scrupulous and juristic composition, we might believe the writer to have forgotten that France lay mad and frenzied outside the hall where he stood, and that in political action the question what is possible is at least as important as what is compatible with the maxims of scientific jurisprudence. It was to Condorcet's honour as a jurisconsult that he should have had so many scruples; it is as much to his credit as a politician that he laid them aside and tried the king after all. It is highly characteristic of Condorcet's tenacity of his own view of the Revolution and of its methods, that on the Saturday (January 19, 1793) when the king's fate was decided against Condorcet's conviction and against his vote--the execution taking place on the Monday morning--he should have appealed to the Convention, at all events to do their best to neutralise the effect of their verdict upon Europe, by instantly initiating a series of humane reforms in the law among them, including the abolition of the punishment of death. 'The English ministers,' he cried, 'are now seeking to excite that nation against us. Do you suppose that they will venture to continue their calumnious declamations, when you can say to them: "We have abolished the penalty of death, while you still preserve it for the theft of a few shillings? You hand over debtors to the greed or spite of their creditors; our laws, wiser and more humane, know how to respect poverty and misfortune. Judge between us and you, and see to which of the two peoples the reproach of inhumanity may be addressed with most justice."'[35] This was the eve of the Terror. Well may Comte distinguish Condorcet as the one philosopher who pursued in the midst of the tempest his regenerating meditations.