From The Bastiat Collection — surrounding passage

Is it quite cert

“Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don't you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”

I believe that there is no science that demonstrates more clearly that society is still in its infancy. But whatever hopes we may entertain as to the future, whatever ideas we may conceive as to the measures that men may adopt for the improvement of their mutual relations, and the diffusion of happiness, knowledge, and morality, we must never forget that society is an organization that has for its element a moral and intelligent agent, endowed with free will and susceptible of improvement.