THERE are two classes of moralists and political writers; those who have only seen human nature on its detestable or absurd side, and they form the greater number: Lucian, Montaigne, Labruyère, Larochefoucauld, Swift, Mandeville, Helvetius, &c.; those who have only seen it on its finer side and in its perfection like Shaftesbury and some others. The first know nothing of the palace, the pig-sties of which are all that they have seen; the second are enthusiasts, who turn their eyes far from all that offends them, but that, none the less, exists. _Est in medio verum._ * * * * * PHYSICAL scourges and the calamities of human nature rendered society necessary. Society has added to natural misfortunes. The drawbacks of society have made government necessary, and government adds to society’s misfortunes. There is the history of human nature in a nutshell. * * * * * MEN’S ideas are like cards and other games. Ideas which I remember to have seen regarded as dangerous and over-bold have since become commonplace and almost trite, and have descended to men little worthy of them. So it is that some of the ideas which to-day we call audacious will be considered feeble and conventional by our descendants. * * * * * IT has been observed that writers on physics, natural history, physiology, and chemistry, are, as a rule, men of mild, equable temperament and happy; whilst, on the contrary, writers on politics, law, and even ethics, are of a sad and melancholy cast of mind. Nothing can be more simple: the former study nature, the latter society, the former contemplate the work of the supreme Being, the latter confine their gaze to the work of men. The respective results must needs be diverse. * * * * * SAID a witty misanthrope to me _à propos_ of the iniquities of men, “It is only the uselessness of the first Deluge that preserves us from being visited by a second.” * * * * * THERE are periods when public opinion is the worst of opinions. * * * * * THE majority of our social institutions seem to have as object the maintenance of man in a mediocrity of ideas and emotions, which renders him best fitted to govern or be governed. * * * * * THERE is no man who can be by himself alone so contemptible as a body of men, and there is no body of men that can be so contemptible as the public at large. * * * * * IT may be argued that every public idea, every accepted convention, is a piece of stupidity, for has it not commended itself to the greatest number? * * * * * THE public is governed as it reasons. It is its right to say foolish things, as it is that of the ministers to do them. * * * * *