Sieyès was one of those men who create sects in an age of enthusiasm, and who exercise the ascendancy of a powerful reason in an enlightened era. Solitude and philosophical studies had matured him at an early age. His views were new, strong, and extensive, but somewhat too systematic. Society had especially been the subject of his examination; he had watched its progress, investigated its springs. The nature of government appeared to him less a question of right than a question of epoch. His vast intellect ranged the society of our days in its divisions, relations, powers, and movement. Sieyès, though of cold temperament, had the ardour which the pursuit of truth inspires, and the passion which its discovery gives; he was accordingly absolute in his views, disdaining those of others, because he considered them incomplete, and because, in his opinion, half truth was error. Contradiction irritated him; he was not communicative. Desirous of making himself thoroughly known, he could not do so with every one. His disciples imparted his systems to others, which surrounded him with a sort of mystery, and rendered him the object of a species of reverence. He had the authority which complete political science procures, and the constitution might have emerged from his head completely armed, like the Minerva of Jupiter, or the legislation of the ancients, were it not that in our days every one sought to be engaged in the task, or to criticise it. Yet, with the exception of some modifications, his plans were generally adopted, and he had in the committees more disciples than colleagues.