Political offenders, insurrectionists, and revolutionists are the men who seize the standard of progress and contest every inch of the ground with the masses, who naturally incline towards a dislike of a new order of things. The army of progress is recruited from all ranks and conditions--men of genius, intellectual spirits who are the first to realise the defects of the old system and to conceive a new one, synthesising the needs and aspirations of the people; lunatics, enthusiastic propagandists of the new ideas, which they spread with all the impetuous ardour characteristic of unbalanced minds; criminals, the natural enemies of order, who flock to the standard of revolt and bring to it their special gifts, audacity and contempt of death. These latter types accomplish the work of destruction which inevitably accompanies every revolution: they are the faithful and unerring arm ready to carry out the ideas that others conceive but lack the courage to execute. Finally, there are the saints, the men who live solely for high purposes and to whom the revolution is a veritable apostolate. They rank high above the mass of mankind, from whom they are frequently distinguished by a singular beauty of countenance, recalling ancient paintings of holy men. They are consumed by a passion for altruism and self-immolation, and experience a strange delight in martyrdom for their ideals. These men sweep the masses along with them and lead to victory with their propaganda, their inspired songs, and thrilling accents. Tyrtæus was not the only poet who led soldiers to war: every insurrection has had its own songs, in which the love of a whole people is crystallised. Lunatics, unbalanced individuals, and saints are the promoters of progress and revolutions. These types have one thing in common--their passionate devotion to a sublime ideal and their love for humanity, which torments and crushes them in every case where they fail to attain that for which they have fought. But whether victorious or defeated, on the throne or on the scaffold, their efforts are not lost. Love is the spiritual sun of mankind. A ray shed by a human heart may spread far and wide, traversing unknown regions and sojourning with unknown races; and if powerless to revive some timid flower that has been numbed by the chilly night, it may still be stored up in the songs of a people, like the sunlight in green plants, to be retransformed at some future time into light and warmth. V _Too Soon! (Troppo Presto!)_ (A Criticism of the New Italian Penal Code)