For the struggle is the same, the peril as imminent, the aid as necessary, in society as in the individual man. Many of those now living have been doomed to see, several times in the course of their lives, the social edifice tottering to its fall, and all the props that should uphold, all the bonds that should unite it, failing. Over what an immense extent, and with what fearful rapidity, have all the causes of social war and social destruction, which are always fermenting in the midst of us, each time burst forth! Which of us has not shuddered at the sudden discovery of the abyss over which we live--the frail barriers which separate us from it, and the destructive legions ready to rush forth upon society as soon as its jaws are unclosed? For my own part, I was a spectator, day by day, hour by hour, of the purest, the wisest, the gentlest, and the shortest of these formidable convulsions; in July, 1830, I saw, in the streets and the palaces, at the gate of the national councils and in the midst of popular assemblies, society abandoned to itself, an actor or spectator of the revolution. And at the same time that I admired the generous sentiments, the proofs of strong intelligence and disinterested virtue and heroic moderation which I witnessed, I shuddered as I saw a mighty torrent of insensate ideas, brutal passions, perverse inclinations, and terrible chimeras, rise and swell, minute by minute, ready to overflow, and submerge a land where all the dikes that had contained it were broken down. Society had gloriously repulsed the violation of its laws and its honour, and now it was on the point of falling into ruins in the midst of its glory. Here it was that I learned the vital conditions of social order, and the necessity of resistance to ensure the safety of the social fabric.