his wise government, can make an infinite number of people happy and make himself the master of his people’s hearts, who can comfort the afflicted by suppressing violence and frauds inflicted by the unjust, who can be convinced that he sleeps as safely in the arms of each of his subjects as in the middle of his guards, and who can ensure that everyone (98) will contribute as quickly to all his needs as he is ready and able to contribute to theirs.

We find it very extraordinary (93) that a farmer does not know how to handle a plow, but we are not at all surprised to see a great nobleman not know how to handle the rudder of his states. We even often maintain that this is the ministers’ business and that it would be too difficult and too tedious for the prince and would prevent him from taking advantage of most of the pleasures that his dignity should give him.

Moreover, it is as untrue that the art of reasoning only belongs to certain people who have the means to send their children to school or to university as it is false that the art of walking, using one’s arms, seeing, hearing, and speaking only belong to people of a certain way. This art[^1] is also natural to all men, and therefore, as necessary as all those I have just named. As long as we fulfill the common duty (89) of not badly educating him, he will exercise these[^2] faculties as well as those of his body.

This reciprocal communication, so visible in the natural order, first leads us to two very important truths with regard to man’s education. Namely, in the first place, that it is as necessary for one as for another, because all men are perfectly equal with regard to knowledge, without which they could not contribute to their common goal, which is to preserve and to increase the number of the human race. If the mind is the best part of man, it must be able to perform its functions; and all those who prevent this declare themselves as much an enemy of the human race as murderers.

This education is the most important because it makes men out of creatures who without it would resemble animals. Speech is the necessary instrument that carries to our minds knowledge of the truths that first make us see our poverty and natural indigence with which we came into the world as much with regard to the mind as to the body. And without the help that an infinite number of others, or to say it better, the entire human race together, lends to us, we could never go from this extreme indigence to a situation where all our desires can be satisfied.